Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen/私立堀鐔学園

Being that I’ve read and enjoyed a fair number of CLAMP titles, it came to my attention that there was a one shot crossover manga called Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen, which would feature the main characters from Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- and xxxHOLiC, and place them in a completely new setting and situation. I guess the idea first came about in 2006 when an audio drama for Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen was created and sold with Weekly Shounen Magazine #20 (where Tsubasa was published) and Weekly Young Magazine #21/#22 (where xxxHOLiC was published at the time) of that year. To my knowledge, four such audio dramas have been produced.

The premise of the stories has both Syaoran’s as twins (called “Syaoran” and “Syaoron” to distinguish them), Sakura (solo), both Mokona’s, Watanuki, Doumeki, and Himawari-chan as students at Horitsbua Academy (Horitsuba being created from the combination of xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa). The staff are Kurogane, Fye (Fay’s twin), Fay, and Yuuko-san (or should I say, ‘Yuuko-sensei?).

In the small amount of research I did, I discovered there were four chapters of a manga done. From what I gather, these were all one shot omake published in various magazines starting in 2007.

The first story is called “Exciting Radio Show” and was published on August 17, 2007 in Internet Radio Magazine Komugikotoride no Yonshimin #1. The student cast are doing a radio show answering fan mail on the air (something that seems a popular thing to do in Japanese radio) while in the staff room, Fye (the one we were introduced to as Fay initially in Tsubasa), Kurogane, and Yuuko have the radio show playing over the loud speaker as Yuui does his normal teasing of Kurogane, including having a song that he secretly recorded of Kurogane singing in the bath played on the radio.

The second story is “Exciting Christmas Cake,” which was published in Magazine Dragon #1 on December 17, 2007. Fay is teaching a Home Economics class on how to make a Christmas cake (Japanese style of course). Sakura gives Syaoran the Christmas cake she made, Himawari-chan decides a good career for Watanuki is a housewife, while Yuuko and Yuui drag a reluctant Kurogane to launch a sneak attack on score their own Christmas cake.

The third manga is “Exciting New Year’s Celebration,” published in Magazine Dragon #2 on January 7, 2009. The entire cast is gathered at a giant kotatsu and dressed in kimonos for the New Year’s celebration. Sakura and Syaoran make eyes at each other, Watanuki gets annoyed for doing all the work, and Fye decides to wear one of Yuuko’s kimonos rather than a male one leading to the usual antics.

The final manga story is “Exciting Birthday Party,” published in Magazine SPECIAL on May 20, 2010. This chapter was done to mark the move of xxxHOLiC from Weekly Young Magazine to Bessatsu Shounen Magazine (in addition to the one shot Rou chapter). The story has everyone gathered on April 1 for Watanuki’s, Sakura’s, Syaoran’s, and Syaoron’s birthday. Watanuki isn’t happy at having to make food for everyone even if Syaoran and Syaoron are helping. Yuuko has a present for the boys (mainly Syaoran and Watanuki) — Sakura and Himawari in wedding dresses. Syaoron reveals that he has someone he’s dating, which is a big bomb shell.

Each manga chapter is five to six pages in length and as you can probably tell, quite silly. Considering that the fourth chapter was done only a few months ago, no doubt CLAMP enjoyed drawing Yuuko and Himawari again, to say nothing of having the old antics of characters like Watanuki or Fye and Kurogane, especially since Watanuki has changed quite a lot in xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa has run its course.

It is clear that the ladies of CLAMP love their characters a great deal but also enjoy placing them into different situations. Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen certainly allows CLAMP to do this with the main characters from xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa. I suppose that since they recently did a new chapter, it is possible that CLAMP will come back to this well again sometime in the future for some magazine publication or other.

I don’t think that Del Rey has published any of these stories. Of course if they were to get the licenses, where would they publish them, seeing as how characters from both xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa are present?

Fans of Tsubasa or xxxHOLiC (before Yuuko-san’s departure) will no doubt want to give these a look-see. They aren’t anything special, but they are little bits of fun, which is what they were designed to be.