ツバサ・クロニクル 40

SPOILER Summary:

Haganemaru (Kurogane), a young boy and son of a noble and his miko wife, lives a rather happy life. His mother keeps the barrier around their kingdom up to prevent powerful monsters from roaming the lands. However, because she is ill, the occasional one gets through, which the father dispatches. Haganemaru loves his mother very much, so much so that he tries to catch fish for her but refuses to tell his father where he’s been and so endures punishment. Haganemaru grows and is trained by his father in special sword techniques and as a young teen, is assigned to “guard” the residence while his mother is ill.

However, a particularly difficult monster arrives, forcing the father to return to take the family heirloom sword Ginryuu to battle the beast. Haganemaru’s mother manages to get up to give the sword a blessing and the father is off with his men while the mother performs her miko duties as Haganemaru stands watch. An arm comes through the wall and slays his mother while the creature arrives with the arm of his father still clutching Ginryuu in its mouth. The boy goes into a rage and slays the beast and destroys the compound in the process, causing the Mikado (Emperor) of the land, Amaterasu, to arrive with a consignment of troops and ninja along with her miko sister, Princess Tsukuyomi (Tomoyo). The boy, having lost his mind, starts attacking but Tuskuyomi eventually calms him down. These events were all seen by Syaoran as he had opened a book in a large library, who cries at what he’s seen.

Thoughts: Hmmm. I loved this story-arc in the manga but I didn’t really care for how the anime writers basically wiped out Syaoran’s group arriving at the world where the library was to find the book in the first place. And I didn’t care for the renaming of the child Kurogane as “Haganemaru,” which I suppose was to prevent the viewers from ultimately realizing that this was Kurogane (for those viewers who’d never read the manga). I can’t complain how Tomoyo didn’t have Kurogane’s hand pinned to the remains of the wall since this was for TV (and ultimately why the anime abandoned the manga ultimately because of how bloody and violent it became).

ツバサ・クロニクル 41

SPOILER Summary:

Syaoran finds himself awakening in a bed at the library. He talks with Kurogane, who confirms that what Syaoran saw was indeed from his past. As they talk, Sakura and Fay get some leads on Sakura’s feather while Mokona communes with Yuuko-san. It is learned that the book Syaoran had was a copy of one which appears to have Sakura’s feather. They take a flying train to the main library where they discover that the book is there but cannot be checked out of the library. Syaoran decides that they’ll steal the book to obtain the feather, which they proceed to do. They pass through a detector before being allowed into the section where the book is held but then the book is not in that section but hidden behind a magic wall. Fay has Kurogane move a bookcase to reveal the wall and after fighting the guardians in the tunnel, they find themselves on the world of Clow as the giant guardians outside the library come to life.

Thoughts: So, we couldn’t do the introduction last week, so we’ll get some of it as a flashback this week. Nice. Not only that, but we get several minutes of replay from last week. Oh well, as long as we can add new stuff to make the story stupid, its OK because we’re Bee Train. I mean really, you have to pass through a detector to see the stupid book but then the book is actually hidden so that you wouldn’t actually find it. Explain the logic of that. There is none except in the dopey minds of the Japanese writers at Bee Train who needed to pad an episode (which they wouldn’t have had to do had the previous episode been done properly).

ツバサ・クロニクル 42

SPOILER Summary:

Syaoran and company find themselves in what appears to be the land of Clow only without people. They find Syaoran’s house, which Sakura remembers, though only as an archeologist’s home. A picture of Syaoran’s father is on a desk, but Syaoran isn’t in there. Eventually, Fay figures out that they seeing Sakura’s memories via the Book of Memories which has her feather. Since the book would be located within a mysterious place, they head to the ruins. Along the way, Syaoran and Kurogane discuss how the assassin troops that they had fought previously and who’d attacked Clow Country had the same symbol as the arm that killed Kurogane’s mother. Within the ruins, Kurogane and Syaoran decide to descend into a deep pit where they find the book. However, they are attacked by the library guardian beasts. A beast knocks Syaoran out and he’s apparently taken over by the other Syaoran held by Fei Wong. As such, he’s able to defeat a guardian beast with no effort, which Kurogane notices. He returns to normal once he has the feather and returns it to Sakura, who remembers more. Mokona tries to take them to another world, but an anti-magic barrier prevents it. They try to escape but find the way flooded, another guardian beast waiting for them as well as mages. Fay whistles and creates his own magic barrier which allows Mokona to send them to another world, or so they think but they discover they aren’t on another world at all.

Thoughts: Standard Bee Train fare — slow down everything with musical pieces, which while can have a beauty to them, I keep thinking, “Get on with it already.” Well, this marks the end of the manga stories I guess since they should have gone to Acid Tokyo world at the end of this episode and not stayed in the same place.

ツバサ・クロニクル 43

SPOILER Summary:

Finding themselves not having escaped the world and now wanted fugitives for stealing the Book of Memories, they take refuge in another library that for whatever reason is sure not to be searched by troops or guardians. Fay takes another copy of the Book of Memories and apparently wishes for Kurogane to learn of his past, but that doesn’t end up working out the way he planned. The group is found by the library staff and troops while Syoran picks up the 2nd copy of the Book of Memories and finds himself within Kurogane’s memories and is surprised by the experience as if he’d never done this before. Meanwhile, floating .hack//SIGN troops search the library for them but are thwarted by Fay. Syaoran finishes his trip down Kurogane lane and as he joins Kurogane to face the hoards of troops and the guardian, the guardian turns chibi and everyone is happy that the evil feather is gone. With that, Mokona can send them to the next world.

Thoughts: In typical Bee Train fashion, the original good manga story is gone, but then I suppose they had to make things up since they didn’t dare go into the Acid Tokyo arc with all its bloody violence. Oh wait, lets take the introduction that should have been in episode 40 and put it here, complete with Syaoran acting surprised at being in Kurogane’s memories and see more of his memories that happen after he’s rescued by Princess Tomoyo. Ugh. This whole story arc was handled so poorly. How the episode was wrapped up was just freaking awful.