Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Vol. 7

The gang experiences their first setback in this volume of Tsubasa. As it begins, Kurogane and Syaoran go on a job, leaving Fai to watch Sakura and Mokona at the cafe, with the girl soon slipping into another bout of narcolepsy (a nice little scene here, with Fai reflecting on how he's gotten more attached to the girl than he intended as he watches her sleeping). Ominously, Fai soon receives a visitor in the form of Syaoran's mysterious former trainer, who as we learned in the last volume is the AU version of none other than CLAMP megavillain Seishiro Sakurazuka. Our dimension's version of Seishiro is probably CLAMP's most evil and sadistic villain, and unfortunately for Fai, this dimension's version isn't much nicer. Still unwilling to use his magic and therefore caught between a rock and a hard place as a strategic retreat is not an option for him as he refuses to abandon the unconscious Sakura, things do not go at all well for our magician... When Kurogane and Syaoran rush back upon hearing a report that there's been a death at the cafe, they find Sakura safe and sound although still not conscious, but a hysterical Mokona screaming that Fai has been murdered by Seishiro - although there's not a body and the creature did not exactly see what transpired as it obeyed Fai's command not to leave Sakura no matter what it heard happening to Fai. A grieving Syaoran vows vengeance, temporarily putting the search for Sakura's feathers on hold, and Kurogane allows him first crack at tracking Seishiro down - with the caveat that he'll only give the boy a limited amount of time before he goes gunning for the monster himself... A fun, clever bridge volume that ends with the assurance that Seishiro will by necessity have to show up again - and that has to be a Good Thing.

how many volumes of awsome-ness does this make? i count seven. this volume IS NOT TO BE MISSED its SO not a filler. i dont do spoilers. and theres SO MANY FIGHT SCENES!!!!!!!!! o, so awsome. fai actually calls kuro-rin kurogane in this volume *yes.....thats messed up.* and.....ummmmmm......-SPOILER-....haha i bleeped it. We find out some things about Oto, and we go to 'the tower of the little people'--who arent very little. we leave the country of oto (and another country) and find out on of mokona's 180 secret techniques. and we learn why seishiro-san has that glass eye! kuro-rin fights seishiro-san, which has four pages of no words, only fighting. which is highly entertaining. just a bunch of ssssswwwwooooorrrrrddddsss......(a cute scene with syaoran-kun and sakura-chan is also included in the beginning. i love these flashbacks!! they really show that sakura-chan really cared about syaoran-kun. this volume is very satasfying when it comes to art, too!! and action, and dialogue. Don't miss this volume!! it'll leave you wanting more!! "You act like a ninja!" "I AM a ninja!!"

aaand, Volume 7! We've got the conclusion of the Outou arc, more Seishirou-san, Subaru-kun's name appears, and a whole bunch of fun scenes. Ending with Syaoran-kun's memory of Seishirou-san, we move on to Syaoran-kun and Kurogane trying to find out more about "the demon leader", aka the I-1 oni. Dwarf Tower appears, and becomes the site for Kurogane with a sword and Syaoran-kun using his skills against the oni that try to attack them. Seishirou-san turns up at Cat's Eye, does some stuff *gags to prevent spoilers*, then leaves. Kurogane's fight with Sei-chan is great. Sei-chan is the hottest person in this volume, and it's well deserved. *drools* More fun follows that fight, which i am under threat of pain not to spoil. so, all in all, we've got *counts on fingers* about four fight scenes, one very cute Syaoran/Sakura scene, a cute Fai-angst scene, Sei-chan being hot, more crossovers, and lots of overall fun.