“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

X/1999 Volume 2: Overture by CLAMP
Viz Communications, Inc (2002)
184 pages

Of course, this brings us to volume 2. No, I’m not trying to read all seventeen volumes in a row. Be thankful of that.

We get introduced to more people with mystical powers. (How do I get to the end without spoiling anything? How do I explain things without going scene by scene? This is hard.) We learn, in a roundabout way, that all of them are involved in the end of the world. There are two opposing sides, the seven seals and the seven harbingers.

Hinoto, the blind princess who dreams of the future, contacts Kamui, and begs of him to save the earth. We get some details here — what happened that caused Kamui and his mother to leave Tokyo, and what happened to his mother to make Kamui come back to Tokyo. We see a lot of Kamui, Kotori and Fuma’s childhood here, and a lot of their mothers. I love the gentleness in the frames where you can see Saya Monou and her children; she’s always cuddling or comforting Kotori. After Saya dies, Kamui’s mother takes him away and leaves Tokyo. We get some details on how Kotori and Fuma’s mother died — a lot of gore! body parts everywhere! this manga is not for the queasy! — but we don’t know why. Apparently their father had a hand in the whole mess.

Hinoto has a sister named Kanoe who can see into her dreams, and apparently wants to thwart her plans. Why? I have no idea. Not even after seventeen volumes, to be honest. Sorata Arisugawa talks to Kamui, trying to get Kamui to understand some things. Fuma and Kotori worry over Kamui. Another fight begins, and bad things are obviously going to happen.

I like having Sorata around. If it wasn’t for him, there probably wouldn’t be any light moments at all! (Well, there’s Kotori’s spazzing, of course, which I find endearing. . . . Why do I have a feeling I will be bricked by other fans for saying that.) Sorata’s fight with Yuto Kigai was amusing.

Um. I give up trying to be intelligent with X. I just don’t know how. I like the manga — it’s just that I’ve been waiting for the world to end since, well, six years ago? >.< It’s been a long wait.

Thank goodness for Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.

X/1999 Volume 1: Prelude by CLAMP
Viz Communications Inc (2002)
200 pages

Eh, this manga. I don’t know why I’m even bothering writing something about it. When I started this book blog, I said to myself, “I’ll blog about each book I finish, even the cookbooks!”, and that is why we find ourselves here.

But who doesn’t know what X is about? The world is ending, choose your sides. That’s basically it.

Except not.

(OK, notes: Names are in the “given-name family-name” form, spellings are romanised as translated by Viz. Yes, I still do a double take at “Fuma” — I did start with the scanlations and I’m more attached to those, but I’m one of those people who stick to the rule that if you quote from a source, quote it directly, warts and all, and since this is based on the bound volume I have, so. I immediately switch to scanlation spellings and honorifics once I get to fanfics, though. I never claimed I was consistent, haha.)

The story starts with young Kamui Shiro, who is returning to Tokyo after being away for six years to face his destiny. Kamui has superpowers. Really. His childhood friends, Kotori and Fuma Monou are surprised when Kamui is so stand-offish towards them when he returns, insisting that they keep away from him. We have people chasing after Kamui, and we see him use his awesome powers. We have no idea why any of this is going on.

That, friends, neighbours and minions, was a terribly sucky summary.

The artwork is pretty — that’s a definitely plus. The characters are pretty. The story is dark — they don’t try to mask it as something cheery even this early in the series. The plot isn’t really coherent at this point, though it does get more interesting later. I refrain from saying that it’ll get more coherent later — I’m not sure that is the truth. (I’m writing this with the knowledge of what comes 17 volumes after. This whole commentary is not written without bias.)

Kamui is such an arrogant kid. I’m not saying that I never noticed this before, but upon reread he seems almost unbearably so. Kotori is really sweet — I wonder what fandom has against her, really. Fuma, Kamui and Kotori were cute as young children. And they got along so splendidly too. Oh well.

Sorata makes an appearance at the end! ♥ Sorata is my favourite character. Which probably means that he is doomed, but we’ll just have to see, since the series’ end is nowhere in sight.

Oh, did I say this is a work-in-progress, currently on hold? Yeah, so now you know.

Also, award for most random sound effect goes to “ZLOSH!” I think that was the wind slashing at something, hmm.