Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE Volume 14

Volume 14 of Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE continues to follow the trials and tribulations of a group of 4 dimension travelling friends.  They were thrown together way back in Volume 1, each with their own personal reason for travelling through the dimensions, but all united in a quest to recover Princess Sakura’s feathers.  This CLAMP manga began as a fairly light-hearted fantasy tale, but now in its 100th chapter, it has become a more dark and complicated saga.

This volume sees our heroes heading to a large public library, in order to check out a book.  Seems like a fairly ordinary chore, but of course, this is no ordinary library, and it’s no ordinary book.  The library is filled with magic, and guarded by some huge, devouring beasts.  And the book that the group seek is “The Memory Book”, a magical book which records the user’s memories, using the power of Sakura’s feathers.  A book like this isn’t just sitting on the shelves, and in fact it is off-limits to the public.  So in a blatant disregard for library guidelines, our heroes are forced to try to steal it.

So rather than helping out some local people and receiving the feather as a reward, as has been so often the way in Tsubasa, this time the gang have to steal it.  And so it becomes a bit of a crime caper, at least for a short while.  This makes for an interesting and welcome change of pace.  They have to battle their way out of the library and this leads to some great action sequences.  The end of the volume finds the group in a derelict Tokyo, which seems to be an alternate version of another CLAMP manga, X.

This volume also features some scenes involving the mysterious villains of the story.  Not much is explained, though, and in fact it seems quite confusing.  But presumably the aim is to make the reader curious to keep reading the story, and I think it achieves this aim.  Hopefully all will be revealed in future volumes.

The artwork is great, in particular I loved the stunning picture of the Tokyo City Hall towards the end.  Translator’s Notes are included and are always interesting.  Overall, I think this is one of the better volumes of Tsubasa.