
Well last weekend my Tsubasa #21 manga arrived in the mail and with it the first
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Tokyo Revelation DVD! What did I think of the first episode? In short
I LOVED IT!!!The animation was beyond what I had expected for a direct to DVD release. In fact it rivalled if not exceeded the animation of the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle theatrical movie that was released a few years back! Simply breathtaking in almost every way from the fluid action scenes to the beautiful backgrounds (those skies!). Everything was really very well done.
The voice acting was also spot on which confirms what I've long suspected that Production I.G. must have very good voice directors. These are the same voices that were used in the tv series but for some reason I couldn't stand several of them (especially Sakura) but here (and also in the movie which was also made by Production I.G.) all the mains have so much more range and emotion with some standouts being Syaoran and Faye both of which never really "wowed" me in the series but shone as exceptional here.
The script was also spot on though it was written by Okawa (a member of CLAMP) so I wouldn't have expected anything less. Having just read
Tsubasa #15 which starts the Tokyo arc I was constantly surprised with how closely the script stuck with the manga. The direction also was heavily influenced by the manga with
lots of shots looking like they were lifted right from the page. Kurogane grabbing Faye, Faye collapsing, the rounded stone and Kurogane and Kamui's fight are several examples of such influence.
God, I loved this so much. What else is there to talk about?
The music! I've always loved the composer from the anime series and she returns here with about a 95% new instrumental score (something I wasn't expecting). Again she really shines though unlike the series which used her tracks and just threw them behind scenes, here it looks like she composed the music for the action on screen as all the music fits flawlessly!
The opening credits are
INSPIRED. I never would have expected the magical circles to be used in such a way but they work
very well go with Yui's Syncronicity perfectly!
The ending credits have got to be one of the best ending credits I've seen. Period. Not only is the song so much more mature than what we've come to know from Tsubasa's ending themes but the on screen animation is
PERFECT! The panning shots of the gang (where's Mokona though?) look like they were drawn by CLAMP themselves (they even use the clothes they're wearing on the box that came with it!) and the Dragons of Heaven and Earth all standing together is so powerful I almost forgot who the main characters of the show really were!
Overall I give this
10 out of 10!
This was so much more than I expected. I can't wait until January when the next DVD comes out!
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Labels: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Anime News