Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Episode #28
The Three Badges
The episode begins with a recap of the dramatic events that happened in the previous episode including their arrival in the Land of Piffle, the race and the disaster that happened towards the end as well as Syaoran claiming that one of the other racers was behind the sabotaging.
After the episode's title screen the story picks up with Sakura about to choose positions for the next race and similarly to what happened in Episode 7, Sakura unconciously uses her mysterious powers to choose the best ball from the lucky dip!
Later that night, Tomoyo throws a party to celebrate everyone qualifying for the race tomorrow. All the characters are there. Syaoran is particularily happy to see Ryuu-ou, even though he's a different Ryuu-ou from the one he met in Outo. Ryuu-ou notices Syaoran staring and confronts him about it. The introduce themselves and quickly become friends in this world too.
After the party, on the balcony, Faye and Kurogane comment on the number of people in Piffle who they've met before on other worlds and that although they look the same, they may act in very different ways.
Suddenly Shougo's gang, first seen in Episode 2 attack the group. Syaoran runs at them and fights them all rather easily to protect Sakura. Faye offers to help him but Kurogane tells him to stay put as he wants to see how Syaoran handles himself.
Shougo, himself walks out from the shadows and greets them, followed by Nokoru, Suoh and Akira. Nokoru does his feminine come on to Sakura which Syaoran, Faye and Kurogane find just a tad unusual.
A fat man with a moustache who looks very similar to an evil man they encountered in the land of Jade leads them all down to a chamber where Tomoyo greets them. She explains that Nokoru, Suoh, Akira and Shogo are investigating all the racers to find the sabotour who apparently used nano-technology to cause the dragonflies to overheat the day before. They all agree that Syaoran, Sakura, Mokona, Faye and Kurogane are innocent and ask them to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
Kurogane senses that Tomoyo's hiding something more which shocks her, though she quickly recovers and raves in true Tomoyo fashion about how she can't wait to design a costume for Sakura.
The next day, before the race, Syaoran drops by Ryuu-ou's hanger to say hello and is curious about a device Ryuu-ou has that can detect radio waves. Ryuu-ou lets him borrow it though he's a little confused as to what he could want with it.
Later on, Tomoyo meets with them all again to show off Sakura's new costume which she made all by herself. They all love it and Tomoyo asks Sakura to no longer use polite Japanese around her anymore as she wants them both to be good friends.
Very soon, the race starts with the first check point being a high tech anti gravity dome with coins inside. Kurogane and Faye, who are in the lead, get a coin each, no problem, but as Sakura and Syaoran get closer, Syaoran's machine picks up a signal and then the pillar holding the coins in the anti gravity field explodes and all the coins begin to fall down to the city's depths! Syaoran manages to grab a coin though Sakura misses hers! Luckily for her, Mokona is in her dragonfly and he catches the one she missed.
The next course is a hovering clear tube, just out to sea. Several racers make it through okay though somewhere else, that fat man from before presses some buttons, Syaoran picks up the signal and suddenly the tube starts acting crazy, shrinking and expanding to the extreme. Kurogane gets through, as do Sakura and Syaoran but Faye's dragonfly explodes and he parachutes out just in time. He's out of the race.
Syaoran catches up with Ryuu-ou in the next section, a race through a huge canyon range! As soon as he catches up however, he picks up another signal and part of an overpass explodes and destroys a part of Ryuu-ou's dragonfly! Syaoran twists in his direction and collides with him in an attempt to save him from crashing.
Both dragonflies explode. Sakura, who was a way back, sees the explosion and cries out Syaoran's name.
My Original Impression
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Well... it was good while it lasted. While the second season premiere seemed to have solved most of the problems from season one, most of those problems return with the second season's second episode, namely the "animated panning still shot" where the animators fill up a good minute or so by simply drawing one group pic, pan the camera from left to right and just animate the character's mouths. The last episode had none of these but seriously, every shot in this episode was like this... and the episode suffered. A lot.
I will give the animators credit where it's due though and say that all the character's looked like themeselves. Not one odd looking person in this episode. Syaoran and Ryuu-ou in particular looked great as did Tomoyo.
The music was great as always but this episode had some very questionable sound editing going on. For example, very early in the ep there's a 10 minute or so long scene with a lot of characters talking and right in the middle for no reason at all, the funky music starts playing in the background. It's like someone realised how boring the scene was and pressed play in the editing suit.
A very disapointing episode. A lot of wasted screentime where almost half of the episode could have been cut. Such a let down.
Today's Crossovers
There were a Hell of a lot of crossover characters from other CLAMP series in this episode. If you feel that I've missed one, don't hesitate to email me at; shuttlecok@ REMOVE THIS hotmail.com and let me know! If you do I'll give you credit and a link to your site (if you have one). Cheers!
 Tomoyo: The most obvious crossover character in this episode, and a very common one in Tsubasa Chronicle is that of Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura. This seems to be the first time Tomoyo in Tsubasa Chronicle has resembled her Cardcaptor Sakura so much. Whereas previous incarnations showed her as a rather serious princess or a random schoolgirl, here we get the bubbly, slightly insane Tomoyo Cardcaptor Sakura fans know so well.
 Chun Hyang: This is the second appearance from Chun Hyang in Tsubasa Chronicle who originates from the little known CLAMP manga, The Legend of Chun Hyang. She doesn't speak or interact with anyone in this episode, though she is featured quite a bit.
 Shougo: Another X (or X/1999) character returns. This time the oh, so cool, Shougo!
   Nokoru, Suoh and Akira: The three boys from Clamp School Detectives return with Nokoru (the blonde) getting the most screen time.
 Oruha: While she had a rather large role last season, here this Clover woman is a silent featured character.
 Ryuu-ou: The cool RG Veda fighter returns and Syaoran's glad to see him!
 Ryanban: That evil bastard from The Legend of Chun Hyang returns and thankfully seems to be pretty docile this time around.
 Ryanban's Son: That evil bastard's son from The Legend of Chun Hyang returns and thankfully seems to be pretty docile this time around.
 The Announcer: The Announcer from Angelic Layer appears and... announces stuff!
 Piffle Mascot: Piffle is an imagined company created by CLAMP and used in several series from Kobato to Chobits though most prominently used in Angelic Layer. Here they named the whole world after this company and naturally the company mascot is everywhere and on everything to promote it.
Shopping Guide
 
Vol 7 "The Dangerous Pursuit"
Buy Regular Disk from Amazon.com
Buy Limited Box from Amazon.com
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