Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Episode #5
The Battle of the Wizards
The second last episode of the Hanshin arc starts with a quick recap of the previous episode, with Sakura flying, falling and being caught by Syaoran and then the group watching Sakura sleep and waiting for her to wake up for real. The first new footage we get is a flashback in the Land of Clow which shows Syaoran looking over a sick Princess Sakura. Sakura wants Syaoran to stop using formal speach and hold her hand. After a lot of hesitation, Syaoran finally does hold her hand and in the present he does the same and promises to find all of her feathers.
The next morning, Sorato comes hom from work and hillariously gets wacked by Arashi for being so happy when Sakura is still in a coma. They all discuss where Mokona has been sensing the feathers and come to the conclusion that the feather must be within a living being, in this case a kudan!
What happens next is pretty cool if you know CLAMP. We get our first appearance if Miyuki from CLAMP's Miyuki in Wonderland! She's a brunette schoolgirl who always seems to be running around. She appears in almost every world in the manga, but only a handful in the anime and this is her first one! Keep an eye out for her in later worlds!
As the gang look out over Hanshin from atop a skyscraper, joined by Masayoshi, a giant metal bird Kudan sweeps out of the air and kidnaps Masayoshi and Mokona (who was on his shoulder)! A letter drops from the sky and reads that they must go to Hanshin Castle. Syaoran tries to tell Fay and Kurogane this but finds that they're all speaking different languages which none of them can understand! After lots of confusion it becomes apparent that Mokona was acting as a kind of translation device for them all but now that he has been taken out of a certain range they are all hearing each other's real dialects.
At Hanshin Castle, a singer called Primera (from Magic Knight Rayearth 2) is revealed to be the one behind the kidnapping though she intended to kidnap Syaoran who she thought was the one in the harbour in the previous episode with her boyfriend Shougo. The whole thing was one big mistake!
Primera's fans quickly attack the gang with the bird Kudan as they arrive at the castle but it's quickly defeated by Kurogane's Kudan. Primera says that if they want Mokona and Msayoshi back, they must fight her. Fay accepts her challenge and summons his, unseen until now Kudan, Windam (the third and final Rune God from Magic Knight Rayearth) which materialises as a giant bird and then disolves into Fay's body giving him the ability to fly!
Primera responds by summoning her own Top Level Kudan in the form of a mic and begins to fire threee dimensional music notes at Fay! He avoids the blasts for the most part, but that only infuriates Primera more and encourages her to transform her Kudan into a more powerful weapon. With her newly powered up Kudan, Primera sends a supersized note flying at Fay which he also dodges and flies towards his attacker and disarms her.
The blast frees Masayoshi and Mokona who fall and land on Shougo's newly arrived Kudan. Mokona starts jumping up and down, yelling that he senses Sakura's feather. Everyone naturally assumes that it's in Shougo's which just arrived.
Syaoran challenges Shougo to a battle to see if his Kudan has the feather. Shougo accepts as he's impressed by Syaoran and also wants to finish the battle that started way back at the end of Episode 2!
Shougo resummons his Kudan and Syaoran summons Rayearth and some very cool dramatic music starts playing as they both stare each other off for the battle of a lifetime... that we have to wait until next week for! ;)
My Original Impression
Monday, May 09, 2005
Did everyone else spot Miyuki from Miyuki in Wonderland (another CLAMP work)? I was assuming she would be easy to spot like in the manga, but man, she must have been on screen for like, half a frame!
A great episode though too much talking I think and Fay acting a bit too pretty Japanese boy cliche. A great battle however with some 3d music attacks (better than I expected) and while we didn't get the "Love Melody" AGAIN, we did get the instrumental version. Great animation and music and seems to be back on the manga side of the story.
Mokono continues to rule every episode! Next week SHOULD (God willing) be the last Hanshin episode). I love Hanshin and the Kudans but it's been 5 episodes and still only 1 feather!
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