Volume 16 of Tsubasa was released not too long ago, and, with it, came some major plot twists. You probably shouldn’t read ahead if you don’t want TSUBASA SPOILERS.
Anyway, some of these twists made me go “What the hell?!” Plot twists are dropping out of the sky like bird droppings! For good or for worse. Some of them were ok, but large parts of the story (not just in volume 16) have made me kind of… hissy.
1. This one’s pretty general, but, even though they’re traveling from world to world, telling people where they’re from, no one is ever shocked. Why not? There’s nothing that says that world travelers are a common occurrence, and yet everyone treats it like one. This doesn’t ruin the story horribly, but there’s more.
2. Sakura never does anything. Like, at all. She’s just a plot device for Syaoran to protect. I heard somewhere that she gets more active later on, but I haven’t seen that yet. She’s just a cute plot device.
3. The source of Fai’s magic. In volume 1, it said that his tattoo was the source of his magic. Even after that, he still uses magic by whistling. As if this isn’t bad enough, in volume 16 it says that his two blue eyes are the source of his magic, though, to my memory, it was never foreshadowed. This was one WTH moment.
4. Once again, things happen without foreshadowing. In volume 16, we learn that Syaoran is a psycho replicant who only lives for one purpose. This would be ok, except it was never foreshadowed. While it was shown that there was another Syaoran, it was never hinted at that our Syaoran was insane. Maybe he seemed a little single-minded, but mainly he just seemed like an archetypal bland shonen hero.
5. That intangible element. You know, when you really care about the characters. I’ve never really felt that with this. Just…emptiness. Even when horrible things happen to the characters, I’ve never broken down and cried, or even gotten a little teary. Pita-Ten, Final Fantasy X, Harry Potter, Death Note, Air TV, Fullmetal Alchemist… Those all made me feel something. This didn’t.
Despite all this, I still like Tsubasa. Not love, but like. I’ll still continue reading it, for the art, if nothing else. Some things are like that aren’t they? Unconditional like.
