[19]
Oh yeah here we go I should have just turned the page again. LOOK AT ALL THE LOVELY WORLDS WE CAN REVISIT. It’s like a nice little travel brochure.
This is probably more like the cast imagining what it would be like to see these particular characters again (unless Not!Sakura’s vision is contributing) but all the same it’s lovely to get some hints about how these characters might be doing! Like back when they gave us those chapter covers that had a few of them in it too. It’s so lovely that Clamp never ditched these worlds and constantly kept them in mind, even when they didn’t need to.
Me rubbing my hands together in glee at all the little cameos with updated art. Let’s look closely.
I’ll start with the few unsurprising omissions - ie, the world with the rabbits and the living tornado, which would be hilarious to see again but is probably for the best that we don’t. No land of Fog either - I suppose there is no-one there to actually remember Syaoran (except maybe the fish?) WAIT A MINUTE fuck me that’s Land of Fog in the bottom left. YOU CAN EVEN SEE THE FISH! Does the fish remember Syaoran?! Or did all the tiny people in the mini-city at the bottom of the lake see a GIANT SYAORAN floating way above them and still remember it to this day? WHICH, FAIR. I WOULD REMEMBER THAT ALSO.
I’m going to jump to the other side (bottom right) and point out that the two flaming lions are from Recourt, WHICH is also a wild inclusion since it’s also one of the few worlds they didn’t really bond with anyone in - but they did commit crime! I suppose it was a very memorable crime, and the flaming lions WERE there to see it, so Recourt is open to us! HILARIOUS. And just so wild that they were like “Ok what characters would visibly read as Recourt at first glance?” and the only answer they had was “Well. There were flaming lions in the final chapter.” and that’s the best we’re going to get!
I’m just going to go around the circle from there. Tomoyo obviously takes centre stage (as she should!) for Piffle. Which would be an endless delight to see again - but would Tomoyo even enjoy it as much without Sakura there to celebrate? OH NO WHAT IF WE HAD TO TELL HER WHAT HAPPENED TO SAKURA? I suppose they could just summarise it as “We’re trying to bring her back” and mention literally nothing that happened after Recourt and it would all be Fine. Also if anyone could invent a way to call people across dimensions it WOULD be Tomoyo, and then Not!Sakura could be on the line 24/7.
Naturally we have Acid Tokyo and the Dragons of Earth, which I would LOVE to see. Especially since we know now that that world eventually grows into the Clow Kingdom, so it’d be so fun to see them establishing the setting that it would eventually become. Also, with no Kamui or Fuuma things will be a LOT more peaceful with a lot less screaming, so that way everyone wins!
It just occurred to me - do you think the Clow Kingdom still has giant worms in the desert? I never thought about that until now. If they're not extinct maybe they're peaceful now?
Continuing sideways we have OUTO which oh please please please let’s go back there. We never got to see what anyone really looked like when they weren’t logged on with their avatars, and that would be such a fun reveal if they ALSO ended up being other Clamp characters - or even completely new people! I just love that whole set up and it has so much potential. Whether they end up digitally in Outo or in the actual real world (maybe the game is updated now? Maybe they have new content!), it’d be fantastic either way. I’m also thrilled that they picked Ryuou and Yuzuriha for the two banner characters for that world, so those were the two gay awakenings for Sakura and Syaoran on their visit - and the giant androids are also there for flavour. I suppose they DID meet Syaoran, so, sure!
Just above that we have INFINITY, represented by Eagle Vision, his boyfriends, and the Hikaru fighting android they fought Syaoran with. Honestly that world would have such a different vibe if we weren’t visiting it under EXTREME HEARTBREAK and MENTAL DISTRESS. Maybe it’d even be fun! It’s only an illegal fighting ring run by an underground mafia group - what could possibly go wrong?
Oh oh oh and Jade. I love that Grosum and his Number 1 fan always show up together whenever we go back there, and they clearly take such good care of all the children. Maybe we could go back just in time to see their marriage - and who knows, maybe we’d even learn the NAME of the character we spent the most time with. We might get lucky!
Above that we have Hanshin and - I’m so amused. Sorata? Arashi? Get out of here, we have SHOCKED KID to see! And honestly I would love the hell out of that. Tell me how he is! Tell me how he’s doing! Does he still have the most questionable group of friends? Are they still doing random street crime? I need to know! It’s not too late for him to learn to truly appreciate his kudan and become a detective or something but we’ll never know if we don’t visit! Primera and Shougo are also there I guess. I’m going to pretend that Shocked Kid is taking the most ungainly selfie of all time for this picture. It suits him perfectly. He didn’t even get any background in the shot. Everyone other world did.
Moving up we have another really curious shot of uhhhhhh those two characters in Shara. Shura? God it’s been years and I can never remember which is which. But here they are posing with the Yasha/Ashura statue for some reason, which completely aligns because it’s the statue that is way more memorable than anything they had going on in the present. We love the eternal holy statue of gay marriage! Maybe Kurogane and Fai can reminisce about their offscreen six months of gay? Either way would LOVE to see the Flower Fun district again. (They have Karen!)
Oh and naturally we have Nihon above that, right next to the earring, and I don’t even have to explain why it would be amazing to go back there. But I will! Kurogane could actually get the time to show them around his home they could all spend even more time with Tomoyo. The maximum amount of Tomoyo is the only thing I will settle for - though Amaterasu and Soma are also completely wonderful and we barely saw them at all. It’d be great to get more time with them all - AND THIS TIME IT WOULD BE GREAT IF SEISHIROU DIDN’T ALSO SHOW UP. But that’s just me!
Just above and to the right of that we have… oh a second Piffle picture? It didn’t occur to me that we could have more than one picture per world, this is wonderful. And now that I’m looking I can see that the next four pictures are ALSO repeating worlds - we get Sorata and Arashi also from Hanshin (I’m so sorry for thinking you were skipped, it’s very nice to see you again!). We have Oruha and … the other character, from Outo’s real world, and INTERESTING that Oruha looks like Oruha in the real world too? She wasn’t just an avatar? Now that’s a twist! I suppose the real dream life of a game admin is just, singing in a digital bar sometimes and pretending to be a side character. Which I totally get actually, that’d be a blast. And in a twist that I should have been expecting (AND YET SOMEHOW WASN’T) we get an entire frame for our vampire couples; Kamui, Fuuma, Subaru, and Seishirou. Extra hilarity points for the fact that Seishirou is off in the background. I wonder if he was sulking because he lost the fight to Syaoran, or if Subaru still isn’t talking to him yet. It WOULD actually be incredible to find out what their story actually is, even if we had to see Seishirou and Fuuma again. Who knows maybe I wouldn’t hate them a second time through? (The impossible has been known to happen)
And the final frame is Koryo, with Chu’nyan and Lady Debonair - who I would love any excuse to see again are you kidding. Completely over the moon with the implication that Lady Debonair kept in contact with Chu’nyan and maybe even helped fill the void left by her mother (since she was clearly dating Chu’nyan’s mother. I mean, who said that?). That’d be just amazing to see. And maybe we’ll find out if the Ryanban was brutally murdered or is maybe being eternally tortured instead! Such delightful options either way.
And that’s it! That’s our big world round up in our Tsubasa epilogue, a nice little send off to all the worlds we saw along the way WITH the extra promise that we might see some of them again in the future. I honestly don’t think there would even be the page space to see them all again, considering how short the Tsubasa sequel is, but anything is possible! I don’t even think we skipped any worlds. Except for that rabbit tornado one anyway.
