Sakura, and her group continue to travel to parallel world in search of the feathers, which represent her memories, with the help and sometimes hindrance of the time and space witch the group have travelled this time to Piffle to take part in an aerial race in the hope of winning the grand prize, one of Sakura’s missing feathers...

Volume Twelve of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Dragonfly Battle sees the culmination of the storyline set on Piffle.

The vast majority of the book is taken up with the final race which, of course, Sakura wins. This part of the storyline would appear to be inevitable, otherwise they could not progress to the next world. If you have not read this Clamp manga just think of Sliders and you’ll get the general idea. That said it was pretty unforgivable how the mystery of who was fixing the race is resolved. With little in the way of a run up or even clues which fans of the manga could work from, the villain, Doctor Kyle, pops up and just as promptly disappears. What a real let down from a story line which missed its chance to engage the reader with the narrative.

I’m not saying that the race scenes do not show a good use of the panels, or that the artwork isn’t dynamic in its ability to convey the speed and excitement of the race, but page after page of this kind of thing gets a bit wearing after a while.

One aspect of the story, which I do hope will be developed, is dropped in almost unnoticed. It would appear not only are our friends not the only ones who can travel to differing dimensions, but that within those dimensions copies of Sakura and her friends exist. Given that the group has been separated on more than one occasion this opens up the question of whether all of them are really who they say.

The artwork remains good, though the endless concentration on the race rather than the mystery makes the book drag a little. Like the other books in the series you get the honorifics explained, a couple of pages of translation notes, and another bonus story Tsubasa: World of the Untold Story Number Four.

6

Charles Packer