Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Collected Memories is the complete 52 episode series and feature film The Princess In The Birdcage. The show has also been released in separate seasons as well as the Clamp Double Feature: Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE and xxxHOLiC which have storylines that run parallel to one another.

For the most part Tsubasa was not a series that I particularly enjoyed. The characters are one dimensional and often times annoying (Mokona being my least favorite coming off like an Elmo doll stuffed inside of a Furbie), the story has moments of clarity but for the most part wander off as if the writer has lost their train of thought. After 1375 minutes I didn’t even find any real closure to the series.

Quality:
The first season which is on discs 1-3 are inconsistent as far as color and definition go. One minute the picture is super vibrant and clean and the next faded and unimpressive. I checked back on one particular episode to make sure that what I was seeing didn’t have anything to do with my television settings but it was simply inconsistent. By the second season the picture is finer, more detailed, extremely colorful, and consistent. Audio was decent (TrueHD 5.1 in English). Not perfect, sometimes losing dialogue in the overpowering background noise of explosion, crashes, combat. It took a bit of tweaking on my surround sound system to get it as close to perfect as possible and for the most part it gets the job done.

Bonus Features:
Season One-
*Cast Auditions. Really terrible. You get a still of the character being voiced and dialogue but no in studio stuff that fans would have loved to see.
*Faces In The Crowd. The Clamp universe is crowded with characters popping up from other show all of the time. You get a list of the characters from other Clamp shows that appear here as well as more characters specifically from this show.
*Character Guide
*World Guide. Kind of interesting but more of a one time view.
*Textless Songs
*Trailers
Season Two-
*Character Guide
*World Guide
*Textless Songs
*Trailers