Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations/Spring Thunder OVA Collection (Blu) - Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles is not a good anime series. It's badly animated (Bee Train...ugh...), it's badly written, it's slightly boring to watch, and calling the story progression "glacial" is a vast understatement (you could literally cut out all but about 6-8 of the 52 episodes, and you'd lose
nothing). The main villain spends the
entire run of the show sitting on a couch watching the action unfold, as if he's prepping to be Darkseid's understudy in Countdown (if you got that reference, congrats). The show also literally
doesn't end by the end of the 2nd season, insulting anyone who stuck around just to see how it would end. Despite this, the show's something of a guilty pleasure for me and I really don't understand why, save that the character interactions are genuinely entertaining, the show has a generally-pleasing art design, and the anime-meets-Sliders concept is interesting to watch. It's the kind of relaxed show you put on the background while you're doing something tedious to make the experience more bearable.
So naturally, Funimation recently released a Blu-Ray set containing the 5 OVA episodes produced after the series run, episodes that originally were only included as bonus pack-ins with volumes of the associated manga in Japan. I just finished watching them, and...well...
Holy Crap.
Funimation should have changed the name of these OVAs to "Tsubasa:
STUFF FINALLY ****ING HAPPENS!!!" I'm serious, more happens in these 5 OVA episodes than happened in the
entirety of the 52-episode TV series. "Tokyo Revelations", indeed. The main villain's plans are finally revealed (though he still never leaves that goddamn couch, and it's not really clear why his plan would fulfill his goal.
), the story takes many giant leaps forward (one too many, actually. There's a major story arc that's shown only in pieces in flashback form that was a major storyline in the TV series), and some pretty brutal and messed-up stuff happens to the main characters. The xxxHolic connections pretty much removed from the anime make a delightful return. Even girly-girl Sakura actually
does stuff in these episodes besides just sit around and look mopey as everyone fights on her behalf! With Bee Train now out of the picture, Production I.G. takes up the animation reins, and words can't convey what an utter improvement that is. Where was all this in the TV series?
Of course, though, just as these episodes were really gearing up and our heroes were set to take the fight to our villain...the set's over, and there has been no word of future Tsubasa releases since the last episodes of this set released in 2009. How fitting.
Topic: Rate the last TV show you've seen (Read 1347542 times)
