Week 10

This week I decided to read X/1999 by CLAMP. As a fan of the other CLAMP series, such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa, xxxHolic, and Legal Drug, I wonder where this one will tie in. The first thing I notice is the obvious style change from from many of their more modern work. This series is from the 90's so it looks a little closer to the Cardcaptor Sakura style than the others I mentioned above. One of the reasons I love CLAMPS work is because I feel like they have a very unique trademark style wit their lanky limbed characters & broad shouldered men. I've noticed in a lot of their work, this one particularly, there is a crossing of genres here. Generally CLAMP does shoujo type of comics supposedly geared towards younger girls, however they always defy this in one way or another. This manga for instance is a clash between the seinen genre and shoujo, so there is a lot of action and more stereotypically "masculine" elements, violence, magic, action, etc. whilst still involving themes of romance and soft/pretty stylistic choices. I haven't read far enough into this one, but another interesting thing that they involve in a lot of their work is queer romance/themes or instances. This is refreshing to see in a manga that is not yuri or yaoi/boys love because they once again redefine the genre of shoujo to their own tastes. Reading this I see it employs a lot of similar themes to their other works with characters that are oracles/princesses, use magic powers and the idea of fate/destiny. I also read some of Astro Boy. The first thing I noticed about it was how charming the style is. It's reminiscent of Betty Boop and 20's cartoons and I find it very appealing. This is a famous comic so it was interesting to see what the hype around it was for. It was shocking a little to witness the kind of more darker themes like Tenma not being able to entirely accept the boy as his own child/abandoning him. I expected it to be a little more upbeat/little stories about astro boys life but I felt that was different than I expected.