Tsubasa Chronicle – 19

Short Summary:
Fye and Kurogane manage to destroy all the oni that attack them, but not before Fye injures his leg. Back at the cafe, a pair of oni slayers, who later identify themselves as Ryuuoh and Souma, arrive. Ryuuoh wants to test his strength against Syaoran’s, so he starts to attack, but the fight is cut short when Shiyuu Kusanagi and Nekoi Yuzuriha stop them. Syaoran and Ryuuoh quickly become friends, and all the slayers have snacks in the cafe. Outside, a mysterious hooded figure summons several oni. The group is alerted of their presence and proceeds to fight the demons. However, the oni combine into one more powerful oni. Sakura almost gets hurt, but Syaoran takes the hit. He ends up being fairly useless throughout the fight since he doesn’t have a weapon. The other slayers, however, manage to take care of the job. At the club, Kurogane and Fye find out that they just missed seeing the person who had encountered the new type of oni, so they return home. Kurogane immediately sees Souma and assumes that she’s the same one from his world when in fact she is not. After discussing it, Fye thinks that they’ll see a lot more people that they’ve already met before. Later, Syaoran approaches Kurogane outside and asks to learn how to use a sword. Knowing Syaoran’s determination, Kurogane agrees, but warns Syaoran to be prepared for death.

Tsubasa keeps surprising me with how much better and better it’s becoming. They’re telling the story roughly the same as they always have, but the production quality has gone through the roof. The battles are better, there are several scenes which are animated beautifully, and the music…my god, I love the song that Oruha sings. It makes Fye and Kurogane’s fight feel like a perfectly choreographed dance.
We covered the skipped pages from chapters 36, and all of 37-39, which is quite a lot. But they are again moving plot elements around. Kurogane and Fye miss seeing Oruha (they listen to her song and talk to her at this point in the manga). I suppose that they will introduce her in some other fashion (maybe Fye and Kurogane will go back to the club). The fight involving all the slayers against the powerful oni is also changed a bit to include Sakura and Syaoran a little more. As usual, the big changes don’t affect the storyline too much – I’d actually argue that they enhance it.
I’m looking forward to Tsubasa now that it’s gotten good…on my favorite arc too. Next week will cover Syaoran’s training under Kurogane. *Goes off to watch the Oruha song scene again*