Tsubasa Chronicle – 24

Short Summary:
After Seishirou kills Syaoran, he gathers all of the demons in the city into one giant I-3 class Oni. Kurogane senses it coming and uses a special attack to fend it off. The other slayers arrive in time to be taken out by the wave of light from the feather. Meanwhile, Syaoran wakes up inside a pod, and finds Fye and Sakura beside him. Fye reveals that they are really in Edonisu Country, inside of an amusement park. Chitose, one of the creators of the park, tells them that they experienced was part of a virtual reality game. Syaoran and Sakura quickly remember what happened when they first arrived: they were dumped directly into the dream capsules. Chitose wants to know more about Seishirou, the interferer, but the world starts to rumble. It seems that Seishirou is trying to turn the virtual into reality. The Oni Slayers, including Kurogane, materialize in front of him and his I-3 Oni. Kurogane steps forward to confirm that Seishirou was the one who killed Fye and Syaoran. Hearing the affirmative, he wastes no time in attacking. Seishirou dodges the first slash, and shows that he’s serious by putting on his glasses. The two fight fairly evenly matched until Mokona shoots something in between the two to interrupt the fight. After Kurogane realizes that Fye and Syaoran are still alive, Seishirou has no desire to fight him anymore, so he does what he came to do: summon the I-1 Oni and learn the secrets of immortality. As the dust clears, we see that the I-1 demon is really Oruha.

This episode follows chapters 46 through 48 of the manga pretty well. I thought they explained Edonisu country and the virtual reality a little better in the anime, but the fight between Seishirou and Kurogane was definitely more dramatic in the manga. The one difference that bothers me is that they finally decided to talk about the curse on Kurogane. Having never spoken of it before (Remember, Princess Tomoyo never mentioned it when she should have in the first episode), Seishirou finally mentions it to Kurogane (who seems not to care). In the manga, it’s Seishirou who brings it up, but Kurogane who actually says what the curse is: each time Kurogane kills, he gets weaker. The end result is still the same, but I found it rather odd that they suddenly decide to bring it up. It hasn’t made a difference in the anime yet, and I don’t think they’ll work it into the story for quite some time to come. The other difference is that here, Seishirou ends the fight because he doesn’t think Kurogane can fight to his fullest after finding out his friends are still alive. In the manga, the feather appears and the fight ends because Seishirou doesn’t have much control over it. Again, the result is the same, but the anime makes Seishirou to be a lot more powerful.
The final two episodes are going to be quite interesting. They’ve got one more chapter of this arc to cover, but two episodes to do it in. Even if they stretch chapter 49 into the next episode, that still leaves all of episode 26 up in the air. I hope it’s not a recap or something…