Customer Reviews

Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE: Collected Memories Box Set [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Tsubasa Chronicles is a sweet love story staring Syaoran and Princess Sakura, and their journey to recover her memories, which has been transformed into feathers and spread around on many worlds. Through the help of the dimensional witch, Syaoran and Sakura join with two other travelers, going to other worlds, all looking for something, yet all looking for Sakura's memories.

So, what is in this boxed set? There's a total of 7 disks, 6 disks containing all of the 52 episodes, and the 7th disk is "Tsubasa the Movie - The Princess in the Birdcage kingdom". There's also over 70 minutes of extra features and bonus materials. According to the packaging, it's all HiDef (1080P) and widescreen (16x9). There's English and Japanese audio, as well as English subtitles. Unfortunately, the English subtitles doesn't match the English audio... The image quality looks fine to me. I can't see any obvious signs of cheap upscaling; there's no pixelation or jagged edges anywhere that I can see on my TV.

So, if you, like me, have been looking for a means of getting all of this story in one collection, then is may very well be the solution for you.

The world of Clamp is a large one, and this anime series is a recap of part of the manga series. Please note that I said "part of" and not that it was a total cover.

I really enjoyed the series overall. The art style, animation, and quality was quite gorgeous, although I admit I watched it on a SD-TV and therefore didn't really get to see it in its high-def glory. The reason I bought the series was because I had already seen the movie "The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom"(included in this box set) before, and I fell in love Syaoran's love for Sakura. I bought this box set on sale, for an amazing price, and I definitely feel it was worth the money, with one problem: The story is incomplete!

I felt that the pacing was good; the characters were well-developed, and the story was written in a cute, lovely style that still had enough heaviness to keep it from being generic fluff. The music was also good, although a bit repetitive at times. The smaller story arcs covered anywhere from 2-4 episodes, with an overall plot involving a menacing figure, and an evil-looking clone of the hero, Syaoran.

This is where the anime left me. After two seasons, the smaller arc in the last few episodes wrapped, the credits rolled, and I realized they had done nothing to explain who the menacing figure was. Who was pirate-Syaoran, and why was he in a tube? This, and a few other things (I won't mention spoilers) left me feeling like the series was incomplete once it had ended, and I was actually a bit upset about it, especially once I researched online and found out that it really is just a small chunk of a rather large manga series, which I do not intend to invest in.

In the end, I still really liked the series overall. The smaller plot points and the development of the relationship between Syaoran and Sakura is quite charming. If they had removed the larger arc, which was not explained or completed, the series would definitely be 5 stars in my book. The packaging is nice for a full series box set; the discs aren't all stacked like they are in some other box sets. The movie is a very nice addition as well.

I'm not going to go into the plot of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, other sites and reviewers have that covered, but here is the deal, Funimation has yet again releases another upscaled piece of garbage.

This Blu-ray set has a number of issues with the video. The images are blurry, the lines are fuzzy, colors washed out, everything as a glow around it, there is noticeable gradient banding, and artifacting during many scenes. If you own the DVDs, stick with them as they are the best quality available.

If you want a HD version of this anime wait for the official release from the studio, not some cheap Funimation weekend project. I ended up returning the two part sets, because I am not going to pay for this horrible mess of a release.

I added a few screenshots to the images section to show how bad this release is. Make sure to look at it full size, as it naturally looks better at a smaller size. Also the screenshot was not altered in any way from the Blu-ray source.

Some people will tell you that this anime has a lot of filliers but when I wached it, it didn't feel like that. Since the mains caracter are looking to find the lost memory fragment of Sakura, sometime they may arrive in some places were they will not succed. You really still feel that the story is alway there in each episode. There are some problems with this anime : 1) no real end, it would need another season at least. 2) We dont know how many fragment there is so the anime could continue for years like a soap opera.

Still, I was highly entertain by that anime, each world visited was fun to discover. Wort your time!

I bought this for my boyfriend as a surprise and he LOVED it! And then he found out how much I spent on it and loved it even more. Can't beat the price!! This is an amazing show!! He has definatly got me addicted to it :)

What can I say about about Tsubasa Chronicle. Story is great, animation is superb, and packaging looks awesome. I'm actually surprise that the movie is included in this. My only complaint is that the disc can sometimes get hard to get out. But perfect overall. Now Funimation, if your reading this. Please...Please, Please. Please bring back CardCaptor Sakura on Blu-Ray. Please.

I loved this series! I was very happy to find the whole series and the movie all in one. The story isn't complete but the manga is finished, so if you want to know how it ends I'd recommend reading the manga.

I originally had everything within this set on DVD. I gave those discs away though to a friends daughter who has really taken quite a liking to the series. I kind of missed having them since this series can easily be re=enjoyed. Having less discs really is nice. I just wish CLAMP had included the OVA's that have yet to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray.

This product has been out for a while now, so I am sad that it has to be me who finally gives a proper review of the video quality. I wish that anime fans would do their job, so the rest of us can know what we are buying.

Everything here is encoded at 1080p/24 but the source quality varies.

Season One is your typical standard definition upscale but Season Two is native 720p HD (upscaled to 1080p/24 for Blu-Ray release, which in my opinion companies should not do, but the Japanese are the ones doing this on everything so it is their fault, not Funimation's). The "Next Episode" and Episode Title still slides on Season One are also in HD (which doesn't mean much, just pointing it out).

The opening/ending credits on Season One are upscaled SD, and so is the overlayed credit text. The animation is also messed up in a really weird way. This happens regularly on encoded anime (it shouldn't though, there's no excuse) but it is not the common 24 fps --> 30 fps stutter that is caused by an improper 30p encode of a 24p source. I think the opening/ending is double-stuttering, that is to say the source went from 24p to 30p (when Funimation put their overlayed credits) and back to 24p for encoding. The textless opening/ending credits, which are thankfully included, animate perfectly and are encoded at 24p.

No problems with Season Two, other than my wish to see native 720p anime encoded at 720p.

Haven't watched the Princess of Birdcage Kingdom movie yet.

I won't give a detailed review of the show itself because I hated this series. :) Good thing I only paid $30 for it. I'm generally not a fan of Clamp works and have never read the manga, and would never want to. I usually like Bee Train anime though: this is the first one that I have not liked. Their slow directing style either does not work with Clamp's story, or they just did a lazy job and made poor decisions for this series. It seems as though Tsubasa Chronicle neither satisfied Clamp fans nor Bee Train fans, so I'm surprised that there are still as many people that like this show as there are (there are also many people who hate this show, mostly Clamp fans).

This was in great condition and I received it quickly. Everything was as posted and I am totally satisfied with my purchase.