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It pains me to announce that the manga streaming site One Manga has announced that this is their last week of hosting scanlations. They will remove all content by next week. *sniff sniff*

This site has saved me from insanity many, many times. I learned lots of philosophical stuff here, more than what I’ve picked up from books that I’ve read for the past 20+ years.

You will be sorely missed.

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Sakura: There’s no use loving a missing nin and a criminal. I’m not a child anymore, I’m just being realistic…

…Sasuke keeps getting further and further away from me… But Naruto, you’ve always been by my side… You encouraged me… I… realized… who you really are. You’re a hero who protected the village… The villagers all love you now. And I’m just one of them… Little by little you’ve grown from that no-good prankster… to someone wonderful and heroic. And I’ve watched it happen. But Sasuke’s crimes keep growing… and it’s breaking my heart… He’s becoming someone distant and unrecognizable.

Way to go Sakura. For someone making a love confession, you kept on mentioning Sasuke’s name. You even admitted that Sasuke broke your heart. Sakura’s confession practically said that since she can’t have Sasuke, she’d settle with Naruto.

Sakura could have learned a thing or two from Hinata. Let’s go back to Hinata’s confession in chapter 437.

Hinata: I used to always cry and give up… I nearly went the wrong way… But you… you showed me the right way… I was always chasing you… wanting to overtake you… I just wanted to walk with you… I wanted to be with you… You changed me! Your smile saved me! So I’m not afraid to die protecting you!! Because I… love you.

It’s obvious from this entry on who I prefer between Sakura and Hinata. ^_^

Whew, that was one weird chapter I could do without. Awkward, too awkward. Only the last page of that chapter made sense.

Naruto: I… hate people who lie to themselves!

Thanks to One Manga for the English translation.

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By the way, the comments of the translator were really amusing. Obviously, she was exposed to the anime first before reading the manga (just like me). She placed side comments on how certain phenomenon were not fully explained in the anime. And she couldn’t help but react with the relationship revelations in the manga but were “toned down” in the anime. (Her comment CLAMP = pedophile got me laughing out loud.)

As I finish the entire series, I remembered the reason why I love this series. It has the most heatbreaking, tear-jerking quotes on love I’ve never encountered in the other manga series I’ve read. And these guys are in 4th grade. Beat that.

For example:

Tomoyo: It’s more important that the one I love is happy than if they return my feelings. Their happiness is my happines.

Never mind that the one Tomoyo loves is Sakura. Yes, in that sense. (See chapter 7.)

Syaoran: If I tell her, it would trouble her. She’s always loved him, but he likes someone else. And so she didn’t cry, so she won’t trouble him, until she talked to me. She understands that feeling when the one you love does not love you. If I tell her my feelings, she’ll think that I’m sad and be troubled. So I won’t tell her.

When Syaoran delivered these lines in the anime, I was teary-eyed. While I was reading it last night, I was crying. I guess I didn’t fully understand it back then. But I think I do now.

Thanks to One Manga for the English translation.

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What started out as a quest to collect Sakura’s memories turned into a twisted plot the moment our main characters stepped into Tokyo. Since then, it appears that each chapter gives you a WTF revelation (I don’t know how else to describe it), always more puzzling than the previous WTF revelation. And the revelation in this chapter tops everything else, and got me reviewing the previous chapters to understand how it happened.

Thank God the authors are taking a break to collect some data. I will need some time to untangle the crazy plot they have now.

[Spoilers under the cut.]

Now let me get the facts straight. The entire mess was created by Clow Reed, at the time before CCS started. He wished that Yuuko will not die, and Fei Wong Reed attempted to grant that wish. Because of that, Yuuko’s time stopped. I’m now guessing that Clow’s attempt to fix everything is the main story of this series. To do that, Clow had to travel to another dimension, leaving Keroberos and Yue behind. Meanwhile Yuuko traveled to the xxxHolic world to grant wishes. There, she met Syaoran and allowed him to go to the Clow universe to meet Sakura. In this world, Sakura is the daughter of Fujitaka and Nadesico. But the time on this universe stopped because of Syaoran. In order to save Sakura from Fei Wong Reed’s seal of death, he asked Yuuko to turn back time. Watanuki was created in order to fill in the void in the xxHolic world. Fei Wong Reed created clones of Sakura and Syaoran and sent those clones to an alternate Clow universe.

In the alternate Clow universe, “clone” Syaoran is the son of Fujitaka. Clow Reed then takes the role of “clone” Sakura’s father in this alternate universe. Then we proceed with the whole quest of collecting feathers in other worlds, until the moment when Syaoran and Sakura battle Fei Wong Reed. In the process the clones were destroyed, but Yuuko gave life to them and sent them to an earlier xxxHolic world. Turns out that “clone” Sakura and “clone” Syaoran were the parents of the original Syaoran.

Huh? I know. I was dumbfounded after reading the chapter. Yuuko was always saying that Fei Wong Reed destroyed the logic of the universe, all the time thinking that the destruction of logic was manifested by the creation of the alternate universes. I never expected THAT.

Wait a minute, once Syaoran reaches the age where he turns back time to save Sakura, “clone” Sakura and “clone” Syaoran will die in an accident, right? Then they will be trapped in Yuuko’s shop, waiting for the final battle with Fei Wong Reed. Woah, they really made the clones suffer, you think?

Now there are several questions running through my mind. First, what happens if they fail to stop Fei Wong Reed? Second, what will happen to Watanuki and to his parents (yeah, the clones are also his parents) if they succeed? Third, seeing that Watanuki looks like a younger version of Clow Reed, what happens if his wish is strong enough to stop Yuuko’s time, AGAIN? Harhar. And lastly, exactly how will all of this fix the broken logic that Fei Wong Reed created?

CLAMP and their weird plots. Amazing.

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