xxxholic manga or anime?
i’ve had this on my watchlist forever but i just read an old thread that vaguely mentioned how it’s a bad adaptation. anyone here know more about it? i’d prefer to watch and then switch to the manga but if that’s not possible i’ll just read it from the start. let me know, thanks!!
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It's been a while, but from what I remember, the anime adaptation might skip a few things in the manga, some of which becomes important later on. In particular, the ending of the manga is heavily connected with the plot of Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle (so it's also probably recommended that you read that alongside xxxHolic), but the anime adaptations (of both series) skip over most of that.
The anime also feels very mid-2000s in a way that some people might not be used to, and it can be a little slow-paced at times, but imo it's still pretty good and fun. (Tsutomu Mizushima is a very good director.) But if comparing it to the manga and forced to choose one, I'd probably have to say that the manga is a little better, though both have advantages and disadvantages.
The people who created xxxholic are called CLAMP and they made other stuff like Card Captor Sakura among other things. xxxholic is a series that i part of their bigger narritive story so if you really are interested you would want to see everything in order.
If you watch xxxholic by its self it will be very wierd without the other series that have stories around it in the clamp universe. So thats why i ask, if its a series you do want to see, then its my biggest reccomendation to do the franchise right and in order.
xxxholic is fun but its even funner with context of the other stuff going on.
So would you like the whole speil on this franchise?
[](#juice1)
This is mainly relevant to the manga, no? Although it's been some time since I've fully seen the xxxHolic anime, from what I can remember they don't include most of the multiverse stuff in the anime adaptation...
And even the manga mainly just requires reading Tsubasa alongside it, with the knowledge that in Tsubasa they're encountering AU versions of different characters. (For example, I don't think you *need* to watch/read CCS before Tsubasa, or at least to completion. You just need to know that Syaoran and Sakura are alternate universe versions of their CCS selves.) In any case, I think the xxxHolic anime is reasonably standalone, and even the manga is mostly standalone until the ending...
And the anime ddidnt adapt the end of tsubasa connections also which would have a ton of stuff. Without the other series you also dont get much clow reed info. The series were made to be paired together though. Even their anime releases were staggered best they could to make it work.
They had made a lot of series over the years then one day decided to connect them, and thats where Tsubasa chronicle and xxxholic came in as the core series to help pull this off.
Ill copy and paste my outline of the involved series and info to help you understand.
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So a long time ago Clamp (the authors of Card Captor Sakura), made a bunch of stories in the 90s that were popular.
Then around 2000 they had this idea to connect their stories to tell a greater narrative.
But since most their stories were already told they would need to create a new story to allow these connections, and new series to support this connection as well.
Tsubasa Chronicle is what that is, a new series that tells the tale of Sakura and Syaoran (from Card Captor) from a new perspective that allows it to connect with everything else they did.
xxxholic is a supporting series they wrote to also tell a parallel story to Tsubasa and have cross overs to help make the connections to older stuff work.
So what does this mean to you?
Well it means that you can watch all of CLAMPs old stuff as you want.
Then once you have gotten your fill of them, you can move on to xxxholic and Tsubasa to understand more about this universe from a much wider perspective. As there is a lot more going on in the series.
So you can still watch and enjoy Card Captor and get to know Sakura and Syaoran and all the lore there. Then when you watch Tsubasa, you will have the connections and the lore to care about them in that story as it expands their role in the greater narrative.
To make it make sense, Tsubasa is a sequel to Card Captor but also a retelling of their story in a much larger narrative. The Post 2000 CLAMP Verse is basically multiple parallel universe with all the same characters just in different situations and stories, and Tsubasa is the story that travels through them and connects them. Card Captor is basically 1 of these parallel worlds and you learn of the Prime world in Tsubasa and you get to know the Main Sakura and Main Syaoran that the others came from.
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I will outline everything related to this franchise now for you in an order of them coming out.
**Who CLAMP is and what have they done**
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clamp_(manga_artists)
**Core Stories Related to Main Tsubasa Universe Story (Must Watch, but in any order)**
[1989 - RG Veda OVA](https://myanimelist.net/anime/439/RG_Veda) (Just know the base story from the OVA)
[1992 - Tokyo Babylon OVA](https://myanimelist.net/anime/1043/Tokyo_Babylon) (Prequel to X/1999)
[1996 - X/1999 Movie](https://myanimelist.net/anime/155/X_1999) (Prequel Movie to X TV)
[2001 - X TV](https://myanimelist.net/anime/156/X) (One of the Main Alternate Worlds)
[1998 - Cardcaptor Sakura](https://myanimelist.net/anime/232/Cardcaptor_Sakura) (The Main Alternate World. Know basic story and characters and Clow lore; the more you watch the better)
[2002 - Chobits](https://myanimelist.net/anime/59/Chobits) (One of the main alternate worlds related to characters that are in Tsubasa)
[2006 - xxxholic Season 1](https://myanimelist.net/anime/861/xxxHOLiC) (The last thing you should watch before starting Tsubasa Season 1 Only for now.)
**Stories that are side series, not as related to the maiin Tsubasa story (Optional Watch)**
[1994 - Magic Knight Rayearth](https://myanimelist.net/anime/435/Magic_Knight_Rayearth) (One of the early alternate world stories but not majorly connected)
[2001 - Angelic Layer](https://myanimelist.net/anime/52/Kidou_Tenshi_Angelic_Layer) (A side series but it is fun and helpful going into Chobits)
[2009 - Kobato](https://myanimelist.net/anime/5678/Kobato) (A very useful series to see but you should watch AFTER you finish all of xxxholic because spoilers)
**The Main Tsubasa Watching Experience (In chronological order)**
[xxxholic (Season 1 24 eps)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/861/xxxHOLiC)
[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle (Season 1 24 eps)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/177/Tsubasa_Chronicle)
[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 2nd Season (24 eps)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/969/Tsubasa_Chronicle_2nd_Season)
[xxxholic Kei (Season 2 13 eps)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/3091/xxxHOLiC%E2%97%86Kei)
[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles: Tokyo Revelations (3 ep OVA)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/2685/Tsubasa__Tokyo_Revelations)
[xxxholic Shunmuki (2 ep OVA)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/4918/xxxHOLiC_Shunmuki)
[Tsubasa Revoir Chronicles: Shunraiki / Spring Thunder Chrinicle (2 ep OVA)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/4938/Tsubasa__Shunraiki)
[xxxholic Rou (2 ep OVA)](https://myanimelist.net/anime/6864/xxxHOLiC_Rou)
**I broke down the eps to help you know what you are watching as many places have all the shows bundled under 1 name and it can be easy to start a new season without realizing it.**
[(If visuals are more your thing, here is a visual chart of connections someone made.)](https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=rel&aid=12)
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Now bear in mind that the Tsubasa Adaption isnt complete, its missing some chapters between the last 2 OVA, and the ending was never adapted. (Same for xxxholic) So if you want more closure you will need to read those manga or find a ending breakdown write up. Sadly the series was hard to get adapted properly and it caused a lot of issues, but if you enjoy it to get to the end of the anime content, you wil def read the ending to know.
Tsubasa is a very complicated story being told across multiple perspectives. It can seem daunting but once you get into it it will start to make sense. I 100% reccomend it as i love CLAMP and their works are always great. I also grew up on Card Captor in the 90s and many other stuff they did.
If you have any questions please do ask and ill do my best to make sure you understand.
As for where to watch, Most stuff is on Crunchyroll in the US but many OVA will be very hard to find these days. So you will have to do a lot of looking to find some older series. But there are many sites out there to help with that.
Good luck and i hope you have fun.
[](#takaradasalute)
The anime is al little different but i think its more „beginner friendly” plus the voice acting and the background music perfectly capture the atmosphere. And i love the color combinations
And the anime for xxxholic was *fine* but meh and the adaptation for Tsubasa was anime original garbage
They're both worth reading though, some of my first and favorite manga!
However, you definitely perceive that parts of the story are missing. I'm normally strictly anime. The only reason I know about this manga (and indeed, got introduced to the clamp universe in general) was that there were several parts of the anime where I thought: *Wait, there seems like a lot of missing context here*