SERIES DESCRIPTION: A teenager with awe-inspiring powers sides with an elite group in order to bring about the inevitable end of the world (in 1999, get it?) as he sees it. Unfortunately, his best friend has to join the opposite team and an epic battle for the Apocolypse ensues... my personal favorite manga series.
CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS: Kamui Shirou has had a difficult life right from the start. Having left Tokyo and his two best friends, Fuuma Monou and his weak-hearted little sister Kotori behind at the age of about ten, he returned six years later after the gruesome death of his mother. He is given amazing powers and doesn't know how to deal with them, and seems to be the key figure in that silly Doomsday thing. Then, after being approached by two psychotic psychics, he is forced to pick a society in which to demonstrate his talents. Naturally, he picks the Dragons in which his two soul mates, Fuuma and Kotori, will be the safest. For, in his own words, his "world is where he finds his friends. If they don't exist, neither does the world". How sweet. It's really too bad Kotori dies- and at the hand of her big brother, none the less...
INSIGHTS: Many CLAMP fans say that "X" didn't live up to the standards of their previous works. There really wasn't that much character development, and the overabundance of fate and tragedy in the story really turned off some potential readers. However, I see it the exact opposite. The lack of character development leads you to make your own judgement of the players and to associate more of your own views into them: everything wasn't put out in front of me, and I really wouldn't want it any other way. The tragedy rests in the fact that everyone in the story had several desicions in front of them, and they chose the ones right in their frontal vision. This led to disasters, and "X" had more deaths in it than any other shoujo manga has ever seen- and this is a CLAMP tale! And I kind of liked all the gloom and depression associated with it, because you don't see that very often in a shoujo manga. The populace does get kind of sick with funny love triangles and transforming magickal girls.
NOTES: "X" is planned out to go to 22 volumes in order to correspond to the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, and every issue of "Asuka", the magazine in which the story was originally printed, featured a mock Tarot card with one of the main characters as the focus! I hope someone could turn those into a real deck, I'd be the first in line to get my hands on it!
IMAGES:A very sexy and beautiful image of Kamui and Fuuma embracing...
Fuuma's early life was no easier than his friend's. His mother also died, and with his father being a priest and all, was forced to take care of Kotori early on- but he never seemed to dislike all of the responsibility resting on those broad shoulders of his. For Fuuma Monou is one of those quiet, contemplative types that you can never really tell his true feelings. At the start of the series, people commented on how gruff and emotionless he was; however, he brought Kotori to the hospital on several occasions when her heart gave out, and it was rumored that he helped out a sick old lady before as well. But, he was destined to be the Twin Star of Kamui, also gifted with psionic powers, and had to do the exact opposite of what his Star did. Eventually, all of the pressure worked away at his psyche and he became Black Fuuma. This led to the slaughter of many Dragons, both on his side and on Kamui's. He also regretfully murdered his beloved little sister (*sniff*) and was never the same again.
