Episode 23 of CLAMP’s podcast, CLAMP Kanbukai, is out! You can listen to it on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.

This episode’s theme is “Let’s talk about our favorites”.

They started the episode explaining the difference between “favorite” and “recommendation”. There is a little nuance to them. “Recommendation” are things that they want people to know about, use, watch, wear etc, while “favorite” are things that they support/are fans of.

Firstly, all four of them started by saying they are a fan of the movie Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In. They had done an X space recently where they talked about this movie and they informed that they would like to spend a few more minutes talking about it (they really liked it). Sure enough, they spent some good minutes talking about the movie, their favorite characters and scenes.

Next, Mokona-sensei said that she is a fan of figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu, to whom they collaborated on the GIFT picture book. As we know, she was already a big fan of his before working with him so she couldn’t really believe that they would be working together. She says that while she was working on GIFT, it was difficult to behave like a fan since she was wearing her professional artist “hat” but now that the work is over, she is able to once again root for him like the big fan she is. His “Danny Boy” performance is her favorite as of recently.

Next, Satsuki-sensei said she is a fan of Shibata Kyouhei, a Japanese actor and singer who is known from his roles in police and detective TV Dramas. They mentioned that back when they had their old newspaper subscription system (CLAMP NEWS) they did a short gag comic where he appears.

Next, Nekoi-sensei mentioned she is a fan of musicians Yuji Ohno (Lupin and others) and Kenji Kawai (Patlabor and others). Kenji Kawai did the music for the RG Veda Drama Compilation CD and around the time he was working on it, Nekoi-sensei had a chance of bumping into him by chance and saying hello to him.

Lastly, Ohkawa-sensei said she is a fan of actress and voice actress Masako Ikeda, whom is famously known for voicing several characters, including being the Japanese voice of Audrey Hepburn. Ohkawa-sensei believes that she first heard her voice while she caught Roman Holiday airing on TV when she was a kid and thought she had a lovely voice. Satsuki-sensei reminds them they had the opportunity of working with Masako Ikeda in several times: she played Kamui’s mother on the X movie, the CLAMP Gakuen chairwoman on the CLAMP Gakuen Tanteidan TV Anime and Chunyan’s mother on the Shin Shunkaden Drama CD. They said that once the cast of X was announced, they were all very giddy in knowing that Masako Ikeda was among it. Ohkawa-sensei said she met her only once during the time of the recording sessions for the X movie. She said Masako Ikeda looked very petite and was about the same size as Mokona-sensei. Ohkawa-sensei still looks up to her and every time she hears her voice as a narrator on the TV she is able to recognize her voice immediately “ah, that’s Ikeda-san!” She finished saying she is a fan of Masako Ikeda.

On the last part of the episode, they talked about being fans of Lunlun, a virtual YouTuber affiliated to NIJISANJI. They said that all of them have Lunlun plush toys and will be sharing pictures later on the CLAMP Kanbukai official instagram account.

Thank you for reading this post!

This summary was particular challenging given that a lot of the topics I’m not familiar with. Apologies if it’s a bit lacking, I tried my best! 🙂

Episode 22 of CLAMP’s podcast, CLAMP Kanbukai, is out! You can listen to it on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.

This episode’s theme is “Various things we did and XXXHOLiC Rei“.

They started the episode explaining that the reason why this episode came out a little later than usual is because they all took turns in catching a cold. First it was Mokona-sensei (and she recommended a very interesting homemade medicine using a solution made of radish and honey), then it was Nekoi-sensei, Ohkawa-sensei and finally Satsuki-sensei. Ohkawa-sensei said catching a cold is a rare thing for her and that the last time was probably around 10 years ago (!!). They ended this segment wishing everyone to take care of themselves.

Next, they changed to the main topic: the XXXHOLiC Zoku Sai stage play. They were able to attend the opening day performance (January 24th) and they shared their impressions. They pointed out that the entire cast is back with the exception of Maru and Moro because the previous actors aged a little in the past two years so they had to be replaced. Ohkawa-sensei was surprised when she saw one of them in a Kamen Rider thing while she was browsing X and she pointed out that he looked older.

Nekoi-sensei was impressed that the cast came together and they were all able to perform despite the two years hiatus that the play took, that they were as involved and committed as they were two years ago. When asked which character left a strong impression, Nekoi-sensei answered Neko Musume, whom according to her looked “sharper”. They mentioned that her abs looked toned (it was possible to see because the actor was wearing clothes that showed his belly).

For Mokona-sensei, the character that left the biggest impression on her was Yuuko, played by Motohiro Ohta. She mentioned she also enjoyed Shougo Sakamoto as Watanuki, even though his Watanuki was more “composed” than the one in the manga and anime.

For Satsuki-sensei, the character that left the biggest impression on her was Haruka, played by Yuunosuke Matsushima (who also plays Doumeki).

They also mentioned Ryotaro Akazawa’s Himawari performance as one of the play’s highlights. In particular, the moment where she cries, the audience lifted their opera glasses to see her tears from up close.

Ohkawa-sensei mentioned that she would like to do a live commentary session with one of the play’s online streamings, but she said it might be tricky to coordinate all the technical aspects and having the four of them commenting. She hopes it will come to fruition and she asks us to participate if they manage to do it.

Next, while they were still in Tokyo to see the XXXHOLiC stage play, they also went to see another play called Spoon no Tate, a musical reading drama featuring several voice actors as cast members, such as Nakai Kazuya (Doumeki and Haruka in XXXHOLiC) and Kikoku Inoue (Yelan in Cardcaptor Sakura).

Before going back to Kyoto, they also went to see a Monet exhibition. They mentioned it was very crowed so they barely could see the bottom part of the paintings (specially Mokona-sensei, being the smallest of them). Nekoi-sensei mentioned that while she doesn’t dislike Monet, she’s not particularly interested in his work. On the other hand, Satsuki-sensei likes his work a lot.

Before moving to the next topic, Ohkawa-sensei mentioned she would like to visit Mika Ninagawa’s NINAGAWA Mika with EiM: Lights of the beyond, Shadows of this world exhibition at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art.

Finally, they talked a little about resuming XXXHOLiC Rei. They are working hard on bringing back XXXHOLiC‘s art style. Mokona-sensei briefly told Ohkawa-sensei “I know you’re going to tell me Yuuko looks younger”, to which Ohkawa-sensei replied back “that means you’ll just have to keep drawing then” xD

Mokona-sensei mentioned that Yuuko’s gaze, joints and fingertips are very particular and she’s doing her best to bring them back (she mentioned that she keeps forgetting about making Yuuko’s arms look like “noodles” like they used to xD) Nekoi-sensei said she’s paying extra attention to Watanuki’s bangs and on his facial expressions, since now that he is the shop owner, he cannot keep doing the same facial expressions as when he was a student, so she’s trying to express the difference through the facial expressions.

Ohkawa-sensei said that final touches are done digitally now, but everything else is done manually, including the straight lines used to fill backgrounds, which are done by Satsuki-sensei, scanned and then placed digitally.

The colored title page has been already submitted to the Young Magazine editorial department. They asked everyone to look forward to seeing a new XXXHOLiC colored illustration after a long time.

They said that given that several years have passed, it’s likely that some art style changes will be noticeable, but they are trying their best to bring the original XXXHOLiC style back. They also mentioned they have to practice the “smoke” that appears in the manga.

All in all, although the hiatus started in the middle of volume 5, they assured everyone that by the time we read the compiled volume 5, the reading experience will be seamless, because they are picking from where the story left off, but they also hope readers will be able to follow the installments as they are published in Young Magazine.

Thank you for reading this post!

Special thanks to Claudio for helping me proof checking this translation! ♡

Episode 21 of CLAMP’s podcast, CLAMP Kanbukai, is out! You can listen to it on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.

This episode’s theme is “The End of the Year 2024”.

Fortunately, subtitles/closed captions are back again for this episode!

They started the episode bringing attention to the fact that Clear Card was finished in 2024. Ohkawa-sensei explains that technically they delivered the special chapter to the Nakayoshi editorial department in December 2023 but it was only published in March of 2024. The tankoubon also came out in April of 2024. They apologized again for the series of postponements regarding the ending that the series went through in its final run. They said sometimes they get “carried away” and they pointed out how the the last volumes of Tsubasa and RG Veda being thicker than the others is an example of that. Other authors do that too, they said.

Next, Ohkawa-sensei asks the other members to talk about one episode (in the story or during the making of it) that stuck in their mind. Nekoi-sensei goes first and she talks about Mirror card and its many variations (Clow, Sakura and “Clear” card), it was very challenging to her making sure that its design was according to the right version, in particular because the Sakura Card version and the “Clear Card” version were both important and appeared simultaneously in the story. She even mentioned a mistake that was only seen in the magazine chapter that was later fixed in the tankoubon version. The character that left her the biggest impression is Syaoran.

Next is Satsuki-sensei. The episode that stuck in her mind is also related to Mirror when she/it had to attend classes in Sakura’s place, in particular when she/it was in trouble for not doing the homework. She also mentioned that the parts inside Sakura’s World were very challenging due to the amount of (digital) screentones used in those scenes. The character that left her the biggest impression is Kaito.

Next is Mokona-sensei. The episode that stuck in her mind is when Syaoran shrunk in size (REWIND card). She said it was cute and it was the first time in a while Sakura said “hanyan~”. Ohkawa-sensei explains that she purposely made Sakura say “hanyan~” less often since she is now a little older. Mokona-sensei also remembers that it was in that episode where all the original cards appeared and she was worried if all the cards were drawn (she didn’t want to leave anyone out by accident). The character that left her the biggest impression is Kaito as well. She said she was really curious to find out more about him and why he acted the way he did. Ohkawa-sensei explains that as usual, she did not reveal to the other members all the details about the plot until the latter half of the story. She wanted Mokona-sensei to draw him in a way that would make him look like a villain, but at one point she realized that it was getting a little childish so she revealed a bit more. Ohkawa-sensei points out that just like Eriol, and because Kaito is also a magician, his external appearance does not necessarily correspond to his real age.

Last is Ohkawa-sensei. The character that left her the biggest impression is Momo. She knew from the beginning that there would a creature similar to Kero, Yue, Suppi and Ruby Moon, but she had a bit of hard time deciding whether her true form would have the shape of a human or of an animal. Mokona-sensei did a few sketches of a fully animal-like creature but she wasn’t really happy about it, so when Ohkawa-sensei asked her to draw a human figure, she thought “oh, that makes more sense”. Ohkawa-sensei only wanted the true form to have really long ears so that’s why she asked Nekoi-sensei to draw a mascot-like rabbit. The episode that stuck in her mind is when they are inside the picture book, near the very end. She mentions a particular spread where we can see Sakura flying in the Jabberwocky and the sky is black and white while at the bottom part there are crystals. She said that it was a milestone for them and they could say “wow, we are finally here”. She mentions that while it might not appear as such for the readers but for them it was a really long journey to get to that point.

Going back to their 2024 year in review, next they talked about the CLAMP Exhibition (of course!). Ohkawa-sensei asks the other members to tell their most memorable colored and monochrome manuscripts. She goes first, saying that when she saw the Watashi no Suki na Hito colored illustration, it was like she went back in time, to the point where she could feel the same atmosphere, the things she wrote and even the room she was in while writing it. She also remembers the precise memory of Nekoi-sensei drawing it (and she adds that she has a bad memory). She mentions that last month for the Beaver Full Moon they shared on their LINE channel a wallpaper inspired by the Watashi no Suki na Hito cover illustrations with baby beavers instead of cats (which used one as a model of their late cats, Kakyou). For the monochrome manuscript, she mentioned this Yuuko illustration where we can clearly see the black lines and how that reminded her that it was done by hand (by Satsuki-sensei).

Next is Satsuki-sensei. The colored illustrations that caused the biggest impact to her were the Tokyo Babylon ones, in particular the one used in the cover of volume 1 and the one where they are sitting on top of a car. For the monochrome one, it was also the Yuuko one mentioned before by Ohkawa-sensei.

Next is Nekoi-sensei. The colored illustrations that caused the biggest impact to her were the RG Veda ones. She mentioned something about “youth feeling” that they don’t have anymore and how she doesn’t really remember how they pulled out some of the things that she saw, like how they managed to obtain that particular effect or result. She said at that time she followed a lot of instructions written by Mokona-sensei at the back of the manuscripts. For the colored one, it was the huge, over one-meter height RG Veda illustration that they did for the OVA poster. Ohkawa-sensei explains that while it might seem strange now, for large-scale printing at that time, sometimes they were asked to draw something as big as possible.

Lastly is Mokona-sensei. The colored illustration that caused the biggest impact to her was the color spread for the first chapter of CLAMP Gakuen Tanteidan. She mentioned a seal-like stamp that Ohkawa-sensei asked her to add and she used color tone for that even though she didn’t really know why. Ohkawa-sensei explains that she wanted it to have a “pop ad” feeling to it and at that time they couldn’t really ask the editorial department to add something like that so they had to do it themselves (I kinda like this illustration even more now after learning this! And I remember seeing it at the CLAMP Exhibition and really noticing the color tone!). For the monochrome one, she also mentioned the RG Veda ones and how they were very dense (even more than the X ones, in her opinion). She also mentioned the same thing as Nekoi-sensei did, about that being the peak of their youth and they expressed all their passion of wanting to be seen and noticed. In particular, she mentioned this Souma and Kendappa scene (DISCLAIMER: SPOILERS for RG Veda on the link).

To close the episode, the four of them quickly mentioned a highlight for their personal lives in 2024. Among them, they were really happy that their long time friend and movie director Yamazaki Takeshi won an Academy Award.

Thank you for reading this post!

Episode 20 of CLAMP’s podcast, CLAMP Kanbukai, is out! You can listen to it on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.

This episode’s theme is “First time in Miyako-jima”.

For some reason, subtitles/closed captions are not available this time on the YouTube video. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, and I hope this doesn’t mean that future episodes also will not have subtitles. The lack of subtitles makes it harder to understand for non-Japanese speakers and it also goes against accessibility best practices. That being said, it was much more difficult to understand what they were talking about on this episode, due to the absence of the automatic subtitles.

They all traveled to Miyako-jima, in Okinawa, and this episode was recorded there (not at their usual studio). They begin the episode saying that they are using lavalier microphones (pin mics) for the first time, so the sound might be a little different than usual.

Last time they came to Okinawa it was at the beginning of this year right after the end of the Clear Card serialization. They attempted to record an episode on site with their smartphones but it didn’t turn out great. This time, they are recording on site with appropriate the gear.

It seems like just like last time, the weather was not so great…

They rode on segways (Segway PT) for the first time and they talked a little about it.

Ohkawa-sensei talked about how they barely took time off during the past 35 years of their career. They all remembered the very intense schedule they had been, particularly during the time when Tsubasa and XXXHOLiC were both being published weekly and they only had a few days off in a whole year. They would work from 10 am until 10 pm only to see each other again the next day at 10 am and repeat it all over again.

In fact, it’s funny because just yesterday I shared on my Bluesky account that in 2024 CLAMP have released just one manga chapter (the special Clear Card arc chapter, in March). It was probably a conscious decision they took this year, to take things more slowly after working almost non-stop for 35 years. It’s like Ohkawa-sensei is justifying themselves for going to Okinawa for some vacation. You all worked so hard, ladies, you deserve this ♡

Ohkawa-sensei mentions at one point that she wasn’t very into drinking alcohol at first. She used to like eating sweets more and going to family restaurants. In fact, Satsuki-sensei mentions that mascots like Kero and Piffle were originally created while they were doodling at a family restaurant.

At another point, they talked a little about all four of them living together. Some of the talk is very similar to what we heard before in the 2005 Top Runner interview (how Mokona-sensei used to sleep in the closet because she is the smallest of them, they even repeated the Doraemon reference here as well). They only started living apart once they moved to Shimokitazawa, in Tokyo, around their 15th anniversary.

For the remaining of the episode, they talked about things that they have done in the trip and useful travel companions/items.

Thank you for reading this post!