Episode 28 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 “CLAMP Exhibition Original Illustrations and Collaboration Items”.

As indicated by the green color of the episode, this means that they recorded this outside of their usual recording studio. It seems they were at the Okura Hotel (not sure which one, but it could be the one in Tokyo).

They started the episode talking about the trip they did to Nagoya in order to leave their signatures. Apparently, they all had to return to Kyoto quickly so they literally just signed and rushed back to Kyoto on the Shinkansen. It seems like they stayed for only 10 minutes. They were sorry that they couldn’t have any of the food they were looking forward to (they even wrote in Young Magazine a comment in which they were wondering what kind of food they should eat while in Nagoya, but alas, they were unable to do it).

Next, they talked about the signatures in Nagoya being their biggest ones yet. They take turns in whoever writes the “CLAMP” part of the signatures and it seems like this time it was Satsuki-sensei.

The last time the 4 of them went to Nagoya was for CLAMP FESTIVAL (in 2012) and at that time they couldn’t stay either and had to go back to Kyoto after the end of their participation due to a deadline they had to meet. The artists were having an after party but they couldn’t stay.

Before meeting the other two, Mokona-sensei and Satsuki-sensei visited the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya. They tried to go to the museum cafe but it was too crowded and the line was too big, so they met the other two and everyone came back to Kyoto, as mentioned earlier, and they all ended up eating Okonomiyaki in Kyoto.

Ohkawa-sensei said she would like to “revenge” that and eat something delicious in Nagoya sometime.

Next, they went into the main topic: the shikishi (signed drawing board) they did for each of the CLAMP Exhibition -SELECTION- cities.

For Osaka, because it was the first city, they went with the same concept used for the new illustration they did for the Exhibition: their debut work and their latest work, which is why it has Ashura and Sakura. Ohkawa-sensei asked to have flowers in it. They said that people often think that they like to draw flowers but in fact, they don’t (love it). They quickly added that of course they love flowers (but drawing them is more complicated, I guess). It seems that Mokona-sensei realized she had drawn a lot of different kinds of flowers when they made different stickers with flowers only drawn by her for the “Flower Room” in the Cardcaptor Sakura Exhibition.

For Fukuoka, it was Hikaru and Kamui. Here, Mokona-sensei said it was very easy drawing them both, and that they look like siblings. Ohkawa-sensei asked if it was because they are both from the same “period” (meaning X and Magic Knight Rayearth were drawn around the same time), to which Mokona-sensei agreed. Ohkawa-sensei then said that their eyes are similar, but Mokona-sensei said their eyes are not so similar, but somehow these two make “sense” together.

For Sapporo, it was Kobato, Subaru and Chii. Ohkawa-sensei expressed some concerns that having three characters for a small shikishi might feel too “crowded”. They talked about that, unlike the covers that they are drawing for the CLAMP PREMIUM COLLECTION series, in which they are consciously unifying all their different styles in one single style, for this shikishi the styles were not unified (meaning they respected the different styles from each work) and still somehow the final result looks coherent.

And finally, for Nagoya, it was Syaoran and Watanuki. They didn’t say anything relevant about this one, only that it is Watanuki from XXXHOLiC Rei, which is currently being serialized.

Next, they talked about the process of making all four shikishi. Since the beginning, the organizing committee had suggested to sell miniature versions of the shikishi as goods and that made them think of a specific method to make sure the final product would turn out well. Apparently they didn’t draw directly on the shikishi board, but rather on regular paper and then transferred it to the shikishi board using a carbon copy method, then traced it with pigma pen. Finally, the coloring was made using Copic markers. Coloring the flowers is what took most of the time.

Since there are four shikishi, they also took turns in writing the “CLAMP Exhibition -SELECTION-” portion in each shikishi (meaning a different member wrote it for each shikishi). Ohkawa-sensei ranted a little that since it’s such a small, but very detailed drawing, perhaps there was no need to have all their four signatures, perhaps having only “CLAMP” would have been enough (I disagree xD).

They did not reveal which member wrote which one. Maybe soon they will reveal it?

If you look at the shikishi, indeed the way “CLAMP Exhibition -SELECTION-” is written looks different in each one:

After that, they briefly mentioned the more recent collaborations with CONVERSE TOKYO and GODIVA. They are very honored and happy to collaborate with GODIVA since they have memories when they were kids of GODIVA being a high-class brand. Nekoi-sensei and Satsuki-sensei really like their chocolate ice cream. They confirmed that the chibis were drawn by Mokona-sensei.

Lastly, they spent the remaining minutes of the episode talking about yukata and kimono dress code. Both Ohkawa-sensei and Nekoi-sensei recently wore yukata after a long time and the other two helped them by lending accessories and giving them tips/recommendations.

Thank you for reading this post!

Episode 27 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 “Places we visited from early summer to summer”.

They started the episode explaining that they were not recording this episode at their usual recording studio and their usual microphones. Instead, they were using lapel microphones. It was raining heavily during the recording and they wondered whether the rain could be heard (indeed, they sound a little muffled, maybe the audio was filtered a little to erase any noise, plus these lapel microphones are not as good as the big ones). They explained that when the episode image on YouTube is green, it means that it’s an episode where they are using lapel microphones. Indeed I had noticed that green was used for when the recordings were made outside their recording studio (for example, the ones they did in Okinawa).

Then, they talked about a collaboration cafe that is now open at Sweets Paradise. It was a bit hard for me to understand since I am not familiar with the characters, but they all really enjoyed it. Ohkawa-sensei pointed out that they don’t usually go to collaboration cafes themselves. Mokona-sensei mentioned a Resident Evil and a BASARA one she/they went to but that seems to be about it. Ohkawa-sensei recalled that sometime ago there was a XXXHOLiC one in Shibuya. Satsuki-sensei says that Ohkawa-sensei was the only one that went to that one, the others didn’t. Ohkawa-sensei says she would like to be able to visit collaboration cafes based on CLAMP’s works more often. They said that even during the Cardcaptor Sakura Exhibition in Roppongi, while they did try the collaboration menu that was served to them, they never actually went to the cafe itself.

Next, they talked about their trip to Hokkaido for the Sapporo leg of CLAMP Exhibition -SELECTION-. This time, they were able to make their signatures about 10x bigger than last time!

They were really big xD

They spent the rest of the episode talking about the things they did in Hokkaido. It was a bit hard for me to translate, again due to me not being entirely familiar with the names and places, but Ohkawa-sensei mentioned an Italian restaurant they went to with the exhibition crew called Orizzonte that she really enjoyed.

Hokkaido is the land of the Ainu people and it seems like all of them except Ohkawa-sensei took some sort of Ainu embroidery workshop while Ohkawa-sensei went to a cafe because she had some work to be done. However, Ohkawa-sensei realized she had left her wallet and iPhone on her room so she had to ask for some money to the other three in order to pay for her latte xD

Ah, yes, Mokona-sensei visited some local shrines. She wanted to take pictures but the weather was not very good. She said she will upload pictures of her Goshuin on the podcast’s instagram account.

It seems like the next episode will also be centered around their summer activities.

Thank you for reading this post!