Tsubasa CARACTere CHRoNiCLE, ILLuSTRaTION CHRoNiCLE covers announced

Here are the covers of Tsubasa CARACTere CHRoNiCLE and the mini-artbook Tsubasa ILLuSTRaTION CHRoNiCLE:

They go on sale simultaneously on December 2, along with Card Captor Sakura Clear Card arc #1 (cover to be announced).

You can pre-order them from CD Japan and Amazon Japan.

CD Japan:

Amazon Japan:

Syaoran and Sakura look particularly young! I guess it must be hard for Mokona to switch styles ^^” And I was certainly not expecting an Alice in Wonderland theme for the mini-artbook cover. Mokona is the Queen of Hearts =)

I’m looking forward to these!

 

CLAMP to do character design concept for “Kabukibu!” TV Anime adaptation

©CLAMP・ShigatsuTsuitachi CO.,LTD. ©榎田ユウリ/KADOKAWA/カブキブ推進委員会

©CLAMP・ShigatsuTsuitachi CO.,LTD. ©榎田ユウリ/KADOKAWA/カブキブ推進委員会

CLAMP will be in charge of the character design concept for the TV Anime adaptation of Yuuri Eda’s light novel series Kabukibu!

The series revolves around Kurogo Kurusu, a high school student who loves kabuki so much that it’s annoying. Kurogo yearns to perform kabuki as part of a club at his school, but currently his school doesn’t have a kabuki club. So Kurogo sets out to create a kabuki club, and his first order of business is to gather members. (ANN)

The series is published by Kadokawa and the 5th volume will be released on November 25.

The TV Anime series will be animated by Studio Deen and is scheduled to start broadcast on TBS in April 2017.

A clean, text-less version of the key visual by CLAMP can be seen here.

Source: CLAMP-NET.COM, Kabukibu! TBS Official Website, Comic Natalie.

It looks so nice! I hope the anime will follow the color scheme of that promotional image — althought that looks more manga-ish than anime.

Looking forward to new CLAMP art for this!

XXXHOLiC Rei – Chapter 53 (Updated)

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

Japanese RAWs.
English translations.

DISCLAIMER: If you enjoyed reading this story, please support CLAMP by purchasing the original or licensed material available in your country.

XXXHOLiC Rei is available for purchase at CD Japan and Amazon Japan with worldwide shipping.

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Cybozu interviews CLAMP and Nanase Ohkawa

clampCLAMP served as a case study for Cybozu on how the Cybozu Live tool can be used for team management. CLAMP use Cybozu Live in their daily work to communicate between themselves and their editors.

Cybozu is a Tokyo-based software company that provides a web-based groupware known as Cybozu Office, popular in Japan (Wikipedia). Early in 2013, CLAMP tweeted their appreciation for Cybozu:

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“We don’t use e-mail, we use ‘Cybozu Live’ to communicate with our editors and partners. It’s really useful. Thank you very much, Cybozu-san!”

Apart from the interview with CLAMP, there is also a talk with Nanase Ohkawa and a Cybozu staff member. To fit the company’s case study purposes, the interview with CLAMP is very Cybozu-centered and how the tool helps their daily routine. The talk with Nanase Ohkawa, on the other hand, touches various social aspects, including her view on minorities.

CLAMP Interview
Nanase Ohkawa talk

Although it isn’t very CLAMP-centered, this is the first CLAMP interview in years and we get to see a few pictures of their studio in Kyoto for the very first time.

I urge all the kind people who translate XXXHOLiC and Card Captor Sakura monthly to contribute with a translation to this interview. The CLAMP community would highly appreciate it.

Follow up: XXXHOLiC Rei #4 sales report – Fourth week

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

XXXHOLiC Rei #4 fell to the 40th position in Oricon’s weekly comic ranking, with 17,674 copies sold on its fourth week of sales and an estimate of 224,257 copies sold overall.

While the number of copies sold fell less than 50% in comparison to last week, the overall sales up to the 4th week are the lowest for a XXXHOLiC volume, even lower than the overall 3rd week sales for the previous 3 volumes of XXXHOLiC Rei.

These numbers are only for the regular edition. Numbers for the Blu-Ray limited edition are unknown.

Source: Anime News Network.

Here is a chart of the previous XXXHOLiC Rei ranking performances, for comparision’s sake. You can see that the 4th volume had the weakest performance of all.

Volume 1

Week

Oricon Ranking

Sales

Accumulated Sales

1 – 10/21/2013~10/27/2013

6

183.837

183,837

2 – 10/28/2013~11/03/2013

8

85.158

268.995

Volume 2

Week

Oricon Ranking

Sales

Accumulated Sales

1 – 04/21/2014~04/27/2014

3

155,848

155,848

2 – 04/28/2014~05/04/2014

12

73,911

229,759

3 – 05/05/2014~05/11/2014

22

35,090

264,849

Volume 3

Week

Oricon Ranking

Sales

Accumulated Sales

1 – 08/18/2014~08/24/2014

4

154,586

154,586

2 – 08/25/2014~08/31/2014

10

76,331

230,917

3 – 09/01/2014~09/08/2014

21

29,633

260,550

Volume 4

Week

Oricon Ranking

Sales

Accumulated Sales

1 – 10/03/2016~10/09/2016

7

103,919

103,919

2 – 10/10/2016~10/16/2016

5

72,656

176,575

3 – 10/17/2016~10/23/2016

28

30,008

206,583

4 – 10/24/2016~10/30/2016

40

17,674

224,257

These numbers are still good. There are many titles out there selling way less than this, but there is no denial that XXXHOLiC is slowly losing its popularity and the numbers are there to prove it.

It is likely that XXXHOLiC Rei #4 will not show up again next week on Oricon, but if that turns out to be the case, I’ll post here about its performance.

Card Captor Sakura – Clear Card arc – Chapter 6 (Updated)

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

Chinese scanlations.
English translations.

DISCLAIMER: If you enjoyed reading this story, please support CLAMP by purchasing the original or licensed material available in your country.

Card Captor Sakura is available for purchase at CD Japan and Amazon Japan with worldwide shipping.

Comments

Follow up: XXXHOLiC Rei #4 sales report – Third week

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

XXXHOLiC Rei #4 fell to the 28th position in Oricon’s weekly comic ranking, with 30,008 copies sold on its third week of sales and an estimate of 206,583 copies sold overall.

This week’s performance is only slightly better than the third week performance of volume 3 (30.008 for volume 4 against 29,633 of volume 3). However when you consider the overall sales, this volume remains having the worst numbers for a XXXHOLiC volume on its third week.

These numbers are only for the regular edition. Numbers for the Blu-Ray limited edition are unknown.

It is likely that XXXHOLiC Rei #4 will show up again next week on Oricon, if that is the case, I’ll post here about its performance along with a chart of the previous XXXHOLiC Rei ranking performances.

Source: Anime News Network.

Card Captor Sakura and Tsubasa books pricing announced

Four CLAMP books are scheduled to be released in December and the prices have been announced.

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card arc #1 (regular edition)

Release date: December 2
Price: 429 yens

* Kodansha has yet to announce the price for the limited edition but some online shops are listing it for 2280 yens (like Animate).

Official Guide Book Tsubasa CARACTere CHRoNiCLE

Release date: December 2
Price: 880 yens

Tsubasa Mini Artbook – Tsubasa ILLuSTRaTION CHRoNiCLE

Release date: December 2
Price: 680 yens

Official Guide Book Tsubasa SToRy CHRoNiCLE

Release date: December 31
Price: 880 yens

Now let’s talk about these prices. Both guidebooks having the same price seems fair to me, and the prices are OK too, as expected. Now, I was a little surprised to know that the mini-artbook is actually cheaper than the guidebooks. The binding must be similar to the two previously released artbooks, I’m just curious about its size dimensions (A4 vs A5). We also have the release date for the second guide: the very last day of 2016.

Regarding Card Captor Sakura, the price is similar to the original tankoubon release from the 90s, so it looks like it’s gonna be closer to that edition than the Nakayoshi 60th Anniversary edition, design-wise. It doesn’t look like it’s coming with color pages, either… We still have to know more info about the limited edition but it’d say the book itself will be the same for both versions and the bonus material (a mangaka set for volume 1) will be the only difference between them.

Follow up: XXXHOLiC Rei #4 sales report

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

Good news (sort of)!

XXXHOLiC Rei #4 climbed to the 5th position in Oricon’s weekly comic ranking, with 72.656 copies sold on its second week of sales and an estimate of 176,575 copies sold overall.

Although it climbed two positions in comparison to last week’s chart, this is the worst second week performance for a XXXHOLiC volume since I started taking record of sales (volume 13). It is also the worst overall sales for a XXXHOLiC volume two weeks after its release.

These numbers are only for the regular edition. Numbers for the Blu-Ray limited edition are unknown but they are probably lower than 12.420, which is how much the last position sold this past week.

For comparison’s sake, the first three volumes of XXXHOLiC Rei sold 85.158, 73,911 and 76,331 copies on their second week of sales, respectively.

It is likely that XXXHOLiC Rei #4 will show up again next week on Oricon, if that is the case, I’ll post here about its performance.

Source: Anime News Network.

Much like Tsubasa, XXXHOLiC is slowly selling less and less copies by each new volume. Could this be a sign of XXXHOLiC loosing its popularity? Either way, Kodansha doesn’t seem to care much about that, what with the release of limited editions for each volume, the upcoming Tsubasa guide books and mini-artbook and XXXHOLiC‘s theatre adaptation. Both series are selling fairly well, but clearly not as they used to.

On another note, the release dates for the upcoming Tsubasa guide books and mini-artbook have been postponed. Please check this post for the updated release dates.

XXXHOLiC Rei #4 sales report

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

© CLAMP・Shigatsu Tsuitachi CO.,LTD. / 講談社

XXXHOLiC Rei #4 debuted at the 7th position in Oricon’s weekly comic ranking, with 103.919 copies sold on its first week of sales.

This is the worst first week performance for a XXXHOLiC volume ever since I started taking record of sales (volume 13). On the other hand, XXXHOLiC Rei #4 was Kodansha‘s best selling title of that week. That needs to be acknowledged.

These numbers are only for the regular edition. Numbers for the Blu-Ray limited edition are unknown but they are probably lower than 15.765, which is how much the last position sold in that week.

For comparison’s sake, the first three volumes of XXXHOLiC Rei sold 183.837, 155.848 and 154.586 copies on their first week of sales, respectively.

It is likely that XXXHOLiC Rei #4 will show up again next week on Oricon, if that is the case, I’ll post here about its performance.

Source: Anime News Network.