X: Volume 3

Introduction

Since I was eleven and started secondary school maths, followed by GCSEs and A'Levels, and then later on when I did my degree, I was always, in some form or another, trying to figure out what x was. Here I am, several years later, and I'm still trying to do the same thing. That's my lame attempt at a witty intro, and is probably where the peak of erudition occurs in this review. It's all downhill from here. Good Grief! I just realised, I ought to have saved it for volume 6! As it is, this is the third volume of X: The TV Series, and the four episodes herein take us to the halfway point of the story.

The millennium is impending, which as we all know means the end of the world. In this case, the end of the world will come about when the Dragons of Earth battle the Dragons of Heaven for the fate of mankind. The Dragons of Earth aim to destroy humanity, and give Earth a clean slate to start afresh. The Dragons of Heaven are their counterparts and they aim to protect humanity. The seer Hinoto has foretold that the fate of the world rests in the hands of one man, Kamui Shiro, and how events will unfold will depend on which path he chooses. When Kamui returns to Tokyo, he's reluctant to even get involved, staying aloof and uninterested. But he's forced to make a choice when his childhood friends Fuma and Kotori Monou are drawn into the conflict.


The next four episodes of X are presented on this MVM disc.

9. Onmyou
Subaru Sumeragi, Onmyou mystic and head of the Sumeragi clan is most likely a Dragon of Heaven, and it falls on Sorata and Arashi to find out for sure and recruit him into the group. The fate of the world doesn't matter much to Subaru though, he's more interested in exacting vengeance against the man who killed his sister Hokuto. Seishiro Sakurazuka, also an Onmyou mystic used to be close to the siblings, until he betrayed them. That's the same Sakurazuka who attacked Kamui in the previous episode, and who happens to be one of the Dragons of Earth.

10. Inuki
Nekoi Yuzuriha is having a wonderful time in Tokyo, especially having met all these new people who can see her dog Inuki. But as she writes to her grandmother, the person who most made an impression on her was someone totally unrelated to the Dragons of Heaven, just a normal soldier who happened to be able to see Inuki as well. Later, she is to meet another potential Dragon of Heaven, Saiki's uncle Aoki Seichiro, but he's late to their appointment. While they wait, Nekoi goes for ice cream, and runs into the soldier again. His name she learns is Kusanagi Shiyu, and as they get to chat, she tells him about her childhood.


11. Border
Hinoto's sister pays her another visit in her dreams, claiming to have figured out just what the presence of the second Kamui in the vision means. She knows there is a Twin Star, and she has a good idea just who it is. It means that if the Dragons of Heaven get Kamui, the Dragons of Earth get Kamui too. Kotori has also seen the portent, and she understands even more, seeing a battle to the death between Kamui and her brother Fuma. Fuma meanwhile is getting to know his friend Kamui again, after six years apart. Kamui finally opens up with what has happened in the intervening years, telling his story while they wait for his aunt Tokiko. Tokiko has promised to bring him the Divine Sword, but no one is prepared for what it actually means.

12. Alternative
Seeing the Divine Sword has sent Kotori into unconsciousness, overwhelmed by memories of her own mother's death. At the same time a helicopter arrives from the CLAMP campus, Tokiko's people who wish to take the sword into custody, and seal it away until the prophesied day. They also promise to look after Kotori, but Kotori's in the dream realm, where she meets Dragon of Earth Kakyou. Kakyou presents her with a choice, while in the waking world Kamui faces a choice as well. With the Divine Sword in his possession, he can either choose the path of Revolution or the Present. But the prophecy is coming to pass quicker than anyone can anticipate. There is another Kamui, he is about to awaken, and destiny will place him in opposition to Kamui Shiro. The other Kamui is his best friend, Fuma Monou.

Picture

X gets a 4:3 transfer reflecting the original source. It's a splendid presentation, up there with the best of anime releases, smooth and clear, and as sharp as possible given the inevitable NTSC-PAL conversion. About the only flaw I could pick at is some minor shimmer on fine detail, but it crops up rarely enough to be a major issue. From 2001, this is one of the earlier anime shows to be accomplished within the bowels of a PC, instead of hordes of animators using inks, paints and cel acetate, and it does show, with a uniformity of colour in the characters, and a somewhat excessively clean feel to the animation. But the animation is of decent quality, certainly holding up well today. As you would expect from a director like Yoshiaki Kawajiri, it simply drips atmosphere and style. CLAMP's designs are evident too, in the tall, elegant characters, with distinctive features. X as an anime from the early part of the decade has aged visually, but it has aged well indeed.

Sound

As mentioned before, you have a choice between DD 5.1 English, and DD 2.0 Japanese, along with an optional translated subtitle track. It's disappointing that there isn't a separate signs only track, as there is plenty of onscreen text that has to be translated, and it means that dub aficionados will be flipping the subtitles on and off to see what various signs and captions mean. As usual, I only sampled the English dub, and despite such anime dub stalwarts as Crispin Freeman, Lia Sargent and Michelle Ruff in the cast, it's aged worse than the animation has, sounding very much of its time. It's a shame really, as the 5.1 audio is very impressive. It's vibrant, expressive, and put to good use to convey the atmospheric action sequences. X also boasts grand orchestral themes for its incidental music, and helps the show sound epic in scope and scale. Another shame then, that the 5.1 Japanese mix created for the US remix edition couldn't be sourced, although the 2.0 stereo option does sound quite pleasant given the pro-logic polish.

Extras

Trailers on this disc include one for the Gunparade March, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. You also get the textless credits.

Conclusion

I was going to start this bit with a heartfelt 'ditto', followed by an in depth 'more of the same', as X: Volume 3 starts off in exactly the same vein as Volume 2 ended, slowly and surely establishing the world, the backgrounds of the characters, and goes on to develop the relationships between them. As before, it's all about how the past defines the present, and so we get to learn who these characters were before they were chosen as Dragons, and the moments of tragedy that have shaped them into the people that they are now. The main story continues to develop and does so quite deliberately in the background, making sure that the story still has something of an ominous tone, but never much more than that. But then in the final episode on this disc, everything changes, and I find that my carefully selected 'ditto' just doesn't apply anymore.


We begin with the characters of Subaru and Seishiro in the first episode on this disc, two of the characters in which I have the most interest, as this story serves as something of a sequel to Tokyo Babylon. It was a major disappointment in the X movie, in which the two of them merely appeared only to kill each other off, practically in the prologue. Just as in the previous volume where a battle between The Beast, and Sorata and Arashi tipped a nod to their climactic scene in the movie, so it is that the encounter between Seishiro and Subaru here also provokes reminders of the film, but obviously it's nowhere near as terminal. This series has a neat way of referring to the film without making it blatantly obvious, and always maintaining its own separate story universe at the same time. In this episode, Subaru is simply pursuing his day job as an Onmyou mystic, travelling to an exorcism, when the past catches up with him, a combination of his own memories and external influences. We get to learn just what happened to drive the two former friends and allies apart, and the tragedy that befell his sister Hokuto.


Then it is a return to the story of Nekoi and her invisible dog Inuki, which was touched on to a fair extent in the previous volume. It may seem a little redundant to do so again, but this time we get to see the effect of having what others would term an 'imaginary' friend had on her childhood, and the way that she was ostracised for her eccentricity. This episode is also used to introduce Aoki Seichiro, as well as develop the relationship between Nekoi and the soldier Kusanagi. Nekoi is perhaps the most childlike and innocent of the characters, and as such her episode almost serves as light relief in the series, and although it is a bit of a repetition, it does serve to break up the run of bleakness.


It also serves as a parallel to the next episode on the disc, where we learn just what happened to Kamui when he left Tokyo with his mother for Okinawa. As a child, he too suffered ostracism for his differences, but his peers were more brutal about it. All he could think about was following his mother's advice and protecting that which is most precious to him, his friends Kotori and Fuma. Yet it's only the tragic sacrifice of his mother that starts his journey back to Tokyo. All this comes out as a means of rapprochement between him and Fuma, who with Kotori have just been grieving the loss of their father. You think that they have finally found common ground to strengthen their friendship, but tragedy and fate are around the corner. First Kamui's aunt Tokiko brings him the second Sword of Destiny, in about as shocking a way as possible, and in a way that echoes the tragic loss of Kotori and Fuma's mother. Then the proverbial really does hit the fan, as the fateful prophecy unfolds, the second Sword of Destiny requires a second 'Kamui' and with his father's deathbed pronouncement that he is Kamui's Twin Star, it's with a morbid inevitability that Fuma picks up the sword, and takes his place against his best friend Kamui. The ending of the final episode on this disc is a kick in the teeth if you are even slightly invested in the show, and this is where MVM opt to take a breather between volumes. No X: Volume 4 until February.


The fact that I'm gnashing my teeth at this is an indication that X the TV series has finally grown on me. It is the writing that is the strongest aspect of this show. The story is compelling, well written, and delivered in pieces that you need to put together like an intricate jigsaw. The characters, despite a certain CLAMP homogeneity are written well enough to be easily differentiated, and above all, they all have interesting tales. And while the temptation is to side with Kamui and the Dragons of Heaven, simply because they are introduced as the heroes, there's little in the Dragons of Earth to immediately label them as villains, until Fuma 'awakens' that is. The Dragons of Earth may be a little more brutal and determined, but they inevitably have aspects of their past that have defined their personalities in this way, and as we learn from Kakyou in this volume, not all of them are necessarily antagonistic.


Volume 3 is where X kicks it up a gear, we ease off the flashbacks and scene setting, and the ball starts rolling on the story proper. It looks to be a classic of a story too, with betrayal and vengeance, redemption and salvation at its heart. There are still a couple of characters like Karen and Seichiro who need their backgrounds filling in, but hopefully X can manage to do so while maintaining the juggernaut pace and portentous mood that the final episode on this disc establishes. Now it's just a matter of waiting for volume 4.