The four women of CLAMP should have another hit on their hands with Tsubasa, if only because the series brings back some of the group's most beloved characters, albeit in radically altered form. While recent offerings have been hit or miss, the first volume of this series is a bang-up opening it what's sure to be another solid title.

Fans who are familiar with CLAMP's work will recognize a good number of the main and supporting characters. What's particularly clever about Tsubasa is that fact that, though we've seen these folks before, the versions that appear here are not those we remember. From Card Captor Sakura, we meet Sakura, Syaoran, Toya, and Yukito, but they are no longer students in Japan. All are a few years older, and they exist in another universe entirely, one in which Toya is king and Sakura princess, with Yuki as the high priest and Syaoran a young archaeologist. Though the roles and ages of the characters have changed, the relationships remain intact. Syaoran and Sakura still share a tender, if unrealized, love; Toya and Yukito are best friends, possibly more.

But while Sakura (the series) was a parody of "magical girl" manga which carefully balanced the fantastic with the everyday, Tsubasa is pure fantasy.

As the manga opens, Syaoran is working to realize his late father's dream of uncovering a massive set of ruins just outside the capital city of the Kingdom of Clow. When Sakura goes to visit him, she triggers a magical seal that takes her memories and scatters them across many universes. Yukito, quick thinking as always, uses his magical powers to send Syaoran and Sakura to a time-space witch, the only person who can save Sakura.

There, he meets Fai and Kurogane, two men from two other universes who also have favors to ask of the witch. The three of them will end up having to work together to each get what they want--but at a price.

Part of the fun of Tsubasa is seeing characters from CLAMP's other manga make appearances, but the series stands well enough on its own and the cameos don't seem forced. The story isn't brilliant, but the writing is sharp and the characters are well-defined, even after just one volume.

The art is solid, as is to be expected from CLAMP, but the paper quality is sub-par, resulting in a slightly blurring of some of the darker lines, particularly during action sequences with lots of black on the page. While the manga is standard size, I almost wish it was available in a larger format, like an American graphic novel, in order to fully appreciate the artwork.

The translation is decent and keeps within the "true" manga format that Del Ray has kept all of their adaptations in, reading from right to left and retaining the original feel of the Japanese text as much as possible.

While you don't have to have read any of CLAMP's previous work to enjoy Tsubasa, longtime fans will likely get a little more out of the series than newcomers. The books also cross over with another new CLAMP title, Xxxholic, though that appears to be a one-shot event for the first volume of each.

For anyone who's enjoyed Card Captor Sakura or Chobits, this is a must-buy. Other manga readers would likely do better to start with one of those series for their introduction to the world of CLAMP.

Previous manga reviews:

• Kare Kano - by Masami Tsuda
• Negima! - by Ken Akamatsu