CLAMPing

i've never really liked clamp's manga. too shoujo and a drawing style that is just way too girlie for me. not that it's bad or anything, but it's just personal preferences.

and then out of my laziness, i decided not to start reading this week's assigned reading and came across cardcaptor sakura.

it's made by clamp, very obvious; with everyone looking girly, big sparkly eyes, weird romance story...

then i noticed something that completely bothers me: the ROMANCE. at first it was just "haha that's stupid" kinda impression, but then i eventually got up to the point where i went "o shit that's messed up, they're serious." what is messed up? everything. i've never read magic knight rayearth or x/1999, so that makes sakura the first clamp's manga i've read. i doubt, however, that the other manga are messed up like this one. cardcaptor sakura is a story about a 4th grader named sakura who runs around catching cards that are supposedly going to bring end to the world if not caught. now, the other characters are sakura's friends, there are about six or seven of them, tomoyo being her closest friend, sakura's brother touya and father, touya's friend yukito, and li who is also one of sakura's 4th grader friends. now here's what's messed up:

1. sakura, a 4th grader, is madly in love with yukito, a highschool student.
2. sakura's mother, nadeshiko, was still 16 and still in highschool when she married her father back who was 27. apparently nadeshiko was a student and sakura's father was a teacher at that same school. speaking of affairs, yo.
3. touya, who is now in highschool, had an affair with one of his teacher in the past. no, not just affair, they were lovers.
4. touya and yukito, 2 highschool friends, at many occasion look at each other the way shoujo manga characters look at each other when they're madly in love, with flowers blooming in the background and sparkles everywhere. what the heck?
5. li, a boy in sakura's class who also captures cards, openly admitted that he's in love in yukito, just like sakura.
6. sakura's friend rika, a 4th grader also, is having a romance relationship with her teacher.
7. tomoyo, sakura's best friend since a long time ago, turns out to be her cousin and she apparently have a thing for sakura when she told sakura "i love you, but in a way that you won't understand because it's different from your love to me. i'll explain to you when you get older." what the heck? this is a 4th grader, yo.

i sense a whole bunch of homosexual innuendos in this manga, as well as pedophilia and incest. what was clamp thinking? this manga is supposed to be for little kids. no wonder a friend of mine almost turns lesbian after reading this manga.

aside from the bizzare parts, clamp upholds its reputation. the intricacy of the drawing and the delicate details are unmatched by any other mangaka. in these things, clamp is still the best in business. details like these:







aside from technicalities, i think clamp has a reason to put in several different sexual innuendos in this manga. the most likely one i could think of is expressing innocence. when you're a kid, you don't know about these things, you don't feel embarassed about liking people of the same gender. you don't even know what homosexuality means. all you see is that when people are nice to you, you love them with all your heart. the several cases of a student having affair with a teacher in this manga kinda shows you that love can sometimes be found in the weirdest of places, and sometimes with the most unlikely people. society today has brought to us norms, a way of living, ethics, that is based on traditions. but again, who started it? who first said that it's wrong for a 4th grader to have a romance relationship with her teacher? who first said that homosexuality is wrong? how do we know that these things are wrong? just because a lot of people say it's wrong doesn't make it wrong.

when we were little, we don't pass on judgment, we don't judge what is right and what is wrong. and maybe this world would be a much better place if we don't know what is right or wrong, and if we don't judge people. i think that's clamp's main message in this messed up manga: stick to your child-like innocence; losing it is like giving up half of your happiness.