Tsubasa/xxHolic Question

[USSRGirl]

I recently saw a pic from xxHolic Midsommer Night's Dream and thought
"oooh must see!" The style reminds me a lot of Tim Burton and the plot sounds nice and pyschotic so far as I understand it. I have a question though and would be really grateful if someone would clear it up -

Are xxHolic and Tsubasa directly related or just share similar themes like Cat Returns vs. Whisper of the Heart? I can't see any similarity between the two in terms of art and plot but both look interesting. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I were to get it which should I get first? How do I start at the beginning of this weird series?

[EricTheFred]

Holic and Tsubasa are already very available as Manga (nearly all Japanese volumes are available in English) so you can learn pretty quickly about the connection by dropping by a bookstore or library and reading the first couple volumes of each.

In a nutshell, the stories are very different, but mildly intertwined. The main characters of Tsubasa are sent on their quest thanks to the magic of one of the main characters of Holic. They occasionally interact after that. One is the saga of an adventuring group on an interdimensional quest to retrieve the stolen memories of a princess, the other is a monster-of-the-week format supernatural story. They both, in true CLAMP fashion, manage to find new ground rather than regurgitating stories you've seen before.

Some people do not like Tsubasa, because the two most central characters are alternate reality versions of characters from the much-beloved Cardcaptor Sakura. Because they aren't the same, it seriously bothers some readers. For those who've stayed away from it because of this, though, they are missing a real treat, both in the stories, and in one of my utterly favorite manga characters, Kurogane.

Holic is all new characters, and it is indeed a slightly warped, supernatural yarn that Burton might almost have concocted, if he was heavily steeped in Japanese folklore. The folkloric characters are not true-to-lore... CLAMP takes beings such as Zashiki-Warishi, and turn them into something brand-new, but somehow still old-school Japanese.

It is possible to understand 99 percent of each storyline without reading the other, but I'm enjoying them together. By and large, they are staying in sync with each other (in the manga. I don't know about the anime in this regard, as all I've seen is fansubs of the movie, which I thought was great in some places and a little weak others, and the first episode of the TV series, which I thought was excellent. Especially, I wish they'd just left the Tsubasa reference at the end of the movie out, since the rest of the movie had no dealings with Tsubasa. It felt like a plug.)

[Tenshi no Ai]

Quickly saying about xxxHOLiC, although some may see it as a bit of a greyish dull anime (not that I've known anyone that have, but I guess it was a bit of my first impressions on it) it's a great show with great characters^^ I love Yuuko! The movie though... well, with that I'll say that it is VERY bizzare... Though since I saw that before the series, not so much, but still a little bit too odd :/ I just dislike anime in that bizzareness-type^^ The anime, I believe follows quite closely to the books too.

[USSRGirl]

XD The bizarre is what drew me to it actually. Though I do like a strong plot. Hmm... anyway, thanks for the replies. I get it now, Tsubasa is kinda a crossover of xxHolic, CCS, and others. Hmm... sounds interesting. I might try 'em.