This is Mokona Modoki’s guide to couples, lovers and soulmates in the CLAMPverse!
Heart and Soul
In Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle we visit many different worlds or ‘alternate dimentions’, meeting familiar characters from a variety of CLAMP’s other manga series.
Although these characters are separate and different people from their alternate world counterparts, with different bodies and sometimes even different personalities (due to growing up in different circumstances), at the core they are the same because they share the same heart and soul.
For instance, Sakura from Card Captor Sakura shares the same heart and soul as Sakura from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.
Feelings from the Heart
In one of CLAMP's earlier manga series Card Captor Sakura the characters Touya and Yukito are best friends in modern Japan. These same characters appear in Tsubasa, but with Touya as King and Yuki the high priest of a desert country called Clow in an alternate world (where Sakura lives as Princess and Syaoran an archaeologist).
In Card Captor Sakura Yuki describes Touya as his “most precious person". Because Yuki’s strong feelings for Touya come from his heart (his soul), those same feelings reoccur in every single one of Yuki’s alternate world counterparts. Every Yuki in every world he appears in with Touya will view Touya as his “most precious person”. The same goes for all other soulmate couples.
We see this rule of sharing hearts in play with all the reoccuring characters that appear in Tsubasa. The love and affection that they have for their soulmates is unchanged, no matter what world they appear in.
Arashi and Sorata
Ashura and Yasha
To name but a few.
The Strongest Bond in the CLAMPverse
CLAMP takes the romantic connections between their characters very seriously and will never throw passionate feelings casually into their mangas. The characters’ journey to becoming a romantically involved couple in a CLAMP manga is often a very long and arduous one (or is deep and ardent and firmly established from the very start). Therefore, the bond of ‘soulmates’ in the CLAMPverse is by far the strongest bond. Where as the family/relation connections are a weak bond and are often different in different worlds, the bond of soulmate is never broken.
If a character has already found their soulmate in one of CLAMP’s previous manga series, they will not turn up in alternate worlds romantically bound with anyone else. The same goes for soulmate couples that are exclucive to Tsubasa.
Crushes/Infactuations
Many of CLAMP’s manga feature characters that have infactuations and crushes. To name a few examples, in Card Captor Sakura both Sakura and Syaoran have an infactuation with Yukito and in Magic Knight Rayearth the bratty pixie Primera jealously crushes on her master Lantis.
Since crushes and infactuations are not deep, true feelings from the heart it seems that these starry eyed admirations are often not reoccuring. In Tsubasa, there is no evidence to suggest that Sakura or Syaoran retain their crush on Yuki, and when we meet Primera in Hanshin Republic she appears to have found herself a true soulmate boyfriend in the form of gang member Shougo (a previously romantically unattached character from the movie of CLAMP manga series X/1999).
Unrequited Love
Not to be confused with a simple crush, unrequited love in the CLAMPverse seems to be just as deep as the reciprocated love between soulmates.
In Card Captor Sakura Tomoyo (Sakura’s best friend) confesses to her that she likes Sakura very much – as something more than just a friend. Sakura, innocent as ever, doesn’t really understand what Tomoyo is trying to tell her, but it’s clear that Tomoyo never expected Sakura to return her feelings. Instead she matchmakes Sakura with Syaoran – just wanting her to be happy.
CLAMP once described Tomoyo’s selfless, unrequited love for Sakura as their “ultimate kind of love”. That is, caring so deeply for someone that you just want them to be happy, even if that happiness isn’t with you.
Since unrequited love in CLAMP manga is so deep and heartfelt, those feelings reoccurre in the character no matter what world they appear in. We see proof of this in Piffle world where Clow country Sakura meets with a Tomoyo from Piffle world. Even after knowing Sakura for such a short time it’s clear that her attachment to Sakura is definitely still present in her heart.
It’s unclear whether CLAMP characters that have experienced such a strong unrequited love can go on to love another person as a soulmate, the situation hasn’t come up yet. In theory it’s entirely possible since an unrequited love isn’t a soulmate bond, but that has yet to be proven/disproven.
Absent Soulmates
Sometimes a character that has a soulmate from previous CLAMP manga will appear in Tsubasa all on their own. :( Aw.
Princess Emeraude appears without her guardian and lover Zagato. In Tsubasa she is the ghost of a beautiful Princess who spirits children away to her dilapidated castle at night in the country of Jade.
And Chii appears without her beloved owner/boyfriend Hideki. In Tsubasa she is a kitty-eared girl created with magic by Fai and left in his home world of Celes.
The absence of these characters’ partners does not mean that the characters have abandoned their soulmates, or that their bond was never very strong to begin with. Either an alternate reality version of their soulmate does not exist in their particular world, or they simply have not met with them yet.
Regardless, characters in CLAMP manga will only ever have one “most precious person” or “someone just for me”, and if that person is absent, they will remain single.
That being said, in the absence of a character’s soulmate the character may have formed relationships with other characters in their world.
However, these relationships will always be of the platonic or family relation kind. It will never be a resiprocal romantic kind of love. As we’ve seen time and time again in CLAMP manga, the only person that will make the character truly happy, no matter what world they’re in, is their “one and only”. Their soulmate.
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I hope this article has made the rules behind soulmates and lovers in the CLAMPverse clearer for all of you.
Three basic points that need remembering
1. Although bodies and personalities may be different from world to world, reoccuring characters share the same heart and soul with all their alternate dimention counterparts.
2. If a strong feeling comes from a characters heart, the character will have those same strong feelings no matter what world they appear in.
3. Characters will only ever have one soulmate.
All manga titles mentioned and artwork used © CLAMP
