Falling Stars

X was the first CLAMP manga I ever read. When I started reading it, 1999 was in the future.

I'd never even heard of CLAMP back then. But it was the cover that caught my attention. You know the one. Glossy black, with that picture of Kamui standing under Tokyo Tower in the moonlight, huge eyes and wavy hair and blood red sakura wafting past. Totally Clampesque, and completely different from all the shounen and seinen manga on the shelves in those days.

I remember being intrigued and picking it up and putting it down again, because back then I was a poor uni student and $30 AUD was a lot to go drop on a graphic novel. (Yes, they cost that much then. Insert obligatory "Kids these days!" comment.)

But in the end, I circled back for it, and although I didn't warm to the story straight away - remember back when Kamui was a cold little bastard instead of the fragile ball of angst we know so well? - it intrigued me enough to keep going. After all, there really was nothing else like it then. Viz's collection Four Shojo Stories had only come out a few months earlier, and that had been a revelation in itself. ("Japanese comics from a uniquely female perspective!" the cover said. "It's Not Just Girls' Stuff Anymore.")

So yeah, Dragons of Heaven and Dragons of Earth and mystic swords and duelling prophecies and starcrossed lovers and bucketloads of angst, and a movie and a TV series and a billion volumes of other CLAMP manga later, and wow, cats in the cradle, we're just around the corner from 2009. Which is a good time for the x2009 fanfiction challenge, 'Ten Years Later'. Sign ups are open now, for anyone else feeling the nostalgia.

X was the first CLAMP manga I ever read. Which makes it kind of funny that I still haven't finished reading it. Here's hoping they pick it up again before 1999 falls even further into the past.

(Though I suppose they're still doing better than Minami Ozaki, whose Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989 is still crawling along. By all rights, Koji and Izumi should be pushing forty by now.)