CLAMP is overrated.
Every one of their works ive tried to read has had the same problem. Somehow a group of artists who work in a primarily monochrome format have never learnt how to use the two colours theyre allowed properly. What i mean by this is that there are two very broad types of manga artist. The first draws things in black and white, the second makes effective use of the colours black and white.
You can tell the difference pretty easily. imagine a professional artist has coloured in the pages perfectly. If the art is improved, youve got the CLAMP art style. Just a normal comic book in black and white. If the art is ruined, youve got the second art style. For examples see.... Kohta Hirano i suppose is the best example of how to use shadows. though even Tite fucking Kubo manages it pretty well at times.
My point is that in most CLAMP there is no effective use of colour - which is inexcusable when youve only got to handle two in the first place. Its ridiculous - theyre almost just pencil drawings. I tried reading Tsubasa and i couldn't even tell what the fuck was going on. The scenes were absolutely incomprehensible to me, icouldnt tell arm from leg from giant space grasshopper. Literally some of the pages had perhaps 2% black to 98% white. Impossible to read.
Honestly. When Tite Kubo is a better artist than you you know your pretty much at the bottom of the barrel. That said, hes also a better plot writer. And with the plot of Bleach thats broken through the bottom of the barrel and down into hades to boot. I tried watching Tsubasa after id taken a running jump at the manga - and frankly it terrifies me beyond belief there must exist someone whos seen every episode.
Presumably the sort of person who sits down and looks at microsoft excel for fun.
