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K is for Kamui
Apr. 12th, 2018 11:42 amWhen I first saw him, his beauty didn't just strike me with awe. It overflowed my imagination with ideas.
His name was Shirou Kamui. Created by CLAMP for X 1999 and appearing years later in the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, he’s always had this effect upon me.
In X 1999 (the title in Japan was originally X, only it was changed in the U.S., due to copyright issues), Kamui was the Chosen One. Upon his slender shoulders rested the fate of a dying world with agonizing consequences, no matter which destiny he chose.
In Tsubasa, Kamui was one of a pair of mysterious vampire twins being hunted across worlds.
Kamui is a character, however, whom isn’t completely expressed in manga alone. One has to take a good look at him in CLAMP’s artbooks, particularly the X Infinity to experience him completely.
Here his beauty is depicted in all its complexity. He smiles with a sultry, knowing playfulness among the flowers. He wears a pair of bleeding, broken wings. Sometimes they’re feathered. Sometimes they’re batwings. He’s dripping wet, emerging from some invisible water source. He’s curled up in the World Egg, waiting to be hatched.
Kamui assumes a variety of surreal poses within worlds of dream and fantasy.
These images stirred my own imagination. Some of my ideas for Christopher and the Shadow Forest were inspired by this artwork. When my own wellspring of creativity has threatened to run dry over the years, I’d take a look at these beautiful designs.
They informed the manga, yet were apart from it. They suggested that the character himself had a separate, yet continued existence away from X 1999.
Perhaps even back then, CLAMP was contemplating something like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, a multi universe with their characters.
We readers never did find out what happened to Kamui and the world in the X 1999 manga. It’s going to be one of my greatest regrets as a fangirl if I never find out. :(
I’ll admit, I’ve explored in story reasons of my own for the End of the World which never happened in my fanfics, The New Shopkeeper and If Only You Knew at Archive of Our Own. I offered up more grim possibilites in works like Your Curse is to Live and Better This Way.
Kamui, like Fuuma is a character who won’t leave my imagination alone. His beauty and tragedy continue to haunt me.
I’m sorry he doesn’t have his own parallel world series of adventures as a vampire with Subaru, running from Seishirou. Hint, hint, CLAMP?
Although I might have indulged in a fanfic or two on this subject. :) Like I said, it’s hard to leave Kamui alone. He certainly won’t leave my imagination alone. :)
Not that I regret encountering him. At all. Thank you, CLAMP for creating a bishounen among bishounen for a truly epic series which changed my life. Samui and his story shifted my perceptions and opened my mind to a world of diverse possibilities in epic fiction.
I’m just sorry X 1999 was never finished.
His name was Shirou Kamui. Created by CLAMP for X 1999 and appearing years later in the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, he’s always had this effect upon me.
In X 1999 (the title in Japan was originally X, only it was changed in the U.S., due to copyright issues), Kamui was the Chosen One. Upon his slender shoulders rested the fate of a dying world with agonizing consequences, no matter which destiny he chose.
In Tsubasa, Kamui was one of a pair of mysterious vampire twins being hunted across worlds.
Kamui is a character, however, whom isn’t completely expressed in manga alone. One has to take a good look at him in CLAMP’s artbooks, particularly the X Infinity to experience him completely.
Here his beauty is depicted in all its complexity. He smiles with a sultry, knowing playfulness among the flowers. He wears a pair of bleeding, broken wings. Sometimes they’re feathered. Sometimes they’re batwings. He’s dripping wet, emerging from some invisible water source. He’s curled up in the World Egg, waiting to be hatched.
Kamui assumes a variety of surreal poses within worlds of dream and fantasy.
These images stirred my own imagination. Some of my ideas for Christopher and the Shadow Forest were inspired by this artwork. When my own wellspring of creativity has threatened to run dry over the years, I’d take a look at these beautiful designs.
They informed the manga, yet were apart from it. They suggested that the character himself had a separate, yet continued existence away from X 1999.
Perhaps even back then, CLAMP was contemplating something like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, a multi universe with their characters.
We readers never did find out what happened to Kamui and the world in the X 1999 manga. It’s going to be one of my greatest regrets as a fangirl if I never find out. :(
I’ll admit, I’ve explored in story reasons of my own for the End of the World which never happened in my fanfics, The New Shopkeeper and If Only You Knew at Archive of Our Own. I offered up more grim possibilites in works like Your Curse is to Live and Better This Way.
Kamui, like Fuuma is a character who won’t leave my imagination alone. His beauty and tragedy continue to haunt me.
I’m sorry he doesn’t have his own parallel world series of adventures as a vampire with Subaru, running from Seishirou. Hint, hint, CLAMP?
Although I might have indulged in a fanfic or two on this subject. :) Like I said, it’s hard to leave Kamui alone. He certainly won’t leave my imagination alone. :)
Not that I regret encountering him. At all. Thank you, CLAMP for creating a bishounen among bishounen for a truly epic series which changed my life. Samui and his story shifted my perceptions and opened my mind to a world of diverse possibilities in epic fiction.
I’m just sorry X 1999 was never finished.
