The four women who make up the manga group
CLAMP (Ohkawa Nanase - the scriptwriter, Mokona - the lead artist, Igarashi Satsuki - the layout designer, and Nekoi Tsubaki - the character artist) are to manga (and manga turned into anime) what
Megumi Hayashibara is to voice acting. They began as doujinshi artists but went pro in 1989 with
RG Veda. Since then, nearly all of their work has been animated, a list which includes many of the staple series of anime:
Of the four women, at least three of their names have been
partially used for characters in series. (Satsuki as Yatouji Satsuki in
X, Nekoi as Nekoi Yuzuriha in
X, and Mokona as Mokona in
Magic Knight Rayearth,
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, and
xxxHolic.)
A theme that runs through
CLAMP's works is that love transcends everything,
particularly that pesky little thing called gender. Note that this is not a "
love conquers all" kind of thing, as gender/age/being a robot/being a ruthless assassin/etc can be insurmountable barriers to having a functional relationship. No barrier can stop people from falling in love but it may very well prevent that love from reaching a happy resolution. (See the relationship between Tomoyo and Sakura in
Cardcaptor Sakura, or the one between Sakurazuka Seishirou and Sumeragi Subaru in
Tokyo Babylon and
X, or between Kazuhiko and Suu in
Clover as prime examples.)
A quick note about the members of
CLAMP: In July of 2004, they all changed their pen names slightly. Mokona Apapa became simply Mokona, Ohkawa Nanase became Ohkawa Ageha, Nekoi Mikku became Nekoi Tsubaki. Igarashi Satsuki simply switched her family name into hiragana, and her given name into kanji. Nekoi and Mokona had been wanting to change their pen names for awhile; Ohkawa and Igarashi just went along for the hell of it. Ohkawa has since reverted to Ohkawa Nanase for attributions.
Their manga work is characterized by a highly-detailed
Shojo art style, though for budget reasons the designs are often simplified for animation. Their style underwent a noticeable change in the late 1990s when Mokona starting ceding more design responsibility to Igarashi and Nekoi. Nekoi's distinctive character designs are responsible for the "
noodle people" description common in fandom. CLAMP also errs on the shojo side thematically (despite being published in an unusually wide range of magazines), and thus are very prone to
drama and painful
family unfriendly or
broken aesops. Being former doujinka, their work is also notable for a deliberately high degree of
Fan Service and
Fetish Fuel.
Sidenote: The original doujinka group was actually
ten members (one of whom was a guy), but six of them left (one in 1990, two in 1992, and three in 1993), leaving the four we know today.
That Other Wiki has a little more information on their contributions and accomplishments since in CLAMP's
article
.
Some of their works:
Tropes common across most of their works:
- Arc Welding: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle combined the Plot of XX Xholic, Cardcaptor Sakura, X and all other CLAMP works into one huge Thirty Xanatos Pileup.
- The Beautiful People
- Back From The Dead (averted like crazy, and by Word Of God, impossible. However, if a certain Xanatos Gambit is successfully carried out, this trope will become possible.
- Not quite - this trope is still very much averted. Clow's wish to keep Yűko from dying only froze her in time and possibly messed up the multiverse in the bargain. When time started moving again, she had died right on schedule hundreds of years ago the whole time, as far as most of reality was concerned.
- I was thinking in terms of Fei Wong Reed and the stuff he did. Guess they aren't useful to him.
- Bishounen and Bishoujo
- Costume Porn
- Everyone Is Bi
- Eye Scream
- Fan Service
- Fetish Fuel
- Foe Yay
- Hot For Student
- Even in elementary school. Where it is treated as wholesome!
- Ho Yay
- Huge Guy Tiny Girl (not universal, but fairly common)
- If Its You Its Okay (there are no gay relationships. Only "love that transcends gender".)
- Memetic Mutation (Just as CLAMPed.)
- Noodle People
- Omake
- Pimped Out Dress (especially in the omake art)
- Shojo
- Shout Out
- Unlimited Wardrobe
- Values Dissonance: CLAMP features a... wide variety of relationships, to say the least.