Every since coming to Japan, I've become more and more interested in manga by CLAMP. At first it was just Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and XXXholic, but last week I started reading X. Tsubasa is filled with cameos by characters from other CLAMP manga and characters from X show up fairly frequently, so I finally broke down and bought a few collected volumes at the used manga store. This was more difficult that you'd think, since X is classified as a shoujo(girls) manga, and it's in the girls section of the store. And while girls can go into the boys manga section, I've never seen a guy in the girls manga aisle. Luckily, it's near the end of aisle, so I didn't have to venture too far in. I have a history with X; it was serialized in English in the magazine Animerica in the mid-nineties, which is where I first read it. Now I'm reading it in the original Japanese, which feels pretty good. And it's addictive like crack.

One of things that's so entertaining about it is the use of religious imagery, especially Christian and Jewish imagery. It's like CLAMP was competing with Evangelion, and I think CLAMP's overuse of the Star of David and Hebrew writing may have given them the win. X makes Eva look restrained in its use of Western religious symbolism. And what makes it better is that all this Jewish Kabbalah and Christian apocalyptic imagery is used alongside Eastern astrology and characters drawn from the gamut of Japanese religious and mystical traditions. You could present X as an example of the syncretism that characterizes Japanese attitudes toward religion.

Also, now that I know more about Japanese religion, I can appreciate the references more. The Dragons of Heaven are essentially the Superfriends of Japanese religion.