I recently wrote an academic paper discussing CLAMP's Chobits in relation to the Greek myth of Pygmalion, and as part of the research for that paper, I came across a point some essayist or blogger (I wish I could remember who!) made, to the effect that one of the central points in CLAMP's work overall is the idea that love is love – period, the end. Details like gender (or even species, looking at the human/angel, angel/devil, and human/android pairings in their other work) is unimportant. Love is love, and that's all that matters.

Tomoyo loves Sakura. That much is beyond debate. Sakura loves Yukito, and there's nary a whisper of sexuality in their relationship… and the same goes for Syaoran's love for Yukito. Any question of homosexuality – or of any kind of sexuality – within the context of relationships is missing the point, as Lysander and DKellis have already pointed out.

By the same token, though, Yukito and Touya love each other, too. The fact that their relationship would be classified as homosexual by any "real world" yardstick is equally irrelevant, because sexuality doesn't really enter into the discussion where CCS is concerned.

Again, for CLAMP, love is love, and the details don't matter.

For example, if I say "I'm reading Gundam Seed", they say, cool mecha's. If I say I'm reading Pretty Face or Negima! they just ask what it's about and than say I'm kind of a girly guy.. or they say I read books for kids.

He, I read manga's, and even I'm in my 20s

Bishounen = "pretty boy", used to describe boys and young men with feminine features typically (you see a lot of shoujo and yaoi manga that has a heavy bishounen presence).

Bishoujo = "pretty girl", usually applied to exceptionally cute girls that are under the age of twenty or so, and not really used widely outside of anime/manga/games. You'll probably hear it most frequently in regard to Bishoujo Games, which feature half a dozen or more "pretty girls" and revolve around the concept of trying to date them.

Doujinshi = "amateur comics", most commonly erotic in nature and featuring characters from popular anime, manga, or games- although there's quite a bit out there that are all-ages or have original characters. To put it plainly, if you make comics in Japan and aren't involved with a professional company, it's doujinshi.

Moe = Probably the hardest thing in otaku culture to really define. I like to think of it as "cute" elements to a character that are part of three different categories.

"Situational Moe" is caused by outside factors, such as "girl next door", "childhood friend", "little sister", etc. which are all moe on their own.

"Physical moe", which is where you get the constant references to loli by non-otaku. Physically moe characters can be cute in any number of different ways, such as girls with glasses (maganekko), girls with twintails, girls wearing schoolgirl outfits, girls with freckles, girls in really cute costumes, etc.

"Personality moe" is specific to how characters act. Sakura because of her absolute innocence is a good example, but there's also clumsy girls, tsundere girls (seemingly violent to everyone but really cute and innocent when you get to know them), yandere girls (exactly the opposite of tsundere, cute and friendly on the outside and really mean or violent when you get to know them), etc.

Niko-Niko = the sound effect you see in manga sometimes for "smile", there's really no deeper meaning to this that I can think of- they just use this phrase humorously when someone in a manga is smiling really big.

Chibi = Japanese for "short"- as in a short person. It can also be used to describe an art style like a Japanese version of caricatures, where the characters are drawn really short and cute-looking for fun- "chibi-style" if you will.

My view of it is that it's part of the lessons taught in the series: Tomoyo does love Sakura romantically, in a pure sense. She's also aware that Sakura would never love her in the same sort of way, and so she tries her hardest to make Sakura happy by matchmaking her to those whom Sakura loves: first Yukito, then Syaoran. As I mentioned, love is truly blind, and if you love someone with all your heart, you have to learn how to let them go.

It's incredibly noble and self-sacrificing, which is a good part of why Tomoyo is my favourite character of all time. She knew, at ten years old, what others sometimes take a lifetime to discover.

@Lysander: Thanks for the comments, and no worries about overstepping bounds; I appreciate civil discourse, since I've found that others are far more eloquent than I can be at carrying on a conversation.

I think even considering whether Tomoyo is a lesbian or not is somewhat crude, and that you're reading too far into an aspect that should really be taken at face value (as everything else in this series should be). Remember that this entire universe is built off of innocence, and the feelings that Tomoyo has for Sakura is similar to the feelings Sakura had for Yukito, it's something sweet and pure and at the same time- completely impossible. As Tomoyo herself has suggested in the series- it's not something she ever thought would go beyond being best friends or that she'd even make Sakura aware of, it's a feeling that she holds in her heart. I've never had any doubt that if the story had continued well into the characters' adulthood, Tomoyo would marry a sweet (probably clumsy) guy where she could act as a pillar of support like she always has for the relationship. If CLAMP released an image of Tomoyo and Sakura almost kissing, it was definitely just one of those "playing around" type of pieces that girls tend to draw for fun, and not a serious implication that something like that would happen. That's how I feel about it at least, you're welcome to read into it what you wish- but I honestly think such thoughts will tarnish what makes the series so amazing.

Anywho, back to the post itself. DK, you overdid yourself on this one and voiced the soul of CCS perfectly. I have no doubt that I'll be linking people to this weblog post for a long time to come as an explanation of what makes CCS so amazing… I honestly couldn't have phrased any of it better myself. Keep up the good work (and feel free to delete this comment if I was overstepping myself in that response).

~Lys