Acclaimed Manga Team CLAMP Returns to Iconic Series After 8-Year Hiatus

After eight long years, one of CLAMP’s most popular manga series finally returns to the page. CLAMP is an all-female manga group whom worked on several high-profile manga and anime series since the 1990s. The group’s work often varies and changes genre from project to project. Some of their work is an action-fantasy series that takes place in a faraway land, whereas another is a bona fide classic magical girl manga. xxxHolic was CLAMP’s take on the dark fantasy genre, centering on a high school student who works for a black-haired witch. The series proved to be a hit, leading to an anime adaptation by Production I.G. in 2006.

CLAMP began serializing xxxHolic in 2003 for the Weekly Young Magazine for Kodansha. The series technically ended in 2011, but a sequel called xxxHolic Rei picked up where the original manga left off. Rei remained ongoing until 2017, when CLAMP went on an indefinite hiatus for the series. The group announced in early 2025 that the series would be returning with the April 21st issue of Weekly Young Magazine. The first ten pages of the new chapter were shared online to commemorate the series’ return to print. The US Oricon website has all ten pages, including the new double-page spread featuring the two leads.

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Why Was xxxHolic Rei Put on Hiatus?

CLAMP remained very prolific during xxxHolic Rei’s hiatus, working on several other titles. The biggest project the team worked on was a follow-up to their extremely successful Cardcaptor Sakura series, Clear Card, which lasted from 2016 to 2024. Cardcaptor Sakura is arguably the team’s most successful series to date, having achieved worldwide recognition thanks to airing its dub on the Kids WB in the late 90s. Clear Card was the direct follow-up to the classic series, focusing on the characters as young preteens now.

The original Cardcaptor Sakura ran 50 chapters from 1996 to 2000, while Clear Card ran for 80 chapters. Both manga had exceptionally popular anime adaptations produced by Madhouse, the same studio behind Death Note, One Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter, and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Rei wasn’t the only manga the group put on hiatus, with Gate 7, Drug & Drop, and Clover also technically on pause from the group. However, it isn’t known if CLAMP intends to continue those other manga in the same way they returned to xxxHolic eight years later.

Why Is xxxHolic Important to the CLAMP Multiverse?

Before Hollywood films like Marvel and DC were doing these interconnected crossover films, CLAMP was casually connecting their biggest titles into this weird multiverse. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle re-used the same character names and designs as the two leads from Cardcaptor Sakura, establishing them as alternate versions of the same characters. Characters from xxxHolic would also crossover into Tsubasa, establishing they exist in this same multiverse. Besides the anime adaptation from Production I.G., a live-action drama series based on xxxHolic was released in 2013. A xxxHolic live-action movie would later open in theaters in 2022.

H/T: Oricon US