This is the season that stops letting you treat the world-hopping as a travel show. Every feather Syaoran recovers buys back a piece of Sakura and costs him something he can never explain to her, and the four of them keep pretending that arrangement is fine. Kurogane and Fai's needling settles into something closer to loyalty, Mokona keeps carrying the mood, and the worlds get meaner the deeper they dive. CLAMP fans will clock the xxxHolic threads and the way nothing here is coincidence, though be warned: the anime shuffles the manga's chronology and pads the run, so some stretches are just scenery. Stay for Syaoran, who ends this season carrying weight he did not have at the start of it. The good stuff is in what nobody in that group says out loud.

Syaoran, Sakura, Kurogane, Fay and the magical creature Mokona keep traveling from one alternate world to another, still searching for the feathers that hold fragments of Sakura's lost memories. Picking up right where the first season ended, their journey grows more complicated as they find themselves drawn into increasingly dangerous worlds. Even if Sakura recovers every memory, she will never remember Syaoran, the childhood friend who set out to bring them back. Adapted from the manga by CLAMP, the season blends adventure, fantasy, mystery, drama and romance.