Clamp (stylized in all caps) is an all-female Japanese manga artist group, consisting of leader and writer Nanase Ohkawa (born in Osaka), and three artists whose roles shift for each series: Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi (all born in Kyoto).

Clamp was first formed in the mid-1980s as a twelve-member group creating dōjinshi (self-published fan works), and began creating original manga in 1987. By the time the group made its mainstream publishing debut with RG Veda in 1989, it was reduced to seven members; three more members left in 1993, leaving the four current members of the group.

Notable works by Clamp include X (1992), Magic Knight Rayearth (1993), Cardcaptor Sakura (1996) and its sequel Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (2016), Chobits (2000), and xxxHolic and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (both 2003). Various series by the group cross-reference each other, and characters reappear in multiple works by the group. Clamp are noted as among the most critically and commercially acclaimed manga artists in Japan, and as of 2007, have sold nearly 100 million books worldwide.

Etymology The name "Clamp" refers to a storage clamp, in the sense of "a bunch of potatoes"."Nanase Okawa" Animerica Anime & Manga Monthly 1997 © Viz Communications, Inc., 172 This is referenced in Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders, where a teacher is observed saying: "The name 'Clamp' incorporates the words 'hinge,' as well as 'potato mountain,' within its definition."

History

Before their debut (1980s–1989) Clamp originally began in the mid-1980s as a twelve-member dōjinshi circle, to fill a booth vacancy at Dream Comic, a doujin event in Osaka. To fill a vacancy next to Yun Kōga's CLUB/Y booth, they called themselves CLAMP, since club and clamp both started with in Katakana spelling, and the booths were sorted according to gojūon order. The original circle included , , , , , , ,and . Three of Clamp's artists—Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi—first began drawing manga when they were teenagers, inspired by friends. The three artists were good friends in the same school. They met and befriended Nanase Ohkawa through one of her friends who had bought comics from Mokona. The original group of twelve members began to meet at every event held in Osaka and Kobe, which usually occurred once a month. Before they began creating original work, the group produced dōjinshi of Captain Tsubasa, and yaoi dōjinshi of Saint Seiya and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. However, in 1987, the group stopped dōjinshi and began creating original work; it was at this time they began working on RG Veda, a loose adaptation of the Rigveda. Their first collaborative work was entitled "Clamp", which they continued to work on until shortly after their debut.

The group debuted as professional manga artists when they decided to print the manga RG Veda, which they had first started as a fan comic. After seeing the comic digest of the manga series that Clamp had published, an editor for Shinshokan's Wings manga magazine asked the group to work for them. They submitted an approximately sixty-page story as a sample, but the work was rejected. Ohkawa later lambasted the draft, stating that "everything was bad" and attributing the quality to the group's lack of experience, since they had never before completed a story as a cohesive group. The group was given another chance at publication should they submit a new story that Shinshokan liked; this time, they submitted RG Veda, which was serialized in Wings magazine.

During the time before their official debut, the group moved to Tokyo and rented a small, two-bedroom apartment. Ohkawa stated that she thought she was "gonna die there". Nekoi stated that "the only private space [they] had was under [their] desk."

By the time RG Veda debuted, its members had gone down to seven. During the production of the manga RG Veda, O-Kyon had left the group. In June 1990, Nanao officially left the group (last mentioned in Shōten 6). Hishika, Nakamori and Ōmi officially left in March 1993 (as mentioned in the Shōten 3). In October 1992, Akiyama and Sei officially left the group.

RG Veda was originally planned to be a single story rather than a series, although because of good reader response and higher-than-expected sales for its first volume Shinshokan permitted the group to create more volumes, however after each chapter of the manga was released, Shinshokan threatened that it would cease serialization should its popularity fall.

In July 1989, Genki Comics began serializing Clamp's second work, Man of Many Faces.

1990–1999 Genki Comics began serializing Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders in August 1991, which became the work that the three artists Mokona, Nekoi, and Igarashi enjoyed working on most. In March 1990, Wings began serializing Tokyo Babylon. In December 1990, Monthly Asuka ran Clamp School Detectives, and in May 1992, it began serializing X.

Clamp was serialized by many other magazines and publishers including Kobunsha publishing Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales on June 10, 1992. In 1993, Clamp released four different manga: in March, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, which began serializing in Newtype, in June, a Manga adaptations of Rex: A Dinosaur's Story, which serializing in Asuka Comics DX, in November, Magic Knight Rayearth which began serialized in Nakayoshi, and in December, The One I Love which was serialized in Monthly Young Rose. Nakayoshi also began to serialize Cardcaptor Sakura in May 1996; Ohkawa, Clamp's leader and storyboarder, particularly enjoyed working on Cardcaptor Sakura because unlike many of her previous works, it wasn't tragic. Wish first began serializing in Asuka Comics DX in October 1996. In December 1998, Suki: A Like Story began first serializing in Asuka Comics DX, and in January 1999, Angelic Layer first began serializing in Monthly Shōnen Ace.

2000–2009

In 2001, Young Magazine began serializing Clamp's Chobits which completed its run in 2002. Although their previous works are targeted at a female audience, Chobits marked the first time Clamp wrote for an older teen male audience. Clamp began writing the two works that tell separate parts of the same overarching plot, xxxHolic serialized in Young Magazine beginning in 2003 followed by Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle serialized in the Weekly Shōnen Magazine beginning in the same year. Tsubasa marked the first time Clamp had ever tried writing for a younger male audience, although their first work published in the Shōnen demographic was Angelic Layer.

In 2004, Clamp's 15th anniversary as a manga artist group, the members changed their names from Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona Apapa, Mick Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi to Ageha Ohkawa, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi (her name is pronounced the same, but written with different characters) respectively. To celebrate Clamp's 15th anniversary, Tokyopop released a twelve-part magazine series entitled Clamp no Kiseki that contained a plethora of information for fans. The August 2004 issue of Newtype USA, a magazine specializing in events of the anime and manga subcultures, reported that the members of Clamp simply wanted to try out new names. In a later interview with Ohkawa, it was revealed that initially Mokona wanted to drop her surname because it sounded too immature for her liking, while Nekoi disliked people mistakenly commenting on her as a Rolling Stones member. Ohkawa and Igarashi, wanting to go with the flow of Nekoi's and Mokona's name changes, changed their names as well.

In 2006, Clamp provided the character designs for Code Geass. This came into fruition after producer Yoshitaka Kawaguchi called them. This also marked Clamp's first time being requested to provide a character design for an anime series not originally created by them.

Ohkawa made her first appearance overseas at the Taipei International Book Exhibition sponsored by Production I.G that same year. During an interview there, she announced that Clamp would be making its first United States public debut at Anime Expo in July in Anaheim, California co-sponsored by Anime Expo, Del Rey Manga, Funimation and Tokyopop. They were well received at the convention as fans completely filled all 6,000 seats present in the auditorium of the focus panel in addition to more on the waiting list. By 2006, Clamp had reportedly sold in excess of 90 million copies of their manga internationally.

2010–present While Tsubasa ended in October 2009, xxxHolic ended in early 2011. The authors were satisfied with the two manga ending commenting it was difficult to serialize the two interconnected manga at the same time due to Tsubasas focus on action which required them to write side stories for xxxHolic.

Clamp collaborated in the Blood: The Last Vampire spin off anime, Blood-C, as they are responsible for designing the characters and providing the story. Ohkawa wrote the scripts with series supervisor, Junichi Fujisaku for both anime series and the sequel movie, Blood-C: The Last Dark.

Legal Drug restarted serialization in the same year in Kadokawa Shoten's Young Ace under the new title of Drug and Drop. A new xxxHolic manga titled XXXHOLiC Rei also started serialization in Kodansha's Young Magazine in March 2013.

Clamp also provided character design for Studio Deen's the anime adaptation of Kabukibu!, which aired in April 2017.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card began serialization in 2016 with an anime that aired from January to June 2018 on NHK.

On October 19, 2020, the official Clamp fans website posted a link to a YouTube video due to start on October 25, 2020. These daily links are each accompanied by a graphic displaying the number of days to go until the announcement, and a single word. Each word relates to a chapter of Tokyo Babylon from the respectively numbered tankobon volume. This has caused speculation among Clamp's fans that a new Tokyo Babylon related work is due to be announced. On October 25, 2020, at 15:00 UTC (October 26, 2020 at midnight Japan Standard Time), a trailer was released for a new anime adaptation of Tokyo Babylon. The new series, Tokyo Babylon 2021, will be released and set the story in the year 2021. It was to be made by the studio GoHands. The series was to debut in April 2021, but was postponed due to the production team's plagiarism incident. On March 28, 2021, the production committee announced that the series's production was discontinued, and Clamp and the production committee will restart the anime series with a different studio.

In January 2021, it was announced that a new series in the Cardfight!! Vanguard franchise will begin on April 3, 2021, and will feature character designs by Clamp. The new series will be called Vanguard overDress.

In June 2021, it was announced that Clamp will collaborate with Netflix to produce an original anime series based on the Grimms' Fairy Tales, with Wit Studio handling the animation. In March 2024, the series' title was revealed as The Grimm Variations, which was released as a Netflix exclusive in April 2024.

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