CARD CAPTOR SAKURA (I) ~ Written on 8th Jan 2001
Category Magic Adventure Anime
Episodes 70
Overall 88%
Here's Sakura and Kerberos in one of her battle outfits
Some of Sakura's numerous outfits brought to you by Tomoyo
From left: Sakura, Kerberos (surprised?) and Li.
This is Kero's true form once he has regained his powers.
What
is Card Captor Sakura?
Card
Captor Sakura is a Japanese anime that started in 1996 as a manga from
CLAMP. It’s about a girl named Sakura who was browsing through her dad's
library and stumbled upon a book. Cerberus (or Kerberos as he is known in
the show) was
sleeping on the book and supposed to be guarding it. Sakura managed to open the
book, which no one was able to do. After she opened it, cards, known as
the Clow Cards, sprung out and were released into the world. Since she
was the one who opened the book, she is destined to have the cards. Kerberos
awakes and assists Sakura in her quest to capture all the cards before
they wreck havoc on earth.
When
is it shown?
It is telecast on TCS 8 every Saturday afternoon at 1.30 p.m. right after Slam Dunk. The anime is dubbed in Chinese, which isn’t too bad, but Japanese anime fans can listen to the original Japanese since it is shown in dual sound. The show is currently into the fifteen episode and there are about 50 more to go. TCS is showing the original Japanese version but there is a shorter English version made for the US.
Cast (Names in italics are the Chinese translations)
Sakura Kinomoto (Xiao
Ying)
is the main hero of this anime. When she released the Clow
Cards, Kerberos
awoke from his sleep and told Sakura that she is now a Card Captor and has
to capture all the freed Clow
Cards, all 52 of them. She has a sealing wand that
can be used to imprison the magical powers into individual Clow Cards. She
lives with her father (Fujitaka Kinomoto) and elder brother (Touya
Kinomoto). Her mother (Nadeshiko Kinomoto) died when she was 3 years old.
She seems to have a crush on her brother’s classmate (Yukito
Tsukishiro), who seems to have a weird relationship with her brother
instead. (Surprise surprise!)
Kerberos
or Kero-chan (Xiao Ke) is a cute lion/ teddy bear/
monkey like creature with wings and is the seal and protector of the Clow
Cards. Since Sakura released the cards, Kerberos has become her advisor
cum sidekick on her quest to capture all the freed cards. He is the expert
on the cards and would go through anything for Sakura. However, there was
an episode that the two of them quarrelled and Kerberos left Sakura. He is
supposed to be very powerful and can manage to seal the book preventing
the Clow Cards from escaping. So far the most powerful thing I have seen him do is to
play video games the whole day when Sakura is in school! He reminds me of that T-rex
from Toy Story 2 with his obsession. Later in the series, he regains his powers.
Tomoyo
Daidouji (Chi Shi as in cheese) is Sakura’s
best friend cum classmate. She is also Sakura’s distant cousin as their
mothers were cousins (revealed in the tenth episode, I think). She’s
very rich and is quite obsessive with designing Sakura’s battle outfits.
Tomoyo also films Sakura whenever she is out capturing the Clow Cards. All
in all, Tomoyo has a weird obsession with Sakura, always saying things
like "You're so beautiful Sakura" and "Nothing is more
exciting than watching Sakura all day long". It’s a little weird to
say the least.
Li
Syaoran (Lee Xiao Lang) is a descendent of Clow Reed
(creator of Clow
Cards) and sees the capture of the Clow Cards as his
personal goal in life. He started out as Sakura’s rival and nearly got
into a fight with Sakura’s brother. As the show progresses, Li becomes
an ally to Sakura and helps her to capture the Clow Cards. He is very cool
and hardly smiles or shows any emotion except when he sees Yukito.
Surprisingly, he seems to have a crush on Yukito too. Li uses a sword to
battle the cards and uses numerous amulets to perform his magic, e.g.
wind. He is dressed in a green costume and reminds one of a Taoist priest.
And here's Yukito: He who can make Sakura and Li blush :)
Why
you should watch Card Captor Sakura?
Even
though the leads are mainly female, the graphics are rather good
especially when Sakura uses any of her cards. The story line is simple and
would appeal to most. I consider it to be one of the better Japanese anime
showing on TV now (Of course, Slam Dunk and Digimon are the other ones.
Maybe I’ll do an article on Digimon though the first season is ending
soon.)
However, there are some sexual under tones in the show, which I hope would be resolve later down the series. Tomoyo seems to be obsessed with Sakura while Sakura and Li both have crushes on Yukito. Yukito, on the other hand, seems to be particularly nice to Touya, Sakura’s brother, and vice versa. In one episode, Touya told an admirer that he already liked someone else but there hasn’t been any girl friend mentioned so far. In another episode, Touya and Yukito were dressed as Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother respectively for a school play! They looked quite feminine in their costumes though :)
Sakura
has costume changes every week thanks to Tomoyo who designs them for
her. Even Kerberos has a matching costume! Furthermore, Kerberos has a
short personal segment right at the end where he would introduce
interesting facts about the week’s episode, e.g. Sakura’s battle
outfits, the school uniforms in the episode (including Touya’s) etc.
Overall, the show is nice to watch and the way Sakura goes to capture her cards make it both challenging and interesting. She currently has about 17 cards and has about 35 more to go… It’s still not too late to catch this cute girl in action every Saturday.