Cardcaptor Sakura TV Series | Retro Japanese Media Retrospective
So to start out with, I'd like to take a look at the anime's staff. The head honcho of this adaptation is one Maseba Yutaka. Maseba would go on to produce the first CCS movie as well, but he would cross paths with CLAMP a couple more times when he produced Clamp School Detectives and Code Geass. Additionally, he'd had a hand in the aforementioned Sailor Moon anime, producing Sailor Moon S, SuperS, and each seasons movie. From the Sailor Moon S production, he would have known Key Animator Itou Tatsufumi. At the director's chair is Asaka Morio. Asaka seems like the go to pilot for CLAMP anime adaptions, as not only directed the CCS anime and both movies, but he also directed the CCS sequel series Clear Card, the anime adaption of Kobato., and the anime adaption of Chobits. Actually, on Chobits, Asaka would bring back episode director Tanaka Hiroyuki, animation director Abe Hisashi, and storyboarder Katabuchi Sunao to work with him from CCS. Finally, the shows music was handled by series staple Negishi Takayuki. Negishi would, like director Asaka, be involved with every anime adaption of the manga, but would also provide music for the magical girl series Tokyo Mew Mew.
Cardcaptor Sakura is a series that is very near and dear to my heart. I originally started my journey with CLAMP with Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, awkwardly enough, before moving on to Chobits, and then to Cardcaptor Sakura. While Kobato will always be my favorite CLAMP work (article on that series someday(?)), Cardcaptor Sakura will always be held in high regard by me, despite it's lackluster ending. Yeah, I'll say it right here; I'm one of the many that hold the opinion that Cardcaptor Sakura's biggest weakness is it's mediocre third season (second half for the manga). This series really did not need a "villain" faction, and especially not one as formulaic and poorly fleshed out as Eriol's squad was. But the core problem with the Sakura Card arc is that it drags so much, in a show that is already quite slow paced. In the first season, there was never a feeling that the characters were on any time limit. The characters would simply be going about their daily lives, and when a Clow Card would pop up, they would go to seal it. There was a sense of progression, especially as the second season reached it's climax, but the overarching story was not as important as the stories of the daily lives of the characters told in each episode. On the other hand, in season three, each episode was bogged down by scenes dedicated to reminding us of the ongoing, time crunching plot threads. Every episode had to have a scene dedicated to Toya getting interrupted by Ruby Moon, a scene for Syaoran to contemplate his feelings for Sakura, and a scene were Eriol stands around looking MENACING. It just got really repetitive, to the point where you wanted to tell the characters to get on with it already yourself. But the interesting thing is that despite how annoying it was to see the same scenes play over and over again, it was never aggravating enough to make me want to drop the show, or even feel that the overall experience wasn't solid enough. Despite the repetition, the plot DID move along, and the conclusions for (almost) all of the plot points reached a satisfactory conclusion. Sure, I really didn't care for any of the characters introduced in season three, but they aren't really the focus either. The characters we've grown to know and love over the course of the previous 46 episodes still take center stage, and they have some great episodes dedicated to them. And those previous 46 episodes are some fantastic pieces of TV anime. So overall, I can safely say that I really enjoyed the Cardcaptor Sakura TV series.
So I don't really have a great segway into this next section, but instead of going into sections like "story, characters, etc." like one might in a traditional review, I'd like to take the next section to discuss a few specific episodes that highlight both my positive and negative takeaways on this show. Starting off with episode 16, "Sakura and the Rainbow of Memories." This episode really showcased the full abilities of the storyboard and coloring teams. There wasn't a lot of action in this episode, and the animation was pretty standard for the series, but the level of atmosphere created by the color palette and shot composition really elevated the already very interesting story concerning Sakura's great-grandfather. The extreme talent of the these teams would once again show in episode 40, "Sakura and the Sakura from the Dream." Again, the animation in the episode wasn't that great, but the atmosphere created by the art alone is just phenomenal, and being paired with Negishi's incredible score really tied the whole thing together. Episodes 37, "Sakura and Tomoyo's Lost Voice" is another great one, not only because it's an episode focused on the second best character in the show, Tomoyo, but also because it showcases my favorite insert song in the series, and that's saying a bit, because CCS has some really great insert songs all around. When I was initially watching, I expected some focus on music since Tomoyo is in the school choir, but they not only went out of their way to give her some in universe insert songs through both episodes featuring The Voice, but they also included several other insert songs throughout the later part of the show. Speaking of the vocal tracks in general, something really cool that they did is in episode 35 "Sakura's Wonderful Christmas," they used "Catch You, Catch Me", the shows first opening song, as an insert song to commemorate it's final use. It's such a small thing, but I really wish more shows that have multiple openings would do it.
The "Leave it to Kero-chan!"segment isn't an episode itself, but needs to be mentioned. I haven't seen or read many reviews of this show, but of the ones I have seen, none of them have mentioned this great segment. Now, I don't think this is the sort of thing that every show needs, but it was a perfect addition for this show, and it's removal is one of the many reasons why the final season is lacking. I'll talk more about this segment when we talk about the OVAs in the next post, but speaking generally about Keroberos, I can easily say that he's one of my favorite fairy partner/mascot types in the magical girl universe. His preference for taking it easy is funny, and despite his annoyance at Sakura at times, he never felt mean spirited. At the same time, he feels really cool when he does get serious, and his very few fight scenes throughout the series house some of the best animation in the show. But while Kero-chan is a character that I instantly fell in love with, Meiling, the premiere anime original character, was a completely different story. When her character is first introduced in episode 20 "Transfer Student vs. Sakura", I actually thought I might drop the show, I found her so irritating. One of the things that I appreciated about in the manga is that the story never lets any character get too big headed, and always takes the piss out of everyone to keep egos in check. Case in point, the end of Syaoraon's introduction in episode 8, "Sakura's Rival Appears". When Meiliing was introduced, it seemed like the writer/directer had completely ignored that aspect. But in the end, she actually had the strongest character arc of any character even from the manga. The show tricks you into a mindset of "eh, she's not so bad", and then hits you with that tragic heartbreak. It's pretty good. I really didn't think I was going like like Meiling at all once I saw her introductory episode, but she ended being one of my favorite characters.
Now despite all the things I liked, there are a couple of nitpicks I have to throw out, since I did most of my cons in the introduction. The first episode I want to talk about is episode 17, "Sakura's Scary Test of Courage". This is easily the most nitpicky opinion in this entire post, but I really hate the "is relatively normal otherwise, but goes completely non-functional at the mention of ghosts" bit in characters. Most recently, I got it with Kumagami in the Patlabor TV series, and it's just as annoying there. This specific gimmick is just really annoying to me, so there's not much point in dwelling on it. However, episode 63 "Sakura, the Pool, and the Huge Wave" has a lot to dwell on, because from a character and writing perspective, I think it's easily the worst in the the series in context. As far as music, animation, storyboarding, and all that goes, it's pretty good, fairly standard at this point in the series. However, this episode showcases everything I hate about season 3 in one package without any good points. The one good point is that despite the fact that the series drags out all the storylines and conflicts in the final season, it's not so bad when it focuses on the gimmick of the episode, like the Wonderland bit in episode 55 or the "stuck in our true forms" gimmick in episode 58. But the Pool episode is one of the few that's simple and straightforward; Sakura and friends go to do a thing, Eriol makes magic, bad things happen, Syaroan questions his feelings for Sakura, Touya gets cutoff by Ruby Moon, Sakura fixes Eriol's magic with a newly made Sakura Card, fin. It's not that there's anything wrong with having a formulaic show, the issue is that the storylines they choose to force out gives the watcher almost no satisfaction on an episode to episode basis. Maybe this daytime drama-esuque dragging out of plots wouldn't be so bad (doubtful) if not for the characters who are doing the dragging. Sakura, Syaoraon, Kero-chan and the rest are great usual, with the best character in the series Yamazaki having some his best moments in season 3. However, the new characters, at least what little of them are present, are simply not holding up the previous standard. Remember what I said earlier about how I was worried the anime staff were going to leave out the mangas' tendency to take the piss out of characters to keep their egos in check? Well that was a bit of a misnomer, considering the CLAMP themselves forgot about that during the manga. Eriol spends his entire time "hue hue"-ing in the shadows, acting innocent, and causing life threatening incidents "for the greater good", and anytime there's even a hint that what he's doing is morally questionable, the story goes "oh no, it's fine, there's nothing wrong with this," and sends him on his merry way. Episodes 64 and 70 are possibly more egregious examples of this, but they don't give the whole package of everything annoying about season 3 like this one does. No other character in the entire series gets treated like this. At least with Mizuki, who also never got a "rug pulled out from under her" moment, didn't really feel like she needed one, since, despite seeming to play an antagonist role, never actually did anything wrong. It's not like I totally hate Eriol, because he has some great scenes with my favorite character, Yamazaki, but the totally unchecked ego of his character was something I feel the series misstepped on. But I won't call Eriol's ego bloated, because that honor goes to Ruby Moon, the one and only absolute worst character in the series. Whereas Eriol's meddling at least kept the plot moving forward at a steady pce, Ruby Moon's meddling actively kept the plot from moving forward in what is absolutely the worst trope you can pull in this kind of show. Every single episode, when Touya was fumbling his way through trying to tell Yuki that he knew his secrets, here comes Ruby Moon stumbling in, "accidentally" getting in the way, ending that episode's advancement of that particular plot. I honestly don't know what they were thinking with this character. This character is everything I thought Meiling was going to be in the first part. A smug, smarmy asshole who does nothing but drag plots to a halt and be a dick for no reason. And her only comeuppance in the end is that she gets thrown out of a room and rushed past during the final battle. This character single-handily brings the show and manga, more than any yaoi faces, or annoying "scared of ghosts" gimmicks, or unnecessary big bads.
But I don't want to end on a damper note, because again, I really did enjoy this series in the end, despite everything. So we'll touch on one of my favorite episodes featuring an anime original card, episode 31, "Sakura and the Nameless Book." This episode doesn't really hold a lot of relevance to the overall plot, it's just a standard Clow Card collecting episode from near the end. It even includes the dumb ghost thing I mentioned before. But this episode could have featured Ruby Moon, and I still would love it, because it's an Ultraman homage. Why is it an Ultraman homage? Dear reader, I do not know. Maybe some of the staff worked on Ultraman. Maybe some of the staff are giant hero or tokusatsu nerds. Either way, this episode features Sakura dressed in an Ultraman inspired costume, complete with a rising sequence, fighting against a giant, swirly-eyed purple dragon, and Kero-chan is wearing a henshin belt. Meiling even screams at her to use a beam or a cutter attack... that might have been the moment that really turned me around on her character. The tokusatsu references aside, this episode features some amazing animation. It's hard to say if any scene from the episode has as good animation or choreography as the penguin statue punching scene from episode 43, "Sakura's Farewell to Meiling", but stuff like the weight of the dragon is conveyed amazingly. It's just such a fun, dumb episode that the staff clearly had a lot of fun working on it. Even if Sakura basically lost because she hadn't watched enough henshin hero shows, it was just a great episode. Easily my favorite addition by the anime.
I feel kinda of bad for ranting about Eriol and Ruby Moon as much as I did throughout this post, because while I do think they massively hold the story back from being a just shy of perfect masterpiece (the anime only being held back by the less than perfect visuals), I don't want to give you the impression that I had a bad time with this series in the slightest. I greatly enjoyed the several months I spent watching this series on and off, and while the manga certainly isn't my favorite from CLAMP, it will always hold a special place in my heart. The anime brought a ton of great improvements to the story through the great soundtrack, engaging anime original characters, stellar voice work from X and Y, and great animation where it counted.
Next week, I'll be wrapping up my thoughts on the Cardcaptor Sakura anime series with a discussion on Cardcaptor Sakura The Movie, Cardcaptor Sakura The Movie 2: the Sealed Card, the three You're Wonderful Sakura-chan OVAs, and the Leave it to Kero-chan movie.
[Editor's Corner] Congratulations reader! You've made it through what I'm sure was a rough read. To be honest with you, I didn't go back and do a full read over of this article after I finished writing it. Even now, as I'm doing my final editing pass, I'm only allowing myself to do basic grammar and spelling corrections, because if I fully re-read the whole thing, I feel like I'd end up re-writing a lot of it. I tried to go with a somewhat unorthodox formula of diving my sections into discussions on specific episodes, rather than the traditional "story, characters, music, etc." type segments. While I was writing though, it felt like it ended up being a weird mish-mash of both. I'll do a full read through of the article once it's posted, and try to figure out the best way to do this format going forward. Also, I'm going to take this time to apologize for how long this took to get out. I tweeted about finishing the show on January 7th, and then I said I would have an article out about it a week after June 1st. So this has been a long time coming. Interestingly, apparently I didn't start tweeting that I was watching the show until I had gotten to episode 20, when Meiling first appeared. I had thrown out one little teaser that I had begun watching on November 15th, 2019, but nothing else. I guess it makes sense, since I had my "Currently Binging:" slot as Cardcaptor Sakura since the creation of the accounts. Anyways, I've rambled enough now. Expect future updates to be here at teh bottom of all future articles, instead of being their own posts. See you next week. [Editing pass finished at 3:42pm, 7/29/20]
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