Spoiler: The start of something beautiful... (I hope)
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• Ok, I saw an episode or two a long time ago. It was actually part of the terrible (or so I’m told) dub and I don’t remember anything about it except for some special effects with a key and something that looked like one of those final fantasy things talking into a 90’s mobile. What I’m saying is that I’m going into this completely blind. I know that it’s about a girl called Sakura who has to hunt down magic cards she let loose. I know that it’s a cornerstone of the MG genre’s modern form. I just learnt that the story originated from CLAMP. That is all I know.
• We have a short sequence of blue ripples and the outline of a girl’s face, asleep. Then a book appears and opens up. The girl has time to ask who is calling to her before we fade to the Tokyo skyline. (I think)
• A girl in pink is facing the Tokyo tower (I think). As she is identical to the girl in the opening, I assume that this is Sakura. She sprouts rainbow wings on her feet and falls off the building she’s standing on. As she has a lot of cards swirling around her (and a brown thing, which is going to be called Phone Moogle (I remember it talking on a mobile, long ago) until I learn otherwise) , this is probably a flashforward to the future.
• Episode title! ‘Sakura and the mysterious magic book’ well, we can guess what will in this episode. Sakura releases the cards, gets her powers and finds a book that is both magic and Mysterious. I wonder if there’s magic books that aren’t mysterious.
• Now we cut to Sakura waking up at seven o’clock exactly, thanks to her alarm. As she goes through her morning routine, she narrates her name and what subjects she does at school. Of course, her least favourite is maths. (Britishness Alert!) Anyway, why does every fictional schoolchild hate maths? Why don’t they hate English? That’s a lot more accurate. (OK, Sakura said she likes English (Japanese?), but the point still stands)
• We meet Sakura’s brother Toya, who looks like every sort-of bishonen ever. He teases her over her making a lot of noise, and she goes berserk and he stops her with his mug of tea on her head. It’s quite cute, in a family squabble way. Sakura isn’t impressed and labels him a big meanie in her narration and gives us more information. He’s in eleventh grade (so he’s... eleven or twelve? He looks at least four or seven years older than that.) and his school is next to hers.
• Sakura has a little daydream where she grows to be enormous (because her brother’s ‘tall’) and stamps on Toya. It’s interrupted by their father Fujikata in a pink apron. What does the Sakura-dex say about him? He’s an archaeology professor and is really nice, which I can believe. He also does cooking and sewing. I don’t know much about Japan, but if it’s strictly ordered, a man doing stereotypical Women’s work implies that there’s no wife to do it. Sakura confirms that her mother died when she was three.
• Her brother thanks their father for breakfast and starts to leave. Sakura calls after him to wait, rushes her breakfast, and straps on her rollerskates to chase him. I am jealous. Oh wait, they’re rollerblades. I am even more jealous.
• Oh, Sakura only rushed after her brother because she has a crush on his friend. He’s called Yuki, and he looks like Toya, except he has glasses and wavy grey hair. Sakura tells us that he goes to the same classes as Toya, and some stuff that makes is even more obvious that she’s completely lost. Yukito seems to think that she’s adorable. He’s right, but is oblivious her feelings.
• After she catches a goodbye sweet from Yuki, Sakura is surprised by her friend, Toyoma. She’s got long, grey hair, is really pale and is in the school uniform. I bet she’s the friend that designs the costume. (tip-off from the thread: no transformations in CC Sakura. It’s a shame, as I like transformations, but there you go.)
• In the locker room, Toyoma talks about Sakura’s reaction to Yuki’s gift. I’m not sure if she’s obliquely ribbing her, or just entranced by the cuteness. The Sakura-dex tells us that Toyoma likes recording things. Is this the origin of Videogirl from the Precure heartcatch opening? If I wasn’t so sure that Toyoma will become the costume designer, I would say she would become a sort-of antagonist, trying to track down and photograph the mysterious Cardcaptor. Toyoma lays it on a little thick with the admiration and Sakura collapses to the floor.
• In class, we see Sakura doodling the Phone Moogle. She wonders if something was her, so I assume that the pre-title sequence was a dream she was having, and she was referring to the girl in the pink frilly outfit.
• In P.E; they are practicing cheerleading. While tossing batons, Sakura sees hers as the wand/staff wielded by the dream-Sakura. She misses her toss and bops herself on the head. Two girls (I will call them Bowlcut and Pigtails, until later) comment that she spaces out a lot.
• Back home, Dad is out, so Sakura has the house to herself. I don’t know what Toya’s up to, but Sakura confirms that he’s not here. While sneaking a dessert, she hears something. She creeps out to see what. As there’s creepy music box noises, I’m not sure this is a good idea. It’s going to be the book of cards, that her dad found as part of his work. I'm not even going to make a comment on it, it's just going to happen.
• Sakura says it’s coming from her Dad’s study. This turns out to be in the basement. It’s full of books and probably the size of the entire house. Being an archaeology professor must pay well. One book starts to glow and the music box starts again. Nice novelty music box, Dad, right? Right?
• Sakura decides to look at the glowing book with the creepy backing music. Fujikata, raise your daughter better! As she pulls it off the shelves, we see that it has CLOW written on the side. Sakura recognises it from her dream. There’s a little jump when it unlocks itself, but she decides to read it anyway. It contains a card the size of her head, depictining something like an angel mummy. Sakura reads out its name: The Windy.
• This makes the book explode and spit out all the cards, with eerie fog, dramatic winds and a light show included. Then it spits up one last thing at the terrified Sakura: Phone Moogle! After a brief freakout by Sakura, who tries to find his batteries, he introduces himself as Kerberos(sia), guardian of the cards and I start laughing. Kerberos guards the gate of Hades; this thing has been nicknamed Phone Moogle for a reason. Once he realises that the cards have escaped, he has a little panic like only an anime character can. Sakura still has the windy card, and she explains that she blew them all away when she activated it. Phone Moogle doesn’t take this well.
• Later, Toya’s got home, and he and Sakura are now in pajamas. Sakura takes a dessert up to her room to give to Kerberossa. He’s mentally searching for the Cards, but has had no luck.
• Exposition Time! The Clow Cards were created by a powerful sorcerer named Clow Reed. Alive and with supernatural powers, they will apparently cause a disaster id they are released. Cheer up, Sakura, most heroes do this sort of thing at least once! To stop the Cards from wrecking the world, Clow sealed them in the book, along with Kerberossu. As Sakura released the Cards, he enlists her to help hunt them down, but she turns the tables by reminding him that it was his job to keep them locked up. (He fell asleep for thrirty years, which he shouldn’t know as he was asleep. However mighty Clow was, he didn’t think this plan through enough if he chose a narcoleptic guardian.)
• Kerberossu decides to give Sakura the power to capture the cards. This takes the form of entering a contract with the key of the seal, her magic staff. She’s a bit stupid and grabs it before remembering she doesn’t want to do this. Let’s hope you never meet Ursula or Mephisto, Sakura. :smallsigh:
• The argument is interrupted by a strong wind, which turns out to be coming from a bird the size of a plane. Kerberossie identifies it as the FLY card. Sakura’s going to be able to use the cards she captures isn’t she? There’s no way she won’t be able to fly.
• Sakura complains as she rides out to catch it at Kerberossu’s insistence. I think this is reasonable as A) she’s in her PJ’s (and skating gear) and B) the Card is really, really Big. It looks a bit like a giant Fearow, but made of Ice or something blue and glowy. It blasts them back to show support for her side of the argument. Kerberossu saves her and tells her to attack.
• Kerberossu tells her that since the fearow is a wind-type, she should be able to use the Windy card to channel her powers enough to capture it. I hope this point leads to them having to let some found cards go loose until they get the right card to catch it. Fearow dives at them, but misses. Sakura has an idea and leaves Kerberossu to take the attack. Cold, Sakura. Unfortunately my video cuts out here.
• Let's pretend that there wasn't a break. While the Fearow is distracted, Sakura somehow gets behind it and uses her Rollerblading skills jump onto its back. The fearow doesn’t like this and flies up into the sky, using the same animation as it did earlier. Sakura then begins the incantation (I assume Kerberossu taught it to her during the offscreen argument) and calls the Windy to aid her.
• Ok, this is pretty cool. The Windy appears and splits into many Windies which wrap up the Fearow and become bandages. The fearow then crashes. So much for being the embodiment of supernatural flight! Sakura then uses another incantation to bind the Fearow, which makes it become fairly obvious CGI and shrink down to being a card.
• Kerberossu praises Sakura, but she’s acting like a reasonable person and bursting into terrified tears. There, there, Sakura. You only need to do it sixty-nine more times. Kerberossu tells her that it’ll make her a better person when she grows up. He obviously hasn’t watched Evangelion.
• Kerberossu finally gets a good idea: get Sakura to use the Fly card! I’m a bit disappointed that it just makes wings grow from her key, which of course she rides like a broomstick (even if she’s a girl, that’s going to get uncomfortable quickly). Because Sakura hasn’t been to any other towns yet, they fly around over the rooftops. The episode closes on them arguing about becoming a proper Card Captor. Sorry, Sakura, we know what the title is.
And that’s it. So far it’s very cute, and has some interesting things that could resurface. We’ll probably find out how Sakura’s dad got hold of the Book of Cards, and we’ll probably run into some more stuff made by Clow Reed. I haven’t got much expectation for plot as it is aimed at little kids (not that that’s a barrier to quality, in theory) and is the perfect setup for a Card per week.
The characters are pretty good: Sakura is cute and cheerful, but does have violent or selfish moments like an eight year old (I think she’s eight?). Toya is a typical brother, teasing Sakura but clearly caring about her. Fujikata does seem to be completely kind and caring; the closest he has to a flaw is being kept away from his children by his work, which happens enough for Sakura to not comment on it, but not enough for her to complain. As the parental figure of the main character in a children’s series, I don’t see him becoming much more than this, but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely, as he does have a connection to the Book. I predict that something will happen with Sakura’s feelings for Yuki. You can’t give somebody powers and a crush and then not have anything happen. I’ll wait until we see more before making any further guesses on him.
Sakura’s friends... I’d say that they will get caught up in this somehow. Pigtails and Bowlcut might merely be enlisted for capturing a couple of Cards and the fade back into the background, but I’m sure Tomoya is going to be important, either as a companion or an antagonist.
Kerberossu is interesting, despite not being a giant hellhound (I think he’s meant to be a griffin or something). He was selected to guard the Cards but failed at that task, making it clear that Clow Reed wasn’t a good judge of character (or wanted them to escape. Dunh dunh DUNH!). He also has not shown any powers to help him capture the Cards, beyond passing the responsibility on to somebody else, and being able to nearly lift Sakura. Despite getting a little girl involved in monster-hunting against her wishes, there doesn’t seem to be any malice in him: he just doesn’t seem to get the subtleties of how humans work.
I’m most interested about the description of Clow Reed as ‘a great sorcerer’. This implies that there are other sorcerers around. Is Sakura’s lack reaction to the mention of a sorcerer due to young innocence or the worldwide knowledge of magic?