Volume two of Card Captor Sakura is called "Everlasting Memories", possibly in a reference to episode 6. But for a change, I'll be putting aside the various DVD items for this post, and instead talk about the episode itself.

Episode 5, "Sakura, Panda, and the Cute Shop", apart from sounding rather awkward, shows signs of (dare I say it, what am I saying, of course I do) lower production values than other episodes. This is mostly noticeable in the animation and character designs, where it appears to have been drawn by an outsourced studio (rather than the "in-house" Madhouse Studios) or the B-team of animators or some such. It's not utterly deformed and horrible (like some of the broadcast episodes of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and its sequel, or Utawarerumono, or even the infamous bits of Lost Universe), but when looking at the episode closely for making AMVs or blog posts, it's fairly obvious.

In addition, there were also plenty of strange and unexplained actions and occurences in this episode. It's not the worst offender, but it's up there somewhere. Yes, I know about the whole "it's MAGIC" explanation, and even now, as before, I still don't entirely buy it.

A loli little girl lies sleeping with an assortment of really bizarre-looking stuffed toys around her. Personally, I'm not sure if still wearing pigtails while sleeping is all that comfortable, but evidently she believes it is.

The camera focuses on a certain stuffed toy that is supposed to represent a panda, while looking nothing like a panda. This alleged panda starts bouncing about, and causes the other toys to start bouncing as well. If I were a little kid and watching this sequence, I'd probably be completely freaked out and crammed all my stuffed toys into storage where I'd never see them ever again.

I mean, it took maybe a couple of standard short horror films for me to have a perpetual uneasy feeling around dolls, and not even Rozen Maiden could cure it. I suppose I'm just easily influenced or something.

Morning, and Sakura is rollerblading to school. She sees a new shop called Twin Bells (which has, as a logo, four bells, in two pairs), and the proprieter, Maki Matsumoto. Maki appears to be a dojikko archetype, or at least have things just fall apart around her. Maybe she has a sort of entropic field of ill fortune or something.

After Maki accidentally drops a stuffed toy that is either a fish or a penguin, since I obviously can't tell what it is, Sakura goes over to help her for a bit, before heading off to school with a promise to come back later. The way she drops it is pretty obvious: she just lets go of it for no apparent reason. What purpose this action serves is never made entirely clear.

After school, Sakura, Tomoyo, and the trio of Chiharu, Naoko, and Rika all converge onto Maki's store, which has the OPEN sign out but is very much not ready for business. Sakura and co. offer to help out, and cue a montage of cleaning/arranging sequences.

The text reads "Daidouji Toys", if you're wondering. Tomoyo seems to be content with just rearranging stuff on the shelves, secure in the knowledge that when she grows up, she will probably rule over the hearts and minds of children with her inherited toy company, possibly with brand new suspiciously Sakura-esque dolls or something.

Chiharu finds the stuffed toy supposedly known as panda, and falls in love with it. The music turns all ominous, as Maki looks worried about this revelation. Considering the other toys in her store, I would say she's more concerned the not-panda's presence in her store than Chiharu's strange taste in stuffed toys.

Chiharu buys the panda, and brings it home, with the other girls tagging along. Soon enough, the panda disappears and Chiharu's room is a mess. Everyone immediately assumes that it's a thief, although the question of what a thief is doing breaking into a little girl's room and stealing a panda that does not look like a panda does not appear to cross their minds.

CHECK!Point: Random Seijyuu High girls cheer on Touya and Yukito in their football match. (Association football, otherwise known as soccer.) There is no real reason given for this scene other than to give some ambient sound for Sakura and Tomoyo's discussion about the missing panda.

CHECK!Point: Meanwhile, the Tomoeda Elementary class is also doing physical education. Some, like myself, are not as good at it as others.

CHECK!Point: Like Sakura.

Sakura, Kero, and Tomoyo plot to figure out why the missing panda that is not a panda turned up back in Maki's shop. (While they were there, Maki revealed her typically CLAMP-esque angsty past, but, insensitive as it may be, it doesn't really matter that much to the plot.)

If there were a reverse CHECK!Point, I'd give it here. (I probably should come up with something.) I mean, really. This isn't akin to the legendary cabbage from Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro na, but when applied to someone as normally cute as Sakura, the effect is rather disconcerting.

CHECK!Point: At Twin Bells, Tomoyo stalls for time. Her various circumlocutions begin to get more and more far-fetched as Sakura made more and more noise rifling through the shop, and I'm impressed that she actually managed to keep Maki from simply interrupting her to see what the commotion was all about. Well, at least until a suitably dramatic moment.

When said dramatic moment arrives, the Jump card, which had been possessing the panda that is not a panda, crashes through the shop window (more damages to pay for!) and brings with it a huge number of other stuffed toys. Sakura and Kero give chase, leaving Tomoyo to take care of Maki and lament that she should have brought her video camera.

The Jump, er, jumps, and Sakura grabs on to it. This brings them high above the city, where the Jump wriggles out of Sakura's grasp. This is possibly one of the few times we'll be able to hear a Doppler effect on "hoe~"

If any of you are wondering about this, yes, we do see what Sakura is wearing under that dress. She appears to have anticipated the day's rigours, and wore a pair of bicycle shorts the same colour as the dress.

I have absolutely no clue how the physics even work in this screencap. Yes, Sakura is falling upside-down, head-first. Yes, she called out the magic circle. Yes, there appears to be some sort of dust swirling "up" (actually down, towards the ground) from that magic circle. No, I don't know why.

The Jump then collects all the various stuffed toys to itself to, um, turn into a giant version of itself. Yes, all the various stuffed toys of different colours, and enough of them to form something the size of a building, and to somehow amplify the Jump's "boing~" roar to Giant Monster levels.

Exactly how this works is never explained.

Of course, being that the Jump is stupid, it loses balance under its own greatly-increased weight, and collapses into its component stuffed animals. Sakura takes advantage of this to seal it away, into what looks like a particularly oversized Clow Card, but is probably just the designs being off this episode again.

Twin Bells is now very popular and filled with lolis customers. This could be because of word of mouth when the panda that is not a panda returned to Chiharu's room (how it was returned is, as usual, not explained), or it could just be because there aren't packing boxes all over the place.

Given Tomoyo's very blatant attempts to stall for time earlier, and the subsequent sight of every stuffed toy in the shop bouncing around on crack, I'm surprised that Maki hasn't suspected anything regarding Sakura and Tomoyo. Either she has blocked all memory of that event from her mind, or she could just be really, really polite.

In other news, my ability to identify stuffed toy resemblances still has not improved at all.

Today's Kero-chan ni Omakase features various sketches of the Kinomoto house, as well as an utterly random segue to Sakura's stuffed animal collection. I don't think I've ever seen an alligator with eyelashes and mascara before, and I don't think I want to see one ever again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 7:17 pm and is filed under card captor sakura. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.