The third DVD for Card Captor Sakura is called "Friends Forever", which probably refers to all the various adventures Sakura inadvertantly leads her friends on, thanks to the Clow Card. Well, it's a nice enough sentiment, even though it's probably been associated by now with all the "frenz 4eva" stereotypical chatspeak.

The blurb on the back of the case reads as though someone is trying to string together the plot summaries for three admittedly episodic, er, episodes, and trying to make it seem exciting:

The Sword card takes control of Sakura's friend and attacks! Still, Sakura is able to use her head and her heart to save everyone. Next, Sakura discovers that her mother was best friends with Tomoyo's mom, and learns important lessons about friendship. However, none of these lessons prepares Sakura or Li for the challenge of the Time Card. How can you battle something that can turn back time?

We'll just leave aside the whole thorny debate of that "best friends" bit for now.

Extras in this DVD are a postcard enclosed in the DVD case, as well as an "Art Gallery" in the DVD extras portion. The Art Gallery is pretty much a bunch of black-and-white sketches (some pencilled, some inked) of various things, ranging from Sakura to her classmates (Chiharu and Rika in particular) and her battle costumes and random views of Tomoeda. There are twenty-nine of these sketches in total, seemingly thrown together for no reason other than to have a DVD extra.

The postcard itself has Sakura, Tomoyo, and Meiling (who hasn't even turned up yet, and won't for two more DVDs) in kimonos (well, Meiling is in a qipao) in a fairly traditional Japanese setting. There's a large "Happy Girl's Day" caption on top (in pink), and I should probably scan the thing in if I ever figure out how to make a clean scan of reasonable size that won't seem utterly pixellated. Or maybe I can see if the picture is already in my CCS collection… no, doesn't look like it. May as well wait until Sagubooru comes back online.

Anyway. Episode 9 of Card Captor Sakura is "Sakura and the Mysterious Brooch", and appears to have a rather artsy animation direction, with a lot of Dramatic Still Scenes and high light exposures. Everything just seems a tad too bright, and slightly blurred. It feels like a precursor to a SHAFT production or something. I'm not sure if it's "good" or "bad", but it's certainly eye-catching.

Also, there's a great deal of Tomoyo CHECK!Pointing that I had to leave out, since otherwise we'll be staring at thirty-plus screenshots of Tomoyo-chan throughout this summary. So again, whenever Tomoyo comes onscreen when you watch this episode, have another mental CHECK!Point.

CHECK!Point: Yes, we're starting out with one, although sadly this is not Tomoyo-centric. Sakura seemed distracted and depressed after the previous night's outing against the Thunder card (and Syaoran berating her for being, well, stupid), and so Rika gives her a flower to cheer her up. It's very sweet and heartwarming, and I'm trying as hard as possible not to throw in a cynical comment and ruin the moment.

Sakura attempts to engage Syaoran in conversation, but gets blown off until she mentions that she had seen Syaoran's outfit in her dreams before. This seems to gain her some measure of respect, as Syaoran acknowledges that Sakura may have some magical powers after all. Presumably he's not as interested in aliens, time-travellers, and ESPers.

Enter Takashi Yamazaki, class representative and inveterate liar. Personally I don't really get his character at all, since I'd imagine that after a few weeks of listening to his lies and tall stories, he'd get shunned by the rest of the class as being, well, a liar, and therefore not to be trusted. I can only assume that it's generally understood that he Does Not Mean It Maliciously, and possibly keeps spouting nonsense due to some psychological condition or some such.

Here, he's telling Syaoran that those on duty have to entertain the class by dancing and singing. I'm not sure if this hazing is for transfer students in general, or for transfer students from other countries in specific. I'm also not sure if I'm reading far, far too much into all this.

After several sequences involving Sakura dreaming That Dream in class again (and getting chided by Terada-sensei), as well as Rika staring longingly at Terada-sensei (which Sakura notices and completely fails to follow up on), Tomoyo suggests that Sakura, herself, and Rika go out shopping together. This brightens up Sakura considerably, mostly because she realizes that everyone's worried about her.

CHECK!Point: "Because I want to stay with Sakura-chan for as long as possible." Ah, Tomoyo-chan. May your wish come true, canon pairings notwithstanding. Because dammit, you deserve it.

The shop in question appears to be one of those establishments that sell a bit of everything at inflated prices for the Atmosphere of Boho or some such. I get the feeling that if the Rozen Maiden dolls existed in the CCS-verse, they'd be sold in shops like this.

Exactly why Sakura and co. decided that they would be able to afford anything in here with their fourth-grade allowances is uncertain. I remember that I had an allowance of something like a dollar a day to use as I saw fit (not counting extra for buying stuff like groceries) at that age, and saved even that mostly by not actually having a social life, and thus not having much opportunity to buy anything too expensive. Also, school food was quite specifically priced to be far, far cheaper than it would have been outside.

The theme of the day was brooches. Tomoyo picked a cross-shaped brooch, and Sakura chose a heart with wings in what may or may not have been a case of foreshadowing for sixty episodes later. Personally, I strongly suspect that the universe would never allow Sakura to own anything that didn't have cute wings on it.

Rika, for unknown reasons, picked a sword pin brooch, which glinted ominously just before the commercial break eyecatch.

Of course, the ominous glint meant that when Rika put the brooch on, she gained that blank-eyed look of the possessed, and thus came under the control of the Sword card. The Sword itself looks to be a rapier with a full edge, although since Rika holds it two-handed in this screenshot, I could be mistaken. Perhaps a smallsword? Classifications for medieval weapons tend to be rather vague anyway.

I've always wondered if the Sword only had the one form, or if it could change forms due to what the user envisioned. Maybe it had a restriction based on what Clow Reed had experience with at the time. Since it turned the user into a "master swordsman", I would assume that Clow Reed had to have some way of programming that into the algorithms for the Sword's style, so to speak. This would imply that Clow Reed could not provide algorithms for styles and sword types he was not familiar with, and perhaps he consciously excluded cutting pole-arms as well, such as the naginata.

Of course, this can all be non-explained, as always, with MAGIC.

Sakura could not exactly get a close shave, being a girl, but she did get a haircut. This appears to be a staple of anime whenever bladed weapons are used, especially since I doubt any actual blades are sharp enough to cut someone's hair just by swinging it about.

The Sword, and Possessed!Rika, in close-up. I realized after I took most of the screenshots that I didn't actually have a picture of them, and so include it for information and posterity.

The Sword slices through one of those convex road mirrors that I cannot remember the actual term for at the moment. I can only assume that later, someone came along and cleaned it all up without questioning how these property damages came about in the first place.

Syaoran comes in to save the day while Sakura is paralyzed with indecision. The Sword card, possessing Rika, appears entirely willing and able to kill anyone in its way, and Syaoran is probably ready to return the favour. I suppose only the Luck Of Sakura prevented this from becoming so very bloody.

Sakura, of course, chooses to interfere with the swordfight not yet in progress by grabbing Syaoran's arm and stopping him from attacking Rika. I'm not entirely certain that this is a good idea, considering that she has just hindered the movements of the non-possessed person who's doing this to, yanno, save her life. (And capture the Clow card while he's at it, but saving her life comes with the package.)

Sakura gets the idea to use the Illusion card to conjure up an image of someone Rika would never hurt. The very obvious silhouette of Terada-sensei appears, Rika goes "Sensei…", and Sakura is still as clueless as ever. I suppose the advantage of this idea is that even though there was no real guarantee that Possessed!Rika would stop (seeing as how she would attack her own friend), if Rika did go slicey-stabby at the image of Terada-sensei, it would not be a big loss anyway.

But Rika does stop, and Sakura uses her kung fu skillz to make Rika let go of the Sword. I don't think I'd have thought to do that myself, and would probably have settled for prying Rika's fingers from the grip.

Rika falls unconscious, and Sakura manages to catch her before she hits the ground. Meanwhile, Kero-chan and Syaoran engage in some smack-talking, while Tomoyo looks on worriedly.

Throughout the whole Sword fight, it only targeted Sakura and Syaoran. I'm assuming that it tried to kill Sakura because she was the Card Captor, which once again confirms that the cards know who the new Card Captor chosen by Cerberus is, and it also faced Syaoran probably because he has a big sword himself.

Tomoyo, for her part, was not specifically attacked. If the Sword were more ruthless, it could probably have gone after her, and Sakura would probably have more trouble trying to protect someone else.

In any case, Kero-chan bites Syaoran's finger, resulting in Comedy. Tomoyo warns them about the sound of approaching footsteps, though; Sakura stares blankly at nothing in particular for a couple of seconds, before stating the obvious that "someone's coming". Maybe the recent adrenaline rush of battle made Sakura temporarily stupid.

Our resident bishounen appears on the scene again, ostensibly to return a borrowed CD (in a brown paper bag) to his To-ya. Yukito seems fairly unconcerned with the weird clothes Syaoran is wearing, or even the huge sword on his back, but instead immediately notices the tiny bite mark Kero-chan made. This is like rolling a natural 20 and a natural 1 on a Spot check at the same time.

Syaoran predictably freaks out, and makes an Expeditious Retreat. Yukito looks at him leave, while not really appearing to notice the unconscious girl in Sakura's arms. The man has odd priorities.

The next day at school, Sakura gives Rika her winged heart brooch to replace Rika's mysteriously missing (and enCarded) sword brooch. She also conveniently fails to explain why she's doing this, and Rika conveniently fails to press the matter.

I don't think I've actually ever seen any of the brooches being used in later episodes, though. Considering how much they cost, maybe Rika and Tomoyo keep them in some carefully climate-controlled environment so as not to tarnish them or something.

Touya and Yukito meet, while waiting for Sakura to meet them (well, Yukito in particular). Yukito wonders about the time, and Touya shows him his watch, rather than just stating the time. I'm personally not sure whether Yukito owns a watch himself; it just seems odd that he wouldn't, especially with the busy life of the average high school student.

Sakura turns up and presents a gift of food to Yukito, as can be expected. Syaoran also turns up and presents a gift of a fire attack to Touya, as can be expected.

Tomoyo arrives on the scene, and points out that in this case, Syaoran can be seen as a rival both in Card Capturing, as well as the pursuit of Yukito. A love triangle, made utterly bizarre by CLAMP.

Yukito apparently has no comment on being the romantic target of both a ten-year old girl (who happens to be his boyfriend's best friend's little sister) and a ten-year old boy (previously seen assaulting said ten-year old girl, as well as with an impressively large sword). This may well be for the best, since I don't think there's anything one can say to that situation without sounding insensitive, perverted, or both.

This episode's Kero-chan ni Omakase involved Syaoran's ceremonial robes, described (and condescended) in a rapid-fire pace. Aya Hisakawa (Kero-chan's VA) must have been enjoying this immensely. The Kero-chan Check takes a look at the sword, which supposedly exists as a small talisman when not in actual use, thus bringing up questions about conservation of mass and whether Syaoran is actually carrying around a large sword's weight around with him every day.

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