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.

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Moe~

Moe~ moe~ moe~ moe~ moe~

Moe~

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Yeah, I can't wait either.

(I wonder if it's significant that the letterboxing makes the actual display 4:3 instead of 16:9.)

I'm not sure if I'll be doing this monthly, or if I'll wear out my welcome by month six or something. Still, one month is a very long time on the Internet, and I suppose I'll just keep doing this until someone tells me to stop.

So it has, in fact, been just over two months since I started blogging here, and it's been a great deal more hectic than I had imagined. Two posts a week, and I've been easily keeping that promise, but I always try to push for a little bit more, maybe posting every other day or something. I simply don't have the sheer blogging inspiration (like Impz) to post every day, unless I'm really excited about something, in which case you'll see me post something like three posts a day for maybe a week or so, and then utter silence for a month.

Yes, I do have a rather short attention span when it comes to hobbies. I obsess over things, and then I… just kind of lose interest in them.

Anyway. I'm not sure whether I should focus on What Has Been Done (ie the statistics) or What Is To Come (ie my plans for the future of the blog). The former is obviously easier to do and more stable, not subject to the whims of fate, at least until someone invents that flux capacitor, but the latter might, upon the balancing of probability, be more interesting, even if it shall never come to pass.

I suppose I could try to do them both, and subject whatever readers I have to this unholy temporal abomination joined from the past and the future. The passage of time will be but a mere guideline, capable of being altered by some as yet uninvented or undiscovered device. Now that would be a cool Lost Logia to have, although it would probably make a complete hash of whatever narrative flow there may be.

We may even require the assistance of time-travelling agents from the future, although if Mikuru Asahina is the best they have to offer… well, at least we'll hurtle screaming into that temporal singularity with plenty of eye-candy.

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I've got the two-month State Of The Check post waiting, but this is a great deal more fun.

Yes, I have seen episode one of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Yes, I enjoyed every minute of it. Yes, I will probably blog quite a bit more about it in the very near future.

Maybe in the near future I'll rewatch the episode and judge it a bit more objectively, pointing out all the flaws and how they could have done things better. But for those twenty-five minutes or so, it had been glorious. Don't watch it with any expectations of story or plot progression, but all you need to keep in mind is your love for the series, and you'll be enjoying this as well. (Conversely, if you didn't like the first two seasons, there's not really much here for you.)

Since I'll probably be waiting for a more high-quality source than the admittedly grainy first-released raw, I'll leave the episode summary for later, and instead ramble on about the various magical devices seen in the opening animation for StrikerS. There are nine of them (yes, nine), with a very real possibility that more will get added as the series continues on.

EDIT: Replaced the old screencaps with marginally better ones. Well, maybe not that much better, but at least the letterboxing is gone.

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