Something which was brought up in the comments section of my CLAMP in Wonderland 2 review was the possibility of a remake of my favourite anime, Card Captor Sakura. I've been meaning to write about this for some time now, and I suppose this is as good a time as any.

Firstly, I need to lay all my cards on the table (convoluted referential pun unintended). If it were just entirely up to me and personally me, I wouldn't really care for a remake. For all the things I think the series could have done better (for example, the huge number of plot holes and bizarreness, which I'll probably point out when they get blogged about), I'm still of the opinion that it's one of the best anime I've ever seen, taken even as it is, rather than an idealized version in my head with impressive CG and suchlike. For myself, I'm satisfied with CCS.

However, it will be extremely likely that if CCS does get a current remake, in this day and age of the almighty blogosphere and episode reviews and such, there will be an upsurge of interest. CCS will be talked about; perhaps the comments will be unfavourable, perhaps people will love it anyway. But it will still be a point of discussion now, and remain in the current blogger (and anime fandom) consciousness for just that bit longer.

I mean, I was talking to an acquaintance about favourite anime recently, and I mentioned that my absolute favourite was Card Captor Sakura. Their initial reaction was a blank look I've become familiar with, as they tried to match the name with an anime released in the past two or three years.

"Oh, Card Captor Sakura," they say, finally remembering. "The one where Sakura and Syaoran from Tsubasa Chronicle come from, right?"

"Sort of," I hedge. "But I prefer the original versions."

"But it's such an old anime," they say. "Why don't you watch something newer?"

"I do," I say. "But I still like CCS."

"Yeah, that's very unusual," they say, and the matter is finished. And it invariably turns out that people I talk to have indeed seen CCS, and thought that it was good, but they had completely forgotten about it until now. I suppose this counts as evangelizing the series, since they often decide to watch it through one more time, but sometimes I selfishly feel like talking about CCS to someone who, well, knows what I am talking about.

And then there's the obvious benefit of more posters and merchandise coming out in all the magazines and retailers, rather than the occasional rehash of an image I already own. There is very little new merchandise for CCS, which is understandable considering its age, but, well, that's pretty much my point.

It's not likely that we'll be seeing a remake of CCS anyway, or at least a remake which will satisfy my incredibly keen nitpickery. (I'm still slightly peeved that Madhouse mis-animated Tomoyo in CLAMP in Wonderland 2 with brown eyes, instead of the blue eyes she was supposed to have.) Thus I think I am relatively free to speculate on What May Be.

The gut reaction for the first choice of studio to attempt this would be Kyoto Animation, of course. They have a reputation for sticking extremely close to the source material, and CCS has enough of a plot that any immersion-breaking references would be kept at a minimum (unlike, say, SHAFT, as much as I like them). For those with short memories and too much cynicism, consider how many references to other works you've seen in non-Lucky Star KyoAni works, and then ask if they broke immersion that much. Do this without bias, please.

The problem would then be which source they would stick to. The anime has seventy episodes and fifty-three cards (Clow or Sakura, including the movies), which would be a relatively immense amount of work for them. However, there's also the manga, which has nineteen cards and is divided neatly into two arcs, which would probably be more manageable.

Except that the manga does not have Meiling, and that, to me, is too much of a sacrifice.

We'd also have to bring back the original voice actors/actresses, and that's going to be a miracle. For one, Sakura Tange is pretty much retired (I forget whether she retired before or after voicing Kasumi in the Dead or Alive games), so no more hoe~ and hanyaa~n the way it was meant to be. I'm not sure what the schedules of the other seiyuu look like, but we'll have to bring back Junko Iwao for Tomoyo (she's been in a few anime recently, like Akane in the Mai-HiME/Mai Otome series), Tomokazu Seki for Touya (he's definitely active), Aya Hisakawa as Kero-chan (she's around here and there, I know that), Motoko Kumai as Syaoran (no idea if she's still active), Megumi Ogata as Yukito (I think she's still active), and Yukana as Meiling if she gets in (she's very much around, as Nanoha StrikerS and Full Metal Panic shows). Kanon managed to achieve the return of the old seiyuu, as did Negima!? and Ah! My Goddess, but I think this particular order might be a bit too tall.

And so I think that a remake of CCS will remain only in my imagination, where it probably should remain. Of course, we never know what the future might bring.

If it turns out to contain a remake of Card Captor Sakura as done by SHAFT and Akiyuki Shinbo, though, I think I might have to concuss myself just to make sense of it all. Mottsu cameos, Terada-sensei writing on that sentient blackboard, endless references to everything else for split-second frames… wow. My head hurts already.

At least it would be interesting.