Yes, I've been quite bad at finding time for this blog. Now, the good news is that as far as I know, and I say this with the full knowledge that this is tempting fate to an unreasonable and extremely dangerous degree, things have settled down some, and I'll be able to turn my attention back to this blog. Even so, the future holds many mysteries for those brave enough to peer into its opaque depths, and as pointed out, fate has been tempted, and may yet rise to the challenge.

In any case, to further cement this blog's as-yet-nascent reputation for being a CCS-centric blog (through no deliberate decision on my part, I assure you), I should probably ramble a bit (albeit a bit unfavourably) about the series many people seem to expect me to like for its featuring of CCS characters, except not really: Tsubasa Chronicle.

Read the rest of this entry »

And that's the last "wood" joke you'll hear from me in this entry.

Episode 4 of CCS, "Sakura's Tiring Sunday", shows us the consequences of not following the user manual, or ignoring tech support. Well, actually it's just Sakura forgetting to write her name on a pair of cards, causing them to go wild. Or something.

I have to assume that the writing of the name is more a symbolic ritual than anything, since Sakura writes "SAKURA" in English on the cards (why English, instead of kanji or hiragana, is never really explained), and I'm pretty sure there's more than one Sakura around. Some may even have magical powers as well, unless we're not allowed to crossover with Fate/Stay Night or Da Capo, in which case never mind.

Overall, a fun little episode, but not especially earth-shaking or portentous.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 3, "Sakura's Heart-Racing First Date", doesn't deal as much with the whole "first date" aspect as much as Sakura's various amusing facial expressions. I'm not even sure it counts as a "first date", since we only know that Sakura considers it to be one, while the other half of the date, Yukito, probably doesn't. (At least, I hope he doesn't.)

In this episode, we also see the start of Touya's five million part-time jobs, and a few hints that Clow Reed may be a lolipedofin.

Or something.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 2 is one of my favourite episodes in the series, if only because of the Tomoyo screentime. Yes, I'm a Tomoyo fanboy, possibly because I, like Kyon, am kind of attracted to weird girls. Tomoyo's weirdness is only the surface of it, though; if you put aside the rampant Out-Of-Character situations that pop up now and then, she turns out to be the most fascinating and likeable character in the entire show, in my opinion. However, I'm obviously biased, so take that as you will.

I don't have a whole lot of CHECK!Points in this recap, largely because I tried screencapping everything I thought was moe, and ended up with pretty much every scene with Tomoyo in it and nothing to say about them but Tomoyo-chan moe~. So we'll just take it as a given that every time Tomoyo comes on screen, add in a CHECK!Point. It's the Moe Check drinking game, or something.

In this episode, "Sakura's Wonderful Friend", Tomoyo learns of Sakura's brand new title of Cardcaptor, and decides to use stage direction and expert camcorder skillz to replicate a true mahou shoujo series. Especially the henshin sequences, apparently.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pioneer (now Geneon), in their infinite generosity and wisdom, had apparently decided to package the Card Captor Sakura DVDs with titles, but no volume numbers. Well, I'm grateful that they released it in the first place, rather than leave it to Nelvana's butchered version. But still.

I'm not sure if the new re-release is better. I don't even want to think about how much I could have saved buying them all now, rather than one DVD at a time.

So volume one is called "The Clow", contains four episodes, and it has the following blurb:

Curiosity is a part of any 10-year old's life, but Sakura just broke the seal on a magical book and released all of the mischievous spirits imprisoned on the cards inside! Kero, the "Guardian of the Clow Cards" is horrified to find all of the cards gone and tells Sakura she must become the "Cardcaptor" and retrieve the spirits before they work their mischief in the world.

Not too inaccurate. The Clow Cards seem to limit their presence mostly around the Tomoeda area, though, which is quite considerate of them. In any case, the extras on this DVD are Sakura's character info blurb, the creditless first opening animation, and the Nelvana Cardcaptors opening. Which, um, is kind of painful to watch. But enough of that.

The first episode of CCS, "Sakura and the Mysterious Magic Book", sets up most of the necessary character introductions, and has Sakura defeat her first monster-of-the-week. You can already tell that the show is pacing itself for the long run.

Read the rest of this entry »

I've forgotten the exact first time I watched my first episode of Card Captor Sakura. Fuzzy memory places it at sometime around the time I was first discovering what anime actually was, watching Ranma 1/2. Or maybe it was later, whether I didn't recognize the television listing as anime at first, or if I had casually dismissed it out of hand.

I do know that I first realized how deeply I was entrenched in my love for CCS sometime in late 2003. I had definitely seen at least some of it before then, since I distinctly remember it as "going back to the anime I watched before". And so I watched it, and it remains my favourite anime of all time to this day.

Card Captor Sakura is a fairly long series, at seventy TV episodes and two movies (and a few other short extras). The number of cards Sakura has to capture grew from nineteen in the twelve-volume manga to fifty-three in the anime. Some plot points were changed, others remained largely the same, but the anime and manga are largely seen to be more or less equal in quality, or at least popularity. There's also the panned Nelvana dubbing into Cardcaptors, but that's the last I'll mention it. The debates are ancient by Internet standards, if not prehistoric.

Most people I know who don't have a visceral hatred of all things magical girl don't have anything bad to say about CCS, or at least nothing seriously bad. It's a charming show, a tad bit more mature than it would appear to be, but never losing sight of its brightness or good cheer. It's sugary sweet, but seldom saccharine, and it's the sort of cute that can be bottled and weaponized.

It's the embodiment of moe. And it's one of the main reasons why I started this blog in the first place.

I'll be blogging all seventy episodes and two movies of Card Captor Sakura, which will last me for quite a while. I'm not going to be focusing exclusively on it to the exception of all else, of course, but if there comes a time when I need to post an entry and I'm blanking on anything more current to blog about, out comes the CCS entry.

The format will likely be as much Episode Summary as I can stomach, with a heavy emphasis towards ramblings and thoughts. I've watched CCS so many times that it cannot remotely qualify as "new", and nothing in it can surprise me, but I'll never turn down any reason to rewatch it once again.

I'm blogging CCS because I want to, and it's the best way I can think of to show my love of the anime. If anyone wishes to join me, they're more than welcome to.