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SaitoHajime101's Cardcaptor Sakura Tv Review

Cardcaptor Sakura

Cardcaptor Sakura tv Review

10-year-old Sakura Kinomoto returns home from a typical day at school, after having a mysterious dream about a book that morning, and hears strange noises coming from her basement, where her father's library is. Upon investigating, Sakura stumbles upon the magical book of The Clow, and breaks its magical seal. Inside of the book, she finds a stack of cards, known as Clow Cards. She accidentally scatters the cards after she says the word "Windy", the name of the first card she picks up.

When the wind dies down, a small yellow creature named Cerberus rises from the book. He introduces himself as the guardian of the Clow Cards, and Sakura, upon scattering them, has woken him up. He tells Sakura that she must now gather all of the Clow Cards to prevent a certain catastrophe from happening. The story begins here, and with the help of Kero-chan (Cerberus's nickname), and Sakura's best friend Tomoyo Daidouji (who videotapes all of Sakura's adventures and makes all of her costumes), Sakura sets out on her journey to collect all the Clow Cards. Along her way she meets new friends, new enemies, and many challenges.

Story & Characters

AUGGHHH!!!! THE LITTLE SISTER CUTENESS!! MAKE IT STOOOPPPPPP!!!...

Wait, wait, don't run away yet my readers. The review has only begun. Card Captor Sakura, a nostalgic 90s anime that has alot of 80s and early 90s kids being filled with nostalgic joy. Also it was the 90s decade that saw the increase in magical girl series, oh what a wonderful decade it was... I guess *cuts the sarcasm*.

Okay well we have here our typical yet entertaining magical girl series (as said for the hundredth time and probably not the last time). Its got a decent list of characters that help move along a slow going series. Obviously you have the main character Sakura Kinomoto, which the story takes part of its title from, who happens to stumble onto a magical book which releases a deck of magical cards, whom causes half the magical antagonism throughout the series. Whew, I'm tired of magic already. Anyhow, Sakura is your basic, ordinary 4th grader living, I would guess, an average Japanese life (considering this anime was released in the mid-90s, try to imagine what life was like in Japan during that time). Now she has her set of friends, but the most notable being Tomoyo Daidouji, who is your freakish-stalker-bisexual character who does nothing but takes videos of Sakura all through out the series. Yes, be very afraid. Now from here you have Keroberos (Kero), the guardian of the Clow Cards who is constantly beside Sakura through majority of her career has a Card Captor and beyond. He's the mentor/guidance for her as she grows in strength. Just thinking Obi-Wan Kenobi and you'll get the idea (for those who don't get the reference, just keep reading and forget about it). From here we have several other characters who play imporant roles through the series including Touya Kinomoto (Sakura's Brother), Yukito Tsukishiro (Touyo's Best Friend), and Syaoran Li (fellow Clow Card Hunter and Classmate). Syaoran Li plays an important role as well but the part I want to talk about includes major spoilers so I won't mention much about him. If you want to know, watch the series.

The set of characters is entertaining and hilarious but it gets pretty ridiculous sometimes. You frequently run into those moments where you just want to smack them upside the head for being naive and oblivious, but obviously its not physically nor logically possible so you end up smacking yourself instead. Now whether to say thats a good thing or a bad thing, its up to you.

The story itself is a bit unique but then I realize this might be one of the places that the creators of Yu-gi-oh got their material, I realize how much better they could've made it. Hey it was the 90s, the decade of hilarity in my opinion (and MAGICAL GIRLS, sheesh!) Overall its a story for the children and for family time, not something for your average anime watcher who has a family who doesn't care much for it. You can definitely tell this series was actually meant for those (enter sarcasm here) bright, young, innocent 8 year old girls (end of sarcasm) that most shouldn't have much of an interest outside of that age group or gender. Honestly though, I may say that but I think thats also the wrong thought as well. I will cover that more in the Presentation section of this review.

Rating: 7

Art

Art... mid-90s, very old (laughs). Oh, oh, you want more than just that. Well its your typical old style. Nowadays we have the digital, computer generated art styles that allow for more fluid motions and in-betweens that we now consider anything from the rotorscoping days "old school". Thats what this art is. I wouldn't call the art that great or eye catching. Actually I'm pretty sure they reused quite the number of scenes (not including the transformation sequences) that it becomes rather boring at times. I did enjoy the moments when Sakura would get pissed at Touya for calling her a monster and she would got into this gigantic form. It was hilariously drawn but again, nothing so great that its eye catching.

Rating: 6

Sound

I enjoyed a couple songs but not enough for me to go out there and download entire soundtracks. Its unfortunate that one of the couple songs I did enjoy didn't appear in the series. The song "Super Love Love Days" by Gumi only appears on the CCS Original Soundtrack Vol. 2. It not once had an airing in the series or movies. Its a well written song that fits Card Captors so well I would've thought it would've been in the series or one of the movies. Thats quite unfortunate. The other song I enjoyed was the opening song called "Catch You, Catch Me". Its very reminiscent of 90s music, both in America and Japan (obviously because it came out in the 90s). My point being is listening to it now brings alot of nostalgia to the table. Its quite enjoyable. So a couple songs, otherwise it had an okay listing of songs but wasn't the greatest ever heard.

Rating: 6

Presentation

Okay quite the number of issues to discuss. First area I like to cover is the length of the series and how episodic it really was. Now it seems like each episode connects right after another, but thats only true to an extent. It only connects when its running a current plotline that takes more than one episode. Aside from that its very episodic and it doesn't connect at all, especially when they're chasing Clow Cards for the first 20-something episodes. It didn't work well with this series that needed some constant reminders of what the plot was really about, not this consistent off-trackness it had going.

Second issue was the fact that the writers were looking for the theme to be love but they didn't quite make it clear enough until the second season. I mean, I'm sure we all picked up on the hint at some point in the first season but it too so freakin long it made me want to tear my hair out. Keep in mind they were shooting for the audience of 8 year olds with nothing but free time on their hands, so I guess it works but if someone older watches it, it becomes to long. It literally drags itself through the 70-odd episodes until FINALLY Sakura does something towards the end with her "relationships". Oh but wait less we forget she's a 4TH GRADER. What the hell is a 4th grader doing falling in love? I know girls mature faster than us males, but even thats pretty farfetched. Would've been more believable (but still a longshot) if she was in 6th grade, maybe 7th. Thats right, 6th grades are already out of the magical girl phase by then so it wouldn't have worked. Yeesh. Sakura is by far the biggest tease throughout the friggin series, but it also doesn't help that we have to deal with the sister complex of her older brother. Here we thought a 4th grade falling in love was ridiculous, a sister complex? We all know that Japan has this fascination with entertaining the idea of having a "relationship" with someone of the same blood, but sorry, doesn't work with alot of Americans (at least not with me, I dunno about you readers). Okay I know all of that rant should've been in the character/story section but it more relates to the presentation, I just kinda digressed a bit.

70-episodes to tell a love/magical story is pretty ridiculous but less we all know once Clamp gets on a hit series, they'll suck it dry until we can't stand it anymore. Kinda reminds me of some other companies...

Anyhow, to touch base with something I said at the end of the of the story section. This series can be viewed and enjoyed by all age groups but obviously the older you get the more ridiculous this series gets. I'm sure alot of you can argue that this series was a great series, but I also figure those of you who say that initially watched it when you were just a kid when it aired on t.v. Those of you who actually went out and watched imported versions or recently watched the original Japanese version in recent years as an older person and still enjoyed it, I must say that you aren't wrong in your opinion. Its quite an enjoyable series but the ridiculous moments are just too much to take anything in this series seriously. Fun series for the family and for your young children (if you are that old to have children), otherwise you don't have to jump right of your bed to quickly download this. Push it down your list if you have to, it can be put off.

Rating: 5

Final Verdict

6.0000 (average)

Reviewed by SaitoHajime101, Dec 23, 2009

Comments

  1. rukasu04 Mute Member Dec 31, 2009

    Nice Review

  2. mona12 Jan 04, 2010

    thanks for the review

  3. Sanisa Feb 24, 2010

    Thanks for the review! Nice ^__^

  4. SchRita Aug 27, 2010

    Thanks!

  5. Baraka-Senpai Jul 05, 2011

    Very good!

  6. hitsu-chan Jul 20, 2011

    oooh, nostalgic... thx for the review! xD

  7. AdilHossain Jul 27, 2012

    Cardcaptor Sakura is one of the greatest anime that I have seen.

  8. back07 Sep 26, 2012

    thanks for the nice review
    :)

  9. SilverCat-sama Nov 14, 2012

    I agree with you. Absolutely.
    I used to love CCS anime when I was a kid, bt now when I watch it again, It feels ridiculous.
    At that time, I watch this mostly bcoz the wonderful arts n Sakura's cute customs. I didnt understand the stories, yet.
    N now, I'm grow up, n try to watch this again, my reactions r just like yours. ^^'.
    4th grade falling in love? Tomoyo's words to Sakura often implied that she actually love her more than friend? Also Syaoran's first reactions to Yukito were just like he had a crush on him (blushing n run away). How could she changed her clothes with those complicated customs in such urgent time?

    Well, this show is definitely for children.

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