Anime Review: Cardcaptors Sakura

Cardcaptors Sakura first began as a Japanese Shojo Manga written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp, which is proberbly their greatest masterpiece that they are known for. It was published by Kodansha and ran in the Nakayoshi magazine which is basically the female equivalent of the weekly shonen jump. It first began publication on May 1996 and ended in June 2000. The then the TV Animation Studio Madhouse decided to adapt Cardcaptors Sakura into a 70 episode long TV Anime Series which ran from April the 7th 1998 and concluded March the 21st 2000. In that time two movies have been made called Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie and Cardcapto Sakura the Movie 2: The Sealed Card.

Cardcaptor Sakura begins when ten-year-old fourth grader Sakura Kinomoto accidentally releases a set of magical cards called Clow Cards from the Clow Book, created and named after half-English, half-Chinese sorcerer Clow Reed. Each card has its own personality and characteristics and can assume alternate forms when activated. The guardian Beast of the Seal Cerberus emerges from the book and tells her it is now her responsibility to retrieve the missing cards. As she finds each card, she battles its magical personification and defeats it to seal it away. Cerberus acts as her guide, while her best friend Tomoyo Daidouji films her exploits and provides her with battle costumes. Sakura's older brother Toya Kinomoto watches over her, while pretending that he is unaware of what is going on.

Most guys will look at Shojo and dismiss the entire thing as an assortment of oversized eyes and non existent noeses, that is why it's best to have watched this when you were a child. Cardcaptors Sakura is a story that is by far the best definition of a magical girl anime. The plotline was more of an assortment of many different smaller stories which worked out as an episode a clow card. The whole show was a collection of the individual stories of the clow cards which by themselves were very intresting. When you compile all the episodes into a series it is very much like the Clow Book itself, it is a plot of many smaller magical stories that Sakura experiences.

Sakura Kinomoto: Sakura is the main female protagonist of the story that embarks on a journey to gather all the cards again. She uses her Clow Wand as a tool and trap the clow beasts into their respective clow cards. She fights by sending out a  clow beast for 1 on 1 fights so if you think about it, its quite alot like pokemon. As a shojo character she must be extremely cheery, bright and energetic. Of course when shes sad shes damn well suicidal because it seems like a bad day for a shojo girl is the end of the world, everyday.

Syaoran Li: Syaoran is a distant relative of Clow Read, aka the creator of the cards and master of all magic basically.  Since he is related to him, no matter how distant his blood line is, and considering Clow Reed is dead, he should be the master of the clow cards and not Sakura. This of course gives him such a huge ego and following that he is very proud of who he is. Of course as the guy in the relationship with Sakura he watches out for her when she gets in danger but in the end they are still just young children.

Cerberus: He is the guardian of the Clow Book and of course all the Clow Cards and the beasts that dwell within. After Sakura releases all the clow cards Cerberus basically appointed her as the next candidate as guardian of the Clow Cards. His form resembles something much like a stuffed toy with wings that makes it tottally okey for Sakura to just bring her around school with because they are a partnership. And when I mean partnership I basically mean that Cerberus tells Sakura everything that she ever needs to do ever.

Tomoyo Daidouji: I guess you can say she is Sakura's best friend from school. She finds out pretty quickly that Sakura is a magical girl, and instead of freaking out, like how reality would dictate she simply is overjoyed at the fact. So overjoyed infact that she decides to make Sakura where different cosplays everytime she goes out to capture a new card. I think that this would be one of the first classic instances of cosplaying in an anime because she liked it so much it was bordering on a lesbian fetish./div>

Since the anime was released in the early 21st century it's going to be obvious to say that the animation quality is pretty dated. Now im not saying the animation quality is bad or anything it is just that every scene looks so bland. The colours simply don't exist, you will rarely see many bright colours it seems that back in the 1990's the animators color palletes were quite limited. There is even a certain lack of detail in almost all the scenes and characters expressions are represented very 2D Like and so it lacks that natural outlook.

Cardcaptors Sakura in my opinion is Clamps finest work because as a magical girl anime it is pretty rounded. Clamp likes to deal with all these different shojo themes and of course they like to link up their stories, this is what makes this anime so special. When you look at the recent animes like xxxholic and Tsubasa Resvoir Chronicles all the stories linked back up to Cardcaptors Sakura someway or form. Sure the plot wasn't amazingly well throught out and intelligent, but it was the pure freedom of all these different stories that last an episode and then Sakura got another clow card out of it. It is suppose to be an anime where you kinda have to follow Sakura on her magical journey, no matter how gay that might sound./div>