Cardcaptor Sakura
| Cardcaptor Sakura | |
 The first volume of Cardcaptor Sakura featuring Sakura Kinomoto | |
| カードキャプターさくら (Kādokyaputā Sakura) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Clamp |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| English publisher |
|
| Magazine | Nakayoshi |
| Original run | June 1996 – August 2000 |
| Volumes | 12 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Morio Asaka |
| Produced by | Eizo Kondo |
| Written by | Nanase Ohkawa |
| Music by | Takayuki Negishi |
| Studio | Madhouse |
| Licensed by | |
| Original network | NHK BS2 |
| English network | |
| Original run | April 7, 1998 – March 21, 2000 |
| Episodes | 70 |
| Other | |
Cardcaptor Sakura (Japanese: カードキャプターさくら, Hepburn: Kādokyaputā Sakura), abbreviated as CCS, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by the manga group Clamp. Serialized monthly in the shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi from the June 1996 to August 2000 issues, it was also published in 12 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha between November 1996 and July 2000. The story centers on Sakura Kinomoto, an elementary school student who discovers magical powers after accidentally freeing a set of magical cards into the world; she must retrieve the cards to prevent catastrophe. Each of these cards grants different magical powers, and can only be activated by someone with inherent magical abilities. A sequel by Clamp, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, focusing on Sakura in junior high school, was serialized in Nakayoshi from the July 2016 to January 2024 issues.
The manga was adapted into a 70-episode anime television series by Madhouse that aired on Japan's satellite television channel NHK BS2 from April 1998 to March 2000. Additional media include two anime films, video games, art books, picture books, and film comics. Tokyopop released the manga in English in North America from March 2000 to August 2003. After Tokyopop's license expired, Dark Horse Manga released the series in omnibus editions from October 2010 to September 2012. The anime was dubbed in English by Hong Kong's Omni Productions, and was aired in Southeast Asia and South Asia on the channel Animax Asia.
Nelvana licensed the TV series and first film for North America under the English title Cardcaptors, which first aired on Kids' WB from June 2000 to December 2001. All 70 episodes were dubbed; while other English-speaking territories received the full run, the version aired on American television was heavily edited into 39 episodes. Cardcaptors also aired on Cartoon Network (Toonami), Teletoon, Nickelodeon, Network Ten, and RTÉ2. The TV series and films were sub-licensed by Geneon, which released them unedited with English subtitles. The TV series was also released by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand.
Cardcaptor Sakura was critically well received. Critics praised the manga for its creativity and described it as a quintessential shōjo manga, as well as a critical work for manga in general. The manga series was awarded the Seiun Award for Best Manga in 2001. The television series was praised for transcending its target audience of young children and being enjoyable to older viewers, and for its artwork, humor, characterization, and animation; it won the Animage Grand Prix award for Best Anime in 1999. The American edit of Cardcaptors, however, was criticized for removing elements essential to the plot.
Plot
[edit]Cardcaptor Sakura takes place in the fictional town of Tomoeda, which is located somewhere near the Japanese capital of Tokyo. Ten-year-old Sakura Kinomoto accidentally releases a set of magical cards known as Clow Cards from a book in her basement created by and named after the sorcerer Clow Reed. Each card has its own unique ability and can assume an alternate form when activated. The guardian of the cards, Cerberus (nicknamed Kero), emerges from the book and explains that only a person with magical powers could open the seal of the book, revealing to Sakura that she can do magic. Kero chooses Sakura to retrieve the missing cards. As she finds each card, she battles its magical personification and defeats it by sealing it away. Cerberus acts as her guide, while her best friend and second cousin, Tomoyo Daidouji, films her exploits and provides her with both battle costumes and moral support. Sakura's older brother Toya Kinomoto watches over her, while pretending that he is unaware of what is going on.
Syaoran Li, a boy of Sakura's age and an indirect descendent of Clow Reed, arrives from Hong Kong to recapture the cards himself. While initially antagonistic, he comes to respect Sakura and begins aiding her in capturing the cards. Once Sakura captures all of the cards, she is tested by Yue, the cards' second guardian, to determine if she is worthy of becoming the cards' true master; Yue is also the true form of Yukito Tsukishiro, Toya's best friend whom Sakura has a crush on. Aided by her school teacher Kaho Mizuki, Sakura passes the test and becomes the new master of the Clow Cards.
Afterwards, Eriol Hiiragizawa, a transfer student from England and later confirmed as the reincarnation of Clow Reed (albeit one who holds only Clow Reed's memories and is not the sorcerer himself), arrives in Tomoeda and begins causing disturbances with two guardian-like creatures, Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon; the latter of whom takes on a human persona (Nakuru) and goes to the same school as Sakura's brother Toya. While under the guise of a female student Ruby Moon develops a strong crush on Toya while seeing Yukito as a love rival. At some point Yukito reveals to Sakura that he loves Toya, who later reveals indirectly to Yukito (while recovering after giving his magic to Yue to save both their lives) that he loves him in return. Sakura finds herself suddenly unable to use the Clow Cards and transforms her wand, beginning the process of evolving the cards into Sakura Cards as Eriol causes strange occurrences that forces her to use and thus transform certain cards. Once all the cards have been transformed, Eriol tells Sakura that he aided her in converting the cards so they would not lose their magic powers, while Spinel reveals to Sakura that Eriol stopped himself from ageing long ago so that he could go to class and befriend and help her.[3] Syaoran later confesses his love to Sakura, who comes to realize she also loves him. Sakura reveals to Syaoran that she loves him back; telling him that he is her "Number One" (the person she loves the most). Syaoran reluctantly returns to Hong Kong but now knowing that Sakura loves him the same way he promises her that he will come back when he's finished with some business he needs to attend to there. He desperately asks Sakura if she will wait for him, and vows that she will. Over the next two years, Sakura and Syaoran maintain a long-distance relationship; making phone calls and writing letters to each other. On Sakura's first day of middle school, Syaoran moves back to Tomoeda permanently, and happily reunites with Sakura.
The plot of the anime series is extended, featuring 52 Clow Cards from the manga's original 19, and certain scenes are stretched and delayed, such as Cerberus' true form not being revealed until just before Yue's appearance.[4] Sakura creates a 53rd card, Hope, a talent she is not shown to have in the manga. Some of the circumstances around the capturing of the cards is changed, such as Syaoran capturing several cards himself and being tested by Yue in the Final Judgment. Syaoran's cousin and fiancée Meiling Li is introduced in the anime, who positions herself as a jealous and romantic rival for Sakura and later becomes a friend until she returns to Hong Kong. The television series leaves the relationship between Sakura and Syaoran unresolved, but Sakura confesses her love to Syaoran at the end of the second anime film.
Production
[edit]Cardcaptor Sakura was first conceived shortly before the conclusion of Clamp's Magic Knight Rayearth, which was serialized in Nakayoshi.[5] Clamp's head editor Yamonouchi asked them to do another series in Nakayoshi, and Clamp decided to make a "Nakayoshi-esque" series, as opposed to Rayearth, which Clamp described as unlike anything they had done before. Head Clamp writer Nanase Ohkawa's first impulse was to create a magical girl series, despite not being well-versed in the genre. Ohkawa wanted the heroine Sakura to be in the same age group as the majority of Nakayoshi's readers so that fans could relate to her. Due to it being different from how Clamp normally conceived characters, Ohkawa designed the other characters such as Tomoyo and Cerberus to be more like Clamp's previous creations. Once Ohkawa had enough information on the characters, she had the three artists in Clamp—Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi—design them based on her descriptions. When designing Cerberus, Ohkawa wanted a mascot-type companion for Sakura, but Nekoi tried various forms, including dogs and squirrels, before designing the final version. Syaoran and Toya were conceived to be a common type of character featured in Clamp's works.[5]
Various other titles were suggested for the series such as Cardcaster Sakura and Card Character Sakura before Nekoi suggested Cardcaptor Sakura.[5] While Ohkawa planned out Cardcaptor Sakura from beginning to end, she never consulted the plot with the other members, instead giving them the script one chapter at a time. Mokona initially drew Tomoyo so it would look like she was in love with Toya, which led to her surprise when she received the script for the chapter which reveals Tomoyo loves Sakura. The story was planned to have the theme of "if you try your best, it'll work out", but Ohkawa did not start out with Sakura's "It'll definitely be okay" mindset. Ohkawa addressed the relationships featured in the series by using Tomoyo and Sakura as an example. She explained that the reason Tomoyo and Sakura did not end up together was because Sakura did not love Tomoyo in a romantic way.[6][5]
The central theme of Cardcaptor Sakura is love and human relationships. Throughout the series, many forms of love are showcased, including "sibling love, childhood crushes, unrequited love, [and] true love."[2] At times, Clamp even ignores the Clow Cards for several chapters to focus more on the relationships of Sakura and those around her. Each of these relationships are presented nonjudgmentally and without commentary on the correctness of the relationships. In particular, the romantic relationship between elementary student Rika Sasaki and her teacher Yoshiyuki Terada is presented in such a way that it can be seen as a sweet and innocent tale of "wish fulfillment", or if examined more seriously, as a mildly disturbing story of pedophilic love.[2]
The artists, especially Mokona, were told by Ohkawa to use thin lines and to try to express things through curved lines as opposed to straight lines.[5] The style of artwork was decided at the beginning to unify the world view of Cardcaptor Sakura. Ohkawa wanted the series to have a "soft, cute-like" feel, so she asked the artists to not use a lot of ink and to make the pages light. For the multitude of flower imagery used in the manga, Nekoi looked through various books to find appropriate flowers, and tried to avoid using the same flower more than once in one chapter. Igarashi remarked that they "never had to draw so many flowers for one series," but they made a point to not use roses.[5] Clamp wanted to incorporate transformation scenes into Cardcaptor Sakura, but because many magical girl manga have the girls wearing the same outfit, they wanted Sakura to wear different costumes. They felt that "it's pretty sad for a girl to wear the same outfit all the time."[7]
Media
[edit]Manga
[edit]
Cardcaptor Sakura began as a manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp. It was serialized in the monthly shōjo (aimed at young girls) manga magazine Nakayoshi from the June 1996 to August 2000 issues.[4][8][9] The individual chapters were collected and published in 12 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha from November 1996 to July 2000.[10][11] Kodansha released the first six volumes in bilingual editions that included both Japanese and English from May 2000 to July 2001.[12][13] The bilingual volumes were part of an experimental line for helping Japanese children learn English. Kodansha stopped releasing the bilingual editions after the series was licensed in English for distribution in North America by Tokyopop.[4][14]
In addition to the regular 50 chapters of the manga series, Clamp also wrote and drew two special chapters that were released in Japan as part of two volumes of a collection of artbooks titled Cardcaptor Sakura: Illustrated Collection. The first special chapter, which was published in the first volume, focuses on Toya and Sakura's relationship, with Toya caring for her while she has a cold.[15] The second special chapter, which focuses on Sakura's (at that time unrealized) love for Syaoran, has a similar premise, but with Syaoran catching a cold and Sakura caring for him while he is unwell.[16]
Tokyopop released the volumes of Cardcaptor Sakura from March 2000 to August 2003.[17][18] Tokyopop initially released the first six volumes with the book "flipped" from the original Japanese orientation, in which the book is read from right-to-left, to the Western format with text oriented from left-to-right. These volumes were later re-released with the original orientation in two box sets, each containing three volumes.[19][20] Volumes seven through twelve were released in the original orientation with the subtitle Master of the Clow. Madman Entertainment used Tokyopop's English translation to release the series in Australia and New Zealand.[21] Dark Horse Manga published an English edition of the series in four omnibus volumes containing three of the original volumes each from October 2010 and September 2012.[22][23] After Dark Horse Comics' license expired, Kodansha Comics licensed it and began releasing the series in hardcover Collector's Edition volumes in 2019.[24] The manga series is licensed for additional regional language releases by Pika Édition in France,[25] Star Comics in Italy,[26] Egmont Manga & Anime in Germany,[27] Editora JBC in Brazil,