Is it Cardcaptor Sakura or Cardcaptors?
Before we get even started with this review let’s discuss why Cardcaptors and Cardcaptor Sakura are two completely different shows. To put in simple, watching Cardcaptors instead of Cardcaptor Sakura is like eating the plastic bag where snacks are packed rather than the snack itself. But to support my claim, lets talk about the background of Cardcaptor Sakura (which we will abbreviate CCS from now on) first. Like many other series CCS  started as a manga series being published from 1996-2000 in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi magazine. CCS was created by the successful manga artists group known as CLAMP. Strictly speaking the CCS manga falls under the shoujo category (shoujo is what Americans would call “girl’s comics”) which explains why the TV series tended to be more popular among female viewers when it began airing april of 1998. For reasons that we will discuss later, the TV series quickly gained popularity and ran for about two more years ending in episode 70. Two CCS movies have been released but we will not discuss them here. Now that you have a fairly good background on CCS, let’s talk about Cardcaptors. My guess is that Nelvana (the company in charge of releasing CCS in the US) thought they could somehow turn CCS into an action show for kids under 12 similar to Pokemon, thus hoping to repeat it’s success. As I briefly mentioned, CCS was never meant to be an action show even at the manga stages. While being superficially about collecting cards, deep within its plot you will find a lot of dwelling on emotional themes such as love, rejection, fear, doubt  etc. CCS focuses more in the development of these themes in the lives of its characters than in action and excitement. In a rather poor business decision as well as what I personally consider a lack of respect for the creators, Nelvana went ahead and tried to turn CCS into an action show. The result was a series that lacked everything that differentiates anime from “cartoons”. All serious character development, was simply wiped out. Episodes where shown out of order to try and shift the focus from the main character (Sakura) so as to fool the viewer into thinking that this was the adventure of 2 young teens. Dialogs were severely edited as well, which further destroyed any hints to the original plot. In fact, so many scenes were taken out that Nelvana had to literally piece together episodes from the remaining chunks of previous/future episodes. The list of horrors goes on. You can find exactly what was taken out up to the nearest second here: http://www.cardcaptors-uncensored.com. Fortunately for US viewers, Pioneer animation is releasing the uncut version of CCS and at the time of this review, the first movie is to be released in a few months.
 
 

   Now let’s get into the Story.
Contrary to what you may think, CCS is not a “girl’s ONLY” anime. Although the series will strike the hardest among girls, there is enough plot development to be enjoyed by most people regardless of their genre and age. Using family and fiends as literal lab rats, I’ve found out that most people begin to like the show once they get pass beyond its initial childish appearance. You can be sure you’ll hear an unbiased opinion from me because I’m not a girl :P.  Anyway, like I said before, if carefully analyzed the original TV series focuses more on character and emotional development rather than on collecting cards. However, even the card collecting aspect serves as a backbone for an interesting magic story. Using this idea, the creators begin by introducing a sweet 10 year old girl who by more or less accident, manages to scatter a sealed deck of 52 cards thereby acquiring what is perhaps her biggest responsibility yet. These cards were created by a powerful magician several decades ago and can be used to invoke very powerful and varied spells. Sakura often has to figure out how to properly use or combine the cards she’s got to catch the next one. The fluffy push toy like animal you may have seen with her is actually the guardian of the deck. Sakura dearly gave him the short name “Kero-chan”. He’s actually a very complex character from day one. You’ll find yourself laughing most of the time he demands his share of snacks. From the start, Kero-chan guides Sakura in the ways of a cardcaptor by teaching her how to seal and use cards for the purpose of collecting more powerful cards. 
As you may expect from CLAMP, there are some strange twists in the story. Sakura has a really big crush on her brother’s best friend, Yukito. Yukito is much older than Sakura for anything besides friendship to happen. It’s a very innocent love, yet it’s quite strong. Sakura will often take what she calls “detours” just to go pass his house in the hope of seeing him. The love issue further complicates near the end of the 3rd season when she manages to win the love of a more suitable person for her (though she is clueless about it). I guess the ladies from CLAMP wanted to portray that time in a girls life when she begins to sort out friendship from love. But I’m a guy, what would I know. I had a lot of fun watching her reactions when Yukito is around though. Besides the obvious sugar load already mentioned, the viewer is exposed to other aspects of Sakura’s personal life. Having her mother die when she was very young, Sakura develops a rather intense love and close relationship with her father and even her mean big brother. She is by no means depressed, but there is no doubt she would like to see her mother again. While not as developed, other characters still maintain a level of complexity that makes them fairly real. From Sakura’s inner circle of friends, it’s Tomoyo that you’ll get to know the most of. This rich girl is seriously obsessed with filming Sakura’s adventures and even designing the costumes for her to wear. Tomoyo also provides the means by which CLAMP dresses the young cardcaptor with very pretty and colorful outfits. Other themes besides the ones mentioned range from a jealous brother who wants no boys getting near Sakura, to a classmate who makes up the most incredible lies. You will follow Sakura’s life for the next 2 years. She gets all the cards near episode 46. What happens then you say? Like I said, this show was not all about card catching.  After the end of season 2, the story will take a major turn. But I will not spoil it for you.

 
   Visuals.
Taking into consideration this is a TV series, I must say I was rather impressed by the animation featured in the first few episodes. For such a long series, you would expect less elaborate animation and special effects. The show diminishes it’s visual complexity when there are no mayor events going on. In all other instances both backgrounds and animation look great for a TV series. Near the middle of each season, you will find less emphasis on visuals and more on plot. Yet, the character design and coloring remains at a constant high level of quality. Perhaps the best visuals and animation for the entire show appear near the end of each season. You can really see the creator’s attempt to reward the viewer with pretty visuals. Not much CG animation was used in CCS. Most of what you see is good old cell animation. As a side note, I have to commend the animators for creating custom spell casting and card catching sequences for each costume Sakura wears. Think about it, they could have just recycled one sequence. They obviously wanted to give this show a good look.
 

  Sound/Music.
Superb. This series has a huge score of 75+ BGM (backgrounds music). This does not include the opening/closing themes for each season which feature voices from Japanese singers which I do not claim to know.  But what kind of music is this? Well, the BGM’s range from fast action compositions to very soft and elegant melodies. There are even some of those dreaded silly tunes. The quality of both composition and performance becomes apparent from the start. I’m not claiming to be a sound expert but several BGM’s enjoy the presence of what sounds like an orchestral performance. There is also quite a few synthesized compositions. Sound FX’s are good in general. I liked the fact they didn’t use “recycled” sounds from other shows. You may hear silly minor sounds used in other shows here and there though. The way the sound effect repertoire varies across seasons avoids getting the viewer tired of hearing the same FX’s. Last but not least, voice acting. To say that Sakura sounds like a real 10 year old would be an understatement. Her voice actress has repeatedly been honored and awarded for her performance in CCS (ironically her real name is also Sakura). Everything from Sakura’s famous made up word “Hoeee” to scenes where Sakura cries, enjoy a high level of realism and feeling. Other characters while nowhere near as good, are not bad at all. 
 

  The bottom line.
If you actually took the time to read all that, you should have by now a very good idea if CCS is for you.  Even if you happen to have been exposed to Nelvana’s cardcaptors you can watch CCS and discover a totally different show. I must say it could be a little hard for guys to enjoy CCS specially if all the anime they have seen is limited to things like Gundam/Mech, DBZ/Fighting, action based anime. I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to different genres of anime before I watched CCS. I knew beforehand what I could expect to see, but I didn’t think it would be so well done. But just as everything in life, people have different tastes for different things. The bottom line is that if you have seen series like this one before, then it’s worth giving it a try. On the other hand, if shoujo like series are far from being something you are used to see, you may want to just borrow or download an episode or two to find out if you like it. I was rather generous when reviewing CCS and that’s because it’s a good show for its genre. It’s definitively not a good action series if that’s what you were hoping for. If I were to find one reason why I ended up watching CCS, it would be this one: I was moved. And believe me, I’m not easily moved. I had fun watching, and that’s the reason I watch anime in the first place.

Reviewed: Episodes 1-70

Story: 9/10
Animation: 8/10
Music: 10/10
Overall: 9/10