Cardcaptor Sakura

• 1. The Book In The Basement

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  Cardcaptor Sakura begins when ten-year-old Sakura Kinomoto accidentally opens a book in her basement. The book was made by a sorcerer named Clow Reed, and it holds a set of magical cards that now scatter into the world. Unless she gathers them again, catastrophe follows. The setting is the fictional town of Tomoeda, somewhere near Tokyo. The creators were Clamp, a Japanese manga group, and their story appeared monthly in the girls' magazine Nakayoshi from the June 1996 to August 2000 issues. On the surface it is a simple game of collecting. It grew into something far larger. Where did the idea come from, and why does it keep pausing its own magic to look at people? How did a tale about a child and her cards stretch across seventy anime episodes, two films and a long list of albums? And why did viewers in the United States meet a version so different from the Japanese original?

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• 2. Cards And Companions

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  A guardian named Cerberus, nicknamed Kero, climbs out of the same book and explains that only a person with magic could have broken its seal. That is how Sakura learns she can do magic herself. Kero chooses her to recover the missing cards. Each card has its own ability and can take another form when activated. Whenever Sakura finds one, she fights its magical personification and defeats it by sealing it away.

  Tomoyo Daidouji, Sakura's best friend and second cousin, films every battle and provides costumes and moral support. Sakura's older brother, Toya Kinomoto, keeps watch over her while pretending he knows nothing about it.

  Syaoran Li, a boy of Sakura's age, arrives from Hong Kong hoping to recapture the cards himself. He is an indirect descendant of Clow Reed. At first he is hostile, but he comes to respect Sakura and begins to help her. Once every card is captured, a second guardian named Yue puts Sakura to a test to decide whether she deserves to be the cards' true master. Yue is the true form of Yukito Tsukishiro, who is Toya's best friend and the boy Sakura has a crush on. With help from her teacher Kaho Mizuki, Sakura passes.

  Eriol Hiiragizawa, a transfer student from England, arrives next and starts causing disturbances alongside two creatures named Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon. He is later confirmed as the reincarnation of Clow Reed, though he holds only the sorcerer's memories and is not the sorcerer himself. Ruby Moon takes a human persona called Nakuru and enrolls at Toya's school. There she falls for Toya and treats Yukito as a rival. Meanwhile Sakura suddenly cannot use the Clow Cards. She transforms her wand, and the cards begin evolving into Sakura Cards as Eriol's strange events force her to use and change certain ones. When the change is complete, Eriol says he helped so the cards would not lose their magic. Spinel adds that Eriol stopped his own ageing long ago so he could attend class and befriend her.

  Yukito tells Sakura that he loves Toya. Toya later admits, indirectly, that he loves Yukito in return. He does so while recovering after giving his magic to Yue to save both their lives.

  Syaoran's confession comes next, and Sakura realizes she feels the same. She tells him he is her "Number One," the person she loves most. He returns to Hong Kong anyway, promising to come back after finishing business there, and he asks whether she will wait. For two years they keep in touch through phone calls and letters. On Sakura's first day of middle school, Syaoran moves back to Tomoeda for good.

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• 3. A Nakayoshi-Esque Series

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  Magic Knight Rayearth was nearing its end in Nakayoshi when head editor Yamonouchi asked Clamp for another series in the magazine. Clamp described Rayearth as unlike anything they had done before. This time they decided to make a "Nakayoshi-esque" series instead.

  Nanase Ohkawa, Clamp's head writer, felt a first impulse to create a magical girl story, even though she was not well versed in the genre. She wanted Sakura to belong to the same age group as most Nakayoshi readers, so that fans could see themselves in her. Sakura was the exception to Clamp's usual way of building characters. For figures such as Tomoyo and Cerberus, Ohkawa went back to the style of Clamp's earlier creations.

  Ohkawa wrote descriptions of each character, and the group's three artists, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi, turned them into designs. Cerberus was meant to be a mascot companion for Sakura. Nekoi tried several forms, including dogs and squirrels, before settling on the final one. Syaoran and Toya were conceived as a common type of character in Clamp's works.

  Several titles were floated, among them Cardcaster Sakura and Card Character Sakura. Nekoi then suggested Cardcaptor Sakura. Ohkawa planned the whole story from beginning to end, yet she never discussed the plot with the other members. She handed them the script one chapter at a time.

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• 4. Love Before Cards

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  Mokona had drawn Tomoyo so that she looked as if she were in love with Toya. The artist was therefore surprised when the next script arrived, in the chapter that reveals Tomoyo loves Sakura. Ohkawa later explained why the two girls did not end up together. Sakura simply did not love Tomoyo in a romantic way.

  The central theme of the series is love and human relationships. It shows many kinds, including "sibling love, childhood crushes, unrequited love, and true love." At times Clamp sets the Clow Cards aside for several chapters to follow the people around Sakura. Each relationship is shown without judgment and without comment on whether it is right.

  Rika Sasaki, an elementary student, and her teacher Yoshiyuki Terada form the most debated pairing. Their story can be read as a sweet tale of "wish fulfillment." Looked at more seriously, it becomes a mildly disturbing story of pedophilic love.

  The story was also meant to carry the idea that if you try your best, it will work out. Ohkawa herself did not begin with Sakura's "It'll definitely be okay" mindset.

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• 5. Soft Lines And Flowers

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  Ohkawa told the artists, Mokona above all, to use thin lines and to express things through curves rather than straight edges. This style was fixed at the very start to unify the look of the world. She wanted a "soft, cute-like" feel, so she asked for little ink and light pages.

  Flowers fill the manga, and Nekoi searched through various books to find fitting ones. She tried never to use the same flower twice within one chapter. Igarashi remarked that they "never had to draw so many flowers for one series." The group made a point of leaving out roses.

  Transformation scenes were another early goal. Many magical girl manga keep the heroine in a single outfit, so Clamp gave Sakura a different costume each time. They felt that "it's pretty sad for a girl to wear the same outfit all the time."

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• 6. Anime And Films

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  Madhouse produced the 70-episode television adaptation, which aired in Japan on NHK across three seasons. The first season, with 35 episodes, ran from the 7th of April to the 29th of December 1998. The second, with 11 episodes, ran from the 6th of April to the 22nd of June 1999. The third, with 24 episodes, ran from the 7th of September 1999 to the 21st of March 2000. Morio Asaka directed, and Clamp stayed closely involved. Ohkawa wrote the screenplay, and Mokona oversaw the costumes and card designs.

  The anime stretches the plot considerably. It features 52 Clow Cards, where the manga began with 19. Some scenes are drawn out, and Cerberus' true form stays hidden until just before Yue appears. Sakura also creates a 53rd card, Hope, a talent the manga never shows her using. Syaoran captures several cards on his own and takes his own test from Yue, called the Final Judgment. The show adds Meiling Li, his cousin and fiancée, who first acts as a jealous rival to Sakura and later becomes a friend before returning to Hong Kong.

  The television series leaves the bond between Sakura and Syaoran unresolved. Two anime films, each 82 minutes long, followed. The first, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie, opened on the 21st of August 1999 and sits between the first and second seasons. Sakura and her friends travel to Hong Kong, where they meet a vengeful spirit once hurt by Clow Reed. The second, Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card, opened on the 15th of July 2000. Syaoran returns to Tokyo hoping for Sakura's answer, but a 53rd Clow Card interrupts her confession. A short film called Leave it to Kero! played alongside it in theaters.

  A 4K remaster of the series arrived in December 2017 as an 11-disc set.

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• 7. Cardcaptors In America

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  In August 1999, Nelvana announced it had licensed the series for North America. Soon afterward, a fan's correspondence with the company led to a petition for a subtitled release. Nelvana instead dubbed the show with Ocean Studios under the title Cardcaptors, with Carly McKillip voicing Sakura. The company spent roughly $100,000 per episode on new music, scripts and vocal tracks.

  The first version covered all 70 episodes but changed character names and turned some Japanese text into English. It also removed subjects considered controversial at the time, including same-sex relationships. Tomoyo's crush became simple friendship, and Toya and Yukito were presented as friends. The original score was replaced entirely, though the opening and ending themes were dubbed into English.

  On the 17th of June 2000, Cardcaptors began on Kids' WB, where it ran until the 14th of December 2001. That broadcast was edited even further, with episodes reordered and some dropped. The goal was to make the show more action oriented for male viewers, who were then seen as animation's largest audience. The run opened with "Sakura's Rival," the eighth episode, which skipped the episodes centered on Sakura and began with Syaoran's arrival. It lasted 39 episodes but still ended on the real final one, and it used a new opening theme made for the dub.

  Jake Godek of THEM Anime Reviews said the editing had "demolished the plot," while Adam Arnold of Animefringe called the release "nothing more than an attempt to dilute a fan favorite anime." Arnold did single out the voices of Carly McKillip and Rhys Huber, who played Syaoran, as the ones that shone.

  Elsewhere the Nelvana version reached Network Ten and Cartoon Network in Australia, RTÉ2 in Ireland, CITV and Nickelodeon in the UK, and Teletoon in Canada. Animax Asia took a different route. Omni Productions in Hong Kong made an unedited English dub for broadcast in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Pioneer Entertainment released the untouched series with Japanese audio and English subtitles on 18 DVDs between November 2000 and November 2003. That dub later streamed in Britain on ITV Hub and ITVX from November 2022 to January 2024.

  In January 2002, Taco Bell ran a month-long promotion with four Cardcaptors toys in kids' meals, expecting to give out up to 7 million. The American Family Association objected that the Clow Cards resembled tarot cards and Eastern mythology. Its complaints began only as the promotion was already due to end, so any real effect remains unclear.

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• 8. Print And Praise

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  Kodansha gathered the manga into 12 tankōbon volumes between November 1996 and July 2000. It also released the first six in bilingual editions, as an experimental line to help Japanese children learn English. That line stopped once Tokyopop licensed the series in English. Tokyopop published the volumes in North America from March 2000 to August 2003, and its first six were flipped to read left to right. Later they returned in the original right-to-left orientation as two box sets. Dark Horse Manga issued four omnibus volumes between October 2010 and September 2012. Kodansha Comics began hardcover Collector's Edition volumes in 2019.

  By April 2018 the manga had more than 17 million copies in print. In Japan it ranked among the top five sellers during its release. It won the Seiun Award for Best Manga in 2001, and the anime took the Animage Grand Prix for best anime in 1999. Critic Mason Templar called it "one of the very best manga available in English, period." Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network went further about the anime and called it "the best magical girl show ever produced." In TV Asahi's poll of the top 100 anime, the series placed 87th.

  Clamp returned to Sakura with a sequel, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, which follows her in junior high school. It ran in Nakayoshi from the July 2016 to January 2024 issues. Between February and July 2018, three themed cafés opened in Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo, decorated with artwork from the series and serving menu items tied to its characters.

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