Cardcaptor Sakura is a 50-chapter manga written and drawn by CLAMP, serialized in the shoujo manga magazine Nakayoshi from May 1996 to June 2000, and was published later by Kodansha as a set of 12 volumes. It was later on adapted to a 70-episodes anime by Madhouse from April 1998 to March 2000. Cardcaptor Sakura tells a story about a girl named Kinomoto Sakura, that one day discovers a magic set of cards in a book in her dad's library. She set them free into the world by accident and wakes up a weird creature, Keroberos, the guardian of the book, that explains to her that if the magic cards are free a big catastrophe will ocurr in the world. So now is Sakura's duty to get all the Clow Cards back as a new Cardcaptor.

My history with Cardcaptor Sakura

When I was about 9 years old I started watching anime because one of my cousins watched it a lot and I really wanted to be like her, so I started looking around the internet some cool anime on google images. I found this strange page with an anime synopsis I really liked, about a psychic girl that could read minds, and that way I met Kotoura-san...

Kotoura-san wasn't the best option for an anime to watch as a 9-year old child BUT thank to it I really wanted to see another anime about magic powers so I began my search for the next anime I would watch, and I did a list in an notebook. Cardcaptor Sakura was on my list, I can't remember where I found the name, but it probably was on my list because I searched for the most popular anime at the time, and the algorith worked well for me, a Latin American child.

The first time I watched Cardcaptor Sakura was in a little diminute cellphone, now that I think about it I don't know who's cellphone was, because I got mine when I was 11. I'm trying to remember as best as I can lol. But I remember coming back from school and watch Cardcaptor Sakura all the afternoon. I have the vague feeling I was being way too organized about it so I couldn't finish it too soon, I was in love.

The story was simply just... Aaaaah, it made me feel butterflies on my tummy, it was so really cool, I've never seen such a good series and I became completly obssesed with it. There was a big event then, when I turned 10 some months later I was finally the same age as the characters I grew so attached with.

There's something a little funny about my relationship with the characters, at some point it became something a little delusional for me. Li Syaoran was introduced in episode 7 in the anime and I disliked him a little... He was so mean to Sakura but more episodes passed and THE HELL I fell in love with the anime kid, I was simping hard for him even when I didn't know that word existed and before I came here to the internet. This love lasted years, it wasn't a normal thing to be honest, I actually grew attached to some boy just because he had a very nice short brown hair, I was a little insane about it, but like, internally, I didn't talked about this with anyone because I didn't have friends to talk about anime with back then.

With the years this "love" just became a normal like, but still, Shaoran will always be my Number One character, I believe there's a lot of people that think about him that way, it's a very special character, specially if you watched Cardcaptor Sakura as a child, like I did.

I've rewatched Cardcaptor Sakura a lot of times, it's been almost 10 years so I had the oportunity to watched it with this cousin from the beggining some years ago, when I about 14 and we actually began to be more close to each other. I also saw it recently, 2 years ago with my mom, and she really liked it :3 That made me really happy, since it's my most loved thing in the world.

That's pretty much how I found Cardcaptor Sakura and how much it affected me, I can't explain it too deeply right now, it's been 2 years since I last saw the anime and some months since I read the manga, my feelings aren't fresh enough to talk in detail about every chapter like I would like to do. But what I can do now is talk about the characters.

My favorite characters

Kinomoto Sakura

A 10 year old girl as a protagonist was a very unique decision, taking account of the themes that are touched in the manga, going really deep about love in specific. The narrative is more mature and you don't expect a 10 year old to think the way she does, but that's what's magic about fiction, and about Sakura, not being a regular kid.

She's very sweet and a very clumsy, that's one of my favorite traits about her, even when she's saving the world we cannot forget about this, oh but her serious scenes are definitely the best, so dramatic and good, she works really well with every atmosphere, it doesn't feel forced. She can be happy, sad, cry her eyes out, scared and hopeless, seeing all of this emotions within her and we as the viewer following this emotional journey of hers it's really an experience. You can kind of tell I absolutely love her very much.

Daidouji Tomoyo

Sakura's best friend. Tomoyo is an eccentric child that loves cameras and record everything about Sakura. Sakura herself tells us that Tomoyo is a little weird, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love Tomoyo or feels uncomfortable around her. She's there for Sakura at every moment to support her, even when she became a Cardcaptor, because she feels a deep love for her best friend.

Tomoyo is that kind of character I look at and think "I wish I had someone like that in my life." Someone that you can cherish and that also cherishes you. Her love for Sakura is known for being more than "just friends" kind of love, we can interpret that as we wish, as romantic love or something else, personally, I think Tomoyo's love is more that any word could describe well. She's so unique and funny, even when she's so eccentric and full of energy, you keep on knowing that inside her there's a lot of love.

Li Shaoran

An exchange student from China came to Japan to get the Clow cards before Sakura does. A very serious child and way too mature for his age, because of his family. Shaoran doesn't feel like a 10 year old kid when we see him all serious, even angry, but he becomes really soft with the people he loves, the first time we see this, when he mets Tsukishiro Yukito.

He's a rival to Sakura in the beggining of the series but then you kind of forget that he is, because he blends so good with the group, even when they aren't friends yet. An awkward kid that's learning about love, finds himself in this frustrating journey to come to terms with his feelings.

If there's something I don't like about him is how he's portrayed after the love confession, his attitude changes so much in such a short amount of time, I wanted to see more of his awkward moments here and there, he can be serious and awkward at the same time. But even after that, he's the absolute best.

Tsukishiro Yukito

Yukito is Sakura's crush and her brother's best friend. She fell in love with him at first sight but then she's told that this love was actually magic. He's a lot like Tomoyo I would say, a sweet and eccentric teenager. He's 15-16 in the manga, but he always seemed older in the anime, the vibes are quite different.

When I saw the anime being older I grew closer to this character, he is so interesting, the whole two identities being so different and so similar at the same time, sharing the same body. Yukito is always there for Touya and Sakura, because of love of course, and because of magic too, but Yukito doesn't know that. His story is a little sad when you know the truth about Yue, but as well as he takes care of Sakura and Touya, they take care of him too, because the two of them absolutely love him. Who doesn't?

Kinomoto Touya

Sakura's big brother, Touya is for me one of the funniest and most interesting characters. His dynamic with the rest of the characters are all so aaaaah... I don't know how to explain it, he has a way of dealing with people that I really like, maybe because he's the type of character that pretends that everything's okay but it's always worried in secret; this applies with his loved one's the most, and for instance, ghosts. The part of him that I like the most is the fact that ALL his family knows he has magic powers, he's the first member of the family that everyone knows has powers and they are so chill about it. His powers are not the most powerful compared to Sakura, but seeing ghosts is something Sakura never could do, feeling energies is what they have in common.

The way Touya cares for ghosts is directly affected by his mom's death, and it's sad to know that he was the only member of the family that could see her for years until she stopped coming to check on her family. There's also his relationship with Yukito, not the fact that he's obviously in love with him, but how he says the reason why he approached Yukito in the first place was because he knew Yukito wasn't human, but he didn't know that Yukito himself didn't know he wasn't human.

More characters

Kerberos

Oh my god, Kero. He's actually a little more plain to me, that doesn't mean I don't like him lol but the anime does him baad, specially in that one episode that I totally don't like :) He's a silly guuuy, the guardian of the Clow Cards, a beast with sun powers. He has his serious moments here and there but even when he's big he's still a silly little guy lol. You know, watching him in spanish and years later on japanese was a whooole experience, his voice tells so much about his character, changes him a lot depending on the tone in his voice. In spanish he has this funny voice done by a man called Yamil Atala. I JUST WENT TO LISTEN TO IT, ACTUALLY INSANE, I don't know him too much nor the characters that he has done, but he was FANTASTIC as Kerberos. I'm gonna talk more about voice actors in the future hehe, but please listen to this beautiful voice this man has. If you've heard his voice in Japanese this must be very weird, but trust me, has its charm.

Yue

Yue is the second guardian of the Clow Cards and has moon powers, his story is the most sad to me, because of the relation he had with Clow. Him sharing a body with Yuki is also something that I still don't undertand how it works really well. If there's something about Yue that I love is his debut chapter, that chapter is sooo good, anime and manga, incredibly epic lol. He's always so serious, he's more like Touya now that I think about it, always being tough, but they're obviously thinking a lot of stuff and about other people.

His devotion and love on Clow Reed is painful to see, not because he was unhappy, it was obvious that Kero and Yue were very happy on Clow's side, but because of they never had the chance to say goodbye, because Clow didn't allow them to remember at least. He's healing through the story, even when we didn't know he was there, it's a very charming character, I always wished to see it more often, he has his funny moments as well, I like the contrast between him and the rest of the characters.

Hiiragizawa Eriol

I'm not really sure about this guy. I learned, just some years ago, that this kid-looking character is actually like 40 years old AND PUAG PUAG I absolutely hate that, it's so weird.

I really liked Eriol before I knew this fact, he was my other silly guy besides Kero and that was so fun! But then you realize this man disguises himself to be a 10 year old just so he could get closer to Sakura when she had the cards. In my opinion, there was SO many ways to do that without him being a literal 40 year old in a kid's body. I have so much fun when I think about the options, so I'm gonna share them with you :3 This are my own stupid ideas so they probably don't make sense, this is all for the funsies. There's two options that I have in mind.

Number 1: He's still a child but instead he incarnates just years later than Sakura's father, it's a little weird I know, because it doesn't make sense that the same person reincarnates in 2 separate times, BUT, if Clow was that powerful why didn't he do that, HUH? That way we could've gotten a interesting backstory about this british kid that LEARNS he's the reincarnation of a powerful wizard that needs to go to Japan to take a look at a girl who's capturing the magic cards he made in his past life... Isn't that interesting? That way he could've been a REAL posible romantic rival for Shaoran, and not an old man just being a little creepy in a kid's body...

Number 2: MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE THE AGE HE HAS! He could've been a teacher, that way his relationship with Kaho would've made sense too! OH PLEASE THIS IS WHAT I HATE ABOUT CARDCAPTOR SAKURA, so many age gaps... But he as a teacher? That way he could've been a weird ass teacher besides Kaho! That's fun, a creepy teachers duo.

Honorary mentions

From Sakura's friends Chiharu is my favorite one, she's just a normal girl! It's refreshing to see when Sakura and Tomoyo interacts with her and you just know they are 10 year old children having fun and living their life. Yamazaki is so funny, their duo is one of the best in the series, their dynamic is so fun, and you just know how much Yamazaki cares for her, even when he's messing with her and lying all the time, another silly guy in this manga, I love silly guys.

There's this whole episode, that I think is anime exclusive, in wich they go to an artificial beach and the water starts to go bad because of a card and Yamazaki gets really worried about her Rikka, who's there in the water drowning because she doesn't know how to swim. It's very hard to see because in the spanish dub he always has a funny voice but in that scene he sounds just so worried, you can feel the fear there, and I love that.

I'm gonna talk shortly about Rikka here. That character should've never existed. Her whole purpose is being a pedophilic example, and that's really messed up, at least in the anime they censored a little and they actually got rid of her in Clear Card, but it's really sad and disgusting when I read the manga and she's there with Terada... ugh I hate it lol.

Openings

The first time I watched Cardcaptor Sakura was the LATAM spanish dub, so in this section I put the versios i heard as a child and then the japanese ones. It was some years after seeing it for the first time that I watched CCS in Japanese, but I already knew the openings because of youtube.

Now this one's interesting. There wasn't an official spanish version when I saw the anime, it came out some years later, so this one here is actually a cover by Claudia Bramnfsette. I lost this version for some years but I finally have it back T-T

The last opening is my absolute favorite, the animation and colors, the spanish lyrics always gets me. It's very relatable to me, it's because of this song that I grew so attached to my dreams, it makes me feel very warm inside.

I actually didn't heard a lot of the endings so I'm gonna skip them, sorry, I like them but I don't love them, if that makes sense.

My opinion on Clear Card

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card is a sequel to the original manga. After Sakura has a prophetic dream about a mysterious cloaked figure, all of the Sakura Cards turn blank and are rendered completely powerless, thus starting her quest to find out what is wrong. The shortest way to explain the synopsis. I'm actually not a big fan, there's this 2 situations when your favorite media gets a sequel, loving it, or hating it (there's obviously more, but this 2 are the most common), personally, I think it's fine, but it gets me so far away from the original that my brain can't conceive it as something I would like to get invested to.

I'm up to date with the manga and this last arc has to be one of my favorites, I'm excited to see what will happen now that Sakura actually knows who's doing all of this. The antagonist? Meh... Kaito is the most boring character for me, even Akihiko is more something, but the three of them with Momo just doesn't click in me. It's a good sequel, I love Cardcaptor Sakura, I made this whole page just because it's my favorite anime lol and to share some of my opinions, but I wouldn't do this for Clear, sorry.

There's something I say to my friends when I talk about Clear Card, I prefer to think of it as a parallel universe lol, that way's more fun to me. Without being from the same universe as the canon in Cardcaptor Sakura, I can keep on thinking about their future in the most fun ways, where they are how I remember them in my brain stuck 6 years ago.

My conclusion on Clear Card, it looks like I'm shitting in it but I promise you I'm noot xd It's a very fun manga! If you liked the original sure go read the sequel, I didn't talk about the anime because I refuse to watch it, I have a whole other opinion on modern shoujo animation, but I won't talk about that here heh.

Extras

Manga editions

I've never had manga, since last year I started "collecting" them but because I don't have a job I gave up on keep buying them lol. Right now I have 4 volumes out of 9, that's actually a lot, and me THE DUMB ONE, decided that they wanted to most expensive edition :) So I present you the Kamite Deluxe Edition.

The deluxe edition is the last one that has come out this years so it's the only one that you can buy officially right now (If I'm correct...). Kamite is a mexican editorial and I'm from Chile, so the import is very expensive to this country.

The reason why I wanted the mexican edition version and not the spanish (Spain) or the argentinian version is very simple: The idioms. If you don't know, spanish speaking countries, we all talk way to different from each other. Spain's spanish is a pain to read for latin americans, old books were written in Spain's spanish and, oh my god, how I hated reading them in school. Argentina's spanish is actually very fun (and funny) to read, but it's Cardcaptor Sakura, my favorite manga, I wanted to feel connected to the words as well, being familiar with the words was my goal, so I picked up the Mexico's spanish. It still has some idioms but Mexico is well known for their "neutral" spanish, something we can all be familiar with. And also the gifts came on their own volume, so that's a plus to Kamite.

There were more reasons tho, the quality (I don't trust Norma editorial's quality, I'm sorry Spain) and the colors too. The three options that I had had three different tones for their covers, even when the cover was the same for the three of them. I sometimes feel I did a mistake, I should've gotten Ivreas edition (Argentina), but then I think to myself.... I buyed the best option, even if it's more expensive, the quality is immaculate and I finally can read it physically! I always wanted to have Cardcaptor Sakura's manga, even if I still don't have them all, 4 is a lot for me, it makes me really happy to finally being able to touch the story with my hands.