.: Card Captor Sakura - 4/5

Back when I was a kid in the 90s, and there was still anime on during Saturday morning cartoons, after Pok'emon was over I would watch a show called CardCaptors. CardCaptors was the heavily edited version of CCS released for Kids WB. Being only 10 at the time I was unable to tell the difference between good and bad cartoons. Being 22 now the quality difference is glaringly obvious. That being said, this is not a review of CardCaptors, but of CardCaptor Sakura a relatively good anime.

To start with CardCaptor Sakura was originally a 1996 shoujo manga written by CLAMP, one of my favorite authors. CLAMP is known for it's artistic style that does not usually translate well to anime. Characters from CLAMP manga usually wind up with elongated limbs making them appear much taller than they should be. As most of the main characters in CCS are relatively young (Elementary School) this is not as much of a problem, but can still be seen in some of the older characters. That being said they also draw some of the most artistic and abstract backgrounds I know. This can be seen in many of the panoramic moments of the series.

On the subject of characters, CCS has a wide range of character tropes inside. The main character is Sakura Kinomoto, a young girl who lives with her archeologist father and older brother. She is your typical elementary school girl and even has a childish crush on her brother's friend Yukito Tsukishiro. In the usual magical girl way, Sakura stumbles upon a magic book in her father's library which releases the magic clow cards out into the wild. The book also produces a cute furry side kick for our heroin named Kero-chan. Sakura is told by Kero to collect all of the clow cards before they cause mayhem in the world. Towards the beginning of the series Sakura tended to make relatively stupid mistakes that made me a little standoffish to her. Then I remembered that she was supposed to be in elementary school and she grew on me as she started to mature. As for the male lead we have Syaoran Li, who in an odd for the time manor, is at first a love rival with Sakura for Yukito as well as rival for collecting the clow cards. Later on in the series Syaoran starts to have romantic feelings toward Sakura which are not returned at first. Syaoran's character I liked almost instantly. Mostly for the fact that CLAMP went and made him bisexual which is not normally seen in. Also his character showed a large amount of growth throughout the series. Most other characters in the series are not a fleshed out as the two main characters and thus won't be mentioned here.

The plot of CCS is not much different at first from your basic magical girl anime. The first part is relatively episodic and missing an episode would not matter much. At about midway when all of the clow cards are once again captured the story takes a different turn, but as not to spoil the second half it will not be discussed in detail. The plot tends to stay true to the decisions that elementary schoolers would make, and the troubles that they would have in this situation. This is no Madoka by any means, but it is better than most other mahou shoujo series. My opinion on this may be biased though due to my general liking of most of CLAMP's works.

Overall CardCaptor Sakura is an enjoyable classic series and a must watch for those new to anime, or those who wish to fix their memories of CardCaptors. I give this series a 4/5.