Sakura Kinomoto was once just an ordinary fourth grade girl. Cheerful, outgoing, and bubbly, she loved her everyday life among her friends and family in the town of Tomoeda. The daughter of an archaeology professor at the local college, her father has always had a habit of filling their house with strange artifacts. It would be one of these artifacts, on one fateful night, that would change Sakura’s ordinary life forever. One evening, a strange noise led her into the basement, where she felt drawn to an ancient book called Clow, and when she opened it up, she discovered a deck of tarot cards, which immediately flew off into the unknown, released from their magical prison. According to the book's guardian, a flying plush toy named Keroberos, it’s going to be Sakura’s responsibility to undo the danger that she’s unleashed unto the world, by battling, capturing and becoming the new bearer of the cards... Cardcaptor Sakura.

I was a little surprised to find out that Cardcaptor Sakura was produced by Studio Madhouse, since it doesn’t really look like any of their other titles... At least from a design perspective. Then again, the designs were conceived by CLAMP, and since titles belonging to CLAMP and Madhouse look almost nothing alike, one of the two entities was going to have to make some compromises, and thank God, because I can’t imagine them combining well. I’m also quite pleased with the selection of Morio Asaka, as he is one of my favorite anime directors, a man who is just super talented at picking up on the vision of a manga artist and finding the best way to translate it onto the screen. He’s directed a slew of high profile and often critically acclaimed anime, including a few other CLAMP titles like Chobits and CLAMP in Wonderland, as well as proving he can make slower stories engaging, like with Gunslinger Girl and Nana, combining feminine aesthetics with intense action through Rozen Maiden, and if that’s not enough for you, he has substantially flexed his gag comedy skills with the Galaxy Angel franchise.

Cardcaptor Sakura is probably the best representation of his work, as it employed all of his more prominent skills at some point or another. There’s a lot of variety to the storytelling in this show, and Asaka had no issue rising to the occasion. It’s kind of hard to tell what kind of budget this show had, because it never feels too lavish in the animation, but it also rarely feels cheap or stilted, although when it comes to a 70-episode anime, never say never. As a children’s show, Cardcaptor Sakura never really needed to pour excessive funds into anything, and true to form, the budget seems to have been allocated really well. Most of the money obviously went into the magical effects and fight scenes, but even when things do start to get slower and more reliant on key frames, the backgrounds are still more than intricate and attractive enough to distract you from any lack of motion that may have otherwise taken you out of the story.

As far as CLAMP properties go, Cardcaptor Sakura does feel like one of their more down-to-earth titles, as characters generally feature anatomically correct body types, and they haven’t yet slipped into the beanpole-bodies that would later plague shows like xXxHolic. Their designs are simple yet memorable, which is unfortunately the exact opposite of the designs of the Clow cards. I’ll give them credit for creativity, but out of 52 different cards, I don’t think I could even name half of them by picture alone, and I’m the kind of superfan who SHOULD be able to pull that off. A lot of the cards, especially the ones with humanoid shapes, look a little on the homogenous side. Still, they do look cool more often than not, and I can’t really think of any instance where you’d have to tell them apart by picture anyway, so it is over-all just a really good looking children’s anime, honestly better as such than I used to give it credit for.

When it comes to the English dub, that’s a pretty complicated situation. As far as I’m aware, there are three ways for an English speaking audience to watch Cardcaptors Sakura; There’s the original Japanese, the Animax Asia dub, and the Nelvana dub, and I’m going to be honest with you guys, I sorta just shifted between the three for this rewatch... I didn’t see the series all the way in any of these versions, but I did watch a few episodes in both forms whenever I was curious what the differences between tracks was. To start with the Animax dub, it’s not very good. It was produced overseas for the foreign market, and the acting is just really bad... Also, while Netflix considers this the official dub, I had a hard time finding any cast listing that actually offered the whole cast of THIS dub. A woman named Andrea Kwan played Sakura, and I’ll give points for consistency. but her portrayal is so plastic and fake, very obviously an adult using a half-conceived little girl voice. There are several actors who sound like they’re struggling to suppress their accents, several names are hilariously mispronounced(Meilin keeps calling Syaoran ‘Sharon,’ which is funny the first couple of times before quickly becoming annoying), and the only part I really liked was the adorable lisp they gave a certain spoiler character near the end.

I’ve heard the Animax dub did originally cut a few scenes, and while they’ve since been restored, they’re still treated like blind spots. If you hear a sudden brief switch to Japanese while watching this dub, that’s why. Personally, I was bouncing between audio tracks, so I only encountered this once(and even then, it was because a friend pointed the scene out to me) so I’m guessing that means it’s pretty rare?

As for the Nelvana dub, there seems to be a common misconception that this dub only consists of 39 episodes, which actually isn’t true... Nelvana dubbed all 70 episodes, and the entire run apparently did air in some areas, but KidsWB only used 39 of them, heavily editing them and ultimately airing them wildly out of order. You can find the entire 70 episode run online if you’re not too picky about legality. One thing I noticed about this run is that for episodes that KidsWB didn’t use, there are a lot of obvious technical issues like sloppy editing and audio mixing errors, although I’m not sure what that implies. There were a lot of things cut out of this dub, even before KidsWB got to it, and while a lot of this is the same kind of cultural stuff that Pokemon was famous for changing(although Cardcaptors would rather just cut a food scene entirely than call riceballs jelly donuts) there was also a lot of romance plots and subplots that were removed as well.

Some of these were understandable, like three different instances of adult teachers dating underage students... I can kind of forgive the situation with Sakura’s parents, as 16 year olds are considered adults in most cultures, but what about Touya dating one of his teachers when he was 13, and Sakura’s ten year old friend Rika sharing a mutual romantic attraction with her homeroom teacher, which went a lot farther in the manga? Solid omissions in my humble opinion. They also removed all references to the situation surrounding Tomoyo and her mother, which is so bizarre I’m not even going to describe it fully because it would take at least half a paragraph All well and good, but they also removed Sakura and Shaoran’s crushes on the much older Yukito, which were actually pretty important to the plot, as well as multiple straight romances. I know the early 2000s were a more homophobic time, but Nelvana was so uptight they gave the Sailor Moon cousins treatment to a boy and a girl. Thankfully, the actual acting is a lot better.

Carley McKillip isn’t what you’d call a stellar actor, she starts out a little rough before she starts to quickly improve, but she sounds a lot more sincere and authentic than Andrea Kwan ever did, and she shows way more strength when needed. Shaoran’s actor Rhys Huber takes a lot longer to grow into his character, but he does get there. Maggie Blue Ohara is outstanding as Tomoyo(renamed Madison) even if her valley girl accent is entirely inconsistent. I remember cringing over this decision even as a kid, but I like the amount of extra personality it gives her now that I’m watching as an adult. There’s a funny exchange they added between her and Shaoran in episode 8 where there was only silence in the sub, and I really liked how it fleshed out their characters and added some spice to their dynamic. The legendary Nicole Oliver is fantastic as Meilin, Tony Sampson and Sam Vincent run circles around the Animax actors for Touya and Yukito, and Matt Hill’s performance as Kero is leagues better than even the sub version. His performance is so iconic that when Kero made a cameo in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Funimation actually had Chris Cason try to emulate it instead of following the original Japanese. Also, if Kero, Julian and Tori sound familiar, it’s because they are, in that order, Ed, Edd and Eddy.

Both dubs have their perks and their flaws, and they both have some novelty to them that I could see being highly rewarding for anyone who’s curious enough to check them out, but my strong recommendation goes towards the sub, albeit with a few content warnings. Sakura Tange is, and will always be, the genuine Sakura voice. You want to know what both versions of the show are equal on, though? Having banger openings. On the sub side, you get three insanely catchy jpop songs, with Catch You Catch Me standing out for just how fun and bouncy it is, and Platinum for the way it starts out on a beautifully subtle note before ramping up to a chilling burst of energy. Cardcaptors only has one opening, but it has a killer hook, and it does what any American cartoon opening is supposed to do... Explain the basic plot in a cool yet cohesive manner. Things aren’t so equal on the background music side, though. Composer Takayuki Negishi had all the experience necessary to imbue the series with a light-hearted, girlish score that still had an edge of fun and adventure to it, but that wasn’t enough for Nelvana, who replaced a lot of the music with slightly darker tracks that work okay, but they also came up with about a dozen original background songs, which... Woof. It’s premium cringe. They tried to straddle the line between show-specific lyrics and a modern radio sound, and the result ranges from awkward title drops, bizarre phrasing, and long strings of sewn-together cliches.

Cardcaptor Sakura is a very important anime to a lot of people, and yeah, I’m one of them. It wasn’t the first anime I ever encountered, or even the first one that I ever really got into, but looking back, I do credit it as being the first anime that really brought me across the threshold from being a casual fan to blossoming as an otaku. True, it was the KidsWB version that reached me first, but not even halfway through the show I was already part of several online communities discussing how the series was being handled and all the changes being made from the original sub. Those communities also hosted fanfiction, and Cardcaptor Sakura was the first anime... No, the first THING in general that I ever felt compelled to write fanfiction for, which was the spark that ignited my passion for writing. I might not be writing reviews right now if I hadn’t encountered Cardcaptor Sakura when I did, but I think I can forgive it for that. As much as this series is a part of my identity, though, I’ve made a practice out of turning a critical eye to shows I love in the past, and there is a lot to talk about with this one, so I think I’m going to start off by explaining what I think it’s biggest strength is.

First of all, as a member of the prestigious Magical Girl genre, Cardcaptor Sakura engages in a lot of subversion, perhaps even more so than even Madoka Magica(or at least an argument can be made for that), and it all comes down to Sakura herself. She’s neither the ditzy girly-girl meant to cater to girls on one end of the spectrum, nor the equally one note tomboy meant to appeal to boys on the other side of the spectrum. She’s right in the middle, a more or less believable child who has specific interests, some genuine skills and strengths, and just enough shortcomings to avoid the Mary-Sue label, but not so much that she ever comes off as incompetent. She has believable relationships with her family(even if her Dad is a few shades too patient) and a unique dynamic with each of her friends, who all have lives outside of her... Well, except one, but we’ll get there. She’s not the most interesting or unique protagonist you’ve ever seen, but she’s insanely likeable, and the world around her is built from the ground up to be engaging and immersive as she navigates it.

What I’m saying is, if you were to take the magical side of this series completely out of the equation, and just leave the story as a slice-of-life surrounding Sakura and her friends, I mean it wouldn’t be as good, but it would still be a perfectly competent and watchable anime series, because this is the only purely character driven magical girl/boy show I’ve ever seen, and the writers made sure to focus on the quality of the real world elements first before adding any fantasy elements to it. I can’t think of any other similar anime that I can say that about. We all love Sailor Moon... Don’t lie, you at least kinda like it... But would you put up with Usagi if she didn’t have that alter ego? I sure as fuck wouldn’t. Yugioh without the Pharaoh and the ancient Egypt plotline would be boring. Madoka Magica without Kyuubey and the witches would be pointless. Shows like these are driven by plot and/or concept, taking a more-or-less worthless protagonist on a journey of growth and development, and I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t work, but Usagi, Yugi and Madoka are arguably among the least interesting parts of their own shows. Cardcaptor Sakura is a character driven series, and as a result, Sakura never fails to be the star of her own show.

Sakura is not presented to us as any kind of ‘chosen one,’ which is a trap that a lot of anime protagonists fall into, and it’s also a cliche that a lot of people hate. Sure, there are hints throughout the latter half of the series that she was destined to become the Cardcaptor, but you’re already invested in her before you get that far. Hell, if anything, her rival Syaoran is the one you would have expected to be a chosen one, and that fact is not lost on the writers, who use it to challenge Sakura’s confidence and make her deal with a vicious bout of impostor syndrome throughout the series. She doesn’t rely on any sort of magically-granted power to battle the cards, rather, she has to rely on her own wit and athletic ability, and she’s only able to use the powers granted by a card once she captures it... And even then, she has to figure out which card to use in which way, and while some of the solutions to certain challenges may seem obvious to adult viewers, this is a kids’ show, and the writing is far more complex and engaging than just pointing at the screen for Dora.

Every recurring character is unique and interesting and brings something different to the story. Even Meilin, the character who should be hated by default, is strongly written with her own redeeming qualities. The only exception to this is, in my opinion, Tomoyo. Don’t get me wrong, she does have her moments, and the fact that she personally makes Sakura’s battle outfits is a savage subversion of genre cliches, but she seems to have almost nothing going on in her life other than Sakura. She fawns over her, videotapes her, and dedicates God only knows how many resources to making fantasy costumes just for her. She is the kind of friend you’d typically want to distance yourself from... Gradually, lest you find out what they’re capable of. Her main deal is that she’s romantically in love with Sakura, but she knows her love won’t be returned, so she’s settled for cheering Sakura on in HER romantic pursuits, which would be perfectly fine if she faced any conflict or inner turmoil over it, but nope, this stance is never challenged and she seems to have no arc whatsoever, and the lack of development makes her shtick really tiresome and borderline creepy after a while.

She’s also Sakura’s second cousin, which is revealed but never actually acknowledged, and speaking of which, the fact that she’s a non-magical outsider who knows about the cards is never brought up either, when you’d think a few characters might take issue with that. Anyway, Cardcaptors rewrites her as just Sakura’s eccentric rich friend who’s obsessed with fashion and filmmaking, and honestly, I like that version of her a lot better, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s the only character in the series who is the same person in episode 70 that she was in episode 1. The other problematic elements are technically worse, and I’ll spare you a second description as I already went over them when talking about the dub, but they are pretty damn uncomfortable to run into... Some of it was worse in the manga, like to a “the original ending of It” degree of worse... And it’s tempting to say that these elements haven’t aged well, or that it was a different time, but I don’t know, I’m having a hard time picturing them being okay at the time. On the other hand, there is some genuinely good LGBT representation in this show. There’s one gay couple that isn’t confirmed until the end, but they do spend the entire series being super supportive and tender to each other. More importantly, Syaoran’s crush on Yukito is refreshingly never mired by denial or gay panic, and it’s pretty cute how that’s one of the first things he and Sakura bond over.

In recent years, pop culture has shifted in such a way that people have started turning a more critical eye towards the more questionable decisions that were made in their favorite media, and it makes sense that people have started focusing that attention on Cardcaptor Sakura. I’m not going to say this is unfair, or start rampantly accusing people of not knowing how tell reality and fiction apart(I mean come on that argument is pure BS) but I do feel like it’s important to weigh the content in question against the intentions behind it, and I don’t think there were any ill intentions in this series. That’s not to say these relationships themselves are acceptable by any means, but when looking back at the manga, it feels to me like this material comes from a place of childlike innocence and naivety where emotion and feelings are the most important factors, and the realities of life take a back seat. I’m not saying I condone these decisions, I’m saying that it’s hard to stay mad at Cardcaptor Sakura over them when they make up a fraction of the material, and the anime DID scrub 90% of the Rika/Terada shit.

As for the magical side of the story, it is really creative, and the monster-of-the week set-up always keeps you guessing as to which card is going to show up at any given time. It does feel like the writers might have been biting off more than they could chew with 52 cards, as a handful of them were caught off-screen, but when you’re expanding off of a manga that only featured 19 cards, it’s understandable. What I can’t excuse is the redundancy of some of these cards. Lock and Shield are basically the same. Water was able to bring its friends Wave and Bubble to the party, while you don’t see Fire bringing Lava or Flame. And do Storm, Rain, Thunder, Cloud and Snow all have to be separate cards, when we don’t even get such basic powers as an invisibility card or a healing card? Even as a kid this bothered me.

One thing I did like about it, however, is how the sense of danger in any given episode is never overstated or understated. For the majority of the series, we’re following Sakura’s everyday life as she deals with the cards, so it makes sense that most of the cards are either mischievous or causing some sort of inconvenience for Sakura and her friends, and some cards are just straight up minding their own business, but the writers always find ways to make the story compelling through humor or setting up complex problems for Sakura and her friends to solve, while never pretending there’s more at stake than there actually is... So, when cards that are actually dangerous and life-threatening show up, like Shot or Firey, that sudden increase in tension feels both believable and earned without having to go to any significantly dark places to get their point across. This way, the action never gets too scary or violent for kids, but it also doesn’t feel too safe or manipulative for adults.

I will concede that this series might be a bit too lengthy for its own good... At a grand total of seventy episodes, the final arc doesn’t really have the steam that the first fifty or so episodes had, and it does kinda drag at parts. There are running jokes that get stretched a bit too far, some repetitive moments, and in my opinion, the most unfortunate symptom of this is when Tomoyo’s flanderization becomes more and more noticeable. Still, everything comes together really well, and while I wish the story were tighter, I appreciate the fact that it is a finished story. Cardcaptor Sakura doesn’t fall into the trap that a lot of children’s anime, particularly the ones with a McGuffin collecting subplot, where they get extended beyond their sell-by-date to push as much merchandise as possible. For all of its flaws, and it does have a few, Cardcaptor Sakura ends on a perfect note, giving viewers the satisfying conclusion they want while still leaving things just open enough to keep them engaged long after the credits roll.

Cardcaptor Sakura is available from NIS America, and is available for streaming on Netflix and Crunchyroll. The old Cardcaptors dub is available online, but I don’t think I’m allowed to say where. There are two movies, one taking place in the middle of the series that’s available from Eastern Star and a finale film that’s available from Discotek media, and while both are good, neither one is really necessary viewing. A sequel series called Clear Card Arc is available from Funimation, and it’s fine, but it’s also something fans of the original never really needed. There are several video games that were never released stateside, and the original manga is available from Kodansha comics.

Cardcaptor Sakura is probably one of the best anime adaptations ever produced. It took what was originally a much smaller manga, expanded on all of its most awesome qualities, and minimized its most unfortunate ones. Even though the series is at least halfway composed of anime-exclusive content, and filler material is usually the bane of most otakus existence, even that material is on point. The pacing is never too fast or too slow, there’s very little wasted time, and this series can be enjoyed by virtually any audience... It’s wholesome and innocent enough for kids, but mature and self-aware enough for adults. It’s pretty and romantic enough for the most stereotypical girls, yet exciting and adventurous enough for the most stereotypical boys, without ever losing touch with anybody in between. Again, there are a few too many problematic elements for me to call the series perfect, but on the whole, they’re not prominent enough to keep me from giving it my full recommendation.

I give Cardcaptor Sakura an 8/10.