Thursday 28 August 2014

Cardcaptor Sakura anime entire series (Magical Girl, 10/10E, semi short 'n' sweet review)

Sakura transformed with Kero
I have far too few anime reviews on this blog. I aim to change that over the next few months! Those of you who know me relatively well online know how passionate (try obsessed) I am with anime, especially ones which are mega cute. After several years I've finally finished Cardcaptor Sakura! The end wasn't quite a let down, as I'd read ahead to see if I could handle the conclusion. It misses gaining the magical 'e' ranking simply because with some of the difficulties Sakura faced earlier in the series, the end battles were hard but not as super scary as I'd expected them to be. The reason I'd held off from continuing watching it was due to the odd dark episode which I didn't like at all. So, if you don't like scary things don't fear, Cardcaptor Sakura is safe! 


For those of you who like collectors editions, here are the covers of mine. 
So cute!

Also so cute!!
The only reason I've got it is because Amazon France has an amazing anime collection, which so happened to be special edition for these dvds. I don't care about what a cover looks like, but I do think they are pretty. I could have Japanese (with French subs), but because I mostly watch anime when I'm tired I stuck with the French version which has a few name variations but they didn't matter at all. 

Small tangent coming up!
For new blog readers, I can understand 90-95% of French, so it's like watching English, only cooler because English can be dull compared to other languages. (Totally all my opinion). Japanese is uber cool, but I don't know it as well, and it's harder work on my brain than French.

Back to the subject of this post...
Oh, I guess you need a bit of info about what Sakura is about....here's some info from CCS Wikia  (all credit to them)

Cardcaptor Sakura was adapted into an anime television series by the animation studio Madhouse.[1] The manga creators, CLAMP, were fully involved in the project, with head writer Nanase Ōkawa writing and composing the series' screenplay and Mokona Apapa overseeing the costumes and card designs.

Directed by Morio Asaka, the series premiered on NHK on April 7, 1998 where it ran for seventy episodes until its conclusion on March 21, 2000. The series was also aired across Japan by the anime satellite television network, Animax, who later broadcast the series across its respective networks worldwide. The series also has two movies.

The series focuses on eleven-year old Sakura Kinomoto, a fourth grade elementary school student who discovers that she possesses exceptionally strong magical powers after accidentally freeing a set of fifty-two Cards' from a magic book in which they had been sealed for years. She is tasked with retrieving those cards in order to avoid an unknown catastrophe from befalling the world and is thus chosen by Keroberos as the Cardcaptor. 

Reasons why I love Sakura: I love her magical girl transformations, they are a huge reason for loving the show. Each episode has a different outfit - more details below - but that in itself is super squee! 
Like this one!
I adore the different 'magic' power she gained from each card - how she has to figure out which card/s to use to 'beat' another.
Cards can look like this (I don't think this is a fan art one...)
 I also love the sweet relationship she has with her brother, who knows way more than he lets on. The way they annoyed each other was funny. 
Siblings!

The whole background story of collecting the cards is important...but I really loved Sakura's mega rich friend who is called Tiffany in the French version. 
She spends a lot of time looking like this
 Her mother is so powerful that she has to have her own bodyguards...although they either ignore the adventures she goes on with Sakura or simply aren't there because Tiffany gets put in danger but they don't appear.  She has the best technology...which now looks dated but then was top of the range. 
Tiffany searching for something
She is totally into Sakura, and creates exquisite outfits for Sakura to wear when off on her adventures. A video camera is never far from Tiffany's hands as she likes to capture the action to treasure forever (and gets quite upset when she misses out on doing just that). 
See? It's literally in her hand!
As Sakura's close friend Tiffany features in pretty much all of the episodes, which kept me happy. 

There's heaps more to say about the other characters, both her family, friends & enemies,  who provide a mild romance interest, lots more laughs, mystery, danger etc but I need to go, so hopefully I'll chat more about this series another time. Enter the title into any search engine and you'll get more than enough information about it. I'd like to collect all the manga one day, and see how different it is to the anime. I'm wary of watching the 2nd movie as the 1st movie proved too scary for me to watch again. 

editions of the movies which I've got
Sakura & Tiffany having fun - I can't remember if this is fan art or not. Either way it's cute!

So go, check out this super fun anime! You won't be disappointed!
That's a Nayu promise!

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