It’s Cardcaptor Sakura episode 2, and Sakura isn’t able to keep her secret for very long from a certain someone – a fact which is doomed fated to affect her for the rest of the series…

And sorry for passing on this for so long, this was the first thing cut when I had hell month and it’s pretty much the last thing I’m catching up on. I’ll hopefully be caught up on this series by the end of the month.

Sakura has to go to school early since she’s on morning duty. However, once she gets there, Tomoyo arrives, saying that she wants to show something “interesting” to Sakura, playing back a video of Sakura flying on her staff along with Kero that she made the night before. Sakura is shocked by this, which causes Kero, who had been stowed away in Sakura’s bag, out to see what all the fuss is about.

During lunch, Sakura and Kero explain what’s going on to Tomoyo, who decides that Sakura just must have a trademark pose, being a magical girl and all. Meanwhile, the shadows of the students at the school are doing behaving oddly.

The next day, the students find the school the mess, with desks and tables piled up everywhere. Tomoyo ponders if it was caused by a Clow Card, an opinion Kero agrees with. They decide to check things out at the school that night (something which Sakura strongly objects to).

That night at the school, Tomoyo shows up with a van, and has Sakura dress up in a costume so that Sakura may “be dressed for the occasion.” Once on the school grounds, they’re suddenly attacked by statue flying at them, and Kero identifies the card as the Shadow card. Sakura tries to capture it with Windy, but it’s gathered up too many shadows for Windy to handle.

Tomoyo then comes up with an idea: she’ll turn on all the lights on the grounds, making all the shadows except for the main body disappear. Sakura is then able to capture the main body with Windy and return it to a card.

Perhaps it’s a sign that this show has little “fluff” when one can write such a long review and can’t find anything more than one can cut out without feeling that you’re left out something important or necessary.

Actually, personally, this episode is probably one of my least favorite of the early episodes (though it still isn’t that bad). I’m not sure what it is about it, but Shadow just seems to be a lame opponent in some ways, and it’s a card that shows up so early (this is the 2nd episode) yet isn’t really utilized all that much in the series unlike many of the other cards that Sakura gathers early on.

However, one thing this episode does a great job is continuing to establish Tomoyo’s character, from her wanting to dress Sakura up, to her videotaping her adventures, to her thinking things like Sakura needing a “finishing pose” for when she summons her staff. While the first episode was “the start of it all” as far as Sakura becoming a cardcaptor, this episode truly is “the start of it all” when it comes to many of the other things that makes Cardcaptor Sakura what it is.