It’s Cardcaptor Sakura episode 17 and Sakura and her class take a trip to the beach. However, her classmates start to disappear when they go on a test of courage.

Sakura’s class takes a trip to the beach. However, both she and Shaoran immediately sense that something isn’t quite right with a nearby cave. That night, in their cabin, Sakura, Tomoyo and friends talk about having to do a test of courage the next day, with Naoko, being all excited and telling a story about a test of courage where a class went into a cave and never came out. Of course, hating scary stories, Sakura would rather not hear any of this and as a result can’t sleep.

Sakura decides to take a walk but she runs into Shaoran (who scares her in the process). They sit and talk on the beach and talk about the strange presence from the cave, but Shaoran isn’t sure whether it’s a Clow Card or not. Afterward, Sakura asks Shaoran if he came with his family to Japan, but he tells her that he only came with his servant and caretaker, Wei.

The next night, it’s time for the test of courage, but once Sakura and Tomoyo enter the cave, they find that no one is passing them on their way out and there were no teachers past near the entrance to the cave. Suddenly they hear a scream and find that Naoko has disappeared ahead of them, and Chiharu and Rika disappear soon after.

Sakura and Tomoyo try running away, but Tomoyo disappears while on a bridge, dropping the candle she was carrying, catching the bridge on fire. Sakura stands there in a panicked stupor until Shaoran arrives and tells her to properly feel for the presence. Sakura is then able to tell that a Clow Card is nearby. Shaoran uses his compass to determine that the Card is across the now burned down bridge. Sakura decides to use Float to quietly get herself and Shaoran across the water.

Sakura is able to determine where the card is and seal it despite Shaoran half-disappearing. They then see that it is the doings of the Erase card. Sakura offers the card to Shaoran, since he helped calm her down, but Shaoran tells her to keep it. The next day, Sakura finds that everyone but Shaoran and herself have forgotten everything from the night before.

Well, if you like scared and screaming Sakura, you’re going to like this episode, since Sakura is screaming through half of it. In any case…

A few notes in this episode: Clearly Shaoran is getting used to Sakura being around and capturing cards because, to begin with, I’m not sure he would have hesitated taking one of the Clow Cards if Sakura had offered it to him. He still says that she needs to work on her power and all, but I think that’s just Shaoran being Shaoran. I think there is already a suggestion that her power has already surpassed his, given that he started disappearing in the cave before she did.

Second, we’ve seen Yamazaki’s liking to trick Sakura and Shaoran before, but this may be the first time that we see the extent that Chiharu gets annoyed by them, and how close he and Chiharu are.

Other than that, we seem to be plodding along capturing cards without any major even occurring.

Oh yeah, and once again the series takes another two weeks off.  I’m trying to do these review times on the same day they re-air on Japanese TV, but the number and timing of these TV breaks are starting to confound me.