Tag Archives: Cardcaptor Sakura

Surprise Box Set

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 – 5:33 pm

Koi KazeToday I was surprised when I was doing my anime and manga releases to see that Koi Kaze was coming out in a box set. Not too long ago I had looked around to see if one existed or if one was coming and I didn’t see anything, so this kind of came as a surprise.

This was probably a middle of the pack series, but I believe it was the third one that I rented from blockbuster when I started watching anime. However, I only watched the Japanese version, and I had wanted to wait until I watched the English version to write a review. That time appears to be soon now that a box set is out and at a non-outrageous price (with tax and shipping I got it for about $50 on circuit city).

Of course this reminds me of all the series I have yet to write reviews on, including Ai Yori Aoshi, The World of Narue, and Please Twins - which I have no excuse over since I own them all. I’ve also received Porco Rosso and Akira from blockbuster (cause they refuse to send me any of the top 6 discs in my queue, even though 4 are listed as available now) so those should be coming in not too long (assuming I don’t get majorly busy).

As for series I’m currently watching, I have 3 discs (and the second movie) left in Cardcaptor Sakura. I also have two discs left in Ah! My Goddess (though blockbuster lists volume 5 as “coming soon” even though the sixth disc has already been released).

By Josh | Posted in 2004 Anime | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Anime Review : Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie - Score: 75%

Thursday, June 22, 2006 – 12:33 pm

The Essentials

Cardcaptor Sakura: The MovieName: Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Episodes: N/A
Released: August 21, 1999
Based On: Cardcaptor Sakura anime series
Director: Morio Asaka
Produced By: Bandai Visual, Kodansha, Madhouse
US Distribution By: Pioneer/Geneon

Major Japanese Cast

Sakura Kinomoto: Sakura Tange
Kerberos: Aya Hisakawa
Madoushi: Megumi Hayashibara
Tomoyo Daidouji: Junko Iwao
Syaoran Li: Motoko Kumai
Meiling Li: Yukana Nogami
Yelan Li: Kikuko Inoue
Yukito Tsukishiro: Megumi Ogata
Toya Kinomoto: Tomokazu Seki
Clow Reed: Kazuo Hayashi

Major English Cast

Sakura Avalon: Carly McKillip
Kerberos: Matt Hill
Madoushi: Nicole Oliver
Madison Taylor: Maggie Blue O’Hara
Li Showron: Rhys Huber
Meilin Rae: Nicole Oliver
Yelan Li: Stevie Vallance
Julian Star: Samuel Vincent
Tori Avalon: Tony Sampson
Clow Reed: Dale Wilson

Scores

Animation: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Story: 7/10 (x 4 = 28 pts)
Music: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Coherency/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: 4/10 (x 1 = 4 pts)
Gut Score: 7/10 (x 5 = 35 pts)

Total: 135/180 (75%)

Review

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie continues the adventures of Sakura Kinomoto (or Sakura Avalon, depending whether you watch the English version) while she’s still collecting Clow Cards. The movie aired after the 2nd season and the completion of Sakura’s mission to collect the Clow Cards but is set between the 1st and 2nd season (I believe that, if you watch the first episode of the 2nd season - episode 36 - you even see the Arrow card that Sakura collects in the movie).

This time Sakura and friends find themselves in Hong Kong after Sakura wins a lottery drawing. Of course, Hong Kong happens to be where the Li clan lives, and it doesn’t take long for the group to run into Syaoran and Meiling. We also get to see Syaoran’s mother and Syaoran’s four sisters, whom I believe he referenced late in the first season.

Of course, Sakura didn’t really “win” the lottery. One of Clow’s magical rival, who has kept herself alive using a book, lures her to Hong Kong believing that she’s Clow, unaware of how much time has actually passed. In the process, the rival, named Madoushi, captures Li, Meiling, Toya, and Yukito and Sakura must use her powers to try to rescue them.

I think this movie was a pretty good movie on it’s own, but I was kind of disappointed in it when one puts it in context with the rest of the franchise. The only Clow Card captured was the Arrow card at the very beginning of the movie, and then just happened to be used at the end. It doesn’t seem like that her ordeal rested on the need to use that card specifically and just seemed to me that it was thrown in just so they could say she collected another card during the movie. Another thing that rather disappointed me was that Sakura didn’t really use many Clow Cards in battling Madoushi except for Arrow as stated above. I found myself, at numerous times, being like “use X card!” only for Sakura to stand there like she can’t do anything.

Now that I have that out of the way, as I said this was an enjoyable movie. It was a nice change of pace from the series where Sakura is just roaming around her town looking for Clow Cards. As expected, the animation is crisper than in the series, and while the music in the movie appeared to be new, some of the music, at least to me, seemed to include some chords from the music in the series. I’ll also note, the music in the English version is completely redone from the Japanese version, but I’m scoring the music score based on the music used in the Japanese version.

One more note. I watched, or attempted to watch, the English dub. While the voices for most of the adults that I heard seemed to be ok, the voices for Meilin, Syaoran, Tomayo (or Madison), and Sakura were, well, I’m not sure when the last time I heard 4th graders with the voices of high schoolers. I don’t think I’d mind kero with a guy’s voice, but its just the partciular voice he has which just….doesn’t sound right. It’s not the worst dub I’ve ever heard, but it’s definitely not one that I’d watch dubbed on purpose from now on.

First Watched: June, 2006
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Indifferent

By Josh | Posted in Anime Reviews | Tagged | Comments (0)

Anime Review: Cardcaptor Sakura Season 1 - Score: 87.9%

Thursday, June 22, 2006 – 12:00 pm

The Essentials

Cardcaptor SakuraName: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre:: Fantasy, Adventure
Episodes: 35
Released: April 7, 1998 - December 29, 1998
Based On: Cardcaptor Sakura manga by CLAMP
Director: Various
Produced By: NHK Enterprise 21
US Distribution By: Pioneer/Geneon

Major Japanese Cast

Sakura Kinomoto: Sakura Tange
Kerberos: Aya Hisakawa
Tomoyo Daidouji: Junko Iwao
Syaoran Li: Motoko Kumai
Meiling Li: Yukana Nogami
Yukito Tsukishiro: Megumi Ogata
Toya Kinomoto: Tomokazu Seki
Fujitaka Kinomoto: Hideyuki Tanaka
Kaho Mizuki: Emi Shinohara
Naoko Yanagisawa: Emi Motoi
Rika Sasaki: Tomoko Kawakami
Chiharu Mihara: Miwa Matsumoto
Takashi Yamazaki: Issei Miyazaki
Sonomi Daidouji: Miki Itou

Major English Cast

N/A

Scores

Animation: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Coherency/Story Arc: 9/10 (x 2 = 18 pts)
English Dubs: N/A
Gut Score: 9/10 (x 5 = 45 pts)

Total: 167/190 (87.9%)

Review

This review is only for season 1 of Cardcaptor Sakura, which was the first half of the series (episodes 1 - 35). This review also doesn’t review the Cardcaptors re-edit done for US release.

After my previous positive experiences watching CLAMP anime (see Chobits and Angelic Layer), this was added on my list to watch. I hesitated at first since I feared that it may be targeted for too young of an audience for me to enjoy, but I found that this wasn’t the case (either it wasn’t targeted for that young an audience, or I can still enjoy it if it is).

This series is also a lot like Angelic Layer in the sense that, if you tried giving a brief explanation of the series to someone, it may not sound as interesting as it really is. I mean, if you just say “this series is about a girl who has to collect magical cards in every episode,” it may sound really boring to some.

There are some repetitive elements that sometimes get annoying after a while - such as watching nearly the same animation for Sakura releasing her magical staff in every episode and the like - but for a series this long, I suppose that is to be expected.

I think the animation is well done for a 1998 series. I also enjoy both the credit and the episodic music in this series. Also, the internal story in each episode are diverse and interesting enough to make the series enjoyable, despite the fact that, as I stated above, from the long view most episodes are essentially “Clow Card does something bad. Sakura freaks out. Kero/Syaoran tells Sakura it’s a Clow Card. Sakura does her thing. The town is saved.”

One of the things I have to rather giggle about, though, are the strong same-sex attractions that are obviously going on (Tomoyo towards Sakura and Syaoran towards Yukito) as well the age difference in some of these attractions (Sakura and Syaoran towards Yukito and Rika towards Mr. Terada). In a sense I can see why Nelvana tried to cut these things out, because if there was a children’s show on TV which even hinted at those relationships at even a quarter of the strength that Cardcaptor Sakura does, the religious right would be practically rioting if the show wasn’t pulled off the air.

I’m really looking forward to watching the second half of the series to see where it goes. I have a general idea, but nothing beats actually watching it. My wallet is not looking forward to the $180 to $200 i’d need to fork out to buy the entire series, however.

First Watched: April - June 2006
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes

By Josh | Posted in Anime Reviews | Tagged | Comments (0)

I”s Pure and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Friday, May 12, 2006 – 6:46 pm

There are now two being-released-in-Japan-right-now series that I am currently following (at least the best I can with my internet connection): I”s Pure, which I’ve been watching since it first came out in December; and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which I’ve just finished downloading the six episodes that are out on torrent so far (7 have aired so far).

I”s Pure should be done in June (at least it’s Japan released…as far as being fansubbed…we’ll see about that) and TMoHS, if wikipedia is correct about it being a 14 episode series, should be done in late June as well. I hope to write reviews of both when they finish.

I’m also one DVD away from finishing His and Her Circumstances, so I should be able to post a review of it in not too long. Also, I almost posted a review of Please Twins! earlier, but I wanted to re-write it a little before I posted it.

I’m currently working on my first long series through blockbuster in Cardcaptor Sakura, which is something like 18 volumes long (it has 70 episodes) and blockbuster put volume 5 in the mail just a couple days ago.

I still have quite a few other series I wish to review as well. I’m renting DearS through blockbuster so I can listen to the English dub before I review it (I saw a subtitled fan sub of it before), ditto with Girls Bravo. I’m in the process of buying Koi Kaze, and the same watching it dubbed thing applies.

Ai Yori Aoshi and Love Hina are ones I’m finished with but haven’t gotten into a mode to write a review of. I want to see Neon Genesis Evangelion again first, and, if I don’t run out of anime to review before then, I want to wait until KimiNozo finishes it’s release in December before I review it.

Well, thats all for now.

By Josh | Posted in Various | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ebay package 2 of 3 has arrived!

Monday, March 13, 2006 – 11:40 am

Alright, now we’re talking. The other package may be small enough to fit in my mailbox, which I haven’t checked yet, but I did get the other package at my door this morning (usually the mail doesn’t come until after I leave for work. They must have been eager to get it to me today).

This package included the thinpack Last Exile collection as well as The World of Narue collection which, while it’s not a thinpack, is still packaged to save space.

So thats complete series #6 and #7 in my anime collection.

I’m also going for a set of 5 Ai Yori Aoshi DVDs which are on ebay for pretty cheap. Now they’re set up, the shipping will end up being a little much (it’s full price for first item, and 50% off other items, which means if I get all five, shipping will still be around $20), but given how cheap it looks like the actual DVDs will go for (2 already had bids, but the other three I got with Buy It Now for $4.95 each). Unless bidding on the other two DVDs go insane, I should still save more money than most auctions over the 5 discs together.

I also got Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum volume 4 and Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures volume 3 from blockbuster over the weekend. Why Volumes 4 of NGE had only 3 episodes, I’m not sure, but I suppose there is a logical reason somewhere.

That means I now only have 2 volumes of NGE left and 1 volume of Dual! left. Neon Genesis Evangelion #5 was sent out by Blockbuster Thursday, so I should get it in another day. Blockbuster should send the next movie on the list to me next, which should be Dual! Volume 4, which will finish that series up.

Some other notes:
I was (finally) able to find an (English) subbed version of I”s Pure episode 2 (thank you c1anime!). They said episode 3 should be out soon, so, hopefully they’re right about that.

I haven’t really decided what anime to start watching after Dual! and NGE. After the last volume of Dual! is shipped, then the last volume of NGE will ship. Other than Volume 3 of Cowboy Bebop, which has been sitting in the #1 slot of my queue with an availability of “Long Wait” for months, I need to select 2 or 3 more series to watch.

One already on the list (just stuck below NGE and Dual!) is Cardcaptor Sakura, since it’s CLAMP. The biggest problem with this series is that it’s 16 volumes long, which means that it’ll probably take something like 4 months to start watching it.

Other series on my short list to add to the top of the queue include: Fushigi Yugi, His and Her Circumstances, Ah! My Goddess! the TV series, and Kaleido Star.

Another option that I’m thinking is to re-rent some anime which I’ve already seen but haven’t heard the English dub to (either because I didn’t listen to it when I rented before, or I downloaded a fansub which didn’t have English on it). This list would include, out of anime I’ve finished, Dears, and anime I haven’t finished, Girls Bravo.

The only thing left to say is that there is no anime review today (duh!) and tomorrow is Tuesday, thus it is the big anime DVD/manga release date of the week, so I’ll list the major releases for that. The next review may come on the 15th.

By Josh | Posted in General Blather, Various | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)