I watched the bluray version of these episodes and thus will be a slightly technical review. Mainly because I made a mistake and in the process of correcting it found out some stuff about the audio and subtitle options.
On my remote control for my sony bluray player, I have shortcut buttons for both Audio and Subtitle. So I can just press them and supposedly bring up the various options for the disc. It’s worked before on both bluray, dvd’s AND digital files I’ve watched off of a thumbdrive. This time I accidentally hit “play” before choosing English Language with “limited subtitles” (for the opening and closing songs) and thus it started in Japanese with full subtitles. I wanted to do some Magic posts while “listening” to these episodes and just occasionally glancing up to take in the full picture. I clicked on “Audio” to change the language. Up pops an error of “This Operation is Prohibited for this Disc”. Come on, really!? What kind of lousy no good release won’t allow you to change at least the Audio options on the fly? Boooo!
These were all summer vacation themed episodes. I appreciated that because it’s fully fall now and the temps are no where near Summer. I can pretend to be all warm and summery anyway, hahahahaa 😀
Episodes
Episode 17 – Sakura’s Scary Test of Courage
Episode 18 – Sakura, Yukito, and the Summer Festival
Episode 19 – Sakura and the Summer Holiday Homework
Episode 13 – Sakura and the Elephant’s Test of Strength
Episode 14 – Sakura, Touya, and Cinderella
Episode 15 – Sakura and Kero’s Big Fight
Episode 16 – Sakura and the Rainbow of Memories
This dvd was a mix of capturing Clow cards and fill-in stories about Sakura’s history and current life. It was cute, it was fun and it filled a Sunday afternoon perfectly. While this is aimed at the tween girl crowd, CLAMP still tells a good story that everyone can appreciate.
With so much darkness out there, violence, destruction and existential despair and hopelessness, watching a movie today is fraught with the danger of wondering if anything is worth it. CCS is a good antidote to such a world view. It’s not a deeply philosophical counterpoint, mind you, but considering how shallow the bad movies are, it only follows that an antidote should be just as shallow. I guess today is your lucky day, hahahahaa!
In the last episode, we were introduced to Li Syaoran and boy, was he a real jerk. He also comes from a family of magicians that gives him the ability to capture, and thus use, Clow cards. Unfortunately for Sakura, Li thinks his family is the ONLY one “good enough” to do so.
Each episode is a Clow Card of the week and follows the predictable pattern of Sakura and/or Li discovering a Clow Card and then having to capture it. But we begin to see Li more as a person and he begins to understand that not everything is quite as cut and dried as he declared when we first met him.
Being a Magical Girl anime, there’s romance here, albeit from a 10/11 year old’s viewpoint. From a schoolgirl crush on her teacher to Sakura’s dad fighting with his dead wife’s cousin, there is no lack of relational drama. Throw in that this was created by CLAMP and there’s the almost obligatory boyslove that those perverted women just love.
We also get adults acting like how 10year olds must imagine they do. Which is some real writing, as most of CLAMP were in their 30’s (I believe. It’s hard to tell as the members have changed throughout the years). But adults play a VERY small part and thus are relegated to almost non-beings. It does keep the show focused on Sakura and forces her to solve her own problems, with the help of various friends of course. Kids need that.
Another quite enjoyable foray into a wonderful shojo anime. Only the utterly curmudgeonly and cantankerous wouldn’t love this.
Episodes & Summaries
Click to Open
Episode 9 – Sakura and the Mysterious Brooch
Tomoyo and Rika try to cheer Sakura up by taking her shopping after Syaoran upsets her, but Rika suddenly attacks Sakura when she puts on a new brooch.
Episode 10 – Sakura and the Sport’s Day of Flowers
It’s Sports Day at Sakura’s school. Tomoyo’s mother seems to know Sakura’s father, but her glares say that it’s not a friendly reunion.
Episode 11 – Sakura, Tomoyo, and a Mansion
Tomoyo asks Sakura over to get her help opening a special box full of mementos. Kero senses the presence of a Clow Card.
Episode 12 – Sakura’s Never-Ending Day
Sakura messes up during her music test; the next day at school everything repeats in exactly the same way. Syaoran and Sakura realize it’s a Clow Card
This second dvd of the anime Cardcaptor Sakura, contains the following episodes:
Sakura, the Panda and the Cute Shop
Sakura and Memories of Her Mother
Sakura’s First Attempt as a Thief!?!
Sakura’s Rival Appears
This time around I watched these twice, once on the dvd with the subtitles and once on the bluray with the dubbed version. I must say, I did not care for the dub. Sakura sounds like a teenager, not a 10 year old, the pronunciation differences are more glaring (“Clow” is pronounced like “Glow”, not “Plow”) and references are more NorAm oriented than strictly Japanese or Chinese. I must also admit, that with my eyes and my old tv, I couldn’t tell the difference between the dvd and the bluray for resolution. It all looked the same to me.
The stories were just as saccharin as the previous ones and that’s why I skipped a month between reviews. Only so much concentrated sweetness I can handle at one time. But they were fun and I enjoyed them and that’s all that really matters when it comes to watching something on the tv.
Next time I will talk about the episodes themselves (hopefully).
Hang on to your hats folks. After the utter disaster that Dune, Part 2 was, whereby my last remaining shred of interest in modern movies was completely ground into the dust, I decided to look backwards in time, to a completely different country, when story telling actually counted for something.
So back to a beloved anime from 1998. Cardcaptor Sakura is a Magical Girl anime about a girl named Sakura who accidentally releases a bunch of magical cards created by a Magician named Clow. The Guardian of the Cards, who had been sleeping on the job for 30 years, gives Sakura the job of re-capturing the Cards before a prophesied disaster befalls the entire world. Sakura is given magical girl powers by Kero, the Guardian and each Card she captures gives her additional magical powers.
CCS has had quite the storied release here in North America. It was released as a completely butchered tv version where Sakura plays a minor part instead of being the main character. It was subsequently released on dvd, uncut but subtitled only. Finally, it was released on Bluray, uncut and with both dubs and subs. There were other releases as the rights jumped from one company to another, but our interest here is the Uncut DVD release and the Bluray release.
I bought the entire 70 episode series (18 dvds) back in 2005. 18 dvd’s was quite an investment for me back then and I treasured this series. It was light, fluffy, upbeat and so positive that you could pour it on pancakes for breakfast. At the time, I didn’t mind the subtitle only release. This was the only way to watch CCS and so I watched it this way.
Fast forward to now. I was despondent. I was in despair. Movies were anathema to me. I was ready to nuke Hollywood as a whole and damn the civilian casualties. I needed something light, fluffy, upbeat and so positive I could pour it on my waffles for breakfast. CCS immediately sprang to mind. But I have a touch of the snob in me and merely re-watching my old dvd’s was not going to be nearly good enough for me. So I ordered the entire series on bluray. I wanted to do a compare/contrast and see if I had wasted my money on an upgraded version. I’ll be looking into that aspect next month.
This dvd, The Clow, has four episodes on it. They are as follows:
Synopses – Click to Open
1) Sakura and the Mysterious Magic Book” -Sakura Kinomoto, a ten-year-old, experiences dreams involving a peculiar book and Tokyo Tower. After returning home from school, Sakura is drawn to the basement by strange noises. In her father’s library, she discovers the Clow Book, the same book from her dream. She accidentally breaks its seal, unleashing the magical Clow Cards into the world. The cards’ guardian, Cerberus, awakens and appoints Sakura the role of Cardcaptor – to catch and seal the cards using the Clow Wand. They successfully catch the Fly Card, allowing Sakura to fly.
2) Sakura’s Wonderful Friend -Tomoyo meets Cerberus after she discovers Sakura’s secret and becomes involved in Sakura’s quest. Cerberus gets given the nickname “Kero-chan”, which will stick for the rest of the series. The next day, the students find the school’s desks and equipment in large piles. Kero believes it was the work of a Clow Card and forces Sakura to go to school at night where she confronts the Shadow Card. Using Windy, Sakura is able to capture it. Sakura finally accepts her role as a Cardcaptor because of Tomoyo’s support, who begins providing battle costumes for her to wear, as well as filming her endeavors.
3) Sakura’s Heart-Racing First Date -Sakura’s class is on a field trip to the aquarium. During the penguin show, something catches the trainer’s leg and a penguin and pulls them into the water, but they are saved by Sakura’s brother, Toya, who is working part-time there. At school, Tomoyo gives Sakura and Kero mobile phones and on the way home, Sakura bumps into Yukito who invites her on a casual “date” to the aquarium. While they are eating, the Watery Card attempts to drown Sakura. For the first time, Sakura has to formulate a plan to capture a card. Using her wits and an unintentional clue from Yukito, she lures Watery into a freezer to immobilize and capture it.
4) Sakura’s Tiring Sunday -While cleaning the house, Sakura finds two dormant Clow Cards, the Wood and the Rain. But while running an errand for her father, the two cards activate creating a jungle inside the house. Sakura uses Watery to capture the Rain Card and the gentle Wood Card yields on her own. Sakura gets the hard-earned lesson that a card is not fully subdued until she signs her name on it.
When I remembered these as sweet, I wasn’t kidding! I am talking totally saccharine here. By the time I was done with these 4 episodes, I was done for this month. I thoroughly enjoyed these but just like a bag of gum drops, you can only take so many at once.
I realize I blabbed a lot at the beginning and didn’t talk a lot about the specific episodes. I’ll eventually get around to that, but not at this time nor next month. I’ll provide a synopsis in a Details code next time just like this time but am hoping to focus on the differences between the dvd and the bluray releases. After THAT we’ll see if I can be bothered to talk about the episodes themselves. Don’t hold your breath though, I’m not feeling very “talky” when it comes to movies anymore.
Nadesico was a 26 episode anime series released in 1996 in Japan and eventually made it to the US on dvd in 2002. Those were not the days of simultaneous releases. Pirate subbers roamed the interwebz and the battleships of Legality were hounded by impatient fans as well. When I originally watched this, I thought it was the most funny thing ever. I recommended it as one of the handful of “Auto-recommends” to non-anime people who wanted to know what “anime” even was.
Over the last couple of years with reading various old and new manga and rewatching some of my old favorite anime I have realized that I have aged out. Maybe “aged” isn’t the right word, but my circumstances have change enough that the messages anime promotes and counts on to attract viewers don’t appeal to me any more. This was quite apparent to me watching Nadesico.
I chose to binge watch all 26 episodes, back to back. That was a mistake and yet it was the only way I made it through at the same time. 10 1/2 hrs of youth, angst, love, uncertainty and trying to find one’s place in the grand scheme of things. Having it compressed into one viewing made those things very obvious. It is why I said I have aged out of anime. I am no longer young (even though I hate to admit that). My angst now concerns whether to make double mortgage payments or put the extra money towards savings for when a car inevitably breaks down. I’ve been happily married to Mrs B for over 15 years now and she still loves me. I have 24years experience doing my job and know what I am and am not capable of. I know where I fit in life and I am satisfied with that place. Maybe if they made middle aged anime? But that wouldn’t sell very well, not even to me, hahahahaa.
What did happen to me, that I wasn’t expecting, was the emotional impact of watching so much all at once. While I am stable, the built-in instability of the show affected me quite a bit. It made me anxious and depressed. I suspect that watching a tv screen for that long also played a big part of that. But I don’t want to experience that again. I want to make this clear, anime didn’t change, nor has it changed. I have changed. So if you can still enjoy anime, then do so, with gusto.
Which means I need to start getting rid of the majority of my anime. I don’t plan on rewatching 95% of it any more and sadly, this watch of Nadesico shows that even my favorites were for a different time, a different place, a different me.
