(I don't remember this well enough to rate.)

CardCaptors, on NHK BS2
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This dubbed, American version of "Cardcaptor Sakura" wasn't nearly as good as the original, Japanese version, so I hear. I dunno, I've never seen the original. But I'm given to understand that there were alot of differences, and not all the episodes were shown here, apparently to take the emphasis off the fact that Sakura is the central character. I still think it's pretty damn obvious, so I don't see the point in screwing with it. I wouldn't see the point, anyway, unless the American production & distribution companies want to try to keep little boys believing that boys are better than girls, or some nonsense like that. In any event, even if it does have problems of various sorts, I still think it was very kawaii, and fun. Not really great or terribly cool or anything, but decent enough. Someday I think I'd really like to see Cardcaptor Sakura, though, I'm sure I'd like it better. Plus this is all based on a manga by CLAMP, and it has probably at least one sequel, and alot of different CLAMP mangas and animes tie in together sometimes. Not that I've read/seen any of those, but I might like to, someday....

Anyway, Sakura was this girl who like, accidentally released all these magic Clow cards which each had its own spirit with its own magic power, and then Sakura had to go try to capture all the cards, and there was this little stuffed animal named Keero who was actually the guardian beast of the Clow, who helped her out. His true form was a big lion with wings. And once Sakura captured a card she could use its power to help her capture others. Other characters included a boy named Li Showron, who was a descendant of Clow Reed, the former master of the cards long ago. Li was trained in magic and stuff, and helped Sakura, too. And there was Madison, a friend of Sakura's who filmed most of the captures. And Meilin, a girl who had known Li growing up, before he moved to Readington, where the show takes place. She later moved there, too, and wanted to help out with capturing the cards, but had a bit of an attitude problem most of the time. And there was Sakura's older brother, Tori, who had his own magical secrets going on, and suspected Sakura did, too, though she kept her CardCaptor stuff secret from her family and all but a few kids. And Tori's best friend was Julian, and I think Sakura had a crush on him. And he had his own magical secret... but he didn't know about it, himself. And there was this substitute teacher named Ms. MacKenzie who also had secrets... But in the end all the major players pretty much figured out what was going on with everyone. Except Julian. I mean, the others learned about him, but he still didn't know.

Anyway, after Sakura had captured all of the cards, there was a big test to see if she could become the new master, after which she had to transform the cards, and... oh, some other stuff happened, I guess. A new villain emerged, with a couple of characters who worked for him, but in the end maybe "villain" was entirely the wrong word. But... um... whatever. That's all I have to say. Oh, except in one episode there was this song called "Ordinary Girl" by Superhum, which I really love. But that's not really important....


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