Explaining the canon of Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (anime), connection to the second film

Sakura is not amused by your ignorance!

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card marks the return of my all-time favorite magical girl, Kinomoto Sakura (and magical boy, looking at you Syaoran!) into the world of Japanese animation, starting off the 2018 year on a good note. And I’ve returned from the dead to explain some very common misconceptions about the series that has plaguing the minds of fans since the animated version of this amazing sequel started.

Because not knowing may needlessly hamper your enjoyment of the series, when it doesn’t really have to!

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc – Revival of a classic Magical Girl

As the quintessential Cardcaptor Sakura fanboy around the blogosphere, I felt it was only right for me to start writing about my thoughts on this at some point. A continuation of the series after 20 years is a pretty big thing, after all. You could mess around with Digimon Adventure tri. or Dragon Ball Super to my dismay all you want, but if a new Cardcaptor Sakura storyline isn’t done right, I’d go apeshit.

Support Kodomo no Jikan

About six days ago, the Kickstarter for the Kodomo no Jikan English localization successfully raised enough money to officially bring this manga series to the English-speaking world for the first time ever, since Seven Seas’ failed attempt to bring it over to the US as Nymphet in 2007.

I’m familiar with the series, and honestly, beyond the surface it’s actually a good read/watch. Personally, I think the controversy is overblown, but rather than jumping into my usual rants, I’ll just point you to an article that I feel is pretty much right on point. If you feel like you’re an open-minded individual and aren’t too sensitive to “objectionable subject matter”, I say pick it up when it’s released and give it a good ol’ college try.

Books, no, plenty of stories in general tackle controversial topics and issues. It’s one thing to say no and not buy it, but if you’re actively against the existence of publications containing ideas and subject matter you find uncomfortable, then I honestly don’t know what to say. As a college student, I’m no stranger to the presence of emotional infancy among my own generation, but of course, I never really know how to respond to it because anything people like me say seems to go nowhere.

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Shirou doesn’t care if his body is made of swords

Alright, let’s talk about English dubs.

I don’t talk about dubs much, mostly because I haven’t seriously watched one since Samurai Champloo‘s (amazing) dub. I don’t even bother playing Japanese video games with English audio either (nowadays I don’t really play localized JRPG’s that lack a dual audio option). I do like a few of them, but in general… I just don’t really care for them. Unless they veer into alternate adaptation territory (which hasn’t happened that much after the 90’s), it’s not like I have a deep hatred for them or anything. I just tend to find the typical voice performances and overall Japanese-to-English script mediocre. But I do get curious every now and then and check them out for kicks.

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Syaoran the Bestie

When Nippon Ichi Software America released their premium edition of the Cardcaptor Sakura Blu-ray collection in 2014, I was obviously the happiest person on Earth finally being able to own the definitive viewing experience of possibly one the cutest anime series in existence, at an affordable price. And everything was almost perfect, especially the video transfer. It’s exactly the same as the Japanese release.

But there’s one thing that went wrong with this release: the subtitles. Now, it’s no secret that NISA translations are really, really bad. True to form, the subtitles are pretty iffy here and there. Naturally, it’s not a bad as Nelvana’s retool hackjob of a dub “Cardcaptors” back in the early 2000’s, which was quite frankly the devil’s incarnate. In comparison, iffy subtitles are incredibly minor and a godsend. But there’s one translation flub present in this release that is rather bothersome. And that is, Sakura calling Syaoran her “bestie”.

Back with new content and a new PC

Alright then… first post of 2016. Sorry about the sudden disappearance of new posts. What was supposed to be a month-long break from the blog for school turned out to be a disaster.

You see, I was going to write a Christmas/New Years post about my 2015 weeb highlights for 12 Days of Anime, but apparently my blog was hacked (hence the new layout you see before you, my old customized Pool theme was infected and had to be replaced because it was no longer supported by WordPress). Based Maestro thankfully fixed the blog for me, kudos for the great service even after all these years. But by then, it was no longer Christmas nor New Years Eve, so I decided to scrap that post entirely and the disappointment made me go on an indefinite break. I did spend some time to rework a newer theme to my liking, but… that was basically it. I think I have an idea as to why my blog was hacked, but I’m not going to get into it. Not worth it.

Here are some of the anime/manga/video game titles you may have seen if I was able to write the post on time: Owarimonogatari, One-Punch Man, Non Non Biyori Repeat, Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu, Shenmue III, and others. I might probably just give them individual articles one day, however.

But yeah, what have been up to since my last post? Well, my typical normie life aside, I managed to save enough to build myself a new PC during Black Friday, of course for my Design major, digital fan art, HD/1440p PC gaming, console emulation, and XTREME!!111 animu viewing. Here are the build specs.

Processor: Intel Core i7 4790k @ 4.00GHz (with overclock later when I get a better CPU cooler)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (the psuedo-sound card audio quality provided by the motherboard is sextastic out of the box)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866
Local Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive
Secondary Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (should have gotten the 2TB version, but I was a dumbass and got scared by Backblaze’s circumstantial failure rate statistics)
Case: Enermax ECA3253-BW ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST/BLK/G/AS DVD/CD Writer (reused, the case leaves room for me to add in a Bluray player, but I already have a PS3 in the meantime)
Case Fans: 1 Stock (Bottom-mounted), 1 Thermaltake Pure 12 LED 41.0 CFM 120mm Fan (rear)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Drawing Tablet: Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch w/ Clip Studio Paint Pro
Monitor: Dell ST231​0 23″ Full​ HD Widesc​reen LCD
Speakers: Altec Lansing ATP3 3-Piece Speaker System

Once I get my gaming keyboard/mouse combo and a new mouse pad, I’ll post pics of my setup. Very recently, I also received my copy of The Fruit of Grisaia along with the Grisaia series display box from Sekai Project’s KickStarter (the side I have on display vs. the other side). Can’t wait for the other two to come out.

Anyways, I’ve planned to start off a new year of Mahou Zenkai ~The Otaku Spot~ with a new series of posts called Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies, where I take a piss on extremely asinine localization/translation decisions and mishaps that happen in Official English versions/subtitles of the anime, manga, and games that come over here. Quality Control can be really bad on the translation side because of editors (people taking the translated text and making it sound natural in spoken English) not being familiar with the source material. Generally though, it also probably happens because they weren’t really thinking period or they’re just simply the type of people that like to smear their shit all over foreign works because they think they’re more creative than the original creators. With video games, it also isn’t limited to translation, but also handling the UI and typesetting as well. This series will generally consist of shitshortposts unless the subject matter happens to be really, really stupid.

Just as always, I’ll also continue to update my series of Cardcaptor Sakura posts and continue my recap of the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels. I must say, I am absolutely hyped at what CLAMP has in store for Cardcaptor Sakura‘s 20th anniversary. Cheers to an upcoming fun year.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz! – Final Impressions

This particular season of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya was something I was looking forward to. Somewhat-different-but-still-best-girl, it premiered on my birthday month, for one, and I honestly couldn’t wait to see Ko-Gil in action coming off from the manga.

Unfortunately, as enjoyable as it still was for me on its own, Silver Link did a mediocre adaptation job here compared to previous seasons. A lot of it isn’t their fault, but at the very end they kind of wrote themselves into a wall, terribly so, especially compared to how the manga version of 2wei flew seamlessly into 3rei.

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works Epilogue & Sunny Day

This makes it the fourth time I’ve seen this shot

Okay, so I’m back to wrap up the Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works post I started ages ago.

Instead of squeezing in the VN’s original epilogue at the end of the previous episode, Ufotable did a great thing by producing an entire extra episode with new material depicting what happens after the original route, alongside the remaining source material. As a result, I think episode 25 in itself is worth watching for readers of the visual novel regardless if you think the rest of the show is a bad adaptation or not (I personally thought it was great, but it was certainly a bit shaky here and there).

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works 24 – 「武器の貯蔵は充分か」

-I am the bone of my sword-
体は剣で出来ている。
-Steel is my body and fire is my blood-
血潮は鉄で心は硝子。
-I have created over a thousand blades-
幾たびの戦場を越えて不敗。
-Unaware of Loss-
ただの一度の敗走もなく、
-Nor aware of Gain-
ただの一度の勝利もなし。
-Withstood pain to create weapons, waiting for one’s arrival-
担い手はここに孤り 剣の丘で鉄を鍛つ。
-I have no regrets. This is the only path-
ならば、わが生涯に意味は不要ず
-My whole life was UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS-
この体は、無限の剣で出来ていた。

We’ve arrived at the “final” episode of Unlimited Blade Works, and thus, the real battle begins. Two owners, two “one-trick ponies”, one Faker. Was it able to satisfy me as a reader of the original visual novel? Find out after the jump.

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works 23

Fake Assassin’s battle with Saber here is pretty damn disappointing, with how quickly it all went down. We didn’t even get to hear an anime rendition of Shippu no Kenshi, “Sasaki Kojirou”‘s own theme, in the anime. Dammit Ufotable.

It’s sad because this is the only route where Fake Assassin feels remotely relevant to the plot. He gets killed off-screen (most likely by Gilgamesh) in Fate and gets superseded by True Assassin (Hassan) in Heaven’s Feel. It’s a shame Ufotable didn’t give him much of a bangin’ exit.

It was cool seeing Shirou actually tracing a rain of swords in animation. I absolutely hated how DEEN screwed this up by not having him do that at all in their version of Unlimited Blade Works.