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.

「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.

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 36

DREAMING DREAMING

そして扉が…

ひらくよ~

I realize that it’s already April 2nd in Japan, but since it’s still Sakura’s birthday/CLAMP Day here at least, I should get off my lazy bum and continue with these posts!

Now that our little detour in Hong Kong is over and done with, the second season blogging of Cardcaptor Sakura is finally underway. Whereas the first season is pretty hefty (35 episodes!), this is actually relatively short – it’s just comprised of the very tail-end of the Clow Card arc, and let’s just say that the second season of CCS is as “long” as one average anime series (one cour, 11~12 episodes).

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 THE MOVIE

Sakura goes to Hong Kong!

When we last left off on my rewatch-blog of Cardcaptor Sakura, the first season of the series had concluded with Sakura enjoying her final moments of Christmas day.

In the original television broadcast of Cardcaptor Sakura, the anime was put on-hold until April 6, 1999 for its second season. Gekijouban: Cardcaptor Sakura didn’t premiere in theaters until after the second season had ended and Sakura captured all the Clow Cards (the movie premiered in theaters on August 21, 1999). However, the plot of the film clearly takes place around/between episodes 35 and 36 (it’s winter vacation in Tomoeda and Meiling is still around), so for the purposes of the re-blog, I’m placing it before the second season.

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie Blu-ray Review [Discotek Media]

SECOND MOVIE NOW PLEASE, SECOND MOVIE NOW

こにゃにゃちわ! I return from life’s trials and tribulations known as school and work. You know, some college students decide to spend their hard-earned money on textbooks, tuition, and other junk, but I choose to use my money for far more important matters.

Like tossing it at my computer screen and demanding anime companies to bring me more Cardcaptor Sakura.

(I’m only half-kidding.)

After going through some complications with the order, I’ve finally received my Blu-ray copy of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie. I’ll do a post about the feature itself later (because it’s next on my rewatch-blogs), but for now, let’s take a look at the quality of the release.

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 35

Sakura will take over the world…soon.

We’ve finally arrived! The final episode of the first season. I was hoping to get to this a lot sooner, but lo and behold… college and work.

Aside from the axed Leave it to Kero-chan! segment, as the first season’s last episode, Studio Madhouse decided to end it off with a bang by packaging it with a handful of goodies – making you want to jump into the second season immediately. It all goes up from here.

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 34

Riddle Me This

Here we are: it’s the second-to-last episode of the first season until we get to DO-DO-DO-DREAMING (and the movie)!

This is also the first episode where no Clow Cards are captured at all. In fact, the “antagonist” in this episode was… the full moon (no, not that moon). In Cardcaptor Sakura, magic (at least when it comes to Clow Reed’s magic) draws power from the sun and the moon. The full moon clearly has an effect on Sakura, once again triggering precognitive visions of what appears to be the Final Judgment (the viison with the silhouette of a person who is obviously Ms. Mizuki) and also puts her in a daze.

[SPOILER]
While there was a red herring in the previous episode, this episode also gives us a crucial hint of who Yue actually is…

Yukito: “My grandparents love to travel and are hardly ever at home.”

Ms. Mizuki: “I see.”

Ms. Mizuki: “Yukito, you’re…”

Yukito: “Yes?”

[CUE INTERRUPTION][/SPOILER]

Cardcaptor Sakura 【HD Rewatch】 33

CCS Month ended, now I declare it CCS *year*.

UPDATE

Sorry for the brief hiatus. With the remains of summer already coming to a close (I return to college AND work @ college in a week) – I’ve been doing all the leisurely things I can possibly do in this hot weather. I’ve already plowed through entire CCS Blu-ray set a long time ago and with the English release of Tales of Xillia 2, I’ve been doing a Tales marathon as well (it doubles as family time with my little sister, since these JRPGs are multiplayer!) as well as gnawing at my VB backlog.

It’s gonna be weird crawling out of the rock I’ve been under these past several weeks. Returning to civilization, what the hell is that? Mind you, I’m still going to write reviews about the anime I haven’t gotten around to reviewing yet that I promised to review ages ago.

END UPDATE

Without further ado, time to continue this Cardcaptor Sakura project! Snowy weather hits Tomoeda and our beloved heroine + Tomoyo and their token Chinese friends go on a school trip to learn how to ice skate.