ThatAnimeSnob

ART SECTION: 8/10 [You’ll be doing cosplay; I’ll be filming you undressing.]
Studio Madhouse delivers once again with appealing visuals that look nice despite their years. They definitely aren’t super-awesome, yet for a series of this kind they are just fine. Plus, all characters and critters are drawn ultra-kawai, so it is rather hard not to love them on first sight. It is really refreshing to have a mahou shojo, where the heroine wears different cloths in every episode. She doesn’t even need to transform; she does cosplay just to please her friend. The environments are rather simple and repetitive (school grounds and Sakura’s home mostly) but the events that take place there are very different every time, so this is not much of a problem. Still, there are frozen frames and the repetitive release clip that drops the general quality a bit. Thank goodness that all the action scenes while chasing the cards are very different, thus even this can be overlooked.

SOUND SECTION: 8/10 [Hoe!!! I am not good at playing the flute.]
Voice acting is simply superb for all the characters, with Sakura’s trademark frustration remarks becoming part of you early on. All the rest of the characters also have distinctive voices and demeanors. The music themes are to die for and the sound effects do their work as they should for a series of this kind. Still, the overall acoustics don’t have much artistic overtones, which I am very fond of. Just think of .hack//SIGN or Princess Tutu to get the picture.

STORY SECTION: 4/10 [I will become the best Card Captor in the world!]
The general story is quite simple, just like most of CLAMP works. Sakura goes by her daily routine life and occasionally chases magic cards. There is nothing grand-scaled in it. The story keeps promising you with an upcoming world threat, posed by these magic cards. But in reality, there is no such threat and the cards are hardly dangerous. Heck, Sakura’s romantic frustrations are far more important in the plot than stopping the cards from destroying the world. So, this is practically a slice-of-life anime with a few magical girl overtones for flavor. In fact, I came to dislike the whole card chase. It was getting nowhere, just like the story in general. It was just an excuse for Sakura to keep meeting with Shaoran Li. Of course, there is the plus that most cards need to be captured with some sort of strategy and by using other cards. The usual “pull out my magic staff and beat them all in the same manner” golden rule of mahou shojo did not apply here and it was giving a slight feeling of progress. But not much. The real progress in the story was Sakura’s romantic life.

Still, even the above became stale in the second half of the series, when the cards were gathered and Sakura had to simply use them all over again, just to claim them. The progress of the story and even the slight danger it was giving off dropped to zero and only the last episodes in the series had something new to provide in the finale. This fact effectively makes at least half of the episodes to be unnecessary as they provide nothing more. The scriptwriters simply dragged the story instead of going for the next level (the infamous promised world threat that never came). At least, the conclusion leaves us generally satisfied as the characters admit their true feelings for one another. In romance anime, this rarely happens. Still, this is not the solid end to the story, as you are supposed to watch the second movie that really ends the story. Boy, did they fooled us big time, or what?

I must say that this is not the director’s usual performance. Although Asaka Morio has directed several anime, most of them above average (Chobits, Gunslinger Girl, Nana, Chihayafuru) but in this case I believe he was forced to stretch the story to last a lot more than it needed to. I can forgive him; he is a cool guy with what he has done so far.

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 7/10 [Oh, how I love seeing you wearing the costumes I made for you!]
Although a simple story about simple people, it is not a simply boring series. The way Sakura needs to take care of her shores in the house, do her homework and various other activities, are full of vividness that hardly make you feel bored. Sakura’s silliness and determination provide a lot of comedy and entertainment without ever becoming ridiculous or really lame. Her interaction with her teasing brother, her schoolmates and Shaoran Li are more than enough to really enjoy watching her doing practically nothing overall important.

Not to forget to mention all those subtle kinky stuff. Shaoran Li was engaged to his cousin and blushed like hell every time a high school boy was near him; with whom even Sakura was losing her mind over. Tomoyo was going crazy over filming Sakura while doing cosplay. He he, stop denying it you perverted fan-boys and fan-girls; nasty thoughts crossed your minds and made you like the series even more!

IF the story was more solid, IF the episodes were fewer and IF all those kinky innuendos were getting somewhere, the enjoyment would be a 10.

CHARACTER SECTION: 8/10 [Hey Toya, why is Shaoran Li all red like that?]

Heck, I liked Sakura. She is good-hearted, klutz, orphan by her mother (living mothers are an endangered species in anime) and has no way of admitting her feelings, like the majority of mahou shojo leads. Yet, she is dynamic, athletic, and doesn’t need magic transformations in order to fight. Her perky personality and hilarious reactions to almost everything make her lovable… Oh, and her kawai factor is over 9000. I also liked Shaoran Li for steadily turning from an emotionless badass gay, to a sensitive straight guy with Sakura. Even that stuck up bitch, Mei Lin, steadily smoothers and becomes bearable while talking to her. Tomoyo remains an otaku and I wonder how much she now envies Shaoran Li for taking Sakura away from her. Kerberos is funny for a fluffy mascot animal. Eriol can go hang himself. He existed just for pointlessly dragging the story towards nothingness. Still, most of the cast did not evolve or made that much of an impact. There are series that take their time developing even the secondary characters, instead of shoveling us 30 episodes of plotless anime.

VALUE SECTION: 7/10 [How much for that stuffed animal? -Kerberos: I am not stuffed; I just eat a lot.]
What do you mean you don’t have an alibi for not having a story? Why, I’ll just give you a GUILTY verdict for being so shallow… But since you are so adorable, I will let you go free. Ah, how cute! <3

SUGGESTION LIST
Princess Tutu
Looking for the Full Moon
Sailor Moon
Moetan
Other CLAMP works; especially Chobits, X-tv and RG-Veda (the manga).