Cardcaptor Sakura
This Magical Girl Anime series follows the daily life of a young girl named Sakura Kinomoto. When the series starts, she is a normal Japanese elementary school girl, but all that changes when she stumbles across an ancient book called The Clow. She accidently scatters the book's magical contents - the Clow Cards - all over the small town of Tomoedo, where she lives. With the help of the Beast of the Seal, Kerberos, Sakura finds herself dubbed a "Cardcaptor" whose job it is to quickly capture all the cards in order to prevent a terrible world disaster that many would consider "worse than death".
This series is easily the best of the famous Magical Girl genre of Anime. While the premise is simple, the characters and their relationships with each other are not. With CLAMP animation studios behind it, it has beautiful artwork and animation - it's one of the only shows ever where all the characters change their clothes every day! Despite each episode having the same base idea, the presentation is so varied that it never seems the least bit repetitive. The storyline has a number of very mysterious elements and twists that keep viewers good and glued to the screen. All of these things have made it one of most popular Anime series of all time.
Main Characters:
Sakura is a very outgoing, energetic elementary school student who loves atheletics. When she accidently releases the magical Clow Cards from their book, it becomes her job to collect them by becoming the world's only Cardcaptor.
Tomoyo is Sakura's best friend. She is a gentle, polite girl with an incredible singing talent. Her favorite pastime is to hand-make all of Sakura's battle costumes and then video tape her beloved friend's adventures large and small.
Kero is the Guardian Beast of the magical book The Clow. It's his duty to watch over the cards... but he fell asleep on the job. When he's not helping Sakura capture the cards, his favorite pastimes are eating, sleeping, and playing video games.
Shaoran is a talented young Chinese sorcerer who is also collecting the Clow Cards and comes into the series as Sakura's rival. Despite being a very serious young man, his age shows itself in the fact that he is easily embarassed by any mention of love.
Sakura's Family and Friends:
Touya is Sakura's big brother. Even though he teases Sakura all the time, he actually loves his little sister very much. Like Sakura, he was also born with magical powers - including the ability to see spirits and sense the supernatural.
Fujitaka Kinomoto
Fujitaka is Sakura and Touya's devoted father. As a single parent, he is very good at cooking, sewing, and generally doing his best to fulfill the role two parents usually play. He is a professor of archeology at the University.
Nadeshiko Kinomoto
Nadeshiko was Sakura and Touya's gentle mother who passed away when she was just 27 years old. Even though she has passed on, her family still loves her very much and her spirit watches over them from Heaven.
Yukito is Touya's best friend and Sakura's crush. He is a very kind person who seems to be extremely talented at just about everything he tackles. Despite his slight size, he has a voracious appetite, often eating 3 times more than a normal person.
Chiharu Mihara
Chiharu is one of Sakura's close friends and a member of the cheerleading squad. She loves stuffed animals and is always full of energy.
Rika Sasaki
Rika is another of Sakura's close friends. She is a mature, quiet girl who has a huge crush on the class's 4th grade teacher Mr. Terada.
Naoko Yanagisawa
Naoko is the third member of Sakura's close circle of friends. She is unatheletic, but more than makes up for it in creativity and intelligence.
Takashi Yamazaki
Takashi is a boy in Sakura's class who likes to tell stories that sound very convincing, but are actually not true. This irritates his close friend, Chiharu, quite a lot, but seems to work well on Sakura and Shaoran.
Meiling is Shaoran's Chinese cousin who tranfers from Hong Kong just to be with him. While being a good martial artist, Meiling lacks any real magical powers - not that she's about to let that prove that Sakura is better than her!
Miss Mitzuki is at first Sakura's 5th grade math teacher and later one of her close friends. From the beginning, Sakura and Shaoron both sense a strong power around this friendly, but mysterious woman.
Magical People and Creatures:
Kerberos/Cerberus
Kerberos is the true form of Kero-chan. He only has the power to use his magic and change into this form when all the cards are collected. In this form, he is ruled by the sun and truly looks the part of Guardian Beast.
Yue is the Judge of Sakura's worthiness as Mistress of the Clow Cards. Once the judgement has passed, he is Kerberos' partner and polar opposite as the other guardian of the Cards and their owner. He is ruled by the moon and has a very stoic demeanor.
Eriol first appears as a mysterious British transfer student in Sakura's class. He quickly charms Sakura with his sophisticated ways and perfect manners, but Shaoran can't stand him. Before long it's revealed that Eriol is actually...!
Nakuru first appears as a transfer student in Touya's class. She is very good at sports and dresses like a girl, but actually isn't a girl at all - she isn't even human! She is actually a supernatural being called Ruby Moon who seems to know more than a few secrets that she isn't quick to reveal.
Spinel is a mysterious little black cat-like creature who is always in the company of Eriol and Nakuru. Usually a humorless little thing, he quickly becomes happy-drunk when fed any kind of sweets.
Minor Characters:
Clow Reed - The creator of the Clow Cards and the magical creatures protecting them.
Yoshiyuki Terada - Sakura's teacher and the object of Rika's affections.
Sonomi Daidouji - Tomoyo's beautiful mother who was best friends with Nadeshiko.
Maki Matsumoto - The owner of the toy shop in Tomoedo Town.
Great-Grandfather - Sakura's estranged great-grandfather who resents Mr. Kinomoto for taking away his granddaughter.
Wei - Shaoran and Meiling's guardian.
The Clow Cards:The Clow Cards are an ancient, magical set of cards that each have their own power and personalities - some much stronger than others! This show revolves around these cards and their powers, so I thought it was important to list them for reference. In alphabetical order they are:
The Big - Makes anything it touches bigger.
The Change - Makes things switch with each other.
The Create - Allows imagination to come to life - literally!
The Dark - One of the most powerful cards - It is #1 under Yue and possesses most of his powers. Must be captured with the Light.
The Dash - Allows things to move faster.
The Dream - This one is obvious, yes?
The Earthy - One of the four most powerful elemental cards.
The Erase - Makes people disappear.
The Fight - Makes a warrior stronger.
The Firey - Another of the four most powerful elemental cards. Very aggressive.
The Float - Allows the user to float themselves or objects.
The Flower - Creates flowers. The most gentle of the cards.
The Fly - The most useful card to Sakura. Allows her wand or her to grow wings.
The Freeze - Freezes whatever it touches, including people.
The Glow - Produces little spots of light. Another passive card.
The Illusion - Reflects the image of what a person is thinking.
The Jump - Another very useful card to Sakura. Allows her to jump very high and out of danger.
The Light - Dark's sister card, it is #1 under Kerberos and inherits his powers.
The Little - Shrinks whatever it touches.
The Lock - Locks doors so no power can open them.
The Loop - Turns an enclosed area into a loop.
The Maze - Creates a maze in an area. Used mainly for plot development.
The Mirror - Creates a mirror image of a person complete with emotions. Has a special bond with its master or mistress.
The Mist - Weakens buildings it wraps around.
The Move - Moves sought objects out of reach.
The Power - Gives the user great strength. An aggressive card.
The Rain - Obviously, it creates rain. A rather weak card on it's own.
The Return - Allows the user to travel to the past, but at a great cost to their power.
The Sand - Creates Sand. Again, basically created just to move the plotline.
The Shadow - A restaining card.
The Shield - Creates a shield to protect the user.
The Shot - Allows the user to shoot fireballs. Very aggresive card.
The Silent - Removes sound from whatever it touches.
The Sleep - Puts those it touches to sleep. Very useful when a magical girl doesn't want to be seen!
The Snow - Creates snow, a lot of it.
The Song - Replicates the voice of the best singer. A very gentle card.
The Storm - Works like a tornado.
The Sweet - Turns whatever it touches disgustingly sweet.
The Sword - Creates a magical sword and makes the user a master swordsman.
The Thunder - Creates thunder, a very aggressive card.
The Time - Reverses, Speeds Up, or Pauses time.
The Twins - A set of battle cards that must be captured together.
The Voice - Seals people's voices.
The Watery - The 3rd powerful elemental card. Very aggressive.
The Windy - The 4th Elemental Card and Sakura's favorite. She is a gentle card who works defensively.
The Wood - A very gentle card that loves water and light.
No comments:
Post a Comment