Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card
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Morry
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The going theory is spoiler[Yuna also interfered like in the anime to make Akiho appear like Syaoran as a "contrary dream"], so it's possible they're just saving the moment for after the manga gets further ahead again. But it's going to be a lot clunkier than doing it in the same episode the concept is brought up. It's always possible that Nadeshiko's spoiler[key will just be the clock and have to transform.] |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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The original anime was also a slow burn with a very thin plot so I'm not sure why it is fans are disappointed the new show is the same way. My only real criticism I have with Clear Card is I feel like they focused too much on Sakura x Syaoran fanservice at the expense of Touya and Yukito. But story wise the plot seems to move at about the same slow place the original did.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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I just got done marathoning the entire series and I have to say this was a good watch, and I will agree the ending was lack-luster. Still the ending raised more questions than it actually answered. Regardless it was a fun watch and I'd give the series an 7.5/10
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capt_bunny
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I do agree with you there. People think the that the original was only the best and the plot too. I read the manga for CCS and they basically slowed it to the end where they even wanted to make the second movie of it. The original CCS has more than a fair share of original/fill-ins for the series. Syaoran's cousin wasn't in the manga. |
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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I stand by what I wrote here earlier: "The original CCS was a prolonged, repetitive mess, especially with all the filler." This one at least looks like it might end in another cour. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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To me the slow burn nature of CCS has always been part of the show's overall appeal to me. It's always been the characters and their relationships that I enjoyed the most about the series and I appreciate the magical girl fantasy aspects when they're more in the background than the center focus. I could watch an entire CCS show where it was just the Kinomotos cooking the entire episode.
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Seriously, the "slow burn" is hardly the biggest issue this sequel series has.
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Mew Berry
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I realize that the manga isn't finished, the series has always been slow, AMD there will almost definitely be a followup, but man, I'm still pretty disappointed. I know anime has always had a habit of not waiting on the manga to actually finish, but in this case I think it should have.
Honestly all I really want to know at this point is more about Momo (and Akiho's origins, but come on, if Momo has a beast form I need to see it). |
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Southkaio
Posts: 343 |
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The quest is not over yet. The new CCS anime will probably get its second season and more. |
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kakoishii
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This, this, and this. Honestly, for people who actually think this:
I can't help but think you were never a true fan. The slice of life and character moments are literally the highlights of the series, and it's always been this way. When I was watching episode 40 of the original series, I was drawn in by each of the character moments: Sakura, Syaoran, Meiling, and Tomoyo shopping, Syaoran stepping out of the movie after getting flustered over Sakura, Sakura struggling with whether things will be alright after getting confronted by the dream card. These are the things that make CCS great, not the actual card capturing. I've read the manga and seen the anime, and I enjoy the anime more because the so called "filler" creates more opportunities for us to know and love these characters. Clear Card's issues do not lie in its pacing. I didn't watch the original anime while it was airing and had the luxury of moving onto the next episode at my own pace, so I'm sure had I waited to binge Clear Card now that it's done, I might not have noticed how light on plot some of the episodes are as far as pacing. But honestly, Clear Card's biggest hurdles are almost entirely plot related and not pacing. In the first series, the mystery always seemed hanging in the background while other things were happening and developing in the foreground. It helped that all the characters that were keeping things from Sakura were in the periphery (i.e. Ms. Mizuki, Eriol) and thus we as the viewers never got too wrapped up figuring out what they were hiding. Clear Card is crippled by the shear number of characters that know something and are just keeping it to the vest. Damn near the entire core cast knows something that they are keeping from Sakura, and it slows down the plot because no one is willing to talk about what's really going on, and there honestly isn't anything else going that they can talk about in lieu of that. As it stands, I enjoyed Clear Card for bringing back these characters I love and care about, I just wish the story had more meat to it so I could at least appreciate lots of cute character moments instead of having to suffer through most of the cast struggling to be authentic while they're hiding secrets they're unwilling to discuss. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4821 |
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My only real complaint is I feel like they focus too much on Sakura x Syaoran fanservice and not enough time on the side characters like Yamazaki, Chiharu, and Naoko etc. We didn't really need to have a whole episode devoted to their date that was basically a retread of episode 3 of the original anime when we could have gotten more screen time for Tomoyo or more Touya and Yukito focus. But I'm willing to give CLAMP the benefit of the doubt that we'll get more secondary character focus in the second season if one gets made. But I honestly feel like whatever problems Clear Card has are fairly minimum and the positives more than outweigh the negatives. But fandoms rarely seem to be satisfied with anniversary reboots and sequels no matter how good they actually are and fandoms always seem hyper focused on complaining about any perceived negatives than talking about positives.
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Morry
Posts: 756 |
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Nice gatekeeping there. Critiquing a series for its flaws, especially when those are its protracted episode count littered with filler that takes a very noticeable dip in quality, hardly makes me any less a "true" fan unless you're defining that as blindly embracing anything the franchise puts out regardless of quality. I binged every manga and anime featuring or referencing Sakura and Syaoran in the Clamp-verse the past two months because I wanted to watch this series, which I also mentioned in my first post here that I was quoting. That was all because I thought the couple in episode one were adorable. I'm only here because I'm invested in the characters. As for your position on the filler, then congrats. You liked it. More power to you. I have no problem with that. It doesn't change the fact much of it is an overwrought mess with laughable levels of plot contrivance and outright stupidity that weigh down the series as a whole. You might be willing to ignore that for more fluff, but I certainly can't. I'd much rather have had half the episode count for better writing and less tedium between those fluffy moments we're both here for. And that's not a jab at slice of life, mind you. I read and watch plenty of those series and they're not as vacuous as the CCS anime.
You complain about how light the plot is while forgetting we spent twenty episodes of characters ominously puzzling the meaning of "Clow's presence" with a very obviously not evil antagonist repeating the same formula ad nauseam. This with the other underlying subplots being if ships would sail and Touya continually talking to Yukito while being interrupted the exact same way each time. CCS has always been light on plot and stretched that out with slice of life and card capping shenanigans. The mystery is still very much a background concern in every season of the anime. The only characters who knew something relevant are Eriol, Syaoran, and Yuna, all of whom have appeared minimally compared to the rest of the cast that know nothing or just suspect something vaguely magical is involved. This is exactly how previous seasons went. In fact, I'd argue the biggest issue in Clear Card compared to the original would be that Syaoran has lost most of his spunk. He's now just fluffy token support who's not even around half the time to be that. And since the anime has cut the intricacies of recent manga chapters, that's all he will be for now. The same is true for Yue and Kerberos, though they've always been largely shelved as glorified plot devices so at least they're now in the loop and can possibly be useful. And yes, that is a plot issue as much as it is a pacing issue. It's taken us 22 episodes to answer the fundamental mystery (why the Clear Cards are a thing now) and even though that's better than the old series' 45 and 25, we're still left the ancillary mysteries of Akiho, Yuna, and Momo plus Syaoran and his use of spoiler[Windy]. Much like my thoughts on the original, this series could've been almost halved to 13 episodes or at least waited another year to cover more content in the 22 we got. But it's very much consistent with the CCS anime when binged back-to-back as I have. |
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Crisha
Moderator
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I couldn't binge the original anime in episode order. I've never been fond of monster-of-the-week shows, because I too quickly grow bored with the formula, and I had the same issues with CCS' card-of-the-week even if the characters were cute. After 5 or 6 episodes into the series, I eventually went online and researched which episodes had the most character and plot development (or most interesting synopsis) and created a list. I then continued watching using this method: watch until you get bored of the formula, and then skip to the next interesting/plot/character episode; rinse and repeat. The first 2 seasons had several gaps (some large). The third season fared a lot better (maybe only 1 or 2 gaps). Once I got to the end, I eventually went back and filled in the gaps so that I could say I saw the entire series.
I still rate CCS as Very Good, because I became really attached to the characters. But even on rewatches, I stick to only those episodes I've marked off as being my faves because they're the funniest or most heartwarming or most memorable of the bunch. The filler just exists. I've seen it once, good enough. I know she captured those cards, I don't need to see it again. I stopped watching after a few episodes of Clear Card for the same reasons. 22 episodes isn't nearly as bad though, so I could probably power through it. I'm just not strongly invested now because if it leaves me hanging what's the point of trudging through. I might as well wait until the entire series is adapted, and then perhaps repeat the method I used for the first series. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4821 |
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Fair and balanced criticism is important in any media discussion and certainly gatekeeping is wrong, but if the negatives of a show are outweighing the positives for the viewer, I don't understand why some fans force themselves to keep watching the entire thing either because of some fan loyalty to the brand name or out of obligation to keep up with fandom discussion. The same thing happened with Sailor Moon Crystal where Sailor Moon fans kept forcing themselves to watch the reboot even though nobody was enjoying it and it overall made for an unpleasant fandom experience. At the very least, I would prefer more fans to take willag's approach of just watching the most important episodes instead of this completionist mentality fans have that they have to keep watching all of everything they're not enjoying out of a sense of duty.
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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Hardly gatekeeping, I only find it odd that someone who is a fan of this would define the anime only episodes/characters/story elements as "filler" considering the original series established its own continuity with several differences that make watching the anime and reading the manga separate experiences. I can understand pointing to plots that feel "fillerish" such as the sweet card episode from the original series, but again it seems strange to call it straight filler in the traditional sense of aspects that will have no bearing on the plot, as this is very likely not the case. Also, way to jump to conclusions there. My points of critique from my original post make it very clear that I do not blindly accept everything the series throws at us regardless of "quality."
I have to wonder now what you consider overwrought or contrived. I've seen a lot anime and even more anime filler. Much of it is poorly written and does a disservice to the characters. I've never found this to be the case with CCS. If anything, it's "filler" as you like to call it, anime only material is what I deem it, tends to be simpler and more character focus rather than anything else. I appreciate it not because it's fluff, but because it gives us the viewers a chance to take a breather and really get to know these characters on a personal level. The manga storyline is definitely more economical in that sense. It gives you just enough to feel like you know these characters while also moving the story along at a comfortable pace. I appreciate that level of writing and pacing for a manga series because I feel that's an issue a lot of manga suffer from. There's no balance between pacing, storytelling, and characterization. CLAMP certainly has this down to a science for the least agonizing read, I've always thought that about them. However, different mediums require different things. I stand by the fact that the anime benefits from having extra anime only material, where this same extra material would have bogged down the storytelling in the manga. You're free to disagree; however, it just makes it more perplexing why you follow the anime full well knowing the two have slightly different continuities and the anime is most certainly going to have extra, "fillerish" material.
The character's didn't puzzle over Clow all that much, or at least not enough for it to feel obnoxious or repetitive. It wasn't really a concern that came up all that often unless a card managed to give Sakura an especially hard time or Sakura had an ominous dream that made Kero question what Sakura was up against. While those subplots may not have been much to you, they were still something. Clear Card didn't even have that much going for it, there was only the mystery and way too many people keeping secrets. Kero, Yue, Touya, and even Fujitaka may not have known anything significant, but they were all keeping big enough things from Sakura to make many of their interactions feel inauthentic. I believe there can sometimes be too much dramatic irony involved, but then again, I suppose CCS has always thrived on that story mechanic, it's just overly pronounced in Clear Card.
While I can agree that Syaoran has been significantly benched, and it's such a disappointment to see because he's always been my favorite character, this is actually a symptom of what I identified as Clear Card's biggest issue: too much secret keeping. If you think about it, Syaoran's interactions with Sakura have all felt stifled and inauthentic because he's the one keeping the most secrets from her. Everything about his return to Japan is shrouded in white lies and omissions and the most frustrating thing about it is that at least in this case Sakura is aware of the fact that Syaoran isn't being all the way open with her, but she refuses to say anything about it until he opens up first 
In what way can we ever expect him to be the spunky spitfire he was in the first series when he's constantly in a big ball of stress trying to be Sakura's white knight from the shadows?
I'll agree that there certainly wasn't enough material available to make the 22 episode 2 cour season we got; however, we'll have to disagree on CCS needing to be a shorter series. I whole heartedly believe it never would have reached the iconic status it has now had it not included many of its anime only content that stretched the episode count. It's become part of its charm. I only wish they would have waited a year to release this arc and maybe instead did an anniversary movie first to commemorate the 20 year anniversary. This just feels like they jumped the gun and thus delivered an unsatisfying season for CCS starved fans who haven't been able to enjoy the show on their tv screens in two decades. |
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