When the folks at Nelvana animation managed to get a hold of the U.S. distribution rights to the white-hot anime series “Cardcaptor Sakura,” it seemed like a hole-in-one, a slam dunk, a can’t miss project. Alas, Nelvana managed to botch the job after retitling the series “Cardcaptors.” Nelvana delivered one of the worst transfers of an anime series since Saban mangled the first season of “Dragonball Z.”
Minor editing of content and context that required the subtlety of a scalpel was done with a chainsaw. Worse yet, due to some misguided focus group studies, the studio decided to alter the episode order the series was shown in, lopping off the beginning of CLAMP’s carefully planned storyline and causing a fair deal of confusion among its viewers.
Within weeks of launching Nelvana’s official Cardcaptors/Cardcaptor Sakura Web site, the studio was flooded with angry batches of e-mail by fans of the original show. The end result is that we now have dubbed, uncut episodes on DVD from the fine folks at Pioneer Animation, who also brought us the three Sailor Moon movies on DVD.
And for those of you who haven’t seen “Cardcaptor Sakura” in all of its glory, I can tell you that without a doubt it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. Every single character presented in the series is incredibly cute — not sickeningly cute like some cartoons, but cute in the same sense as a basket of kittens.
The plot revolves around Sakura, a rather normal youth in Japan who lives with her father, an archaeology professor, and her older brother, who she’s always bickering with. She also has a rather innocent crush on her brother’s best friend Yukito. Her best friend Tomoyo seems to have an intense love of filmmaking, Sakura or a little of both.
Anyway, the plot begins when Sakura accidentally stumbles onto “the Clow,” a book of tarot-like cards, that becomes a modern-day Pandora curiosity for Sakura. She inadvertently releases their magical spirits onto the world, spreading all kinds of mischief. Now aided by the book’s guardian beast Kerobros (a winged teddy-bear type creature), Sakura has to track down the card’s spirits one by one.
As far as television goes, the animation for “Cardcaptor Sakura” is incredibly lush, and this DVD transfer is astoundingly sharp. The show’s bright colors seem to literally pop off the screen.
The first disk collects the opening four episodes of the series, a couple of which have yet to be broadcast on U.S. television. The two real highlights are the series pilot episode, which lays the groundwork for the series, and episode three, which takes place at a local aquarium, allowing the animation to run rampant as all manner of sea life pops up on screen.
Also, a brief note to parents — while much has been made about some lesbian overtones in this series, from what I could tell by viewing this disk, these are very, very subdued, even in the uncut format. Unless you’re one of the folks who are offended by those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where he would dress in drag, I honestly don’t see anything on this disk that I would object to a child seeing. And I feel that the “thirteen and up” rating on the disk is somewhat absurd.
Sadly there’s only one real problem with this disk — it’s too short, with only 4 episodes. I already can’t wait to pick up the next one.