English Dub Review: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card “Sakura’s Heavy Rain Alert”

Something is clearly brewing, as the Clear cards are becoming even more aggressive.

Overview (Spoilers)

Syaoran is shocked. Just last night, one of the Clear cards attacked Sakura in her bedroom! Now under her control, Siege wrapped Sakura, Tomoyo, and Kero in an imprisoning field when it arrived. But, that’s all over with, and a new school day can begin. The kids all start discussing their new clubs they are joining, such as Chiharu and Sakura in the cheerleading team, and Takashi in the lacrosse team. Too bad many of the sports clubs can’t meet after school because of the torrential downpour outside. The longer the day goes, the worse it gets. Its so bad, Sakura and Tomoyo get stuck in a gazebo on their way home, a waterfall of water pouring over them. Something isn’t right about this rain. It has to be a card! Quickly, Sakura slaps on the new frog-themed mahou costume: water resistant with matching galoshes. Immediately after pulling out the key, the rain takes on the form of water tendrils that grab her and Tomoyo. Using Gale’s cutting wind powers, Sakura breaks free and runs to where all the scattered water coalesced. She spots a point above the slide where there is a mass of water, and traps it using Siege. She seals Aqua, the Water’s Source, into a clear card. Still, she’s soaking wet. Afterwards, she sends a message to Yukito about catching another card. He’s at work with Toya, who immediately recognizes that something is up. He admits that ever since he gave his energy to Yukito, he’s felt a connection, and can always tell when Yuki and Yue stressed. Also, Yuki wears his emotions on his sleeve.

The next day, Sakura and Chiharu go out for cheerleading tryouts, and wow the crowd with their teamwork and moves. They may not have their uniforms yet, but it looks like the two of them are shoo-ins for the team. As soon as the meeting is over, however, the sports field is suddenly devoid of people. It isn’t as if they all left. They vanished. Trying to see if she’s trapped in a bubble of some sort, she uses Gale to blast at the edge across from her. It bounces back! Attacking again, the blast simply trails off. That means whatever she hit is on the move. She isn’t able to track it enough to hit it reliably or use Siege to trap it. Instead, she uses Aqua to scatter water droplets. the critter breaks them as it passes through, giving her a good way to see it and seal it. This is Reflect, which explains why her shot bounced back at her. What she forgot to do was have Aqua bring all its water back before dismissing it, and she gets drench all over again. Fortunately, Syaoran is there to help her with his jacket. Once at home, though, Sakura collapses as she is force-fed another vision. The mysterious figure is drawing the Clear Key away from Sakura, and the two are drawn very close before she wakes up. Suddenly, she realizes that she and the mysterious figure are the same height. Strange!

Our Take

This episode picks up the pace a bit, doubling down on the cards and pushing the overall plot forward a bit. This episode serves to show us the powers Sakura has available with her new Clear Cards. While the cards she’s collected so far may seem similar to ones she got in the previous series, but they are significantly more aggressive and offensive. Gale is like The Windy on a bad day, and Reflect could likely function like The Shield, but sending the attack back. Since the Windy is no longer available to bind the cards, we have Siege instead. It holds the enemy in, and bounces them back while they try to escape. Aqua seems like a good field control spell, but imagine all the water droplets being used as bullets. This is a different feel from the original series of Sakura. The old show didn’t focus on spells that were about attacking. It had them, but it was more about utility cards. These cards seem very focused on gearing her up for a big battle of some sort. In a way, this is also shown in the names of the cards. The old Clow/Sakura cards always had “The” in front of their name, as if they were forces of nature. The Clear cards all sound rather active, with the exception of the Aqua card.

The robed figure from Sakura’s vision interests me now that we’ve seen her up near Sakura. My first thought is that the figure is actually a Sakura from another universe, crossing this show back over into the stories of xxxHolic and Tsubasa. Perhaps this is an alternate Sakura trying to take the power of Key for her own purposes, which has caused the problem with the Clear Cards. However, the preview casts some doubt on this theory. We have a new character showing up in the next episode, who is likely going to buy our mysterious figure. I like how this preview tells us that an exchange student is coming in, but hides her from us. I can’t tell you how many shows would have just shown the new character off. This ruins any suspense or mystery about the character, and I’m glad they didn’t go down that path.

I have always loved the art of this show, and the animation is well thought out. During the scene of the girls running into the gazebo, you could actually see the water flowing off the roof through the rain. The rain is thick enough that I could have forgiven the omission of that detail, but they put the effort in. Good on them. Also, the capture of Reflect was gorgeous. The voice acting was fine, though I can’t say it wow’ed me all that much.