Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card-hen Prologue - Sakura to Futatsu no Kuma

I can't make a review out of this OVA, this special episode is just the actual end of Cardcaptor Sakura first arcs.
For those who haven't read the manga, the anime (and second movie) had a different ending, so this is how Cardcaptor Sakura manga ended.
I'm really glad that they made an OVA for this: the art, the eyecatch, the soundtrack, the VAs are all the same as in the old series, it really took me back in time.
If you enjoyed Cardcaptor Sakura you have to watch this OVA, forget episodes 69-70 and watch this. It wraps up everything nicely and it's the perfect prologue ... for Clear Card arc.
I absolutely loved it and I can't wait for 2018 to watch the next arc! (even though I'm reading the manga)

Regarding the new Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc Prologue OVA... I honestly didn't enjoy it. From what I gather, it animates the ending of the manga and retells the scene of Sakura coming to terms with the fact that Li loves her and that he's leaving for Hong Kong. I didn't know this going in (and I think many others don't either) and boy was I in for a surprise (not in a good sense). To preface this review, I am first and foremost a fan of the original anime. I grew up with it, it was a major part of my childhood, blah, blah, ... blah... and I am going to give you guys my opinion of it as a fan of the original anime.

Firstly, I could not understand what was up with the art, the animation and the character designs. The blank chibi characters, the overuse of cut-away flowery overlays/backgrounds and random inserts like faces and text were so jarring. I think this is one of the cases where they were trying to be WAY too accurate with the adaptation for it to flow well in animated format because the pacing felt off for me as well. I don't remember any of these techniques being used in the anime version at all (at least not to this extent). It was more cognizant of the medium it was in and adjusted its storytelling to fit. What with the greater emphasis on melancholy, silence and overall uneasiness while ending on an uplifting note with Sakura realizing and accepting her feelings, symbolized by the creation of her first original Sakura Card. But I digress. Essentially, I felt that the entire OVA lacked subtlety. It felt like they needed to make crystal clear what the emotions of all the characters were with in-your-face visual metaphors.

Also, I really did not see a point to this OVA. Like, at all. If you are a fan of the manga, I guess it'll be a really great experience? I guess they were they trying to get anime-only fans acquainted with the manga canon? For me, it was just a rehash with less emotional weight. Does this mean that the Clear Card Arc will invalidate everything about the second movie? The one where everything concluded perfectly with Sakura confessing her love to Li? I really don't know how to feel about that.

This goes beyond a simple unnecessary continuation of an old franchise. What does this mean for the Clear Card Arc anime? If they're going to disregard the anime canon and the second movie and continue with the manga canon, I don't think I'll be able to get invested in it at all. Only 19 Cards? No Meiling? Oh dear... In fact, they might as well have gone the whole Sailor Moon Crystal route and completely rebooted it as this is pretty much tantamount to that. Maybe worse, as anime-only fans like myself will feel this disconnect as elements don't add up. If you ask me, if they had wanted to make it a continuation, they should have adapted it to fit with the anime canon. As-is, it's like they didn't even attempt to make it similar in feel to the original anime.

Honestly, as a fan of the anime, I feel betrayed. They took part of what I loved and said... NOPE. It didn't happen. But I guess this must how manga fans must have felt when the original anime came out. What comes around goes around, huh? (^.^') At least I can just renounce this like I did with Digimon tri. and save all that cash on merchandise. (Or maybe I'll fall in love with it regardless. We'll see.)

I have a few grievances with this OVA.

Firstly, who is it intended for? I assume those solely who read the manga because anyone coming off of the anime if going to have one jarring experience. Even if you put the change in art style the direction and pacing aside, this is nothing like the original series and it doesn't even try to fashion some kind of coherency between the series and the OVA leaving a good chunk of audience lost along the way.

Secondly the art design, I was worried when I saw the promotional material before the OVA and it seems my worries came true ... because every poster they released made Sakura and Tomoyo look like card board cut outs everything felt so stiff and sure enough I got the exact same feeling from the OVA, now I know that the original series spent most of its time on still frames (Most anime does in all fairness) but just about everything felt stiff, it's like in a plea to be just like the manga they had to have everything as picture perfect as possible, I mean there are people posting screenshots of the OVA and the manga side by side for comparison and it's practically identical, but that isn't the point of animation the point is to adapt the manga not become the manga itself.

And to top it all off everyone had this weird fucking shine on them 24/7 like I was half expecting when the perspective panned out away from Sakura it was going to expose a person standing there with a lightbulb inches away from her face and they just followed her around the entire thing over saturating the fuck out of everything and everyone. The effect worked when there were darker scenes like when it's evening or when we have that really cool representation of Sakura's card possession, but that was because they effect had enough contrast in those scenes to make it pop.

I Just....I feel like this was rushed HEAVILY, and I prey to god that the series isn't going to have this annoying stilted and over saturation problem when it officially releases.

Excuse my english:

This prologue is the ending of the manga, so I've heard but I haven't read the manga. Although I havn't read the manga, watching this alternate ending (technically speaking the "True Ending") was a breathtaking expirience. I loved the old show, and was pretty happy about the ending it had including the second movie, but this prologue hited me in the childhood. The nostalgia of seeing some characters again, the storytelling, the music, the hype for a Sakura comeback, etc.. was almost like when I saw the first part of Digimon Tri. I just can't wait for this new show that's a direct ... sequel to this prologue just keep in mind that the events of episodes 69 and 70 of the old show are still kinda oficial but not entierly, plus the second movie is no longer "the oficial ending". Nothing more to say to my reader other than "Watch it, its good even thoe you're not familiar or a big fan of the show and fans will enjoy it from the second the hit the play button".

So, I believe this OAD must've raised many eyebrows, specially for the anime-only fans. As someone who has watched the anime and also read the whole manga, I decided to clarify some points about this special episode, and why it was needed as a prologue for Clear Card Arc, which I've been reading monthly for the past year.

Before I begin, I have to say I've enjoyed it a lot but I don't know what that means coming from me since I'm not overly critical unless something is really bad, and maybe I'm just biased because Cardcaptor Sakura is my favorite series ever. It did made ... me feel nostalgic, specially with the exact same soundtrack from years ago and the voice actors.

Animation-wise it was great, though, I do think the character design could've been better. It looks cute though.
As for the colors, it looks much more pastel (and BRIGHT) now, which is the big difference between the original anime and this: The colors were much vibrant back then. I don't dislike it since I like pastel colors. It's visually pleasing for me.

Now, back to the explanations.
As we all know, the anime ended with episode 70 + the second movie, meanwhile, the manga ends with the events that happened in this OAD, called 'Sakura and the two Bears'.

As a matter of fact, the two bears do have importance in the current sequel. I'm still unaware of why they are important but the focus they've been getting must mean something. I'm not gonna talk about it any further since I do not want to spoil anyone who plans on reading or only watching it in 2018.

In the anime, though, there was only one single bear (which was completely forgotten in The Sealed Card, didn't even get mentioned at all), and, as I said, the TWO of them are important.

Other than the bears, Eriol's house, which was demolished in The Sealed Card is also important in the sequel, so... yeah. Again, will not go any further on this.

So they either had to heavily edit the storyline or follow the original work-- and editing the storyline is unreasonable and too much work, definitely.

Still, I must mention that there is still much more exclusive content in the manga. Seriously, a lot more. If you're a CCS fan I recommend reading it! I've watched the anime first and then read the manga afterwards and I honestly enjoyed all the new content I got to see. It's the best of both worlds, I guess.

Overall, it is a good adaptation of the last chapters! It was extremely faithful to it, really, even the flowers are the exact same from the manga. (Honestly, that was kinda awkward though, it works well in the manga but not too much in the anime, haha.) I'm much more excited for the 2018 anime though! Clear Card Arc has a lot of action scenes so far and I'm excited to see their take on it.

------------CardCaptor Sakura: Clear Card-hen - Prologue Sakura to Futatsu no Kuma----------

This little OVA brought a lot of nostalgia from when I was a kid and remembering watching CardCaptor Sakura. This ova takes place after the series ended and before the movies took place, and is another narrative of the bear stories. I personally enjoy it and it’s making me look forward to the anime series that is coming out on 2018.

[ART & ANIMATION]

The art style is pretty great and it has a lot of detail put on it. I don't have a lot of problems with it, I found it pleasant to the eye ... and reminded me a lot about the art from the original series. The animation was the only thing that I had problems with it. At some points, the characters movements didn’t seemed normal and in one scene we saw syaoran running in a slow pace. The animation wasn’t that good and compared to the art, it left a lot to desire from. (6/10)

[SOUND]

I personally couldn’t get comfortable with the voice actors work, that's because I watch the original series with spanish voice actors, so I couldn't remember them. Nevertheless I found it nice to see some voice actors from the original series. I like their work and I believe they fit each character they portrayed on the ova. I personally don’t have any complains over this matter. (7/10)

[STORY]

The story is really nice and pretty cute, it retakes the story at the end of the original series, before the movies. it was pretty short but at the same time cute and a nice way to retake it and prepare the viewer for the new series. We could see most of the characters from the original series that brought a lot of nostalgia to me. It’s a story that we have seen before so you kind of know what is happening so you are not on the edge of your seat as the first time. This is just an OVA to hype the new series. (8/10)

[CONCLUSION]

I really enjoy seeing this OVA and I recommend to watch it if you are also a fan of this series and have watch the original series. I don’t recommend watching this if you haven’t seen the original series. This is also a preview of the new series that awaits us in 2018. This OVA is really cute to remember the series. (7/10)

[Spanish Review]

Primero que nada... Si sois nuevos leyendo algo de Sakura Cardcaptor, posiblemente no sepáis mucho de lo que voy a hablaros. Y os recomiendo encarecidamente que os veáis las tres temporadas anteriores, o en su defecto, los mangas de CLAMP relacionados con ella. Dicho esto, ¡vamos a la reseña!

Sakura es una joven que cuando yo era una enana no me cansaba de verla por la televisión todas las tardes. Incluso soñaba que algún día iría junto a Keroberos (Kero, para los amigos) en busca de las cartas de Clow. Jugaba en casa, incluso, a que era ella. Y mi madre sonreía al verlo, o ... eso recuerdo yo.

Resumen a grandes rasgos de las tres temporadas anteriores: Sakura Kinamoto es una niña de unos 10 años que visitando la librería de su casa encuentra un pequeño estuche o libro (no lo recuerdo muy bien) dónde se almacenan cartas con poderes. Ella, sin querer, las libera, liberando también a Keroberos, el guardián de estas. Sakura, junto al guardián, deberá recuperar todas las cartas liberadas.

Faltan muchas cosas, por supuesto, creo que sólo he resumido la primera jaja. Pero es para que os hagáis una idea de sobre que va. Bien. En este OVA nos muestra a Sakura cuando ya va al instituto. Y he de decir que casi me explota el corazón con tanto kawaiismo. La verdad, no sabía que esperarme de esta nueva temporada, ya que las tres anteriores lo dejan todo bastante cerrado y solucionado. Y al parecer, nos muestran la relación de Sakura con Shaoran, otro cazador de cartas. Hay más historia detrás, por supuesto.

El hecho de que sea al parecer sólo una historia de escolares romántica me decepciona un poco, ya que las temporadas anteriores son mágicas y muy distintas al típico anime de romance, y espero que en el anime... Sucedan más cosas de las que muestra el prólogo. Otras cosas que he echado de menos de las otras temporadas es no ver a Tomoyo, la mejor amiga de Sakura, con su característica cámara de vídeo y al padre de Sakura, que suele estar bastante presente en las temporadas anteriores. Por otra parte, me ha gustado ver a los demás personajes. Ya estoy ansiosa por ver el anime al completo, aunque debo esperar hasta enero de 2018 para ello. ¡Ya queda menos!

Not sure if this is a review...
I was so confused as I just finished the anime and the two movies today.
At first, I thought this was the continuation of the anime and Shaoran somehow came back to Japan after the 2nd movie, but why is Eriol back here? and then I started reading other reviews.

I'm usually a manga reader but idk why I wanted to watch the anime more than reading the manga so I haven't read the manga for CCS.

Tbh I quite like this version too, not that I like the colors tho. (I prefer Sakura stop saying hoee all the ... time, pls don't kill me)
Oh and I like the fact that the same Voice actors came back for this, and wow to keep the same voice from 20 years ago(?).

well im looking forward to watching the sequel tomorrow

I definitely missed this series! Well, I'm totally satisfied with the ending which was supposed to be the second movie. But since they are about to make a new season to continue the series which I believe was not really planned before, it really makes sense that they would need to create an episode that would link the previous season to the new one - which is this OVA. I must say that they have done a good job on following and linking the ending of the original manga and the beginning of the clear card manga. Not to mention the 'kilig' factor of seeing ... Sakura and Shaoran finally hugging each other as a couple, that used to be only in our imagination. This OVA just made me remember why I like this couple so much and how much of a fan I still am of this series.

A pretty unnecessary special.

What made it so was that it was just a retelling of the final episode of the original show, for the most part, with the exception of the final scene. As well, it was predominantely slice-of-life, which I didn't enjoy either.

But it wasn't all bad. The new updated animation looked great throughout, providing several lovely scenes. There was also some very good emotional scenes, especially at the end, and some funny ones as well. There was also a few nice parts which broke from the slice-of-life mold. with Yukito/Yue.

But some nice moments weren't enough to make it good as a whole. Despite ... that, however, I would recommend it to viewers starting the Clear Card series, as it does set up the story decently.

Imagine thinking a rendezvous at a bus stop is more romantic than a rendezvous in an airport. Imagine it.

I don't want to be all "they changed it; now it sucks" because that's not what I'm about. I'm all for remaking things, and this is a fine remake of a great episode. However, I hoped against hope that they'd try to do a more retro style for the Cardcaptor Sakura sequel and this just ain't what I was looking for visually. It looks very modern, very digital, and it's a shame since there was so much personality in the designs from the first show. Here, they're ... completely one-note and slender and bland. It's accentuated by my perception that this episode is one-note, but still. Even compositionally, it has a modern flavor because of extra crap like Shaoran confirming details with the movers or the cutaway to Tomoyo's concert or the unnecessary CGI bus. These were more distracting than anything else.

These feelings are probably heightened because I just enjoyed "The Sealed Card" so much, and this exists to explain what happened instead of "The Sealed Card." Presumably, it matches the manga so people with no imagination can say it's better just because of that. But, on the other hand, this is also the 30-minute "get Sakura to just spit it out" show I mused about wanting while watching that movie. And it is successful at that. It shunts Sakura through conversations that clarify her feelings for Shaoran, and then she tells him in a reasonable amount of time. What a concept.

Now, for the love of God, can Shaoran have his personality back starting from the next episode? After "The Sealed Card" and this, I'm tired of him being so completely stoic. This is not the Shaoran that Sakura fell in love with.

Reserving my judgement of Clear Card until I've seen all of it but the OVA hurts itself in comparison by re depicting something we've already seen and doing so in a way that is just,, flat. The animation is so stiff it doesn't have any of the emotional weight and love that the original series had poured into it. There's a forthrightness to the writing that works for me sometimes and i do like the shoujo splash page style illustrations. obviously they know the animation can't be as expressive as it used to be so they're working around it a little, and what I have ... seen of the first couple episodes of Clear Card is more encouraging. Hopefully I'm more positive on the series as a whole by the end.

There's just something in how oblique and dreamlike the original ending is, versus how straight forward and mundane the OVA is. Everything just feels smaller, everything has an explanation, we know how Sakura was able to get to the bus on time, there's so much backfilling so we know where characters are going to be in Clear Card. Characters just say what they're feeling instead of struggling with what they want to say. I still can't help but feel like something has been lost in the intervening ~20 years. Honestly feel like they would have been better off making a compilation edit of episode 69-70 and some parts from the 2nd movie. Rewatched parts of those and got chills, it doesn't even compare.