Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 1

A disappointing anime is often more upsetting than a bad one. When an acclaimed series receives a movie and other additional material, it's natural to hold high expectations and hope for an experience at least equal to the original. At times brilliant and more often monotonous, the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie is one that unfortunately falls short of these expectations.

Set after the first season, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie takes Sakura to an entirely new environment: Hong Kong. After winning a five-day trip at a local store, Sakura is given the opportunity to travel to a different country for the first time in her life. ... Things are not quite so simple, though, and as several foreboding dreams and supernatural phenomenons soon reveal, there is more to her winning the trip than a mere game of luck.

The first twenty minutes are fairly promising, immediately opening with a tense fight for one of the Clow Cards. Hearing a few beloved tracks from the series once again evokes a sense of nostalgia, and the characters quickly show that they are just as endearing as ever. Kero-chan remains his frivolous, gluttonous self, while Touya continues to tease Sakura for amusing results. Some of the best moments are those early on with the characters travelling through Hong Kong and taking in the sights, and the beautiful artwork makes these scenes all the more breathtaking.

Eyecandy is certainly not something that is lacking in this film. Fluid animation, detailed expressions and stunning scenery all set the visuals of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie to a much higher standard than most animated films. Hong Kong is presented as far more than a busy metropolis, with a diverse set of authentic locales being used to effectively portray the culture. Unfortunately, the moments highlighting the characters' experiences with the city are all too fleeting. Instead we are gifted with a trite and highly predictable story for the remainder of the film.

It's around the point where Sakura finds herself drawn to a shrine that things steadily go downhill. Most notably, Li and Meiling show up from absolutely nowhere. In the exact same area of a massive city, with no prior knowledge that either group would even be there. There's even the cliche of bumping into each other in Meiling's case. How is the viewer supposed to take the movie seriously when it relies on absurd plot conveniences so early on? An explanation may have made the scene less silly, but there is not even that. "What are you doing here?", asks Sakura. A question left unanswered.

The rest of the story focuses on a vengeful spirit who drags Sakura into a conflict that is only tangentially related to her. This represents the main issue with this film-- it doesn't have any relevance to the overarching story. None of the characters are developed aside from a few scenes with Li's mother and Clow Reed's past relationship with the spirit. There's no sense of accomplishment once the conflict is finally resolved, and the only emotional value is during a scene with Sakura relating to the spirit's unrequited love. Unless you are a particularly patient viewer, there's a strong chance that you will find yourself bored with anything beyond the first thirty minutes.

Much of the film takes itself far too seriously and as a result, most of the charm from the TV series is absent here. Dramatic moments were common in the main series, but they were always interspersed with comedy and had relevance to the story. Not here. It is ceaseless drama distinguished by superfluous (though pretty) action scenes and vague, cliched lines about destiny. It just doesn't work.

As for the sound, the voice acting is exceptional and the eclectic soundtrack compliments the setting especially well. Traditional Chinese music is used while the characters traverse through the city, and a palatable mix of jazz and orchestral music plays during the action sequences. The ending song is also quite nice and serves as a satisfying conclusion to a bittersweet story. It's hard to find much fault with the technical aspects of the film.

Despite a variety of complaints, Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie is not bad by any means. Compared to most anime movies, and particularly within the mahou shoujo genre, it is still well above average. Fans of the series will most likely find some level of enjoyment here between the disappointment, and at only 80-minutes long it's hard to go wrong with the prospect of more Cardcaptor Sakura.

Still, considering the quality of the main series, decent just isn't enough here.

This is an OK movie, but strangely focuses more on the action than the characters. There is SOME character development, but it's saved for the end. The majority of this movie is spent either running away from, or fighting, the antagonist.
The art, as usual for a CLAMP adaption, is gorgeous. But the dub is AWFUL, and changes the dialogue around completely. Avoid it at all costs.

Could not tell you why some people are disappointed in this movie. It's just like any of the better episodes of the series, but longer and with superior animation. You get to see Sakura being cute in a variety of costumes, as well as her early-series blushing over Yukito all the time and getting bullied by her onii-chan. To top it off, it has that sweet Cardcaptor Sakura flavor where even the antagonist's motives aren't necessarily as evil as they may seem at first, and leaves you feeling warm. I wouldn't ask for anything more.

One of my favorite things about this movie was story expansion ... into Clow's life. He's a very interesting character, and the story from his past in this movie I think would make a great anime series on it's own.

I wish I had known to watch this chronologically! I watched it after I had watched the entire series. It seems like it's supposed to take place between season one and season two, even though it came out right after season two had finished airing, based off of her wand as well as a couple of other things I wouldn't want to risk spoiling about the main series. So if you're reading this review and haven't watched CCS yet for some reason, I recommend watching this at the end of season one.

Don't skip this just because some people didn't like it as much! It's eighty minutes of top quality Cardcaptor Sakura!

Quite a while ago I reviewed Cardcaptor Sakura, a magical girl series from Clamp and Madhouse. It was a good anime, albeit not one of the best magical girl series I've looked at. The series has gotten two films. Let's look at the first, made in 1999 and written by Clamp's Ohkawa Nanase.

Story:

Our tale opens with Sakura capturing the Arrow card with Syaoran's help, some sidelines commentary from Meiling and Tomoyo filming her the whole time. She and Tomoyo stop by a store to buy school supplies and Sakura wins tickets to Hong Kong through the shopping district's lottery. Kero questions this because she's “weak ... at lotteries” whatever the flying Dutchman that means. She decides to take Tomoyo, her brother and Yukito. I should mention that this takes place roughly halfway through the series before she finds out the truth about Yukito. Sakura starts having ominous dreams about being surrounded by water and a mysterious floating figure.

On the downside, the ending of this film is pretty weak. It has some good ideas, in concept, behind it but the execution doesn't work well. There's also Sakura's role in the whole thing. She barely does anything beyond running away and talking. Because that's what everyone wants to see the main hero do. We don't want to see them being competent and showing their strength, that would just be far too obvious. Which is the same reason that Sakura rarely uses a lot of her stronger cards, because it would just be too obvious. Surely, she is a tactical genius.

There are quite a few good aspects to the film. The build up is really well done. The gradual escalation is very effective at creating stakes and tension for the scenario. If it hadn't led to a letdown then these could have been components of an excellent movie.

Characters:

I will give the film some credit on this aspect, it does give you a strong sense of the character's personalities and the sibling dynamic between Sakura and Touya is really strong. What doesn't work so well are the original characters. You meet Syaoran's four sisters and all they do is fawn over Sakura and Tomoyo before throwing themselves all over Touya and Yukito. Boy are they barking up the wrong tree. They might as well go to Bell Liberty Academy to try to find boyfriends. Either way, they're non-characters who don't serve any real purpose. I'm not even sure why they're here at all, their presence does nothing for the narrative. Then we have our villain who could have been interesting but is just kind of cliché in execution. The same is true for Syaoran's mother. She's a strict parent and mystic master. She just comes across as kind of bland and typical.

Art:

The art is pretty similar to the art in the main series. It's decent enough with character designs and backgrounds that work fine. I will say that the action sequences in the film are kind of weak especially since our heroine decides to spend most of them running away from things.

Sound:

The voice work is done with the same cast as the series proper and they all do well, as they did in the series proper. For the new characters, our main antagonist is voiced by Hayashibara Megumi and she does a superb job. Syaoran's mum is voiced by Inoue Kikuko and she does do a decent job, albeit a bit emotionless of one. The music is well done.

Ho-yay:

This series certainly doesn't have as much as the series proper. The homo-eroticism between Yukito and Touya is barely present and Tomoyo's creepy cousin crush on Sakura is downplayed as well although it's still pretty obvious.

Final Thoughts:

For all its flaws, this is a good movie. The ending is disappointing and it suffers from some of the same issues as the series proper, but there's a lot of well done stuff leading up to the ending and it is a fun film to watch overall. If you enjoyed Cardcaptor Sakura, you'll probably like the movie too. My final rating is going to be a 7/10. Next week it's finally time for the Gintama review so we'll see how that goes.

It was an okay movie I guess. It was a 5/10 or 6/10 movie, though I'm leaning more towards 5/10. This movie isn't really necessary to watch imo. Though it wasn't bad, so meh. It mentions a few lore specifics, but doesn't really expand it much. I guess to show people who used to date? Though this movie revealing past lovers doesn't really add much to it. It feels more so like a cash grab, than something that expands the world and is necessary. I think I get where it might tie into the next arc with ... Sakura wanting to reveal her feelings to Yukito. Though did they really need this movie for that? Still, even if this movie isn't necessary, it's an okay movie overall I guess.

I recognize that this is basically just an anime-original episode of the show, and if it was literally an anime-original episode, I may not have minded it. There were plenty of individual episodes that were a bit weak compared to the others, but the big difference is that they were only 20 minutes long and usually at least implied some progression. The first Cardcaptor Sakura movie is a waste of time that lasts for a long 90 minutes.

It's about Sakura winning a trip to Hong Kong during the winter break of her first year as a Cardcaptor. This was a horrible idea, possibly the worst ... time period a Cardcaptor Sakura movie could take place, because all the characters are locked into the personalities they had before their character development over the second year. Shaoran and Sakura haven't even begun to realize their feelings for one another; they're still stuck with their crushes on Yukito that must go nowhere. Meilin just sits in Shaoran's shadow because she hasn't either become truly desperate or come to terms with the fact that he's just not into her. Yukito and Toya don't even hint that they're gay. Tomoyo doesn't really do character development because she is perfect, but she just films Sakura as normal here. They don't even have the classmates as comedic foils to bounce anything off of. The result is a story about people who seem trapped in amber.

I mean, the movie-original outfit and even the movie-original Clow Card were half-assed at best! Not even giving Sakura a new power could save this movie from its doldrums because she gets that card in the first few minutes with no background on it and then she uses it only once, with little fanfare. Because it never appears in the show proper, it may as well have never existed.

There are no stakes more complicated than putting Sakura's immediate friends in abstract jeopardy that takes them out of the narrative. The one-off villain's deal doesn't even challenge Sakura's beliefs about anything.

The animation is fine and the villain's main gimmicks are water and ribbons, which presented some opportunities for interesting fluid effects. But that's truly the extent of it. The jazzy soundtrack probably worked as a standalone CD, but it faded into the background of this boring movie.

Why did they decide to dedicate film resources to this story? I will be forever baffled by this.

When I found out about this anime I was really excited about it. When I found out there were movies too, I got even more excited. So I started watching the anime and it did not disappoint me, in fact; it probably is one of my favorite animes.

Yet the movie did disappoint me. A little bit, though, I still thought it was a good movie but it just didn't quite reach the anime-awesomeness.

So you should watch the movie after the first season and before the second season. It follows Sakura on her trip to Hong Kong, where she finds out it wasn't a coincidence that ... she won the tickets.

Sakura is having these weird dreams/nightmares and honestly? They started to annoy me at some point. It constantly showed the same thing, over and over and over again. It was confusing, but I get that. It was supposed to be confusing, since Sakura herself didn't understand what was happening to her.

However, I actually almost fell asleep while watching the movie because of these nightmares. I seriously never fall asleep while watching a movie, and I also don't sleep during the day. The fact that I almost fell asleep shows how boring the movie became at some points.

Besides that, I did like the movie. It was really interesting towards the end.
Overall I would give this movie a 9 out of 10.

五つの単語批評❕

Does its job...good job!

Footnote:

"Cardcaptor Sakura Movie"....your mileage will vary according to how excited those three words make you. Which is not to say that this is "bad" or even underwhelming, but it is exactly what it says on the box: A feature length episode of the anime with a little extra polish.

If you hate the idea, you'll hate the movie. But if you're up for 90 minutes of a clumsy magical girl hanging out in Hong Kong, getting into spats with her brother, and fighting an ancient ghost lady, this is a good time.

A lot of shows aimed at kids are cynically made and low-quality ... from top to bottom....this isn't the case with Cardcaptor Sakura, and that's why she's retained a loyal fanbase for over 20 years.

Honestly, had the whole series of Cardcaptor Sakura been like this movie, I probably would've given it a higher rating. (I rated the 70-episode series a 2 whereas this movie gets a pretty solid 6.)

There are some strengths that this movie plays to such as foreshadowing, action, creative uses of locations, and of course, the magic. Romance elements present in the show are downplayed or absent, which honestly, suits me better since CLAMP tends to be all over the place with irrelevant romance plots that make the series drag too long. The tone overall ends up being darker and more involved than that of the ... series proper.

That said, this movie is not without its fair share of problems. While the expansion of Clow's life story is indeed a welcome thing, this addition to the story only ends up serving to highlight a problem that's been present throughout the entire series: how flat Sakura and company actually are as characters.

As though that weren't bad enough, the characters they added also end up serving very little purpose other than comedic relief (the Li sisters) or simply advancing the plot (the Li matriarch). They end up being props moreso than actual characters in their own right.

So what we ended up with was about an hour or so of solid (if slow) storytelling, then a resolution that simply doesn't live up to the rest of the movie's setup.

Art and animation were good. Definitely higher quality than that of the series and pretty impressive for the year it came out.

I didn't notice any issues with the sound, though some of the music ended up seeming out of place.

If you're a fan of Cardcaptor Sakura, then you'll probably enjoy this movie.

If you haven't ever followed the series, then don't bother since the movie requires context to get anything out of it.

The first movie of the *Cardcaptor Sakura* series follows the titular heroine winning a trip to Hong Kong. What seemed to be a fun vacation with her loved ones ended up turning into a dangerous adventure, after Sakura realizes that she’s been lured into a trap made by a vengeful spirit.

While I have been a *Cardcaptor Sakura* fan since childhood, I’ve actually never consumed much of the series (both anime and manga) in its original language. (I grew up watching the English-dubbed version on Kids’ WB). Of course, when I saw that this was available to watch in English sub on Crunchyroll, I wanted to ... watch it!

As previously mentioned, the events takes place in Hong Kong after Sakura participates in a lottery. I think the movie did a good job of imbedding the new characters we meet into the Hong Kongese culture (the magical birds blending in with the others on Bird Street, the antagonist wearing a hanfu, etc.). Other than that, the movie felt like a longer episode; it seemed like another adventure Sakura regularly has, but in a different country. Instead, maybe they could’ve used the movie as a way to delve deeper into more Clow lore or even battling someone using foreign magic who hasn’t been involved with Clow.

That being said, let’s talk about the characters and start with the antagonist: the sorceress Madoushi. I honestly didn’t see her as much of a threat. The reasoning for her getting Sakura out in Hong Kong felt so weak and half-baked. Even the way the battle between Madoushi and Sakura was resolved seemed clichéd. There’s so many things that could’ve made Madoushi such a fearsome antagonist, but instead, she was pretty lackluster. Her character and the powers she wield didn’t seem to be developed well.

Moving on to the other characters, they were, for the most part, fine. I wished for Sakura to grow a bit more as a character as her naïveté remained the same at the end; then again, this is a movie of a magical girl series. I feel like some sort of character development happening is asking for a lot. As for the new minor characters we meet, I think it would’ve been awesome if they delved deeper into Syaoran’s backstory, as we get to see him and his family members in his homeland.

The voice acting and music was good. I was surprised but delighted how different Tomoyo’s voice is between original Japanese and English dub.

Overall, I still enjoyed the movie from pure nostalgia. Was the movie full of Sakura’s cute antics with Kero and Tomoyo? Absolutely. It was also fun traveling with Sakura and company as tourists in Hong Kong. Is this movie crucial to watch as a *Cardcaptor Sakura* fan? Nah, not really, unless you want to see Sakura capture a Clow Card that’s only seen in the movie.

I enjoy the "Cardcaptor Sakura" anime series and a number of CLAMP's other works. I'm used to filler OVAs, even from mahou shojo films, even from the 90s, so my bar wasn't set that high. That this movie still dropped lower than that is... rather depressing.

In the typical vein of OVAs that are supposed to fill time between manga publication/development of main series plots/keep up hype for the series without directly affecting the main series plot, this film... has little to nothing to do with the plot of the series itself, so the plot doesn't really matter and feels... empty of tension. The end result ... is that the only part I cared about was the beginning card capture. It doesn't help that Sakura doesn't really do anything to solve any of the problems in the film other than that initial capture.

Spoiler warning: some random fortune teller Clow Reed met once in Hong Kong is angry. Does she care about the cards? No. Was she waiting for Sakura? No. Did she SAY she was waiting for Sakura? Yes. Why? Who cares. Why is she attacking people and the city even though she's not exactly ANGRY at Clow Reed or the people or the city? ...Because...?

I like Yelan, Xiaoling's mother, but she doesn't actually do anything useful other than be vaguely foreboding until the climax. It's very sweet how she comforts Tomoyo and interacts with Sakura, and it's again nice that the film focuses on women's relationships and wants and needs, like much of the main series. But I feel like there are better ways to introduce Xiaoling's relatives.

The art, as per the usual in OVAs, is slightly higher quality than the series, at least in regard to background animation in Hong Kong. It's not all that impressive, but it was 1999. Then again, by this point all three of "Sailor Moon" films had been released by the beginning of 1996, and those all look okay for the time, so the relative poor quality of the art style and animation is a bit... eh. They reuse series animation because that's also always going to happen in these cases for money and time reasons, which wasn't an issue. Quality-wise for the animation, overall it's just a long "Cardcaptor Sakura" episode, albeit with darker tones than the series usually goes, with its bright costumes, trees, school buildings, and antagonists. You won't be wowed, but you won't be disappointed, either.

The voice acting was okay, if perhaps slightly higher pitched than usual? It might have just been the sound quality of the film, at least in certain places, because Junko Iwao sounded a bit odd in spots. The soundtrack was unremarkable, with recycled tracks from the series.

If you want to see the main cast wandering around in Hong Kong sightseeing, this is the movie for you. If you want to see more of Tomoyo crushing on Sakura, this is the film for you. Otherwise, besides completeness, you're probably better off skipping this part of the series. Go watch "Sailor Moon R" the film. Way better.

I made the mistake of watching this movie after I finished the series - do not make the same mistake! This movie is set in the middle of the series.

That said, it's also not...necessarily necessary. There's a tiny bit of character development towards the end, but it was lost on me having already seen the end of the series. I imagine the movie would've been a lot better if I'd seen it in chronological order.

Overall, it wasn't bad. But it wasn't good either. If you want a good film and you've already finished the series, skip straight to the second movie. That one ... is much better.