Stray notes on Cardcaptor Sakura Episode 1

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of my favorite anime of all time and I want to see more discussion of it as well as discuss it myself, so I thought: F*** it the only way I’m ever gonna do this is to talk about it episode by episode so here it is:
(None of this is going to include much a synopsis)

Episode 1:

I think the core appeal of Cardcaptor Sakura is close to that of a slice of life show; which is to say the focus on the main characters and how they interact there are even a couple of episodes where there isn’t even a clow card, just characters hanging out: It’s Great!

I love how grounded this show is a lot of this episode’s runtime is spent grounding the show: we see a lot of just Sakura in her house putting on clothes, eating with family, drying her hair, coming home and seeing a note from her dad, her room full of plushies, this is something not a lot of anime do. By the end of episode 1, I feel as if I’m roughly familiar with the layout of Sakura’s house compare that to something like Yes 5 Precure or Ojamajo Doremi, where even by the end of the show there are barely any locations I feel I know well…

The comedy in this show is very much just a ‘putting a big stupid smile on your face’ thing rather than actually making you laugh out loud or giggle, Sakura’s interactions with her best friend Tomoyo for instance or with Yukino and her brother; she acts all sweet and shy towards Yukino one minute and begrudges her brother the next, it doesn’t really make me laugh as much as make me smile; which is also good.
The sound cues they use for the comedy are really good as well, high pitched tangs and boings but they don’t really get repeated and they aren’t really stock sound effects either…

Sakura herself is very much a standard magical girl protagonist, energetic and brave but also klutzy, but I feel she’s much more believable than most other magical girl protagonists like her, this boils down to the way she interacts with her family and her friends; it feels very believable. They also add little things like her wanting to be bigger than her brother and crush him under her feet, which is just adorable…

We don’t see that much of the other characters this episode so i’ll leave that for next time…

I Love the character designs in this show; they’re so well animated and great for goofy comedy expressions, we don’t really see that much of it this episode but nearly every episodes has different outfits for the characters outside of school, which I really like as it’s not something you see in a lot of anime. Hell the show points this out itself by doing ‘Leave it to Kero’ at the end of every episode; a short explanation of certain outfits in the show, I love it

The voice actors put in a lot of effort especially Sakura Tange as Sakura, she puts a lot of earnestness and energy into the role making the character seem even more believable

I love the backgrounds in this show; they feel grounded, there aren’t too many bright colors and the bright colors that are there are often contrasted really well like in the library all the books are big and have different colors, most of which contrast with each other.
On a side note: the characters themselves are also really well shaded, adding atmosphere to those scenes

I love how the scene of her coming back from school and finding the Card book is done, we first see her come home read a note left by her dad and then hear a noise, Sakura grabs the pole she used for her gym class in a previous scene and see her slowly head into the dimly lit library, lots of shading on her, we see that the noise comes from the book and she opens it reads the first card alout and see the magic appear under her feat… We still have no idea what’s going on and then *poof* all the cards in the book head into every direction, this sells the mystical part of the magic very well…

The capturing of this episode’s clow card was beautifully detailed and animated, not something we usually see in a lot of TV anime…

Overall i thought this episode did a great job on introducing us to the character’s and central concept of the show and makes me very excited to see more…

Post-Script:
OH GOD
This was terrible
I hate this
I fucked up on everything
but it was kinda fun
I don’t know
Maybe i’ll do more

THIS WAS A MISTAKE