English Dub Review: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card “Sakura and the Room with No Exit”

The girls are back… In pink?

Overview (Spoilers)

Sakura and crew are pondering the meaning of this new card. Gale is clear, but the markings on the back can’t be seen on the front, and vice versa. The card has no magic to it, other than what Sakura added by capturing it. Tomoyo is a bit upset that she wasn’t able to videotape it, especially since she just finished a new costume. They run out of time before the bell, and head into class. As a nice bonus, Chiharu gives Sakura and Tomoyo her recipe for cheesecake. Perhaps later, they’ll do a sleepover and make the cake! The other important thing about the day is that it’s time for club signups! Tomoyo is going to sign up for choir, and Naoko wants to try out for drama. Both Chiharu and Sakura want to go back into cheerleading, and they want Syaoran and Takashi to go for sports. Too bad Syaoran just moved to town and has way too much unpacking to do. He can’t jump into a club yet.

After school, it is time for a sleepover to be accomplished! Between the two girls and Kero, it’s a pretty easy task to make the cheesecake. As they chomp away, Toya and Yukito also join in. Yukito is staying the night as well, leaving Sakura a bit flustered. Both sets of kids retire to their respective rooms, and Sakura tries on a new Tomoyo original design… Just in time for the room to vanish into a cube of white with black swirls on it. The walls are all bendy and flexible, and if you hit them too hard, they bounce back at you. Kinda like rubber. Sakura surmises that it’s kinda like being in a balloon. They just have to pop it. Fortunately, Tomoyo is still wearing her pin cushion. After she pops the room with a pin, Sakura seals the entity into a new clear card: Siege. When they go to sleep, Sakura is visited by the mysterious figure again, who tries to take the Clear Key from her. She awakens, perplexed as to the mysteries of these new cards.

Our Take

There we go. In the last episode, I had some problems with the pacing. This episode did a bit better, as it no longer needed to charge through the “Where Are They Now” information. While the first half was still a good amount of talking, they leveraged it with fun visuals. Oh wow, did Madhouse leverage it with fun visuals. CG effects just to have some words appear on the screen, then have it break up into dust and blow away. This episode is just crammed to the spleen with amazing animation and gorgeous styling. They know what they’re doing here, as it captures so much of the feel of the original show, but with a lighter, more airy style. I really love it.

Back on the plot, though. This episode was largely slice-of-lifey. Other than a brief bit at the beginning and end, you would hardly know you were watching a magical girl show. It seems that they might have a bit more importance on these clubs in this season than in the past, especially seeing so much of cheer uniform Sakura we see in those jaw-droppingly animated end credits. I do stand by my initial feelings, however, that over half of the previous episode wasn’t necessary. This episode does a much better job introducing Eriol, Spinel, Ruby, Chiharu, and Takashi. First timers to the franchise will see Eriol and be all “who is this mysterious boy?” Only to find later that he’s been a part of it all along. Syaoran really isn’t playing that strong of a role in the story yet, so they could have just as easily swapped out the first briefing at the beginning of the episode with him returning, and their reunion. Remember, just because you are bringing back an established franchise doesn’t mean you have to show off all the returning characters at the outset.

I feel like I’m going to have a strained relationship with the voice acting in this series. Yes, the characters are well acted, and everyone is emoting properly. It’s good work. My problem is the number of high-pitched voices we have going on. Tomoyo sounds like a higher-pitched version of Fluttershy. They manage to dodge those frequencies that hurt my ears, but only by a hair or two. Monica Rial is the closest to being an offender, as some of her emotes with Sakura come off even higher in pitch. In the end, though, the voice acting is quite good.