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Episode 16 – Sakura and Meiling’s Friend
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OMG WHO ELSE HAD STRONG X VIBES WHEN SAKURA USED SIEGE TO PROTECT THE MANSION? And I LOLed at Meiling’s “WTF” scream xD
And of coooourse Sakura is powerful enough to use SIEGE to protect the whole mansion area. We know she’s capable of much more than that 😉 I loved how Kero looked at her with a mix of admiration and astonishment.
So in the end it really was an earth-based card. SWING. A very big change between the manga and the anime, as we haven’t seen that card in the manga yet.
Lots to talk about in the scene with Kaito and Akiho. First of all, why is he wearing his butler uniform? I think that looks weird. Then, once again Akiho mentions that Sakura invited her to visit Fujitaka’s library. It really does seem like this is gonna be very important. They are building up way too much for this moment. And THEN, we see Kaito using his magic for the first time! And it’s practically syncronized with the manga (we’re going to see him using his magic for the first time in the next manga chapter). Ohkawa is making sure that the secrets are being revealed in the right time, without having the anime spoiling the manga.
Does anyone have any idea of what are those three words — Tina Rie Triax — that Kaito said? We learn that he uses his pocket watch to control Akiho’s memories. Of course, this may not be its solo purpose. However it is aligned with a theory I have that Akiho’s memories (and magic?) have been erased upon her own request. Kaito here is likely only doing his job once given by Akiho herself (that’s my theory). The thing that triggered Kaito to do it was the mention of Sakura’s father. Hummm.
Two cards on the same episode (to compensate the lack of cards on recent episodes). STRUGGLE. It was really nice seeing Sakura and Meiling’s interaction to secure this card. Nice way of saying goodbye to Meiling. And this is something that Sakura had wished for: being able to do/achieve something with Meiling.
Where can I book my therapy sessions with Meiling? Some real mature talk there.
SO CUTE Meiling asking Sakura to call her by her first name! I was moved by that scene (more than the SyaoSaku scenes, what’s wrong with me?). Meiling is the true meaning of character development and I envy her maturity now.
Now that Meiling is gone, looks like we’ll finally get back to following the manga by the next episode, in which APPEAR shall appear.
34 thoughts on “Review: Card Captor Sakura Clear Card arc TV Anime – Episode 16”
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Chibi Yuuto's CHRoNiCLEs 
Most of the episode went more or less like most of us imagined: Sakura captured 2 cards, one of them while fighting together with Meiling (the preview was pretty clear haha) and this was also the episode Meiling left for HK and called Sakura by her first name ^^ (we saw that one coming too! XD)
Wise words she said, about Sakura and Syaoran tendencies of caring too much about the people surrounding them and not enough about themselves, this is pretty much their temperaments and their very natures, but they could indeed think it twice before doing anything too drastic… This is clearly pointed at Syaoran first and foremost, but I think this applies very much to Sakura too, who would very likely also go too far to protect others too…
The thing with Syaoran is a bit contradictory: why so much preparing/training for so long with the assistance of Eriol/his family, to end up making some huge life threatening sacrifice in the end? ^^;; I can totally see him pushing himself too hard, but doing something from the get-go that would make him loose his life? I don’t think he has the sort of mindset to just get himself killed without fighting above and beyond his utmost limits first.
On the other side, there are red flags in both the anime and the manga about the safety of Syaoran…
Of course, the sort of sacrifice he could make might not be loosing his life but something else… which, as we learned in TRC and xxxHolic, doesn’t make things better at all ^^;
Now!
The ‘surprise’: it felt VERY random, so I think Ohkawa/Madhouse staff really just wanted to show it off as a new information: Kaito’s ability to turn back time for a couple of minutes using his pocket watch and a spell!
Not sure what we are supposed to make out of it, so I will simply leave this one fact at the back of my mind for the time being ^^
What else?
Ah, the other thing is about Masaki-san: when I heard from users on discord that he was in the title of episode 20 + someone said he was also mentioned in this episode (that was before I watched it myself…), I thought it was a “done deal” that ep20+ would be animating the latest chapters.
Nonetheless, after watching the ep myself, I see that Sonomi-san said 2 things which didn’t really match: her grand father is wondering what she was doing this Summer, and ‘at the villa again‘ (meaning this is the place she went before in the Clow Card arc, which was located in the middle of mountains).
Furthermore, the full title is “Sakura, the rainbow and grand father”: a rainbow has really NOTHING to do with the last chapters of the manga but has, on the other side, EVERYTHING to do with “EP16-Sakura and the Rainbow of Memories”.
I can only assume this will either be something completely different unrelated to what we’ve seen in the manga, and yet again, another wink to the previous series; else they changed a LOT of details to say the least: the house is not the same, it will forcefully have to be some sort of family vacation if they have go there in car (it is not a place they can get to walking like they did in the manga), how is Syaoran going to be included in that? In the anime, there is virtually no contact between the Kinomoto men and Syaoran so far (other than the glaring in ep9 with Touya), and since their uniforms didn’t change yet, it’s not Summer in the manga either…
I just don’t know! -dizzy-
Well! ^__^
This is again the same thing: we will have to wait and see how it turns out! 🙂
That’s all for this episode! ^^
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“The thing with Syaoran is a bit contradictory: why so much preparing/training for so long with the assistance of Eriol/his family, to end up making some huge life threatening sacrifice in the end? ^^;; I can totally see him pushing himself too hard, but doing something from the get-go that would make him loose his life? ”
this seems to be syaorans natural self destruct button. when the person he loves the most has their very life at risk syaoran goes into this reckless (unintentional self harming) self destruct mode- remember trc, c! syaoran, r!syaoran and watanuki are very much this, its actually a main theme in both trc and Holic. and i actually think ccs sakura has this tendency too. back in sakura card arc when yue and yukito were vanishing, kero and yue instinctively kept this info from sakura cause they just knew she’d do something reeeallly reckless to stop it cause of how much she loved them. this self destruct , stubborn, over caring/ protective streak is definitely an inherited quality they get most likely from clow ^^ (common relative)
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Wise words she said, about Sakura and Syaoran tendencies of caring too much about the people surrounding them and not enough about themselves, this is pretty much their temperaments and their very natures, but they could indeed think it twice before doing anything too drastic… This is clearly pointed at Syaoran first and foremost, but I think this applies very much to Sakura too, who would very likely also go too far to protect others too…
And this is a recurring theme in CLAMP works too 😉
Nonetheless, after watching the ep myself, I see that Sonomi-san said 2 things which didn’t really match: her grand father is wondering what she was doing this Summer, and ‘at the villa again‘ (meaning this is the place she went before in the Clow Card arc, which was located in the middle of mountains).
I noticed that too. Well, given that the whole Nadeshiko subplot seems to be cut from the anime, maybe they don’t need to show her room when she was a child. Maybe that will be manga-only.
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triax is a type of watch. (its a nike triax watch) no idea about the other two words though. well, tina is a persons name, but i highly doubt thats what was meant when he said it. i wondered if it was a sort of code for counting or something.
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Thanks for the info!
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I had the x vibe as well. I was hoping that it would fix the damage after being canceled but apparently not. I noticed as well how precuse the reveals calendar between manga and anime was. Yuna s magic is pretty stylish imo and the moon phases calls yuuko s circle.
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I was half-expecting that it would fix the damage too xD
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oh this episode has to be one of my favourites for this series with out a doubt! i just so love the special familial relationship that meiling and sakura have. they totally balance each other out. sakura softens the fiery meiling, and meiling pushes the sweet naive sakura. meiling seems to have this ability to open sakura eyes without spelling out the obvious. she just gives her a much needed super deep mature pep talk and a little nudge and bam! sakuras back on track. meiling literally does what i was hoping kero and yue would be doing for her by now. syaoran and meilings character development is perhaps my favourite in the anime series .
oh my god i loved that fight sequence! its what ive missed for sure. AND the first human shaped card!! how cool to see sakura and meiling team fighting. and sakura did fantastic! this re-enforces my head canon of sakura being taught by syaoran/yelan everything the li family already know from fighting to magical knowledge. she’s already really athletic so she’d pick up martial arts pretty quick i imagine. i got strong kurogane/c!syaoran (early trc) vibes watching meiling teaching sakura how to fight like her. sakura is such a natural! it was so refreshing seeing this more badass side of sakura surface once again. and she applied it to a card capture rather than just sports!
meiling found herself comparing sakura to syaoran a lot after staying with sakura for a few days. and she found she has to give them similar advise too.
wow! CLAMP sure are doing a good job of making kaito sinister! i love his character more and more! that time reversal scene was awesome! and at the mere mention of fujitaka ! 😮 i also think this all has something to do with a wish or request made by akiho, and kaito has taken a role of guardian both in caring sense and magical sense, only he’s a sorcerer rather than created being. but i really do wonder what all this time reversal stuff is doing to akihos mind! @@
when sakura said she knew something was off, at first watch i thought she meant syaoran, but watching the episode again i wonder if she also meant she sensed something like the time reversal (without her knowing that). so whats will all this time reversal stuff do to sakura &co? i wonder if its effected eriol too? i mean his house has come back in the anime… he’s avoiding sakura for a strong reason…
im fearing for syaoran after seeing just what it is he is doing when he’s “too busy” to be with sakura. and now meiling said that dreaded foretelling sentence “if something were to happen to you, sakura would cry…” my heart sank into my stomach when i heard that…. but, but! as sakura says, everything will surely be alright!
it is keeping things fresh for ccs to have all this foreboding danger/ sinister and dark characters, and also first real threat for sakura to deal with. now sakura has broken away from clows lovingly built container it’s put a whole new spin on the ccs story. but not so much that it completely changes the stories formula.
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ah! forgot to talk about the swing card. first off i thought it was gonna be some sort of giant mole the way it was pushing the earth up like that! and i was not expecting it to be called swing at all! i dont get that name for it ^^; maybe something more like shake or tremble, not swing… anyhow i really loved its design! and sakura was awesome in this seal too, manipulating siege like that! she was so focused!
rofl!! meiling screaming at siege! compared to tomoyo just calm closing her eyes waiting for the balloon to pass over her.
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“and i was not expecting it to be called swing at all! i dont get that name for it ^^; maybe something more like shake or tremble, not swing…”
Working with Japanese students learning English, I’m not at all surprised by the weird translation. It’s a combination of looking up a word in the dictionary and not knowing the subtle differences between multiple words listed, and just choosing a word that sounds “cool.” The original series was quite good with their English word choice (although I always wondered why the elemental cards were named with their adjective instead of the noun like the other cards, especially with the use of “The ~”), and it’s a slight shame that this series doesn’t have quite the same quality. A minor thing that probably doesn’t bother anyone that much, but it stands out to me a lot because of the nature of my work. Looking at the kanji, yes, you got it right, “Shake” would be a better translation, but I’m assuming because they use the word “shake” in Japanese for “milkshake,” it probably sounded goofy to them. It can also be translated as “rocking, wobbling, oscillation, fluctuation, and swinging.” “Swing” was probably the easiest to say for a Japanese accent, and sounds better than the the rest. “Siege” suffers this problem too, the Japanese word for it can be translated to “surround, entrap, enclose” but I’m sure “Siege” sounded cooler, even though the card’s power is not so big on offense as the word “siege” implies.
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“Lucid” too, I mean doesn’t the word “lucid” mean exactly the opposite of what the card does? lol I’m sure they saw the word “lucid” as being a synonym for “clear” or “transparent” without realizing that the meaning of those words in this case was “something obvious or intelligible.” And it sounds cool, what with “lucid dreaming” and whatnot.
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Maybe the ‘bad translations’ have to do with (~theory~) Sakura unconsciously being the one creating those cards? We all know she’s just not goot at English.
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Thought the same. It might not be just a matter of bad translation. 🙂 If it really turns out like this, I’ll bow at CLAMP !
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According to the Merriam-Webster, lucid can mean kind of “transparent” as in “snorkeling in the lucid sea”, but it sure doesn’t usually describe human being, even Harry Potter under his invisibility cloak. “Sane” or “easy to understand” for what the word is used in a normal conversation.
Picking the one word in a bilingual dictionary which prononciation sounds the best to Japanese hear really most be the explanation.
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I don’t think that “Swing” is the equivalent of “Earthy”, since appearance wise, the order of the elements of Clear Cards have been similar to Sakura capturing the Clow Card (i.e., first “Windy”, next “Watery”, then “Fiery” and lastly “Earthy”).
As for the name “Swing”, it would have been better if they used something like ‘Tremor’ instead, as “Swing” is a really odd name.
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Today I came across this kanji again at work in a different context, and I realized that it can also be translated as “unrest, turmoil, being shaken (about something).” Knowing what Sakura was going through, and what we now know about the cards, this seems pretty clever naming for the Japanese name. Maybe they thought “Swing” was like “mood swing?” Maybe it should have been translated as “Agitation.”
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I was surprised by the rather easy capture of the Swing Card. They showed off Sakura’s awesome growth of magical ability by surrounding the whole mansion with the Siege Card, but then it was just a matter of getting in front of the card’s true form and sealing it. Maybe her desperation in saving her friends trapped in the house caused a sudden burst of magic in her that allowed her to overcome it and seal it away without weakening it?
So this episode confirmed time travel/manipulation is a thing now. And it seems that it’s not the first time that Kaito has used it since their arrival in Tomoeda. He mentioned Sakura’s father and his collection of books, a detail that Akiho has told him before but doesn’t remember because of his rewinding of time, and he was all “Oh crap” and had to make her forget his slip-up. Although honestly, he probably could’ve played it off as “Yeah, you did, don’t you remember?” since she’s very trusting; I mean, when we see him rewinding time in this episode, she’s obviously noticed the time jump but he easily distracts her with other conversation. She didn’t seem to be accusing him of anything by questioning him before, but I guess he wants to make doubly sure that there are no discrepancies in her memory. How does the time magic work though, does it only affect anyone inside the magic circle? Just Akiho herself?
The mentioning of her travels to other countries seems significant; so they travel in search of books and immediately leave after they get it. I wonder if it’s because they get those books by unsavory means… I had theorized it was because they were on the run from the Magician’s Society, guess I was wrong there! Seems like we’re being promised a trip to Sakura’s family library, perhaps Akiho will somehow stumble across The Clow/Sakura book in her room, with all the cards gone clear? Maybe that will kick-off a showdown. Doesn’t the inside cover have strange writing too? I know everyone was saying the language in Akiho’s book was the same as Fay’s magic in TRC, but I was wondering about the writing in the Clow book, I’ll have to check sometime.
The build up of Sakura and Meiling’s relationship over the past few episodes seem to have culminated in Struggle’s capture. I was surprised at just how quick Sakura picked up on Meiling’s fighting skills; athletic ability is one thing, reflexes are quite another. But I guess it shows just how in sync they are with each other, almost on par with Meiling and Syaoran’s relationship. And the end with Meiling asking to call her by first name was a fitting farewell.
Come on, Syaoran!! Don’t be so standoffish with your girlfriend!! I know you’re focused on important things and it’s all for her sake, but don’t forget your important loved one in the moment!! When Sakura said “I won’t have to settle for phone calls and letters anymore?” when you guys reunited, were you lying to her?!! XD I’m kinda sad that they have so little screentime together this season, in comparison to Sakura’s time with everyone else.
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I was surprised by the rather easy capture of the Swing Card. They showed off Sakura’s awesome growth of magical ability by surrounding the whole mansion with the Siege Card, but then it was just a matter of getting in front of the card’s true form and sealing it.
Me too!
Although honestly, he probably could’ve played it off as “Yeah, you did, don’t you remember?” since she’s very trusting; I mean, when we see him rewinding time in this episode, she’s obviously noticed the time jump but he easily distracts her with other conversation. She didn’t seem to be accusing him of anything by questioning him before, but I guess he wants to make doubly sure that there are no discrepancies in her memory. How does the time magic work though, does it only affect anyone inside the magic circle? Just Akiho herself?
Yeah, indeed, Akiho seems pretty easy to “talk it out”. There was no need to use magic for THAT. But I see it as a plot device just to show what’s he’s been doing xD And I think the magic only affects Akiho.
Doesn’t the inside cover have strange writing too? I know everyone was saying the language in Akiho’s book was the same as Fay’s magic in TRC, but I was wondering about the writing in the Clow book, I’ll have to check sometime.
Yeah, it does, but the language looks very different from the one in Akiho’s book.
I was surprised at just how quick Sakura picked up on Meiling’s fighting skills; athletic ability is one thing, reflexes are quite another.
Me too! I thought that was a bit forced xD
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[i]I was surprised by the rather easy capture of the Swing Card. They showed off Sakura’s awesome growth of magical ability by surrounding the whole mansion with the Siege Card, but then it was just a matter of getting in front of the card’s true form and sealing it. Maybe her desperation in saving her friends trapped in the house caused a sudden burst of magic in her that allowed her to overcome it and seal it away without weakening it?[/i]
I thought this worked pretty well. Sakura is definitely strong enough now that she can capture most cards without weakening them just by being close enough, and the struggle can still be about getting close enough to the card to capture it. In this case it was thanks to Sakura’s quick thinking with Siege, and the Fly card putting in everything it had to make sure Sakura got to it in time before it smashed the house.
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Last week with all the “long hair” talk I was thinking that the only way that we will get to watch Sakura with a new hair style would be with a time jump, now that seems possible.
I feel the animation when they were capturing Strugle wasn´t as fluent as it was back then when they captured The twin, so that flashback was kind of unfair.
At the end of the episode when Sakura and Meiling were talking , at Sakura´s room, did they acknowledge the trip to China from the first movie, since they were showing pics of the places they visited??
And for sure Meiling why she has to go?? 😦
Now, we got a possible explanation about what happened with Eriol house, but if the house is still there do we have to worry about The void?? Maybe the “earthquake ” now was in fact an “earthquake”: I was thinking about all the rewriting, in the original ending of the anime Sakura´s tears created one card that showed her love for Shaoran, but with the OVA we didn´t see it (if I recall correct); so even if Void was a thing they wouldn´t have a way to captured or at least there is no The hope card… anyway as others have stated I am wondering how much Kaito has affected Sakura´s word and if she would need those cards?? Is thies important?? .
Now about Sakura going to visit Masaki-san, and given what we know from the anime maybe just maybe and if it is going in the same way and he gives to Sakura the same present: Kaito isn´t looking for that clock, but I feel it will give to Sakura a way to fight the time powers that Kaito has, neither it will help to give her similar powers (then the warning that Nadeshiko gave to Sakura), a chance to fix what Kaito had altered or just a way to not allow him use them. Given that it maybe will happen at episode 20 maybe they will wrap the story in 2 episodes. 😦
I´m as well worried about Shaoran and Touya.
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“At the end of the episode when Sakura and Meiling were talking , at Sakura´s room, did they acknowledge the trip to China from the first movie, since they were showing pics of the places they visited??”
Director Asaka confirmed in one of the latest interviews that those are postcards/pictures sent by Syaoran during the time they had a long distance relationship 🙂
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Oh! That´s better 🙂 Thanks.
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Episode 16 was sooo full of emotions!!
I’ll start, as usual, by the technical aspect, which is also the one I’m more salty about, so we can get out of my system the bad part and proceed with the rest of the episode, which was good.
The animation quality for this episode was really meh, but most of all, they broke the tradition of the fight scenes for Meiling, which featured (both in episode 43 and 60) outstanding animation sequences. This time it was full of still frames and I felt so disappointed. Yes, I do understand that there might have been a problem of timing and budget (we’re steadily progressing towards the climax) but still. Meh.
I only appreciated the Akiho/Yuna scene, which for its directing choice it really seemed interesting to me. The street is the same where the SyaoSaku reunion in episode 1 happened, and it was really trying to deliver some kind of romantic tension between the two, in the beginning. And then, the punch in the stomach, but I’ll talk about this later.
AAAAND now that I took that out of myself, let’s proceed with the storyline!
I honestly thought Swing would completely destroy Tomoyo’s house, I pulled my hair at one point, I liked the tension and how the card seemed “scary”. This definitely got a meaning (rif. upcoming chapter 23). AND YES I THOUGHT OF X ‘s KEKKAIs!!
Everything was justified with the earthquake, but still it did quite some damage. I think this is just an earth-type kind of card, but not the counterpart of Earthy yet. I’ll still stand by my theory, for the moment.
Kaito and Akiho’s scene was sooooo creepy. I was kinda disappointed by him in this episode, while I still kinda trusted him before, now I see some other side of him that I don’t like. I’ll explain myself better: he rewinded time because he mentioned Fujitaka’s job when Akiho didn’t even talk about Fujitaka yet, to him. She was going to find out or become suspicious of him, so he needed to revert back time (what a noob, Kaito).
Despite Akiho’s scared look, he did that anyway. I still think Kaito is one of those Clamp-ish characters who start with good intentions and end up overdoing things, even stepping on the feelings of the person they’re trying to protect in the first place (another reference to upcoming chapter 23). And that’s not a good excuse so yeah, I’m a bit wary of Kaito right now. If your theory ends up being true, I might change my mind, but for the moment……
So he REWINDed time (ED theme reference) with that seemingly made up spell (it’s not latin, apparently). It’s also VERY interesting to note that what he says in Japanese is very similar to Sakura’s old release spell, especially in the part of “meiyaku no moto” (basing on the oath) and “keiyaku no moto” (basing on the contract).
So we had a taste of Kaito’s time rewinding magic in the anime, before it even happened in the manga (but we’ll see something else in chapter 23).
Back to Meiling and Sakura, I LOVED how these two girls bonded over this short vacation. They really are like sisters now. Meiling taught SO MUCH to Sakura during her stay, and she finally let us know why she came in the first place. She wanted to check on Sakura and give her the necessary strength, because she surely felt her insecurity over the phone (that “don’t get hurt or you’ll make everyone cry” was already a warning).
I loved the contrast to the old series, how she didn’t exactly came here for Syaoran (not directly at least) but for Sakura.
And that first name basis switching………I begged for it to happen, and they delivered it!! Just before she left, as I predicted! I am so happy, you have no idea!! The “Sakura” name rolls so perfectly from her tongue XD
And, before leaving Tomoeda, she left her last warnings to Syaoran too. First, he must talk to Sakura. And not about the card thingies he knows, but as a general rule for their relationship. IF there’s something he wants to say, something he wants to know, he has to speak to her directly. Meiling telling him teasingly “Why don’t you ask her directly?” was lowkey pointing to that. No relationship works if there isn’t communication, and guess what those two are lacking right now?
And the last warning, is to not do anything reckless in order to bring his goal to a completion, because if anything happened to him, the one who would feel devastated would be Sakura nonetheless. And Meiling right now loves Sakura too much for letting him ruin their relationship and Sakura’s smile like that. Basically Mei loves them both way too much and she won’t allow anyone to make them sad, not even Sakura or Syaoran themselves. Syaoran’s “Yes.”, however, seemed like a lie to me. I’ve drawn a parallel with a scene in the Sealed Card movie that frankly got me quite worried. Will Sakura really manage to open his eyes? I hope so.
Gosh I’m gonna miss Meiling so much. These 4 episodes had little plot advancement, but huge character and relationships development. HUGE.
Next time, we’ll be back on track with Appear (WTF is that monster in the preview?????) and I think we’ll start the steady trip to the climax.
SIGH. I don’t want it to be over and honestly I do think it needs a movie to explain properly all the secrets.
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“SIGH. I don’t want it to be over and honestly I do think it needs a movie to explain properly all the secrets.”
another movie and another series! not just cause i LOVE ccs like crazy, but also cause i think all these major character and plot developments clear card arc has delivered need space to breathe and get tied up and/or pushed further, and i think another series would do that perfectly. lets see sakura face another non clow reed related enemy. lets see sakura grow her hair enough to braid it! lets see syaoran open his eyes and communicate with his much beloved girlfriend! lets see the Li family (aka the secret magical mafia family) pleeeeaaassseee!!!
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I forgot to write about the animation on this episode but I fully agree with you: it was meh.
About Kaito, you know CLAMP needs a suspicious character, someone for the readers to believe it’s the villain, but we all know that’s not the case. I am not saying you’re still gonna love him after everything is revealed xD you might still hate him.
It’s also VERY interesting to note that what he says in Japanese is very similar to Sakura’s old release spell, especially in the part of “meiyaku no moto” (basing on the oath) and “keiyaku no moto” (basing on the contract).
Yeahhhhh I noticed that. To whom did he make a contract with?
No relationship works if there isn’t communication, and guess what those two are lacking right now?
Yeah, it’s really weird. Like, what happened? They look so distant. I understand Syaoran is hiding things for Sakura’s own protection, but poor Sakura ^^” I would be feeling miserable if I was in her shoes. I think Syaoran should “fake” more that everything is fine.
These 4 episodes had little plot advancement, but huge character and relationships development. HUGE.
True!
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“About Kaito, you know CLAMP needs a suspicious character, someone for the readers to believe it’s the villain, but we all know that’s not the case. I am not saying you’re still gonna love him after everything is revealed xD you might still hate him.”
I might still be salty at him for quite a while, yes XD I’ve been holding a grudge against Eriol for years, after all. Now I love him, btw.
“I would be feeling miserable if I was in her shoes. I think Syaoran should “fake” more that everything is fine.”
She is feeling bad, but she’s chosen to wait. My opinion? She’s gonna get tired of waiting rather soon, especially if she starts to see things escalating (in a bad way). I want to see Sakura getting a bit mad at Syaoran, is that possible?
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“I want to see Sakura getting a bit mad at Syaoran, is that possible?”
i think so! she definitely has a fiery streak to her and she has no trouble getting mad at touya and kero when pushed. touya is her bro and kero is like family to her. so i think this more fiery (?) side of sakura will spread to syaoran if he pushes her enough.
i kinda like that CLAMP are showing that syaoran and sakuras relationship is in no way perfect or easy. i was a little afraid that CLAMP would make their relationship too perfect but the was their relationship is being shown in clear card makes it more real.
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*the way
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“The animation quality for this episode was really meh, but most of all, they broke the tradition of the fight scenes for Meiling, which featured (both in episode 43 and 60) outstanding animation sequences. This time it was full of still frames and I felt so disappointed.”
I agree, I remember when I was in elementary school with dreams of being a badass martial artist, I’d replay Meiling’s fighting scenes over and over and try to recreate them myself. This episode is REALLY lacking by comparison.
“I think this is just an earth-type kind of card, but not the counterpart of Earthy yet. I’ll still stand by my theory, for the moment.”
I was thinking that too, just because the kanji at the top of the card has nothing to do with earth stuff, not like Gale and Aqua’s kanji.
“It’s also VERY interesting to note that what he says in Japanese is very similar to Sakura’s old release spell, especially in the part of “meiyaku no moto” (basing on the oath) and “keiyaku no moto” (basing on the contract).”
Right? What was his promise, I wonder?? And to who??
“And, before leaving Tomoeda, she left her last warnings to Syaoran too. First, he must talk to Sakura. And not about the card thingies he knows, but as a general rule for their relationship. IF there’s something he wants to say, something he wants to know, he has to speak to her directly. Meiling telling him teasingly “Why don’t you ask her directly?” was lowkey pointing to that. No relationship works if there isn’t communication, and guess what those two are lacking right now?”
Totally agree, and I’m glad the anime is taking the time to point this out, this problem happens way too often in couples portrayed in anime. I half wonder if Sakura’s references to something being off with these card captures is Syaoran’s frequent absences during them.
“And the last warning, is to not do anything reckless in order to bring his goal to a completion, because if anything happened to him, the one who would feel devastated would be Sakura nonetheless. And Meiling right now loves Sakura too much for letting him ruin their relationship and Sakura’s smile like that. Basically Mei loves them both way too much and she won’t allow anyone to make them sad, not even Sakura or Syaoran themselves.”
Meiling made me realize, Tomoyo has really been off the ball in this series. I love that Meiling has matured so much and is looking out for both Sakura and Syaoran, but Tomoyo used to be the voice of reason and motherly advice. I’m kinda sad that Tomoyo has been reduced to comic relief with Kero. Meiling is certainly in a better position to offer insight on Syaoran, but Tomoyo used to be quite perceptive.
“Next time, we’ll be back on track with Appear (WTF is that monster in the preview?????)”
I wonder if the anime will expand on Appear’s magic. Reading the manga, I couldn’t quite tell what it was that Appear did differently from Action. Appear took the desserts everyone made and made them move. Action made the trees move. You’d think Appear would be more like The Create, but…
“SIGH. I don’t want it to be over and honestly I do think it needs a movie to explain properly all the secrets.”
AGREED.
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“I was thinking that too, just because the kanji at the top of the card has nothing to do with earth stuff, not like Gale and Aqua’s kanji.”
EXACTLY, exactly! I might go as far as to say that they’re trying to use it as a red herring, people now are thinking that she captured the Earth card….and then when the real Earthy counterpart will appear, hell is gonna break loose and it’ll be the final showdown.
“Meiling made me realize, Tomoyo has really been off the ball in this series.”
I think Tomoyo’s moment is about to arrive. They wanted Meiling to play an important part because she’s a pretty loved character in Japan, but now that she’s out of the picture, the one who will support Sakura through the end will be Tomoyo. And I’m still waiting for Tomoyo and Syaoran’s heart-to-heart talk.
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Before reading what other people have to say, I’ll summarize my own thoughts on the episode here.
This episode was a great breath of fresh air, starting right off with some Card Captor action in the first 5 minutes and then fitting in another card fight in the same episode, as opposed to all of the slice of life focus we’ve gotten throughout most of this season.
I loved seeing Sakura display her competency at using her powerful card magic. She instantly knew to use Seige to trap the card so that it can’t cause more damage, and then the Fly card acting on its own and rocketing her towards the earth dragon so that she can capture it just as it’s about to smash Tomoyo’s house, and then celebrating with her by flying around in circles, that was great. Even though most of these cards don’t have a humanoid form, it’s nice to see that at least some of them have a personality.
The 2nd card fight in this episode was mostly Meiling’s time to shine, but Sakura was still able to display her competency in capturing cards by realizing that its weak point was both of its shoulders. They looked really cool fighting it together, and I’m glad that Meiling got to play a vital role in capturing a card before leaving (and it’s probably for the better anyway, to not have to keep tampering with the manga’s plot to include her in some way).
It makes sense that Meiling was acting so mature and motherly towards Sakura, because she’s always had a big matriarchal family while Sakura has only had her dad and big brother, so she’s sort of filling in the void of a mother figure for Sakura while she’s visiting. I didn’t know this would be when Meiling would go back to Hong Kong, but this was a perfect send-off for her. She’s such a great ally and friend to Sakura, and this episode established that extremely well, and that part where she reminded Sakura of her invincible spell, that gave me goosebumps.
I get the feeling that Kaito is doing some sort of convoluted magic ritual involving Akiho’s dreams, the book that she’s reading, and the Clear Cards… And the dreams that Sakura has been having show that their goal is ultimately to steal Sakura’s key, and the book of Clow is probably the book that Akiho came to Japan to search for… Akiho getting her memory erased by Kaito could be some sort of way of blocking Akiho’s powers so that Sakura can’t sense anything from her. And I’m pretty sure that Sakura’s cards have been lost in the dream world ever since they turned clear. That’s about all I can guess for now.
Honestly this might be the best episode yet in this arc. Both the action and the emotional character development stuff were really good, and despite the somewhat recycled card plot content (Swing and Struggle being just like Earthy and Fight/Twin), the character development is so good that it easily makes up for that.
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Oh yeah the nod to X’s Kekkai magic in this episode, but I also just realized, the way Struggle seemed like a literal fighting machine, maybe she’s a nod to CLAMP’s Angelic Layer?
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It seems I forgot to comment, things have kept me busy last week. *sigh*
Let me get back to the scene with Kaito. It seems he has been investigating on Fujitaka on his own and him mentioning there may be interesting books in his library, means there should be more Clow books in his possessions. Talking of which, since he isn’t Clow’s reincarnation in the anime, it would be nice to learn own he came by THE CLOW book.
Then Kaito rewind time, to erase his mistake. It probably only affected he and Akiho, but Akiho didn’t remember a thing while he did. A brand new magic circle. It’s been over 15 years we got a new one, which was Yuuko’s. Every other character since used Clow’s, the Lee family’s or Sakura’s. Even Feiwang Read, Watanuki and Xinghuo used Clow’s circle. This mean Kaito probably isn’t related to any of them. There’s still an opening for Fay, as we never seen a magic circle from him, but more probably, his magic isn’t of that nature. Then the formula, tina rie triax… It doesn’t sound like any proper language, maybe it’s the same as the one the Alice in Clockland book is written in? It remind me of Fay again, his “vi la prinshia” he said to clone Sakura when she came back from her suicide trip in Tokyo. Not that it has to be the same language, more like the same kind of magic language cryptic sound.
Anyway, the scene gave me a Tokyo Babylon Seishirou vibe, when he make Subaru and Hokuto sleep so he can be rough with their opponent.
Other than that, I’m sad Meiling is leaving, she was adding a lot more introspection in the series. we are back to wonder what the characters can be thinking.
For the technical part, the storyboard was done by Sakata Shun’ichi, who also did episode 13. Episode director is Nishihata Yuki who did episode 6. Supervising the image diretors is Hamada Kunihiko, the chara designer, he has been on the job since episode 9. Under is order are Yoshikawa Kaori and Horiuchi Hiruyuki, the first worked on episode 6 and the second is new. So not some major team on this episode, I guess they should have hired one of their action image directors, both card capture would have benefit.
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lol! forget what I just said about the staff, that’s for episode 17. For episode 16, the story board is Oohara Minoru, same as episode 6, then the rest of the staff is the same as episode 8. IIMURA Masayuki as episode director, with Yamamoto Keiko and Nasuno Fumi as image directors, but they are under Hamada Kunihiko supervison this time.
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