Cardcaptor Sakura/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: In contrast to her Moe character in the original anime, the English dub makes Sakura into more of a tomboy.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: MANY, MANY fanfictions using Gratuitous Japanese have Kero/Touya/whoever call Syaoran 'gaki' (brat). Touya does call Syaoran this. Kero never says the word, instead calling Syaoran 'kozou' (closest translation might be 'punk') with Meiling going by 'komusume' (girl punk).
    • He actually says it once towards the end of the series.
  • Ear Worm: Many. Catch You Catch Me, Groovy!, Tobira o Akete, Platinum, Ashita e no Melody...
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Syaoran, enough to pose as the main plot point of the finale, be promoted to co-lead in the Cardcaptors dub, and inspire pivotal characters for later CLAMP works such as Tsubusa Reservior Chronicles anyway.
    • Kero may also count to a lesser extent.
  • Filipinos LOVE Card Captor Sakura. Other than the original series of Pokemon, Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Samurai X, Cyborg 009 and whatever else Animax Asia aired during 2003, Card Captor Sakura was one of post-martial law Philippines' favored, if not adored anime series. This series alone gave birth to a new generation of CLAMP fans, fil-otaku, and fujoshi.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Toya tells Sakura that she isn't fit to be a princess, then Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle came out with Princess Sakura as a main character.
    • Numerous fanfics had Sakura as a princess with Syaoran as a prince or some one who loves her, and equally vice versa. Come Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, and what do we see?
    • The Sealed Card movie had Sakura playing a princess in a school play and brought in the point of sacrificing one's love to capture Card #53. It doesn't happen, but then, what happens in Tsubasa? More recycling!
    • Avalon Code has several resemblances to Cardcaptor Sakura, which makes Sakura's dub surname Avalon an amusing coincidence.
    • When Sakura's father speaks to her class about his job, Syaoran shows quite a bit of intrest in archaeology. Come Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, that version of Syaoran is an Adventurer Archaeologist. Coincidence? Mythology Gag? Just as CLAMPed!?
    • Nelvana and Kids WB's attempts to boost Syaoran as a co lead in the Cardcaptors dub come off as ironic following his gradual evolution as Breakout Character for the original anime (and CLAMP media as a whole).
  • Ho Yay: Just why is Yue so ridiculously devoted to Clow?
    • Also, Touya and Yukito. They end up together.
      • In that particular instance, it shouldn't really count as YMMV, if it's actually Canon.
      • Agreed, you can't get much more canon than those two... One of CLAMP'S only canon boyxboy couples if I remember correctly.
  • Les Yay: Sakura and Tomoyo.
    • Sonomi had a crush on Nadeshiko, but it was one-sided.
    • Very possibly the Light and Dark cards
  • Informed Attribute: We're told multiple times during the anime that Tomoyo has an incredible voice; she gets several solos, Sakura swoons every time she sings, and her voice is the key to capturing at least one Clow Card. Despite that, her voice... doesn't really seem to be all that special. Unless that's intentional, and the point is that her voice is amazing for an elementary school student.
  • Macekre: The English adaptation known as Cardcaptors was edited and modified in an attempt to downplay the cutesy shoujo factor and moderate it for easier audience consumption across the board. In addition to also being a shoddy attempt at doing so, it was not looked upon favorably by the original fans or many new ones; production and DVDs for the series stopped being made after it was noted the original version released at the same time sold much better.
  • Memetic Mutation: A picture of Sakura with a "yeah, sure" expression is ubiquitous on many Image Boards.
  • Memetic Outfit: Several of Sakura's "battle costumes", but especially the rubber Meido Catgirl one (link).
  • Memetic Sex God: Clow Reed, if you really think about it. Most of his card spirits are beautiful women, he had a relationship with one of his students, one of his reincarnations runs off with a Miko and another was married to a model, he probably had other girlfriends or a wife or two not mentioned (as his family line has continued), and he had a history with Yue... Clow Reed Really Gets Around.
    • Sakura counts too.
  • Misblamed: 4Kids! Entertainment often takes heat for Cardcaptors from people who Did Not Do the Research. Nelvana itself gets unfairly maligned for the "Syaoran as main character".
  • Moe: Sakura starts off as a light example, but by the end of the series she is a probable Trope Codifier. She even won the first Saimoe Tournament, for crying out loud. (The TV show certainly marks the point at which the anime production companies noticed the Peripheral Demographic that sprang up around characters like her, and their buying power.) This is toned down slightly in the Nelvana dub, where she is given a more 'tomboyish' attitude and some of her 'cuter' or more vulnerable aspects are edited out.
    • Tomoyo also counts.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The Enchantress' practicing dark magic, despite Clow's warnings. It went as well as expected.
  • Never Live It Down: According to fandom, all Kaho does is seduce her students. This is based on her relationships with Touya, a former student from her time as a student teacher, and Eriol, the reincarnation of a centuries-old sorcerer who only looks like a child so he could blend in with Sakura's class and never was Kaho's student.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Sealed Card movie. The Nothing card may be cute as a doll and somewhat justified in her reasoning, but she also came across a Creepy Child Stalker with a Crush. The perfectly stoic expression she has as she essentially commits mass genocide probably doesn't help.
  • Periphery Demographic: Owing in part to the hilarious, cutesy and heartwarming nature of the series (and probably because of quite a bit the Yay subtext too), this show has a surprisingly large viewership of boys, older teens and even middle aged adults, clearly evident from the statistics of any popular Cardcaptor Sakura video on the internet.
  • Possession Sue: Some of Tomoyo's fans take her good traits, amp them Up to Eleven, and make her an absolute Purity Sue who OMG shall never be contradicted and WTF should never ever be denied Sakura-chan's looooove. Usually goes side to side with Syaoran bashing.
  • Purity Sue: Arguably Fujitaka, though his utter "perfection" is toned down by his relative lack of screentime and how his environment is idyllic enough.
  • Recycled Script: You'd have observed by now that many, many portions and ideas from The Second Movie were recycled in the plot of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.
  • Ron the Death Eater: A disturbing amount of fans see Yoshiyuki Terada as a pedophile taking advantage of Rika's emotions.
  • Shipping:
    • Die for Our Ship: In the fandom just about everyone has been targeted by Shippers at some point or another for being in the way of their OTP. Syaoran, Nakuru, Kaho and Mei-Ling are the preferred victims. There's enough to warrant its own page, and that's not even complete.
    • Ships That Pass in the Night: You'd be surprised to see how many fans ship Tomoyo with Eriol. Possibly a case of Pair the Spares.
    • Toy Ship: Sakura/Syaoran, Tomoyo->Sakura, and Chiharu/Yamazaki are all canon pairings to one degree or another, and there's plenty more non-canon pairings.
  • Spoiled by the Format: You can almost always tell when Sakura is going to miss the catch, simply because her attempt is actually animated instead of stock footage.
  • Squick: Some can see the slightly more questionable relationships as this
  • Suetopia: It isn't a world so straw as to bash anyone for not being a part of their happy land (Mainly because the series doesn't even have a real bad guy.), but CLAMP purposely made Cardcaptor Sakura a place where there is acceptance of all minorities, sexual orientations, children, adults, boys, girls... to set a good example for the children growing up watching it. Which is actually a lovely idea...
    • You'll notice that there are no malicious adults in this series. At all. The few adult characters that start out looking like they might spoil for a fight (for example, Sonomi's aggression towards Fujitaka) are quickly resolved and they join the Big Happy Family.
    • Arguably the cards count as true antagonists (especially the Nameless Card) even if they are all redeemed. Also Ruby Moon, while working for Eriol, repeatedly interferes with Touya's attempts to confront Yukito about Yue's nature and help him find an alternate source of magic so that he wouldn't fade away. Essentially, he was starving to death and Nakuru/Ruby Moon was blocking all attempts to save him.
      • And Eriol let her. Really a What the Hell, Hero? moment to everyone involved (except Sakura, who didn't know.)
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Occasionally accused of such due to the somewhat cutesy nature of the series as a whole (especially the title character). Then again for some, it's the key draw appeal.
  • Values Dissonance: Sakura asks Eriol about the religious beliefs of the people at the Church. Eriol responds not with a description of Christianity, but with what might as well be a description of Shinto. Sakura is moved when she hears it, and anyone who knows anything about Christianity is hit with a Broken Aesop.
  • The Woobie: Being a CLAMP work, the large majority of characters have at least some vague tragic aspect to their personality. Sakura may be the most consistent example throughout the series' run, due to her occasional Moe-aspects and more fragile emotional disposition, as well as being unwillingly dragged into the role of Cardcaptor to begin with.
    • Yukito is one during the Sakura Card arc. Yue is also revealed as one after a flashback shows how much Clow's death hurt him.
    • Jerkass Woobie: Syaoran may be the series' key example in this area, though following Character Development he is as much a standard Woobie as Sakura.
    • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Nothing Card in the second film. It's a card that alone has enough strength to counterbalance the other cards, and can return everything to nothingness. And it takes the form of... a sad little girl who was sealed away and only wants her friends (the other cards) back.
  • The Unfavorite: Tomoyo to her own mother compared with Sakura. Sonomi was obsessed with Nadeshiko when they were younger, and seems to have transferred her affection to Nadeshiko's daughter. Despite barely having time for her own family, Sonomi manages to make time to attend Sakura's school sporting events and even chaperone her on vacation. Anytime they're on screen together Sonomi fusses over Sakura and practically ignores Tomoyo [1]. Tomoyo even tells Sakura at one point that Sonomi grows Tomoyo's hair long and styles it like Nadeshiko's in order to remember her.
    • Amazingly, Tomoyo doesn't seem to resent Sakura at all for this. Maybe she agrees with her mother that Nadeshiko/Sakura is just that awesome.
    • At least one scene in the anime depicts Tomoyo with her mother, who has arrived home in worry after hearing she is sick and is shown doting over her in a similar manner as Sakura. This does at least give the idea of how loving she is to her daughter by normality. Add to that Sakura is extremely protective and kind towards Tomoyo, maybe she doesn't have it quite so bad.
  1. ↑ This may be an Observer Effect; since Sakura is the main character, there'd be no point in Sonomi being in the scene if not to interact with her
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