Cardcaptor Sakura

Directed by Morio Asaka

It's an anime TV adaptation of a Japanese manga series with the same name, written and illustrated by the manga group Clamp.

The show was produced traditionally in 2D, hand drawn, with traditional anime cell shading techniques.

Since it was released in the 90's it mostly was made in layers, having the backgrounds drawn by hand with acrylics and later on animating the characters over with celluloid sheets. (as seen here)

One key factor I found very interesting is that the director was also the storyboarder for the series which makes me think of how Hayao Miyazaki tends to redrawn frames from his own production pipeline since he always strives for perfection and is a very devoted artist.

The episode I am reviewing is the very first of the series.

Sakura Kinomoto, a 10 year old school girl keeps having reccuring dreams about a peculiar book and the Tokyo Tower.

After returning home from school, Sakura thinks someone has entered her house and decides to investigate the basement. It's there that she finds the Clow Book, an ancient and magical book that contains a set of cards called Clow Cards. She accidentally breaks its seal, unleashing the magical Clow Cards and the creatures sealed inside into the world. The cards' guardian, Cerberus, awakens and explains that she’s released a deck of magical cards created by the great sorcerer Clow Reed.

Sakura finding the Clow Book in her basement.

Despite her protests, Kero insists that Sakura must become a Cardcaptor and retrieve the Clow Cards before they work mischief on the world and hands her the magical Clow Wand so she can catch and seal the cards back into the book.

Finally, with help of the only card at her disposal, The Windy, our heroine sets in motion to capture her first wild card, The Fly. After a long and dangerous battle Sakura succesfully captures The Fly and gains the ability to turn her Clow Wand into a sort of flying broomstick which becomes her most iconic tool throughout the series.

Sakura flying on the Clow Wand with the power of The Fly card

The anime adaptation was popular with viewers in Japan, despite having a timeslot that normally has low viewership. The "Cardcaptor Sakura" anime adaptation won the ANime Grand Prix award for best anime in 1999. In May 2000, volumes 8 and 17 of the anime LD release were among the top selling titles, with volume 17 being in first place.

Although both the manga and animated versions of "Cardcaptor Sakura" concluded years ago, the series is a beloved anime and the characters remain popular to this day.

Sadly, Sakura and her friends did poorly with the English audience. The series was cut from 70 episodes to 39 and reworked by Nelvana as Cardcaptors, which aired on The Kids’ WB during the 2000-2002 seasons.

And speaking from wnat I remember as a child, the series was very popular in Mexico as well.

My generation gre up with the boom anime was having with it's neo era in the late 90's.

Shows like Dragon Ball, Pokémon, Digimon and even Sakura were really popular among kids and luckily for us, latinamerican dubs are not bad or at least not as bad as some English dubs tend to be criticized.