Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Genre: Mahou Shoujo (Magical Girl)/ Comedy/ Drama
Review Status- Full (50 Chapters/ 50 Chapters or 12 Volumes/ 12 Volumes)
Summary- Sakura Kinomoto was an ordinary 4th grader until the day she opened a strange book and let dozens of powerful magic cards loose on the world. Keroberos, the Guardian of the Clow Cards, informs Sakura that it is now her responsibility to find and capture the freed cards. However, much to the reluctant Sakura's dismay, things aren't going to be easy for her; simply saying magic words and waving her wand around isn't good enough. Each card is a living, thinking, extremely powerful being. She'll have to learn to cope with her new responsibilities, as well as ordinary troubles involving love, school, family, and friends. With the support of her friend Tomoyo and a young boy with powers of his own, she must learn how to use her newly awakened magical abilities to collect each card and prevent the disaster that will befall the world if she doesn't. (From ANN.com)
Art- It’s CLAMP- always gorgeous!
Review- Well, here’s one of the titles from the well-known CLAMP-verse. For those who don’t know, CLAMP is a group of four Mangaka (Manga artists) famous (or infamous, as the case may be) for having interweaving stories and/or characters from all of their series. That’s why you have a grown-up Sakura and Syaoran in Tsubasa Chronicles, who interact with Yuuko in xxxHolic, who etc. etc. etc. Fortunately, as this is one of their earlier works, they have little to no references to other series within this one.
Which leaves us with a fairly clean-cut story, no different from the description above. Sakura herself is a wonderful character. She’s energetic, friendly, and while not stupid, maybe not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It’s shown early on that, while she does have the guts to take action and do stuff, she is a fallible character- she has her own issues to deal with, such as liking her older brother’s best friend, having no mom, and being deathly afraid of ghosts. Her friends are just as rounded- out characters as she is, with Tomoyo being an awesomely fangirlish best friend (I wish my friends would make custom clothes for me!), and Syaoran dealing with the pressures of an ancient family legacy while having to compete with Sakura to gain control of the cards.
Then there’s the story itself- while capturing the cards is a large part of it, the story seems like more of a catalyst for the growth and development of the characters instead of the main focus of the series.
The only problem that I can see (and why this isn’t earning a ten) is that I have seen the anime, which is far superior in almost every respect. The characters and their families are fleshed out far more, the problems they encounter take more thought to overcome, they even add a member to the cast that, while annoying in the beginning, soon became one of my favorites. Because I know how lacking in scope this is to the anime, I can only give it a 7/10.
Recommended: Yes, but only as an addition (or supplement to) the anime. Watch that instead. This is also friendly to those of all ages- they ran an American version of this on Saturday morning TV a few years ago called Cardcaptors. Cardcaptors is crap. Watch the original, preferably with your little sister beside you.
Others you might also like: Chobits if you’re a bit older, Magic Knight Rayearth, Shugo Chara! for a slightly younger crowd.
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