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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

persuasion posts

Why you should read Cardcaptor Sakura

July 24, 2012 by Melinda Beasi 6 Comments

It’s been quite a while since I sat down to write one of my “persuasion posts.” I’d nearly forgotten that my very first of these was for another work of CLAMP’s. Of course, the two series are about as different as they could be, yet both exhibit some of my favorite CLAMP-y traits, particularly CLAMP’s ability to create warm, believable relationships within an unbelievable setting. With that in mind, let’s talk about…

Cardcaptor Sakura was CLAMP’s second series (after Magic Knight Rayearth) to be published in the shoujo anthology Nakayoshi, and the first created from the start with Nakayoshi‘s sensibilities specifically in mind. Thus, the series’ heroine, Sakura, was written to be the same age as the magazine’s core readership and also as a magical girl, though CLAMP had little experience with the genre. Of course, CLAMP being CLAMP, they’d do this in their own way.

The Premise:

“Sometimes, when you read too much manga, you get jaded. You think you’ve seen it all; you think that a whole genre sucks, like battle manga or Boy’s Love manga or four-panel manga. At times like these, sometimes you just need to read one really good manga to realize that a good enough artist can make even the most stereotypical premise seem fresh. For me, when it comes to ‘magical girl’ manga, that manga is Cardcaptor Sakura by CLAMP.”

– Jason Thompson, ANN/Jason Thompson’s House of 1000 Manga

Fourth grader Sakura Kinomoto lives with her older brother Toyo and her widower dad in the fictional town of Tomoeda, Japan, not far outside Tokyo. Sakura is afraid of ghosts, hates math, is great at sports, and loves to eat pancakes. She’s also the official collector of the Clow Cards, a deck of magical cards accidentally released from a book Sakura found in her father’s study. She’s guided in her task by a cute, winged, teddy bear-like creature named Cerberus (usually referred to by Sakura as “Kero-chan”), guardian of the book and, like the cards themselves, a creation of the long-deceased sorcerer Clow Reed. Sakura is also generally accompanied by her best friend, Tomoyo, who designs and sews elaborate costumes for Sakura to wear on her magical girl adventures—and captures it all on video.

(click image to enlarge)

If the above paragraph alone represented the entirety of Cardcaptor Sakura, it would already be the absolute dearest of all dear things in the world. But of course, there’s more.

Just as Sakura’s really getting the hang of the whole cardcaptor business, along comes Syaoran Li, a Chinese transfer student and direct descendent of Clow Reed, who has traveled to Tomoeda to capture the cards himself. Certain that an ordinary girl like Sakura is in no way up for the task, he follows her on all her adventures, sometimes helping out, but as time goes on and Sakura becomes more confident in her role, Syaoran spends more time simply being struck by the awesomeness of Sakura’s developing power which is ultimately far greater than his own.

Then there’s Yukito—a sweet, bespectacled young man who happens to be both Sakura’s brother’s best friend and (unbeknownst to Yukito) the “temporary” human form of Yue, second guardian of the Clow Cards and one thorny supernatural dude. Yue is also skeptical of Sakura’s abilities and unwilling to accept a new master of the Clow Cards, which forces Sakura into the position of having to win the right to his loyalty by defeating him in a fight—one that potentially poses grave consequences for Sakura and everyone she holds dear.

(click images to enlarge)

But in Cardcaptor Sakura, even the most dire of dire situations is something that can be overcome. Sakura’s mantra, “I’m sure I’ll be all right!” is more than just an uplifting quasi-magical spell, it’s a philosophy of the manga as a whole. Scary circumstances may arise, possible villains appear, but the world is a warm and generous place, and even our deepest wounds can be healed with the help of loving friends.

The Relationships:

Sakura’s got a huge crush on sweet, unaffected Yukito who is (sadly for Sakura) already pretty well hung up on her brother. But Toya’s not the only rival for Sakura’s affections. Prickly Syaoran also becomes quite bothered in Yukito’s presence, much to his own dismay.

(read right-to-left, click images to enlarge)



Meanwhile, new British transfer student Eriol is showing lots of interest in Sakura, just as Syaoran begins to realize that Yukito may not be his heart’s desire after all. And rounding out all the romantic complication is smiling, devoted Tomoyo, whose best friend is oblivious to her affections—a reality that kindhearted Tomoyo is mature enough to take in stride.

(click image to enlarge)

If this is all sounding kind of relationship-y and not all that magical-girl-y, well… it should. Though CLAMP makes fun and stylish use of Sakura’s supernatural journey, it’s her emotional journey that’s really the point of it all. Throughout the series, Sakura finds herself needing to re-evaluate her feelings for most of those nearest and dearest to her, as she becomes aware of the many different kinds of love she feels for them. This is the heart of Cardcaptor Sakura, and it’s one that absolutely shines.

(click image to enlarge)

One of the things you’ll note, even just from reading this description, is that this series tends to treat its same-sex crushes and romantic relationships pretty much the same as its heterosexual crushes and romantic relationships—which is to say that they’re all pretty chaste, and all very readily accepted by Sakura, who for the most part acts as the series’ moral center.

Even in a CLAMP manga, this is pretty refreshing, for although CLAMP has several series that portray same-sex romantic love (Tokyo Babylon and Legal Drug spring immediately to mind), there’s a purity to Cardcaptor Sakura—and to Sakura herself—that keeps these relationships from ever reading as deviant or exotic, as they so often do in manga (including CLAMP manga like, say, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland). And while it would be inaccurate to attribute anything we might recognize as actual gay identity to the series’ portrayal of its same-sex pairings, this straightforward, innocent approach rings true for a character like Sakura, whose ideas about love are being formed, slowly but surely, right before our eyes.

(click image to enlarge)

There’s a scene early in the second of the Dark Horse omnibus volumes, in which Sakura and a very embarrassed Syaoran are discussing their mutual feelings for Yukito. At the end of the conversation, Sakura arrives at this simple conclusion: “We can’t help it. We just… like him.” This is Sakura’s romantic worldview in a nutshell. She doesn’t know why people love who they love, or what any of it might mean in the eyes of her school, her town, Japan, East Asia, or humankind as a messy, divisive whole. She just knows that they do, and that’s more than enough for her. And with Sakura at the helm, it feels perfectly natural for her clear, unspoiled perspective to permeate the series overall.

Of course, romantic love is not the only variety on the table, and that’s one of the series’ strengths as well. Even the story’s romantic couples are decidedly friends first, and whatever “floaty” feelings may be buzzing around, it’s clear that those friendships stand strong, with or without anything more heart-throbbing behind them. Family relationships stand out as well, particularly Sakura’s relationships with her brother and her father—both of which are every bit as charming and throughly-written as her budding romantic adventures.

The Adorableness:

In our anniversary edition of Off the Shelf, David Welsh writes of Dark Horse’s first Cardcaptor Sakura omnibus,

I’ve already used the word “adorable” twice in this review, and you should gird yourself for me using it again, because this book is adorable in all of the best ways a thing can be adorable. The character designs? Adorable. The jokes and romance? Adorable. The sparkly, easy-to-read art? Adorable. It’s cheerful, heartwarming stuff that still manages to be thoughtful and exciting, and I can’t wait to read more of it, because, beyond being very endearing magical-girl manga, it seems like it might be heading interesting, even daring places.

As usual, David is not wrong. Cardcaptor Sakura is endlessly adorable. And by that I don’t mean “precious” or “saccharine” or anything like that, because Cardcaptor Sakura is none of those things. Nor is it any kind of grand satire or comment on the genre. It doesn’t need to be, because it’s just so skillfully created as exactly what it is. Cardcaptor Sakura is straight-out adorable—warm, heartfelt, genuinely cute, smart when it needs to be, and often funny.

Sakura? Adorable. Tomoyo and her costumes? So freaking adorable. Toya and Yukito? Dreamy and adorable. Syaoran crushing on Yukito and Sakura? Absolutely, positively adorable.

And while the main cast is, as I’ve said, extremely adorable, CLAMP doesn’t skimp when it comes to supporting characters, either. Most of Cardcaptor Sakura‘s minor characters are just as charming and idiosyncratic as its leads. Particular favorites of mine, for instance, are Sakura’s classmates Chiharu and Yamazaki. The two have been a couple since kindergarten, and much of their page time in the series is spent with Yamazaki conveying completely made-up facts to the other children while Chiharu rolls her eyes affectionately. Later, British transfer student Eriol joins in, much to Yamazaki’s delight. Observe:

(read right-to-left, click images to enlarge)



The Books:

The out-of-print TOKYOPOP books are becoming difficult to find, but fortunately as of September 26th, the entire series will be available in Dark Horse’s beautiful omnibus editions—worth the wait if you don’t already own the series (and probably even if you do). The omnibus editions come in a wonderful large trim size, printed on beautiful, smooth, white paper that shows off CLAMP’s delicate line work to its greatest advantage. Each volume contains beautiful color pages, including bonus images at the end of each omnibus, like these lovely drawings of Yue and Cerberus in their true forms.

I’m looking forward to changing out my older copies of the last three volumes for Dark Horse’s shiny new omnibus, and I plan to reread the entire series as soon as that volume is released.

Won’t you join me?


To submit your contributions to the CLAMP MMF for inclusion in this month’s archive, please send your links by email to melinda@mangabookshelf.com or via Twitter to @mbeasi. If you would like your contribution(s) to be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, please email them to Melinda, along with any included images.


Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: cardcaptor Sakura, clamp, Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, persuasion posts

Why you should read NANA

October 18, 2008 by Melinda Beasi 43 Comments

It’s difficult for me to imagine that anyone really needs me to sell NANA to them but the truth is I will enjoy writing this, and if it encourages one or two more people to jump on the NANA bandwagon, that will thrill me.

NANA is the story of two young women, both named Nana, who meet on the train to Tokyo and, through a series of coincidences, end up becoming roommates in an old seventh-floor walkup. In many ways that apartment, number 707 (“Nana” in Japanese means “seven” by the way), is nearly as important a character as the two Nanas themselves.

Written and drawn by Ai Yazawa (author of Paradise Kiss, among others), NANA contains some of the most authentic human beings I have so far encountered in manga. Yazawa’s characters are rich and complex, each just a little bit (or more than a little bit) broken as most of us humans are, and because of this, their relationships with each other and their choices, both good and bad, feel so real, they could come straight out of the reader’s own life. It would be so easy for a story like this, which focuses mainly on relationships, to fall into soap opera-like melodrama but the intensely real characters save it from doing so, time and time again. This is especially surprising in a manga where a good portion of the characters are rock stars.


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Filed Under: FEATURES, persuasion posts Tagged With: manga, nana, persuasion posts

Making the case for Banana Fish

September 5, 2008 by Melinda Beasi 17 Comments

One of the series I’m always trying to draw friends into is Akimi Yoshida’s classic shojo manga, Banana Fish. I first discovered this series, embarrassingly, through wikipedia, as I was trying to find shojo manga that I could really enjoy. It was this entry that piqued my interested in the series, citing a quote from Frederik L. Schodt, which described Banana Fish as “…one of the few girls’ manga a red-blooded Japanese male adult could admit to reading without blushing.” Right around the same time, mention of Banana Fish began turning up in interviews with Jason Thompson, just before the publication of his book, Manga: The Complete Guide, and though I don’t remember exactly what he said about it back then, it had the effect of spurring my interest into action, and before I knew it, I began buying the series.

I’m certainly not the only person who has tried to generate interest in Banana Fish. Shaenon Garrity made it part of her awesome Overlooked Manga Festival (one of my very favorites of that series so far), and to my mind, no further persuasion should be needed. Still, I find Banana Fish is a tough sell with friends. There’s no way to effectively preview the series, as it is difficult to find in libraries or brick and mortar bookstores. There are not even fan scanlations available to view. Anyone who wants to jump into this series pretty much has to commit to buying at least one book they may not end up liking, and I’ve found just a few who are willing to risk that. I’m going to try here to build on the case that Shaenon Garrity has already made for this series, with hope that even just one more person might choose to take that risk.

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Filed Under: FEATURES, persuasion posts Tagged With: banana fish, manga, persuasion posts

Why you should read xxxHolic

August 20, 2008 by Melinda Beasi 45 Comments

Once upon a time in my secret fannish life, sad and frustrated with the small size of the xxxHolic fandom, I created a so-called “persuasion post.” Its purpose was to inspire friends to begin reading the series, write lots of fanfiction, and join in on all my xxxHolic glee. I think, however, that this post deserves better than being hidden behind a fannish identity, so I have unearthed it from the clutter and reworked it for a broader audience. Behold, the new (de-fandomed) xxxHolic Persuasion Post:

Let your wishes be granted.

First of all, this post is specifically about the manga. The anime is nice enough in its way, but it can’t even begin to compare to the manga and I think it is better to watch it if you’ve already read the manga, so that you can fill in the blanks with your own mind.

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Filed Under: FEATURES, persuasion posts Tagged With: manga, persuasion posts, xxxholic

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