Cute! Cute! Cute!

I've just finished the first season of Cardcaptor Sakura and I must say, I gotta start watching crap anime again, the desire to buy the good stuff is gonna break me. I'm buying all of this series even though I haven't seen all of it. It's that good.  It's really too bad that this is sub only. With no dub my nieces won't be able to watch this until they are probably too old to want to watch it. I'm defiantly not the audience this series was made for but I still love it. It's so cute! 

Ten year old Sakura Kinomoto is living a pretty normal life with a loving family minus her mother who died when she was three. Sakura is well adjusted, well liked by her classmates, athletic and scared to death of any mention of ghosts.  She bickers with her older brother who picks on her all the time but is right there instantly if she ever gets in trouble.  She adores her father who is a major part of her life even though he's often busy with his work as an archeology professor. She has really good friends including Tomoyo Daidouji who's favorite thing in the whole world is making Sakura dress up in costumes and she has a HUGE puppy-love crush on her brother's best friend Yukito Tsukishiro.

All the people close to Sakura are caring and kind which you expect to see from a show like this and which I appreciate a lot. If only the world actually worked this way.  Well the story would be rather boring without some conflict so enter the Clow Cards. A mysterious book Sakura finds in her fathers basement library contains dozens of magical cards that are released when the book is opened and it is now Sakura's duty to capture the cards or a catastrophe will occur. 

Sakura is given a powerful rival in the form of Syaoran Li a cardcaptor from Hong Kong.  Syaoran and Sakura seem to be rivals in everything they do but as the series goes on they start helping each other capture cards more than fighting with each other over who gets the cards. They actually make very good partners and as Syaoran learns to trust Sakura their teamwork gets better and better.  There is probably something to Sakura's brother's immediate dislike of Li, "He's the one that will take Sakura away from me" he says. Hey, they're only 10 but stranger things could happen.

Sakura gets stronger as she captures the cards and she displays a lot of courage as she has to battle some of the more dangerous cards.  The cards basically make this series a 'monster of the week' series, but it's really more of a 'slice of life' series with the card getting captured just being something that happened that week too.

This all sounds like sweetness and light and it is but there is a story evolving here. A rather complex story as well. Adults will like the cuteness of it all, but there is enough going on behind the scenes to keep them interested too.

Rating: Excellent!  This is probably the mac-daddy of Magical Girl series and it delivers. Did I mention it's CUTE!