Throughout history, civilized man has been fascinated by the elements of the natural world. Earth. Fire. Rain. Clouds. They all have been the basis for myths and legends in many of the cultures of the Earth. This issue's featured series is a story based on one such myth.
What would happen if these wild and unpredictable forces were somehow able to be captured and harnessed? What would happen if these repressed forces were then accidentally released into the world and their powers took on lives of their own? Card Captor Sakura is the story of an ordinary school girl's quest as she reluctantly goes forth to save the world from the destructive magical forces that threaten the world.
The tale begins thousands of years before the present day. It was a catastrophic time. The elemental powers had grown in strength and had become unwieldy and dangerous. A powerful sorcerer named Clow Reed used his magical powers to overcome the elements and capture their powers in the form of a deck of cards. Reed sealed the cards in the mystical Clow Book to protect the world from their destructive power. As an additional precaution, Reed designed the book so that only someone with magical powers could open the seal and release the cards.
To watch over the contents of the book, Reed created two beings, a protector to watch over the seal and a judge to determine if a holder of the cards is worthy to possess them. On the front of the book is Kereberos, the Guard Beast of the Seal, who rules the Sun. On the back is Yue, the judge, who rules the Moon.
Thousands of years passed as the book was carefully hidden from the world until it was finally discovered by Kinomoto Fujitaka, the father of our heroine, Sakura. Fujitaka was unable to open the book himself so he filed it away with all the other books in his basement library. It collected dust for years until...
In June of 1996, the latest creation of the manga production group CLAMP made it's debut in the monthly magazine, Nakayoshi. One of the most followed manga series of the 1990s, Card Captor Sakura created a new following in the Shoujo-esque manga field. It wasn't a typical shoujo story. There were more surprises that you'd normally find in a shoujo manga. There were unexpected relationships. And there was definitely a high level of action and excitement.
The story for CLAMP created an opportunity to take the Card Captor to places beyond where it originally started. The story consisted of two parts. The first part was known as the Clow Cards series and had ended in the June 1998 issue of Nakayoshi. The second part was the Sakura Card series which started in the July 1998 issue of Nakayoshi and ended in the August 1999 issue. Shortly after the first installments were published, the manga series began to be published in self-contained volumes and continuing until the entire series had been republished in graphic novel form.
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Just before the first segment of the manga series ended, the anime version of Card Captor Sakura was produced by the anime production group, Madhouse. The series first aired April 7, 1998 on NHK and ran for 70 episodes. The first segment, the Clow Card series, ran for 46 episodes and the Sakura Cards series finished out the series with episodes 47 to 70. The series concluded its television run in March 2000 and had positioned itself as one of the best anime series on Japanese television.
During the run of the television series, Madhouse produced two Card Captor motion pictures. The first movie was released in Japan in August 1999. It follows the storyline of the television series with Sakura and company heading off to Hong Kong for some adventures while on a trip that Sakura won in a raffle contest. The second movie, which was released in July 2000, begins with a flower festival in Tomoeda. It's party time and everyone is enjoying themselves. Shaoran and Meiling come from Hong Kong for their Spring Break to enjoy the festivities. In the middle of all the festivities, the Sakura Cards begin disappearing and mysterious things begin happening in Tomoeda. Will Sakura be able to get all the Sakura Cards back? And what is the cause of the strange things that are happening? Only "The Sealed Cards" will tell the tale.
