There's more to Card Captor Sakura than just a quest to recapture the cards of the elements that have been let loose on the world. It's about relationships. It's about adventure. It's about friendship. Let's step on over and see how our story begins...

A young girl stands atop a tall building. The bright lights of Tokyo Tower brighten the night sky. Why is she there? She sees a book with a strange looking creature on the cover. Down at her feet, pastel colored wings appear on her shoes. The wind rustles as she's suddenly closer to the Tower. Then, she leaps from the rooftop, gliding downward...

The series begins with Kinomoto Sakura. Sakura is a normal Grade 4 student at Tomoeda Elementary School. At school she loves PE and music and dislikes math. She lives at home with her father and her older brother, Touya. As older brothers do, Touya makes a habit of teasing Sakura as often as possible, frequently referring to her as a noisy monster. Sakura's father, Fujitaka, is an archaeology professor at a local university. Sakura's mother died when she was 3 years old. Every morning Sakura straps on her brightly colored rollerblades and tags along with Touya on the way to school. On the way, Touya usually meets up with his best friend Yukito. Yukito is in the same class as Touya and is the one that Sakura has a crush on. As they go separate ways, Tomoyo, Sakura's best friend, meets her at the school's gate. Tomoyo is the daughter of the president of a large corporation. She is very good at cooking and sewing and has a love for videotaping things, specifically Sakura. As the first episode progresses, we're introduced to Sakura's classmates and teachers, several of which you can learn more about on the character guide page.

After school, Sakura gets home to find that her father and Touya will be home late. She goes over to the refrigerator to get something to eat when she hears a noise coming from the basement. Unsure who or what it is, she grabs her baton from her PE class and decides to just peek in the door to investigate.

From the doorway, Sakura notices that the noise is coming from a glowing book on the shelf. She carefully pulls the book off the shelf. On the front cover is the picture of a winged beast. She looks at the book and notices that there is a lock on the side. As she examines the book, she hears the noise again as the lock starts to glow. Readjusting her grip, Sakura holds the book tightly, dropping her baton on the floor. The book mysteriously glows and the lock opens.

Sakura slowly opens the cover. Inside, she finds that the book has no pages, but instead contains a deck of cards. She pulls out one of the tall, slender cards and flips it over, reading the text at the bottom. "Wind... Windy," she says. The card begins to glow in her hand. Suddenly a large gust of wind swirled though the room, pulling the remaining cards out of the book and propelling them magically through the ceiling to the outside world.

Stunned, Sakura sits on the floor, staring at the book. To her surprise, the ordeal wasn't over yet. The book began glowing again, but this time a small lion-like creature with little white wings popped out from the cover. Sakura freaks out wondering if the creature is a toy or something. She finds that the creature is called Kerberos, the Guardian Beast of the Seal. Kero was made by the book's creator, Clow Reed, as a protector for the cards inside. Kero explains that when the seal of the book is broken, disaster will befall upon the world. Once freed from the seal, the cards will take on a life of their own and only an individual with magical powers will be able to stop them. Kero tells Sakura that she has the magic within her to recapture the cards and prevent their destructive powers.

So in ceremonial fashion, Kero asks Sakura to stand and begins to recite the lines of a verbal contract... "O Key of the Seal. There is one who wishes for a contract with thee. A girl, named Sakura. O Key, grant her power! Release!" Kero tells Sakura to take the key-turned-wand, exclaiming, "It's the birth of the Card Captor!"

And so begin the adventures of the Card Captor Sakura as she reluctantly sets out to capture the forces of the scattered cards.