Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Episode 8
This episode reminded me why I fell in love with Cardcaptor Sakura and not Cardcaptors. As previously mentioned I watched a LOT of Cardcaptors when I was in elementary school. I taped all the episodes, drew terrible fanart, and even bought the Clow Book. I really dug the show. It had giant splash pages of characters surrounded by flowers, plots that totally centered on characters feelings, and so many goddamn anime blushes. Middle school was the perfect time for me to be reading this because it’s around that time kids really start to figure out who they are. I was a pretty sensitive kid who got crushes on people all the time. I guess people today would call my middle school self a “cinnamon roll”. It wasn’t exactly the cool thing to be. Many young boys my age were already falling prey to society’s leanings toward toxic masculinity. Needing to be “manly”. Shoving down anything effeminate. The scene in today’s episode where Sakura and Syaoran share an adorable moment where she asks him out and he briefly touches her shoulder? It brought me back to reading that original manga. How those small human moments were treated with more weight than the battle scenes. How those moments were what Cardcaptor Sakura was really about, unlike damn near every other piece of media I was consuming at the time. I’m so happy Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card exists so a new generation of kids will get to experience what I did. Maybe there are some young boys in the audience who will be changed by this show. Maybe it’ll help, in some small way, to break them out that toxic masculinity and look at the world the way Sakura does. More boys and men need the messages of Cardcaptor Sakura. The world needs them. Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Kero, as always, was a comedic genius in this episode. Follow him on Twitter!
