In 2001 when I was about five years old, Cardcaptors, the English dub was aired in Canada. This show was probably my first exposure to the anime genre and instantly became one of my favorites since I still love watching anime's today.
The show is focused around a fourth grader living in Reidington (Tomoeda). Her name is Sakura Avalon (Sakura Kinomoto). She lives with her father and brother since her mother passed away when she was younger. Sakura is supposed to portray a regular fourth grader, (but in my opinion, fourth graders don't cook breakfast or supper, do laundry or on a cheerleading team, but who knows).
One day when she's cleaning in her father's basement library, she finds a book. One her father had brought home claiming no one could open it. And on a whim, Sakura opens the book and inside is a passage of writing and a stack of cards.
Clow Cards.
She pulls one out and reads the title.
The Windy.
Not a moment later, a wind so strong blows around Sakura and a magic circle forms and all the cards in the book fly out of the book and out into the world. Finally the wind stops and Keroberos, Gaurdian of the Book of Clow emerges from the seal, only to his dismay of finding out that all the cards he was supposed to be protecting have vanished.
Now it's up to Sakura to find and capture all of the cards that escaped the Book of Clow and return them to their card form before they can reap too much havoc on the city.
Along the way she meets and gains her allies, like best friend Madison Taylor (Tomoyo Daidoji), her crush Julian Star (Yukito Tsukishiro), rival and new friends Li Showron (Syaoron Li), Meilin Rae (Meiling Li) and brother Tori Avalon (Toya Kinomoto).
Not only does she meet human allies but she gains the help of the Gaurdian Beast, Keroberos (Cerberus) and final judge, Yue.
Trivia
→ Carly McKillip who voiced Sakura Avalon in the English dub was given grief for sounding too much like a teenager and too much like a boy because of her low-toned voice, she was 11 years old at the time.
→ In the Japanese version of the anime, Li (Syaoron) actually had a crush on Julian (Yukito) but when it was dubbed for English audiences, they changed it so it seemed like Li was scared of Julian because of his eccentric attitude.
→ Sakura has phasmophobia, the fear of ghosts.
→ In the Japanese version of the anime, Julian (Yukito) is in love with Sakura's older brother Tori (Toya), but like most good things, when they dubbed the show, they removed that part.
→ In the manga, Madison (Tomoyo) is in love with Sakura who is completely oblivious.
→ In the Greek dub of the anime, Sakura's name was changed to Nicky, but the name she wrote on the cards stayed Sakura.
→ Sakura's favorite foods are rice omelettes and noodles.
→ Sakura's favourite colours are pink and white.
Favorite Cards
Picking just three cards was very hard to do since a lot of the cards have amazing stories, designs and powers.
I chose The Dash Card, The Twin Card and The Earthy Card.
I chose Dash because it's probably the cutest card in the deck. It's also seems to be given the most personality by showing love and affection, as well as anger, confusion and anxiety.
The second card I chose was the Twin card. I chose that card because when Meilin was starting to feel self conscious about herself and Li telling her that she was in the way when capturing cards, it took Meilin's knowledge of fighting and long years of practice with Li to defeat the card, proving you don't always need magic to win.
Lastly, I chose the Earthy card because not only does it have a beautiful design, but it was also brought in as the final element card Sakura has to catch, as well as the last card she had to catch to complete the book of Clow, which took a great deal of courage, skill and wit to capture it, plus, she did it completely on her own which is a proud moment.