Friday, March 9, 2018

Cardcaptor Sakura Vol. 1

Cardcaptor Sakura Vol. 1 by CLAMP (Mangaka Group)     200 pages

From Clamp comes the thrilling adventures of Sakura, a fourth-grader who accidentally finds an enchanted book called The Clow. The book once contained a set of magical Clow Cards, but they all escaped while the guardian of the book fell asleep. Now, Sakura is thrust into a mystical journey to capture all the cards before they wreak chaos and destruction!
I remember watching the anime of this as a kid and I loved it! Sakura was so cool, fighting magical creatures and saving the world. The manga is perhaps less cool, because it doesn't have the same vibrancy and action, but it's basically the show, just in stills. I enjoyed reading this because it was like a return to childhood.

A few things make it a bit creepy/strange:

1. I do not remember Sakura's mother being 16 (!!!) when she gets married to Sakura's dad (who is 25!!). That's a bit creepy, to me. If they were both adults, the age gap wouldn't seem so bad, but a 25 year old man marrying a 16 year old girl (who is still in high school), seems wrong to me (even if this is Japan and cultural acceptance might be different there).

2. I totally forgot that Sakura is in 4th grade while she's doing this. I remember a strong romance element that happens later in the series (anime), which, to me, seems a little funky for an elementary student story. There wasn't much romance in this first volume (except for Sakura crushing hard on her brother's best friend). I checked out my library's copy of this series and it's shelved in YA, which, for me, is weird because Sakura is in 4th grade. The only think I can think of as a reason for this is because there are some (very minimal) more mature woman figure drawings in the book (their Clow card creatures) or that they like to put most manga in YA just because. Either way, it seems a bit bizarre.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read and I will definitely read the rest of the manga out there!

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