Anime Rewatch: The Sealed Card

[mellowcandle]

This is the post for discussing Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card.

Discuss anything about the movie that you wish: the animation, the plot, the characters and relationships, its place in canon (or if you even give it one), moments you appreciate or those that bug you, plot holes, retcons and fanwanks, the music, the bonus short, and so on....

Comments

[peacewish]

I got to be just about the last person in the world to watch the grand finale to CCS, since I’d already moved to Thailand by then and had to get a friend to ship it to me. How eagerly I devoured it, there on my laptop in my little cheap motel room! Gawd, and I was still in Thailand when this shrine got started and I wrote my first challenges. How old do I feel now?

(as I watch)

Is it me, or did Yue and Kero do a little ‘Charlie’s Angel’ pose there behind Sakura in the final shot of Tomoyo’s home movie? Maybe Yue likes being on film more than he’ll admit.

Cameo for the unseen Bubble Card episode! I’ll do another shout-out for my one-shot, “Sakura, Meilin, and the Not-So-Mysterious Exchange Student”.

Kero, in his sleeping cap = so cute.

God, Touya, stop posing with your chin in your hand so sexy like that. It’s just not fair.

Does it bother anyone in Sakura’s class that she got the lead role twice in a row? Was this one decided by whatever-it-was chart too, or an actual audition? Sakura doesn’t mind being the center of attention, as evidenced by cheerleading, but I don’t think she’s naturally inclined to acting. As opposed to Yamazaki, who is clearly lapping all this up.

Tomoeda: Amusement Park headquarters of Japan. Too many parks are never enough.

Meilin, you are a heart of gold in this movie, but your matchmaking efforts are rather hamhanded.

I think I ripped off this entire dinner-date scene for the first chapter in my Beyond the Labyrinth fic, and I didn’t even realize it until right now. I even had them eating a strawberry cake.

That’s right, Touya, defend your sister’s honor!

Funny how the writers of these various home movies and plays have a knack for arranging scripts that perfectly parallel the conflicts our characters are going through at any given time. Must be magic.

Kero’s little determined face as he goes at the video game = so cute.

Guess the Change Card and its siblings aren’t quite so important to Sakura as this shiny new winged heart card. Jeez, why does the card master not notice that whole elements of her precious deck are vanishing? I can’t help but feel that she should notice when her own cards are missing.

Chiharu getting exasperated when Yamazaki starts reciting a lie in his prince costume is super cute. I think it’s great that all the characters, even these minor ones, are so well established that we don’t need to actually hear dialogue to know what’s going on.

Bunny Touya, still defending his sister’s honor. J

Hey, a moment in the script when Yukito actually talks about Yue in the presence of Sakura! No wonder Sakura looks so startled, although that could just be the fact that she’s realized she’s not a very good cardmaster who keeps losing her cards and not noticing.

Kero, stuffing cookies rapid-fire into his mouth = super cute. Seriously, Kero, stop being so darn cute!

Check out Syaroan’s face on this roller coaster while all the girls are having such a great time, LOL. I have it as permanent canon in my head that Syaroan is very prone to motion sickness, and gets easily carsick and seasick. He’s fine jumping around from rooftop to rooftop on his own power, but put him on something else that he can’t control, and his stomach goes on protest. I wonder if he gets it flying on Sakura’s wand too.

Kono kehai! One more shot, for old time’s sake!

I wonder what the difference is, magically speaking in, between Clow’s presence and a Clow Card’s presence. Wouldn’t they feel the same, logically?

I still don’t understand this business about all Clow Cards being positive and creating something. Erase Card, Eriol. ERASE. How nice of Eriol to finally mention this dangerous sealed card to Sakura, which is running amok because of her newly transformed cards. I know he says that his memories were incomplete to explain that away, but I still call BS. His memories seemed pretty damn detailed all last winter when he was tormenting Sakura with smug and condescending smirks.

Eriol: It realized I was there and erased the phone line.
Kaho: Then why didn’t you skip the dramatic noir-style landline and use a freaking cell phone already? You’re supposed to be the smart one.

(more to come after Tuesday’s lunch break…)

[peacewish]

So, did Naoko just rip off Romeo and Juliet to write this play, or what? What’s the point of being the most creative writer in class if you’re just going to plagiarize other plots? (says the ten year fanfic writer)

Sigh, yes, Clamp forcing its protagonists to give up their most precious feeling for some prized thing is pretty well done by now. It doesn’t even really make sense, consistently speaking, with this world, since Sakura never had to give anything up to capture/transfer the cards before, except a little of her own energy.

Terada, let these kids go already. They’re in sixth grade now! Gonna follow them all the way to graduation, or what?

Oh yes, let’s cast Li into the role of prince in spite of all proven inability to act. I can only assume they had no understudies and everyone else was literally locked into their own duties. It’s a bit contrived, but that’s just stating the obvious.

THIS BIT between Fujitaka and Sonomi about Fuji missing Tomoyo’s song is what has me convinced that Fuji is secretly Tomoyo’s father. I realize this creates lots of creepy implications for Tomoyo’s crush on Sakura, but I don’t care.

Meilin, with your ribbons wound around the braids, you are just so cute right now.

Was Sonomi holding hands with Fuji right there? Whoa!

Touya’s flat expression as he watches Li ‘act’ with Sakura on stage is too funny. “Can’t act his way out of a paper bag” indeed. Touya is not falling for this, not for a sec. But then there’s that line Sakura has in the play, “Please take me out of your heart.” It seems to me that it should have been foreshadowing for Li forgetting his love for Sakura, which ends up not happening. Not that I exactly wanted a sad ending, but since Clamp makes such a big deal out of always exchanging value for value and making the proper sacrifice for victory, Li’s ability to withstand the card’s theft and still be in love with Sakura afterwards seems like a cop out. It bothered me so much that I wrote a drabble about how Li actually loved his sword more than anything, and once the movie is over doesn’t care so much about it anymore. Sakura was only his second-most love after all. J

And WHY THE HELL does Tomoyo have a prepared outfit for Syaoran standing by?

If Sakura’s grip on Time is weakening and she’s about to get run over by the roller coaster, why doesn’t Kero or Yue fly up to get her instead of just standing there and shouting warnings?

AW YEAH here comes my fave bit in the movie. Probably the whole series, in fact. Syaoran, leap up the cars of the ferris wheel like the badass that you are. And check out that guitar!

Uh, I guess I spent the entire series waiting for that moment, because I have literally nothing else to say about the rest of the movie. Sakura’s ‘fight’ against Void is fairly non-descript, and won by virtue of Sakura being sweet and friendly, like usual. I already mentioned my distaste for the deux ex machina that allows Syaoran to still be in love with Sakura, and how out of this world bizarre it is that Kero still feels the need to act like a doll in front of Yukito. And… that’s it. The series is done. How can it be over already?

No, wait! There’s still the great Takoyaki adventure! I’ll save that for tomorrow, though.

[mellowcandle]

Terada, let these kids go already. They’re in sixth grade now! Gonna follow them all the way to graduation, or what?

He's Mr. Feeny! He can't let them go! Although I've gotten used to this in other anime, where the same homeroom teacher stays with the same class each year.

THIS BIT between Fujitaka and Sonomi about Fuji missing Tomoyo’s song is what has me convinced that Fuji is secretly Tomoyo’s father.

I always wondered if Tomoyo was maybe the result of some Threesome We Must Never Speak of Again. It would explain why Sonomi completely dropped out of their lives and never met Sakura before now. Maybe that would have also necessitated a quickie arranged marriage to our missing Daidouji-san, too.

And WHY THE HELL does Tomoyo have a prepared outfit for Syaoran standing by?

Because she's Tomoyo, dammit! You think she didn't have these outfits ready to go from the second she and Meiling started plotting? She didn't know when the time would come, but she would find a way to get them into those clothes.

how out of this world bizarre it is that Kero still feels the need to act like a doll in front of Yukito.

Habit. That's the only way I can explain it. It's a reflex. Also I guess CLAMP thinks it's funny. It's not.