One day, elementary school girl Sakura wanders into her father's basement and accidentally opens a magic book containing a deck of magical tarot-like cards, releasing the animated and self-propelled cards (each with its own magical spirit) into the wild. The book's guardian spirit, Cerberus (or Kerberos, also known as "Kero-chan"), promptly drafts her to be the "Card Captor" whose assignment is to track down all of the missing cards. Each captured card gives Sakura new magical abilities... and all the while, her best friend Tomoyo is filming her beloved Sakura with her camcorder.One of CLAMP's most iconic manga series, it was adapted into a 70-episode anime with 2 movies which added a lot of new elements in the process. Alongside Sailor Moon, this is widely considered as close to a "canon" Magical Girl show as you can get, and is often one of the examples even the most casual anime fan will think of when magical girls are mentioned and its influence on all works which followed it is deep and pervasive. The anime was dubbed by Nelvana with much Bowdlerization in the process. However, Media Blaster took over the dubbing of the second movie to be more faithful to the original.It has its own wikihere.Compare Sailor Moon, which is the other "major" example most people think of vis-à-vis Magical Girls. Contrast Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the most notable Deconstruction of the genre.
Adaptation Expansion: The original manga featured 19 cards. The anime? 52 cards (note: a full deck), though not all of them were shown being caught. The ones that weren't were shown at the beginning of Season 2, which takes place after the first movie.
Episodes themselves were extended and Syaoran's role in the story was as well. In the manga Syaoran never catches any cards for himself and never takes part in the final judgment. In the anime, he does both of those things. And the final judgment was in itself extended, in the manga Sakura never failed and thus never got to experience the pain of a world without love. In the anime, she does. The reason the expansion works instead of falling apart is because Nanase Okawa, writer of the manga, wrote and oversaw the anime as well.
Also, Meiling is an anime-exclusive character.
Not to mention Wei and the rest of Syaoran's family (only referenced in the manga).
Always Someone Better: Sakura to Meiling somewhat, is purer in personality, bests her at many aspects such as athletism (somewhat inadvertantly) and ultimately wins over Syaoran's affections without even meaning to.
Syaoran seems to consider Sakura his better counterpart, ultimately taking his designated role as master of the cards, due to having greater wisdom and care for them that assisted in her judgements. As Sakura insists however, her own flaws and dependence on Syaoran may prevent her from being a full-on example of the trope.
Animation Bump : Very noticeable in the Sealed Card. Reason - More $$$$.
Antimatter : Card number 53's negative powers pull a Magical Variant of antimatter annihilation on anything it targets.
Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Sakura, first when she fights a Dragon created by the Create Card, and later, when she counteracts her shrinkage while trapped in Alice In Wonderland.
Back from the Dead: Major Plot Hole considering it's CLAMP. Just how do people return after being wiped out of existence?
Beta Couple: Takashi Yamazaki and Chiharu Mihara. Yes, that's right. Fourth-graders who already have years of experience in dealing with relationships.
Between My Legs: Seen with Sakura's legs in several episodes.
Beware the Nice Ones: While near perpetually friendly and innocent in demeanor, it is a bad idea to insult Sakura, or even worse, call her a "monster".
Fairly mild example, though — the worst she does is stomping the offender's foot.
Kero is shown to be terrified of her the odd occasion he becomes too obnoxious for her to handle. A few of the cards also learnt the hard way not to mess with her or her friends before they were caught (poor, poor Snow Card).
BFS: Syaoran's sword. Luckily, it is a magic sword, or a skinny little boy like Syaoran probably wouldn't even be able to pick it up, much less wield it effectively.
Big Brother Instinct: Touya has one for Sakura. Lampshaded by Yukito in which he tells Touya he has a 'little sister complex'.
The fact that he met Syaoran when he was trying to bully Sakura into giving him the Cards she had caught until then really doesn't help.
Syaoran himself shows traits of this towards Meiling (and arguably Sakura early on), possible inversion since his age comparison to either of them is unspecified.
Big Fancy House: Tomoyo is the most prominent, but other characters have their own, too.
Big Eater: Yukito and Kerberos both have formidable appetites.
Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The controversial cliffhanger of the ending to The Sealed Card movie, with Sakura leaping off a ledge from several hundred feet above ground to hug Syaoran. Granted she has come out of much, much worse, but still quite a way to end one of anime's most famous Lighter and Softer projects. Its effect is muted because after all that happened in the series, it's absolutely trivial to make a magically assisted jump a few metres across (Jump Card can reach HUGE distances and heights), and its easy to infer they hug. But nevertheless...What Could Have Been...
CLAMP = teasing with True Art Is Angsty, which they would really develop in other works, particularly its sister series. Needless to say it's the butt of many humorous jokes and lots of angsty teasing by fans.
By no means hundreds of feet. Its actually the second row of the spiral staircase, which makes it 3 stories above ground. Just a few minutes before, there are much bigger falls from several stories. The result? Not a scratch!
Claims are this promo artwork◊ represents a resolution to the scene, granted since the movie itself is still open ended, it might possibly count. Also an extra (omake) shows the full cast(including Eriol who is apparently visiting) having a tea party at Sakura's house.
Cliffhanger Copout: Actually true. CLAMP averted it. Wiki confirms that the artwork (from one of the magazines) was indeed released in context, as a special bonus not included with initial regular release, which only had video. A simple side by side comparison with the video clarifies. Needless to say, fans who saw or owned a copy heaved a sigh of relief...
The same goes for the extra episode, also released on a special disc.
Bowdlerization: The Nelvana dub removed all of the (perfectly innocent) same-sex relationships from the show, to say nothing of the 31 episodes that were not aired at all.
The episodes omitted by WB had been dubbed and still aired in particular regions such as Europe (though is lacking one episode due to the two part finale being merged into one episode). Note it also gets rid of most heterosexual relationships as well. As a result of deleting most of Sakura and Syaoran's romantic infatuation, a lot of the final episode is omitted and the dub is given a much more Bittersweet Ending.
Break the Cutie: The whole plot of the story is about trying to do this to Sakura. Nowhere more dramatic than the Second Movie. And...it completely fails.
Bruce Lee Clone: Bruce Lee's name in Japanese would be Li Syaoron.
Except that "Ri Shaoran" is just a Chinese name, "Li Xiaolang" (Xiaolang: 'Little Wolf'), through the Japanese Pronunciation filter. Syaoran/Xiaolang and his family are Chinese, from Hong Kong.
Referenced in Tsubasa Chronicle when Fay writes Li's name down as "Little Puppy".
Three separate characters even. Ruby Moon kept interrupting Toya, and lots of things happened preventing Sakura and Syaoran from spitting it out. Kero=Bad for spitting stuff out.
Cheerful Child: Let's put it this way, watch a single scene with Sakura and try with all your might not to say "Awwwwww".
Cherry Blossoms: Sakura's namesake; she rollerblades through a shower of them in the first episode.
Also appears in touching scenes in the manga.
The ChessmasterClow Reed, in a rare good example that doesn't have any anger or angst motivating it. However CCS is a small part of the whole game (and perhaps the only part that makes any sense at all.)
One would need to read Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle to find out the whole Gambit Roulette he played, (which clashes in truly bizarre ways with many other independent roulettes, resulting in an enormous Gambit Pileup. After that, the reader will most likely be rendered brain damaged from several orders of massive Mind Screw.
CLAMP: Arguably one of their best and most popular works; certainly, one of their most iconic, given how many characters have since reappeared in another form...
So is Eriol. When he teams up with Yamazaki, they really play this trope straight.
Costume Porn: AND HOW! Besides the many marvelous outfits Sakura goes Cardcapting in, even her everyday clothes have flair. See section on Limited Wardrobe for more details. And remember everyone it's CLAMP!
Creating Life Is Awesome: Kero, Yue, and the later Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon were created by Clow Reed. We neither get nasty results from them or Humans Are Bastards type reactions to them.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - Sakura herself. Despite being extremely naive and occasionally outright ditzy at times (believes every last one of Yamazaki's ridiculous stories and is completely oblivious to the fact that her two best friends are infatuated with her) she has moments of remarkable inspiration, particularly when it comes to the use of her magic.
Syaoran meanwhile is more of a Crouching Badass Hidden Moron. He's normally cool and collective, but has occasional bouts of poor judgement or naivete, he also falls for the pathological liar's lies 100% and is somewhat inept around romantic emotions.
Cultural Translation: The Nelvana dub renamed the characters' residence from Tomoeda to Reedington and implied it was an American town, despite the Japanese text remaining, as well as the Tokyo Tower.
Cut-and-Paste Translation: Nelvana, with "Cardcaptors", was responsible for much of the cast getting a Dub Name Change and removed all romantic subplots of any kind (not all convincingly). The US broadcast on Kids' WB!! attempted to widen the show's appeal beyond its original demographic by switching the focus from strictly Sakura's point of view and pushing the idea of Sakura and supporting character Li Syaoran being more like partners by rearranging and splicing episodes and tweaking scripts.
This would have actually been convenient in later episodes, which play a lot more from Syaoran's perspective and give him a rather prominant partnership with Sakura, unfortunately the unwanted romantic context of most of this footage actually led them to take out a lot of the character's relevance.
Needless to say, when the original anime was subbed and released, the dub went off the shelves.
And even with all the butchering they did, they couldn't remove the subtexts. It's still pretty obvious how Syaoran and Sakura feel about each other.
Cute Bruiser: The Power and The Fight. Also, Meiling and Syaoran, and even Sakura when she uses The Power card.
Cuteness Overload: To spectacular effect - in fact it won an award for the cutest character of the year. So much so that even The Other Wiki mentions this.
The Danza: Sakura is voiced by Sakura Tange, although this is more likely a coincidence.
Deus ex Machina: Played straight in episode 6 when Sakura encounters the illusion car, which, on the date her dead mother's birthday, adopts her form, and thus lures Sakura into falling off a cliff. Before hitting the ground nonetheless a translucid hand (presumably that of her real mom) appears out of nowhere and slows down her fall
And as a backup Deus Ex Machina Yukito just happend to be passing by at that precise moment to come and pick her up.
Disappeared Dad: Tomoyo's father doesn't seem to exist, and Sakura muses to herself that it seems to be a "complicated matter". Also, Syaoran's father passed away when he was very young.
Distress Ball: Tomoyo frequently fell victim to the Monster of the Week. To a lesser extent, Sakura herself, though equipped with an endless aray of powers to handle all sorts of predicaments got into helpless situations more than a few times, if only for Syaoranto get an intimate moment with her. This was somewhat more justified in later episodes, since most of the threats were deliberately designed by Eriol to be defeated solely by Sakura's cards, and were immune to the magic of others, thus protecting her as she fought through was the most plausible use most other characters could have.
Dogged Nice Guy: Syaoran in his 'dere dere' moods. Taken to extremes around Sakura in later episodes, though she rarely sees it as anything more than him being a kind friend to her.
The Eeyore: Even after revealing their soft side, Syaoran and Yue are still rather humorless and snarky in tone. Spinel Sun also seems to count as one.
Element Number Five - The Nothing, as appears in the second movie. Technically element number 53, but who's counting?
Even the Girls Want Her: Sakura herself isn't bad, both Syaoran and Tomoyo are very much in love with her. Also, take into consideration how many female fans she has...
Not to mention Kaho, who Sakura seems to 'admire' greatly and is described as really, really pretty.
Everyone is Bi: Everyone...Syaoran had a crush on Yukito for half the series, Sakura herself admited that her feelings for Kaho were the same as her feelings for Yukito, and so on...
This results in a massive Mind Screw / Fridge Logic in the manga. Clow's mother is Syaoran's great, great, [...] grandmother. Sakura's father is one of Clow Reed's reincarnations. Put this all together and Sakura and Syaoran are actually veritable cousins, depending on how you look at the reincarnation aspect of family trees. This being CLAMP, one must wonder whether or not this was deliberate...
Possibly averted. Reincarnation means you're no longer the same person anymore...but then again the show is not at all consistent over this point.
Rarely if ever mentioned beyond its introduction, but Sakura and Tomoyo are actual cousins.
Second cousins, actually.
Evolving Credits: A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example. Partway through season one, Li is added to the opening following his introduction to the story. He appears for just one second along with the other supporting characters. Everything else in the intro stays the same. In the American uncut DVD release, this version of the intro was never used.
Eyes Always Shut: Yamazaki. There was one scene in the manga where he opens them. Just one though.
There was a special in the anime that Sakura, Mei Ling, Syaoran and Tomoyo wondering about why his eyes are always closed. When they realize he actually opened them earlier in the episode and actually found the thing (a blue mailbox) he had been talking about, they conclude that he only opens his eyes when he tells the truth. Actually, he only opens them when someone steps on his foot.
Also in the episode when Sakura catches The Power card Yamazaki's eyes open for a moment when he and Syaoran are startled by the loud noise and the ground shaking at the zoo.
Also Clow Reed. The only time his eyes are open is in a bonus art pic, where they are shown to be blue.
Eye Scream: CLAMP's fetish deserves a special mention because it's conspicuous by its complete absence!
The Faceless: All characters who appear in Sakura's foretelling dreams. Their faces are shown over time (except Yue). Also Eriol and his guardians in scenes where he watches from the shadows.
Interestingly in the bonus extra episode after the second movie, only Kero and Suppie's faces are shown, while the faces of the rest of the cast, including Sakura, are deliberately not covered by the camera.
Sakura also exists as an interesting light variation, in that despite being Syaoran's rival, she looks up to him greatly and is largely convinced of his superior intelligence and competance. Her extremely affectionate treatment towards Syaoran would naturally also play into his own opinion of her. In addition Sakura is also kind and supportive to Meiling (which leads the latter to accept her as Syaoran's true love).
Friend to All Living Things: Sakura in a rather swift period of time can endear herself to almost any living entity due to her everpresent compassion and innocence, even Syaoran's strict and stoic mother (Li Yelan) can't resist after just one day with her and even gives a very motherly kiss. And at that time Syaoran was still seeing Sakura as a rival...
By the end of the story, this is true of every single character in the show, even the bitter and lonely Nothing Card, which becomes The Hope.
Gotta Catch 'Em All: Played relatively straight in the first season, increasingly subverted in the third season as Sakura is forced to turn all the Clow Cards she's already captured into Sakura Cards.
Groundhog Day Loop: Anime only. The Time Card resets the same day thrice till it's captured. Though after reading Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle one wonders how it did not screw up The Multiverse in the process (though the multiverse was invented later).
Many, many fans had hoped to see a Dénouement like the manga and were unfortunately left not so Happily Ever After.
Endings for almost all CLAMP works go on lines that imply - "will be Happily Ever After", but without going into details. The manga ending is a rare case of "Are Happily Ever After" (actually showing it).
Touya hates Syaoran because he's already seen this would happen in the future!
Hot for Student: Third grade teacher and student romance—yup, it's CLAMP all right. To their credit, they'll be waiting until she's older. And in the anime is one sided crush from the student.
Kaho's and Touya's relationship is an aversion; though they met when Kaho was Touya's student teacher, they only confessed romantic feelings after Kaho's teaching position had ended.
Played straight with Fujitaka and Nadeshiko; Fujitaka was a teacher in the high school Nadeshiko attended. It's implied that they started living together even before she graduated.
Hey You: Often used by Syaoran in early episodes and chapters, who does not refer to Sakura by any actual name. This is ended however after her Disney Death in ''Sakura, Shaoran and The Elevator' leads him to yell her first name in anguish. Sakura having heard this, asks to continue this trend and to call "Shaoran-kun" by first name in return. Notably Sakura, much to her joy, is discovered to be the only person outside family that Syaoran refers to by first name (or allows the referal of his own). This trait is not present in the English dub, where both characters refer to each other by first name from the beginning.
Some manga translations switched. The german version, in Volume 1 until 4, Sakura and Syaoran refer to each other by first name. Volume 5, though, switches it to Syaoran not using her name at all (until Sakura falls down a crack in the ground and he yells her name) while Sakura calls him Li.
In the Japanese, this also applies to Touya and Yue. Both avoid calling (most) other characters by name—likely because it would require them to acknowledge their level of affection for the person in question. Similar to Syaoran, but these two take it a step farther by even avoiding intimate pronouns whenever possible.
Innocent Panties: Sakura's frilly, yellow unmentionables can be seen under her dress in "Attack of the Teddy Bear" (a.k.a. "A New Set of Wings" in the U.S.)
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Both Meiling and Tomoyo. Yukito attempts this, but he gets to be with his beloved, so it doesn't count.
I Will Protect Her: Syaoran has this instinct around Sakura big time, even early on. Due to his and Kero's downgraded usage (see The Worf Effect below) it is arguably their one usage in the third season. Syaoran also acts out a non-romantic variant (unfortunately for her) to Meiling.
In a Single Bound: Jump Card, period. Can cross HUGE distances (whole city blocks), roof hop with ease, reach heights to the top of Tokyo tower and ALWAYS lands soft with laser guided accuracy.
Intoxication Ensues: Suppie (Spinel Sun). Eating anything which has sugar in it in any amount results in a massive out of control drunken spree that only gets worse. In fact he also becomes much cuter and hilarious as a result. But then it becomes an emergency when starts shooting destructive mouth lasers in all directions.
Kero eats a box of chocolates... unfortunately, they were liqueur chocolates. Ends with a "What happened last night?" moment.
Jedi Mind Trick: Eriol. No civilians notice anything odd or for that matter are even present at the scene of action, not even when huge earthquakes and towers of rock rip through the town.
Kansai Regional Accent: Cerberus, the Beast of the Seal who guards the Clow Cards, spent a while in Osaka and picked up the accent. Lampshaded by Sakura as soon as she heard him speak for the first time.
Kissing Cousins: Subverted. The only canonical couple who are cousins never kiss and eventually break up.
Knight Templar: The Nothing Card of the second movie (one of the few real villains in the series) after centuries being hidden and alone, is vehement on being reunited with it's fellow cards, whether they want it or not, and also has nothing against erasing huge populations of innocent beings in her frenzied search. In a rare case for the trope, she gets the point in the end and reverses everything after being caught by Sakura, so she can be accepted willingly as a friend.
Ruby Moon, while mostly working with Eriol in assisting Sakura, seems to gain a self proclaimed rivalry with Yue to potentially murderous ambitions.
Knight Templar Big Brother: Touya because he made a promise to his mother while she was dying to always protect Sakura.
Tomoyo: It seems our relationship charthas gotten rather complicated.
Literary Agent Hypothesis: An Omake suggested that the entire series had been filmed and edited by Tomoyo, and included her attempt to film and record the opening song.
Limited Wardrobe: Averted with special mention. Not only with the mission clothes (not even one is used more than one time!), Sakura's everyday clothes and accesories are very numerous too, they do repeat from time to time, but they usually changed every season. You could think that the authors would take a break by letting Sakura and her friends use school uniforms more often, but even the school wardrobe was much more varied than in most anime series, with different types of uniforms for Spring and Winter, coats, hats, P.E., swimsuits, special uniforms for sport competitions, two different cheerleader uniforms(one for practices and one for competitions)... heck! The school even had special clothes specific for some school trips! (And most of these come in both girl and boy versions.)
The little segment Kero-chan ni Omakase was added later to the series to show-off the great variety of clothes and accesories the anime had.
Lolicon: Yoshiyuki Terada. Though to be fair, he waited until Rika was older.
It's entirelypossible that Terada is only returning the crush out of kindness, knowing or betting that Rika may find someone closer to her age as she grows up. That it doesn't happen that way reaffirms the whole "love is unstoppable" thing.
There are some fans that refer to Sakura as the Lolicon Queen because... well, you know...
The Matchmaker: Eriol, hands down! He is actively responsible for helping Syaoran realize his feelings for Sakura, and for letting Sakura know that Yukito only loves her platonically as family. Closely followed by Tomoyo, Meiling who really make selfless sacrifices and even Yue who clarifies the Law of Magical attraction vs real love and even Wei he encourages Syaoran to give Sakura the teddy bear.
More fanfics than you can spend time counting have used the fact that Syaoran's mother has a special liking for Sakura (in the movie she also has Syaoran be her bodyguard), to make her into this in their script.
Maybe Ever After: The ending of the TV series. Averted by the Second Movie.
Meaningful Name: Anyone with the kanji for "moon" in their name will have a magical connection to the moon; Nakuru Akizuki and Yukito Tsukishiro both have doubly meaningful names. Lampshaded by Kero in episode 47 of the anime when he starts enquiring about the kanji for Eriol's name.
Mercury's Wings: The Nothing (or alternatively, The Hope Card) from the second movie has wings on its head.
Meta Guy: Tomoyo, who is very Genre Savvy; she asks in the second episode if Sakura knows any cool poses or owns any special evil-fighting clothes, and offers to help.
Mistaken for Gay: Syaoran thought he had a crush on Yukito, but it later turned out he was just attracted to the high amount of moon energy inside him.
Monogender Monsters: The Clow Cards are mostly women or gender neutral forces/concepts.
Mood Whiplash: The Sleep Card episode. For the most part, it is a cheerful glimpse into Sakura's dad's university life with Sakura ever so eager to help. And then, just after she seals the card, disaster strikes.
The Movie: Two of them in fact; the first one is literally named after this trope. The first one happens exactly half way through the TV series, and the second one concludes the anime.
Mukokuseki: Rather prevalent on everyone, although Syaoran and Meiling get to look somewhat more "asian" (likely due to being Chinese). Sakura is the most blatantly noticeable in this regard, though, since she's got big round green eyes, reddish-brown hair (that seems to vary a bit depending on the lighting present) and a very fair complexion... and she is still, in theory, 100% Yamato in ancestry.*
Well, okay, 98% Yamato thanks to her relation to Clow Reed, although Reed's own ancestry is confusing as heck, and both sides of her family have been in Japan for centuries now.
Heck, at times she almost doesn't look related to her brother or father at all. Selling her as a caucasian in the dub (with the family name change to "Avalon") was not particularly difficult.
Mundane Utility: Because the flower shop was closed, Sakura once used The Flower to make an armful of flowers she wanted.
Mutually Exclusive Magic: Chinese and Western magic, before Clow combined them in the Clow Cards.
Noblewoman's Laugh: Meilin gives these on occasion, usually when appearing triumphant - and often to Sakura.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Yue to Sakura in the Final Judgment. Although not terribly violent, it's still significantly darker than anything before that point. Sakura cries out in pain as she's thrown into steel girders and hit by sharp crystal shards, unable and unwilling to fight back.
Syaoran's battle with Yue beforehand isn't suggested to be much better, if less graphic. We hear a loud offscreen yell in pain before he reappears battered and bruised and barely able to stand. Naturally Sakura, Yue's next opponent is pretty irked.
No Ontological Inertia: The Clow Cards and Yue. They've only survived for so long because they were running on batteries. Averted with Keroberos.
Practically anything done by the Clow Cards is undone once they're caught.
Not actually subverted in Cerberus' case: in the Japanese manga, he says he is 'self-sustaining' because he can supplement food as energy when he doesn't receive the amount he needs from Sakura. An odd version of this trope because both Cards and their protectors have technically survived the death of their creator.
Not the Fall That Kills You: Anyone with magic who falls, Repeatedly! Only Touya gets injured in a fall. No matter the height, others always break the fall with hardly even a small scratch! At worst!
Nothing Is Scarier: The Scenery Gorn the Nothing caused in The Sealed Card, made worse by the fact you can still see what most of the things taken used to be. Goodness.
Not so Above It All: Poor Syaoran, no matter how hard he tries to act dignified and stoic his mystique is always destroyed by some affectionate soul, usually Sakura, reducing him to an (adorable) piece of jelly.
Nigh Invulnerability: Most of the time, no one gets even slightly injured. Not even after being buried under tidal waves of water, falling from any height (even landing hard on some occasions), rocked by gigantic earthquakes, hit by an antimatter equivalent explosion, repeatedly slammed into walls and even steel girders, pierced by sharp crystal shards, almost drowned by tornadoes of water, surrounded by raging fire, and even after being hit by a fast moving roller coaster!
Ironically Syaoran, for all he suffered from this trope seems to be even more clueless when it's Sakura's turn (granted however he had a lot of help beforehand).
The One Guy: Syaoran is the only male character in the main group of four protagonists.
That goes true for his family as well (4 older sisters and his mom). In fact in the manga it is explicitly commented that he has a very feminine family.
Official Couple: Sakura and Syaoran. CLAMP made doubly sure that this pairing is backed up by PLENTY of canon. Tsubasa wouldn't happen if this pairing didn't come true, period.
You might as well add that Tsubasa also backs up Touya and Yuki, and pretty much every other CLAMP pairing, Ho Yay, Les Yay and Het. While creating some of its own on the side. Thank you Kuro and Fai.
Due to the revelations of recent chapters, it needs to be mentioned that CCS!Syaoran and CCS!Sakura have little if anything to do with the main plot of Tsubasa, and no, they are not the parents of any of the Syaorans or Sakuras wandering about the Tsubasa universe.
Actually, the older (middle school) Sakura of CCS is shown handing off her evolved wand to the grown up C!Sakura in a dream and the first version of her wand is seen in Yuuko's shop.
An interview with CLAMP involved a offhanded comment that Syaoran and Sakura are, like most CLAMP couples, 100% soulmates and didn't end up together for a "normal pairing" like some people thought; Syaoran and Sakura would have fallen in love even if Syaoran had been a girl or there had been an age gap.
On the other hand, the Yuri Fandom in general has adopted Sakura/Tomoyo as one of its flagship pairings; Shoujo Ai.com has pics of them featured prominently on the main page along with several other famous couples like NanoFate, Rei/Usagi, Anthy/Utena, and ShizNat. Must be that whole "unrequited love" thing they have going on.
Overused Running Gag : Tomoyo, every time she talks about videotaping Sakura or her latest costume. All the more funnier because it comes at the most (in)appropriate moment. Surprisingly it never gets boring.
(In the middle of Snow Card's fierce blizzard): "At this rate...at this rate...I can't film Sakura!
The Void card, especially so! Until she does a Heel Face Turn after getting a heart (literally) and becomes a ...
Perpetual Smiler: Clow and Eriol. Even Fujitaka can qualify for this.
Ping Pong Naïveté: Sakura is often proved to very resourceful and cunning in her handling of the cards and the perils they cause, however she also has a rather realistic childlike complex, viewing ethics and emotions in a very simplistic manner, and often acting outright oblivious to those of others right in front of her face. She somehow never figures out by herself that her two best friends are madly in love with her (neither of whom are even remotely shrewd about it).
Pinky Swear: Sakura and Syaoran. He's too overwhelmed to refuse!
Power Incontinence: Clow sets in motion the events of the plot partially because while being strong enough to predict the future with intense accuracy, he couldn't control it. Sakura, being stronger, can also predict the future but can turn it off, unlike Clow.
The Power of Love: The whole story is built around this trope. Prevails in spite of everything. In the manga it succeeds in bringing Syaoran back to Japan to be with Sakura. The anime takes this to the next level very literally when Sakura creates the nameless card with a winged heart. Later this card merges with the Nothing at the last minute to form the Hope card, and ensuring that Sakura and Syaoran's love survive intact even against the otherwise unconquerable.
The Sealed Card Ending has Ashita e No Melody in the background for this.
Pragmatic Adaptation : Among others, the ending is the most notable case in the series. The manga explicitly states (when Yukito consoles Sakura when she makes the teddy bear for Syaoran) that overcoming the Long Distance barrier testifies to The Powerof Love. The impact of long distance is toned down in the anime with characters frequently and liberally using air travel (e.g Meling, who makes 7 trips in total) whenever needed (and not needed), unlike the manga. The anime instead shows the triumph of The Power of Love by having them capture card #53, which actually threatens to take away one's deepest love, not to mention its genocidal tendencies.
This is also an interesting case in that not only are there many events that didn't appear in the source material, but even those events that did appear in the manga were almost always retold, keeping the fundamentals the same but reordering them, changing the locations, etc. Example: in both versions, Windy is the first card Sakura acquires, but whereas the manga has her capturing Woody next (off-screen) and then Jump, the anime has her capture Fly second. *
The Fly encounter itself is a good example of this too. In the manga, Sakura first encounters it at school, then at home, failing to capture it each time, then finally at home again, where she captures it by figuring out that it's just injured and agitated. The anime just has her encounter it at home on her first night of being a Cardcaptor, and she captures it by restraining it with Windy - something she tried in the manga, for that matter, but which didn't work because Fly is another Wind elemental card.
Syaoran's characterization in the anime doesn't support the manga type of ending - he doesn't live alone and is essentially a mature kid looked after by Wei with his family members actually showing up. In the manga, he is a loner, there's only a passing reference to his family and he's practically a fully independent adult in a child's body. And a bunch of formalities and work in the manga (details never mentioned) is replaced by the ability to make vacation visits in the anime.
The Professor: Sakura's dad, though younger than usual.
Psychotic Smirk: Nakaru occasionally gives one to Yukito, something he never quite catches. Eriol occasionally gives something of similar effect even if his intentions are ultimately less antagonistic.
Pure Magic Being: Yue is in danger of ceasing to exist because Sakura is too young to generate enough magic to support his existence.
Meiling in the anime, followed by a couple of returns later on.
Kaho at the end of the Clow Card arc in both versions, though as she writes letters to Sakura, her presence is still felt. She comes back in person in the finale.
Rapunzel Hair: Yue has one of anime's best examples of this
Also, both Syaoran's mom and Sakura's mom
Reality Warper: Several Cards have that power, but most notably The Create and The Time.
Keroberos and Spinel Sun. Ruby Moon sees Yue as one.
Rule 34: Siiiiiiigh. Kind of has to be mentioned here as the dark reflection of Side Story Bonus Art; the enormous popularity of the series and the incredible volume of art it has produced has also resulted in the franchise being the subject of possibly the largest amount of fan-created pornographic material for any anime, ever. It's so bad that Sakura is called the "Lolicon Queen" in some circles, due to the sheer volume of "objectionable" material produced around her ten-year-old self.
For what it's worth, CLAMP has gone on record as saying that they are not particularly cool with this, although being former doujin-ka themselves, they acknowledge that it's basically impossible to get people to stop creating this sort of material. They have asked people to stop, though, and Tsubasa didn't produce quite as much naughty material as you might otherwise expect.
Althrough the title of "Lolicon Queen" seems to belong now to another magical girl...
Ship Tease: Done endlessly and mercilessly throughout the series, especially during the later stories. Instances such as Sakura, Shaoran and the Elevator exist as little more than episode long ship teases.
What many consider the biggest folly in the Cardcaptors dub was trying to erase nearly all of these scenes (though due to some of them being in pivotal scenes or necessary transitions, some light instances such as Syaoran's blushing were kept in the dub).
Shrinking Violet: Rika Sasaki, but not to the extreme. She's mostly like that when around Terada.
Spell My Name with an S: Tangentially related; the merchandise can't decide whether it wants to use Chinese or Japanese spellings, so we get "Syaoran" and "Meiling" on the same things.
To pontificate further: "Syaoran" is Japanese Romaji with the Kunrei Romanization method (seldom used outside Japan and not often even there). "Shaoran" is Romaji with the more widely-used Hepburn system. Shaoran's Chinese name would be romanized as "Xiaolang", meaning "little wolf". "Meirin" would be the appropriate Japanese Romaji for Meiling's name (which means "Strawberry Bell", amusingly enough).
Sphere of Destruction: Card #53 (Void) is notorious for doing a special version of Beam Spam with this, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of holes all over the city.
Stalker with a Crush: Tomoyo, to some degree. Much gentler and reasonable than the standard, of course (If you consider being with your best friend stalking.).
Meiling is this until she realizes that Syaoran loves Sakura.
Star Power: The whole second series is about Sakura having to transfer the Clow Cards from their old energy source (The Sun and the Moon, which her predecessor used) over to her power source - the power of her star.
(spoiler for XXXholic and Tsubasa) She tells an alternate Sakura this, who repeats it in XXXholic chapter 177 and TRC chapter 217, to her 'sons' Watanuki and Tsubasa (Male) respectively.
This actually enhances her powers on occasion. The Hope Card appears to be the personified form of this.
And is specifically referred to as her 'invincible spell' in the manga. When she says it you know everything's going to end well.
Sword Fight: Averted with extreme prejudice during the Sword Card episode. Syaoran tries to start one, but Sakura instantly rules it out. He basically missed his only chance to use his sword as anything other than a wand.
He does kinda get to use it later on, protecting Sakura against some sentient metal railing in Episode 61.
Theme Naming: The Kinomotos all have plant-related names: Sakura means "cherry blossom", Touya has "peach" in his name, the "fuji" in Fujitaka means "wisteria", Nadeshiko is a pink variety of dianthus. Kinomoto itself means root of the tree.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomoyo with either Sakura or Meiling. Also Nadeshiko with Sonomi, Chiharu with either Rika or Naoko.
Treacherous Spirit Chase: The Illusion card shows people whatever they're thinking about, but it can also show them someone they love or miss and lead them to their doom.
Tsundere: Syaoran is a male example. Touya, too. A more traditional female one is Chiharu.
Touya is a mix of tsundere (non-romantic, towards Sakura) and Sugar and Ice (towards Kaho and Yukito)
Train Station Goodbye: Correction... Airport goodbye. With Meiling, twice. Also the TV Series Ending and the last chapter of the manga, when Syaoran has to go back to Hong Kong and Sakura meets him at the airport.
However in all cases, they again return whenever the need arises.
Unlimited Wardrobe: Tomoyo makes Sakura a completely new outfit for each mission, and on occasions where she fails to capture the card on her first go, she gets two.
Voices Are Mental: Averted in the original; only the speech patterns switch with the characters' minds.
Weirdness Censor: Only Sakura and Syaoran notice the strange occurrences with the Clow Cards because everyone else's minds reject that which they can't understand.
And on the rare occasion when it actually gets noticed, Laser-Guided Amnesia strikes.
In the final ending Syaoran does not permanently move to Tomeda, leaving him and Sakura in an awkward Long Distance Relationship. And let's not go through the Cardcaptors dub...
Not to forget the teddy bears. Sakura never gives Syaoran one in the anime.
Kaho's Second Love (in the flashback to her relationship with Touya, she tells him that next time they meet, they'll both have new loves). In the manga, she's in love with Eriol.
The splitting of Eriol's magic and the revelation of Fujitaka Kinomoto being the other half of Clow Reed are missing as well. As a result Fujitaka doesn't get to be reunited with his wife's spirit again.
Actually The Sealed Card resolves very little of the details in the manga's climax. Syaoran (and Meiling) only returned briefly to Tomeda for a visit Nadeshiko Festival and supposedly would return to Hong Kong afterwards, the ending is open and the series only goes so far to cement that he and Sakura are now in said Long Distance Relationship, but with the possibility of visiting each other in the holidays. Not to mention the ending of the second movie basically leaves things literally hanging in midair with Sakura jumping over a ledge to hug Syaoran and the credits rolling halfway through the jump (the manga ends with her making that hug, albeit in zero risk conditions). And a large portion of the fandom suffered the effects of True Art Is Angsty.
Not to forget that this is the whole point of the Second Movie and the end of the manga as well. If Sakura hugs Syaoran, the show is over!!
All these inspired a series of Continuations and Fix Fics, the authors not willing to accept anything Left Hanging of just about every possible variety on the scale.
Speaking of long distance — presenting Tsubasa Chapter 223. Page 1, C!S&S meet and embrace in Hong Kong, come Page 3, they're married and parents! Moral - Distance, time, alternate universe, new series and reincarnation are all insignificant before the Power of Love.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: While many of the Clow Cards do have formidable abilities, it's hard to see things like "The Sweet," "The Cloud," and "The Glow" be used for anything devastating in battle or stealth. "The Song" is also, in essence, a music recorder.
White-Haired Pretty Boy: Yue is a rare variety that starts off antagonistic and grows to care for Sakura once he accepts that she's not Clow but doesn't have to be.
White and Grey Morality: This show has no villains; in the first arc, the Cards are portrayed more as mischievous beings than truly evil troublemakers (if somewhat inept to their occasionally dangerous powers) and are all subject to Defeat Means Friendship, and in the second arc, the "villain" is quickly hinted (and revealed at the end) to be much more of a Trickster Mentor. All the intelligent characters are presented as decent people, which underscores the "Humans Are Good" part of the trope.
Wise Beyond Their Years: Tomoyo, in addition to being Genre Savvy, is extremely perceptive of the motives and secrets of people around her. This is even lampshaded in the manga when Eriol comments that her powers of perception are more valuable to her and her friends than magic.
Syaoran as well, who is extremely serious and non nonsense in tone and has vast intellect regarding the cards and their heritage. He is suggested to be well educated as well. That said, Ping Pong Naïveté and Not so Above It All moments come at his expense a lot more.
Women Are Wiser: Played with. Most of the male cast are more morally ambiguous and arrogant the female cast, though also seem more world wary and intelligent. For example Sakura is more kind natured and humble than Syaoran, but also far more childish, scatterbrained and incredibly naive.
The main element cards are just the element with "y", lending itself to some odd Gratuitous English. The four cards are: Watery, Firey, Earthy, and Windy.
Zettai Ryouiki: Sakura's outfits often sport this, in varying grades.
.Compare Sailor Moon, which is the other "major" example most people think of vis-à-vis Magical Girls. Contrast Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the most notable Deconstruction of the genre.
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