Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2 – The Sealed Card

July 24, 2004 on 6:23 pm | In Cardcaptor Sakura | 1 Comment

Four months after the conclusion of the television series, this final foray into Cardcaptor Sakura gives another, even more definite conclusion. It’s always nice to take another crack.

Sakura is in year six now and is a little older and a little wiser. Due to the lack of cards, Tomoyo passes the time by making Sakura fight the CREATE card in different guises, filming them and editing them to music. Yue and Kero-chan are living standard lives, and nothing much happens. Then developers tear down Eriol’s mansion which, being over 100 years old, should probably have been heritage listed. In its place they build an amusement park, and subsequently unleash the 53rd card that Clow Reed had sealed away all those years ago.
Shaoran and Meilin come and visit from Hong Kong and Sakura spends the film trying to answer Shaoran back – and notices her Sakura Cards are missing!

The Sealed Card is a slow film. The first half of it is spent largely on Sakura not talking to Shaoran, and Meilin and Tomoyo scheming to get the two of them together – apparently the unspoken TV finale was too subtle for these twelve year olds. It’s just living from day to day. Still, an interesting philosophical question is raised, Sakura once again shows her love for humanity, and it ends on the perfect note.

One really odd thing about this is that Shaoran smiles all throughout the film: he’s changed completely from his first appearance as a thoroughly unpleasant child. His discovery of humanity has been a high point; what makes him better is that because he’s been completely honest he lives serenely. It’s just nice to watch him, and slightly painful to watch Sakura.
Yukito has some good material and leads in directly on other things he’s said, but there’s not enough screen time shared between himself and Toya. Toya gets to wear a bunny suit and hand out balloons, so it’s okay.
And, as even further proof that someone must love Twin Bells, there’s even a shot of Maki somewhere in the film – she really is quite the enduring character.

There’s another play, this one written by Naoko, and as with all plays performed in Tomoeda, they never get to finish acting it. It’s romantic, with great staging, and naturally Sakura and Shaoran play the romantic leads, in an uncanny parallel to real life! It was very good for a production written, produced and directed for twelve year olds – and also showed Sonomi’s considerable softening.
The final confrontation with the sealed card is handled in a way only Sakura could – and it’s exactly how it should have been settled.

Then it’s over forever.

Also of note is that this film is the only Cardcaptor Sakura property that has an unedited dub. It’s interesting to check out purely for curiosity’s sake: after 70 episodes, the Japanese cast is far too ingrained for this to count for anything. For what it’s worth, this dub shares a great deal of its cast with Digimon, but it feels like it was recorded at a much higher pitch. And Sakura still says “hoeee!” despite speaking English. Wendee Lee’s Kero-chan sounds very much like a young boy.

Included with the feature is the Leave it to Kero-chan! theatrical edition, which is a decidedly odd adventure about Suppie and Kero-chan fighting for love of Takoyaki. It’s presented very much like an old WB/Tex Avery/Disney short (the best actual analog is the Roger Rabbit shorts), and is bright, colourful and repetitive. The highlight was Kero-chan’s sweets song, written by Kero-chan himself, Hisakawa Aya.

Cardcaptor Sakura can’t be any more complete than this. An impressive, twenty DVD saga finally comes to an end with this film: it’s not the best part of the entire thing, but it gives just a little more time with these lovable characters, and that’s good enough.