Cardcaptor Sakura Book Three Review: Not ‘Clamped’ Down

Magical girl manga is not something many people like. Good thing one of the better magical girl series, “Cardcaptor Sakura” by CLAMP, is being rereleased by Dark Horse in special four-part 600 plus page omnibus books. The newest addition to the series is book three.

Book three is the beginning of “season two” of Cardcaptor Sakura. One thing many people notice about this series is that there is no villain. Season two does introduce a sorta villain although not in the traditional sense of the word. There is conflict between Sakura and the villain but it’s not a good vs. evil conflict. It’s more along the lines of testing Sakura. This is a good choice by CLAMP in that the traditional magical girl villains do tend to go stale after only a few chapters and fall into the generic evil category.

Another thing people notice about Cardcaptor Sakura is that there are two stories going on here. One is Sakura being a cardcaptor and the other is Sakura being a normal ten-year-old girl. These two stories, though very well written, do meld together but not as well as they should. It almost feels like reading two completely different manga.

One reason this could be is that this does not feel like your typical magical girl manga because Sakura does not transform. Instead her friend, Tomoyo, makes her a new outfit for every outing. This is actually a welcome addition because transformation scenes do get tiring after the fifth time seeing it.

The artwork is top notch, much better than many manga in this genre. The characters are well designed; Sakura’s outfits are cute, well designed and don’t fall into the usual jailbait tripe we’re used to.

One of the best things about these books that Dark Horse did is add a lot of extra artwork. These pictures are well done, bright and colorful-a gem for the Cardcaptor Sakura fan. Not to mention that each book contains 13 chapters.

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of the better magical girl manga and should not be missed by anyone despite the weak connection of the two different story styles. With the Dark Horse rereleases of the entire series in four omnibus forms with a slew of extra artwork, this should be in any manga collector’s collection.