FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT | LAST
And Cardcaptor Sakura is the quintessential overrated magical girl series.
A few weeks back, somebody asked me to elaborate on exactly what I dislike about the Cardcaptor Sakura franchise. I had thought about writing a post on the subject for some time … but realized I couldn’t fit it all in one post. So you get ten. For the next ten days or until I get bored, this is Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura … except I could only come up with nine, so we’re going to skip number four as a way of honoring Japanese superstition.
Of course, to be fair, I should probably mention that when I say I hate it, I mean I hate it with that special kind of hatred known only to fanboys. One of the writers of Battlestar Galactica, I forget which, once mentioned in an interview that a fan wrote him to say, “I hate this episode. I’ve watched it eight times, and I hate it more every time.” That’s fanboy hatred. I hate Cardcaptor Sakura, a magical-girl title, with the hatred of a magical-girl fanboy.
A few months ago, I got into a discussion about Sakura with some dude on the Internet. He was not himself a magical girl aficionado, and he said that he had expected Sakura to be cloyingly saccharine and sappy, but was surprised to find it a competently produced and likable coming-of-age story. I replied to him that I thought Cardcaptor Sakura was sick and wrong, and that after I finished reading its first of two story arcs (comprising the first six collected volumes of the manga), I felt as if I’d just been groomed by a child molestor.
He replied, “Oh, yes. The story is about a loveable, sweet, innocent little girl completely surrounded by perverts.” I can imagine no better summary of this franchise.
Continue reading “Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, too!)”
, written and illustrated by Peach-Pit. Translated by Satsuki Yamashita. 12 vols. Kodansha Comics (New York): (). Rated T (ages 13+).
. Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara et al. Written by Sukehiro Tomita et al. Story by Naoko Takeuchi. Starring Kotono Mitsuishi, Michie Tomizawa, and Aya Hisakawa. Toei Animation, 1994-1995. North American re-release by Viz Media and Warner Bros., 2016. 19 episodes of 25 minutes (approx. 475 minutes). Rated TV-14.
by Richard Henry Dana Jr.,* sailors view soldiers with contempt and even use “soldier” as an insult meaning “lazy good-for-nothing.” To mimic the sailors’ slangy speech, Dana renders the word soldier as “soger.” According to him, the captain of a sailing vessel might even punish an especially lazy crewman by making him march up and down on the deck, holding a marlin spike as if it were a rifle. Such a humiliation is sufficient to break some men.
manga. So now seems to be a good time to finish up our review of the third season of 
