Card(s) of the Day: Shield – A card that protects precious items, plus the controller of the card I’d guess, with a super strong shield. Oddly enough, Shield’s weakness seems to be Sword, which, given the intention of most shields, seems to be kinda weird.
Plot: Tomoyo has invited Sakura over to help with a problem when Tomoyo’s mom, Sonomi, shows up and starts reminiscing about Sakura’s mom with them. After that, Tomoyo shows Sakura the problem – Tomoyo’s mom’s jewelry box is sealed shut by some sort of force that she believes to be a Clow card. There are items that are very precious to Tomoyo and her mom in there, so Sakura vows to capture the Clow card and free the items inside.
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Title Change: Sakura, Tomoyo and a Mansion is changed to The Special Box.
Wait, Sakura and Tomoyo are in gym, she’s asking if Sakura can go to her house tomorrow and says it’s a Sunday (In the original)…that must mean that’s a Saturday…She’s at school on a Saturday? Huh? I know Japanese schools typically go through summer, but on the weekends too? The dub has Madison ask if she can come to her house tomorrow, a Saturday.
The original doesn’t mention anything about bringing Kero or Tomoyo baking him his favorite cake.
Sakura’s dot eyes are again edited out.
In the original, as Sakura and Tomoyo are watching videos of Sakura’s captures on Tomoyo’s private home entertainment center, Tomoyo gushes over how cute she looks during her captures. In the dub, she’s gushing over how nice the costumes she made for Sakura look.
A shot of Sakura’s goofy face with a sweat drop is edited out.
Sakura tells Tomoyo that she’s always making her costumes and she feels kinda bad about it. Then Tomoyo says she shouldn’t feel that way because she gets to film Sakura wearing the costumes that she makes for her and twirls around happily. In the dub, the twirling and swooning over Sakura wearing the clothes that she makes for her is edited out.
Tomoyo’s mom initially says that she heard that Sakura was coming over so she rushed home from the office. (Is she going to be obsessed with Sakura too? Because I dunno how I feel about that.)
More dot eyes as Sakura thinks about Kero as he’s hiding is edited out.
The maid who brings in the tea responds to Mrs. Taylor so oddly in the dub. In both versions they say ‘yes’ to Tomoyo’s mom’s request, but the dub line is said like the maid’s either a robot or in a trance. Did she forget she was acting or is Mrs. Taylor a hypnotist?
Tomoyo’s mom originally asks Sakura if she likes cake, not strawberries. Also, Sakura’s mother didn’t love strawberries, she loved cake. This is easily translatable, Nelvana. Are you anti-cake? Did Portal leave lasting emotional scars?
Sakura points out that she’s heard her father say the same thing about Nadeshiko. Then Tomoyo’s mom imagines Sakura’s dad intruding on her thoughts of Nadeshiko. Sakura says her father told her that Nadeshiko loved cake and that she never seemed to get fat no matter how much she ate of it. This all removed.
Oh boy, another long scene removal. We cut to Toya at home washing the car. Yukito walks up to him commending him on a good job. He also mentions that it makes sense that he’s so good at this since he used to work at a gas station.
Fujitaka then walks up and talks to Yukito and invites him over to eat outside since it’s so nice out.
Yukito asks where Sakura is, and Toya tells him that she’s at Tomoyo’s house. Yukito gets slightly worried because he knows that means she’s with Tomoyo’s mom, Sonomi, and worries she might say or do something because of Sonomi’s ill feelings towards Fujitaka. Fujitaka then walks up and says Sonomi would never do anything to hurt Sakura and Toya smiles. *whew* All of this is removed…..Because of Yukito? I guess… Sakura’s not even in this scene, and you still feel the need to muscle him out? Geez.
Sonomi reminisces on how cute Nadeshiko was in a semi-long montage. Most of it is shots of Nadeshiko and her saying Sonomi’s name, then we get to the final shot where she remembers Nadeshiko telling her that she was going to marry Fujitaka. The fantasy suddenly ends as Fujitaka’s face again barges in on her thoughts and the bubble bursts to her angry face.
In the dub, only one shot of the memory is kept, and Sonomi refers to her as beautiful and kind instead of cute. Also, since it suddenly cuts from her good memory to her angry, the scene fails to make any sense.
I guess I can give Nelvana a pass for this at least. Sonomi asks Sakura if she can call her Sakura-chan and she says yes. Since there’s no real English equivalent of that, we just move on to the next conversation in the dub.
Sonomi tells Sakura that she didn’t get her athletic skill from her mother, but the dub also adds that she must’ve gotten her skills from her father, which is something I don’t really think Sonomi would do. I mean, I don’t think she hates Fujitaka as much as she lets on, but I don’t think she’d outright compliment him, even if he’s not there.
I don’t know why, but the more I hear it, the more I hate the name Natasha for Nadeshiko. It just sounds wrong.
Also, Natasha’s VA doesn’t sound right either. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just don’t think it fits well for some reason.
Fujitaka, in the flashback, says he thought an angel had fallen from heaven when Nadeshiko fell on him…..Pfft, you got moves there, Mr. Kinomoto. Next you can ask her if it’s hot in there or if that’s just her. In the dub, he just says it was lucky for her that he was walking under the tree as she fell.
Also, Sakura’s dad sounds so weird in this flashback in the dub. Did they drink spiked water in the studio that day or what?
After the flashback is over, predictably, Sonomi goes into a rage over remembering how Nadeshiko and Fujitaka first met and rants about how he called her an angel before composing herself. Everything after the end of the flashback and to when Sonomi composes herself is edited out.
Sakura originally asks Sonomi if she knows how Fujitaka was in his younger days. He always talks about Nadeshiko but never says anything about himself. Since he has no living relatives that she knows of and her mother’s family tree is also fairly bare, she thought she’d ask Sonomi for information.
In the dub, she basically says it was a good thing her mother was a klutz or else she never would’ve met her dad. Because of this, Sakura tilting her head down almost in embarrassment seems out of place. Also, Sakura mentions that ‘expect the unexpected’ thing that I guess they’re trying to make into a catchphrase or something.
Since the previous scene was changed for no reason, the next scene had to be changed too. In the original, Sonomi says Fujitaka is a disgusting person from the eyes of someone who truly loved Nadeshiko. He’s smart, athletic, he cooks etc. and his biggest flaw is that he has no flaws. Then she tells Sakura to never tell her father that she said that and Sakura agrees.
In the dub, Mrs. Taylor basically explains that Sakura’s right in that it was probably a good thing that she was clumsy, she misses Natasha very much and she believes Sakura will grow up to be a wonderful woman like Natasha.
We cut to Sakura’s dad, Yukito and Toya doing yard work when Fujitaka sneezes. Yukito asks if he’s getting a cold and he says no, but that maybe someone’s talking about him. The whole ‘sneezing means someone’s talking about you behind your back’ idiom isn’t a thing in America, so this scene was removed.
A shot of Sakura, Tomoyo and Sonomi laughing at a story Sonomi’s telling is also removed since it wouldn’t have meshed very well without the scene with Sakura’s dad.
Sonomi, sad about needing to leave Sakura for work, childishly fawns over Sakura and promises to have dinner with her later. Removed.
Why does Sonomi seem to have no interest whatsoever in spending time with Toya? He’s Nadeshiko’s child too. I know she probably favors Sakura more since she’s a cute little girl who reminds her physically of Nadeshiko, but that seems….rude?
Kero cheering over his cake is too adorable.
In the original, as we see the box for the first time, we cut from the scene in Tomoyo’s bedroom to the shot of the box with a Kero-shaped transition. This just changed to a jump cut in the dub.
Tomoyo tells Sakura that there’s something in the box very precious to both her and her mother. She wants Sakura to try to capture the card so that she can get the item out. In the dub, she says she asked her mom if she could keep the box in her room so that she could try to open it, but if she can’t she’ll have to take it to a locksmith, which won’t do much good because of the Clow card.
After they agree to take care of the Clow card, Tomoyo takes out her camera and says it’s time to start filming, which makes Sakura falls over comically. We get another Kero transition to the shot of Kero. In the dub, the scene with Tomoyo starting her video is edited out and we get no Kero transition.
Kero actually refutes Sakura’s theory that Shield went to Tomoyo because it was her friend since Shield has a good personality and wouldn’t do anything twisted like that. In the dub, he agrees that that was what Shield was doing because it’s so smart.
Another Kero transition is removed. I don’t know why these transitions are here, but I don’t know why they’re cut either…
Tomoyo tells Sonomi that there was a spring stuck inside of the lock and that’s why it wouldn’t open and the key kept flying out. In the dub, she just says she fixed it with Sakura.
OH MY GOD, THEY LEFT IN SOMETHING BOTH JAPANESE AND EDUCATIONAL! The item in the box was a bouquet that Nadeshiko used during her wedding. It was a bouquet of sakura – cherry blossoms. Nadeshiko always said that if she had a baby girl, she would name her Sakura.
This is translated correctly which shocked me….Well, they still mess it up a bit. Remember the last episode and how they changed the flower thing from being a nadeshiko flower to just saying it was Natasha’s favorite flower? Well, those weren’t cherry blossoms and that’s what they’re saying Natasha’s favorite flowers are now. Continuity!
Hey, Nelvana, just a heads up, music that sounds dramatic with heavy bass drum sounds is not endearing or cute. Thanks for ruining that scene.
In the original, the other item that was in the box, the one that was special to Tomoyo, was a small bag that held a pink bunny eraser. In a flashback, we see that it was the first thing that Sakura ever gave her when they first became friends, so she treasures it. In the dub, she says it’s a present for Sakura that was something of Sakura’s mom’s. Tomoyo’s mom plans to give it to her one day after she grows up. Seeing as how the chances of that eraser ever being brought up again are insanely low, I’d say we never find out what that gift is either.
Leave it to Kero-Chan!/Kero’s Corner: Kero, in the dub, calls Sakura’s slippers ‘bunny slippers’ before moving on to the next items in the segment. Originally the slippers were hamster slippers (you can tell because the ears are nowhere near the length of a bunny’s ear) plus he mentions the other slippers in the shot are cat slippers for Toya and monkey slippers for Fujitaka.
Next episode, Time’s debut! Sakura enjoys a new chance at taking a recorder test she seemingly did poorly at when the Time card starts rewinding the days. However, when the day keeps repeating over and over, she has to take it down.
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The Anime Madhouse 