Card(s) of the Day: Power: Power is a card that makes the user more, well, powerful. Usually in terms of physical strength. Kero stated that Windy might be the counter to it, but that might just be from what she has.
Plot: Sakura’s class is going to the zoo, but a strange seemingly invisible Clow card is causing havoc all over the place. It’s the Power card, and Sakura must challenge its pride in order to capture it. Can she overpower Power?
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Title Change: Sakura and the Elephant’s Test of Strength is changed to Power’s Ploy.
In the original, Toya mocks Sakura a tad by saying since she got up on her own for a change that it will probably rain today, but Sakura argues by saying the weather person claimed it’d be sunny. In the dub, he says he heard Sakura’s going to the zoo today and mocks her by asking if they’re going to put her in a cage. Sakura responds by saying his brain’s turned to mush.
Sakura’s dad doesn’t say what’s in the lunch box, he just says it’s full of her favorites. In the dub he says it’s a meatloaf sandwich with chocolate chip cookies.
Sakura explains that she’s going to meet her class and then they’re going to take the bus to the zoo. Toya says to be careful if she goes to the park, then he points to the TV to show that the giant penguin slide at the park was completely flipped upside down. In the dub, Toya mocks her some more by asking if she’s planning to be a weightlifter with the lunch she has. Sakura mock laughs before Tori suggests she might be the King Kong of Penguin Park. He then points to the TV.
Yukito shows up as Sakura’s rollerblading. She asks why he’s not with her brother, and he responds that he has to go in early to do chores at school. Sakura, lucky that her brother’s not there to mess with her age-gap-ish game, gets goo-goo eyes and celebrates internally. Yukito asks what’s wrong, and Sakura shakes off her embarrassment. All of this, barring Yukito showing up, is removed. We cut straight from him meeting with Sakura to the shot of the park that comes after.
The reporter, who is oddly still talking about this on live TV even when it’s just a penguin slide, is just talking about how weird it is that this happened in the original. In the dub, it’s almost the same, but she makes this statement; “Some suspect the radical group the ‘Pals of Penguins’ organization is behind this…” Pbbbttt…Nelvana, stop being silly.
They edit out a short scene of a conversation of Yukito and Sakura as they’re going to school. I guess this is to make the Yukito time even shorter. Also, Sakura blushes once while talking with him even though he’s just inquiring about her backpack.
Because that conversation was edited out, the final line that they actually kept the visuals for is changed. Yukito mentions that her dad’s a great cook since she mentioned the lunch he made for her, and she agrees. In the dub, he tells her to have fun on her field trip and ‘beware the penguin tippers.’
More Yukito cuts: Like he’s done several other times, Yukito throws a small candy to Sakura before he leaves. Sakura gets all gushy again and goes on about how great her day has been and is going to be. She spins around in front of the school when she hears a noise. She tries to listen for it again, but shrugs it off before we cut to the zoo. All of this is removed.
I try not to nitpick TOO much with the dialogue because I’d be here all day, but when the teacher is explaining to the groups about their report, he says their reports are due on Monday and they have to meet back at that same location at two o’clock, which is why the teacher holds up two fingers. In the dub, he makes no mention of the deadline, and when he raises two fingers he says the report is about two things, teamwork and observation. Also, the original mentions nothing of the penguin incident.
They edit out Sakura slightly freaking out in fear when one of her friends mentions that whatever flipped over king penguin was a ghost.
Tomoyo says the ghost is so strong it must be the ghost of a sumo wrestler. Madison says she’d probably win a Pulitzer if she took a picture of the ghost.
Minor nitpick – the classes are assigned specific animals for their report, they don’t get to choose like in the dub.
Bunch of shots removed – shots of the boys looking at the sloths, one of the boys talking about them, Syaoran inquiring more about them, a shot of their backpacks, the boys picking up their notebooks, the boys taking notes, and Syaoran snapping one pic are all removed.
The parts of the scene that they do keep are changed. Syaoran’s amazed by the sloth whereas Lee’s bored/frustrated by it. Zachary also talks about how intelligent it is when originally he was talking about how fast it can run.
Another short scene is cut of the other boys talking about how Yamazaki always lies and it’s nice to see someone gullible enough to believe his lies.
Originally the girls were talking about the neat tricks that elephants can be taught to do. In the dub, they’re talking about how much an elephant can pick up and discussing how they should observe the elephant’s natural strengths in their unnatural environment. While I don’t like changes, at least this one is educational. Plus, it leads me to believe someone at Nelvana is a big elephant fan.
Well, here’s something new. Syaoran’s on the eyecatch this episode.
Sakura’s friend asks if she finished her report. She says she has a little more to do, and her friend wishes her good luck before watching the elephants some more. In the dub, Sakura’s friend asks if it’s lunchtime yet. Sakura says yes, and her friend says she and the other girl will meet them later before she returns to watching the elephants.
Sakura doesn’t bring up the suspected Clow card in the original. She just keeps going on about how she’s surprised that Kero’s there.
Rika follows her teacher and gives him a bento box that she made for him. He accepts it, thanks her and she smiles. All of this was removed.
Another scene removed. Syaoran takes a picture of the sloth and they mark down that it moved, but the other boys are complaining that they’ve been watching it for an hour and they’ve only seen it move three times. Despite this, Syaoran’s still excited as ever. I really like Syaoran when he’s happy and excited about learning. Even if he does get deceived by Yamazaki, he’s a lot more likable this way. They only keep the very end of the scene when Syaoran tries to take another shot.
Syaoran, Sakura and Kero all sense the Clow card in the original, but in the dub Syaoran seems to be the only one who senses something while both Sakura and, surprisingly, Kero don’t sense anything. Kero asks why he thinks this huge booming noise is a Clow card.
Kero says it’s one thing if the penguins escape, but quite another if the larger animals get out. In the dub, he says penguins don’t just escape on their own and that the only logical conclusion is a Clow card. Right, no animals ever got loose at a zoo without a Clow card breaking them out.
Kero says Sakura has to tell Power exactly what the test of strength shall be. The dub just has him tell her to run. Surprisingly, though, they leave in her funny faces during this entire scene, but it was likely unavoidable.
A shot of Sakura from the back with a sweat drop is removed.
Also, Power is indeed really adorable.
Not as cute as Rain, but still.
In the original, it’s a bit unclear as to why Syaoran decided to help Sakura secretly instead of trying to capture Power on his own after she lost. In the dub, Lee says there’s no chance she’ll win at the tug of war and decides to basically cheat for her just to get the card caught….even though she technically was cheating anyway with the elephant helping her.
Also, why the hell is Power hers anyway? Syaoran’s technically the one who stopped Power with Time. If he hadn’t interfered, it’s fairly likely she would’ve lost. Under the rules of the cards, Power should be Syaoran’s, right?
They keep bringing up that Sakura’s magic has gotten more powerful, but there’s nothing in this episode that really indicates that, in the dub anyway. She’s actually getting slightly better at sensing cards in the original, but this was removed in the dub.
Also, Syaoran originally wonders if the sloth has decided to do anything before running off. In the dub, he says Sakura’s going to need to get a lot more powerful if she’s going to be a Cardcaptor.
Sakura asks Kero what Power’s effect is on her when she uses it. Kero says that it makes you more powerful, of course, and Sakura derp-faces. Surprisingly they left the derp-face in but Sakura says they have unfinished business and Kero responds by saying they do – lunch.
I have no clue why, but they remove the shot of Sakura standing in front of the now right-side up king penguin slide.
They also shorten the scene with Yukito a bit here and there. Not really that noticeable.
A shot of Sakura getting nervous that Yukito will find out about her powers is removed.
Leave it to Kero-Chan!/Kero’s Corner: The dub’s logo ends up staying over Kero’s face as he appears on screen during Kero’s Corner for a couple of seconds, just like last episode….
While both segments are showing off Sakura’s uniform, the dub fails to mention that the reason they’re showcasing this uniform when they’ve already done a segment on it is that this is the summer version. The colors are inverted, black on white instead of white on black, and the school insignia is on the back instead of the arm.
Next time, Mist’s debut! Sakura is invited to Yukito’s school fair. Will there be age-inappropriate romance or heartache?
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The Anime Madhouse 
This is a classic! I particularly like the part when Li totally believes the story about the sloths, so funny. Thanks for reminding me of one of my favorite anime!
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Li and the sloths was adorable! You’re very welcome! 🙂
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It is cool to see another episode review of this series. I wasn’t aware of some of those changes, but Nelvana did butcher the crap out of CCS.
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What I wasn’t aware of is, according to what I read recently, Cardcaptors was even more butchered when it was initially broadcast on Kids WB. “The first North American broadcasting of Cardcaptors was by Kids’ WB from June 2000 to December 2001. Although all 70 episodes were dubbed, only 39 episodes were aired in America. The episodes were heavily edited and aired in a random order. Reflecting the channel’s primarily male-targeted audience, Syaoran’s introductory episode was made Episode 1.
The capturing of the Clow Cards became the show’s main selling point and focus as at the time of the show’s English airing, cartoons revolving around “collecting” were popular, such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh.” I kinda want to see the Kids WB edit and make a comparison on that, but supposedly it’s lost media. I never saw the Kids WB version. The one I saw very briefly as a child was on some random channel I can’t even remember and lost after a few weeks. But god, how could they manage to make this WORSE?
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I saw this on Kids WB back in the day, but I didn’t even know that compared to Nelvana’s handling of the series at large. They didn’t show all the episodes? Dang! It’s just like Escaflowne when it was on Fox Kids! Come to think of it, I remember Never Argue With a Fish saying something like the episode count was different in the UK. That doesn’t surprise me about the rearranging of episodes and making Syaoran the “real” main character which I remember being called out by THEM when they lambasted the Nelvana edits while making a separate review for the original Japanese series while mentioning the sexist implications of doing so.
Yu-Gi-Oh! was on Kids WB, so that makes way too much sense and so was Pokemon eventually (it was on UPN of all places at first where I lived before moving to that block). It’s frustrating seeing how much anime gets butchered when it ends up on a kid-oriented block or channel. Only after watching some of these shows back and in Japanese made me realize that even more.
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It’s amazing how good kid anime fans have it now. Like I can’t tell you how much I want to “BACK IN MY DAY…” young anime fans when they complain about the tiniest of changes new shows will have.
I initially thought that Nelvana’s non-broadcast cut was meant to be more driven towards male audiences when I first read that THEM review way, way back in the day. And, honestly, I still think it is, but I can’t imagine how ridiculously sexist the Kids WB cut would up in comparison.
Oh and DUDE, I watched Pokemon on UPN too! I’m like 90% sure that was the channel I watched it on before I was able to watch Kids WB. It was on at like 4:30 or 5 in the morning, and I would have my dad wake me up to watch it before he left for work lol
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I’ll take your word for it, but then again I’m out of the loop with newer anime in general and I don’t actively watch TV. With that said, I’ve had that similar sentiment by telling younger anime fans how good they have it. I can remember how expensive DVDs were, lack of streaming availabilities, anime merch was hard to find outside of Suncoast, and how anime fans got bullied/fandom shamed way more than right now.
I’m glad you know about that THEM review or just THEM in general. I read a ton of their reviews back in high school and my early college days. It is very concerning with how Nelvana did this and the message it sends to impressionable young audiences back in the day when it aired on TV?
It was on UPN where you’re from, too? Awesome! I know that channel has been kaput for years, but people forget what kind of shows were on there in syndication. I swear it was roughly 6-6:30 AM if memory serves me correctly where I’m from, so I had to wake up early before school to see Pokemon. It was also the first place I saw various anime like Teknoman (the first anime I remember watching in my life) and even DBZ when it first came out in America. The latter was on UPN up until the first part of the Frieza Saga, then it was syndicated on Fox AFTER the official Fox Kids block ended (same with WMAC Masters if you remember that show), and then it was on Toonami!
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I’m loving these comparison posts! Any plans to do the rest of the series?
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Thank you very much! I’m definitely completing the series and the movie. 🙂
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