Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors (Nelvana) Episode 14: Sakura, Toya and Cinderella | Sub/Dub Comparison

Card (s) of the Day: Mist – A card that creates an odd green mist that destroys anything that it touches. Its weakness seems to be Shadow as it can contain Mist and keep it from spreading and causing harm.

Plot: Toya’s school is holding a fair, and he’s set to be in the play of Cinderella. As Cinderella. The play is actually gender-swapped, meaning the boys play all the girl parts and vice versa. A girl named Yoko, who has a crush on Toya, gets the part of the prince. However, the Clow card, Mist, appears and puts Toya and Yoko in danger. Sakura has to stop Mist before they’re hurt or worse.

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Title Change: Sakura, Toya and Cinderella is changed to Play Misty for Tori, which makes sense, but also doesn’t?

Sakura’s ticket is painted over in English and the details are changed. The Seijou High School Fair is changed to the Reedington High Culture Fest. The dub gets the date right, but the original doesn’t state that it’s the 24^th annual fair.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Also, I have no clue why they erased everything but one of the x parts of one of the kanjis.

Hey guys, guess what? Yukito was cut out some more! As she looks at the ticket, Sakura flashes back to Yukito giving it to her. They talk about how Toya’s been staying late at school the past few days to prepare for it, and say he might be worried about the play. Yukito hands her the ticket, says it’s good for both her and a friend and that the ticket also allows her to eat at any of the booths. All of this was removed. And because we have an overlaid transition to get us back to where the dub starts, they do some REALLY sloppy editing that makes it seem like the footage got somewhat eaten in a VCR.

Tomoyo originally gets in a good close-up of Sakura because she looked so lovely as she was lost in thought in her flashback. Sakura then nervously laughs with a somewhat cartoony face. In the dub, this is changed to just her freaking Sakura out because she brought the camera in case a Clow card showed up – something she really shouldn’t be surprised at anymore considering that thing is almost always glued to her hand. Also, the editor must just be drunk today because they cut out Sakura’s nervous laugh and cartoony face, but it’s shown for a brief second again making the footage look like it was messed with.

The other student asks Toya if he can mend the shoes, and Toya says he can do it with the other guy’s guts (??) In the dub, the guy asks Tori if he needs the shoes, and Tori says he has his own.

After that, the girls rush over and clamor at Toya for being good at sewing and they say he’d be a good husband. The editor strikes again because they cut out the shot of the girls clamoring for no reason I can fathom, causing a jump in the footage and a whiplashing dialogue shift. The dialogue is changed to them basically mocking him for ‘losing a bet’ and taking an embarrassing role in the play.

Yukito’s stand is specifically a candy shop, not just a generic food store.

The food choices are cold-candy water and ramune soda in the original. They’re lemon soda and desserts in the dub.

Sakura looks at Yukito as he walks away and says softly ‘Yukito-san’. This is removed.

God, the editor is having a rough day. Sakura sees Syaoran, and he stares hard at the three of them. Sakura freaks out slightly, and we cut to Syaoran with intense flames in his eyes. Yukito asks if he’d like another, and Syaoran shyly nods ‘yes.’ Sakura and Tomoyo see a mess of bottles and plates indicating that Syaoran has been there for quite some time. We get more glaring and Syaoran jumps towards the girls dramatically. All of this is edited it out because it’s more poking at Syaoran’s crush on Yukito, but it, like the other scenes, was edited with a second of footage from the clip left behind making it glaringly obvious that something was removed there. In addition, Julian doesn’t ask Lee if he wants another, he just greets him and Syaoran lunges at the girls.

Toya’s friends are baffled by Toya’s work ethic and strength as he doesn’t believe the trunk that they’re lugging around is heavy. They ask if he’s a robot or a gorilla and Toya stops to think. In the dub, they just say they need help moving it.

The girls are watching the guys carrying the trunk and they gush over Toya some more. They talk about how he’s on the soccer team, good at cooking and sewing etc. and they ask Yoko, the red-haired girl from earlier, if she likes Toya too. She asks why they’d ask her such a thing, and they say she’d make a cute match for him seeing as how she’s the head of the drama club and is good at taking care of people. She rolls her eyes and walks off. In the dub, oh wait a sec:

Name Change: Yoko is changed to Vicki.

As I was saying, in the dub, the girls are basically complete bitches. They whine about how the boys better not ask them to help move the trunk and how they better get moving to get to the stage with the trunk on time. They then ask Vicki if she memorized all her lines, and she says she memorized most of them. The girls taunt about how she’ll forget her lines and make a fool out of herself if she doesn’t ensure that she memorizes all of the lines. Vicki then walks off to study her lines some more. What is with older English dubs and making girls snobby divas? 4Kids did the same thing. Also, why are they removing a heterosexual same-age crush from the series too? There are no “content” excuses for that. Do they just want to remove most romance aspects now?

Even more of these hints of a crush are removed because, after Yoko leaves, the girls assert that Yoko probably does like Toya, but they understand why she’s so avoidant of the matter because it’s supposedly one of the ‘seven mysteries’ of their school as to why Toya and Yukito don’t have girlfriends and shoot down every girl who asks them. Gee, two of the hottest guys in school who spend practically all of their time together and seem to show no interest whatsoever in the opposite sex sure is a mystery. I mean, it’s not right to make assumptions but really, come on. I refuse to believe no one at their school ever suggested this possibility. This entire scene is removed. At least they didn’t make the edit sloppy this time, though.

Syaoran responds to Sakura liking the stuffed pink bunny by asking her why she would like such childish things, and she responds that it’s because it’s still cute. In the dub, Lee tells Sakura that she has one just like that at home, and Sakura says she likes it anyway. How exactly does Lee know what stuffed animals Sakura has at home? He’s never been in her room has he?

The fee to do the challenge for the toy is actually 100 yen, roughly a dollar. But since 100 yen is a coin, they change it to a quarter. By the way, really, the challenge for getting one of various SMALL CUTESY STUFFED ANIMALS is to dribble past five players on the school’s basketball team? This is either a booth specifically designed for guys to impress their girlfriends and win them a prize or this is the suckiest booth ever. I’m not saying a girl couldn’t do it or wouldn’t want to, I’m quite certain there are some girls in the school who would, but I doubt the number would be big enough to warrant a booth. I also doubt the number of teenage boys who would do the challenge would want a pink bunny.

In response to Yukito giving Sakura the bunny, Syaoran grumbles a bit. The grumbling’s removed.

I’m actually surprised they left the following scene where it’s shown that Yukito also wins toys for Tomoyo and Syaoran.

Syaoran shyly asks Yukito if he’s also going to be in the play. Yukito says yes and that his role is a can of mackerel. The kids all try to process this weird information, but Yukito just smiles. All of this is removed and the editor mucked up the cut again. Dude, even when I did AMVs in Windows Movie Maker I was still able to do fairly clean cuts almost all the time. You have professional editing equipment, what is happening?

Also, I can understand removing the part where Yukito and Syaoran talk, at least by Nelvana’s stupid standards, but why the rest of it? There’s so much hacked away today that it’s one of those episodes that I really fear will be extended for time with something or other.

Since all of that is removed, the rest of the scene is changed. Sakura originally says that it sounds like a yummy role, and Yukito agrees because canned mackerel is really good. In the dub, Sakura continues on the previous discussion about Tori being in the play and says that whatever role he plays he’s sure to be great at it. Julian responds that he’s sure it’s a performance that they’ll never forget.

Syaoran asks why canned mackerel would be in a play about Cinderella. In the dub, Lee says Tori’s probably going to play one of the rats.

Upon seeing Toya as Cinderella, Sakura falls out her seat and the girls in the audience clamor over Toya. When Sakura pulls herself together, Tomoyo points out that Toya’s really popular. In the dub, all of this up until Sakura pulls herself up in her chair is removed, and since the scene with the girls was removed, Madison says that Julian was right about this being a performance they’ll never forget.

I’m starting to wonder why this entire episode wasn’t axed. I mean, it’s butchered enough as it is, you can tell that just from this comparison, and we’re just barely past the commercial break so there’s probably plenty more to go. Now we have crossdressing. Look at all the stuff that has been cut either for stupid reasons, pointless reasons or no reason at all in this one episode. Now take into consideration that Toya’s crossdressing and it’s left alone. It’s not just him either, the other female roles are being filled by guys from his class too, and the prince is played by a girl because it’s a gender-swapped play. I don’t get their logic at all. I’m glad they’re leaving it, but I don’t get their nonsensical rules.

ALSO, this scene directly contradicts the girls’ words from earlier about feeling bad for Tori because he ‘lost a bet’ and I guess had to take that part because of it. It’s a gender-swapped play, meaning other boys are dressed in feminine clothing too. If anything, Tori had the best part in the play because he gets a love scene with an attractive girl.

They remove a shot of the two boys playing the evil stepsisters getting in each others faces about who’s going to marry the prince.

To add more time, they add in a shot of Sakura making an awkward face from earlier.

The play’s actually been fairly loyal, dialogue wise, but before the stepsisters and stepmother leave, the evil stepmother tells Cinderella to be jealous, and the stepsisters tell Cinderella to make ramen for them before they come home from the ball. No demands for Cinderella to be jealous are made, and the stepsisters tell Cinderella to make them a late night snack for when they come home.

In response to Toya’s less-than-enthusiastic acting about wanting to go to the ball, Syaoran says “I don’t think he wants to go to the ball at all.” In the dub, it’s kept the same, but Lee’s delivery of “I don’t think he wants to go.” is almost as bad as the way Tori’s VA is purposely trying to act right now.

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous now. I’m actually getting a little angry. Yukito comes on stage and, again, all of the girls clamor. Tomoyo points out that Yukito is also very popular. Sakura agrees, claiming it’s because he’s so wonderful. Syaoran nods in agreement then realizes what he did and grumbles. Yukito’s role is….odd…to say the least. You remember how he said he’d be playing a can of mackerel? He wasn’t lying. He is playing some wizard or something that hands Cinderella an invitation to the ball. He has a can of mackerel on his head and states that the can of mackerel is where he gained his powers. Sakura and Syaoran both fall over this time, and Tomoyo states they must’ve used that to raise awareness over wasting things. It’s a weird yet funny scene. All of it is removed. Also, no, it is never once explained what this is actually about, though that’s the joke.

Something had to have been done outside of one funny face shot insertion to make this episode run longer. There is just too much removed. Maybe they jam packed a lot of commercials.

Another shot of a goofy face of Sakura’s is removed.

Sakura and Syaoran both get a goofy face and say this is a weird play. They realize they said the same thing and both grumble. This is removed too.

More of the dance is removed for no reason.

Another mention of the ramen for dinner is omitted.

In addition, since Yukito’s part was completely cut, we get another funny line gone since Toya originally says ‘but the can of mackerel said I had to be home by midnight.’ In the dub, it’s the obvious Fairy Godmother.

Tomoyo only missed the capture, she never intended on recording the play nor did she ever try. The dub claims that she ran out of film before the play started and that’s why she also missed the capture.

When Yukito shows up, Syaoran bows and says he did a great job as the can of mackerel. Yukito thanks him. This is removed, but they couldn’t avoid showing Syaoran’s embarrassed face in the next shot as Sakura asks where Toya is.

Yoko brings Toya up to the roof and confesses her feelings to him. However, he gently declines. She asks if he likes someone else and he nods. She says she figured that was the case and wipes some tears away telling him to not worry about her and apologizes for crying. She then points out that the bonfire dance is starting soon and asks him for a favor – one dance. He agrees.

In the dub, Vicki just says thanks to Tori and says she owes him big time. She says it’s a shame that the play was ruined, he nods in agreement and she says there’s always next year. Then she asks to dance with him. The shot of her wiping away tears is also removed. I have no idea anymore. I guess all love is bad in Nelvana’s eyes. Maybe it was changed because Toya kinda-ish implies that he likes Yukito in the end, but it’s not that much. He just said he likes someone else. It’s only because I know about what happens later on that I know this is a poke at him liking Yukito. Plus, they could’ve left in the stuff about Yoko’s crush without implying that he has a thing for Yukito or even anyone else period. He could have just said he doesn’t feel the same way and let her down gently.

If you were only watching the dub, you’d be totally confused as to what this character’s purpose in the episode was. She didn’t study her lines much then got saved by Toya. The end.

Toya originally says as he walks away, since it was time to change partners, that he never promised anyone else to a dance. Yoko then says he acts a little too cool. In the dub, Tori says he wants to talk to his sister for a bit and Vicki says she’ll wait for him then.

Also, a music note, in the original, the song playing during the bonfire dance…..is “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”…………………………………..Wh….why? I just….why? Why would that song be playing at a high school bonfire dance? Oh yeah, when I want to have a nice dance with someone I like, the first sweet romantic hit I think of is ♪ Do you ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie ’em in a knot? Can you tie ’em in a bow?♪

It’s not even the fact that it’s not a romantic song, because it doesn’t have to be for a bonfire dance. It’s the fact that it’s a children’s song, one most kids don’t dance to, being played on something like an organ grinder. In the dub it’s just generic BG music, which, in this one instance, is actually better.

Yet they leave in the final scene with Yukito and Sakura dancing and even the closeup shot of Syaoran’s emotionally crushed face, but they remove the later scene of him making an equally crushed face in the background as Tomoyo films.

Also, hey Madison, I thought your camera ‘ran out of film.’

Leave it to Kero-Chan!/Kero’s Corner: They actually get everything right, but the reason Tori’s bag has no school emblem is because it’s not given by the school, and they never mention that Julian’s bag is from his grandparents.

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Overall, this episode is okay. The weird play was quite funny, but the Clow card and capture were ultimately boring. The dub was awful, and they made what seems to be way more cuts than usual. The only scene that was mostly left alone was the capture scene.

Next time, Kero and Sakura have a fight and he runs away from home.

…..Previous Episode

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Animating Halloween | 6Teen – Boo, Dude! Review

Plot: The group deals with various problems as a result of Halloween.

Breakdown: I still haven’t watched anything else in the 6Teen series besides the first episode, the Christmas special and now this episode, but it continues to be a show that I’m largely just okay with it. I don’t have a bad time watching the show, but it doesn’t latch onto me so much that I feel compelled to watch the rest anytime soon.

In this Halloween special, we have fewer plots running at once than the Christmas special, so it flows a bit better, but it’s still not a great episode. Caitlin is trying to get some guy she’s been dating for a little while, Talon, to finally kiss her. I don’t care about this plot at all because Talon comes off as a big jerk throughout most of the episode.

He acts like he barely even knows her despite the fact that Caitlin said they’ve been on three dates so far, and he always has an attitude when he’s talking to her like he’s not, in any way, romantically interested in her. However, near the end, he changes entirely and suddenly becomes a very sweet guy because…..I dunno. She wore a Halloween costume and embarrassed herself by wearing it in front of a bunch of people who weren’t wearing Halloween costumes, even though….ya know…..it’s Halloween. And then that’s resolved by Talon basically saying it’s okay to wear Halloween costumes because it’s Halloween, and everyone suddenly flips on THEIR heads, stops laughing at her, and then they put on the costumes they were wearing in front of everyone in the mall a few scenes ago.

No. I have no idea what the hell all that was about. Her costume wasn’t even an embarrassing costume. It was just a feathery Vegas showgirl outfit.

The buildup doesn’t even have a payoff because he never kisses her. He kisses her on the cheek, but she clearly wanted a kiss on the lips – she even read up on signals that a guy gives when he wants to kiss someone, one of which being staring at their lips.

There’s more to this, but we’ll come back around to it in a bit.

Jen’s storyline involves her being aggravated at having to dress up for Halloween because her boss loves Halloween and requires them to dress up. The bigger issue is that her boss is also a crazy person who keeps scaring customers by waving a realistic-looking and sounding chainsaw in front of them. I’m not entirely convinced it’s not a real chainsaw, but the blades don’t move so there’s that.

I will admit that the coach’s chainsaw thing was kinda funny in a dark way the first time he did it, but it got really old and more concerning the more he did it – and he was constantly doing it. Maybe I am just being a stuffy old person, but I just kept sympathizing with the poor customers who had to put up with that. The one thing I vividly remember from a haunted hay ride I took when I was a little kid was one guy with a chainsaw chasing after the wagon. And that was while I knew I was in a staged haunted hay ride, safe in a wagon with others, including my parents, while the guy clearly couldn’t catch up (or, well, wouldn’t). These poor customers have a guy waving a realistic-looking and sounding chainsaw right in their faces, causing them to pass out or suffer other accidents.

You’d think this guy would be getting more shit for doing this. He’s literally causing several people to pass out, one of the customers in the store was a pregnant woman, and Jen said she had to call for an ambulance twice that night. She gives him a taste of his own medicine by scaring him with a mechanical mouse, which you’d think would just end their plot entirely. I figured he’d respect her more for giving him a scare and he’d understand that you can go overboard with scaring people, even on Halloween, but no. It kinda goes that way, but then Jen suggests helping her help her friends prank the security guard.

Which brings us to the third plot – Jude, Wyatt and Jonesy are trying to pull off a prank on the security guard like they do every year, but he’s not falling for any of them. Their attempts are realistic enough but also quite lame. They stick a tag in his pocket so he’ll set off the alarm in any store he sets foot in, but, like….he’s a security guard….so who cares? Also, he finds it after the first time he trips an alarm and doesn’t react or care.

Next, Jude dresses up as a security guard and tries to trick him, but this obviously doesn’t work.

Then they try to scare him with a remote controlled mouse, but it not only doesn’t work, the thing also runs out of batteries almost immediately.

After several failures, they concoct their master plan, which is to get him loaded up with coffee, close the other bathrooms in the mall, forcing him to go into the bathroom they set up, then they kick in the door and take a picture of him on the toilet, which isn’t creepy or a major violation of someone’s personal boundaries at all.

Oh and Jonesy also puts butter on the toilet seat to make whomever sits on the seat fall into the bowl.

Jen comes in with her boss to spice up the plan. When the security guard comes in, he’ll also give him a good scare with his chainsaw before they take the picture.

Then Caitlin comes into the fray. After Talon dresses up as discount Batman and they go on their date, Caitlin says she has to go to the bathroom, but all of the bathrooms are full of people for some reason – they never explain how the boys did that, but whatever. They also don’t explain why no one else would be heading to other bathrooms. They did somehow block the main bathrooms for the mall, but certainly there are many other restrooms and even restrooms in the stores and restaurants. They couldn’t have blocked them all.

Caitlin is lead to the trap bathroom, which obviously means bad news for her. For some reason, Caitlin doesn’t turn on the lights when she gets into the bathroom nor do her friends, who are hiding behind the stalls, ever peek and notice that this girl in a flapper outfit is probably not the security guard.

I really thought that they’d scare her and she’d pee her pants or something, but no….

She goes into the stall and does her business, clearly making noises before going in and while being in the stall, but no one seems to notice these teenage girl sounds are not middle-aged Christopher Walken impersonator security guard sounds. Then the coach guy/Jen’s boss, scares her by kicking open the door and waving a chainsaw in front of her while wearing a Jason mask, then Jonesy, who I guess is still not getting the hint from the girl screams takes a picture of bare from the waist down Caitlin who then also falls into the toilet bowl because of the butter. Jen stops it, but…..it’s already done. She was already scared, the picture was taken and she fell into the toilet.

This is just awful. Caitlin didn’t do anything to deserve this. Technically, the security guard didn’t either, but because this is a tween/teen show, boring rule-abiding adults=bad and need and to be picked on for doing their jobs.

It’s bad enough to be humiliated like that, but they took a friggin’ picture of her half-naked on the toilet. That’s a million layers of no.

The frosting on this awful cake is that they never apologize or even say they’ll destroy the picture. The boys don’t care at all, they brush it off rather quickly and even laugh at her, and then they go off and try to figure out how to prank the security guard again immediately afterward.

The security guard, by the way, just went to the bathroom in a nearby store, because that’s an option.

Don’t worry, though. The security guard will get his just desserts for being a minimum wage guy doing his job. Jude, Wyatt and Jonesy put a chocolate cupcake on his chair and he sits on it, making it look like he pooped his pants. Because the height of comedy is doo-doo. Bear in mind, this show is meant for teenagers, not six-year-olds.

Overall, this episode wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t all that entertaining for most of the runtime, and the ending prank on Caitlin just seemed awful for no reason. The fact that Jen tells her boss to tone down the chainsaw scare tactics only to immediately tell him to do it to someone else kinda negates whatever message was in there, even if the target was a stoic tough guy, and the boys don’t get any punishment for doing something so terrible and violating like that to Caitlin. She might not be the most likable person, but she didn’t do anything to deserve that.

There’s also something at the beginning that I can’t tell if it’s an animation error or a joke. Caitlin is carving a jack-o-lantern and she accidentally cuts the mouth and nose off……..like….a nose and mouth were cut into the pumpkin, clearly all the way through, but she cut them off, leaving behind a completely untouched area of the pumpkin? It’s the pic I used for the main image, take note of the fallen piece near the bottom. It’s quite weird.

……Oh and I had to check the Wiki/Fandom page for the spelling of Talon’s name. Turns out she later dumps him because his idea of actual kissing is licking her face…….I wish I hadn’t known that.

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Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors (Nelvana) Episode 13: Sakura and the Elephant’s Test of Strength | Sub/Dub Comparison

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?

…..Previous Episode

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SSBS – Medabots Episode 5: The Old Man and the Sea Monster Review

Plot: On a trip to the beach, Ikki and Metabee face off against a bunch of jerks who want them off their beach. Meanwhile, there’s a sea monster looming in the shadows.

Medabot Debuts:

Sharkkan: A SAK Medabot, Sharkkan’s design is based off of a shark. Sharkkan is an aquatic Medabot that can move very swiftly in the water. It also has arms in the shape of shark jaws.

Tentaclam: A CLA type, Tentaclam is based off of an octopus. Like Sharkkan, it is an aquatic Medabot that can move easily in the water. Tentaclam has two pincers on the ends of its arms that can be detached, shot off and latched onto nearby objects before being pulled in by cables.

Robattles:

Ryan vs. Ikki: Winner – Ryan (Metabee surrendered his legs.)

Ryan vs. Ikki (Rematch): Winner – Ikki (Metabee earned his legs back.)

Breakdown: Ikki, Metabee, Erika and…..I’m gonna be honest – I don’t know who the frick this guy is. It has been a hot minute since I last picked up Medabots, but I legitimately can’t remember who this person is, they never say his name in this episode, and, for the life of me, I can’t find a way to Google who this is. No one seems to match his description in the Wiki’s character list. He’s an adult, I guess, and that’s all you need to know.

Anyway, they’re all taking a quaint trip to the beach. The adult dude falls asleep while the kids head off to swim. Metabee has a scuba mask on for some inexplicable reason.

Metabee: “Swan dive!” That was not, in any way, a swan dive. You might as well have just stepped off the ledge.

When Metabee dives in, he freaks out when he realizes the water is salt water, which will make him rust. How’d he know the water was salt water? Why did Ikki take his Medabot to the beach when he can neither swim nor tolerate salt water?

By the way, does anyone want to tell him that all water makes metal rust? Salt just speeds up the process.

Ikki: “Oh come on. Medabots don’t rust that fast.” Still a shitty way to care for your Medabot. Ya know, the one you couldn’t afford in the first place.

Metabee sulks on the beach after Ikki tells him to just leave the water if he’s going to be crabby.

Metabee: “Ugh, I can’t believe Ikki let me go into the water. Me plus water equals rust. Rust plus me equals me getting ripped up the gill, ya know what I’m sayin’? GegegegegeGEKOW!”

No, Metabee, I don’t know what you’re saying. But I am about to research whether robots can have strokes.

First of all, now you’re just saying it was the water, not salt water, that you’re averse to. And you’re also mad at Ikki for “letting” you go into the water because water makes you rust…..Kinda makes you seem like an idiot if you knew water makes you rust but you went in the water anyway. At least when the salt was the reason you could make the argument that you didn’t know ocean water was salt water and Ikki should have told you.

Additionally, it’s a bit ironic that you’re mad about him ‘letting’ you do that when you were just adamant a minute ago about not being his to control.

Second of all, what in the glitchy matrix just happened to you near the end there? I can’t even tell if I accurately transcribed the last words before the gibberish correctly, but then you go off and spout random noises like someone was electrocuting your ass.

Three beach brats come over and start bullying Metabee, even poking him repeatedly in the head with sticks. Ikki arrives, and he seemingly gets angry with Metabee for some reason? Once they have a little spat, Ikki tells the jerks to go away, but they’re locals so, like a beach movie set in 1954, they tell him to leave their beach because strangers aren’t welcome.

They then reveal that the local sea monster also hates strangers.

Later, at a restaurant, Ikki asks the owner if she knows about the sea monster. She noticeably gets very nervous and tries to avoid the question. Erika says, if there is a monster, they should investigate. The owner tries to warn them to stay away from the rocks of the beach when a bunch of people run by the restaurant screaming. They claim to have seen the monster, but none of them can agree upon what it looked like.

Ikki and Erika head to the beach to investigate only to find that it’s entirely abandoned due to sea monster sightings……Uh, yeah, calling it right now, this is some Scooby-Doo bullshit right here.

Also, the entire beach was cleared out because of sea monster sightings? No skeptics, no people who think they’d be safe on the sand, no people with Medabots who might try to fight it – just a couple of tweenagers and their Medabot?

Erika is psyched about figuring out the scoop behind this sea monster, but Ikki couldn’t care less.

They spot a mysterious old man sitting quietly on a rock playing a shamisen by the water. Metabee tries to talk with him, but he only gets a few words out of the old man.

His Medabot, Tentaclam, arrives and catches a huge net full of fish. They then walk off together.

The three jerks arrive wondering why Ikki, Erika and Metabee haven’t left yet. Blah blah blah, the leader, Ryan, challenges Ikki to a robattle.

Ikki boasts that he and Metabee have never lost a robattle…..so yeah, now that he said that he’s totally going to lose.

Ryan’s Medabot is Sharkkan, and he immediately heads into the water. Metabee tries to follow by boat, but his bullets can’t hit Sharkkan underwater. Suddenly, Metabee gets very dizzy and nauseous. He’s so sea sick that he has to forfeit the match, surrendering his legs to Ryan.

Yes, you read that right. Metabee, the undefeated Medabot, lost his first match…..because he got sea sick.

Metabee, the ROBOT, lost because he got sea sick.

Metabee, the robot without a stomach and balance sensory systems/perception systems that don’t work in any way like a human’s would……got his first loss, via forfeit no less….by getting sea sick.

This is monumentally dumb.

At sunset, Ikki and Metabee lament their loss – Metabee wearing a goofy pair of spare legs that I think he got from Banisher.

Ikki: “He knew Metabee couldn’t swim, so he tricked him into a water robattle. Seems like cheating.” Uhm, shut your stupid lying mouth, Ikki.

Metabee didn’t even try to swim, so you’re already wrong there. Ryan didn’t trick HIM into anything. He and his goons just egged you on a bit, and YOU accepted a challenge for a robattle. Finally, using an aquatic Medabot in the water is just using the Medabot the way it was intended to be used. If anything, it was quite even. If he used his aquatic Medabot on land, he’d have a major disadvantage, but Metabee would have a huge advantage. If you had just said ‘Metabee don’t go in the water.’ then either the robattle would end in a stalemate because neither party would choose to leave their respective areas, or Skarkkan would leave the water because he was sick of waiting.

Basically, both of you are idiots, but Metabee’s less of an idiot because….

Metabee: “Nah, that’s just good strategy. He just won it fair and square.”

Of course, he loses some points with his next line.

Metabee: “Urgh, I’d love a rematch, but where am I going to learn how to swim?” I thought you plus water equaled rust and you didn’t want rust? Now you want to swim?

But again, just DON’T GO IN THE WATER. Even if he learned how to swim, he’d still be at a major advantage because Sharkkan’s a full aquatic Medabot with parts and weaponry designed for water robattles. Why give him that?

Ikki and Metabee have a brain blast, so they head to see the old man. They beg him for help in getting Metabee ready for water robattling. The old man loans him some spare legs from his Tentaclam. And, of course, Ikki and Metabee being the way they are, they bitch about the free shit they’re getting.

Metabee: “They’re so old.”

Ikki: “Do they even still work?” No, Ikki, he gave you non-working garbage because he’s trolling you.

Metabee jumps in the water, but he soon capsizes. Seems like just getting aquatic legs isn’t enough for him to function properly in the water, which makes sense. After all, the rest of him isn’t designed to be in the water.

They beg him to teach them how to deal with sea combat, and yeah whatever – what time is it?

The sun is going down quite a bit. Where is adult dude, and why are you guys not heading home yet? Your parents obviously aren’t here, you took a bus, and I can’t imagine that they approved of you guys staying at the beach overnight.

We then get a training montage of them doing a bunch of Karate Kid-esque chores for the old man. This montage clearly takes place over several days because we see more sunsets and implications of mornings. Again, where is adult dude and why are you guys not home right now? Are you missing school for this?

After the training montage, Ikki and Metabee collapse in the sand begging for water. Why is Metabee, the robot, asking for water?

The dog that’s with them, I forget to whom it belongs, brings them water bottles that look oddly like baby bottles. Ikki chugs his water and Metabee pours his on his head….because the Medabot who hated water at the beginning of this episode has suddenly decided that pouring it all over his head is the best thing ever.

Ikki and Metabee hear Erika screaming in terror of the sea monster. However, the ‘sea monster’ trips, and reveals that it was just the three Medabots owned by the beach jerks covered in seaweed. They made up the stuff about the sea monster to keep tourists off the beach. Yup. Scooby-Doo’d.

Also, I weep for humanity if literally everyone was scared to death of this thing.

Ikki and Ryan start a rematch. Metabee uses his Tentaclam legs, but this time he’s able to stand upright as the legs help him float on the surface. His training was meant to improve his sense of balance so he could stand on water, which…okay, but that solves literally no problems they were having. Metabee already had a boat, which allowed him to float on top of the water, soooooooooooooooooo…..???

Also, I don’t think that simply not being in a boat would prevent you from getting sea sick while floating on water, so what happened to that problem?

Whatever, Metabee still has problems fighting Sharkkan because he can move super quickly in the water and Metabee’s shots can’t hit him. Moreover, Sharkkan is now taking the offensive by hitting Metabee with torpedoes and leaping out of the water to strike at him directly.

Ikki is incredibly frustrated because he has no idea what to do to gain the upperhand. Metabee can now float on the water without issue, but he still can’t swim, giving Sharkkan a huge advantage. The old man reveals that the secret to this fight is in Sharkkan’s shark design. It gives off a warning before it strikes, and Ikki deduces that he means the dorsal fin peaking out over the surface before it strikes.

…Well…uh…duh. How did you not notice that before now? It’s the most signature thing about sharks. You show a dorsal fin sticking out of the water, people instantly think ‘shark.’ How are you this slow, Ikki?

The next time Sharkkan strikes, Ikki notices where he is via the dorsal fin, warns Metabee that Sharkkan’s behind him and Metabee is able to get a direct hit with his guns when Sharkkan comes out of the water.

Sharkkan is defeated, and Metabee gets his legs back.

At sunset, because they’ll apparently never go home, Ryan explains that his dad taught him that tourists are bad because they pollute the beach with their trash and they ruin the environment, so they decided to bully and scare every tourist away from the beach with their makeshift sea monster.

I guess this was supposed to be foreshadowed when Metabee threw his scuba mask on the sand, because that’s when they first met the beach jerks. It was also shown that the beach was filthy when the beachgoers were scared off, but they never draw attention to the littering. I had to go back and rewatch sections just to see if this out-of-nowhere PSA had some build up to it because it was never brought to the audience’s attention through dialogue.

Also, you’re kinda terrifying the locals too, if that restaurant owner was any indication. Unless she’s in on it.

Ryan and Ikki mend bridges, and the old man bids Ikki and Metabee farewell. He allows them to keep the Tentaclam legs as long as they always remember to respect the sea.

Our final shot is of adult guy still asleep on the beach, now horribly sunburned. Uh, can we get an ambulance? Because this guy has clearly been asleep for about a week, and he probably has third degree burns by now.

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It’s at this point in the show when you really have to accept that this series is just plain bad. And it’s not only bad – it’s lazy. It’s probably one of the laziest series I’ve ever watched. Everything about it is just the bare minimum they can do without paying an iota of attention to the question “Does this make sense?”

One of the most basic things you can do when writing a story is establish a conflict, work out a resolution and resolve it. But this show can’t even do that correctly. I am still confused as to what Metabee’s actual problem was. First it was saltwater, then it was just water, then it was that he gets sea sick, then it was that he can’t swim, then it was that he couldn’t work the Tentaclam legs correctly.

The solution to any one of those problems was just to teach Metabee better balance so that he can stay on the water’s surface, but that doesn’t make any sense. He’s a robot. If he has balance issues, it’s either because of his design or his programming. You can’t really teach a robot balance. Not to mention that, while some of the chores the old man had them doing could be considered training in balance, like pulling the old man while they’re on stilts, most of it had nothing to do with balance.

He had them carrying wood, pushing one of those giant wooden crank things, blowing air onto a fire, carrying him on a giant rock up a mountain, giving him a frickin’ massage, which was just plain creepy.

A lot of shows do this, where they reference The Karate Kid’s training sequence of seemingly doing random chores only to show that it actually had practical applications in the student’s journey, but then a lot of them screw it up by not actually coming up with ways these chores applied to their practice. This is one of the worst examples.

It’s even more pointless because Metabee balancing on top of the water didn’t even do much. He could have defeated Sharkkan this way in the boat. All he needed to know was that you can detect Sharkkan via his dorsal fin. And Ikki didn’t even figure that part out on his own – he had to have the old man practically spell it out for him.

I will give this episode this much – there were quite a few funny expressions and even some funny lines. And I will never get tired of Ikki’s voice actor’s complete inability to scream in a believable manner. Just the terrible voice acting as a whole, honestly. I have a feeling this series was mostly a ‘Thank god, a paycheck.’ job for most of the voice actors. I don’t blame them for barely putting in any effort. Why do that when the series itself doesn’t? It makes for some funny moments anyway. That’s why I keep enjoying watching Medabots. It’s lazy, silly and stupid, but it has a lot of fun and ridiculousness to keep me entertained most of the time. Even if I’m just preoccupied trying to do the mental gymnastics around their writing choices, I tend to enjoy myself.

Plus, I do really like the designs of Tentaclam and Sharkkan. I wish we had seen the other jerks’ Medabots. We see them very, very briefly, but we never learn what they are, and the angles on them are so poor I can’t even remember what they looked like.

Next time, might as well keep in with the Scooby Doo-ness with some G-g-g-GHOSTS!

…..Previous Episode

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Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors Episode 12: Sakura’s Never-Ending Day Sub/Dub Comparison

Card(s) of the Day: Time: A card that has the ability to control time flow as well as reverse an entire day’s worth of time at midnight. Time’s weakness seems to be Shield as its time manipulation is useless against those who use Shield.

Plot: Sakura makes a mistake during her recorder test and wishes she could retake it after she practices more. She gets her wish as the Time card reverses time back one day. While she gets another shot at her recorder test, Time continuously reverses time back one day every night at midnight, but only Syaoran, Kero and Sakura retain the memories of the days replayed. Can Sakura and Syaoran capture Time, or will they be stuck in a time loop forever?

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Title Change: Sakura’s Never-Ending Day is changed to Time and Again.

A closeup shot of the board is removed despite the fact that we can clearly see it behind him in the next shot. Continuity!

The dub seems to be shoving the concept of time down our throats before we’re even five minutes into the show. I swear her dad has said “time” emphasized at least three times now.

A shot of the class is removed. We also don’t hear Sakura’s narration of saying that this is the first time that she’s ever heard details about what her dad does, and that, to her, archaeology seems difficult but interesting. Her dad is talking over any remaining shots.

Sakura’s dad’s topic stays roughly the same, but originally he says King Kufu’s pyramid in the Giza strip is the biggest Pyramid that remains standing today with some people speculating that it took over 40 years to build. In the dub, he’s talking about how one brick of limestone he has is all that remains of a section of King Kufu’s pyramid.

They remove him saying that supposedly 2,700,000 bricks were used to build the pyramid.

A moderately long sequence is cut. Once the bell rings, we cut back to the auditorium where the class is clapping for Fujitaka. While Syaoran’s standing on his chair clapping his head off behind Sakura, Sakura muses that she wishes all of her classes seemed that short. The bell for lunch never seems to come while the bell to end recess always comes too soon.

I guess Syaoran really is psyched about archaeology because he asks Fujitaka all sorts of questions about his lecture. He originally asks about pharaohs making curses on their tombs and people who ransack the tombs getting cursed and dying. Fujitaka says that’s a tough question and responds that not all pyramids were meant to be the tombs of the specific pharaoh who made them. Some pharaohs made as much as five pyramids in their lifetime. (While Atem was off playing card games. Pfft)

In the dub, Lee asks how, in time, the pyramids will all be gone. Aiden agrees that will happen eventually, but seeing as how they’re so massive and have stayed around for thousands of years, they probably still have some staying power left in them.

At the realization that Syaoran likes archaeology, Fujitaka invites Syaoran to his house because he has even more artifacts there. The dub has Aiden invite Lee to the university because they have a great Egyptology section. You can basically deduce why this was removed. Was it kosher even back then to invite kids to your house when you’re an adult? I know he has a kid Syaoran’s age, but still.

Poor editing strikes Nelvana again. After Syaoran finds out that Fujitaka is Sakura’s dad, he glares at her as she waves to her dad. She slows down her wave and slowly tilts her head down with a sweatdrop asking what Syaoran’s problem is now. In the dub, they try their damnedest to remove that scene with the sweatdrop but leave in like a half a second of it before the transition. Nelvana, it helps to go through the scene frame by frame when you remove stuff to ensure that there’s no trace left. Just sayin’. It looks shoddy.

The scene that follows is removed. Sakura runs to her dad as he’s leaving, he asks if his lecture was alright and she says yes. Fujitaka is pleased and asks Sakura what she wants for dinner tonight. Sakura asks why he’s asking her if it’s Toya’s turn to cook. Fujitaka explains that Toya has an exam tomorrow so he’s cooking to give him some extra time to study. As Sakura’s about to answer, the bell rings and Sakura laments that recess is over. Fujitaka says recess always feels too short and he sends her off. I guess this was either removed because too much Fujitaka or merely because the scene was fairly pointless.

Kero originally asks why Sakura’s up so late and says good little kids should be in bed by now before cheering at winning his game. In the dub, Kero’s just talking about his game before cheering that he wins. Also, they left in the footage of the game which is odd because there’s Japanese all over it.

Originally Sakura was presenting Toya and Yukito with nikuman. In the dub, Julien says they’re pastry puffs. You know, you can just leave out what they are instead of making claims like that. Food is food.

Also, before Toya opens the door Sakura practices what she’ll say and do when she gives the nikuman to Yukito. This is removed.

Sakura says she’s feeling uneasy because she’s sleeping while Yukito’s in the next room. In the dub, she says she has to get some sleep because she has a big music test tomorrow and she’s worried she didn’t practice enough…I had music class when I was in grade school, but I don’t ever remember having music tests. Did anyone else? Am I having a serious memory blank?

Dub Kero: “What’s with the ding dong thing?” They’re called bells, Kero…..

They edit out hearing Yukito and Toya talking about the bells through the wall. I guess because even Yukito’s voice is offensive somehow.

The good news is Sakura really does have a music test in the original; a recorder test. Ah, the recorder…I don’t remember being formally tested on that, though. Had a lot of fun playing it. Hot cross buns!

Shots of Sakura’s cartoony crying face and a depressed face are removed.

The dub doesn’t mention that Sakura has problems hitting the high D. If you made a joke in your head about that line, go to the corner.

You can’t hear what Tomoyo’s mouthing to Sakura in the original. Also, Sakura turns around to look at Madison before she calls her name in the dub. Psychic Sakura!

A shot of Tomoyo anticipating the next measure is edited out.

The original has Syaoran pretending the play the recorder beside his desk. The dub adds in the music. Because that makes sense right? Lee totally wouldn’t be causing a disturbance in music class by playing the recorder while someone else is trying to play in front of the whole class for this final exam. Good job, Nelvana.

This next scene was sorta changed and a spot was removed. Sakura says she made a weird noise in her test, but Tomoyo says she did very well on the other parts, which I guess means she still passed. Sakura then compliments Tomoyo on the job she did on her exam and says she couldn’t even tell it was the same song. In the dub she tells Madison that she really blew the test that morning and, if she could, she’d go back and do it all over again.

Originally, Sakura wonders why Syaoran’s practicing the recorder when the final is done. Tomoyo says it might be because he didn’t do very well on his test, but it’s dangerous to walk and play at the same time. In the dub, Sakura sees Lee playing and says “So he can walk and play the recorder at the same time. Big whup.” Madison scolds her, but she responds by saying he still doesn’t think she should be a Cardcaptor. Right, he doesn’t think she should be a Cardcaptor (A little bit justifiably, by the way) so make fun of him for innocently playing the recorder while walking by. Way to be the bigger person, Sakura.

A short scene is removed where Sakura asks if Syaoran moved to Japan from Hong Kong by himself with Tomoyo responding that she doesn’t know because she’s unfamiliar with his family.

They remove Sakura also calling Syaoran’s kick amazing and them looking back to him with smiles.

A scene of Sakura, Toya and her dad making toasts for finishing exams as well as Sakura drinking her drink is removed. No idea why. Not like it’s alcohol.

They remove a shot of Sakura agreeing to practice more. Also, the dub insinuates that Tori did perfectly on the exams or something and still makes it seem like Sakura failed whereas in the original Toya says he did so-so on his exams and Sakura is still frustrated over making one mistake.

Dub Sakura: “Well, Tori and my dad think I didn’t practice enough. So I’M going to show THEM next time.” In the original, Sakura says her dad suggested that she go over the parts that she couldn’t manage to do on her test to get them right anyway if missing the notes frustrated her – probably to prove to herself that she can do it and would’ve been able to do it earlier if she applied herself. Then Kero and Sakura praise her dad for such good advice.

In the dub she makes off like they were mocking her for missing the notes and not practicing enough so she’s going to rub it in their faces later. And need I remind you, Sakura, that you said earlier you wished you had practiced more and admitted that you thought you didn’t practice enough that previous night.

Dub Kero: (Right after that line I just wrote) “Expect the unexpected!”……What the hell does that have to do with this conversation?! Expect that she’ll unexpectedly rub it in her dad and brother’s faces that she can play that part now? Expect that you’ll put that catchphrase in places miles away from where it belongs? Or are you saying it’s unexpected that she’ll be able to play the song? Because that’s a little insulting.

After Kero finds out that his save file’s been deleted again and Sakura leaves the room, he shakes his head back and forth crying saying “Why, why, why!?” This is removed.

Again, they make off like Sakura completely flunked the music test instead of just making one mistake. Is it just more believable that Sakura would want to redo a test she failed instead of wanting to avoid making an embarrassing mistake in front of her class?

Tomoyo asks if Sakura’s nervous, Madison asks if Sakura’s been having weird dreams.

Despite the fact that dub!Sakura denied having a weird dream where she failed, Madison says her dream was wrong because she did perfectly. In the original, Tomoyo just says she expects nothing less of Sakura than to do so well on her finals.

Hm….I don’t quite get the redo of Syaoran’s kick. When Syaoran kicked the ball coming at his face the first time, he was at the top of the steps a good ten feet higher than the soccer field. The second time, he’s on the same level with the soccer field and he’s standing further ahead than he was before. If this really is supposed to be exactly the same as the previous day barring what Sakura, Kero and Syaoran do, why did the ball change direction to seek out Syaoran again?

After Syaoran makes the kick again, Sakura does say in the original that things seem slightly different, but she never builds upon what she means by that. Does that mean that everything that happened the previous day must happen to them no matter what they do to avoid it? Because that doesn’t make full sense seeing as how she made a mistake on her music test the first time and didn’t the second time.

Tomoyo says when she was designing Sakura’s outfit for the day, she was imagining a night fairy flying freely through the skies. In the dub, Madison says nothing of a fairy and says it’s for undetected night flight…..undetected night flight, huh? This thing?

This bright yellow fairy outfit is supposed to be stealthy? Whatever you say, Madison.

Minor nitpick, but Kero asks how she knew the card was in the clock tower in the original whereas dub!Kero acts like he believes full-on that Sakura sensed it was in there.

Another minor nitpick, but in the original Sakura and Kero’s voices lower dramatically when time slows down like it would when slowing down an audio track. In the dub, they just speak really slowly. I’ll admit, while the original is more realistic, the dub is preferred to me because that original scene is friggin’ creepy.

I believe the commercial break for the dub was supposed to come immediately after we see Kero and Sakura frozen in time. However we see a split second of the following shot of the hourglass before it cuts out.

After Kero explains that, while Time can control time, it only has the ability to rewind a whole day on midnight. They see that it’s 11:45pm and Sakura gets a sweatdrop on her face and says they’ll have to repeat the whole day again. Sakura cries that she’ll have to do the recorder test again, Kero cries that he’ll lose his save data again, and they rush off to catch the card. This whole conversation as well as the sweatdrops and crying are removed. They just point out that they have 15 minutes to catch the card and fly off.

Original Kero says the card is speeding up time merely around the clock tower to be able to activate its full-day time reversal, which is super cheating if you ask me. You can’t put a limitation on a card and then give the card the ability to easily work around it.

“You have this great power over time, but the only restriction is you can only reverse a whole day at midnight.”

“Okay, I’ll just fastforward to exactly midnight.”

“Ah, wait, you can’t do that.”

“Ahp ahp ahp. You said that was the ONLY restriction.”

“Yes, but…”

“TIME MAGIC!”

Dub!Kero and Sakura’s voices remain unchanged again when Time does a full-day rewind.

Kero asks why they have to keep leaving so late. If they know where the card is and what it is, why not leave earlier? Sakura responds that she had to celebrate with her dad and brother and practice again beforehand…..Wait, I’m STILL not getting what this rewind entails.

So you mean the first time the rewind happened even after she knew there was a Clow card at work she still had to go home, celebrate and practice before leaving? But that makes no sense because after she practiced on the first day before the first rewind, she went to bed. If she, Kero and supposedly Syaoran are bound to do the same things they did that day, why are they free to break from that to chase after Time? That makes no sense. Is there any time travel related story that doesn’t have gaping plot holes?

Also, that thing about leaving earlier is omitted from the dub. Sakura and Kero just keep whining about having to do the same stuff three times over.

If this day has been replayed three times, why is Syaoran just NOW showing up to help? I thought he was all gung-ho about catching the cards before Sakura yet here he is ignoring the card until he gets fed up with her not catching it. Was there something he ‘needed’ to do over and over keeping him from the fight, or did they not know how to fit him into the fight yet?

While there have been hints here and there about the differences in attitude between Lee and Syaoran, he’s really starting to get cocky and degrading in the dub.

Lee: “Time’s flying! I mean fleeing!”……..Ugh.

Dub!Sakura: (After Lee uses his Lightning) “You backed me up!” Well, duh! He came here to help you capture Time not sabotage you. In the original, Sakura’s just surprised Syaoran had a trap ready.

Dub!Kero: “Sometimes the card doesn’t always go to the one who seals it, Sakura.”

Dub!Sakura: “But why not?!”

Dub!Kero: “Hey if I had all the answers, you’d think I’d look like this?”

Yeah…except you DO have the answer, you dimwit – at least in the original. Kero says the card doesn’t go to the one who seals it, it goes to the person who returned the card to its original form. Syaoran turned it back into its original form with his lightning, so despite the fact that Sakura sealed it, Syaoran gets to keep it. Why couldn’t this rule be explained in the dub?

Originally Sakura had a kanji writing test. In the dub, it’s a spelling test.

They remove a shot of Sakura cartoonishly crying because she studied the wrong thing/

Leave it to Kero-Chan!/Kero’s Corner: Wow, Nelvana’s being derpy today. During Kero’s Corner, they don’t remove the edited logo until about a second after Kero popped up on screen so it covers him for like 15 frames.

Dub!Kero: “The theory behind this design (Sakura’s fairy outfit) was to dress up like Tinkerbell to get past Time’s ancient form.”…………………………………….I have…..no words…..How?……What’s the actual theory? Because that makes no sense. Someone explain this to me. Please.

In the original, Kero just says the fairy costume goes well with the fact that they just switched to Summer uniforms at school.

Original Kero doesn’t mention anything about the wings boosting her magic ability (How would Madison have the ability to do that anyway?) or that they’re high-tech and aerodynamic. They’re not high-tech. There’s no tech involved period. They’re not even aerodynamic from my standpoint. In fact they look like they’d bog her down in flight.

Dub!Kero: (About Sakura’s school bag) “You’d be amazed at the amount of stuff you could fit in there. About the only thing you can’t fit in there is time.” Well, seeing as how Time is a card, she’d probably be able to easily fit it in there. I get what he was saying, but given the circumstances that’s a silly comment. Originally, Kero just mentions that the bag’s very simple but functional and has a hook on the side.

Overall this is a bit of a dumb episode. Time seems like a cool card, but the episode as a whole makes little sense to me, and the dub is downright irritating at points, especially considering editing errors that make me wonder if Nelvana’s editing staff wasn’t off that day and they had the janitor stand in. The premise is also a big cliché, though it may have been less of a cliché back then.

Next episode, Power’s debut! A trip to the zoo leads Sakura and the gang to finding the Power card and it’s causing all sorts of chaos.

….Previous Episode

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Cardcaptor Sakura Episode 11: Sakura, Tomoyo, and a Mansion Sub/Dub Comparison

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.

——————————————

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.

…..Previous Episode

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AVAHS – 6Teen: In a Retail Wonderland

Plot: During the holiday season, Caitlyn becomes a professional shopper and finds herself losing the drive to shop after breaking up with her boyfriend. Nikki tries to avoid an embarrassing vacation to Acapulco with her parents. Jen tries to deal with increasing pressure at work. Jude gives everyone odd Christmas presents. Jonesy works as a wrapper but finds his turf impeded by Ron. Wyatt deals with his anti-Christmas boss, Wayne, who is forcing him to work on Christmas.

Breakdown: I haven’t watched much of 6Teen, but I think I’ve noticed a big flaw in it. There are too many plots running at once.

It’s a 21 minute long episode and we technically have six plots running at once, and each plot needs to merge with another at some point. I get that a lot of these quick problems are meant to reflect the everyday issues (albeit exaggerated) that teens would encounter while working at a mall, but it’s a big car crash of plots.

Caitlyn loses her drive to shop after she breaks up with her boyfriend, Connor. He’s apparently never been brought up before now, we only see him once, he gets no dialogue, and Caitlyn gets over her funk because he was a ‘loser’ wearing antlers for his job, which, as Nikki points out, is hypocritical because Caitlyn wears a lemon hat at hers.

Nikki doesn’t want to go on vacation with her super-Christmassy parents. Caitlyn tells her to go because they’re going for her and deciding to go is just as much a gift for them as it is for her, so she goes. This one, despite being equally quick as the others, was probably the best plot. Also, what profound words from a girl who just got over her boyfriend because he was deemed unworthy of her attention because he wears antlers at his job…..

Jude, who is my favorite character so far, just floats around giving random gifts to people and sometimes kinda contributes to a scene.

Jen is perpetually pissed off at her boss because he’s a jerk, I guess, and she learns yoga and meditation to calm herself, but she still pulls bad numbers and risks being fired. Caitlyn gets back her drive to shop again and orders all sorts of stuff from Jen at the store, saving her job….the one she hates.

The plot with Jonesy doesn’t even get resolved. He gets tasked to be a gift wrapper and is actually very good at it. Seeing the good money, Ron, the security guard who…hates the teens (?) muscles in on his turf, proving to be a good wrapper too. He offers Jonesy an assortment of cookies, he eats the security guard gingerbread man and that’s it. I have no clue what else I’m supposed to take from that.

There was an even smaller plot involving him decorating the mall Christmas tree and it obviously being set up to fall at the end of the episode….and it does.

The weirdest breakneck plot, though, is a sudden A Christmas Carol parody. Wayne, Wyatt’s terrible boss at the movie store, doesn’t want to promote Christmas movies because, in his words, they suck. To make matters worse, he forces Wyatt to work on Christmas.

As he naps, he gets visited extremely quickly by the ghosts of Christmas Past, represented by Jen, Present, represented by Wyatt, and Yet to Come, represented by Jude. Jen shows us that Wayne used to be so into movies, Christmas movies in particular, that he’d refuse to go to the bathroom while watching one and would pee his pants all the time because of it.

Wyatt then shows us that he’s now an ass who doesn’t like Christmas movies….so there’s no explanation as to why he’s this way. It’s just ‘You used to be nice and love Christmas movies, but now you’re a twenty-something dick who doesn’t.’

Jude BS’s his way through his part, and it’s kinda funny. It all culminates in him just telling him to be a better person.

Somehow, this does indeed cause him to pull a 180 and he suddenly becomes incredibly nice and Christmassy, to an almost weird level. He gives the teens a big bag of chips and…I guess it’s meant to imply Wyatt gets Christmas off now.

There’s nothing seriously wrong with this special. It’s perfectly fine. I got some smiles out of it, but no laughs. It just has a bit plot web problem. No plot is the main one and they all run at once, some into each other, making things more complicated.

Plus, I didn’t really care about what was happening. Nothing felt like it had any stakes. There was also only a little Christmas spirit here, which isn’t a terrible thing. Sometimes, it’s a bit much when specials feel the need to be overtly festive. Even though I would’ve liked a little more, it was a realistic level and there were some heartstrings pulled a tiny bit with Nikki’s plot.

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Cardcaptor Sakura Episode 9 Sub/Dub Comparison

Card(s) of the Day:

Sword: A…well, sword, the Sword card is unique in that its cutting power depends on the feelings and thoughts of the user. If you have little will to fight your opponent, the Sword card will merely stun the enemy. If you put your all into the battle, the Sword can cut through basically anything.

Plot: Sakura, Tomoyo and their friend Rika buy some brooches from a shop while trying to cheer up Sakura about Li. However, things get complicated when they discover that Rika’s brooch is actually the Sword card in disguise. Can Sakura save her friend from the power of Sword?

—————————-

Title Change: Sakura and the Mysterious Brooch is changed to Double-Edged Sword.

A shot of Tomoyo looking at Sakura from down the hall is cut.

In the original, we see a shot of Sakura in the light of the window. She’s approached by Rika who gives her a tiny flower because she seems sad. Sakura accepts it and thanks her then thinks that Rika is very nice and mature. This whole scene is edited out.

In the original, Sakura tells Li that the clothes he was wearing last night were cool and asks if all people from Hong Kong wear clothes like that because she saw a boy wearing robes just like his in her dreams. He’s surprised by this and tells her the robes are family heirlooms that she couldn’t possibly know about. When she reiterates that it was a dream, he tells her that at least she has enough magical power to have premonitions in her sleep.

In the dub, the dream is never mentioned. Lee tells her that she’s no Cardcaptor, and she replies that, if that were true, then the book wouldn’t have chosen her. She babbles for a bit before mentioning that she doesn’t have robes like he does, and he gets super defensive saying that the robes are special ceremonial robes and she doesn’t even have the right to speak about them. Then he basically says that she should tread on thin ice around him.

Name Change: The class president, Yamazaki, is changed to Zachery.

Name Change: Rika is changed to Rita for whatever reason.

In the original, Yamazaki tells Li that, despite the fact that he’s new, it’s his turn to do the daily chores, which are cleaning the blackboard and singing and dancing during recess. Sakura whispers to Tomoyo that singing and dancing aren’t part of daily chores, but she smiles and shrugs. Li asks Yamazaki if they really do that in Japanese schools, and he says yes as he grabs him to go clean the board. We end the scene on Yamazaki telling Li that he’ll have to sing afterwards.

In the dub, Zachery introduces himself to Lee as the class president and is assigning him to clean the blackboard. A shot of the blackboard is edited out because JAPANESE, and Sakura tells Tomoyo that Zachery’s little white lies saved the day as he grabs Lee to clean the blackboard. We end the scene on Zachery telling Lee that he’ll have to clean up gum later.

A shot of the classroom door and kids exiting from it is edited out.

Dub kid in class: “Good night, Mr. Turretta!” Good night? It’s still daylight out.

In the original, Sakura thinks to herself that she’s having the same dream about the cards again before noticing that Rika is staring at the teacher with a smile on her face. In the dub, Mr. Turretta tells the kids in class that there’s a test tomorrow and specifically tells Rita that she needs to pass it.

In the original, Tomoyo asks Sakura if she has some free time after school. Sakura asks why, and Tomoyo says it’s because Rika knows of a cool shop in town that she wants to visit. Sakura then thanks Tomoyo because she knows that she’s inviting her out to help cheer her up.

Tomoyo’s inviting her out because she wants to be with Sakura as long as possible. Then we get a shot of the both of them in a flowery frame. Sakura basically scratches her head in flattery as Tomoyo smiles. Yamazaki shows up again with a mop saying that they can go wherever they want after school as long as they remember their cleanup duties after class and Sakura agrees.

In the dub, Tomoyo says they should go to her house after school and Sakura agrees. She suggests having a study session together since Rita really needs to study for that test. Then there’s some talk about rollerblading and the scene just ends.

A shot of Rika telling the girls that they’ve arrives at the shop she was talking about is edited out.

Numerous shots of all of the items in the shop such as dolls, fine china, curio cabinets and more are edited out.

They cut out a scene where Sakura’s looking at various items in the shop and Tomoyo apologizing to Rika for forcing her out there with them, but since Sakura was acting so gloomy she really wanted her to come. Rika tells her that it’s okay because she was worried about her too.

In the original, Sakura has to think for a bit to get the brooch that she wants. Tomoyo asks her if she’ll buy it, she thinks for a bit and says yes, but then starts crying in a cartoon-y way saying that it’ll use up her allowance and she won’t be able to buy treats for a while if she buys it. In the dub, we cut straight from her picking up the brooch to the next shot.

In the original, Kero’s yelling at his game because I guess he died or lost or something. In the dub, he’s cheering for some reason.

A shot of the teapot and cups is edited out.

In the original, Tomoyo asks Sakura if she needs help with the tea. Sakura declines and tells her that they can sit down. Rika apologizes for being at her house so close to dinner time, but Sakura says it’s okay since her father and brother will be out past dinner. Sakura goes to the fridge to get some dessert and they eat it. They compliment Sakura’s dad on being such a good cook before looking at their brooches.

In the dub, Tomoyo tells Sakura that Rita’s really scared about the test (odd, she’s smiling and shows no signs of duress, but okay.) Sakura says that she knows and tells Rita that they should start studying by telling her to spell (it’s a spelling test) ‘parallel.’ She does, and the scene of Sakura going to the fridge and getting dessert is edited out.

Sakura tells her to spell ‘brooch.’ She says that word’s a tough one and maybe they should look at the new brooches that they bought to give them inspiration. A shot of Sakura’s goofy face that was originally after the girls complimented her dad is edited out.

In the original, they’re all clamoring over their brooches. Sakura tells Rika that hers looks great on her because she’s so mature and pretty and stuff like that really suits her. In the dub, Madison tries to spell brooch b-r-o-w…..Sakura’s speaking scene is edited away leaving only her smile before her expression falls, which is odd because she is talking in this scene, and no mention of Rita being pretty or mature is included.

Though no scenes are edited away or anything, after Rika initially attacks the girls there’s a commercial break in the original. In the dub, I guess it wasn’t the right time for one because we get an AWESOME zoom-in cross-fade transition. Editing, man.

In the original, as Sakura and Kero are running away from Rika, Kero explains to Sakura that the power of the Sword card relies on the will of the user. If you think “don’t cut” the sword will simply stun the enemy, but if you put your might into the sword, it can cut through practically anything. In the dub, Kero basically says the Sword card is dangerous and to just get it.

So I had a bet running with myself about how this next scene would go. In the original, Sakura uses the Illusion card to show Rika the person that she cares about most. She’s surprised when she says it’s their teacher.

My running bet would be either they’d do like the boggarts from Harry Potter and it’d be what she fears most instead of what she cares about (despite that being the function in the Illusion episode) or they’d somehow change the shape or put a picture on top of the spirit to make it look like Yamazaki. It was the former. The big reveal, even though there were numerous hints, is that Rika has a crush on her teacher.

In the dub, she’s scared to death of him. Rika goes from a mature and pretty girl with a crush on a teacher to a stupid girl who’s failing spelling (and maybe school entirely?) and is the target of scholastic abuse by her teacher. Hoo. Rah.

By the way, I am aware of the very uncomfortable fact that this relationship is actually somehow canon in the manga. They don’t ever do anything physical, to my knowledge, but yeah, she and Mr. Terada are secretly engaged in the manga at the end, despite her only being, at most, 14, while he’s like 30 (The writers of the Wiki go to ridiculous lengths to figure out this guy’s age). Apparently, this is okay in Japan. According to Rika’s Wiki page, it’s perfectly fine for a young student to be courted by her much older teacher and wind up together when their age is more appropriate. I have no clue if that’s true, and this is one of those things I don’t want to research for squicky reasons. It doesn’t seem like it really is cool in Japan if the original series made it a one-sided crush and Clear Card basically omitted it entirely as well as mostly wrote off Terada.

In the original, we fade to black after Kero leaves and before we see Yukito because I guess it was supposed to be a big reveal that the person walking by was Yukito. In the dub, the black fade out is gone.

A front shot of Sakura’s goofy face as she’s awkward about the situation is gone.

In the original, Yukito grabs Syaoran’s hand to help him up after he got knocked down by Kero and asks him if he’s alright (Which seems odd to me seeing as how there’s an unconscious girl in this scene, but whatever). Dreamy music plays as Syaoran blushes and stares at him before he runs away like last time. In the dub, the hand hold, helping him up and the dreamy music are edited out. Julian just says that Lee has a cool outfit, which makes him blush and run away.

I kinda don’t get the dub. If the hints of the crush (which is really an attraction to a power I won’t spoil) are gone, what is the logic behind Lee’s inability to be around Julian?

A shot of Yukito, Sakura, Rika and Tomoyo is edited out after Syaoran runs off. Also, the following shot of the library sign is replaced with a shot of the school.

In the original, after Sakura gives Rika her brooch, we get a fairly long shot of Sakura with spiral eyes rambling in her head about how she can’t explain to her that she can’t give her back her brooch because she turned it into a Clow card. Rika accepts the brooch and Sakura thinks about how kind, mature and wonderful Rika is again before the teacher enters the library. Sakura greets the teacher and walks out of the room before we end the scene with Rika’s smiling.

In the dub, we cut straight away from her giving her the brooch to the next scene because spiral eyes and wanting to edit out as much of the teacher as possible, I guess.

Tori: “That kid gangs up on my sister then shows up at our house?!”…..”Gangs up” on her insinuates that there was more than one person involved…hence gang…Every time Lee’s confronted Sakura, it’s been alone.

A shot of Yukito checking Toya’s watch is edited away. Maybe Nelvana hates telling time now…

In the original, Sakura gives Yukito chocolate as thanks for bringing Rika in the house after she fainted. Syaoran looks on in horror before fumbling through his pockets for something. He presents a box of chocolates to Yukito before running away again.

I have to say, Syaoran’s so damn adorable during this scene. He’s all embarrassed and whatnot like a shaking bunny.

In the dub, Lee insinuates that he’s getting upset because he’s the one who brought Rita into the house, which is false. Also, if he was, wouldn’t Julian be all like “What? I didn’t do that.” We immediately cut to Lee running away after that.

Tomoyo whispers to Sakura that she believes that Syaoran has a crush on Yukito too, and that now she has a rival both in capturing Clow cards and romance. She then freaks out as Yukito’s and Syaoran’s pictures are overlayed behind her.

In the dub, Tomoyo whispers to Sakura that she put up the video of her capturing Thunder on her website last night, which makes her freak out, then she says she was kidding as she films her reaction to put up on the website. Nice friend you got there.

Leave it to Kero/Kero’s Corner: Today’s Leave it to Kero segment is actually pretty funny. Kero’s tasked with doing an overview of Syaoran’s ceremonial robes, but since he hates him, he speeds through the explanation giving little to no detail and even says to skip the rest at a point.

Then he gushes over what a nice guy he is to honor Syaoran with a Leave it to Kero segment even though he’s such a despicable guy.

The dub’s version is played out rather normally. He does say that Lee has some nerve to call him a stuffed animal, but goes about the rest of the segment in normal speed and he even seems to play Lee up during the segment.

Also, forgive me as I know I’ll go back and forth between calling Syaoran, Li and Syaoran. I have no clue why. Maybe because the dub calls him Lee.

Dub Kero: “Though personally I think Sakura’s battle costumes are a little more happenin’” HAPPENIN’?! Look, I know this show is somewhat dated and there IS quite a bit of lame dialogue in the dub, but happenin’? This show was dubbed in the 90’s not the 70’s…

Next episode, Flower’s debut. Sakura and Tomoyo learn that their moms used to be the best of friends once upon a time, but they also find out that Tomoyo’s mom despises Sakura’s dad. When Sakura’s dad and Tomoyo’s mom meet after years of not seeing each other, how will react? Oh yeah and there’s flowers in there.

…Previous Episode

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Cardcaptor Sakura Episode 8 Sub/Dub Comparison

Card(s) of the Day: Thunder: A dangerous card with the power of lightning, Thunder’s main weakness is Shadow.

Plot: A new boy transfers into Sakura’s school/class named Syaoran Li, and he seems to have some vendetta against Sakura from the moment he lays eyes on her. When he reveals himself to be from a family that has a strong connection to the Clow cards and demands the cards that she has in her possession, things get all the more complicated. The situation is made even worse when the Thunder card appears and Syaoran shows up during battle. Will Syaoran prove to be a problem or a useful ally?

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Title Change: Kinda. Sakura’s Rival Appears is changed to simply Sakura’s Rival.

Nitpick? The tower in Sakura’s dream is Tokyo tower. In the dub, they just call it ‘a tower.’

In the original, Kero tells Sakura that because she has magical powers now that the dream she’s been having could be a foretelling dream and that she might meet the boy in Chinese clothes very soon. In the dub, Kero basically tells her that she needs to find the Clow cards….in a very confusing way. I dunno what they were going for there.

A panning shot of the outside of the house is removed, but the actual shot of the house is kept.

Hey who wants another girly pop song? Me either, let’s move on.

In the original, Toya tells Sakura that she was slow getting out of the house because she ate too much breakfast. In the dub, he says she’s late because she spends all her time in her room talking to herself.

Two shots of Yukito are removed. One from so far away that you can barely see him and another shot of him under the tree.

Tori harps on Sakura talking to herself/her toys, unlike the original which mocks her for making noises ‘like a monster’ while having a bad dream.

In the original, Yukito’s foretelling dream was that he’d have roasted fish for breakfast, which he did, and was so amazed by it that he had six extra bowls of rice. That’s too Japanese, so let’s make it French toast!

Hey now, I believe we’ve had quite enough of Yukito in this episode. In the original, Tomoyo tells Sakura that she’s in a good mood today, and Sakura tells him it’s because she spent the ride over to school with Yukito. In addition, he gave her another candy just like the one from the first episode. We then see a shot of him throwing the candy to her as he rides away. Tomoyo points out that he always has food on him.

In the dub, we have a completely pointless conversation talking about Madison’s new digital camcorder and all the features on it. The candy, the flashback and any mention in the slightest of Julian is no more.

A shot of the teacher catching a glance to Rika, one of Sakura’s friends, and then coughing as she smiles at him is cut out.

Name…Change/Mispronunciation? Syaoran Li is changed to Li/Lee Showron. I had to look it up to see if they were just outright mispronouncing it or if they actually changed it and that is the correct spelling for the dub – Showron.

In the original, the teacher writes Syaoran’s name on the chalkboard. Nelvana digitally paints this away, but it’s incredibly obvious that the teacher was just writing something on the board. Is it invisible chalk, Nelvana, or did you forget how to write?

Subbed:

Dubbed:

A scene of the middle of class with Sakura trembling in worry from Syaoran is edited out.

A scene where Syaoran stops Sakura in the stairway to bring her outside to talk to her is edited out, which makes the sudden jarring transition to them talking in private…sudden and jarring.

The chant to use the Chinese compass is too long to explain exactly what was changed, but it was changed somewhat. Much in the same way Sakura’s chants get changed. Also, they removed all of the glowing Chinese text from the scene which makes it, dunanana SUPER BORING. Also, I’m gonna say this is a moment where they’re kinda missing the forest for the trees. That compass could not be more covered in Chinese markings, yet they HAD to paint away the glowing Chinese characters from this scene.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In the original, Sakura tells Syaoran that Kero doesn’t have the power to become his true form anymore. Syaoran tells her that Kerberos uses the symbol for ‘sun’ in his name, meaning that the powers of Fire and Earth will restore his abilities. However, Sakura tells him that she doesn’t have those.

Later, she explains that she’s been collecting the cards since April and he mocks her for not having collected them all yet….To be honest, he has a point. She’s not so much ‘looking’ for Clow cards so much as dealing with them when they appear.

Toya originally states that the fighting stance Syaoran’s taking is one he’s unfamiliar with. Then he theorizes that it’s a form of Chinese Martial arts. In the dub, he just threatens Li.

Originally, Yuki mentioned he had nikuman as well as pizza bread and curry bread. In the dub, there’s no mention of what the food is. They show shots of it, though, so I guess kids are just supposed to think they’re bread or something.

They cut out a shot of a blush appearing on Syaoran’s face before he runs off.

A scene of Sakura with a cartoony confused face wondering what just happened is also edited out.

Semi-long scene time – in the original, Rika parts ways with Tomoyo and Sakura, then Sakura points out that her house isn’t in that direction. Tomoyo says Rika’s off to buy a gift for someone that she likes and apparently this guy is older than her. She then tells Sakura that she should take that kind of initiative with her crush.

This is edited out because yet another instance of a girl having a crush on an older guy. I realize this is ‘worse’ seeing as how the guy in question is her teacher and has to be like at least mid-20’s early 30’s instead of Yukito’s likely 15-16 years old, but it can’t be uncommon.

I can’t say I’ve been in that situation myself, but I imagine it happens all the time. Unless the teacher feels the same way, in which case, edit away, Nelvana!

In the original, Sakura says she’s tried to call Kero to talk about Li as he’s usually in a good mood when he first gets up, but he’s probably asleep. He won’t answer the phone, and he’s known to not wake up for anything until he’s ready to wake up. In the dub, they make a joke out of this. They have Sakura say that Kero’s probably planning their next move now, but then we cut to him sleeping by the phone.

In the original, Kero states that Syaoran Li is likely a member of the Li clan, which is stemmed from the creator of the Clow cards, Clow Reed. He was born of a Chinese mother and British father, thus the Clow cards are somewhat of a mix between western and eastern magics. This is apparent in the fact that the magic circles on the cards contain both English and Chinese characters. (This bit is shown when the Clow circle is shown behind Sakura.) Reed’s mother was part of the Li clan, so, in a way, Syaoran’s probably a very distant relative of Clow Reed.

In the dub, Kero basically repeats the same dumb catchphrase “Expect the unexpected” and says to forget about silly schoolyard rumbles and that the real thing to focus on is collecting the Clow cards.

This entire episode Kero’s being nothing but a broken record about collecting the Clow cards. It’s really annoying. The circle appears behind Sakura in the dub simply because they’re discussing the Clow cards, and the possibility that Li’s a descendant of Clow Reed isn’t brought up until the end of the conversation. None of the stuff about him being born of a British Father and a Chinese mother as well as the stuff about the magic being a mix between Chinese and English characteristics is kept.

They cut out a line exchange where Sakura asks why the outfit of the day has a cat theme, and Tomoyo says because it’s cute. Instead, they’re just talking about the lightning-resistant material it’s made out of.

Another small line about the compass being left to Clow Reed’s mother, making it a family heirloom, is removed.

During one of the shots when Kero’s getting angry, he says that he’s been in western Japan long enough to know that he can forgive being called an idiot, but not a moron. This is changed to just telling the two to stop arguing.

Dub Sakura: “Shadow! Release and Dispel! Return to your power confined!” Uh, Sakura, you’re catching Thunder not Shadow…you already caught that card remember?

Well, this is weird, the Shadow and Thunder cards are digitally manipulated to look more painted, I suppose. Forgive the crappy quality here.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Leave it to Kero/Kero’s Corner: Because of a line change in Kero’s corner, a certain shot makes no sense. In the original, Kero states that the cat ears on Sakura’s costume for that week were cute, but then we see a shot of Kero’s ear and he says ‘not as cute as mine, huh?’ In the dub, he’s basically jabbering about high tech whatnot, and there’s no explanation as to why there’s a shot of his ear in there.

Next episode, Sword’s debut. A shopping trip to get some brooches leads Sakura’s friend Rika to the Sword card disguised as a brooch. It takes over her mind and wreaks havoc. Will Sakura have to fight her friend to seal Sword?

….Previous Episode

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Episode One-Derland(Cartoons) Detentionaire

Plot: Lee Ping is just entering 10^th grade and is looking forward to the new school year. However, he’s framed for a massive prank, and is not only given detention all year, but he’s also grounded for the same duration. Now Lee has to do everything in his power to find evidence that will lead him to the real prankster and clear his name, with the help of a ‘gentle giant’ bully named Biffy and his friends, the Scandinavian exchange student Holger, and the wanna-be gangsta Camillio.

Breakdown: I was on edge of dropping this near the middle. The start caught me on pretty well as the series has a nice and fairly unique style to it (seemingly normal but has a splash of sci-fi and fantasy). Though the art and animation do have that weird Flash bouncing habit. You know, when the characters seem to have rubber bands in their bodies that makes them slowly move back after quickly moving forward.

I will say that prank scene was wonderfully stylized though….even if they were stylizing puke.

Anyhoo, this is a pretty interesting premise, and, in the end, I really don’t have any idea who the real prankster is. From the silhouette, it looks like a bald person with glasses, but I could be wrong. I’m not sure if the prank is worth a year of detention and grounding, though. The prank dumped paint on everyone, set off stink bombs, threw junk everywhere and worst of all the stink made everyone throw up on each other.

He avoided the prank because he was in the rest room, making it seem like he’s guilty, then evidence of the crime is found in his backpack, which he left in the gym.

This prank gives Lee some mixed responses. Some people, like the new half-cyborg Principal Barrage and some of the students are very upset with him about it, while many others find his prank awesome and he becomes popular as a result. He even forcibly becomes the new boyfriend of Brandy, a self-absorbed popular girl. I can understand why some of the students found this prank awesome and funny but the girls? Especially the preppy prima donnas? Seriously? Keep in mind, this prank not only ruined their clothes with paint, but it also drenched them all in vomit. Why would they find that cool? And what’s more disturbing, not a damn person washes up after that. Ew.

Half of the beginning and the middle part is a bit of a chore to sit through as there’s not much that’s interesting or funny happening before or after the prank. However, the very beginning and the end ‘mission’ were enough to keep me entertained. Hopefully, now that the ball’s rolling, the show will keep a better momentum.

As a first episode, it does its job well enough. It established a decent portion of the world they live in, sets up the main plot pretty well and introduces many of the most important characters in a way that allows us to know them pretty well in just a few minutes. I like Lee, though Biffy was my favorite character. I always have a soft spot for the behind-the-scenes tech guy, and he was a nice spin on that trope, and he was, by far, the funniest character.

Holger was a little entertaining, though he was a little annoying and was pretty much a stereotype of nearly any foreign exchange student in a TV show (weird, overly clingy, extremely happy and has a thick accent). Camillio was just flat out annoying and almost offensive in his own right. He always wears headphones for no reason, he speaks in the most wanna-be way possible, he wears a big gold chain with a gold watch on it. And for some reason he wears a giant fur coat. I can’t see an iota of depth to his character and I’m not hopeful we ever will see depth in him.

Verdict:

This just barely edged out an ‘undecided,’ and I was almost convinced to make this a ‘no’ as the more boring parts of the episode wore on, but it managed to hook me back in with Biffy and the ending.

Recommended Audience: Vomit and some extremely minor ‘swearing’ (crap and ‘I’m screwed’). Outside of that, it’s mostly fine. 7+

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