HERE'S AN IDEA:
A cartoon produced by a studio named CLAMP has done something quite astounding with a simple story.
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| The art was very pretty and refined by 1996 standards! |
Cardcaptors' premise focuses on a nine-year-old girl in Japan named Sakura Kinamoto. Her lifestyle is rather normal: she goes to an elementary school, has a best friend named Tomoyo, lives with her brother and father, and like any good story with an overarching plot, her mother is dead for an unexplained reason.
When Sakura comes home from school one day and notices a deep, rumbling sound from her basement, however, her entire life changes forever...
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| A glowing book? Oh, an obvious plot device - I'd better start messing with it. |
In the old library within her basement, she finds that the noise was coming from a book with a lock on it, The Clow. Within the book are tarot cards - those special cards that fortune-tellers use. When Sakura reads the name of the card at the front of the deck, a massive gust of wind shrouds her and blows the cards away in a giant tornado, scattering them across God-only-knows-where. She simultaneously awakens Keroberos (roughly bastardized from "Cerberus" in English), the guardian of those cards and the book that he was sleeping inside-- I mean, guarding.
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| In other news, this breakfast looks delicious! Oishi! |
Kero then declares that the gust of wind was activated by Sakura reciting the name of the front card: WINDY, and also that the cards are essentially catalysts for magic spells. Sakura, being Japanese and not making the connection between the English word "Windy" and a gust of wind, is overwhelmed and confused by all that's happened (On top of being eight years old and talking to a stuffed bear), and is ultimately hesitant when Kero tells her that she's been chosen to be the Cardcaptor, the next generation of magician whom is responsible for recapturing and honing the power of the deemed "Clow Cards". That's only the Reader's Digest version, though!
The manga was soon after adapted into an Anime, as shown by the above pictures, so it was available as both a comic series and as a cartoon before the new millennium even hit! It was a massive success in Japan, becoming an Anime craze in the 90's just like Sailor Moon and Pokemon were.
Overall, the series is pretty solid and it aged pretty well - there's that timeless 90's style of animation where actual effort was poured into each frame, the voice acting and music attributed were great, the action was pretty cool, and the overall themes of Cardcaptor Sakura to this day are lighthearted, innocent, and nostalgic. The real strengths of this Anime's universe is what I'm referring to - Cardcaptor Sakura is a story about the life of an idealist.
This is going to seem random and out of place, but take a look at this clip from episode 13 of Madmen:
What you witnessed, aside from an incredibly well-executed example of TV cinematography and writing, was a business presentation about photo slides turning into a touching tale of nostalgia. Nostalgia, as Don Draper mentioned, is a Greek phrase literally translating to, "the pain from an old wound," and that it's "a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memories alone." Idealism, as defined in philosophy, is the tendency to represent something in its perfect, untainted state. It's the enemy of realism, the tendency to view things at face value - seeing one keeps the other from being seen.
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| Fighting to return a giant bird spirit to a card. Ah, to be young again - those were the days... |
Is idealism an ideal way of seeing the world? Are things always working out in one's favor? Of course not - if matters are always working out in one's favor, then who would be around for thing to not work out? Cardcaptor Sakura, for a lack of a better title, is a universe for idealists; it's a nostalgic tale that reflects childhood, a time without consequence or complication. It's the way nostalgia functions: our brains will always interpret the good things in our childhood and make them seem even better, and will suppress the more unpleasant memories. It makes us ache for a better reality - not necessarily to be young again, but to be free from tough choices, inconveniences, and even loss, to some.
Many studies show that the psychology behind nostalgia is rooted in our awareness of mortality - if we can die, we have a scale of where we stand in existence. No other known living thing has this ability. Essentially, it's thought that any animal given the ability to understand the concept of life and death would drive itself to mental instability with the constant knowing that it could die on the spot if something went wrong. It's suspected that nostalgia and memories are seen as a safeguard against this; in the end, we always return to living for the past, not the future.
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| Oh no, my childhood! All I did was say, "WINDY!" |
Bringing it back to Cardcaptor Sakura, the titular girl faces tough dilemmas at every twist and turn in the series; heck, her mom is dead. She always comes back though, bearing that same optimism she's known for carrying. There's even a tiny line repeated in the series that Kero labels as Sakura's Invincible Spell: "Everything is going to be alright." It's at this time that Sakura is reflecting on the pleasant memories with her friends, family, and thoughts of her mother, in order to reevaluate what she's fighting for. Usually this is the point where the morals hit home and these thoughts are the turning point in whatever conflict Sakura has found herself in.
Sakura reminisces of what she can gather of her pleasant memories in order to protect herself against the onslaught of dark forces that are now her duty to seal away, as told by the guardian of the seal who shares its name with the dog guarding the gates of Hell. This is near-perfect allegory of the phenomena of using nostalgia and idealism to prevent the crushing realization of an "end" from happening. The extra layers of a seemingly untainted world, young children characters, and innocence add to the maturity of this show - it takes some big kahunas to contrast a show so much with what the viewer will be feeling, which is likely to be a bittersweet remorse.
But of course, we all know that we don't live in the world that Sakura and her family and friends live in: the real world is quite hateful, cynical, and shallow. Does this invalidate Cardcaptor Sakura as a psychological romp if it contradicts a real example? The answer would differ from person to person. But let me show you this little YouTube comment written by a user instead - this is a nice overview of what we've covered, if this is starting to sound like Greek:
There's a few misspelled words in there, but you get the point. The nostalgia is strong with this one.
What do you guys think? Is nostalgia a longing to escape death by wanting to be young? Is Cardcaptor Sakura, if nothing else, an allegory for escapism? Do you have a TV show or anything else that makes you feel nostalgic? Post your thoughts in the comment below!
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I actually have plans on doing another article sometime down the road about CLAMP,
Cardcaptor Sakura, and universes. For the sake of not smothering you all in this topic though,
the next few won't be focused on this. Thanks for reading!