Sakura Card Captors

This English-language anime dub was produced by Nelvana (this animation studio is based in Toronto), but voiced in Vancouver. However, all anime television series and films produced by Nelvana were voiced in Toronto. It's probably because this English-language anime dub starring Sakura Avalon was originally planned to be voiced in Toronto, like all anime television series and films produced by Nelvana. For reasons unknown, it was eventually decided that the adventures of Sakura Avalon should be dubbed in Vancouver. Were the adventures of Sakura Avalon originally planned to be voiced in Toronto and why this dubbing moved to Vancouver? Fortunately for me, there are some animated television series with the voices of Vancouver-based voice talent produced by Nelvana. The best example of it is "Class of the Titans" (2006). The decision that the adventures of Sakura Avalon should be dubbed in Vancouver caused Warner Bros. Animation to record the voices for some animated television series with voice actors associated with The Ocean Group. If the adventures of Sakura Avalon were dubbed in Toronto, Warner Bros. Animation could recorded the voices for these animated television series with Toronto-based voice actors.

I'm a huge fan of CardCaptor Sakura (the manga) and when I was flipping through the channels and saw Yukito Tsukishiro (one of the most wonderful bishounen..), I thought "YAY!"...then I watched the rest of the episode and needed a box of kleenex.. It was just as bad as Sailor Moon.. (the new dubbed Sailor moon.. that's just...wrong). I just want to know how they could get "Julien Star" from "Yukito Tsukishiro" and "Tori" from "Touya"!? They changed way too much in this, from people's relationships in the series to names to bad voice dubbing to personalities.. *sigh* If they do this to Slayers like they say they will.. and change names in the series...and change the dub actors.. They'll answer to me..

When I first started watching CardCaptors, I thought it was cool, but then they started going slack on their episodes and flooding us with reruns and then they went off the air or something. The Japanese DVDs with English subtitles are really great. If you try to watch them on a playstation it'll want you to set Parental Control to level 8 but hey, there's NOTHING wrong with it; to me that's just the mark of a good strong show that hasn't been run over as if by a Mack truck from all those watering-downs! "Parental Control 8, enter your password" is just the mark of a good show that hasn't been babied down just to make toddlers watch it so they fuss to their parents "buy me cardcaptors cards! buy me this! buy me that!"

I like Cardcaptors, i'm not going to justify that further than I like animation and I like magic and this programme fitted the bill. Having not known that there was a different version of the progamme out there i'm amazed at what I read about it. I don't see what's wrong with the original Japanese version that they couldn't view it in England. It's not as if kids don't know what's going on. People are more open minded nowadays and if parents don't like their kids watching it, change the channel. I have never actually seen any of the original episodes but I think now I will seek them out just to see the differences. I think that they should been seen as seperate programmes. Card Captor Sakura is obviously different from CardCaptors that they should have there own identities, be seen as seperate entities then maybe they can be appreciated as such.

Being a long time anime fan, I find that in order to find the stuff that you want, you have to take what you can get. When I first started buying anime, there were hardly any dual language DVDs available and the dub tapes were just about all there was in the store. I had to settle for dubs most of the time.

I do like dubs. I like dubs that are able to stick to the original Japanese plot. HOWEVER... I'm afraid that Cardcaptors is not one of those series. I don't want to spoil the Japanese version for any of you so you have a fair warning... in the original Japanese story Julian (Yuki) and Tori(Toya) are a lot more than friends. This is even more obvious in the CLAMP manga that the anime was based on. And in the Japanese version Lee has a crush on YUKI not on Sakura. Either children in Japan are expected to be able to understand this stuff, or, as it seems to be the case these 'cute girly shows' are not just for kids.

Nelvana did a poor job of dubbing CCS but they did an even worse job translating it. Why bother to make the names more American sounding. The worst name change was from Toya to Tori. In Japanese Toya means peach arrow, Tori means bird.

Anyhow, I guess you can't blame them. Here in the US anime is for children. In Japan, anime is for everyone. Sadly, for those of us who appreciate the original, we'll just have to wait until it comes out on DVD. (I know for a fact you can find it if you want to)