I made a joking remark today that I can't believe it's already 2017, for I left my heart in 1999. Only later did I realize that it was the year that I began writing the New Trials of Card Captor Sakura. I began writing New Trials when the third season of the CCS anime was on air in Japan, and I believe I will wrap it up around the time CCS anime sequel will air. How things come to a full cycle. I've spent more years of my life writing New Trials than I have not writing it. And longtime readers of New Trials, we have grown up together in a sense, while new a new generation of readers join in, and I am sure more fans of the CCS franchise will grow with the new sequel.
A business trip in December threw me off schedule for my posting schedule for New Trials but I am really nearly finished writing Chapter 73: The Other Side of Midnight. This one is a fun chapter, and I don't think writing this chapter took so long per say, compared to the realization that this really is the last chapter before the final mini-arc of New Trials and perhaps I want to relish in it a bit longer. Frankly, I envisioned completing New Trials next year, which I guess is technically this year, in 2017, though knowing the pace I write at, I don't know how long feasible that would be. I've already written the ending several years ago, and as I mentioned, even as I was writing the past several chapters, I've spent some time writing ahead. Fun fact, through New Trials Arcs 1 and 3 I never really wrote much of an outline, and had everything in my head, though starting Arc 4 I began writing out chapters and plot summaries because truthfully, my memory is just not what it used to be like. I apologize for ever making fun of my friends with bad memories--I used to be the one who remembers everything, but now it's no longer the case. Though I swear, I went to a college reunion Christmas, and I can say my memory serves better than most people there including fresh graduates who can't remember building names for heaven's sake.
Thank you for supporting New Trials another year, and while I know I am bad with deadlines, I can promise you that 2017 will be an awesome year for New Trials, and 2018 an awesome new year for the revival of Card Captor Sakura, with the new Clear Arc anime coming out. We know it will be good because CLAMP's Nanase Ohkawa-sensei will be in charge of the scripts and series composition. She is the reason why CCS is the only anime where the "fillers" are even better than the manga sometimes. But I believe that the CCS anime did not have any fillers but rather expanded on the manga version and made it better. Card Captor Sakura is a series I will always hold dear in my heart, and if I ever have any children in the future, it's a story I would gladly share with them. The reason I grew to love anime in the first place, besides the fact that Korean children all grow up watching them anyway, is because my mom rented me all sorts of anime series from a video rental store when I was a kid, back when video rental was a thing. She also drew me lovely 1970s-style shoujo style girls, always wearing puffy lace dresses and ribbons in their hair. And that style has influenced me to this day.
So, Happy New Year 2017! I hope this new year brings in good tidings to all of you, and I also thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing by!
http://wishluv.deviantart.com/art/Merry-Christmas-2016-Sakura-and-Syaoran-653293848
Music Spotlight: Ryuichi Sakamoto: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Trio version
I already included this song in the New Trials Christmas Soundtrack before, but I love listening to it this time of the year, more than carols. I like listening to carols in the summertime, I am odd like that. I really love this piano, violin, cello trio version of the song. But I love the simple piano solo version the best.
