Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card-hen: Episode 17 Review!

Expectations: Episode 17, “Sakura and the Crazy Sweets”

Okay, I feel like this episode was more hilarious than it should have been. The in-between animation and artwork was probably the worst we’ve seen in the series so far, but it’s okay if it means that it’s being saved for the season finale. Or the great-grandfather visit.  

Reality: Sakura, Melting Clocks, and Surrealism

 Inspired by Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory”

We start out with the dream of the Cloaked Figure again, and this time Sakura realizes it would be a premonition of something that happens in the future. She sees the black dragon creature and the cloaked figure standing on top of it and realizes who knows it is before falling from the sky and off her bed. Kero-chan laughs at her. 

"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream"

Maleficent!

God, Syaoran was the worst Princess Aurora ever in our 5th grade play. Speaking of Syaoran, haven't seen him in a while. What's he up to?

Sakura meets Rika at Tomoeda Central Park aka King Penguin Park. Rika Sasaki, as you remember, is going to a different school, possibly the same one as Fuu from Magic Knight Rayearth based on her green uniform. Or maybe she’s going to Eitoukou Academy. Rika hands Sakrura a bag of pictures books and a copy of “Alice in Wonderland.” Rika wants to meet Akiho. Sakura apparently is going to be reading out the pictures books to children from the hospital for her brother’s friend aka Yukito. At this point, again, New Trials and Clear Card Arc blurs in my mind. Am I just too good at doing CLAMP?

Rika: So, I heard you got a new look-alike friend to replace me already?

Sakura: "Hoe!"

Sakura: "Hoeeeeeeee!"

Chiharu: "Hoe! I mean, hi!"

 Kero-chan points out that Sakura had forgotten her apron from Home Ec class, and Sakura runs all the way back home to pick up her apron and squealing “Hoeeee” all the way to school. Home Ec class starts, and their class is making roll cakes. At this point, the animators stop trying and everybody turns into SD figures. If you watched anime in the 1990s, you will remember the super-deformed figures than ran rampant in anime from that era. That trend seems to have died out in more recent years, at least, in the sense where there are whole sequences of SD figures animated, instead of just momentary lapses. Sakura explains cow gibberish to Akiho, going “mooo,” Tomoyo re-interprets that egg whites have to peak in order to form meringue. Give the poor girls an electric egg beater or at least hand mixer, you know how hard it’s to make egg whites form stiff peaks!

Sakura: Moooogh.

Akiho: Nyoron?

Trio: Hanyaan!

Tomoyo: Introducing the "Chibi Adventures of Pâtissier Sakura!"

Next, they have to decorate the roll cake. Akiho wants to give her roll cake to Kaito the Double-Faced Butler (not to be mistaken for Kaitou Magician, the Nefarious Thief of the Night) and make it in the shape of his pocket watch. Sakura ponders for a second making her roll cake in the shape of Syaoran’s rasinban and gives up on the idea, puzzling Akiho, which was a cute scene. And Akiho suggests Kero-chan-shaped roll cake and Sakura points out that it might be hard to eat. 

Akiho: My crush is obsessed with clocks.

Sakura: My crush is obsessed with his compass, ward papers, and the color green.

Akiho: Why don't you make a Kero-chan-shaped roll cake?

Sakura: I don't condone cannibalism, Akiho.

Kaito is fixing up Momo’s scarf at home, we hear Momo speak for the first time, and it’s to criticize how clumsy Akiho. Kaito says that’s what makes her cute and feeds Momo a platter of chocolate. Momo says it’s tough staying still and then asks if the time hasn’t arrived yet, and Kaito says that the collecting of cards is progressing well toward that time. And Momo doesn’t have Ioryogi-san’s voice unfortunately. 

"The Emperor's New Clothes"

Momo-toinette: They don't have roll cake? Let them eat chocolate!

The roll cakes come alive and start jumping around the classroom, Sakura puts everyone except Tomoyo to sleep, and the two girls remark they’re rather cute and harmless, and then they turn fanged and grotesque! The two girls run out of the school, Kero-chan comes up and remarks his best one-liner of the day: “That thing ain’t edible! On what planet to roll cakes grow fangs and chase people?” Sakura takes off her kerchief and apron to get down to business, Tomoyo leaves filming to Kero-chan again, and Sakura uses the Flight Card. I enjoyed seeing the Tomoeda Middle School uniform without the black blazer for a change, but am personally not a fan of white on ivory (the skirt and white shirt doesn’t match colors!) And the huge fanged roll-cake, straight out of a Ghibli movie, flies after Sakura and Kero-chan. Sakura uses the Spiral to capture the grotesque roll cake. 

Tomoyo: Put the entire school to sleep, an enteral deep slumber!

Sakura: I know you are the Final Boss, Tomoyo!

Sakura: Ugly, ugly, ugly! OMG, so ugly! I'm so sorry Tomoyo, I'll never cross you again! We've never had an ugly dark force to date--save the Ents in Episode 4!

"Let's get down to business, to defeat the Buns."

Tomoyo: You know what happens if you don't capture the money shot, Kero-chan!

Kero-chan: I know, off with my head!

The new card is “Appear” and the second humanoid card we’ve seen so far. I don’t get how Appear makes the roll cakes move. I kept asking, do you mean, “Animate?” I really think this whole Clear Card is just a testament to Sakura’s poor English skills, which is why the cards don’t correlate to what they do, as opposed to the Clow Cards, which are very cohesive and well thought out, as Clow is half English. I did prefer the Sweet Card episode but do appreciate the parallelism.  

Kero-chan: Wait, Sakura, wait! I need to set up the correct angle!

Kero-chan: Okay, I'm ready, now you can seal it! You've got to humor Tomoyo or else who knows what she'll do.

"Appear" aka Sakura hasn't studied her SAT vocabs and their meanings.

Princely Syaoran appears just after everything is all over, extending out his hands in feigned concern (we need to give the best acting award to Syaoran!) But I love the way he calls out “Sakura!” and Sakura holds his hands as she lands in front of him. He asks if she is okay and not hurt. He apologizes that he couldn’t help her. We understand there is larger overarching meaning to his words, and I believe he really is sincere in this. Sakura says, “You don’t have to,” before the two realize Tomoyo and Kero-chan is filming them from below the steps interrupting our precious S+S moment. Kero-chan and Tomoyo go: “Don’t mind us,” but Sakura panics and the pair blushes. 

Syaoran: I'm making my first appearance in three weeks!

Sakura: This is my first time seeing Syaoran since the "The Hug." So, we're just going to hold hands after all that's happened?

Syaoran: I've got to hold onto her hands or else I'm going to get edited out of this week's episode too!

Tomoyo and Kero-chan: "Don't mind us, carry on!"

Sakura: Hoe, no, I wasn't having impure thoughts about Syaoran!

Back at Clow Reed’s house, Akiho recounts that the roll cakes disappeared so they had to remake it. She finally musters courage to give it to Kaito. Kaito also presents the fixed-up Momo-san. Kaito says to eat the roll cakes right away and remarks they are cute. Akiho remarks it’s before dinner, Creepy Kaito says, “It’s important to eat proper meals but it’s also important to eat delicious things right away when you want to.” Kind of like Ruby Moon in this sense. Akiho recalls that Sakura seemed very apologetic after the roll cakes disappeared, which causes Kaito to go into a fit of laughter. But Akiho says she’s surprised that Kaito seems to be enjoying himself, and asks Kaito, “Please laugh,” which makes Kaito shocked. Akiho apologizes for saying something strange again, and you can’t help feeling sorry for the girl. Kaito’s really messed up with her sense of self-worth and self-esteem or something. He clasps his hand over hers and says, “There is nothing for you to apologize for.” He says having her do this for him makes him happy, not sounding happy at all. Akiho falls asleep, Momo moves again and remarks to Kaito that even with his “D” magic, he can’t stop the book’s time. Kaito says that’s why the new cards are necessary.

Never trust a guy who giggles likes this in an anime. They're all psychopaths.

Akiho: Please smile for me, Candy!

Kaito: Ew, no!

Akiho: Lelouch onii-sama!

Kaito: Nunnally?

Brought to you by Code Geass, character designs by CLAMP

Kaito probably will turn out to have good motives in the end, going along the trend of Clamp’s characters never being truly evil. At this point, I feel sorry for Akiho and hope that she doesn’t get too badly betrayed or used by Kaito in the end. The next episode looks really good though, and I’m looking forward to the reappearance of Touya and Yue! I missed them a lot! 

Kaito is giggling because he can't decide who is uglier this episode.

Squish-faced Sakura the Elf?

Lopsided-eye Big Boss Tomoyo?

This thing?

Kaito: Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Moi!

This review is brought to you by Abstract Expressionism, Disney and the makers of Code Geass.