Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card
カードキャプターさくら クリアカード編 (Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card-hen)
- Adventure
- Comedy
- Romance
- Mahou Shoujo
- Episodes
- 22
- Duration
- 25 min per ep
- Aired
- Jan 7, 2018 to Jun 10, 2018
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
With the Clow Cards safely recovered and transformed into her own Sakura Cards, Sakura Kinomoto begins her first year at Tomoeda Middle School. Her days grow even brighter when she reunites with Shaoran Li, who reveals he’s moving back to Tomoeda for good—and will be attending the same school.
That calm is quickly unsettled by a strange dream: a cloaked figure, and a ring of transparent cards closing in around her. Sakura wakes to find the impossible has happened—the Sakura Cards have turned clear. As the unsettling visions continue and Sakura comes into a new magical key, she’s drawn into another chapter of mysteries and magic.
Otaku Consensus
Clear Card lands as a respectful but uneven legacy sequel: Morio Asaka’s Madhouse direction, CLAMP/Nanase Ookawa’s writing presence, and the first half’s accessible, comfortable shape give the revival real craft rather than mere brand nostalgia. Its ceiling is the writing: the most persistent fan and critic complaint is a duller, more predictable plot with filler-like padding, which makes its 7.68 MAL score and 75/100 AniList score feel like an accurate verdict—warmly received, not universally cherished.
Why You Should Watch
Watch Clear Card if you want a magical-girl revival without grim reboot self-consciousness or toy-commercial noise. It scratches a similar itch to Fruits Basket (2019) as a gentle return to shoujo comfort, and to Sailor Moon Crystal as a franchise restoration, but its pleasures are smaller and more domestic: Tomoyo’s fanlike devotion to costume-making and filming, Kero’s comic interruptions, school-life routines, food scenes, and polished Madhouse magic cuts. For viewers invested in Sakura and Shaoran as older middle-schoolers, the draw is emotional continuity: the characters mature without being rewritten. The AniList tag mix—Urban Fantasy, School, Coming of Age, Food, Bisexual, Heterosexual, and LGBTQ+ Themes—captures its texture better than the genre label alone. Skip it if you need tight plotting every episode; choose it for elegant comfort-viewing.
Key Characters
- SSakura Kinomoto(VA: Sakura Tange)
Sakura remains compelling because the sequel lets her optimism read less like innocence and more like a practiced emotional discipline as she enters a new stage of adolescence.
- TTomoyo Daidouji(VA: Junko Iwao)
Tomoyo is still the franchise’s in-universe superfan, turning costume design, filming, and unwavering support into one of the show’s most distinctive forms of affection.
- KKeroberos(VA: Aya Hisakawa)
Keroberos keeps the series from becoming too serene, acting as a mascot, commentator, and comedy valve whenever the school-life sweetness threatens to float away.
- SShaoran Li(VA: Motoko Kumai)
Shaoran’s appeal in Clear Card is restraint: his quieter middle-school presence gives the romance a softer register than the more competitive energy fans remember from earlier Cardcaptor Sakura.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
Madhouse handled the 2018 production, and critics singled out the 3D-assisted Clear Card imagery, dream-world visuals, and Sakura’s staff-twirl animation as places where the digital update visibly benefits the franchise.
- 2
The core creative chain stayed unusually close to the source: CLAMP is credited as original creator, Morio Asaka directs, and Nanase Ookawa handles both series composition and script duties.
- 3
The season runs 22 episodes, airing from January 7 to June 10, 2018, which gives it a tighter broadcast footprint than a long-form magical-girl run while still leaving enough space for school comedy, romance beats, and episodic magic set pieces.
- 4
The audio identity is anchored by Masafumi Mima as sound director and Takayuki Negishi on music, with Maaya Sakamoto performing the opening theme and Saori Hayami performing the ending theme.
- 5
Its reception profile is sharply defined: 50,902 MAL voters put it at 7.68/10, while AniList records 75/100 and 797 favourites, reflecting a sequel admired for tone and presentation but frequently criticized for predictability and padding.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- Nanase Ookawa is credited twice in the key staff data—series composition and script—which is notable because she is also a member of CLAMP, keeping the anime’s scenario work close to the original creative group.
- Fun fact 2
- The show’s Japanese title, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card-hen, uses hen, a common anime and manga title marker for an arc or chapter.
- Fun fact 3
- AniList’s tag profile is unusually granular for a magical-girl sequel: alongside Magic, School, Henshin, and Coming of Age, it also lists Food at 73%, Bisexual at 71%, Heterosexual at 64%, LGBTQ+ Themes at 60%, Dissociative Identities at 60%, and Cheerleading at 50%.
- Fun fact 4
- The theme-song lineup pairs two major voice-actor singers: Maaya Sakamoto on the opening and Saori Hayami on the ending.
- Fun fact 5
- Despite being attached to one of the most recognizable shoujo magical-girl properties, this season’s MAL popularity sits at #1960, a sign that Clear Card plays more like a dedicated sequel entry than a broad new-viewer phenomenon.
Studios
- Madhouse
