CCS in the U.S.A!!

The rights to the popular CCS anime series have been accquired by a Candian Company named Nelvana. Nelvana has licensed all 70 t.v. episodes which are currently airing on Saturday, on Kid's WB. Check here for the listings if you don't believe me..

The Changes:

Due to the fact that CCS has some material that may be unacceptable, changes have been made. For one thing Card Captor Sakura has been renamed to CardCaptors, being that Nelvana and WB want to aim the show towards boys and girls. CardCaptors is being shown out of order, has a more *oooh, insert scarcasim here* "darker" feel to it, and more Pokemon-fied. (i.e. the clow card of the episode ---> who's that pokemon in every episode). With the hints of Shounen-ai (boy+boy love -->Touya and Yukito), Shoujo-ai (girl+girl love -->Sakura and Tomoyo), and Terada-sensei's lolita complex (kidding!!! ^.^;;) those parts are going to have to be altered, edited, cut out, censored, toned down or even be totally re-written to be viewable on T.V. But also, since CCS is a shoujo anime show, and the aimed for girls, Kids WB and Nelvana want to expand the target audience to boys too.. and so they are changing lots of stuff, even rearranging the episodes completely out of order. It's ridiculas and sexist too! >_<

The Horror:

CardCaptors is not a translation of the original! Nelvana has altered so much, that it seems that they don't care about Card Captor Sakura but rather trying to mold the cute show into a Pokemon clone. Here are some examples of what they've done:

  • The opening: Of course Nelvana couldn't keep the original Japanese opening, so they devised their own. In place of the sugary, super ultra cute "Catch You Catch Me" we have a corny, dark and utterly uncute op. to Card Captors.

  • the Names: A couple of months ago, Nelvana said that they were changing Sakura's name to "Nikki" and Kero-chan to "Kero". But I guess they changed their minds... *shrug* So below is what the names are in the dub:

    Original names Nelvana Dubb Names
    Sakura Kinomoto Sakura Avalon
    Syaoran Li Li Showlan *badly mispronouced*
    Tomoyo Madison Taylor
    Kero-chan Kero *mispronouced*
    Touya Tori Avalon
    Yukito Julian Star
    Meiling Li Meiling Rea
    Rika Rita
    Chiharu Chelsea
    Naoko Niki
    Yamazaki Zachary
    Fujitaka Kinomoto Aiden Avalon
    Nadeshiko Kinomoto Natasha Avalon

    Thanks to Hitomi for the info about some of the Card Captors names!

  • Sakura: Ah yes, Sakura, our MAIN character. In the dubb, her name is SaKUra, which is mispronounced with too much empasize on the KU. But enough about names, more changes have been done to our dear Sakura-chan. For one thing, her attitude in Card Captors is different. She's no longer so naive, and apparently she's not the only Card Captor.

  • Li Syaoran: The chinese boy who is after the Clow Cards! He is still very hostile to Sakura and CO. but it seems that he's a bit more bratty? Also has the crush on Yukito/Julian but those scenes were toned down a bit. Like in the original, Syaoran is called Li(-kun) by Sakura and Tomoyo/Madison but it also seems that Card Captors Li is his first name... and not his last name?

  • Tomoyo/Madison: Madison is no longer the sweet polite girl like Tomoyo was. She's more preppy and shall I say more like a typical American girl?

  • Rika/Rita: the relationship between her and Mr. Terada is different too. Nelvana made Rita fear him, wherevers Rika had a crush on her teacher and in the manga was even engaged to him!

  • Chiharu/Chelsea and Yamazaki/Zachary: How in the heavens did those two become cousins???? Noooo noo noooo nooooo!! *aarrrggghhh* How dare Nelvana do that!!!

    I'll put up more changes when I feel like it....

    SUB Version:

    Hey, don't freak out yet! It has been revealed that a subtitled version will also be out in September! The uncut sub is now being worked on with Pioneer handling the video release *yay!!*. But there will be 2 releases both on VHS and DVD. One is dub only and for us purists, the other will be subbed & uncut. What a relief, eh? ^_^

    And! The manga series has also been brought over. MIXXZINE, a comic magazine has been translating the manga since December '99. But there are still changes to the original. For one thing, Sakura calls Yukito 'Yuki' (?!) Kero-chan is just Kero and 'hoe' has become 'huh'. A CCS Mixx Graphic novel has also been released. I don't have a copy of it so I don't know how different the Mixx version is from the Japanese Tabankoubons... but still, it's better than Nelvana's version! +_+;

    • Some other links:

    Nelvana licenses Card Captor Sakura

    CCS in North America!!

    Subtitle Our Sakura! Sign the petition for subtitled and uncut CCS!! 

    Nelvana Limited

    Mixx Entertainment Press Releases

    AnimeOnDVD.com erects Card Captor Petition

    Subtitled Card Captor Sakura

    Nelvana's CardCaptors Page

    Flaming Geeks

    Animated Shorts: Card Captors

    Card Captor Sakura Petition