Episode 19: "Sakura and The Summer Holiday Homework" or "Nothing to Report"
Introduction to the Experiment
Episode 18
Episode 19: Sakura and The Summer Holiday Homework (Card Captor Sakura) or Nothing to Report (Cardcaptors)
Summer is coming to a close. Sakura is writing in her picture diary about the events during episode 17, at least the version she could tell her teachers (or writing about camp, which is what she is doing in the English version). Anyway, Kero remarks on this and then realizes that she's writing about stuff that happened a month ago. Sakura then admits that she hadn't had time to write her diary daily but she'll write the rest of the entries today. Kero reminds her that she needs to write in the weather but Sakura got a plan: she'll just look in the old newspapers and add them in later. But she still has to do her math homework, her construction project, and her book report. She finishes up the diary as Kero watches some news segment about a restaurant and goes to get the newspapers but her father had thrown them out that morning. Luckily, he has a computer device thing that had recorded the weather for the past three months so she uses that. She goes to do her math homework but Kero's looking at it, noting that it's so easy. Kero agrees to do her math homework for something in return. Next, she's working on her construction project. Yukito comes over and asks what she's doing. Toya explains that she does this every year, waiting until the last minute to do all her summer homework. He then says how last year for her construction project, she built a piggy bank... but forgot to add in the slot where you insert money. And it turns out that Sakura forgot a doorway for the bird house she's building. Toya then offers to build the birdhouse for her in exchange for five chore shifts. She agrees. She then calls Tomoyo, who relates that she hasn't finished her summer homework either and suggest they meet in the library to work together. So, off Sakura goes to the library, with Kero in tow. Once at the library, noting that it's crowded to boot, Sakura and Tomoyo prepare to go into a cubicle but wind up bumping into Li. Li decides not to enter the cubicle with them and goes off alone. Time passes and Tomoyo and Sakura (using Kero, who will get the food mentioned in the news program for his help) finish their math homework. Tomoyo wants to go over the answers but Kero tells them not to bother checking his because his are perfect. It turns out that Kero's answers are either wrong, inadequate, or nonsensical so Sakura has to erase all his answers and do them again. Kero is not getting his treat. Now it's time for the book report. Sakura wants to do the shortest book on the list (especially after seeing how long Tomoyo's choice was) but it's not there. Meanwhile, Kero is outside, demoaning his lack of treat, when he sees Li, looking at a dictionary, while holding a book. Kero teases him for not knowing a particular kanji/meaning of a word (Japanese/English) and Li gets defensive and tells Kero to go away, after placing his book down. After bantering a bit, Kero leaves and Li turns to his book only to discover that it's gone. Meanwhile, after checking at the front desk, Sakura is looking for the book. Kero finds her and tells her that Li has it. This is followed by a series of scenes where the book appears and disappears before each of the characters until, finally, Li tracks it down to the children's room, where the children are building a house with it. The girls and Kero notice Li in the children's room, especially when one of the kids starts crying because Li took the book and therefore knocked down the house. The book disappears again and Kero tells them that it's a Clow Card. This sets off another series of scenes of them following the book around unable to grab it before it disappears. Eventually, it's outside and so they all go outside and follow it around some more. Sakura begins to despair ever catching it at this rate. Kero explains that it is the Move Card which sounds useful until one realizes that it can't move things very far and it can't move large or living things. And it's mischievous too. Kero then tells Sakura to stop using her sight to catch it. Instead, she should try sensing it and predict its location that way. After an overly long sequence of images, Sakura finds it and seals it. Unfortunately, she jumps inches away from the river and she's going to fall in. Li jumps over the railing to pull her back up but it's too late for them. Both fall into the river but not before throwing the book up at Tomoyo. Now, they are soaking wet and Sakura is sneezing. Li invites them over to his place to they can get dry and he can also give her the book since he's nearly done with it. They head over to his place (which is huge) and Wei gives her dry clothes and some tea. Sakura asks if they live alone together and Wei confirms that they do. He also mentions that Li's father has recently passed away and the rest of the family lives in Hong Kong (or vaguely "overseas" which is what he says in the English version). After that, Li comes into the room: he's done with the book and now Sakura can have it. Li is taken aback by Sakura's shirt and Sakura explains that Wei gave it to her. Li can't quite spit out why he's uncomfortable about Sakura wearing the shirt. Meanwhile, someone is entering the house. It's a girl Li's age, whom Li identifies as Meilin, and she barges in quite happily, glomping on Li, until she realizes that Sakura is wearing a shirt that she gave Li. Now she is furious at Li who can't now get a word in edgewise to explain. The English version cuts Meilin's hug fest with Li and her fury at Sakura wearing the shirt (the dialogue seems to suggest that Li is saying that shirt is Meilin's but he could also mean that it's something that Meilin gave to him), leaving in just her entrance and Sakura's confused expression.
Wanna watch it?
Card Captor Sakura Episode 19 (All)
Cardcaptors Episode 19: Part 1/3
Cardcaptors Episode 19: Part 2/3
Cardcaptors Episode 19: Part 3/3
This episode is loads of fun. I was cracking up the entire time. I guess this is also the first appearance of Meilin, who is not in the manga. I only know about her through reputation and from the second Card Captor Sakura movie. Opinions on her seem to be split: she's either the most annoying aspect of the anime or very unfairly maligned, depending on who you ask. Although, I kept thinking that this episode could also be called "Sakura and The Ways She Gets Her Family Members To Do Her Homework For Her" because seriously, Toya building the bird house for her is so not cool. Cheating is bad, Sakura! But the diary scene made me laugh because, in my college Japanese class, I would have to write things like that (I, in fact, had a project that involved keeping a weeklong diary) and I bet they sounded a lot like what Sakura was writing (keep in mind that Sakura is ten years old and I was 19 to 20 years old when taking my Japanese classes. She probably still used more kanji than I did and probably with better grammar).
Card Tally
Sakura: Windy, Fly, Shadow, Watery, Rain, Wood, Jump, Illusion, Silence, Thunder, Sword, Flower, Shield, Power, Mist, Float, Erase, Glow, Move
Current number: 19
Li: Time, Storm
Current number: 2
I'm torn about the titles. The Japanese title is lame but actually has to do with the plot while the English title is punchier but has little to do with the plot. Furthermore, I just kept thinking about All Quiet on the Western Front because, apparently, the original German title translates to something like that. So, they're the same, I guess.
This episode is pretty much left intact. The only major cut is at the end of the episode with Meilin. Her scene where she hug-tackles Li and then blows a fuse, playing the spurned wife, when she notices Sakura wearing the shirt she gave Li is removed. I actually think that this was unnecessary because there are people who would be offended if someone gave a present to a stranger and not be in love or whatever. If the reason was that it was cut was that they didn't want Meilin seeming too "wifey" here, I feel they missed an opportunity here because they could have easily played it as "Meilin is a possessive person, regardless of who they are". However, I'm wondering if this was a time issue because the episode ends quite abruptly, even having Li's dialogue on top of a shot of Sakura.
Then again, if they really wanted to save time, they could have easily cut the silly "sensing the Card" sequence. I'm astonished they left that in because it was so obviously padding (to be fair, they cut about half of it). Seriously, what did those images have to do with anything?
They cut out Sakura gushing over Yukito as well and trimmed up the "Sakura stinks at construction projects" scene. I'm okay with the loss of gushing but I'm sad that we lost the scenes of Sakura posing with the penguin piggy bank and then trying and failing to get a coin in. Those shots made me crack up so I'm sorry to see them go.
One scene I want to talk about is the Li and the dictionary scene. I liked how the Japanese producers remembered that Li is not Japanese and how his fluency makes no sense. So, they have him bring up the kanji differences. I won't bore you with the details but what Li says is true: Japanese kanji and the Chinese characters that people in Hong Kong use are read differently, used differently, written differently, and have different meanings. So it makes sense that reading Japanese might pose some difficulty for Hong Kong-raised Li. The English version simply has Li not understand the meaning of a particular word. It's not that the change is bad but I think it would have been a good time to bring up the fact that Li is from Hong Kong. I said earlier that Li knowing English made more sense than him knowing Japanese because many educated people in Hong Kong know English but most people speak Chinese (Cantonese, specifically, if I'm remembering correctly) and I think a ten-year-old would struggle with some English words (especially if the book was selected to challenge the students). Even just a one-liner like "Hey, I can speak English but it's not my first language, you know!" would have been sufficient. Then again, maybe that might be viewed as a bit racist ("stupid Chinese boy can't read English words!" is not a good message to project in a kid's show) but Kero is already mocking him so... I don't know. Maybe the writers went into this argument with themselves and decided to just avoid the issue altogether and make him not know a word rather than get into a quamire. So, in conclusion, I don't mind the change they did but I would have liked to see some reference to him being from Hong Kong like they did in the Japanese version.
Speaking of him being from Hong Kong, why did they change Wei's line into such a vague one? His family lives "overseas"? Just say Hong Kong. We already know that Li is from there and it would make sense that they would all still be there. As it is, it just seems like they're scattered all over the place for no reason. I just thought it was weird.
They also changed Li's reason for not studying with them but I can see why. The Japanese reason is that Li read his horoscope (the subtitles say "fortune" but I think they mean "horoscope") and it told him that women would bring him problems that day. At first I scoffed that a ten-year-old boy would be reading the horoscopes until I realized that Li is obsessed with magic and everything so he might actually take stock in that. I don't know about Japanese culture for sure but, in America, reading the horoscopes is kind of girly. The writers may have decided that even if Li is obsessed with magic, reading the horoscopes might be a bit much for American audiences to swallow (even I was confused until I thought about it and most people aren't going to reason it out like I did). Furthermore, I don't know about Japanese horoscopes but I've never read a horoscope that told me to avoid the opposite sex or the same sex or anything like what Li points out here (usually it's to tell me to watch my money or watch my friends or that my seduction prowess will increase on such-and-such a day). So, the writers may have thought that was a little too out there for the show. In the end, Li just says that he can't study around girls, which is normal for a ten-year-old boy to say ("ew, cooties!").
Unfortunately, that makes Li's comment in the river kind of odd. In the Japanese version, Li realizes that the horoscope was refering to him falling in the river because of Sakura. The moment has great comedic timing because it's the punchline to the build-up established by him mentioning the horoscope. The problem is when the English version tries to do the same pattern but the punchline doesn't make sense. In the English version, he says that this is why he doesn't study with girls. Huh? What kind of girls have you been studying with lately that makes you fall into rivers? It's just kind of a weird line. I mean, it's not totally out of left field or anything but it doesn't really match what's going on. I mean, I guess I could argue that Li is being melodramatic here, implying that girls are always causing him problems, but it's a stretch and jokes that make you stretch are not very funny jokes. You know, they could have left the horoscope line in and even added a snarky Sakura line like "You read horoscopes?" with Li brattily replying "You don't understand!" (hey, they've done it before on bigger issues) before swanning off to keep the end joke. Ah, well. I mean, it works but not as well as the original.
Now, for plot holes.
1. Is it just me or does the book they have to read look a bit juvenile for their grade level? I mean, I'm not expecting them to read The Tale of Genji or anything but it look suspiciously like a picture book, not a novel which a fifth grader should be reading over the summer.
2. How does Sakura get the staff when she never got her Key out? Not that I need to see her cast the spell or anything but still, no indication that she had earlier.
3. Why is Sakura asking about whether Wei lives alone with Li? She already knows the answer because Li told her so in episode 17 (which was a month ago). Short-term memory loss?
4. Did Meilin just come without telling anyone? I mean, Li seems totally surprised by her arrival so Wei obviously didn't tell him. So either Wei knew and didn't tell him or Meilin didn't call ahead. Of course, this is changed in the English version with Li not surprised at her appearance. But still, Meilin is very rude!
In conclusion, although the changes made were less than what I would have liked, they were adequate and did not completely wreck the plot but did not enhance the episode either, so I judge these episodes to be...
Equal!
Episode 20
Episode 18
Episode 19: Sakura and The Summer Holiday Homework (Card Captor Sakura) or Nothing to Report (Cardcaptors)
Summer is coming to a close. Sakura is writing in her picture diary about the events during episode 17, at least the version she could tell her teachers (or writing about camp, which is what she is doing in the English version). Anyway, Kero remarks on this and then realizes that she's writing about stuff that happened a month ago. Sakura then admits that she hadn't had time to write her diary daily but she'll write the rest of the entries today. Kero reminds her that she needs to write in the weather but Sakura got a plan: she'll just look in the old newspapers and add them in later. But she still has to do her math homework, her construction project, and her book report. She finishes up the diary as Kero watches some news segment about a restaurant and goes to get the newspapers but her father had thrown them out that morning. Luckily, he has a computer device thing that had recorded the weather for the past three months so she uses that. She goes to do her math homework but Kero's looking at it, noting that it's so easy. Kero agrees to do her math homework for something in return. Next, she's working on her construction project. Yukito comes over and asks what she's doing. Toya explains that she does this every year, waiting until the last minute to do all her summer homework. He then says how last year for her construction project, she built a piggy bank... but forgot to add in the slot where you insert money. And it turns out that Sakura forgot a doorway for the bird house she's building. Toya then offers to build the birdhouse for her in exchange for five chore shifts. She agrees. She then calls Tomoyo, who relates that she hasn't finished her summer homework either and suggest they meet in the library to work together. So, off Sakura goes to the library, with Kero in tow. Once at the library, noting that it's crowded to boot, Sakura and Tomoyo prepare to go into a cubicle but wind up bumping into Li. Li decides not to enter the cubicle with them and goes off alone. Time passes and Tomoyo and Sakura (using Kero, who will get the food mentioned in the news program for his help) finish their math homework. Tomoyo wants to go over the answers but Kero tells them not to bother checking his because his are perfect. It turns out that Kero's answers are either wrong, inadequate, or nonsensical so Sakura has to erase all his answers and do them again. Kero is not getting his treat. Now it's time for the book report. Sakura wants to do the shortest book on the list (especially after seeing how long Tomoyo's choice was) but it's not there. Meanwhile, Kero is outside, demoaning his lack of treat, when he sees Li, looking at a dictionary, while holding a book. Kero teases him for not knowing a particular kanji/meaning of a word (Japanese/English) and Li gets defensive and tells Kero to go away, after placing his book down. After bantering a bit, Kero leaves and Li turns to his book only to discover that it's gone. Meanwhile, after checking at the front desk, Sakura is looking for the book. Kero finds her and tells her that Li has it. This is followed by a series of scenes where the book appears and disappears before each of the characters until, finally, Li tracks it down to the children's room, where the children are building a house with it. The girls and Kero notice Li in the children's room, especially when one of the kids starts crying because Li took the book and therefore knocked down the house. The book disappears again and Kero tells them that it's a Clow Card. This sets off another series of scenes of them following the book around unable to grab it before it disappears. Eventually, it's outside and so they all go outside and follow it around some more. Sakura begins to despair ever catching it at this rate. Kero explains that it is the Move Card which sounds useful until one realizes that it can't move things very far and it can't move large or living things. And it's mischievous too. Kero then tells Sakura to stop using her sight to catch it. Instead, she should try sensing it and predict its location that way. After an overly long sequence of images, Sakura finds it and seals it. Unfortunately, she jumps inches away from the river and she's going to fall in. Li jumps over the railing to pull her back up but it's too late for them. Both fall into the river but not before throwing the book up at Tomoyo. Now, they are soaking wet and Sakura is sneezing. Li invites them over to his place to they can get dry and he can also give her the book since he's nearly done with it. They head over to his place (which is huge) and Wei gives her dry clothes and some tea. Sakura asks if they live alone together and Wei confirms that they do. He also mentions that Li's father has recently passed away and the rest of the family lives in Hong Kong (or vaguely "overseas" which is what he says in the English version). After that, Li comes into the room: he's done with the book and now Sakura can have it. Li is taken aback by Sakura's shirt and Sakura explains that Wei gave it to her. Li can't quite spit out why he's uncomfortable about Sakura wearing the shirt. Meanwhile, someone is entering the house. It's a girl Li's age, whom Li identifies as Meilin, and she barges in quite happily, glomping on Li, until she realizes that Sakura is wearing a shirt that she gave Li. Now she is furious at Li who can't now get a word in edgewise to explain. The English version cuts Meilin's hug fest with Li and her fury at Sakura wearing the shirt (the dialogue seems to suggest that Li is saying that shirt is Meilin's but he could also mean that it's something that Meilin gave to him), leaving in just her entrance and Sakura's confused expression.
Wanna watch it?
Card Captor Sakura Episode 19 (All)
Click to viewCardcaptors Episode 19: Part 1/3
Cardcaptors Episode 19: Part 2/3
Cardcaptors Episode 19: Part 3/3
This episode is loads of fun. I was cracking up the entire time. I guess this is also the first appearance of Meilin, who is not in the manga. I only know about her through reputation and from the second Card Captor Sakura movie. Opinions on her seem to be split: she's either the most annoying aspect of the anime or very unfairly maligned, depending on who you ask. Although, I kept thinking that this episode could also be called "Sakura and The Ways She Gets Her Family Members To Do Her Homework For Her" because seriously, Toya building the bird house for her is so not cool. Cheating is bad, Sakura! But the diary scene made me laugh because, in my college Japanese class, I would have to write things like that (I, in fact, had a project that involved keeping a weeklong diary) and I bet they sounded a lot like what Sakura was writing (keep in mind that Sakura is ten years old and I was 19 to 20 years old when taking my Japanese classes. She probably still used more kanji than I did and probably with better grammar).
Card Tally
Sakura: Windy, Fly, Shadow, Watery, Rain, Wood, Jump, Illusion, Silence, Thunder, Sword, Flower, Shield, Power, Mist, Float, Erase, Glow, Move
Current number: 19
Li: Time, Storm
Current number: 2
I'm torn about the titles. The Japanese title is lame but actually has to do with the plot while the English title is punchier but has little to do with the plot. Furthermore, I just kept thinking about All Quiet on the Western Front because, apparently, the original German title translates to something like that. So, they're the same, I guess.
This episode is pretty much left intact. The only major cut is at the end of the episode with Meilin. Her scene where she hug-tackles Li and then blows a fuse, playing the spurned wife, when she notices Sakura wearing the shirt she gave Li is removed. I actually think that this was unnecessary because there are people who would be offended if someone gave a present to a stranger and not be in love or whatever. If the reason was that it was cut was that they didn't want Meilin seeming too "wifey" here, I feel they missed an opportunity here because they could have easily played it as "Meilin is a possessive person, regardless of who they are". However, I'm wondering if this was a time issue because the episode ends quite abruptly, even having Li's dialogue on top of a shot of Sakura.
Then again, if they really wanted to save time, they could have easily cut the silly "sensing the Card" sequence. I'm astonished they left that in because it was so obviously padding (to be fair, they cut about half of it). Seriously, what did those images have to do with anything?
They cut out Sakura gushing over Yukito as well and trimmed up the "Sakura stinks at construction projects" scene. I'm okay with the loss of gushing but I'm sad that we lost the scenes of Sakura posing with the penguin piggy bank and then trying and failing to get a coin in. Those shots made me crack up so I'm sorry to see them go.
One scene I want to talk about is the Li and the dictionary scene. I liked how the Japanese producers remembered that Li is not Japanese and how his fluency makes no sense. So, they have him bring up the kanji differences. I won't bore you with the details but what Li says is true: Japanese kanji and the Chinese characters that people in Hong Kong use are read differently, used differently, written differently, and have different meanings. So it makes sense that reading Japanese might pose some difficulty for Hong Kong-raised Li. The English version simply has Li not understand the meaning of a particular word. It's not that the change is bad but I think it would have been a good time to bring up the fact that Li is from Hong Kong. I said earlier that Li knowing English made more sense than him knowing Japanese because many educated people in Hong Kong know English but most people speak Chinese (Cantonese, specifically, if I'm remembering correctly) and I think a ten-year-old would struggle with some English words (especially if the book was selected to challenge the students). Even just a one-liner like "Hey, I can speak English but it's not my first language, you know!" would have been sufficient. Then again, maybe that might be viewed as a bit racist ("stupid Chinese boy can't read English words!" is not a good message to project in a kid's show) but Kero is already mocking him so... I don't know. Maybe the writers went into this argument with themselves and decided to just avoid the issue altogether and make him not know a word rather than get into a quamire. So, in conclusion, I don't mind the change they did but I would have liked to see some reference to him being from Hong Kong like they did in the Japanese version.
Speaking of him being from Hong Kong, why did they change Wei's line into such a vague one? His family lives "overseas"? Just say Hong Kong. We already know that Li is from there and it would make sense that they would all still be there. As it is, it just seems like they're scattered all over the place for no reason. I just thought it was weird.
They also changed Li's reason for not studying with them but I can see why. The Japanese reason is that Li read his horoscope (the subtitles say "fortune" but I think they mean "horoscope") and it told him that women would bring him problems that day. At first I scoffed that a ten-year-old boy would be reading the horoscopes until I realized that Li is obsessed with magic and everything so he might actually take stock in that. I don't know about Japanese culture for sure but, in America, reading the horoscopes is kind of girly. The writers may have decided that even if Li is obsessed with magic, reading the horoscopes might be a bit much for American audiences to swallow (even I was confused until I thought about it and most people aren't going to reason it out like I did). Furthermore, I don't know about Japanese horoscopes but I've never read a horoscope that told me to avoid the opposite sex or the same sex or anything like what Li points out here (usually it's to tell me to watch my money or watch my friends or that my seduction prowess will increase on such-and-such a day). So, the writers may have thought that was a little too out there for the show. In the end, Li just says that he can't study around girls, which is normal for a ten-year-old boy to say ("ew, cooties!").
Unfortunately, that makes Li's comment in the river kind of odd. In the Japanese version, Li realizes that the horoscope was refering to him falling in the river because of Sakura. The moment has great comedic timing because it's the punchline to the build-up established by him mentioning the horoscope. The problem is when the English version tries to do the same pattern but the punchline doesn't make sense. In the English version, he says that this is why he doesn't study with girls. Huh? What kind of girls have you been studying with lately that makes you fall into rivers? It's just kind of a weird line. I mean, it's not totally out of left field or anything but it doesn't really match what's going on. I mean, I guess I could argue that Li is being melodramatic here, implying that girls are always causing him problems, but it's a stretch and jokes that make you stretch are not very funny jokes. You know, they could have left the horoscope line in and even added a snarky Sakura line like "You read horoscopes?" with Li brattily replying "You don't understand!" (hey, they've done it before on bigger issues) before swanning off to keep the end joke. Ah, well. I mean, it works but not as well as the original.
Now, for plot holes.
1. Is it just me or does the book they have to read look a bit juvenile for their grade level? I mean, I'm not expecting them to read The Tale of Genji or anything but it look suspiciously like a picture book, not a novel which a fifth grader should be reading over the summer.
2. How does Sakura get the staff when she never got her Key out? Not that I need to see her cast the spell or anything but still, no indication that she had earlier.
3. Why is Sakura asking about whether Wei lives alone with Li? She already knows the answer because Li told her so in episode 17 (which was a month ago). Short-term memory loss?
4. Did Meilin just come without telling anyone? I mean, Li seems totally surprised by her arrival so Wei obviously didn't tell him. So either Wei knew and didn't tell him or Meilin didn't call ahead. Of course, this is changed in the English version with Li not surprised at her appearance. But still, Meilin is very rude!
In conclusion, although the changes made were less than what I would have liked, they were adequate and did not completely wreck the plot but did not enhance the episode either, so I judge these episodes to be...
Equal!
Episode 20