Today’s episode was all about a hangout with friends, and in a surprise twist there was a double card capture! Waaah~!
Sakura has the house to herself as she chats with Meiling on the phone as she prepares dinner for herself and Akiho, who will be arriving soon. Sakura tells Meiling about her date-gone-wrong at the aquarium, and the two girls chat about how everyone’s doing and Sakura’s new clear cards. Then Sakura’s dad calls home and says he’ll be late.
Akiho shows up and Sakura’s an awesome host. Seriously, if you ever visit someone’s house and want someone to meet all your needs as a guest, Sakura’s your girl. Akiho brings some sweets Kaito made and they’re delicious, but a secret death glare from Kero reminds Sakura to “save some for later.”
I think it’s really adorable how excited Akiho is to visit Sakura. I realize some part of her excitement is likely due to not having her parents around and having the waitstaff to everything for her (which Akiho even admits to), but if you’ve grown up in a huge house back home (I’m presuming) and now you’re living in a mansion in Japan…. yeah I guess a commoner’s life might seem like something new and fresh. For example Sakura’s bedroom is likely much, much smaller than Akiho, yet Akiho thinks it’s “cute.” And Akiho’s super impressed that Sakura can cook for herself too.
Sakura shows off some of the costumes Tomoyo made for her card captures, but then digs herself into a corner and has to come up with a super quick on the fly excuse as to what they were for (a play, apparently ;D ). This leads to Sakura showing Akiho some pictures from the play she and Syaoran were in together, and I thought this moment was a really neat tie-in to the second CCS movie, “The Sealed Card”. (Which is actually a great movie and I highly recommend it to anyone who watched the original seasons because it serves as the finale to the CCS anime.) Oh you’re so clever, CLAMP!
By the way! The scene with the girls agreeing on how much they hate konju (what looks like jiggly tofu?) – FANTASTIC! As someone who also hates several foods due to their textures, this scene totally had me going “I get you, girl. I hear you.” xD
Anyways while the girls are eating dinner, a little sparkly globe appears and flies around the house. As Sakura is dishing up more beef stew for Akiho, the globe soars around her head and puts the silver-haired girl to sleep. Kero appears and the two determine Akiho is ok, just out cold.
Sakura chases the orb outside where she and Kero are shocked to discover they are now in another dimension, right out Sakura’s front door! O_o Sakura straps on her rollerblades and flies off into this alternate world, more gung-ho that I’ve seen her in awhile I’ll tell you. Her initial attempts to catch the orb with the Gravitation card on different structures don’t work, but when she makes Kero’s stomach the focal point for Gravitation, she’s able to capture the orb as Gravitation pulls her (and the orb) towards Kero.
With this new card (Snooze) captured, I thought that the alternate dimension would disappear and Sakura would return home. However this wasn’t the case – one more card to go! With Snooze captured this new dimension starts to fall apart, so Sakura acts quick to capture this second card. It’s the card mentioned in this episode’s title – Labyrinth. As soon as the card is captured, Sakura is returned to the real world… on top of her roof. Rollerblades and all. Whoops!
Akiho feels awful for falling asleep at Sakura’s house, but Sakura just tells Akiho that she’ll have to come visit again. Kaito comes to pick Akiho up from Sakura’s place, and on the way home he asks Akiho what Sakura was like. Is she a nice person? How does Sakura treat Akiho? Akiho had nothing but nice things to say about Sakura on the walk home, but that smirk on Kaito’s face…
Is it possible that Akiho is the mysterious person in the long robes, but she just doesn’t know it? Is Kaito the one pulling all the strings from behind the scenes? Does he actually want Sakura and Akiho to be close friends, so he can destroy Akiho’s happiness when the truth is revealed? And it would be such a betrayal too given how Akiho feels about Kaito. >_< ;; Argh, so many questions!
If Akiho is indeed the robed individual, as mentioned before I will admittedly be a little disappointed. I feel like the plot of Clear Card-hen is too similar to the second season of the original CCS anime with Eriol in terms of who the series’ “villain” is. But oh well.
I’m sure it’s still obvious given the tag I’m using, but we’re almost at the season’s halfway point (since this is a split-cour) and I’m still super impressed with the quality of the animation and the music. Nothing looks derpy or out of place, and it’s obvious that a lot of funds, time, and effort have gone into making this new season of CCS. Color me impressed!
Author’s Note: I apologize for not thinking to do this sooner. For those who don’t know, I work nights. And when I get home in the morning around breakfast, I have only a small window in the morning to early afternoon in which to shower, eat, run errands as needed, and blog. Some mornings I get home and try to write and I fall asleep in my computer chair trying to write up my post. x_x;
So, this is to let you know that if you are following my ‘Clear Card-hen’ reviews, they’ll usually be posted Mondays or Tuesdays. I aim for Mondays but on the days that I’m super tired I usually only get half a review done at a time so it ends up taking a little longer, and that’s when it’ll show up (no later than) Tuesday afternoon. Thank you for your patience and your understanding.