Spain, year 2000. A girl sits on the sofa and turns on the television. Dragon Ball just ends when they announce the premiere of a new series on the screen. The protagonist is a girl her own age who has a magic staff and a mission: to find all the Clow cards, which are part of a magic deck. It is Sakura, the card hunter, "some drawings that triumphed in style in the midst of the explosion of manga and anime in the country," recall Alegría Jiménez and Laia Folch, two of the founders of the digital medium Pro Shoujo Spain, dedicated to promote the manga to a female audience.
Both gave a talk yesterday in Barcelona in a crowded Manga hall – which expects to break attendance records and exceed 152,000 attendees – to celebrate the fact that Sakura reached readers 25 years ago. She “She appeared for the first time in Nakayoshi, a monthly magazine whose target was girls between 10 and 15 years old, the same age range as the protagonist. However, the success was such that the target was expanded and ended up making the leap to audiovisuals", Folch tells La Vanguardia, who insists that "many boys ended up getting hooked on manga since the plot of mystery and adventure looking for the letters prevailed much more than romances. And that was surely what made her succeed and what made Sakura something different from what had been seen to date, at least in Spain.
It was the regional channels that broadcast all the episodes of this Japanese pre-adolescent. “She didn't even need to appear on state television for her to become famous. It was new and everyone, girls but also boys, wanted to be her and accompany her on her missions. In addition, she became a fashion icon that still endures today, ”says Jiménez. And it is that a good handful of brands, including the Spanish Bershka, have incorporated this and other characters from the series into their garments at one time or another. But also haute couture firms, who have wanted to adapt some of the exclusive designs that the protagonist wore in each chapter, designed by her friend Tomoyo.
“They were very modern when they came out and are still making a splash today. Fashion is something that CLAMP, its authors, have always kept in mind”, remarks Folch, who applauds the care of the authors for keeping every detail in mind. “There are four women and they exclusively do everything. Normally mangakas have assistants to create backgrounds, ink... They don't and that also makes their product unique. They are in control of everything. Also from the anime because, although it was the work of the Madhouse animation studio, they were in charge of designing the cards that did not appear in the original manga.
The confinement, the bloggers confess, has made Sakura “more present than ever”. As publishers such as Norma Comics, Penguin Random House or Planeta advanced to La Vanguardia, the fact of being closed at home for so many hours encouraged people to consume manga and anime and that made the platforms get their act together in this regard. As a result of this high demand, Netflix acquired Sakura, the card hunter, so that the nostalgic can enjoy it again. Prime Video, for its part, made Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card available to users, the continuation of the saga that CLAMP created for the twentieth anniversary. Precisely this second part will arrive at SX3, the new TV3 anime channel, when it finishes dubbing in Catalan. Meanwhile, fans will be able to enjoy this 2023 of the original series, as the chain announced exclusively in the Barcelona room.
