Tag: Clamp

Prepare Yourselves: I’m Going to Hate on ‘Chobits’

My nine-part series, “Why I Hate Cardcaptor Sakura,” is consistently the most popular thing on this blog. In the last essay of that series, I promised a similar discussion of the insanely popular and bestselling Chobits, which is CLAMP’s homage to—or possibly their sly takedown of—the magical girlfriend/robot girl genre.

I hadn’t got around to this for several reasons, the main one being that, due to life circumstances, I did not until recently have access to my two-volume omnibus set of Chobits. The other reason was that I detested the story so much that I was loathe to pick it up again. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it on my first attempt.

Of course, as an author, I’m not above swiping stuff even from things I hate. Readers familiar with my novel Jake and the Dynamo may have recognized that I borrowed from Chobits—or mocked it, rather—in my depiction of Grease Pencil Marionette.

This essay may take me some time to complete, not because it’s hard to express my hate (that part’s easy), but because it will take a lot of time to explain, thoroughly and carefully, exactly what’s wrong with Chobits, exactly why it is a failure as a story, a failure as a hamfisted and amateurish attempt at philosophy, and generally loathsome.

As I stated before, my hate for Cardcaptor Sakura is fanboyish hatred, the kind of melodramatic grousing that fans do about things they like. But my hatred for Chobits is the real deal. It is disgusting, wretched, and more importantly, stupid, in every possible way.

One thing about it, though, is easy to point out and mock, and I have done so in the little meme I put together above. The story is actually, I kid you not, about a girl robot with a reboot switch capable of reformatting her drive, located in her nether regions. And this isn’t some dirty little gag created for a cheap laugh, either: it is actually the centerpiece of the plot, leading to the burning question of whether the protagonist will be able to shag his computer console because of her stupid switch. The whole damn story centers around where this robo-chick has her on/off button.

And even though at least three of the characters are computer experts, brilliant enough to build their own hyper-realistic girl robots, not a single one of them, not one, suggests the simple solution of disconnecting or moving the damn switch.

I friggin’ hate Chobits, man.

Let the Hate Roll On

Anybody else ever notice how Cardcaptor Sakura is always flipping us off? It’s almost as if Clamp is trying to tell us something …

Oh well. I guess it’s no worse than that guy in Sailor Moon who’s always flipping us off.

Anyway, today was to be our last entry in the Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura. However, real life caught up with me today and I didn’t get the post completed, so the hate will have to continue into overtime.

That means you get more hate for the same price.

The final post, the final hate, is still to come. Expect it when you least expect it.

Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, eight!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day Seven!

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Let us continue with Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura. Today’s post again necessarily contains spoilers.

Number 3: The Creeptastic Mid-story Plot Twist

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Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, seven!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day Six!

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We continue yet again with Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura. Today’s post, like yesterday’s, contains some spoilers.

So, here we go.

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Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, six!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day Five!

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We continue now with Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura.

Today’s entry in our ongoing series is a relatively short one, but it necessarily contains spoilers. Spoilers begin after the break.

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Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, four!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day Three!

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Two days ago, we kicked off the Ten Days of Hate with a discussion of Cardcaptor Sakura, the hugely popular magical girl franchise. Then we followed that up with further hate.

Now we continue with more of Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura.

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Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, three!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day Two!

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Just yesterday, I discussed the Cardcaptor Sakura franchise and explained why I find its heroine dull and uninteresting. Today we continue with Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura.

Many of the characters in Cardcaptor Sakura are supposed to be fourth-grade or fifth-grade children, all around ten years of age.

Not a one of them, and I mean not a single one, behaves anything at all like any real kid I’ve ever met, ever. And I hate that.

“Utena can kiss my butt!”

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Why I Hate ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ (and you can, too!)

The Ten Days of Hate: Day One!

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When I discuss magical girls, I have certain go-to titles I like to mention as examples. Sailor Moon is the quintessential superheroine magical girl series. Revolutionary Girl Utena is the quintessential pretentious art-house magical girl series. Princess Tutu is the quintessential unexpectedly awesome magical girl series. Shugo Chara! is the just-plain quintessential magical girl series.

And Cardcaptor Sakura is the quintessential overrated magical girl series.

A few weeks back, somebody asked me to elaborate on exactly what I dislike about the Cardcaptor Sakura franchise. I had thought about writing a post on the subject for some time … but realized I couldn’t fit it all in one post. So you get ten. For the next ten days or until I get bored, this is Ten Things I Hate about Cardcaptor Sakura … except I could only come up with nine, so we’re going to skip number four as a way of honoring Japanese superstition.

Of course, to be fair, I should probably mention that when I say I hate it, I mean I hate it with that special kind of hatred known only to fanboys. One of the writers of Battlestar Galactica, I forget which, once mentioned in an interview that a fan wrote him to say, “I hate this episode. I’ve watched it eight times, and I hate it more every time.” That’s fanboy hatred. I hate Cardcaptor Sakura, a magical-girl title, with the hatred of a magical-girl fanboy.

Cardcaptor Sakura, Master of the Outrageous Outfits.

A few months ago, I got into a discussion about Sakura with some dude on the Internet. He was not himself a magical girl aficionado, and he said that he had expected Sakura to be cloyingly saccharine and sappy, but was surprised to find it a competently produced and likable coming-of-age story. I replied to him that I thought Cardcaptor Sakura was sick and wrong, and that after I finished reading its first of two story arcs (comprising the first six collected volumes of the manga), I felt as if I’d just been groomed by a child molestor.

He replied, “Oh, yes. The story is about a loveable, sweet, innocent little girl completely surrounded by perverts.” I can imagine no better summary of this franchise.
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Sequel to ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ Is Coming … Prepare Yourselves

Featured image: “Cardcaptor Sakura Fanart” by Daikazoku63

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of the biggest titles in the magical girl genre. It was the first foray into mahou shoujo manga by the unbelievably prolific four-woman team Clamp, which produced it from 1996 to 2000. Its anime adaptation, which began airing in 1998, is one of the few TV cartoons that can hold up in terms of technical quality more than a decade after its run. The anime adds a great deal to the story; some of it is padding, but a lot of it is real improvement. A sliced, diced, and dubbed version was released in English under the title of Cardcaptors.

For reasons I’ll explain in a post I was working on for today but didn’t get finished, I don’t care much for Cardcaptor Sakura. Nonetheless, I must announce that after all this time, Clamp is adding a third arc to the story, the “Clear Card Arc,” currently underway. The first collected volume appeared in Japan last month. I don’t believe any English translation has appeared as of yet.

An anime adaptation is slated to begin in January of 2018. Plan is to bring back director Morio Asaka and round up much of the original voice cast. The Cardcaptor Sakura anime had very good production values, so bringing back the old-timers rather than getting fresh blood seems to be a good move. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The original story featured its heroine in fourth and fifth grade, gradually powering up as she collects the “Clow Cards,” each of which contains a magic spell. The sequel now has her in middle school.

While many fans are excited, I’m scared. What is Clamp going to do to that poor girl now? She barely escaped all those perverts last time. I’m especially worried about Tomoyo, her obsessive best friend who at first seems to be an innocent little ten-year-old girl until Clamp casually drops the bombshell that she’s a monomaniacal lesbian stalker with a costume fetish and a penchant for voyeurism. Is this going to be the story arc where she hides a camera in Sakura’s bathroom or something?