カードキャプターさくら・Card Captor Sakura Book Club 🌸 Home Thread — Starting September 7th

Welcome to the カードキャプターさくら :cherry_blossom: Card Captor Sakura Book Club!

View this book on Natively!

This is the main thread for reading the manga along with the Absolute Beginner Book Club here on the forums. If you have a bit of experience with Japanese, but you are still easing into reading, then this would be a good place to start! If you have questions about whether or not you think you’re ready, feel free to ask them here, or in the ABBC main thread, but also please check out @ChristopherFritz’s guide for joining the Absolute beginner book club.

View the nomination post here!

Where to purchase

Physical: Honto | Rakuten | CD Japan | Amazon US | Amazon JP | Kinokuniya JP
Digital: eBook Japan | BookWalker | Amazon Kindle JP

Schedule

Note about page numbers

Two sets of page numbers are provided, for the original (OG) edition, and for the Refurbished (RE) edition. The paperpack copy and some digital copies use the original edition, while the original hardcover and most digital copies are the refurbished edition. The difference is some inter-chapter art that was added for the refurbished edition. There’s also the anniversary edition (AE) which is a newer hardback edition. This should follow the same page numbers as the RE, but then has next two chapters that are part of volume 2 in the OG or RE edition. The best way to check your edition is to look for the stamp with a picture of Kero-chan and the words “Refurbished Edition” between chapters, or to check the page count (186 for the OG, 196 for RE, or 256 for AE).

(Note: The menu in the bookwalker app (and most e-readers) will be show a page number 2 higher than the actual page number, due to treating the covers as pages)

Week Date Chapter Page # (OG) Page # (RE/AE) Pages With Text
1 September 7th 1 pt 1 7 - 13 7 - 13 5
2 September 14th 1 pt 2 14 - 20 14 - 20 7
3 September 21st 1 pt 3 21 - 27 21 - 27 8
4 September 28th 1 pt 4 28 - 39 28 - 39 11
5 October 5th 1 pt 5 40 - 50 40 - 52 11
6 October 12th 2 pt 1 51 - 62 53 - 64 12
7 October 19th 2 pt 2 63 - 76 65 - 78 12
8 October 26th 2 pt 3 77 - 90 79 - 94 14
9 November 2nd 3 pt 1 91 - 104 95 - 108 13
10 November 9th 3 pt 2 105 - 122 109 - 128 14
11 November 16th 4 pt 1 123 - 136 129 - 142 14
12 November 23rd 4 pt 2 137 - 155 143 - 163 15
13 November 30th 5 pt 1 155 - 171 163 - 179 17
14 December 7th 5 pt 2 172 - 186 180 - 196 17

Vocabulary

Google Sheet (editable)

See also Manga Kotoba

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Image Notes
Main Characters
木之本桜 きのもと さくら Main character
大道寺知世 だいどうじ ともよ Sakura’s cousin and best friend
木之本桃矢 きのもと とうや Sakura’s Older Brother
月城雪兎 つきしろ ゆきと Sakura’s Older Brother’s Best Friend
ケルベロス
ケロ
ケルベロス Sakura’s companion, the beast of the seal
Locations
友枝 ともえだ Sakura’s Neighbourhood (and school)

Resources

Membership

Will you be reading with us?
  • Yes
  • Yes, but I might start late
  • Maybe
  • No
0 voters
Which version will you be reading?
  • eBook
  • Paperback
  • Hardcover
0 voters

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to be notified when weekly threads get posted!

26 Likes

Card Captor? I loved the anime when I was small. I’ll be here reading.

10 Likes

i feel like i should point out for those in the us that want physical copies kinokunya also has a US page, Kinokuniya US, where you can order the japanese versions of books from…as well as japanese textbooks themselves, its where i ordered my genki and japanese from zero books from

6 Likes

hey this is so cool! I’ve been wanting to read through CCS for a while since I bought the pretty Nakayoshi 60th version on eBay…


so exciting!

23 Likes

Proposed Schedule

Page Numbers are based on the numbers which appear in my Bookwalker digital copy, which are 2 lower than the page numbers reported in the Bookwalker app. This is a 90s manga, so there have been a few editions, so page numbers on your copy may vary. I’ll include the last panel and last line of dialogue on each weekly thread when we split chapters.

Also my edition at least places the chapter title card (along with a brief featured character bio) pretty randomly mid-chapter, so don’t mistake them for the chapter boundaries.

So the breakdown of the book is as follows:

(Pages hand counted, “with text” means at least one, non-sfx, dialogue box)

Chapter Start Page End Page Pages With Text
1 7 52 42
2 53 94 38
3 95 128 27
4 129 162 29
5 163 196 34

As a result, I suggest the following schedule:

Week Date Chapter Page Numbers Pages With Text
1 September 7th 1 pt 1 7 - 13 5
2 September 14th 1 pt 2 14 - 20 7
3 September 21st 1 pt 3 21 - 27 8
4 September 28th 1 pt 4 28 - 39 11
5 October 5th 1 pt 5 40 - 52 11
6 October 12th 2 pt 1 53 - 64 12
7 October 19th 2 pt 2 65 - 78 12
8 October 26th 2 pt 3 79 - 94 14
9 November 2nd 3 pt 1 95 - 108 13
10 November 9th 3 pt 2 109 - 128 14
11 November 16th 4 pt 1 129 - 142 14
12 November 23rd 4 pt 2 143 - 163 15
13 November 30th 5 pt 1 163 - 179 17
14 December 7th 5 pt 2 180 - 196 17

Thoughts?

7 Likes

Same but only bought the first one long time ago. Time to read it finally :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

14 Likes

Looking forward to this! Definitely past the target audience as I’m reading along with the IMC, but I read all of the Clear Card Arc in Japanese, so now this is reason to revisit the original in Japanese.

9 Likes

For anyone reading the Nakayoshi 60th Anniversary edition, your volume will have 7 chapters whereas other releases have 5 chapters. Incentive for an offshoot club?


I’m reading digital, but I did buy the physical set a few years back with the intent to read it eventually:

10 Likes

I want physical copies now too! Must… resist

5 Likes

It was almost perfectly going in one direction, but then week 8 had to come along and ruin everything :frowning_face:

image

Apart from that fatal flaw the schedule looks good. 13 weeks seems appropriate for 196 pages at L20, and looking at the chapter lengths I don’t see any way to make less weeks without crossing chapters anyway.

The only thing I’m wondering about is if the first week should be even shorter. Something like 8 10 12 12 for the first 4 weeks maybe, if there are decent enough points to split like that?

5 Likes

If someone shows me screenshots of the first and last frame from every week, I could check which pages they would be in my edition (Nakayoshi 60th)

4 Likes

I was going to suggest we compare table of contents, but apparently that isn’t a thing in this manga…

But I did enjoy this text where I expected a table of contents to be:

How do the chapter start-page numbers compare in the 60th?

Chapter Start Page
1 7
2 53
3 95
4 129
5 163
5 Likes

:rofl: :rofl:Nope, no table contents unfortunatly.

There’s this page 3 that I don’t know if it should be considered

page 3

And then this one with no text on page 6

page 6

Every chapter starting with a draw. Then, there’s chapter 6, 7 and 8 too :face_with_peeking_eye:

2 Likes

This one’s page 6 for me digitally as well.

But the rest of the chapters start pages, it looks a bit off.

Here is what I have for the color page and first content page of each chapter, with page numbers in the file names.


And this is completely unrelated. I just like this being “the refurbishment version”.

image

6 Likes

I don’t have that Kero on mine :smiling_face_with_tear: Is just so cute.

I’ve noticed those coloured pages are B&W on mine, so they’re just another regular page. That’s why the number of the pages get more and more far from each other as you get close to the end. I guess at your version, a coloured page equals to two/three pages.

For example:
Page 51 → 50 (mine)
Page 53 → 51
Page 93 → 90
Page 95 → 91
Page 127 → 122
Page 129 → 123
Page 161 → 154
Page 163 → 155

3 Likes

So chapter 1 is broken up like follows:

Chapter 1 Structural Spoilers

pg 7-13: cold open (note pages 7 and 13 are sfx only, so this is only 5 pages of actual text, otherwise it would be a good stopping point for week 1)
pg 14-20: Sakura’s family + kero intros
pg 20-24: Sakura goes to school
pg 25-26: Tomoyo introduction
pg 27-33: backstory (this is likely to be the hard part for our newbies)
pg 34-40: transformation sequence (very text light)
pg 40-44: Tomoyo and Sakura’s relationship
pg 45-49: PE lesson
pg 50-52: Inter chapter art

The latter part actually fits the story well to the schedule, but the first part isn’t so well fitted. Unfortunately, without a 5th week for chapter 1 (making the first 3 weeks 7-13, 14-20, 21-26), I don’t see a better fit. If people are willing to go to 14 weeks for a smoother intro, we can do that, but the feedback I got on my last two book club schedules was the schedule I was proposing was too slow, so I didn’t.

1 Like

I checked out the pages in question (it’s free to read until Sunday here) and wow, that’s a lot of text per page after page 13. I think adding a 5th week to chapter 1 with your proposed 3 first weeks sounds great. Not just to relax the week 1, but also to relax weeks 2 and 3 which really need it, I think.

So if you’d rather go with a 14 week schedule, I’d say: Go for it!

2 Likes

Ok, I’ve updated my suggestion to the 14 week proposal. If there’s no other thoughts/proposals on it by Sunday, I’ll make it official.

2 Likes

Does any website besides Amazon US do worldwide shipping?

1 Like

Manga Republic does that, I think. You could search it there.

1 Like