*Manga*
**UPDATE!**
The Cardcaptor Sakura
manga is now finished! The final volume, #12, was just released!
Volume 1 was published in 1996. It was planned and presented by the four woman team of CLAMP. They are also the creators of [X], Magic Knight Rayearth, Clover, Wish, CLAMP School Detectives, RG Veda, and Tokyo Babylon.
It was serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. You may want to try to acquire this magazine, as you can get premiums that are available only through it. [Or ebay, if you want to pay those prices! Admittedly, Nakayoshi is hard to come by, especially older issues...]
The manga was published with
front and back color pages, as well as a character bookmark. This is a
small replica of a Clow or Sakura card, with art of one of the characters
on it. The same character is featured in the front and back color
pages. Here is a list of who is featured in each volume.
| Volume | Clow/Sakura Card |
| 1 | Sakura |
| 2 | Tomoyo |
| 3 | Syaoran |
| 4 | Touya |
| 5 | Kaho |
| 6 | Cerberus |
| 7 | Yukito |
| 8 | Nakuru |
| 9 | Spinel Sun |
| 10 | Eriol |
| 11 | Clow Reed |
| 12 | Sakura |
For fan translations of the
manga, go here:
Rabi's
Cardcaptor Sakura
Ann's
CCS Shrine
Catch
You Catch Me: Sakura Translations
Mixx
Entertainment has acquired the rights to translate and publish
CCS in the US. Not everyone is
happy about this. Of
course, everyone is happy that the series has come to the states. Hopefully
this will
help the series have an even
larger following here! But I would suggest that even if you don't have
all the
Japanese mangas yet, go ahead
and download any fan translation you can find. To be perfectly honest,
I
have found fan translations
far less irritating than Mixx productions of Sailormoon or Rayearth.
Mixx began publishing CCS in
single issue comics in December of 1999. As far as I know, the comics
are
selling out as soon as they
hit the shelves! Mixx plans to publish the graphic novels as well;
the first one is already out on store shelves.
**My personal rant against
Mixx**
(If you don't want to read
this, skip down to the next set of stars)
I did find some of the monthly
comics disappointing for various reasons. I don't agree with all
the decisions Mixx has made, nor do I have to. They do what they
think they need to do in order to make money. However, there is simply
no excuse for publishing anything professionally with typos or spelling
and grammar mistakes. It is absurd, and they do it quite often for all
the series they publish. I am not picking on them for letting something
slip once or twice. Things happen, and I understand that. They seem to
be plagued with inattentive staff, or a plain lack of respect for the work
they are translating. It just drives me crazy to read it.
**Ok. I'm done.**
As an alternative, Kodansha has begun publication of a new line of mangas called Kodansha Bilingual Comics. Lucky for us, one of the titles in this new line is Cardcaptor Sakura! This manga has both Japanese and English text inserted into the manga. It works really well, and is worth checking out. Look in the Merchandise section for more information. ^_^