Episode Title: "Sakura to Fushigi na Mahou no Hon" - Sakura and the Mysterious Magic Book
First Aired: April 7, 1998
Kero-chan ni Omakase!

Cards Captured: Fly

Battle Costume

Sakura Kinomoto is dreaming. In the dream, a mysterious book is shown. Sakura is standing on a building near Tokyo Tower with a mysterious wand in her hand, cards floating all around her, and a yellow, flying animal by her side. She asks, "Who is calling me?" before she wakes up to her alarm clock.

Sakura Kinomoto is a fourth grader at Tomoeda Elementary School. She's a girl best known for her energy. She has an "onii-chan", or big brother, named Touya who is a junior at Seijou High School. He likes to tease Sakura and call her "kaijuu", meaning monster! Her "otou-san", or father Fujitaka is a college archeology professor, a great cook and sewer, and a very nice man, whom Sakura absolutely adores. In truth, Sakura loves all her family -- even her meanie big brother -- and especially her "okaa-san"; her mother Nadeshiko, who passed away when she was three-years-old. Her family always eats breakfast together.

Touya leaves for school early to attend soccer practice, and Sakura wolfs down breakfast to rollerblade along side him. Sakura's hidden motive for trailing her brother to school is Yukito Tsukishiro, her brother's best friend and her secret crush! Sakura adores Yukito because he's a kind and wonderful person with many talents. When Sakura gets to school, Yukito throws her a candy and Tomoyo Daidouji comes into the picture.

Tomoyo Daidouji is Sakura's best friend. Sakura describes Tomoyo as intelligent, beautiful and rich! being the daughter of the C.E.O. of a toy company. Tomoyo thinks everything about Sakura is "kawaii", meaning cute. She enjoys video-taping and taking pictures, especially of Sakura. "There isn't anything cuter or more interesting than Sakura-chan!" Tomoyo exclaims!

After school, Sakura attends cheerleading club practice. Sakura is a very athletic girl, but when throwing the baton, her mind usually wanders, and the baton usually ends up clonking her on the head. This time in particular, Sakura is thinking about her strange dream. After throwing her baton into the air, she hallucinates and sees her baton as the wand in her dream, and... well, you know what happens. :(

When Sakura gets home, she finds her father won't be back until nine. She goes to treat herself to some pudding her father made the day before. But as she's doing so, she hears a loud, re-occurring rumble coming from the basement. She frightfully equips her baton for protection, and ventures downstairs to investigate. The basement is her father's office where many of his books are kept. Finally, Sakura locates a glowing book with "THE CLOW" written on its spine. It's the same book from her dream! The seal on the book opens, and Sakura finds a deck of cards inside the book. She picks up the first one, reading its name "Windy", when suddenly a gust of wind comes from the book and all the cards but Windy are blown away.

The same flying yellow animal from Sakura's dream emerges from the cover of the book. He calls himself "Cerberus! The Guardian beast of the seal!" with a thick "Osaka-bin", or Osaka, Japan accent. His job is to protect the cards in the Clow book... or uh, the cards that were in the Clow Book.

Sakura wolfs down dinner again to get back to Cerberus who is waiting in her room. Cerberus explains, "When the seal is broken, the Clow Cards will bring chaos upon the world." The Clow Cards were special cards created by the magician Clow Reed. Each card is alive and possess incredible power. They do as they please when the seal is broken, and normal people are defenseless against them. Clow Reed created the Clow Book to contain the amazing powers of the cards, and Cerberus as the beast of the seal to further protect that seal. Cerberus says Sakura must help him get back all the Clow Cards, as she was the one who set them loose, despite the fact that Cerberus was taking a 30-year nap when Sakura unknowingly released the seal on the book (and we discover the rumbling sound was Cerberus' snoring). Cerberus reveals a wand from the book, the same one from Sakura's dream. He makes Sakura grab the wand, and declares, "Card captor no tanjou ya!" -- A Card Captor is born! Sakura was tricked into helping Cerberus get all the cards back.

After a shower, some hair blow-drying, and much protest from Sakura about the Card Captor situation, a "sugoi kaze" (incredible wind) blows through Sakura's window. Cerberus says the Fly card is nearby, and a huge bird flies overhead. Sakura gets on her rollerblades and goes out to pursue the card while still in her pink pajamas.

Sakura uses the key Cerberus gave her to release her wand for sealing and using cards. Sakura must get closer to the Fly card and use Windy to capture it. Sakura skates up the concrete wall next to the sidewalk and does a backflip to land on Fly's back. She commands Windy to "become the chain that binds", and ties Fly up. From here, Sakura seals Fly with her wand, commanding it to return to its card form.

Cerberus tells Sakura to try out the Fly card, and she discovers Fly puts wings on her wand and enables her to fly! Despite this, Sakura is still reluctant to take her title of "Card Captor Sakura", but it appears that's not a decision she can make!