Sakura (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle)
Encyclopedia
, also known as , is a fictional character
and one of the protagonist
s from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
, a manga
series written and illustrated by Clamp
. In the series, Sakura is a princess from the Kingdom of Clow who has her memories separated from her body to parallel dimensions
. Having fallen catatonic and being near death, Syaoran
, her childhood friend, goes on a quest to recover her memories which took the form of feathers. As a payment for travelling, Sakura loses all the memories she ever had regarding Syaoran, with whom she was in love. Nevertheless, as the journey continues, Sakura starts bonding with Syaoran and learns about how the sorcerer Fei-Wang Reed was responsible for the loss of her memories and the recovery from all of them will help Fei-Wang. Besides Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Sakura also appears in other works from Clamp including xxxHolic and the drama CD series Holitsuba.
The character of Sakura was based on Sakura Kinomoto
, the protagonist from Clamp's previous manga Cardcaptor Sakura
sharing a similar relationship with Syaoran, who is also based on a character from the same series. Her character has been well-received by Japanese readers and audiences, appearing in various popularity polls from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle as well as series in general. Publications for manga, anime and other media have also commented on Sakura's character. She received praise for her personality, her relation with Syaoran, as well as her development across the series.
and his Star System
, Sakura was based on the Cardcaptor Sakura
s protagonist Sakura Kinomoto
who was also related with character Syaoran was based on Syaoran Li. Both Sakura and Syaoran were used as the series' protagonists for Tsubasa, their Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart had a happy ending, something which Clamp points out that they would have to go throughout the series to get their "own happy ending". She is voiced by Yui Makino
in the anime adaptation, and by Monica Rial
in the English adaptation. Sakura's character was Makino's first work as a voice actress and she states she did not have to adjust her voice for that, finding the character similar to her. During the series' OVAs, Makino pointed that one of Sakura's scenes was very sad, and worked in it in order to be appealing.
As the journey continues, Sakura comes to regard Syaoran as her most important person, but at such time he betrays the group as he is controlled by Fei-Wang Reed, the sorcerer who created him based on another teenager. After learning that Fei-Wang was the responsible for splitting her memories and set up the journey to recover them for his own plans, Sakura still decides to continue it in order to save Syaoran. Since then, Sakura becomes very distant from the group, especially the original Syaoran because of his similarities to the clone. In an attempt to change a future she saw involving Fai killing the original Syaoran as part of Fei-Wang's curse, Sakura is able to take his place, sending at that moment her soul to the Dream World and her body to Celes. Her soul is there destroyed by the Syaoran clone when trying to recover her feathers. Just before her death, Sakura reveals that she is a clone of the original Sakura and requests Syaoran to go back to his previous self. Fei-Wang created her to increase the power from the feathers and needed a back up if the original Sakura would die in the journey. The stored power from her soulless body is then used by Fei-Wang as one of the means to revive Yūko.
As the clones cannot properly die, Sakura is reconstructed by Yūko, along with the Syaoran clone who was killed by Fei-Wang, as Yuko wishes to compensate them for how their existences were used. She makes them reborn as normal humans, and the two eventually meet and start living together. Sakura gives birth to the original Syaoran and they realize they are in the past. They raise him until it is time for him to begin the events of the series, and then they seal themselves in a glass tube in order to await the time where Fei-Wang attempts to shatter reality. Sakura and Syaoran, after breaking free from the tube, reverse Fei-Wang's damage to the dimension using the magic they inherited from the sorcerer Clow Reed when reincarnating. However, both disappear after Fei-Wang's death, leaving behind only a feather which the original Sakura and Syaoran absorbs.
Besides the manga and anime series from Tsubasa, Sakura also appears in the animated film The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom
in which she still travels with Syaoran, Fai, Kurogane and Mokona across dimensions. She is also a playable character in the two Nintendo DS
video games from Tsubasa. In the drama CD series, The Matinée of the Palace, the group performs a play that reenacts the series' story while searching for one of her feathers. Outside Tsubasa, Sakura also makes various appearances in Clamp's manga xxxHolic which shows some events happening in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Additionally, Sakura also appears in later volumes in the Dream World after her soul is separated from her body. There, she meets Yuko's assistant, a teenager named Kimihiro Watanuki, whom she finds similar to the original Syaoran. One of her feathers - that of her memories of Syaoran - appears in Watanuki's world which gives the medium Kohane Tsuyuri the ability to exorcise spirits. After Kohane wishes for the removal of her ability, the feather stays with the black Mokona Modoki. She does not appear in the animated adaptions of xxxHolic until the original video animation
s series xxxHolic Shunmuki in which she appears in the Dream World talking with Watanuki. The drama CD series Holitsuba Gakuen feature Sakura as one of the students from the fictional school Holitsuba which features characters from Tsubasa and xxxHolic.
in 2005. She took a lower spot in the second poll, but has nevertheless taken high places in other related polls from the series. In the Animage
s Anime Grand Prix poll from 2006, Sakura was voted as the fifth most popular female anime character. The next year, she remained as the seventh most popular female character. In the Animedia "2006 Animedia Character Awards", Sakura took high ranks in various of its categories. Her biggest rank was second in the categories "Most Beautiful / Loveliest Character Award" and "Most Heroic Character Award". Singer Maaya Sakamoto
wrote the anime's insert song "Spica" based on Sakura's character pointing to how she moves forward across the series, but also shows weakness at times. Various types of merchandising have also been made based on her appearance such as plushes and keychains.
Sakura's character has been well-received by publications for manga, anime and other media. While commenting on the series' protagonists, Ed Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading stated that Sakura had "natural grace and charm", with comments also pointing to how she changes as the series continues. Comparing her with her Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart, Carl Kimlinger from Anime News Network
found Sakura as a likeable female lead character based on her personality and how she cares for others. Animefringe writer Lesley Smith
commented that Sakura was "becoming a much larger character" the more feathers she recovered, but still found a crux due to how her relation with Syaoran in the series' start changed. Sakura's change in the second half from the manga has also received various comments with Carlo Santos calling it a large improvement due to how she starts manipulating events from the series in order to obtain what she wants. On the other hand, Mania Entertainment's Sakura Eries had mixed feelings about this, stating that while it is not surprising how she volunteers to get involved in dangerous task, the outcome was "unbelievable" due to how she ended facing the creatures from Tokyo. Megan Lavey from the same site found Sakura's death in a later volume as unexpected and the revelation of her being a clone like Syaoran made her feel "cheated" as the two of them were the series' initial protagonists.
Her relationship with Syaoran has often been described as one of the series' strongest points due to how Sakura starts caring for him despite having lost of her memories involving him. Carlo Santos stated that such relationship even makes up for the issues found in the TV series from Tsubasa, while Active Anime's Christopher Seaman found such romantical relationship between as one of the most mature parts from the series. IGN
's N.S. Davidson mentioned that while some people may not like romances, it would still appeal to them, because of the situation from the two characters. Megan Lavey initially called "pretty simple love story", while liking their personalities.
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and one of the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
s from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
is a shōnen manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp. It takes place in the same fictional universe as many of Clamp's other manga series, most notably xxxHolic. The plot follows how Sakura, the princess of the Kingdom of Clow, loses her soul and how Syaoran, a young...
, a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series written and illustrated by Clamp
Clamp (manga artists)
, is an all-female Japanese manga artist group that formed in the mid 1980s. Many of the group's manga series are often adapted into anime after release. It consists of their leader , who provides much of the storyline and screenplay for all their works and adaptations of those works respectively ,...
. In the series, Sakura is a princess from the Kingdom of Clow who has her memories separated from her body to parallel dimensions
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
. Having fallen catatonic and being near death, Syaoran
Syaoran (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle)
is a fictional character appearing as one of the protagonists from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, a manga series written and illustrated by Clamp. In Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Syaoran is introduced as young archeologist who is in love with Sakura, his childhood friend and the princess from the...
, her childhood friend, goes on a quest to recover her memories which took the form of feathers. As a payment for travelling, Sakura loses all the memories she ever had regarding Syaoran, with whom she was in love. Nevertheless, as the journey continues, Sakura starts bonding with Syaoran and learns about how the sorcerer Fei-Wang Reed was responsible for the loss of her memories and the recovery from all of them will help Fei-Wang. Besides Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Sakura also appears in other works from Clamp including xxxHolic and the drama CD series Holitsuba.
The character of Sakura was based on Sakura Kinomoto
Sakura Kinomoto
is a fictional character, the heroine of Clamp's manga series Cardcaptor Sakura. In the English anime adaptation of the series, Cardcaptors, her name is changed to Sakura Avalon. For all Japanese-language productions of the anime , Sakura is voiced by Sakura Tange...
, the protagonist from Clamp's previous manga Cardcaptor Sakura
Cardcaptor Sakura
, abbreviated as CCS and also known as Cardcaptors, is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp. The manga was originally serialized monthly in Nakayoshi from the May 1996 until the June 2000 issue, and later published in 12 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
sharing a similar relationship with Syaoran, who is also based on a character from the same series. Her character has been well-received by Japanese readers and audiences, appearing in various popularity polls from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle as well as series in general. Publications for manga, anime and other media have also commented on Sakura's character. She received praise for her personality, her relation with Syaoran, as well as her development across the series.
Creation and conception
Using the ideas of Osamu TezukaOsamu Tezuka
was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...
and his Star System
Osamu Tezuka's Star System
Over the course of his career, Osamu Tezuka reused the same characters in different roles in different stories. The way that Tezuka used the characters in his "star system" can be seen as somewhat analoguous to a film director frequently casting members of a regular "stable" of actors in different...
, Sakura was based on the Cardcaptor Sakura
Cardcaptor Sakura
, abbreviated as CCS and also known as Cardcaptors, is a Japanese shōjo manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist group Clamp. The manga was originally serialized monthly in Nakayoshi from the May 1996 until the June 2000 issue, and later published in 12 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha...
s protagonist Sakura Kinomoto
Sakura Kinomoto
is a fictional character, the heroine of Clamp's manga series Cardcaptor Sakura. In the English anime adaptation of the series, Cardcaptors, her name is changed to Sakura Avalon. For all Japanese-language productions of the anime , Sakura is voiced by Sakura Tange...
who was also related with character Syaoran was based on Syaoran Li. Both Sakura and Syaoran were used as the series' protagonists for Tsubasa, their Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart had a happy ending, something which Clamp points out that they would have to go throughout the series to get their "own happy ending". She is voiced by Yui Makino
Yui Makino
is a Japanese voice actor, actress, singer and pianist. She is best known for her work in the anime Tsubasa Chronicle and Aria. She can speak basic English. She is well known as a nice, caring, polite and a down-to-earth person, according to her fans. Her fans sometimes call her "Yucchi",...
in the anime adaptation, and by Monica Rial
Monica Rial
Monica Jean Rial is an American voice actress, ADR Director, and Script Writer who works for Funimation Entertainment, ADV Films, Seraphim Digital, and OkraTron 5000...
in the English adaptation. Sakura's character was Makino's first work as a voice actress and she states she did not have to adjust her voice for that, finding the character similar to her. During the series' OVAs, Makino pointed that one of Sakura's scenes was very sad, and worked in it in order to be appealing.
Appearances
Introduced in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Sakura is the princess of the Kingdom of Clow, who is in love with Syaoran, her childhood friend. In the series' start, a force strips her of her memories and magical abilities, which takes the form of feathers. All the feathers are spread throughout different parallel worlds. To retrieve the feathers and thereby save her life, she and Syaoran are sent to Yūko Ichihara, who gives them the use of Mokona Modoki in exchange for Sakura's memory of Syaoran, which causes him to be absent from any memories restored to her. She is initially confused, and constantly tired, but she grows stronger as she regains her feathers. She becomes very friendly with the group's members, Fai D. Flowright, Kurogane and Mokona and she grows close to Syaoran again. However, even though she notices that she is missing somebody from her memories, when Sakura realizes the one is Syaoran, her memories are reversed to before her thinking. She also starts recover various of her abilities, like seeing spirits of nature, see ghosts, or foresee the future.As the journey continues, Sakura comes to regard Syaoran as her most important person, but at such time he betrays the group as he is controlled by Fei-Wang Reed, the sorcerer who created him based on another teenager. After learning that Fei-Wang was the responsible for splitting her memories and set up the journey to recover them for his own plans, Sakura still decides to continue it in order to save Syaoran. Since then, Sakura becomes very distant from the group, especially the original Syaoran because of his similarities to the clone. In an attempt to change a future she saw involving Fai killing the original Syaoran as part of Fei-Wang's curse, Sakura is able to take his place, sending at that moment her soul to the Dream World and her body to Celes. Her soul is there destroyed by the Syaoran clone when trying to recover her feathers. Just before her death, Sakura reveals that she is a clone of the original Sakura and requests Syaoran to go back to his previous self. Fei-Wang created her to increase the power from the feathers and needed a back up if the original Sakura would die in the journey. The stored power from her soulless body is then used by Fei-Wang as one of the means to revive Yūko.
As the clones cannot properly die, Sakura is reconstructed by Yūko, along with the Syaoran clone who was killed by Fei-Wang, as Yuko wishes to compensate them for how their existences were used. She makes them reborn as normal humans, and the two eventually meet and start living together. Sakura gives birth to the original Syaoran and they realize they are in the past. They raise him until it is time for him to begin the events of the series, and then they seal themselves in a glass tube in order to await the time where Fei-Wang attempts to shatter reality. Sakura and Syaoran, after breaking free from the tube, reverse Fei-Wang's damage to the dimension using the magic they inherited from the sorcerer Clow Reed when reincarnating. However, both disappear after Fei-Wang's death, leaving behind only a feather which the original Sakura and Syaoran absorbs.
Besides the manga and anime series from Tsubasa, Sakura also appears in the animated film The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom
The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom
#, known officially as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle the Movie: The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom, is an animated short film based on the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle manga by the group Clamp...
in which she still travels with Syaoran, Fai, Kurogane and Mokona across dimensions. She is also a playable character in the two Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
video games from Tsubasa. In the drama CD series, The Matinée of the Palace, the group performs a play that reenacts the series' story while searching for one of her feathers. Outside Tsubasa, Sakura also makes various appearances in Clamp's manga xxxHolic which shows some events happening in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Additionally, Sakura also appears in later volumes in the Dream World after her soul is separated from her body. There, she meets Yuko's assistant, a teenager named Kimihiro Watanuki, whom she finds similar to the original Syaoran. One of her feathers - that of her memories of Syaoran - appears in Watanuki's world which gives the medium Kohane Tsuyuri the ability to exorcise spirits. After Kohane wishes for the removal of her ability, the feather stays with the black Mokona Modoki. She does not appear in the animated adaptions of xxxHolic until the original video animation
Original video animation
, abbreviated as media , are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. The term originated in relation to Japanese animation...
s series xxxHolic Shunmuki in which she appears in the Dream World talking with Watanuki. The drama CD series Holitsuba Gakuen feature Sakura as one of the students from the fictional school Holitsuba which features characters from Tsubasa and xxxHolic.
Reception
Sakura has been popular within readers from series, having placed second among all the characters in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle in a popularity poll held by Weekly Shōnen MagazineWeekly Shonen Magazine
, also known as Shōnen Magazine, is a shōnen manga magazine published by Kodansha, first published on 17 March 1959. Despite some unusual censorship policies , it's mainly read by an older audience, with a large portion of its readership falling under the male high school or college...
in 2005. She took a lower spot in the second poll, but has nevertheless taken high places in other related polls from the series. In the Animage
Animage
is a Japanese anime and entertainment magazine which Tokuma Shoten began publishing in July 1978. Hayao Miyazaki's internationally renowned manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, was serialized in Animage from 1982 through 1994...
s Anime Grand Prix poll from 2006, Sakura was voted as the fifth most popular female anime character. The next year, she remained as the seventh most popular female character. In the Animedia "2006 Animedia Character Awards", Sakura took high ranks in various of its categories. Her biggest rank was second in the categories "Most Beautiful / Loveliest Character Award" and "Most Heroic Character Award". Singer Maaya Sakamoto
Maaya Sakamoto
is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actress, and voice actress. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime series Little Twins, but is more well known for her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in the hit anime series The Vision of Escaflowne...
wrote the anime's insert song "Spica" based on Sakura's character pointing to how she moves forward across the series, but also shows weakness at times. Various types of merchandising have also been made based on her appearance such as plushes and keychains.
Sakura's character has been well-received by publications for manga, anime and other media. While commenting on the series' protagonists, Ed Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading stated that Sakura had "natural grace and charm", with comments also pointing to how she changes as the series continues. Comparing her with her Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart, Carl Kimlinger from Anime News Network
Anime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...
found Sakura as a likeable female lead character based on her personality and how she cares for others. Animefringe writer Lesley Smith
Lesley Smith
Lesley Smith is a scholar, historian, heritage publicist and actress. She was resident historian on the television show Most Haunted Live! and presenter of Most Haunted: Midsummer Murders...
commented that Sakura was "becoming a much larger character" the more feathers she recovered, but still found a crux due to how her relation with Syaoran in the series' start changed. Sakura's change in the second half from the manga has also received various comments with Carlo Santos calling it a large improvement due to how she starts manipulating events from the series in order to obtain what she wants. On the other hand, Mania Entertainment's Sakura Eries had mixed feelings about this, stating that while it is not surprising how she volunteers to get involved in dangerous task, the outcome was "unbelievable" due to how she ended facing the creatures from Tokyo. Megan Lavey from the same site found Sakura's death in a later volume as unexpected and the revelation of her being a clone like Syaoran made her feel "cheated" as the two of them were the series' initial protagonists.
Her relationship with Syaoran has often been described as one of the series' strongest points due to how Sakura starts caring for him despite having lost of her memories involving him. Carlo Santos stated that such relationship even makes up for the issues found in the TV series from Tsubasa, while Active Anime's Christopher Seaman found such romantical relationship between as one of the most mature parts from the series. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's N.S. Davidson mentioned that while some people may not like romances, it would still appeal to them, because of the situation from the two characters. Megan Lavey initially called "pretty simple love story", while liking their personalities.