Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors Episode 15: Sakura and Kero’s Big Fight | Sub/Dub Comparison
Card (s) of the Day: Storm – A powerful card that can summon fierce storms.
Float – A mischievous card who likes to take things and float them away.
Plot: Kero and Sakura have a big fight after losing a Clow card to Syaoran, leading Kero to accidentally get drunk off of brandy chocolates and leave the house. He passes out on a ratty old couch in the garbage when he’s found by a little girl named Akane. When he finds out that she spends a lot of time at home alone due to her mother working a lot and her father passing away, he finds himself struggling to leave her to get back home. Sakura will need to find him soon, however, when another Clow card appears and takes Akane away.
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Title Change: So minor it’s almost not worth mentioning, but originally the episode was Sakura and Kero’s Big Fight. In the dub, it’s Kero and Sakura’s Big Fight.
The title card comes after the shot of Sakura falling in the puddle in the original. In the dub, it’s after the theme song.
They add an establishing shot of Sakura’s house after she falls into the puddle.
Kero originally says that her moronic voice was what made him forget, and she argues that her voice is not moronic. In the dub, they argue over whether or not she was screaming.
Kero again calls her a moron before the scene change. In the dub, he calls her a bossy brat. Then he calls Sakura a monster over and over while in the dub he complains about the fact that he doesn’t have a bedroom anymore.
After Kero calls Sakura a monster, we cut away to downstairs where Sakura’s dad is making breakfast and Toya is eating. The whole house shakes violently as Sakura stomps downstairs in a rage. Toya calls her a monster too, and Sakura stomps off. This is removed because, I dunno, Sakura’s dad?
Sakura tells Tomoyo that some of the important things in that drawer were letters that Tomoyo sent her. This is omitted from the dub, which creates an odd response. Instead, Sakura says that Kero called her a monster, something he knows she hates. While Tomoyo is reacting to Sakura telling her about the letters with a huge smile, Madison responds to Sakura telling her about the insult with a big smile and saying ‘Oh boy…’
Well, this next one’s weird. I guess Nelvana didn’t want to dole out any digital paint. In the next scene, we see Kero writing ‘Sakura is a moron!’ in a notepad. While they do remove a closeup shot of the notebook, they leave in the further away shot and don’t change the Japanese text. Instead, Nelvana adds subtitles that say ‘Sakura is a BRAT!!’ I don’t know why they’re just now deciding to do this since they could’ve done the same thing in that museum episode. Unless they’re making off like Kero just has horrific handwriting and the letters are actually English somehow.
It’s just weird because this notebook doesn’t matter and could’ve easily been removed entirely. Not really complaining, but it just seemed odd for them.
They edit out the wide shot of the chocolates, but not cleanly enough because we get a split-second flash shot of them before the shot cuts away. I’m going to hazard a guess and say this was removed because the chocolates look like little brandy bottles.
They also edit out a shot of Kero eating these chocolates.
They edit in later shots of Kero eating the chocolates to extend the scene.
When Sakura originally brings up Kero calling her a monster, Tomoyo says if it was a cute monster like Sakura, she’d love it. In the dub, she says it sounds like they both said things they didn’t mean and they’ll make up soon….Uh….no she didn’t. From all the audience heard, she didn’t say anything against Kero, really. She just pointed out her disappointment in his lack of a plan and her anger at him destroying her drawer.
Another shot of Kero eating the chocolates is removed.
Because these shots were shifted to the first scene with Kero eating the chocolates, we go straight from the shot of Madison at school to Sakura back at home.
Another weird ‘we don’t want to use digital paint’ moment. They cut out closeups of the Brandy Chocolates box and omit Sakura saying that the chocolates have alcohol in them. However, they leave the faraway shot alone even though the box with the words ‘Brandy Chocolates’ is in plain view.
Dub!Sakura sounds really sarcastic when she says her dinner was great….
So they leave Kero obviously drunk completely alone?…..What, are they gonna pull a Digimon and say the bubbles sugar from the soda chocolate went to his head and made him looney?….Or….they’re never going to mention it again, are they?
…..Nnnnnnope. Okay. Guess Kero just went crazy for no reason then.
The eyecatch for today has Kero on the card instead of Sakura.
Eyecatch:
Name Change: Akane is changed to Emika.
Akane calls Kero ‘Chau-chan’ since he said ‘chau’ which means ‘no’ and she believes that’s a funny meow sound. In the dub, Emika hears him say ‘no no’ and calls him ‘Nono’……Is this kid gonna ignore that Kero was talking? Chau can be mistaken for a weird meow sound. How does ‘no no’ sound like any animal noise? I’ll give Nelvana props for accurately translating the word, but they ignored the fact that the translation kinda makes Emika look silly.
They pause on Emika looking to her right for a few seconds, I guess for padding.
She also doesn’t find it odd that Kero stands on two feet and can hold and use a spoon……Oh and he has wings.
Kero: “So, her name is Emika/Akane, huh?” Uh…Kero, she told you that before she went downstairs….it was the second sentence she said to you. Also, her mother yelled her name before she went downstairs.
Kero thinks to himself that it’s a bit odd or sad that such a young girl stays home alone on occasion due to her mother working. In the dub, he wonders how he got there.
That’s some real jaunty music you have going alongside the ‘That’s a picture of my dad who died’ scene, Nelvana.
Kero doesn’t keep going ‘Uhhhhhahhhhh’ as he’s listening to Akane like he does in the dub. Makes him seem really rude considering she’s telling him about her dead dad…..
Akane says that her father being in heaven is the reason she stays home alone a lot lately, but now she and Kero can spend time together. In the dub, she says she misses him but she and Kero can be friends now.
It seems like they’re trying to remove the fact that Akane spends a lot of time at home alone. They omit that her mom says she’s going to work, they omitted Akane’s mention of staying home alone due to her mother’s work, they omitted Akane saying she spends a lot of time at home alone since her dad’s not around and her mom works a lot and now they remove a phone conversation where Akane’s mom tells her that she’ll be home late. What gives?
The little girl on TV is named Kumiko. In the dub, it’s Karen.
They edit out Sakura running back to Tomoyo and her finding a crudely drawn poster about a lost cat.
When Toya tells Sakura that Yukito told him about her looking down, she widens her eyes and thinks to herself ‘Yukito….’ In the dub, Tori says Julian said she seemed stressed and Sakura thinks to herself ‘Yeah, and I still haven’t found Kero!’ Just seemed like a weird response to that comment. Not only does it not really fit much, but it’s like she forgot for a second that she didn’t find Kero.
Kero finds it easier to use a fax machine to send a message to Sakura rather than simply call her?
They leave the message entirely alone again and even get the subtitle accurate. However, I must note that it’s a pretty obvious edit because when they shift to the subtitle the video track is stopped.
Tomoyo has a tiny Kero loading bar. I just thought that was cute.
They remove the short clip of the weather broadcast. Also, nitpicky, but he says there’s a high chance of strong winds while the dub says there’s a chance of rain.
Kero is having an internal debate about how to get home but also arguing that he can’t leave Akane by herself. In the dub, he just worries about how he’ll get home. Ya know, in the dub, it really seems like this isn’t a problem since the whole ‘I’m home by myself a lot’ thing is removed. Dub!Kero, just sneak out. You’re small and can fly. There’s little chance she’d catch you.
Oh now she noticed that he has wings and can fly. This girl is blind.
Akane says she wishes she could fly too so she could visit her dad in heaven…..Wow, I just physically felt my heart break. This poor kid. Kero thinks to himself that, even if she could fly, you can’t see someone who’s dead. Nice, Kero. In the dub, she says him flying is so cool and she can’t wait to show him off to her friends. Kero then thinks that he’ll never be able to get away from her now. I’m so glad that we’re losing a tragic story of a sad lonely girl who befriends Kero for diet-caffeine-free-Elmyra over here.
Kero is talking to himself saying that if she doesn’t stop soon she really is going to end up where her father is. In the dub, Kero yells to Emika saying to hang on and he won’t let anything happen to her.
Dub!Kero: “Okay, this is not funny anymore!” At what point was this little girl flying off thousands of feet through the air seen as funny?
Float is a mischievous little card that likes to float things away. In the dub, it’s a mean card that likes to scare people by floating them away.
They omit another indication that not sealing the card may result in Akane’s death.
So I assume they were up so high that Akane lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen and Kero nearly passed out. So why is Sakura just fine? Magic?
I have a hard time believing that Fly is not as fast as Kero, especially when he’s trying to slow Akane’s descent.
I also can’t imagine that trying to reach them with Fly isn’t seen as a better alternative to using Wood to make a giant tree for them to fall in. Enjoy your various broken bones and lacerations, Akane!
Okay, time’s running out. How are they going to resolve the Kero and Akane plotline? Well, Akane and her mother move away, within the time frame of a day I guess, and Akane can’t have pets at her new house so she leaves Kero with Sakura. She tells Akane that she can visit ‘Chau-chan’ anytime that she gets lonely, but she says she’ll be with her mother a lot more now so she probably won’t get lonely.
All of that within….half a minute of runtime. What a slammed-together resolution that came out of nowhere. Her mom got a new job that lets her have more time with Akane, they packed up not only her house but also her mom’s office, rented a moving truck, began their move, and this new place conveniently doesn’t allow pets. Again, all in about a day, if that. Wow. Do you need some scissors to cut the ribbon on that nice bow you’ve added to this perfectly wrapped-up plot line?
And that’s kinda cold of Akane to say that she probably won’t visit Kero since she has her mom to keep her company now. They just didn’t want the possibility to be hanging there because they don’t intend on having her return, I guess.
Akane says that she’ll be spending more time with her mom now. In the dub, she says her mom says she’ll be starting kindergarten soon so she’ll have lots of new friends. Oh right, this had to be changed because we got rid of the indication that Akane is home alone a lot. But this is also the first indication of her not having friends. She said earlier that she couldn’t wait to show Kero off to all of her friends, so….. nice writing, guys.
Also, if she’s going to be entering kindergarten, that means she’s less than four years old. She seems like she’s at least seven or eight to me.
Sakura asks if the room’s too girly for him, and Kero shyly responds that it’s not. In the dub, she merely asks if he likes it, making his shy response seem slightly awkward.
They omit a pretty funny joke where Sakura responds to Kero calling her a monster by saying he’s one to talk with his little dot eyes.
Kero’s Corner/Leave it to Kero-Chan!: Wow, the dub editor’s really off today as they leave the Kero’s Corner logo on screen for too long, overlaying it in front of Kero’s face for several seconds….again.
Kero talks about how warm it is outside and to relax and cool off with his segment. In the dub, it’s just a regular opening.
The dub has basically an opposite explanation to Sakura’s costume this week. Kero originally talks about her cloak and shorts, which come in response to the warm weather comment, but he also mentions how it looks like a true magical girl outfit. In the dub, Kero says her cloak protects her from the elements, and her gloves and hat keep her nice and cozy in rough weather. Yeah, her gloves and hat will sure keep her warm when she’s wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt….
Sakura calls her backpack the egg backpack since it’s shaped like an egg. In the dub, this is omitted. They also omitted the magical girl-style comment.
Kero originally says that even though he and Sakura were arguing in this episode that everyone should be nice to one another. If arguments happen, apologize honestly like he did. In the dub, Kero says he has to go do something nice for Sakura as a thank you for being so nice as to build him his own bedroom. I actually like the dub’s version better because we never see Kero apologize in the original, meaning he could just be lying about it to make himself look better. In the dub, he’s actively trying to make it up to her.
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All in all, I like this episode….but I kinda don’t. The fight between Kero and Sakura was petty (Though, I get that she’s a kid and Kero’s just childish), and it seems like it needed Kero to be in a really foul mood in the first place, with nothing really prompting it, for it to even happen.
The story with Akane was fairly nice, but I don’t think they went far enough with it for it to be that noteworthy. They had that one line about her wanting to fly to go up to heaven to visit her dad, and that was the most that got to me emotionally. The resolution was really one of the most jarring ‘Welp, here’s a happily ever after’ and a ‘we’ll never show this character again’ plot line wrap-up for ya endings I’ve ever seen. And I didn’t get the impression that Akane was really that upset about leaving Kero. Hell, Kero seemed sadder than she did.
Even the Clow cards for this week just seemed tacked on. Storm was revealed and caught in the starting scene before the title card. Then Float came out of nowhere and just happened to start trouble exactly in Akane’s house? Float didn’t even have a purpose besides giving Sakura another card.
The dub is just blech. I will give them kudos for keeping in the Japanese text, even if the subs were incredibly roughly edited in. However, since they removed nearly all mentions of Emika’s mom not being home a lot and her mentions of wanting to see her dad in heaven, it’s reduced to a slightly lonely girl being clingy with a cool pet cat. And, again, Kero could easily leave in the dub if there’s no worry about her being alone. With the only noteworthy parts of the episode gone, it leaves it as a forgettable mess.
Next episode, Sakura and her family are on vacation with Yukito when she meets a kind old man who seems to be connected to her.
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