Sakura's Rival
 
    We open with Sakura having a dream about her being on the top of the Radio Tower in which she looks on with Kero. She suddenly sees a boy dressed in a green and gold Chinese robe. She gasped. "Oh no! He's got the Clow Cards!" Sakura wakes up with Kero in her face and she swats him away, pretending that she's still asleep. After Sakura and Kero talk about the dream a bit and we hear "Expect the unexpected" line from Kero Tori enters and tells her that breakfast is ready and asks who's she talking to. Sakura replies that Stuffed toys can't talk and she has breakfast and leaves for school totally late. Sakura catches up with Julian and Tori and they have a little talk.

    "That's what you get for sitting in your room talking to yourself!" And Sakura and Tori have a little bicker. Tori asks if she's all right and she talks about how she has a dream. Julian replies by "Dreams can tell you what you least expect" and it rings a bell for Sakura. Sakura makes it to school and Mr. Terrada introduces a new student from Hong Kong named Li Showron.

    Li instantly stares at Sakura and she gets creeped out by it. Madison also comments on it. When school is out, we see Li confronting Sakura and he whips out his Lasan board. He uses it and it points out Sakura, he then demands Sakura give him the clow cards. They have a brief talk and then he starts to grab the cards from her. Madison sees this and rushes over as well as Tori. Tori and Li are about to fight when Julian also hops over the fence and offers some food to everyone including Li (What a peacemaker!) Li freaks out and quickly runs away quickly.

    Sakura and Madison walks home and talk about how Kero will make their plan of attack (We see Kero snoring, fast asleep.) On their way home, thunder cracks and a lightning storm comes up. Sakura and Madison run under the penquin slide for shelter from the rain...only there isn't any. Lightning jumps down from the clouds, appears to attack a person and jump on some street lamps and leaps back to the clouds and within seconds, the clouds are gone.

    Kero is now so asleep that he's floating and drooling. Sakura wakes him up in a very effective manner and tells about Li and the clow card stuff. During tea, they talk some more and Kero tells her about the clow cards and that Li is a decendant of Clow Reed. (How does he know this?) Sakura then regrets not giving the cards to him but Kero said that Sakura is the rightful owner of the clow book and the cards and the cards start floating around her.

    Madison calls Sakura on the cell phone sample and tells her that she'll want to come capture a clow card that's in the sky. Sakura tells Madison to meet her at the park. When Sakura gets there, she's subjected to another costume that Madison came up with. "Non conducting titanium and rubber!"

    Sakura uses the fly card to find thunder high in the sky. Kero asks Sakura if Li had any tool with him and Sakura tells him about "Uh huh, he called it a lasan board." Kero said that the Li kid has an advantage but tells her not to worry. It's time to worry, because Thunder attacks her and she leads it out of the clouds. Sakura uses the jump card to jump from building to building. (It was cool lookin' ^.^) She obviously leads it to her school because they're there at the school.

    Li appears on the tower and jumps down to say. "You're hopeless and uses his own trade mark spell, lightning. He used it and attacked Thunder with it. Sakura and Li see it's visable form. "You are LOOKING at Raijuu, the thunder beast. Man you are clueless..." They argue as Thunder gets closer and Kero tells them to knock it off. Sakura tells that she'll use the windy card and Li replieds. "Put it away, Windy can't stand up to Thunder."

    Li lightnings it again and it is knocked to the ground. Li tells her to use the shadow card and she does. Shadow traps Thunder and Sakura seals it. Li walks away with Madison walking up.

Madison: "Hi, Li!"
Li: *Humph!*
Madison: "WHAT ever..." (I just had to put it like that...)

    Sakura is a little depressed but Madison tries to cheer her up but Sakura says that "It's only begun."

KERO'S CORNER

    Here is where we see Kero's corner for the first time (Well us North americans) and he talks about the outfit that Sakura wears in very, very much detail and that's just about it.
 
 

Todd's Humble Divine Opinion

Todd Arcana's Rating:    3.9 / 5.0   ^_^

This episode is very strange indeed...This was the first episode to air here in North America and it's the eighth in Japan. It thrust us into the world quite incoherantly by having Li look like a main character. But where did Sakura get those other cards? From the first seven episodes, ones with Sakura without Li. Li is not a main and truly important character and I'm sorry that we were lead to believe otherwise.