Cardcaptor Magicians and their Ceremonial Clothings
—Or what I'd like to call, the Pointy Hat™ Analysis
Welcome to Episode one of my random Cardcaptor Blabberings (or blabblecaptor— it's a working tag title), a "series" where I talk about random Cardcaptor things without doing that much deep diving because I hate too much research.
Since I'm notorious for starting things and not being consistent to the point of not even continuing what I started, let's see how this one goes. 😆 I'm also bad at words so wish me luck.
I'd like to start this off by saying 2 things:
this all started because I saw Sakura's pointy hat and got reminded by Kaito's ceremonial robe... then got reminded of Eriol's robe right after.
this isn't a serious analyzation of their outfits, given the reason i wanted to blabber about this is their pointy hats. also I'm more of a Nadeshiko when it comes to fashion: so far from the word 💀
Lastly, take this as a silly post while I try to learn how Tumblr works. I don't want people to use this as a source (or anything similar) because at the end of the day, this is all just silly typings of someone who excels in associating the most random stuff with each other without being able to explain why.
With all of that out of the way, Let's get started!
like what i said earlier, the moment i saw Sakura's color page in Chapter 74 my mind went straight into Kaito's robe, and when my brain went to remind me of Kaito's ceremonial robe colored page, it immediately went to Eriol... And then started to compare the three, asking myself about their similarities aside from the initial idea of this entire post—the pointy hats.
i should put tm after saying pointy hats at this point...
starting off with the robes, all 3 of them have their attires in the color black. idk why it's like that, but it makes the gold in their clothing shine more i guess 😆
point is, the colors used in the robe are mostly dominated by neutral colors, most likely to make the intricate details pop up a lot more.
the patterns the clothings have also are (mostly—just in case if there's a part where it's not) symmetrical, visibly seen within the designs on the torso parts.
In this case, Eriol & Sakura's chest (?) part, and Yuna D. Kaito's back.
I could say it's the magicians' insignia but just in case it's not I'll settle with symmetrical symbols. 😅
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...surely those were not the only similarities, right?
well, aside from the pointy hats™ and the color scheme & patterns their robes have...
...I also realized that they're also all powerful magicians;
Eriol is Clow's reincarnation... or at least, half of it.
—And according to various Cardcaptor characters, he (Clow) was the most powerful magician to ever exist (but also the most fucked up one as well, i guess.)
Given that Clow's reincarnation were 2 people (he thought he could divide his magical abilities between them), Eriol still unfortunately got all of the magic and most of Clow's memories— literally passing down his title of being the most powerful magician onto Eriol.
This manchild (literally bc he is a man in a child's body) can also do lots of spells as he has Clow's magic, and his memory of his past life helps him excel in some of everyday skills a "normal child" would struggle with (ie. baking, drawing, sewing, speaking a language, etc). But, no one knows that— not even Sakura until he told her that himself.
Also I'd like to point out the fact that despite a lot of his robe's designs were in gold (color, who knows if it's really gold? I don't.), the lining of his outfit is in red.
not sure if Clow's robe is similar (if not the same) or anything but if it is, has his robe been passed down from generations before him?
and if so, which side of Clow's family was the robe from?
Yuna D. Kaito is also a powerful magician.
—In fact, one of (if not the) highest ranks in the Magical Association.
that's actually the D. in his name— it wasn't his middle name and in fact, Yuna D. Kaito probably isn't his real name.
He can do lots of things with his sorcery but he specializes in Time Magic... which is considered a taboo since you'll get a fucked up alternative world when YOU fucked up using that kind of magic...
...and also a shorter life-span but let's not delve much into that so this post won't go to the depressing direction 😁
And in regards of his robe, one can argue that the robe isn't really exclusively HIS, since you can see in the picture I've used that there are other people with him wearing the same clothing (assuming it's his clan's) so i suggest burning their headquarters down to ashes to make it YDK's own robe 😆😆
note: a kind friend in the comments pointed out my mistake of associating Yuna D. Kaito and Lilie Shinomoto's clans as one: their clans differ from each other. Yuna D. Kaito's in particular are a congregation of magicians that aren't blood-related and are officially referred to as "Magic Association".
i have no idea what to call his or Lilie's clans yet, but for now I'll refer to those as their respective clans 😅
Now onto the main Protagonist of the series: Sakura Kinomoto. In Tomoyo's words, "The only Cardcaptor in the world"
Started as a girl that had little magic that managed to grew stronger and stronger, and then now having one of the abilities Clow had— creating cards (or new magic) on her own.
Though one can argue that she won't be able to do that if Yuna D. Kaito wasn't pulling the strings in the background, keep in mind that Momo said she saw right past Eriol's magic protection [to contain Sakura's magic].
Plus, in the Sakura Arc (where she technically created new cards but under a "template"), Eriol was pulling the strings as well and yet her powers still managed to grow, probably beyond people's expectations.
Her ever-growing power might be hard to control for her, but she's doing her best to utilize it in protecting the ones she cherishes the most.
Now the upcoming argument about Sakura's"ceremonial attire"... well, technically Sakura doesn't have one, and you can't really call that outfit a robe, but most of the details in a ceremonial robe (at least CLAMP's robes) present: the neutral color, the symmetrical design, and the gold lining/design.
I like to consider it her own ceremonial robe— made in a very fitting and unique image of Sakura, that only she will wear.
Speaking of different, there are other powerful magicians that doesn't follow the same "ceremonial outfit" pattern so I thought I'd show them too!
- Here we have the Shinomoto Ceremonial Outfit, worn by the beautiful Akiho Shinomoto in this color page!
sorry about the picture if it's not clean... i tried so hard to find a textless one (same as yuna d. kaito) but unfortunately I couldn't.
now about the details aside from the pointy hat: the neutral color + gold lining & symmetrical detail scheme is there, but the difference with the 1st three and their robe is that the neutral color used with the Shinomotos' were white, as opposed to the first three who used black.
i know you've seen this already but since I'm talking about Lilie here in specifics I'd like to put this here are well: a kind friend in the comments pointed out my mistake of associating Yuna D. Kaito and Lilie Shinomoto's clans as one; their clans differ from each other, and that Lilie's (though only officially referred to as "most ancient magician clan in Europe") clan is blood-related, as opposed to Yuna D. Kaito's.
again, no idea what I'll call their respective clans separately yet, so I'll probably refer to them as their respective clans for now— though i have a few ideas xd
another difference is that the hat may be a bit pointy, but it's not as pointy as the three, and that the hat has three pointy things instead of just one.... okay, maybe not that pointy, but, still pointy 😅
okay that's too many pointy, let's get back on track 😁
the difference is blatantly obvious about this one, and I really can't cross Lilie Shinomoto out from one of the most powerful magicians CCS has ever introduced snce she had strong premonition powers and she was also considered a very powerful magician that's feared within Yuna D. Kaito's Clan.
I mean it would take lots of powerful magic to be even able to cross time and dreams for that long just to tell Sakura about the truth in their (now fabricated) timeline?
but i wonder why is their robe different than the others?
we'll get back to that later, if i remember it. 😆
speaking of pointy hats™, you know a magician who doesn't have a pointy hat?
He's none other than Li Clan's next leader and Sakura's most important person, Syaoran Li!
one can never talk about ceremonial outfits without remembering Syaoran's iconic ceremonial outfits! with S because he has two— 1st one (in the pictures) being the original clothing he has, and the 2nd one Tomoyo made for him that was inspired by the one he used to have.
our little wolf is special; from being Sakura's rival in the Clow Card Arc to being Sakura's most important person? He has learned so much and grew stronger along the way.
now about the details: his clothing doesn't really follow the usual attire pattern: the dominant color of his robe is green, the designs are indeed symmetrical, but the linings are both orange and yellow instead of the usual neutral pallette... his hat also doesn't have a pointy thing on it and instead has a hanging detail on the back.
"what about the attire Tomoyo made for him? it has 2 pointy things!"
—yeah.. well you're right, and as much as I gave the effort to add his Clear Card arc ceremonial outfit, I'm realizing now that it's not really an official robe now, is it...
about the clear card ceremonial attire, one can argue the same thing as they thought about Sakura while reading this blabber (if anyone has gotten though this far),
"That isn't even a ceremonial ROBE"
and you're right, it isn't... since it was Tomoyo's work, inspired from the original one. 😅
so think of it the same way as Sakura— made in the fitting and unique image of Syaoran, that only he could wear.
I guess the main couple of the series have that one as a similarity in regards to this random topic I've thought about. 💚
sooooooo what does this mean? why is Syaoran's robe so different than the others?
is he not as powerful as the ones listed?
well. probably.
but he's not entirely powerless— his entire bloodline is directly related to Clow for crying out loud.
and in addition, his mother Yelan Li is also a powerful sorceress.
I mean would the Li Clan even let someone not as powerful as Yelan to be the next in line to lead?
To answer that: Absolutely not, since being able to have magic and to be able to properly control it are probably some basic requirements to be even considered as a candidate.
So they're powerful. As a clan.
—but we are talking about Syaoran as an individual sorcerer right now and I'll say he is powerful.
In the current CCS timeline, his magic wasn't enough to turn all of the Sakura Cards into those little orbs he kept on his compass. He's even having a hard time converting just one.
And if I remember this correctly, he was aided by her mother through casting the magic he needed in the bears when he snatched the Sakura Cards from their master.
We've seen him improve his magic— especially shown in the 1st season of the anime. Hell, he can even make the sword appear from his hands like what his Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle counterpart does on a regular basis.
In comparison, he is more powerful in Clear Card Arc, but it was still not enough at the moment.
That brings us to the question: Why?
I'd say he's not as powerful now probably because everything happened too fast, and that he didn't have much time to make his magic stronger to get at least within Sakura's power level.
He may have been exhausting himself to the bone during the time when he came back to Hong Kong but my boy, the time you had was absolutely too short to have your skills improve drastically.
On the brighter side, Syaoran has lots of potential, and we all know he's a strong fella so it's about just a matter of time until he reach his full power.
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Now this entire post got me thinking about other things as I was typing it.
Mostly they're questions I had to ask, like "okay, now what?" "Why did I do this?" especially because the original plan i had was to only have Eriol, Yuna D. Kaito & Sakura in this post.
But I thought I'd be unfair to the Lilie & Akiho, and Syaoran since they both have their own as well so I added them here on the spot.
well, remember what I mentioned that "I'll elaborate on it later" when I was giving a brief background on Lilie's robe? yeah, it's time to go back to that one now...
I really didn't think that one through when I started typing, but the more I think of things to type, the more I asked myself,
is the ceremonial clothing an indicator of how powerful you are?
Though the answer is probably "duh ", since the ones who have robes are part of clans AND are also powerful—
note that Clow was from a union of a European Magician AND an Asian Magician so technically he's still part of BOTH clans, if each of his parents were part of them.
—it's probably more of "if you're in an association with lots of other magicians", considering the fact that some of the ceremonial clothings were passed down to the living blood-relative of the family...
Hence why Sakura doesn't have one and the rest has.
Though Eriol with that ceremonial outfit can be a bit questionable since he's a reincarnation n stuff, and so far I don't remember ERIOL (capitalized bc I've been linking him to Clow, but I'm talking abt him as JUST him as his own individual) being part of a clan since he worked independently (as far as I can remember)
but from what I can recall it was mentioned in the anime that the ceremonial clothing resembled Clow's... correct me if I'm wrong, though.
also, with the additional input i got from Cinzia (the friend who also pointed out the difference between Akiho's & Yuna D. Kaito's clans),
I also now wonder if the colors used in their robes reflect their intentions? or, since Lilie & Akiho's clan has been around for ages, how long their bloodline has existed?
because if it's the former, then it really won't make sense for Sakura & Eriol (though Eriol is once again, questionable... since his previous body as Clow isn't particularly... good nor he is also evil— at least from my perspective)
...and the latter makes more sense in general.
another one question i have is the explanation for Meiling's ceremonial clothing— like do they give different styles of ceremonial clothes in the Li Clan based on your gender? your magical abilities? or how closely-related you are to whoever leads the clan?
i mean, i know she's an anime-exclusive character but I still want to know because I'm curious...
lastly, i wonder if Nadeshiko has one... since she is also a powerful person (she really doesn't do much sorcery stuff as far as i can remember), though the extent of her magic is unclear like Lilie, it's clear that she's also powerful because she can still do lots of things even in after life.
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IF you're one of the few people who finished reading this i just want to say thank you, and i hope everything made sense since i am very bad at explaining my thoughts 😭.
I think that's it, my brain is tired now and i want to go back to sleep again so good day to everyone and until next time, if there will ever be a next time 😆
and, cut! 🎬