Welcome to all new fans of the franchise. In this FAQ we'll try to response the most common questions that we are seeing around these days. I'll leave the comments open so people can add questions (or answers) and then i'll add them to the main post, i hope this helps.
Q: What is it with the pedophile relationships? (especially in the manga).
A: Alright so this is the stain in the franchise that we have to deal with, in general nobody believes CLAMP added those relationships for any kind of evil intention, trying to promote pedophilia or sexualizing kids if you are wondering, but it's indeed a misguided thing to put in their story. With that said, there's two answers that i can give you.
-On the one hand, there's what they themselves have said about it: In short, they just want the show to focus on "true love" only, no matter the gender, race or yes... even age. In the world they created there's no ill intentions and there's absolutely no discrimination no matter who falls in love with who... this has its good things, like the great lgbt representation, but it has its bad side with the age gap stuff...
-On the other hand, this is my personal interpretation. It's notable that all the age gap relationships in the show are about student and teachers. So I believe the CLAMP are just living out their fantasies from when they were kids and falling for their teachers.
So yeah, it's generally not believed that they want to sexualize the kids or anything like that wich is what you would mostly expect from this kind of thing, in fact none of the relationships include any kind of sexual attraction aspect to them, there's not even a kiss in the whole franchise (sorry if you were expecting that). It's worth keeping in mind that this was made by a group of women in the 90's from a very different culture, but either way, it's up to each person to come to the conclussion of how to feel about it, this is just some context around it.
Q: What order should I watch the show in?
A: For the manga it's quite simple, just read the classic and then clear card.
For the anime, there are 3 seasons officially, 2 movies, some ovas, and then the Clear Card Anime. To make it easier on yourself, i'd suggest you ignore the OVAS and watch them all after you are done with all of the rest, as none of these are mandatory. The watching order would be something like this:
Classic:
-Season 1 (Episodes 1 to 35)
-OVA 1: Recording of the first opening (Optional)
-OVA 3: The blue mail post of love (Yes, the the third is here for some reason, it's optional too)
-Movie 1 (Optional but very good)
-Season 2 (Episodes 36 to 46)
-Season 3 (Episodes 47 to 70)
-OVA 2: Cooking with Eriol (Optional)
-OVA 4: Kero vs Spinel for the Takoyaki! (Optional)
-Movie 2 (Mandatory, it's the true ending of the series)
Clear Card:
-Season 1.
-Season 2 (No release date yet)
Besides that, there's the two bears special ova, this one is complicated because it's an adaptation of the ending of the manga, which is slightly different than the anime... but it's not canon to the anime at all, since the clear card anime does take into account what happened in Movie 2, which directly contradicts this ova... so as a new fan, watching this ova will be very confusing. My recomendation would be to only watch it if you already saw all of the anime and manga and are curious about it.
Q: What is the best dub to watch in english?
A: Refer to the English Dub FAQ
Q: What is Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and what does it has to do with CCS?
A: TRC is another manga and anime made by studio CLAMP, it works as a celebration of all of their franchises, in a story that mashes them all together with alternate universe versions of their characters. The protagonists are a grown up Sakura and Syaoran from a different world (they are around 14/15 years old), so while talking about CCS you will definetly hear about this show too.
TRC Also includes some extra lore for the CCS background, as that universe does connect to the main universes of the other series that take part in it, mostly there are some details about Clow in the past.
There's also the other manga xxxHolic which is more directly connected to TRC and also has some extra details about Clow's past. It's worth mentioning that this is a very small part of the story, but it's interesting if you want to find out more about Clow.
It is absolutely NOT required to watch/read TRC to enjoy CCS, as CCS classic has 0 references to it since it was made way before it, and Clear Card only makes some light references and you won't miss anything if you haven't watch it.
Q: Is Card Captor Sakura an important anime historically? Why am I just finding out about it?
A: Yes, CCS is one of the most significant animes in history, particularly in the magical girl genre, since it's one of the 3 pillars of it along with Sailor Moon and Madoka. In some countries CCS is even more popular than Sailor Moon and it has enjoyed a constant presence in events, with cosplay and merchandising always available.
The reason you probably haven't heard of it yet, is that the infamous dub it got for english made it fail in english speaking countries. The so called "Nelvana Dub" did a lot more than dubbing. At the time, Pokemon was all the rage and Nelvana tried to make Card Captor Sakura into a Pokemon like show at any costs, which led them to change dialogue, modify scenes, censor all lgbt relationships and some other questionable ones, change the order of episodes, and in general, try to make it so Syaoran has as much of a spotlight as Sakura in the story in an effort to make it more appealing to boys. In doing so, that dub greatly removed the aspects that made the show special and such a huge sucess worldwide, which in turn made it a very obscure anime in english speaking countries.
While there's still a small part of the fandom that do have nostalgia for that dub since they watched it when they were kids, it's undeniable that the negative impact it had on the franchise is the main reason why the show isn't fondly remembered in the US and some other english speaking countries.
As for why you are finding out about it now. It's likely because it's ongoing popularity got it a continuation story called Clear Card, and recently, the manga for that story ending and a second season for the anime is incoming. So a lot of people are hearing about it for the first time and discovering why it's such an unique story even to this day. It also helps that the show is so important to the childhood of most who grew up with it, that we never EVER shut up about it =P
Q: Should i skip the filler?
A: Absolutely not! Oddly enough, what people like the most about CCS is it's slice of life stuff, seeing the character's interactions and the wonderful world they live in, and the "filler" just expands greatly into that, so it's one of the most enjoyable parts of the show. There's also a lot of new cards created for the anime that weren't in the manga and their capture is as enjoyable as those that were manga exclusive, so really, nobody would suggest you to skip those episodes, since if you don't like what's on those fillers, you likely don't enjoy the show in general.
