Title: カードキャプターさくら クリアカード編 Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card
Creators: Clamp
Books: 15 volumes so far (ending at 16), Dec '16 - Apr '24, KC Deluxe, Kodansha
Kodansha Comics isn't far behind with the English release
Cardcaptor Sakura was one of the series that got me into anime and therefore into manga. Clear Card is a sequel, a single 16 volume long arc that sees Sakura, now in middle school, once again capturing cards. The final chapter of the serialization has just been published. A revival like this can't have the place the original did, but I'm delighted by how well made Clear Card was.
The art is beautiful, an improvement over the original manga, with a wealth of designs drawn with impressive care, and the way it represents the action and the drama of the magic is great. The arc has an Alice theming that suits it very well, and in other respects too it really sells the wonder of Sakura's powers. Dreams play a key role in Sakura's magic, in that she has magical visions while dreaming, but there's also a dreamlike quality to her magical abilities that I enjoy a lot.
The story begins where the original manga ended, with Syaoran returning to Japan. Then all of Sakura's cards turn clear and now new cards are appearing for her to capture. So it's a sequel that functions rather like a remake. It's a retread in other respects too, such as a transfer student arriving and befriending Sakura, and a school play being a key event.
The transfer student is Akiho. That she's a girl who is very similar to Sakura in some respects and the opposite in others is central to what the arc is about. I think she's a good character for crafting the arc around. The adorable friendship Sakura builds with her shows Sakura's qualities and the parallels between the two of them mean that attention given to Akiho as a character is often also about Sakura.
The concept for the antagonist is one that frustrated some of the readers who were following the serialization since the antagonist's main ability is one that effectively undoes apparent plot progression. I think that ought to be less of a downside for anyone in a position to read the complete series without waiting, and personally I really liked what their intent turned out to be. The typical image of the magical girl genre is shaped by the kind of enemies used in Sailor Moon and PreCure, but CCS wasn't like that and I was glad Clear Card stayed true to that spirit.
Spoilers about the antagonist
His aim was to rewrite the world so that Akiho would be Sakura's twin, because that's the safest, happiest place for Akiho, sacrificing himself to achieve this. While he did cause trouble for Sakura to use her to accomplish this, he was his plan's only real victim and so he's the person that Sakura needed to save in the climax of the story. There were villains who were the root of the trouble, but those were faceless, nameless people in the backstory. No one really intended harm against Sakura.That he uses a power that stops and rewinds time in order to get out off situations where his plan was in jeopardy makes sense since it's a non-violent means. The pocket watch nicely fits the arc's theming. Sakura getting to resist the freezing of time and find counters so as to unravel what was going on was cool. She gets to be the Jotaro of shoujo manga.
There's one respect in which it does feel like a departure from the original manga though: the absence of its transgressive edge. Clear Card makes no reference to Rika "dating" Terada (Rika is at different middle school and barely shows up at all) which I think is for the better, but on the other hand the queerness was a significant part of the appeal of CCS for a lot of people and a common gateway into BL and GL back in the day. Naturally some people hoped that the passage of time would mean that Clear Card would be more open about this side of the characterization. Instead it basically doesn't go there. It's not like they've given Tomoyo a male love interest, nor cleavage for Ruby Moon, and Touya and Yukito sure stay over at each other's place often, but if someone only knew the characters from reading Clear Card then they would have to be forgiven if they didn't know there was anything queer about any of them.