Sakura Kinomoto

Sakura Kinomoto is the main character from the Card Captor Sakura anime and manga.

Sakura is introduced as a 9 year-old girl who lives in the town of Tomoeda in Japan, where she attends Tomoeda Elementary School during the Clow Card Arc and Sakura Card Arc storyline. In Clear Card Arc storyline, she is a 12 year-old freshmen attending Tomoeda Junior High School.

In the AWA fics, Sakura is a student at the AWA Academy and is part of Class 2.

Appearance
In the anime, Sakura has short brown hair, fair skin, and emerald green eyes. In certain manga sketches and official artwork, this sometimes changes. In addition to her anime hair and eyes, her hair is sometimes colored auburn, her eyes are sometimes colored grey or blue, and her skin is sometimes snow white. As a child, she is naturally short in height, but slowly grows as the years pass by.

Sakura's outfits change frequently throughout the series. Her most iconic everyday outfit is her school uniform, as well as her battle outfit, which changes depending on the season. Her winter school uniform is a black long sleeved shirt with red and white sleevecuffs, a white neckerchief with a red stripe, and a white pleated miniskirt with a frilly white knee-length petticoat. On particularly cold days, she wears a thick black coat with her schools insignia on the back. Her summer uniform is a white half-sleeved shirt with a red neckerchief and a black pleated miniskirt. All year round, black Mary Jane shoes are worn along with white socks and a white sailor hat with a black trim.

Personality
Sakura is an extremely energetic, cute, beautiful, sweet, cheerful and a very kind character. She is very athletic, being a member of her school's cheerleading squad and an excellent runner, a trait she inherited from her father. Her "invincible spell", "Everything will surely be all right.", has carried her through innumerable trials and obstacles as she masters her magical skills. Her catchphrase is "Hoe!", which is used whenever she is shocked or scared even the slightest. She also frequently shouts "KERO, NO!!!", when scolding Kero.

She often comes across as naïve, clumsy, dense and clueless, but she has her perceptive moments on occasion. Her favorite foods are omelet and noodles with seafood and her favorite recipe is pancakes. Her birthday is on April the first. She hates Mathematics, loves Gym and Music, and her blood type is A.

Sakura's optimistic and trustworthy character allows her to be friendly with everybody, she is very outgoing and the entire series focuses on the friendships she creates with people, whether strangers, loose acquaintances, or rivals. In fact, her personality is a dominating factor in her relationships, especially with Syaoran Li. Though sometimes she's quite gullible and believes what everyone tells her, her charm can win over anyone (as shown with Syaoran in the series). She's also known to be very scared of ghosts.

She became scared of ghosts because her brother, who could see spirits, would usually point them out. Though she couldn't see them, the descriptions of having 'one eye' or 'missing a hand' would frighten her. Therefore she felt a deep fear of ghosts from a young age. Ironically, she has no fear of Clow Cards. This is apparent when Sakura finds out that the ghost in the park is actually a Clow Card and was no longer scared by it. She is known to be clueless about things relating to herself but perceptive of others. Though when she finds out information about her friends, she usually keeps quiet about it.

Despite her sweet nature, cuteness and beauty, Sakura has been shown to have a very vicious temper. This is often seen when Toya insults her by calling her a monster and once when she and Kero got into a fight. Her temper is sometimes so vicious that it once scared Toya.

Abilities
Magical Power-Level: Throughout the Clow Card arc, Keroberos's comments seem to imply that Sakura's innate magical powers and abilities strengthen and increase to even higher levels as she battles and captures more Cards. In contrast of this, in the second half of the series, Sakura’s inexperience is shown as she often collapses after transforming the cards. However, as she becomes progressively proficient in changing Clow Cards into Sakura Cards, she becomes less tired and more aware of Clow Reed's presence.

During the last of Eriol's trials, she is able to transform the last remaining eight Clow Cards into Sakura Cards at once. In the aftermath of this final battle it is revealed that Clow Reed reincarnated into two people; the first being Sakura's father, the second being Eriol. Clow Reed designed it this way as to split his power to allow Sakura to become the strongest magician in the world, even greater than himself.

In "Sakura and Ahiko's Lullaby", Keroberos realizes that her magic has gotten immensely stronger, strong enough to show the past; an ability only Clow Reed and three other top-level magicians were capable of.
 * Origin: After the Final Judgement, Clow Reed tells her that her magic seems to be drawn from the power and ability of the stars, which may start small, but are ever-shining with their own brilliant light. However, it should be noted that like Clow Reed's magic, Sakura's is a balance of sun and moon magic.


 * Prophetic Dreaming: Sakura is able to see future events through her dreams, including the Final Judgement and meeting various characters throughout the series. In the manga Sakura also dreams about the past, including the day Clow died. However it may be that these dreams were due to Clow's supremely powerful magic. It is noted at the end of the manga that, if she wishes, Sakura could see into the future.


 * Use of the Clow Cards: Sakura's main weapon is the Clow Cards, which first had their own magic, but had to be transformed so that they would draw power from her as "Sakura Cards".

Trivia

 * Sakura is the first character from Card Captor Sakura to be introduced in the AWA fics.
 * Sakura's surname, "Kinomoto" has the Kanji for "book" in it. This may be a joke as to her adventures with the Clow Cards that all started when she found the Clow book in her father's library.


 * Sometimes, during cheerleading practice, especially during baton throwing, Sakura will occasionally get distracted, causing the baton to hit her on the head which seems to be a running gag in the series.


 * Often skates to school and has her own custom-made rollerblades and gloves with her name on them.


 * Whenever she's distracted or shocked, she says "Hoeeee!" which is what she says in the Tokyopop manga although it's later changed to "Phwee?".


 * Sakura is said to like music and gym class.
 * Sakura is said to dislike math (although later on in the manga, she states that she's starting to get the hang of it).
 * She is on the cheer squad.
 * Her favorite foods are rice omelets and noodles.
 * She dislikes Konnyaku.
 * Her favorite colors are pink and white.