Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum Casts Timeless Magic on Southeast Asia

I was making my way through THE MAZE of Drawings, trying my best to fully take in all the exhibited original drawings of CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura manga without lagging behind my group, when a particular panel stopped me in my tracks. In this image, the titular heroine, Sakura Kinomoto, who is tasked with recapturing a deck of magic cards in the story, is being comforted and told that, as a kid, it’s only natural that she cannot shoulder everything by herself.

The exact line and the specific context of that scene concern how Sakura’s power is inadequate to support all of the cards and Guardians created by the great magician Clow Reed, but its general message is clear. In an earlier area of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum, dubbed The Library Where It Began, there is a display titled “The Words Embodying the Art of Believing and the Art of Living.” One sentence reads, “The words of Sakura and her friends embody the values like believing in each other and engaging in genuine acts of kindness.” With my experience of Cardcaptor Sakura currently limited to the first episode of the 1998 first anime season, that explanation didn’t have a particular effect on me at the time. But when I got to that panel in The MAZE of Drawings and saw the words that were spoken, I was instantly moved. Suddenly, I felt that I understood a little bit better why the Cardcaptor Sakura series, which began in 1996, is so beloved.

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum was first held in Japan in 2018, the same year the TV anime adaptation of the Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card sequel manga (which started in 2016) aired. Given the timing of its debut, the exhibition features the question, “Why is Cardcaptor Sakura Being Rediscovered Now?” 

When the exhibition opened its doors to the public in Malaysia — marking its Southeast Asia debut — on April 12, 2025 (GMT+8), it had been nearly six years since it made its first appearance at the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills in October 2018. In that time, the Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum has travelled to places like Korea and Taiwan, and faced difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In her opening speech, Kodansha’s Nozomi Matsuura, who is from the publisher’s rights planning department, mentioned that there was “trouble with logistics, the schedule for the event changed, and production was put on hold.” But despite those setbacks, the exhibition is finally back in another part of the world. As Matsuura says, “Sakura-chan has been and will continue to be here or with us around the world, gently pushing us along and cheering us up.”

The power of Sakura and her friends feels most prominent in The MAZE of Drawings. Past the exhibition key visual and manga-related cover art, the area highlights various characters’ relationships, which seems (based on my slightly rushed survey of the zone, which I regret in hindsight) like an excuse to post scenes that deliver gut punches or smiles even without context. One exhibit shows Sakura and Syaoran’s early reunion in Clear Card, while one section displays Touya and Yukito’s deep bond. Another bit that caught my attention was a panel where Chiharu offers Sakura simple but meaningful advice.

The downside is that while the exhibition generally has both English and Chinese translations, the manga’s dialogue is only in Japanese. Had The MAZE of Drawings offered translations of the characters’ lines, I’d heartily recommend non-fans of the series to visit Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum. As I could make sense of the characters’ conversations, this area felt like an effective way of quickly conveying Cardcaptor Sakura’s charm to newcomers like me, assuming one is fine with contextless spoilers. The featured drawings will also change in the second half of the exhibition’s run from May 12 to June 11, and I’m really curious as to what scenes will be featured in the future.  

It might be obvious that THE MAZE of Drawings is my favorite part of the exhibition, but the rest are compelling too. In THE SIEGE Atelier of Tomoyo, visitors can examine recreations of some of Sakura’s battle costumes. Room of the RECORD displays a timeline of Cardcaptor Sakura’s history, special Cardcaptor Sakura items that came with some Nakayoshi issues, a photo zone with Kero-chan plushies, and more. Room of the FLOWER will delight fans who admired the flowers in the series and appreciate flower language, while the Room of Cards displays the series’ magical cards for your viewing pleasure. If you can’t get enough of the Osaka dialect-speaking guardian of the cards, there’s a giant Kero-chan just before the merchandise store at the end that fans can pose with.

My second favorite, though, is The Library Where It Began, which is the first area of the exhibition and serves as an introduction (or reintroduction, for existing fans) to Cardcaptor Sakura. While this was another area that I regrettably rushed through, looking back at my photos of it after experiencing THE MAZE of Drawings helped me appreciate its explanations and mini-treatises on the magic of Cardcaptor Sakura more. A line from the relationship chart display says that “the characters’ relations with each other go beyond gender, social class, age, nationality and ethnicity and are solely based on care for each other.” I obviously don’t have sufficient familiarity with the series to agree with all of those words, but that care felt very evident from the manga excerpts I saw in the exhibition.

The area is also meaningful due to its provision of commentary from a number of people, thus offering personal perspectives of the series and varied pictures of its impact. Some discuss Sakura’s costumes or the series’ food. Others talk about Sakura herself. A message from Peru’s Sofia Pichihua, the now-former holder of the Guinness World Record for the largest Cardcaptor Sakura memorabilia collection, notes that “In Latin America, every girl wanted to be Sakura… for her kindness, tenderness, friendship, courage, and her optimism to face any problem.”

Given the confusing, maddening timeline that we’re living in, two contributions stood out to me the most. One is from Japanese talent and cross-dresser Mitz Mangrove, who wrote, “Those who immerse themselves in the world of fantasy know the harshness and emptiness of the routines of the real world. We need fantasies because all fantasies are prayers – prayers for the meaningless but valuable real world.”

Then there’s novelist Atsuko Asano’s mini-essay, which includes the statement, “What Sakura is really fighting against might be the world we know today where assumption, deception and misinformation are everywhere, where the boundary between truth and falsity or justice and crime is blurred, depriving people of the ability to believe in others and themselves. But Sakura keeps her faith — both in others and herself — and says, ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right!’” 

Cardcaptor Sakura: The Enchanted Museum will run in Malaysia from April 12 GMT+8 to June 11 GMT+8. It is located at INCUBASE Arena Malaysia, situated on the second floor of Fahrenheit 88 in Kuala Lumpur. A Cardcaptor Sakura collaboration café offering desserts and drinks is located just outside the exhibition area.