This article covers the major characters of Clamp's manga Cardcaptor Sakura and its respective anime and movies. The manga and anime focused on 10-year Japanese schoolgirl Sakura Kinomoto who finds the magical Clow Book in her father's basement study, accidentally unleashing the magical Clow Cards loose across her hometown Tomoeda. Dubbed the Cardcaptor by the cards' guardian Cerberus (better known as Kero-chan), Sakura must wield the Clow Staff to capture the card spirits and turn them back into cards for her use. Sakura is aided by her best friend Tomoyo Daidouji, who creates battle costumes for her as well as videotaping her ventures as Cardcaptor; and later by Syaoran Li, a Chinese boy who is a direct descendant of the Clow Cards' creator Clow Reed. The anime also introduced a fourth companion, Meiling Li, Syaoran's cousin and fiancee. The rest of the characters are mostly oblivious to Sakura's magical life, aside from her brother Toya who has his own magical powers, and later Eriol Hiiragizawa, who is a reincarnated Clow Reed.
The anime was dubbed into English by Nelvana under the title of Cardcaptors, with most of the character names changed to English ones with the exception of Sakura (her name repronounced though), Meiling, Cerberus (also repronounced as "Keroberos" based on the Japanese pronunciation of his name), Yue and Clow Reed. Omni Productions has produced an English dub of their own for Animax Asia. However, unlike Nelvana's dub, Omni's dub is uncut and more faithful to the original Japanese version.
A large number of the characters reappear as alternate selves in Clamp's other series, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and xxxholic. Only Sakura appears as her original self in brief cameos in Tsubasa, interacting briefly with her parallel selves.
Sakura Kinomoto (木之本 さくら Kinomoto Sakura?) is the titular ten-year-old protagonist and the eponymous heroine of Cardcaptor Sakura. Named after the Japanese word for "cherry blossom". Her "invincible spell," "Everything will surely be all right" ("Zettai daijoubu da yo"), has carried her through innumerable trials and obstacles as she masters her magical skills. Her most defining character traits is her unyielding determination, caring nature and loyalty to her friends. Sakura is portrayed as an perceptively sweet, extremely energetic and cheerful character who is well-loved, pretty, cheerful, cute and at times a naïve, clumsy, and clueless. Sakura is athletically gifted and skilled in sports at school, being an excellent runner and called the "best baton twirler in school" by her friends. She hates math and is openly phasmophobic. She has a big brother that is a . Sakura maintains a crush on Yukito Tsukishiro for most of the manga and anime, but when she finally confesses to Yukito, she is gently rejected and she realizes that she loved him because of his resemblance to her father. Eventually, Sakura realizes she is actually in love with Syaoran, but doesn't realize her feelings until he first confesses his love for her. Although she fails to admit her feelings in the final episode, Sakura later manages to finally confess her love to Syaoran when he and Meiling return to visit in the series finale movie, Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card. However in the Dub, they never develop their romance as it was heavily edited out.