Syaoran Li is the deuteragonist of CLAMP's anime and manga series Cardcaptor Sakura. He is the love interest of the titular protagonist of the franchise, Sakura Kinomoto.
In the Japanese version, he is voiced by Motoko Kumai, while in the various English versions, he was first voiced by Rhys Huber in the Clow Card Arc and the first movie, Jordan Kilik in the Sakura Card Arc, Candace Moore in the Animax dub, Mona Marshall in the Sealed Card movie, and Jason Liebrecht for the Clear Card Arc.
What Makes Him Pure Good?[]
- He transferred from Hong Kong to Sakura's school for the sake of retrieving the loose Clow Cards he learned have been unleashed.
- Though he initially starts off as quite arrogant, as well as hostile and dismissive towards Sakura in the earlier episodes, this gradually gave way over time to the extent that even after a little while, while he still acted like they were rivals, this had become little more than a shallow pretense to conceal how much he had come to respect her, see her as a friend, and later on, had even fallen in love with her. By around the end of the original series, he had become extremely protective of her, his previous demeanor is pretty much completely gone, and he has mellowed out into a much more humble, openly kind and selfless individual, with these traits only being more pronouned by the time of the Sealed Card movie and in the Clear Card sequel series so far.
- This extends to other characters he was initially unfriendly and jerkish towards as well, since he also used to frequently clash with Kero, was hostile towards Touya to the extent of almost getting into a fight with him on a couple of occasions, and was often jealous of, and by extension, unfriendly towards Eriol because of his friendliness with Sakura. However, by the time of The Sealed Card and especially Clear Card, he is on much more friendly terms with Kero and Eriol to the extent of pretty much always interacting with them in a friendly and courteous manner and even turning to the latter for advice on multiple occasions. He is also, in general, very friendly, courteous and kind towards almost everyone he interacts with compared to the original series, where he started off as more standoffish and antisocial. The only person he's still not on particularly good terms with is Touya, and that's only because Touya tends to glare at and act standoffish towards him whenever they cross paths due to being unhappy about his closeness to Sakura. However, even this is just a matter of feeling defensive and on edge as a result of Touya's obvious dislike of him rather than open hostility or rudeness, and after one of the most recent cases of this in episode 9 of Clear Card when he and Sakura run into him at the aquarium, he even apologizes to Sakura for not trying to be more friendly to him and admits he just doesn't know how to act around him.
- While he's initially quite stern with Meiling with regards to joining him, Sakura and the others when they're out capturing Clow Cards and tries to discourage her from getting involved, it's only because he's concerned about her safety since she can't use magic like he and Sakura can and is trying to prevent her from getting hurt since he cares a lot about her wellbeing. Later on, he even begins accepting her help more when he sees that she's capable of holding her own and contributing to the team, such as agreeing to team up with her to defeat the Twin Card.
- He plays a major part in immobilizing, defeating and capturing numerous Clow Cards, some of which pose quite a bit of danger to innocent bystanders. Some particularly good examples are when he gives Sakura the courage she needs to make it to the shrine at the center of a cave and capture the Erase Card, which had previously caused many of their classmates to disappear, allows her to win a tug-of-war against the Power Card using the Time Card, the former of which was wreaking havoc at the local zoo and endangering both the animals and visitors there, and plays a major part in defeating the Freeze Card, which had frozen all of their classmates when they visited a skating rink for a field trip.
- While still understandably unhappy to a sympathetic and mild extent, he's still more happy for her than anything when Sakura becomes the new master of the Clow Cards over him during Yue "Final Judgement", even giving up his own cards to be collected by her with little to no protest.
- He helped Sakura a lot during Eriol's trials, most notably the final one, which had Sakura choose between turning the rest of the remaining Clow Cards into Sakura Cards using the magic of her wand, or have the entire world become stuck in a state of eternal slumber and darkness, where he gave Sakura's staff the magic enhancement it needed to transform the Light and Dark cards into cards of her own, which allowed her pass the challenge.
- Before moving back to Hong Kong, he confessed his feelings for Sakura with the help of the encouragement previously given to him by Tomoyo.
- In the Sealed Card movie, he helps Sakura combat the Nothing Card when it starts wreaking havoc on Tomoeda and erasing everyone. Most notably however, after Sakura learns they're motivated by loneliness and despair and offer it a place with the rest of the Sakura Cards, she is told she has to pay a toll of giving up her feelings for the person she cares about the most in order to seal it, at which point Syaoran offers to pay the toll in her place, resolving that he'll simply fall in love with her all over again. While the fusion of the Nothing Card and the nameless card into the Hope Card ultimately averts the toll, this doesn't detract from his willingness to sacrifice his memories of and feelings for her so that she wouldn't have to lose hers.
- During his time in Hong Kong before returning to Japan by the time of Clear Card, he underwent intensive training in order to be able to protect Sakura in the future. It is later revealed that this involved learning advanced magic that allows him to channel the abilities of Sakura's former Sakura Cards (which had since gone blank in the present), which takes a noticeably physical toll on him to use. He uses this ability on at least a few occasions to effectively immobolize some of the new Clear Cards that are appearing around town, allowing Sakura to catch them far more easily.
- One particularly notable instant of this is when Sakura and her friends are suddenly transported by the Mirage Card to a mysterious location during a trip to the zoo where everything Sakura imagines becomes real without her being able to control it. This leads to all of her friends becoming animals and being put in harm's way when a nearby tree gets struck by lightning and is about to fall on them, at which point Syaoran uses his ability to stop time and comforts Sakura when she's at her most emotionall distraught. Thanks to helping her calm down and deduce that the card responds to her thoughts before passing out from exhaustion, she manages to transport everyone back to safety and turn them back to normal before tracking down the card and capturing it, making him equally responsible for saving everyone.
- He regularly reports any strange incidents and important information regarding the Clear Cards to Eriol back at his home in England in order to help each other deduce what caused Sakura's cards to go blank and is behind the appearance of the new ones, as well as to get advice from him on how to best help Sakura. While he keeps this secret from her, he only does so because he wants to support her without potentially giving her more to worry about based on their speculations and what they may learn.
Trivia[]
- He, along with Sakura Kinomoto and Tomoyo Daidouji are the three heroes from Cardcaptor Sakura to be Pure Good.
- Coincidentally, both he and his love interest Sakura are two of the three pure good heroes of the series.
External Links[]
- Syaoran Li on the Heroes Wiki
- Syaoran Li on the Cardcaptor Sakura Wiki