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Short Summary:
Our heroes arrive in a new jungle world – one void of people. Mokona detects a strong power in the lake by where they arrived. Syaoran decides to dive in to find the feather. Unfortunately, he’s initially unsuccessful at finding anything. Sitting by the fire that evening, Sakura tells Syaoran of the birthday dream she had when she got the last feather back. This causes Syaoran to remember when he was first adopted and when he met Sakura. Since he didn’t know his birthday, Sakura decided that it would be on the same day as hers. Back in the present, a light suddenly starts to shine from the lake. Syaoran swims down to investigate, leaving Sakura alone. After he’s gone, a glowing whale-like creature surfaces and questions Sakura on why she’s there. Unable to answer, Sakura instead remembers the first time she met Syaoran. When Syaoran surfaces, he finds Sakura asleep. Once she wakes up, he leads her into the water and the two dive down. Syaoran recalls when Sakura led him to the top of a tower to show him some birds and how happy she was when he smiled. At the bottom of the lake, Syaoran shows Sakura a miniature city. After marveling at it, as the two are swimming back up, the glowing fish stops them and questions Sakura again. She realizes that she’s here because of Syaoran. As the glowing fish swims away, it leaves them a scale which Mokona later confirms was the source of the power. Since it was the only source of power, there is therefore no feather in this world. Sakura promises to do her best during their trip which leads Syaoran to think that Sakura really hasn’t changed. Mokona opens up the portal and the group travels to the next world.
This episode reminded me that Clow Reed is Sakura’s father. I remember this being a rather big revelation when I first read it in the manga, but I can’t remember if they did anything with it storywise. They mention Clow Reed several times, but he’s not really a major player (well, yet anyway).
The story here didn’t happen exactly like the manga, but I don’t mind the changes that they made. The main difference is that Sakura is taking a much more active role in the anime – she didn’t go with Syaoran into the water in the manga. I don’t believe the glowing fish spoke either in the manga, nor did it confront Sakura. Events occur in a slightly different order too. Despite all that, the purpose of this world was kept basically the same – to show some of Syaoran and Sakura’s background. And because they kept it at one episode, I really can’t complain. Next episode takes us to the fourth world, Jade Country. I find this upcoming story arc rather boring, but we’ll see how many episodes it takes.