Eriol Hiiragizawa

Eriol Hiiragizawa 柊沢 エリオル
Manga Anime Clear Card Arc
Series	Cardcaptor Sakura
Profile
Also Known As	Eli Moon (Cardcaptors) Clow Reed (past life/predecessor)
Birthday	March 23th
Age	13 (physical) Unknown (actual)
Relatives	Clow Reed (past life/predecessor) Ruby Moon (guardian/protector) Spinel Sun (guardian/protector)
Residence	Tomoeda, Japan (former residence) England (residence)
Powers/Abilities	Various magical abilities related to the Clow Cards Object creation Ability augmentation Ability/Power bestowal Elemental magic Control over shadows and darkness Create sentient, autonomous magical beings Eternal youth Extended longevity Slowed aging Spell-casting of various magic Bring inanimate objects to life Erase people's memories Red energy projection (from mystic staff)
Characteristics
Gender	Male
Hair	Blue-black
Eyes	Gray
Blood Type	A
Appearances
First Appearance (Manga) Chapter 34	Last Appearance (Manga)
First Appearance (Anime) Episode 47: "Sakura and the Mysterious Transfer Student"	Last Appearance (Anime)
Voices
Seiyuu Sasaki Nozomu	English Bill Switzer (Cardcaptors) Johnny Yong Bosch (2nd movie) Micah Solusod (Clear Card)

Eriol Hiiragizawa (柊沢 エリオル, Hiiragizawa Erioru) is a fictional character in Clamp's anime and manga series Cardcaptor Sakura. Eriol transfers to Tomoeda Elementary from England soon after events of the Clow Card Arc and plays a major role in the events of Sakura Cards Arc.

Physical Appearance

File:Erioll04.jpeg

Eriol in the manga.

Eriol has dark blue hair, snow white skin, and large gray eyes underneath his rectangular glasses. His outfit changes depending on the situation. When he attends school, he wears the school's uniform and a book bag. When using his immensely powerful magical powers, he wears blue robes and a large black hat, both sporting unique yellow decorations. When at his home, he wears casual clothing.

Personality

Eriol is usually a serious and determined person. He also has a mischievous personality, and has to restrain himself from making wisecracks when Sakura and Li are "so slow", as he tells Sakura in Episode 55 (as the Cheshire Cat). This is also the same for Kero and Yue. Eriol enjoys himself when using his magic to put Sakura in various situations. These situations can be anywhere from dangerous to being quite so comical, such as when he puts her in a pit filled with stuffed sheep.

Eriol's life experience, with his access to Clow Reed's memories, means that he is significantly more knowledgeable and more mature than all his classmates. He is skilled in basketball, cooking, academics, piano, and art. He is more literate in Japanese writing than Syaoran is, despite coming from a country that uses a completely different writing system.

Plot

Sakura Cards Arc

Eriol transfers to Tomoeda Elementary from England soon after Sakura Kinomoto convinces Yue in the "Final Judgment" and becomes Master of the Clow Cards. He quickly befriends Sakura, a feat which persuades Syaoran Li, who becomes both jealous and suspicious of Eriol, to postpone his return to Hong Kong. It was quite obvious Eriol had bigger intentions towards Sakura. However, Tomoyo says that Eriol sees Sakura as someone dear to him and does not see her in a romantic way.

Eriol with Sakura and a jealous Syaoran.

Eriol also befriends Takashi Yamazaki and becomes his partner-in-crime, agreeing with whatever he makes up. He and Takashi respond to each other's cues perfectly together reinforce the supposed validity of their story by both appearing to have detailed knowledge of the subject, thwarting Chiharu's usual efforts to dispel of the whole lie.

At the same time, a series of magical disasters force Sakura to gradually convert the Clow Cards into "Sakura Cards" or "Star Cards", which draw from her own magical energy rather than the dwindling amount of magic left in them by Clow Reed, although this had the drawback of causing Sakura to faint every time she transformed a Clow Card into a Sakura Card.

What Sakura does not know (until the series' end) is that Eriol himself creates these situations. During each situation, he is seen from afar observing the action, often accompanied by his guardians, Spinel Sun and Ruby Moon. All three of them live in a house that was formerly occupied by Clow Reed himself.

Eventually, Eriol confronts Sakura and reveals himself to be the reincarnation of Clow Reed, creator of the Cards which leaves Sakura, Tomoyo, Kero and Syaoran stunned at the revelation. He challenges Sakura to defeat him by converting the final Cards, The Light and The Dark, which would prevent Tomoeda from being permanently plunged into darkness. The sheer force causes Tomoyo to fall asleep while Syaroan barely manages to hold on with Sakura being the only one unaffected by the change.

With his guardians occupying the attention of Sakura's own guardians, Yue and Cerberus, Eriol uses his magic to hinder Sakura. Eventually she manages to convert Light and Dark with the help of Cerberus and Yue, who fused with Sakura's wand to make it more powerful, and Syaoran, who provided moral support and the confidence to endure, even though his attempt to aid her with his magic resulted in him passing out in the manga. In the anime, Syaoran survives long enough to help Sakura change the Light and Dark Cards, breaking Eriol's spell once and for all.

In the manga, after Sakura overcomes this final challenge, Eriol puts Sakura through one more task; he asks her to divide his power in half between himself and her father, Fujitaka Kinomoto, who is the other reincarnation of Clow Reed. This at last gives Eriol the one thing he has wanted his entire life: to no longer be the most powerful sorcerer in the world. This wish was probably due to the consequences of Clow Reed's desire for Yuko Ichihara to stay alive, which led to the events of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. No longer able to keep people away from the battle site using magic, Eriol invites everyone to his home where he explains his actions. Stating that the challenges were to give Sakura a reason to have to change the cards into Sakura Cards, which made it easier and safer for her to transform them then it would have been without a good reason.

At Eriol's house, it is revealed that he was working in conjunction with Kaho Mizuki, who he met during her travels in Europe. When Sakura, Syaoran, Tomoyo, and Cerberus go off to help Ruby Moon and Spinel in the kitchen, Eriol steps outside to join Yue, who was still feeling that Clow abandoned him. He feels hurt that Clow forced him to go through the the pain of having to choose another master and believes that Clow has been alive all along. Eriol clarifies that he is not Clow Reed, but just has his memories, and that Clow will never return. Eriol then explains Clow's reasoning, and knowing that Yue's heart is broken from the loss of Clow Reed he helps Yue come to terms with Clow's death and his decision to reincarnate himself. With his task complete, Eriol returns to England with his trusted associate Kaho, Spinel and Ruby Moon.

Clear Card Arc

Eriol has moved back to England, and is shown to have a British accent in the Funimation dub.

Powers and Abilities

File:Eli Moon; Staff.jpg

Eriol in his past self's robe and mystical staff

Power Level: As his reincarnation, Eriol retains most of the memories, personality traits, and powerful magical abilities of Clow Reed. As such he is a remarkably formidable sorcerer, able to effortlessly defeat high-ranking magic users even without the aid of the Cards.

He also displays the ability to animate various objects through the use of magic, as shown when he is testing whether Sakura is worthy to be the next master of the cards. Specific examples of this are when he brings a teddy bear to life, causing it to grow and gain immense strength in the process, and when he used his power to animate some children's rides in a play area.

In his duel with Sakura, he demonstrated the power to unleash multiple bursts of scarlet energy from his staff at great speed, and to greatly amplify the powers of others so they could overpower their opponents with ease. Eriol also demonstrates an ability to see spirits, in a similar manner to Toya Kinomoto, as he was able to see the spirit of Nadeshiko Kinomoto at Tomoeda Elementary. Eriol also has the ability to levitate, though rarely uses this ability.

Cardcaptors

Eriol's name is changed to Eli Moon and the scene where he kisses Sakura's hand is removed.

English Incantation

Sun and darkness unleash your might

Release!

Japanese Incantation

Reveal your true form to me

I, Eriol, command you under our contract

Release!

Trivia

• In the anime, Eriol has never referred to Syaoran as his "darling relative" or "my cute little descendant" as in the manga.
• In Clamp's Angelic Layer, there is a school called "Eriol Academy". However, Clamp is known to make inter-textual references within their series. There is no evidence to suggest any link between the character and the school.
• In the manga, Eriol's powers are ineffective against Fujitaka Kinomoto, Sakura's father. This is because when Clow Reed's soul split into two spirits, one was Eriol who held the memories of his past life as Clow, while the second was Fujitaka who possessed none of the memories. However, in the anime, this entire revelation is scrapped and no reference is ever made. Fujitaka is also affected by Eriol's sleep spell in the anime.
• In the manga, when he's asked why he created Spinel and Ruby, Eriol replies that he knew that Yue and Cerberus would attack him at Tokyo Tower, simply to protect Sakura from harm. He also states that if he hadn't created Spinel or Ruby his two former creations would have been searching for the Clow within him.
• In the anime and manga series: Chobits, there is a Character who resembles Eriol, whose name is Minoru Kokubunji.
• Although Syaoran hates Eriol, he always takes his advice to heart. By the end of the anime (the 2nd Movie) Syaoran is no longer bothered by Sakura mentioning of Eriol's name. For example in the attached mini movie "Leave it to Kero" everyone is having a tea party and Sakura specifically references both boys without any animosity from Syaoran. By the end of the manga, Syaoran is also keeping in touch with Eriol as evidenced when he calls the mansion to let them know he could not make it to see Eriol off.
• In spite of appearing to have all of Clow's memories, Eriol makes no indication that he knows of Yuko Ichihara or that Clow went Clow Country.
• Since Eriol is from England, the origin of his Japanese surname is not explained.