Eriol Hiiragizawa



Eriol Hiiragizawa (柊沢 エリオル, Hiiragizawa Erioru) is a fictional character in Clamp's anime and manga seriesCardcaptor Sakura. He is known as Eli Moon in the English adaptation Cardcaptors. Voiced by Bill Switzer (series), Johnny Yong Bosch (2nd movie) and Sasaki Nozomu (in Japanese).

Physical Appearance
Eriol has dark blue hair, snow white skin, and large gray eyes underneath his square glasses. His outfit changes depending on the situation. When at school, he wears the school's uniform and 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
Despite his appearance, Eriol is not actually a child. He as he halted his aging to get close to Sakura. His actual age is unknown, except that he's around the age of Sakura's father. Eriol's life experience, with his access to Clow Reed's memories, means that he is significantly more knowledgeable and mature than his classmates. He is skilled in basketball, cooking, academics, piano, and art. He is more literate in Japanese writing than Syaoran, despite coming from a country that uses a completely different writing system.

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, so quite comical, such as when he puts her in a pit filled with stuffed sheep.

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 persuadesSyaoran 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 also befriends Takashi Yamazaki and becomes his partner-in-crime when it comes to telling lies; he and Takashi respond to each other's cues perfectly and can together enforce the false validity of their story by both appearing to have detailed knowledge of the subject, thwarting Chiharu's usual dispelling 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, although this had a drawback. At first when Sakura transformed just one Clow Card into a Sakura Card, it was too much for her and afterwards she would fall asleep from exhaustion.

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 andRuby 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 hamper Sakura. Eventually she manages to convert Light and Dark with the help of Cerberus and Yue, who together fused with Sakura's wand to make it more powerful, and Syaoran, who provided moral support and the confidence to carry on, even though his attempt to aid her with his magic resulted in him passing out which happened 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 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, & hurt that Clow had forced him through the all the pain of having to choose another master when Clow himself had 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 continues to explain Clow's reasoning and helps Yue come to terms with Clow's death and his decision to reincarnate himself. With his task complete, Eriol makes the decision to return to England with Kaho, Spinel and Ruby Moon.

Magic
As Eriol retains most of the endless memories and great magical powers of Clow Reed, he is a remarkably formidable sorcerer, being able to effortlessly employ high-ranking magic 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 was testing Sakura to see if she was worthy to be the next master of the cards. Examples of this are when he brought a teddy bear to life, causing it to grow and gain immense strength in the process, also when he used his power to enable some children's rides in a play area to move around albeit in a random sequence of jumping motions.

In his duel with Sakura, he demonstrated the power to unleash potent bursts of scarlet energy from his staff, and to amplify the powers of others so that they could overcome their opponents easily. 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.

Like Clow, Eriol's powers are drawn from both light and darkness.

Cardcaptors
Eriol's name is changed to Eli Moon and the scene were he kissed Sakura's hand is deleted.

StaffEditar sección
English Incantation I call upon the power of the day and the night. Sun and Darkness unleash your might. Release!

Japanese The key that hides the power of darkness. Reveal your true form to me! I, Eriol, command you under our contract. Release!

Trivia

 * In the anime, Eriol has never refered to Syaoran as his "darling relative" or "my cute little descendant".
 * In Clamp's Angelic Layer, there is a school called "Eriol Academy". However, Clamp is known to make intertextual 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 had the full memories of his past life as Clow while the second was Fujitaka. In the anime, though, this entire revelation is scrapped and no reference is ever made as during the anime, Fujitaka was affected by Eriol's sleep spell.
 * 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, then 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, he is named: Minoru Kokubunji.
 * Although Syaoran hates Eriol, he always takes his advice to focus. By the end of the anime (the 2nd Movie) Syaoran is no longer bothered by the mention of Eriol's name by Sakura; also evidenced by the attached mini movie "Leave it to Kero" where everyone is having a tea party together 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 by 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 had gone to Clow Country.
 * Eriol is from England. The origin of his Japanese surname is not explained.