LOL, I love how bluntly you put that.

Well, basically…

Toei Nayuki: Is privvy to the development of Yuuichi and Ayu’s relationship, and becomes increasingly jealous until Ayu’s disappearance, whereupon she begins to feel guilty for being happy that Ayu is gone. Struggles with her conflicting feelings, such that she barely speaks to Yuuichi even with the other girls out of the picture and Akiko hospitalised. As Yuuichi is about to leave the city to be with his parents, she admits her feelings for him via a recorded message, and then plays the critical role in resolving Yuuichi’s relationship with Ayu by alerting him just as he’s about to leave to the fact that Ayu is in the room next to Akiko. Thereafter reconciles herself to the fact that Yuuichi loves Ayu, and not her.

Game Nayuki: As the other girls drop out of Yuuichi’s life, she begins to spend more and more time with him. They study together in her room for exams, and as they do so their relationship grows steadily more romantic. Akiko’s hospitalisation speeds things up; as Yuuichi comforts Nayuki, they end up making out in the snow, having sex in her bedroom, and becoming a couple. At no point is there any danger of Yuuichi leaving the city (indeed, Yuuichi’s ‘bad’ girl-less ending involves him just continuing school as usual with Nayuki), nor is there any real conflict with Ayu.

@ Tim: Whoa, that’s a pretty dense analysis of Nayuki’s character and the inevitability of her treatment. It’s true that Nayuki and Ayu’s “endings” can’t coexist though.

Well, hopefully she at least gets some serious angsting time, even moreso than in Toei’s version. I’m still looking forward to the Ayu ending though.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Nayuki’s story and Ayu’s stories are implicitly romantic. The romance can be removed from Shiori, Mai, and Makoto’s stories with the essence of the story left intact because their respective relationships with Yuuichi are not founded on their love for him, nor are the problems that their stories attempt to resolve. The same cannot be said of Ayu and Nayuki. The former is bound to life and consciousness by the depth of her love for Yuuichi and her desire to wait for him forever, the latter has been tormented all her life by her unrequited feelings for him and by his indifferent attitude towards her. Their stories cannot co-exist.

In the game, Nayuki’s story – her romance with Yuuichi – is entirely contingent on Yuuichi’s isolation. It is because the other girls have dropped out of Yuuichi’s life – Ayu finds her missing treasure without Yuuichi’s help and vanishes, Makoto runs away and is never seen again, and Yuuichi never meets Shiori or Mai – that Yuuichi begins to spend time with Nayuki, and as a consequence come to recognise her feelings and reciprocate them.

In the Toei version of Kanon, Nayuki’s story was basically rewritten from the ground up. Her angst over Yuuichi’s growing attachment to Ayu, her jealousy and eventual role in the series’ happy ending – these formed the cornerstone of her character there, and they didn’t appear in the original game. Toei created them because they realised that Nayuki was not a character whose story would fit into the harem format they’d chosen for the series. Her story was just not possible if Yuuichi was to end up with Ayu.

Nah, thaz Ayu’s right hand holding the chopsticks, notice her left hand was holding the light blue bowl.

notice that in the screencap, the length of the chopstick ends at the edge of the bowl, and not at the edge of rice in it

Wow, good eye lol. I never would have caught that >_> I shall add to post and credit you XD

@ Nightingale: I still don’t see anything wrong with Ayu’s hand >_> try explaining exactly what’s weird about it?

-.-