Oh God I lol’d so hard

Ahaha, oh wow. This episode almost singlehandedly turned me into a Nagisa convert, she was so awesome. This is pretty much exactly what I thought would come out of the extra episodes, a little epilogue about how Nagisa and Tomoya’s relationship develops, all one huge ramp up to the After Story, which I’ll talk about later. But in the meantime, I no longer have any resent over Kyou not getting Tomoya, she’s still my favourite character, but NagisaXTomoya is great in its own way.

It’s summer vacation and Tomoya and Nagisa are on their way to cram classes for entrance exams, even though Tomoya has no plans for going to college, he’s not about to abandon his girlfriend while she studies her summer away. On the way to school, Tomoya asks Nagisa if she wants to hold hands, some profuse blushing afterwards, they get pretty close until Kyou rides up on her scooter and right in between the rabu rabu couple.

At school, Tomoya is bored out of his mind, paying little attention to the lessons. Afterwards, instead of heading to the drama club room with everyone else to eat lunch, he decides to head over to Sunohara’s for a while. Much to the dismay of Tomoyo and Kyou, who continue to be at odds with each other despite both having “lost” Tomoya. On that note, Tomoyo asks Nagisa why she still calls Tomoya by his given name “Okazaki-san”, he’s been calling her “Nagisa-chan” for a while now, the conversation quickly degenerates into a “So…have far have you two gone?” one.

The same conversation is being held elsewhere, Sunohara amazed and disappointed that the two of them haven’t even held hands yet, despite dating for a few weeks now. Their conversation is cut short when Misae comes in to tell Sunohara he has a visitor, a really cute one at that. Which of course could only mean one thing, Mei. After she cleans up Sunohara’s place she immediately ditches him to go to Nagisa’s place with Tomoya. The Furukawa household continues to be more of a hotel than a bakery, as Mei is invited to stay the night, a rather sleepless night it turns out to be, as she stays up talking to Nagisa about Tomoya instead.

The next day, Tomoya, Mei and Nagisa decide to take care of the bakery and give Sanae and Akio a day off. Being the holidays, business is kinda slow, so Mei decides to head outside and do advertise a little. Soon, the customers start pouring in, but oddly enough they seem shocked when they enter and realize it’s a bakery. Tomoya goes to see what Mei is up to, seems like she’s been telling random passerbys that there’s a really cute girl in the store. At the end of the day, every single piece of bread is sold out, breaking the sales records the bakery had on its opening day.

The next day, Tomoya heads over to Sunohara’s again, Sunohara lamenting his sister, who has left him to rot in his room. As if on cue, Mei shows up soon after, but proceeds to kick her brother out of the room so she can talk to Tomoya. Mei tells him that she’s planning on acting as a makeshift cupid. Tomoya thinks she means she’s going to be setting up Sunohara with someone, and when she claims that the candidate for her plan is in the room, his imagination of forbidden incestuous love between the Youhei siblings. But Mei says she’s not talking about herself, which causes his mind to wander about a pairing between himself and Sunohara.

Mei finally gets to the point, that it’s Tomoya and Nagisa that she’ll be helping out. She asks Tomoya what his ideal Nagisa would be like, he responds that she’s a little self-critical, so he wishes that she’d have a little more confidence in herself. Great! Mei, exclaims, followed by the coincidental entry of Nagisa.

The two go on a small date, starting off with a walk, and it’s clear that something is up. Nagisa is blushing beet red the whole time, but saying things like Tomoya should be happy to walk with such a cute girl like herself. The two head back home where Nagisa asks Tomoya if he would treat her to something, stating that he shouldn’t mind, since it’s for her, again, looking like she’s about to die of embarrassment the whole way through. And finally, the clincher, as Nagisa eats the cinnamon roll Tomoya bought her, she asks if he would want to try some, Tomoya says he doesn’t really want any, Nagisa says that’s a bit of a problem, and asks him again. Tomoya shrugs and goes with it, Nagisa puckers her lips and…

…blows the sweet scent of cinnamon into Tomoya’s face. His shock stricken “I can’t believe how lame that was” face. And the jig is up, Tomoya calls Mei out from behind a nearby tree, the whole date clearly being her plan, stating the operation a success, she runs off. Nagisa is tearing up, wondering if Tomoya might hate her for doing something like that, Tomoya assures her that he would never hate her, grabs her hand and tells her that they’ll take it at their own pace. The two head off for a walk, hand in hand, Nagisa pledging to be with Tomoya forever.

…D’AWWWWWW :3

Thoughts

Nanoha Mei-tan ftw!

Wow, Mei’s quite the little hell raiser, but ridiculously cute in her own way. She reminded me a lot more of Rika than Nanoha in this episode, personality wise, I was half-expecting her to bust out a Ni-pah~ somewhere in there, her voice will forever be attached to Nanoha in my mind though. From a subjective point of view, I can’t believe Sunohara hasn’t tried to pull a Jun->Noe on Mei yet, but looking at it objectively, she seems like one of those sisters that would annoy you to no end if you had to live with her day in and day out.

Best scene in the episode, definitely. I’ve never laughed so hard while watching Clannad, I had to pause for a few minutes, I couldn’t keep watching because I was in tears from laughing so hard. It was Tomoya’s face, he looked like he wanted to facepalm through his skull, but was paralyzed by how terrible the scenario at hand was. It was an amazing Kyon-like moment, had he applied the facepalm, it would have completed the whole thing, and I would have likely died from laughter induced suffocation.

Obligatory Kyou mention. I never really paid much attention to it before, but damn does she cockblock (well, not literally of course) Tomoya a lot. I know she did it before, in that scene where Nagisa was crying and Tomoya was supposed to kiss her or something. Though at that time the competition was still sort of open, so that was fair game. At first I thought Kyou did it in a bout of mild spite, but after she had that same resigned look on her face, coupled with a bit of happiness for Tomoya, so I don’t think it was spite that made her do it. lol, dunno

I KNEW IT! HAH!

I’m so glad I didn’t bash the ending of Clannad, as it was far from the end at all. KyoAni delivers! Prepare to BAAAW!

The only thing that saddens me about this is that it means we’re not going to be getting an FMP season 4 from KyoAni for a while, which is a crying shame, the series is so good, it deserves another season. One of the few shows where I just could not make up my mind about who to throw my support to, Chidori and Tessa are equally love.

But anyways, this is probably going to make Haruhi fans RAGE, putting off their hopes for another season off for at least another year, unless KyoAni really surprises us and does it during the summer. Doubt it though, they would have begun hyping it already if that were the case. I’d expect Clannad After Story to hit the airwaves in Fall 08, so around late September, early October? I believe in May’s Dengeki there will be an interview with Clannad’s director where he’ll probably give some solid release info.

Well, that’s another prediction I got right this week. Now to avoid /a/ like the plague over the weekend in fear of True Tears spoilers while praying that my prediction luck strikes thrice.

Notice Sunohara saying a silent prayer for his h-magazines, which are undoubtedly about to be doomed to the recycling pile

~ Shirukii ~

That’s it…?

Where’s the implied sex, offspring, and bittersweet end?! You promised me a BAAWfest KyoAni, WHERE’S MY BAAWfest?!

I’m not satisfied with how Clannad “ended” but I’m almost certain that we’ll see another season or an OVA covering Nagisa’s After Story, so I’ll reserve judgment for now and refrain from saying anything that will come back to bite me down the road.

The day of the festival has arrived and things aren’t looking so great, pathetic fallacy shows us that’s we’re in for a rough day. As expected, Nagisa hasn’t recovered from the shock of discovering her parents’ old diary along with the realization that she was responsible for diverting their lives. Tomoya tries to cheer her, reminding her that she is an individual with her own dreams that others have worked hard to make a reality. Besides, Akio and Sanae are still happy, even now, but as there’s no denying that they did give up their dreams because of Nagisa, she can’t stop blaming herself.

Everyone gathers in the drama room where they notice Nagisa acting a little strange, Sunohara tries to help out by teaching her the charm where you write the character for “person” on your hand three times and swallow it, but even the resulting hilarity fails to cheer up Nagisa. She and Tomoya head out to wander the festival for a while since their play isn’t until the afternoon, Nagisa tries her best to get her spirits up, but it’s clear she can’t stop thinking about her parents. Lost in thought, Nagisa and Tomoya get separated.

Nagisa ends up at the reference library where she asks Yukine if she could see some past school play performances. By the time Tomoya finds her, the situation is degrading fast, Nagisa found a video of an acting contest Akio participated in long ago, while accepting the award for first place he voiced his love for plays and his dreams to become a professional actor. Tomoya can do nothing but repeat himself, Nagisa is her own self and has to do what she can in the present instead of dwelling on the past. So he’s said, but standing on the stage, moments before the curtain rises, Nagisa isn’t looking any better.

Staring out at the sea of people, Nagisa begins to replay her father’s words in her head: “I love plays!”, “I’ll continue to stand on stage with all my heart!” “I’ll definitely go pro!”. Nagisa can’t keep it together and breaks down in tears on stage. Just as Tomoya is about to lower the curtains, Akio appears at the back of the theater and cries out to Nagisa telling her to realize her own dreams, that they never gave up, her dreams became their dreams, that’s what it is to be a parent, that’s what it is to be a family, and if she falls here, it will all be for naught. Sanae also stands up and cheers her on, and with Tomoya’s final push, that she bears the burden of his and Sunohara’s failed dreams as well, Nagisa pulls herself together and the play begins.

The play goes well and ends in applause, despite Nagisa singing Dango Daikazoku at the play’s climax, Tomoya congratulates her on a job well done. As the two sit outside and talk, Tomoya’s father approaches them, apparently Nagisa invited him to the play and to talk to Tomoya afterwards. They’re not exactly on the best of terms just yet, but Tomoya does show some concern for his dad, muttering under his breath telling him not to drink too much. Thanking Nagisa, he asks if she wants to go on a date the next day.

Kyou interrupts them and drags them back to the club room where they have a celebration party, afterwards they go to the closing bonfire of the school festival where Tomoya and Nagisa dance. The next day they go on their date and end off in the drama club room, where it all began, there, Tomoya finally cements their relationship, confessing and asking Nagisa out, Nagisa’s tears of happiness making the answer clear.

Thoughts

And that’s it. Yep, no epilogue, no indication of what happens after, no closure for any of the other girls (ie. no Fuko). Contrast to other Key adaptations where everything got tied up to a satisfactory point, Clannad just kinda cut off at the confession. There’s still the two OVA episodes though, so we’re not through just yet. Whether they’ll be inserts that show intermediate events during the story or more of a “where are they now” epilogue remains to be seen. But I maintain that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Clannad, even after the OVAs, there’s no way they can just stop before the Nagisa After, it’s widely recognized as the best part of Clannad.

Not that this episode was particularly bad though, it was lacking as a finale, but otherwise not bad at all. There was a lot of angsting, which can get annoying really quick, but given Nagisa’s situation it was justified enough that it didn’t bug me too much. The montage at the end seemed like it was supposed to be cathartic, but didn’t really have that impact, it left me feeling nice inside, but didn’t suffice in being the series tie up that it should have been. The theme of family was very nicely wrapped up though…

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND BELIEVE IN ME, WHO BELIEVES IN YOU

Akio was awesome, this scene was by far the best of the episode. This is what needed to be said to Nagisa all along, it’s only natural that parents will settle down and seek stability once they have a child, Nagisa had no reason to blame herself for that. Having a family means having to make sacrifices, but most parents are happy to do so to see their kid happy. Akio’s speech encompassed that well and as expected from someone who used to do drama, his presentation was powerful. Words can’t do justice, you have to watch it yourself. Akio is GAR.

The play itself was a little weak though. I stalled on the visual novel so I still don’t understand the symbolism of it all, people have kept telling me throughout the series that, in hindsight, the play would serve as a parallel to the events of the series. Not that I’m saying they’re wrong, but it didn’t. We didn’t even get to see its conclusion, Nagisa was just like: “Oh, they lived happily ever after and then sang a song. The End. ^_^”. So much for the symbolic and thought provoking analog that it was supposed to serve as.

Heh, well I said I wasn’t going to rant only to regret it later, but I ended up doing quite a bit of ranting. Oh well. I’m confident that it won’t end here, it CAN’T end here. Clannad was supposed to trump Kanon in its ability to reduce people to tearing up like a five year old girl, and even rival AIR. It must deliver. (And hey, if it doesn’t, there’s always the visual novel =D)

Next week: Be My Only Sunohara Forever. Surprise GAY END?

Pedobear Tomoyo, because I couldn’t find a decent shot of Kyou

~ Shirukii ~

We start with Kyou, just because =P

Sorry for the lateness of this entry, blame five straight hours of SSBB, which my friends and I have concluded is vastly inferior to Melee.

Anyways, I digress, great episode, unlike Hinano, I thought the Kyou and Tomoyo scenes were time well spent. But I do recognize the point she makes and am equally scared how they’re going to pack everything that has to happen in order for a satisfactory Nagisa arc into their few remaining episodes.

With the school festival fast approaching, the drama club kicks their activities into high gear. With coaching from Koumura-sensei they begin to make their way through the paces of getting a decent play up and running. Everything from fancervicey gym stretches to eternally long tongue twisters to more practical things like sounds and lighting, the drama club finally is starting to look like one rather than a random after school gathering of Tomoya’s harem.

Sanae and Akio are getting into it too, with no one else to turn to, Sanae is counted on for sewing the costumes, Akio helps out by bringing a video of a play for reference, helpful since Nagisa doesn’t remember ever having seen an actual play! Afterwards, he helps Tomoya look for the book that Nagisa’s play might be based on, finding nothing but her bedpan and some buried memories, which are then placed dangerously close to the shed opening.

After seeing a video of a play and almost being moved to tears, Nagisa suddenly decides that she wants to incorporate a song into the play’s climax. She gets Rie and the drama club to help her pick out a song of her vast music collection and gets to work on it immediately. As he sees Nagisa putting her heart into this play, Tomoya can’t help but be amazed by this girl, once deathly shy and unable to make friends, now surrounded by people who support her, in more ways than one, as shown by Tomoyo’s little speech, which I’ll talk about later.

With the play essentially written, everyone’s jobs decided, the drama club along with the rest of the school push onwards towards the school festival.

The day before the school festival arrives, also the first time the club will be running through a full rehearsal of the play. Nagisa has some pre-performance jitters which are calmed down with the support of the club, in particular some stupid techniques for dealing with anxiety from Sunohara. Putting their hands together for a cheer, Nagisa heads out to the stage.

Apparently rehearsal goes well, Tomoya telling Sanae and Akio that no problems were encountered during the performance. Cheering on their daughter, Sanae and Akio go a little overboard on the enthusiasm and garner some sarcastic remarks from Tomoya, which are responded to by Nagisa saying that Tomoya will surely be the same when he’s a parent, since he’s a lot like Akio.

Later that night, too tense to sleep, Nagisa visits Tomoya’s room to talk for a while. Nagisa voices her concerns over the play and the conversation again drifts into her feeling that she did something terrible to her parents when she was small. Tomoya tells her that she can’t always be thinking that everything is her fault, that she has to let it all go and concentrate on the play.

Before going to sleep, Nagisa makes sure to pack everything she needs, heading out to the shed to pick up a flashlight to illuminate things backstage, she knocks over the box filled with Sanae and Akio’s past. It isn’t until hours later when Tomoya gets up to go to the bathroom that he finds Nagisa reading her parents’ diary and going over pictures of their younger days when Akio was an aspiring actor and Sanae was a teacher. Tomoya tells her to get some sleep, reminding her what he said earlier about concentrating on what’s in front of her, but the damage is clearly done. Akio walks in on Tomoya cleaning up and can’t believe how bad the timing was on this disaster.

Thoughts

Poor Nagisa, that expression she had when she found out she was the cause of her parents’ abandonment of her dreams was crushing. Again, I’m loving the “new” Clannad that concentrates on themes of family more than the harem ffa of the first 19 episodes. Families are an interesting social unit, they can be in constant conflict, constant harmony or anywhere in between. Spending so much time with the same people guarantees conflict, there’s no escaping it, certain families will overcome it and come closer together, while others will be torn apart because of it. Nagisa blames herself for doing something horrible to her parents, her parents blame themselves for neglecting Nagisa, neither is a justified cause for self-loathing, but they agonize over it anyways. The angst that can come out of a family’s problems, and every family has problems, is arguably more genuine than anything than you could cook up in a love story.

But that said, I still like the throwbacks to the good old harem days. Tomoyo coming into the drama club room, blushing up a storm in the presence of Tomoya and then essentially congratulating Nagisa for winning his heart was a bittersweet moment. It’s sad to see the defeated reminded about their loss, but nice to see that they’re slowly moving on. I’m just glad that KyoAni hasn’t completely abandoned what they spent well over half the series developing. Hell, who am I kidding, I’m just happy to get more Kyou and Tomoyo screentime. Kyou = perfect girlfriend material, Tomoyo = perfect waifu material. Nagisa? Moe cockroach?

But given that Nagisa has won the harem, it sure is taking them a while to solidify their relationship. Another Tomoya confession checkpoint arrived at and driven by, lol, “save it for later”. The blood of Nagisa fans must be boiling over these two. Even Akio has pretty much resigned his daughter to the guy, just get together you two!

I haven’t seen the Clannad movie yet, but I know roughly what happens in it, how is it that the events of that movie could possibly transpire within the…what, two episodes + OVA we have left. Barring some hueg time skip, I don’t see it happening. Will they end Nagisa’s arc prematurely at the end of the school festival or shortly after it? I don’t want to doubt KyoAni’s pacing of Key adaptations because they’ve done fairly well with them in the past, but I seriously see no way they’re going to pull this off, unless we’re in for another 1-2 cour season. Anyone care to think of another way?

In any case, next week will be the school festival episode, from the preview, Nagisa looks like she’s a total wreck after learning about what she did to her parents.

Ah glasses, exponential hotness multiplier on almost any anime girl

~ Shirukii ~

;_;

So first off, I fail at plot prediction. Sorry to all those who suggested that Nagisa’s play might be a parallel to the alternate world scenes that we’ve seen throughout Clannad, seems like you guys were right, orz.

Anyways, my fears of Clannad taking a turn for the mundane with Kyou, Ryou and Tomoyo out of the love game seem completely unjustified now, I’m really liking the focus on family themes rather than romantic ones. Sure the eyecatching OH GOD KYOU IS HOT fanservice isn’t there anymore, but the current Clannad does a much better job at drawing me in to the story. It’s a pity that there’s not enough time to cover the entirety of Nagisa’s story to a satisfactory level.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

Tomoya finds Nagisa doing some overtime drama club practice just outside her house and scolds her for going out all alone at such an hour, even if it’s just outside. That aside, he asks if she’s remembered the name of the play she wants to perform at the school festival has come to her yet. Nagisa can’t remember the name, but she does remember what it’s about, a very sad story of a world in which a girl lives, all alone.

The next morning Tomoya can’t shake the feeling that Nagisa’s story sounds somehow familiar, his thoughts are broken up by Sanae running out of the bakery in tears, her newly created rainbow bread getting a flat out rejection from a customer. Grabbing for clues, Tomoya asks Akio if he has any idea where Nagisa might be getting her story from, an old book perhaps, he has no idea and suggests asking Sanae. Also, he warns Tomoya that should he find something, that he should come to him before showing anything to Nagisa. Asking Sanae doesn’t lead anywhere either, given that she’s terrible with sad stories herself, it doesn’t seem like the type of story she’d pass on, she can’t think of any books they had like it either.

Giving the school’s collection a shot, Tomoya goes with Sunohara to speak to Yukine, who unfortunately can’t think of any books matching the story either. While they’re there, Sunohara asks Yukine for a love charm that will point out a girl that likes him, and what do you know, there is indeed one. Forming a heart with your hands (Negative Heart, LOCK ON!) and chanting “To love and be loved, to reject and be rejected” three times will reveal the girl that thinks of you, the first one who speaks to you after doing the charm. Yet, after going around the school five times, Sunohara isn’t approached by anyone.

Tomoya gives it a shot next and the first person he runs into is…Fuko? Acting on his gut instinct, he tells Fuko not to say a word, and run off to play dead. Narrowly avoiding that disaster, naturally it’s Nagisa who approaches Tomoya next to talk, telling him to come to the drama club. There, she elaborates a bit on the story of the world with the lone girl, who ended her solitude by making a doll made of junk.

After school, Nagisa and Tomoya keep searching for the book that might contain her mystery story. They head out to the shed in the backyard and start going through it, but end up finding nothing but a dango bag clip on before Akio shows up and shoos them away back to their rooms.

Realizing that if things go on the way they are, Tomoya and Nagisa will dig up something they never expected, Akio has a talk with Tomoya, telling him what’s hidden in the shed, his and Sanae’s past. About ten years ago when Nagisa was still young, Sanae and Akio were chasing their youthful dreams, spending countless hours working towards it, unfortunately this often meant leaving Nagisa home alone. One day Nagisa had come down with a terrible fever, but it was during a time where Sanae and Akio couldn’t afford to take time off. However, after coming back from his job, Akio found Nagisa passed out outside on a day where it was freezing cold and snowing.

Feeling like it was a warning given to them by God, Akio and Sanae vowed that they would never leave Nagisa’s side after that day, they quit their current jobs and opened up the bakery so they could always be at home with her. Nagisa is starting to recall what happened, but Akio is waiting for the right time to bring it up, so he asks Tomoya to keep it a secret from her for the time being.

A sudden change of atmosphere, Akio announces that the next day they will be going on a picnic together. However, when the time comes, Tomoya bails, feeling like he would be intruding on Nagisa and her parents, he heads over to Sunohara’s place to avoid them for the day. But Sunohara makes him realize that what he’s doing is counterproductive, that it will only make Nagisa, whose confidence is completely reliant on Tomoya’s presence, feel worse.

With that, he goes running back to the Furukawas, only to find that his note saying he’d skip the picnic was tossed out by Akio, who believed he’d come back. With their day cut shorter than they thought, the four of them head to a closer by park where they join in on a game of baseball with some kids from the neighborhood in which Akio not so subtely prods along the romantic development between his daughter and the freeloader Tomoya.

Thoughts

Oh how the mighty have fallen, between the Fujibayashi sisters, Tomoyo and Kotomi, they saw, what, maybe 10-15 seconds of combined screen time and zero spoken lines, if I recall correctly. I like the “new” Clannad and its focus on Nagisa and Tomoya’s family situation, but this level of pushing other characters to the background is rather extreme. I mean, at least in Kanon and AIR the other girls would show up occasionally for comedic relief or something, it’s hard to do the whole suspension of belief thing when girls that Tomoya would previously spend hours talking to, have completely fallen out of his life. Then again, I suppose it’s necessary for KyoAni to do this so they have some chance at cramming in all of Nagisa’s massive story into their remaining 3 episodes + epilogue.

One thing that I would have liked to have seen more explanation of is exactly how Tomoya came to love Nagisa over the other girls. I maintain that his interactions with Kyou were more along the lines of what would lead up to a romantic relationship. I get that Tomoya and Nagisa have a lot of shared dependence on each other, Nagisa being helped by Tomoya to achieve her dreams and Nagisa essentially giving him some sort of purpose in life. But there few key scenes where the two bonded as a couple, at some point they just started acting like one. Maybe it’s just my terrible memory that’s failing me here?

The flashback about Nagisa’s past was standard fare for drama animu, something that would come out of a b-grade drama or a soap opera, but despite that I think it fit pretty well. It didn’t have the BAAW factor of say…Misuzu’s “Goooooal” scene at the end or AIR, but it did a good job at explaining how the Furukawa family came to be so close, as we’ve seen with Tomoyo’s family, tragedy can bind even the most broken families together. But I suspect that tears will flow by the end of the series, knowing roughly how Nagisa’s arc ends up, I can tell there’s a lot of room for heavy drama.

I thought this scene was one of the best in the episode, Sunohara once again proves himself to be a great friend and nice guy in general. The guy gets used as a gag character a lot, but it’s scenes like these that give him a depth far beyond comedic relief. He’s something akin to a voice of reason for Tomoya, looking at things from a perspective that he’s unable to himself, Tomoya still isn’t fully at terms with his relationship with Nagisa and it leads him to make some bad decisions at crucial times, Sunohara sees the truth behind the relationship the two share and nudges them back together when they start drifting. It’s too bad his actions are go thankless and the poor guy sits at home all alone ;_;

And finally, Fuko cameo! Which I actually thought was pretty funny this episode, it served as a nice comedy cut between all the family drama that was going on and it fit in fairly well with the situation at hand. Plus, she didn’t actually say anything and they didn’t go through the whole introduction scene. Minimalistic, short and straight to the joke, THAT is how you use Fuko.

♪ Cause this is thriller! Thriller night! ♪

~ Shirukii ~

Last thing you see before you die (it’d be a happy death)

Mixed feelings about this episode of Clannad, on one hand, all heroines except for Nagisa have been relegated to background scenery, including our beloved Kyou. However, I do like the direction that the series is going, finally starting to address the key issue of Clannad, the theme of “family”, which happens to be a non-literal translation of the word “Clannad” stemming from its root word: clan. The episode was slow but touched upon many important aspects of family dynamics.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

Thanks to Tomoya’s campaigning, Tomoyo wins the election for student council president and uses her influence to grant permission for the music club and drama club to share Koumura sensei as their adviser. A follow up celebration takes place in the drama club room after school where Nagisa thanks everyone for their support, saying she never wouldn’t have been able to do anything without their help. But they don’t have time to relax yet, the school festival is quickly approaching and their goal is to participate in it, Nagisa fears they won’t make it in time, but Tomoya tells her that her dream is within her reach now and she shouldn’t be hesitating.

Later, Tomoya is called down to the teacher’s office where his homeroom teacher tells him he intends to visit Tomoya’s father to talk about Tomoya’s future. Knowing that it’s useless taking that approach with his dad, Tomoya tries to run away, but he runs into Nagisa, who asks him to accompany her for to club practice, sending Tomoya running. When Nagisa finds out the real reason she drags him back to the teacher’s office where his homeroom teacher has a good laugh at the sight of Tomoya being tamed by a girl.

The two head over to Tomoya’s house where, as he thought might be the case, his father isn’t home, seizing the opportunity, Tomoya runs, leaving his teacher at his house to wait. But yet again, Tomoya runs into Nagisa, who immediately drags him back to his house where they’re just in time to see the “meeting”, which consists of Tomoya’s teacher insisting that his father is an important part of deciding Tomoya’s future while his father argues that Tomoya is Tomoya and he has no say in what he does with his life.

Afterwards, Tomoya explains to Nagisa that he and his father haven’t been what you would call a “family” for a long time now. Nagisa comes up with a bold suggestion, she thinks that they should spend some time apart from each other, when people spend time apart they begin to miss each other and when reunited they’ll be able to have a nice long talk, and with that, she invites Tomoya to stay at her house for a while. Tomoya heads home to pack his bags and is caught by his father just as he’s leaving, Tomoya tells him that he’ll be staying with a friend for a while, despite his father looking sad seeing his son abandon him, he doesn’t have the right to deny him his freedom.

Tomoya arrives at Nagisa’s house to be greeted by Akio and jokingly told to leave right after, Sanae comes down and straightens out her husband, who is just annoyed that his lovable daughter and wife will be in the presence of another man. Tomoya settles in but can’t really shake the uncomfortable feeling that anyone would have staying over at a friend’s house, especially him, who has never experienced what it’s like to live with a loving family. Nagisa, Akio and Sanae all help him out, trying their best to make him feel at home, treating him no different from how they would their own son.

At school, the drama club is finally in full swing with Koumura at the helm, explaining the work that needs to go into a play, behind the scenes work like lighting, sound and costumes, and of course the essentials, like acting. Tomoyo makes a quick visit as well, curious to see what became of the drama club after her approval, she assists Kyou putting Sunohara in line, who continues his joker ways.

After club activities, Tomoya and Nagisa arrive home to find a bunch of kids in Tomoya’s room rummaging through his stuff. Apparently Sanae runs a cram school for kids and couldn’t manage to setup another room in time for their first meeting after Tomoya moved in. Not getting along with the kids very well, Tomoya heads downstairs where he’s forced into tending to the shop by Akio. The conversation shifts to Sanae and how she used to be a middle school teacher, Tomoya is surprised and asks why she quit, but doesn’t get a real answer out of Akio.

That evening, Nagisa comes to visit Tomoya, who is sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. They talk about how Tomoya is adjusting, he still feels weird being around a family that gets along so well. Nagisa understands, her parents do take very good care of her. However, she feels like there’s something that she should apologize for, but she doesn’t know what. Nagisa explains that she’s always had this feeling that when she was younger she did something very terrible to her parents, when she brings it up they always tell her she’s just imagining things, but they’re quick to change the subject and they start to act weird whenever she brings it up.

Not wanting to neglect his routine or leave the only male member of his harem lonely, Tomoya heads over to Sunohara’s to kill some time. Doesn’t take long for Sunohara to extract the information that Tomoya is staying at Nagisa’s house from him, envious of his catch, despite Tomoya still denying that they have that sort of relationship.

Thoughts

Ah Sanae, I’d eat her bread, if you know what I mean

Finally we’re getting down to the stuff that I expected when I first started watching Clannad. While it may be a Key work and a harem by all rights, Clannad’s differentiating point is its strong focus on family themes, or so I was told when I first heard of it. This episode finally starts to reveal these aspects.

Sure we’ve known of Tomoya’s problems at home for quite some time now, but it’s been more of a lingering thorn in our sides than anything. We haven’t gotten any background as to what tore Tomoya’s family apart and sent his dad into a spiral of depression and general apathy towards life. The more the series progresses, and especially in this episode, I’m beginning to sympathize with the old man, Tomoya’s generally a nice guy, but in the case of his father, rather than it being an issue of Tomoya’s dad not wanting to apologize and become a family again, it seems more like Tomoya is the one holding the grudge that prevents them from doing so. When he was talking to Tomoya’s teacher, the feeling I got from Tomoya’s dad was less of apathy towards his son, but more a feeling that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t help, it was also really saddening seeing his face when Tomoya left the house.

In addition, we also see that Nagisa’s family, while infinitely better than Tomoya’s, seems to have its share of problems too. When Tomoya asked Akio about Sanae and her past as a teacher, the subject was quickly avoided, and there’s also the whole deal with Nagisa and the feeling she has that she did something terrible to her parents in the past. Every family, no matter how happy they seem on the surface, is bound to have some internal problems, it’s an inevitable effect from spending so much time with one another, Nagisa’s family is no exception. I look forward to seeing how things play out, as it could lead to some genuine, non-romance centric drama.

The one thing that I hated about this episode was something I saw coming the second Tomoya’s harem conceded defeat to Nagisa, the screentime for his other haremettes has plummeted. Now I wouldn’t really mind if it were a parting of sorts, Kyou and Ryou bowing out and cutting off ties, you know, the way these things usually work. What kills me is that everything is back to business as usual, despite all the crying they did last episode, the Fujibayashis show no signs of resentment towards either Nagisa nor Tomoya and have returned to being great buddies with them in the span of days, REJECTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!

And finally, we’re given another glimpse of Clannad’s alternate world with the loli and her robot. I’m sure the symbolism of all this will be crystal clear in hindsight, but right now all that I’m getting out of the scenes is a look of awe as the number of animation frames shoots through the roof. At this point I would remind you that spoiler tags are our friends :3 I haven’t had the time to play the Clannad VN for a while now.

What the…

~ Shirukii ~

Noooooooooooooooo

Well…damn. It’s not like I didn’t see this coming, everyone did, but that was far more heartbreak than I expected. I wanted to reach through the screen and give Ryou and Kyou a hug and tell them that everything is going to be alright ;_;

Episode Rating: 10/10

Not only is Tomoyo coming to Tomoya’s house everyday to wake him up, since he got suspended because of her, she starts to make him breakfast as well (fair trade off I suppose). But when Tomoya’s dad wakes up and accepts Tomoyo’s offer to join them for breakfast, Tomoya gets up, thanks her for the food and leaves. He heads over to Sunohara and decides to toy around with him to start off the day.

With the club president sick and Tomoya suspended, the drama club is in a lull, sitting around idly. Worried about how Tomoya is doing, Kyou and Ryou head over to see him and drag him outside for a bit. The three end up going to a game center and Kyou forces him to try one of those compatibility fortune telling machines with Ryou. Much good that does though, giving them the vague “friendship” result along with the sentiment that where things go from here depends on the feelings of the individuals. Afterwards, Kyou excuses herself and tells Tomoya to walk Ryou home, the two discussing their thoughts on fortune telling along the way, how every girl is inherently interested in it and how her predictions are always wrong. But Ryou thinks that’s fine, if her predictions were always right it would seem like there’s only one path to walk in life, whereas getting it wrong means there’s an element of chance for the future.

That Sunday, Tomoyo shows up, faithfully as always, this time cooking lunch for Tomoya. However, things get a little complicated when Ryou and Kyou show up, having made some food for Tomoya too. As if that weren’t enough, Kotomi shows with her share as well. With a mountain of food before him, made with the sincere feelings of all the girls in front of him, Tomoya is in a tight spot. The final blow is struck via Fuko cameo, who drops with some food of her own, various starfish shaped pastries. There’s no way out, even Ryou is pressuring him to eat the food she got up at 5 a.m. to make…

The following day, Tomoya’s suspension ends and he’s back in school, only with a massive case of heartburn from attempting (he couldn’t have possibly succeeded) to eat everyone’s dishes the day before.

With his return to school comes a rather unpleasant surprise, Tomoyo’s student counsel campaign isn’t going well, rumors of her gang involvement in her early school days are killing her chances of winning. Taking a page out of Sunohara’s book, Tomoya tries to shift the attention Tomoyo is getting by having her face off against various athletic clubs. Baseball, kendo, gymnastics, swimming, Tomoyo challenges them all with the promise that she’ll join them if she loses, soon everybody is in awe of her athletic prowess, a successful diversion from her gang reputation.

After school, Tomoyo thanks Tomoya for helping her turn her campaign around. The two walk home together and Tomoyo starts to talk about her past. She asks Tomoya what he thinks keeps people on the straight path in life, Tomoya responds first with talent, given talent you have motivation to succeed, failing that, perhaps love? Tomoyo thinks it’s family, Tomoya disagrees, an obvious reaction given his situation, but Tomoyo insists, saying that it need not be a real family, even friends are fine, as long as the elements which construct a family are present.

When Tomoyo was younger her parents didn’t get along well, let alone fight, they barely spoke to each other, even living in the same house. This led her to take her anger and resentment out on others, earning herself her gang slaying reputation. When her parents finally decided to get a divorce they began to argue over child custody, Tomoyo didn’t care much, but her brother didn’t want to family to split up and threatened to jump into a river if they didn’t call the divorce off, and surprisingly, he actually does it. His resulting hospitalization brought the family back together and when he was released, they all went to watch the sakura trees along the path to school bloom, a tradition they repeated every year. And that’s why Tomoyo wants to become student counsel president so badly, there’s currently a movement to cut down the sakura trees along that path despite opposition from residents and students, if she were to become student president, she could take action to preserve them.

The following day, Nagisa returns to school! Everyone is happy to see her back, but nobody more than Tomoya, who tries to play it cool but becomes a blushing mess when they talk for the first time in over a week.

Getting back to Tomoyo’s campaign, her next match up is against the tennis club. Tomoya and Nagisa sit on the sidelines on the coach’s bench, laughing it up and getting into the match. Kyou sees the two getting close and goes to intervene, but Ryou, with a pained look on her face, stops her. In the midst of the match, a ball goes stray and hits Nagisa in the leg, the tennis club member reaches for her arm to take her to the nurse’s office, almost instinctively, Tomoya slaps it away and takes her instead, without so much as a word to anyone else, he puts her arm around his shoulder and carries her off.

It doesn’t take a genius to read the atmosphere. Kyou tries to laugh it off, it was obvious all along, but one look at Ryou, on the verge of tears, and she can’t hold it in any longer, she breaks down with her sister, Tomoyo looking on, her feelings probably not too different.

The episode ends with a shot of the student counsel election results, President: Sakagami Tomoyo.

Thoughts

Argh, that was way more dramatic than I thought it would be. I take back what I said at the beginning of the series, KyoAni has upped their game this time around, they didn’t go for the one girl one arc formula, well, not after Kotomi anyways. They took the three major love based arcs and merged them into a believable race for Tomoya’s affection with a climactic end. It was also much more realistic than say, Kanon, where everyone walked away with a smile on their face, love isn’t like that, when one person is chosen over another, people get hurt, and I’m glad we got to see the ugly side of things. But damn Tomoya, how could that bastard pick Nagisa over Kyou, KYOU FFS!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both

But I’ve got to give it to him, he chose Nagisa from the start and stuck with his feelings. While he never made it clear to everyone else, (and perhaps he can’t even admit it to himself yet) he never wavered, even when presented with a free ticket to a Kyou buffet, he stood his ground. While I don’t think they’re the best couple, Tomoya and Nagisa do share a deep supportive bond, both owing a lot to the other, perhaps even dependent. No matter how much I wished against it or how much evidence was presented in favor of another ending, it’s been TomoyaXNagisa all along. Hell, even Kyou knew this, yet struggled against it.

Kyou’s tears were an interesting element to that last scene, not that it needed confirming, but it showed that she loved Tomoya as much, probably more, than her sister did. One doesn’t cry like that because your friend, or even family member lost a battle of love, those tears were for none other than herself.

I’m still rather curious about what Kyou was planning on doing all this time though. She was under the guise of helping her sister get with Tomoya, but she made it quite clear last episode that she wouldn’t mind stealing him away for herself, a tragic and, actually, stupid, position to put herself in (hasn’t she watched KimiNozo?). I can’t wait until Clannad is over so I can read the visual novel in full, I hear Kyou’s route is the worst of all of them, but her bad end is amazingly emotional, sure to leave you angsting for days, sounds fun.

Speaking of the visual novel, Tomoyo’s increased screen time further showed me why her fanbase is so huge, enough so to get her own spin off and manga. Perfect waifu material, athletic, loyal and hot in a completely different way than Kyou. Her past was rather surprising, I never would have thought she came from such a broken home, which in a sense makes her a nice match for Tomoya, having an idea of what he’s going through himself. Though, I’m a little ashamed to admit I lol’d at her brother trying to become an hero, but you have to admit, t’was pretty lame.

No comment.

I fear what will become of Clannad from here on in. With the re-establishment of the drama club and Nagisa’s return and flawless victory of the romance saga, what will happen to my weekly dosage of Kyou? Will she still stick around the club room despite knowing the battle is lost? She has way too much of a presence in the series to just cast aside like Kotomi, relegated to a few lines per episode, right? I loathe the possibility of KyoAni pushing aside the rest of the cast to focus in on the Nagisa-Tomoya dynamic. But on the other hand, after that final scene, it’d be weird to see Kyou, Ryou and Tomoyo returning to normal, they got owned in this little game of love, there must be underlying feelings of resentment towards Nagisa.

Meh, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I’m nothing but praises for an amazing episode to follow up last week’s, which I was sure wasn’t going to be topped for the rest of the series.

Edit* Crap, no Clannad next week?

~ Shirukii ~

Actually, that’s an understatement, Kyou transcends hotness

Warning, this is going to be a Kyou image heavy post and probably an equal amount of me going on about how awesome she is. Rival fancamps beware, Fuko lovers especially.

Best. Episode. Ever. Bar none. It rocketed Tomoyo from one of my least liked characters to probably my second favourite and needless to say I was quite happy with the gratituous Kyou screen time as well. But hell will freeze over before they have a hope at winning, watered down versions of their arcs are being carried out in parallel meaning the final arc, and the win, will surely go to Nagisa.

Episode Rating: 10/10

Following their display of perseverance in the basketball match, the music club consents and agrees to share Koumura-sensei as their club adviser. However, the student counsel sets them back yet again, denying their request to share advisers, saying that the teacher must be present at meetings so the best they would get is club activities every other day. Suddenly, everyone is reminded of Nagisa’s weak body condition as she collapses and has to be taken home to rest, meaning she’ll be missing school for a while.

The next morning, Tomoya gets another surprise as Tomoyo hovers above his bed opening his curtains beckoning him to wake up. Surprised, to say the least, Tomoya listens to her explain that as her friend she can’t let him continue to be late everyday and so will be coming to his house to wake him up every day, since it’s on the way anyways. Not wanting to suffer alone, Tomoya brings Tomoyo over to Sunohara’s place to wake him up as well, and together the three of them dash to school to make it to class on time.

Sharp as ever, Kyou notices this new morning routine and “invites” (read: forces) Tomoya to join her and Ryou for lunch again. The three of them enjoy Kyou’s cooking together while Kyou not so subtly acts as a matchmaker between them. Afterwards, Kyou tells Tomoya to look forward to tomorrow, as Ryou will be cooking, she then lectures Ryou, saying that she has to make a move quickly or Tomoyo will steal him away from her.

After school, Tomoyo sneaks up on Tomoya and Sunohara and starts asking him questions about why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. She ends up inviting herself to walk home with them, but Sunohara has another idea. He drags Tomoyo along to a shifty neighborhood where local gangs pick fights with him all the time, kicks back and enjoys watching the scamper away in fear when they see Tomoyo, seems like the rumors of her beating up gangs is true after all. Tomoya notices the situation is rather uncomfortable for her Tomoyo and manages to con Sunohara into treating them to a cafe visit in return. As they split up to head home, Tomoyo thanks Tomoya for helping her get out of there and tells him that it’s fun to spend time with him.

Morning comes once again, and sure enough, Tomoyo shows up to wake Tomoya up, just as promised. Not one to let Sunohara off the hook, Tomoya drags her over to his place to wake him up as well, worse yet, his usual stupidity gets him an early morning Chun-Li-esque kick spam.

Tomoya’s routine continues with lunch with the Fujibayashi sisters, cooking courtesy of Ryou this time, who is unexpectedly much worse than her sister, knocking Botan out with a tamagoyaki. After school, Tomoya kills some time by sitting all alone in the drama club room, angsting away about Nagisa being gone. He then decides to head to the reference library for some Yukine brewed coffee along which often comes along with weird book recommendations, this time it’s a book with various charms. Tomoya ends up trying a charm that involves stacking two 10-yen coins on top of each other, if done properly it will get him trapped in a gym storage room with a girl of his choice, figuring Kyou would be the most level headed in the situation, he goes with her.

And sure enough, soon afterwards, Kyou shows up carrying a handful of volleyballs asking for his help to clean up after a late running gym class. While the two are still inside the storage room, the open door is spotted and closed by Mitsui, locking them in.

When Tomoya realizes what’s happened, he immediately apologizes to Kyou, with the charm in mind. But Kyou misinterprets his apology, thinking he set the situation up, she panics and illusionary thoughts of her betraying Ryou and her “first time” start running wildly through her head. Tomoya tries to explain to her that it’s the charm’s doing, but Kyou wonders if such a pinpointed charm exists, but then realizes a hidden meaning behind it, out of everyone he picked her to get stuck with. Kyou continues to panic as Tomoya starts to take off his clothes, but his actions end up being the reversal charm, requiring him to strip to his waist and declare “Curses are nothing to me” three times. The reversal charm works almost instantaneously and the two are let out of the storage room. Kyou apologizes for acting so weird, the two share an awkward laugh and part ways.

Tomoya’s crazy day isn’t over just yet though, Tomoyo shows up to walk home with him when the two are confronted by the gangs she scared off the day before, looking for a fight. Tomoya tries to stop her since a fight on school grounds would surely wreck her chances of becoming student counsel president, Fuko even crosses dimensions to try and stop the fight from happening, but in the end words don’t suffice and Tomoyo has to lay down some physical punishment. But just as Tomoya feared, the teachers show up to break the fight and demand to know who’s responsible, just as Tomoyo is about to own up, Tomoya cuts in and takes the blame, a dangerous move which given his past record could lead to his suspension.

Thoughts

My paragraph on the Kyou gym storage scene doesn’t come anywhere close to doing it justice, you have to watch it to get the full effect, like I did…about 30 times so far. I really can’t emphasize enough how much Kyou owns every other character in Clannad. I’m slowly making my way through the game and it’s the same story there, though ironically enough, the general consensus is even though she’s awesome in general, her arc is one of the weaker ones. I haven’t gotten to it yet, so I can’t comment on how accurate that statement is.

I might be putting myself at risk of starting a faction war between the various fancamps of Clannad, but out of the entire cast Kyou is the only one who doesn’t fall under Key’s retard moe umbrella and is thus superior. Not that I dislike the other girls, I find Nagisa adorably innocent, Fuko cure in a little sister sort of way and Kotomi because she could probably teach me differential equations and boundary value problems. But Kyou is the only one, in the anime, whose character actually has depth and goes beyond simple classification under a single moe stereotype. No longer are we stuck with nothing but pseudo-lolis with one liner moe catchphrases like “uguu~” and “auu~”, not that anything is wrong with that, it’s just nice to see more mature women take center stage.

I still can’t get over the fact that KyoAni is giving Kyou so much screen time and will cop out at the end with the expected Nagisa end. I guess Kyou’s story is too typical for a KeyAni work, the whole concept of a girl cheering on her friend/sister/cousin/etc only to fall for the guy herself is admittedly overdone, and it wouldn’t be KeyAni if they didn’t work in miracles or supernatural forces into their final arc.

Sucks for Tomoyo too, who will no doubt end up on the losing side of the race for Tomoya’s heart. Though, there’s already enough of a fanbase for Tomoyo, she had her own spinoff game following her after story and I believe she has an upcoming manga devoted to her as well. Thanks largely to this episode, I can see why she’s so popular, she’s excellent waifu material. Her blunt way of dealing with various situations is nothing short of hilarious as well, she is outside the bounds of embarrassment and naivety, nonchalantly speaking her mind at all times.

Fuko rant commence! Once again, whyyyyyy? What was the point, she didn’t do anything! This is beyond my personal bias, having Fuko show up at random times just serves no purpose. Just how I got tired of Tomoyo’s combo counter earlier in the series, I’m quickly tiring of seeing Fuko show up at key conflict moments only to do absolutely nothing and run off with the characters staring blankly saying “Wow, she sure looks familiar”. I like Fuko but, for the third time, she needs to stay in her coma to the end. NOT because I don’t want to see her again, but because her waking up at the end will be cheapened by her continuing cameos throughout the series. Instead of a nostalgic reminiscence to Fuko’s arc and how great it is to see her again, I foresee myself thinking “So…is it the real one this time around?” I don’t want to see that happen, Fuko deserves better than to have her touching reunion ruined for such unnecessary cameo appearances.

One thing I found particular interesting to see in this episode is how they benched Nagisa for a while to free up time for Kyou and Tomoyo’s story lines to play out. Truly, it would be awkward to have Nagisa around while all this is happening, actually, in the game Show ▼

But given that she’s the main heroine of the anime plot line, meaning she must have the backing of quite a few fanboys out there, I would have thought KyoAni would try their wide appeal approach and cram Nagisa screen time in anyways.

Next episode looks like it’ll continue along the same lines, Tomoya taking the blame for Tomoyo’s fight will get him suspended and prompt house visits from every girl on the planet, showering him with food and their latent sex appeal. Damn Tomoya, what a lucky bastard, I wish I had one tenth of the fun in high school.

A Ryou is fine too, but have a Kyou stitch instead :3

~ Shirukii ~

DOZO

Wow this episode made up for last week’s and then some, a return to the great balancing of comedy and plot development. And of course there was Kyou, oh God was she ever awesome in this episode, but she seems doomed to lose the race for Tomoya’s heart, a sad reality which I’ll get to later.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

Nagisa and Tomoya bring Sunohara’s sister, Mei, to his dorm, where she’s appalled by its messy state and makes short work of cleaning things up. She leaves the room for a second to toss in a load of laundry when Nagisa suggests to Tomoya that they should keep the whole thing about Sunohara being in love with him a secret from Mei, but Nagisa sucks at keeping secrets and she ends up blurting the whole story out in front of Mei. Fortunately, Sunohara returns soon after and everything as far back as Tomoya pretending to be Sunohara over the phone, is sorted out.

Since Mei can’t stay in the boys dorm, Nagisa invites her to stay at her house where she is happily greeted with the Furukawa familiy’s usual idiotic conversations. Amidst the fun and games, Nagisa tells Mei about the basketball game that Sunohara set up for the drama club, Mei’s school is on break anyways so she promises to stick around and watch.

The following day Tomoya runs into Tomoyo on his way to school, running uncharacteristically late, they dash to school to beat the bell together while Kyou looks on from a distance, annoyed that yet another girl has appeared around Tomoya. Later, Sunohara and Tomoya ask Kyou to be the third member for the 3on3 with the basketball club, which she agrees to with surprising speed, but sets a condition that Tomoya has to eat lunch with her later.

Lunch time rolls around and Tomoya waits in the class for Kyou when Tomoyo shows up instead, on the pretense of wanting to talk to him about his delinquency. But when Kyou shows up she takes it the wrong way, Tomoyo, unphased, suggests that perhaps she likes Tomoya, Kyou denies it rather unconvincingly. Tomoyo turns to Tomoya for confirmation that he doesn’t have a girlfriend and thus her talking to him shouldn’t inconvenience anyone, but she’s clearly lost in the pace of the conversation, in the end Kyou grabs Tomoya and drags him off to the cafeteria to have lunch with her and Ryou, which seems to have been Kyou’s ultimate goal in the first place.

After school the next day is the big event, the 3on3 game with the basketball club with the music club watching on. Kyou is fired up after having a squabble with the basketball club about the match and it being a waste of time for them. But the three of them quickly show the basketball club that they’re not to be taken lightly, quickly pulling ahead when the game starts off against the freshman members. Tomoya expected this and the plan all along was to build as big a lead until the regulars came on, which happens with five minutes left and an 11 point difference. The regular members are on a completely different level and their 11 point lead quickly reverses into a one point deficit, but they manage to pull it off in the end with a blind shot from Tomoya, giving them the win by one point.

After the game, Nagisa and Tomoya go with Sunohara to see Mei off, who has to return home. Afterwards they head to a victory party set up by Kyou and wonder whether their efforts in the basketball game will be enough to sway the music club to give up Koumura-sensei as their advisor.

Thoughts

Tsundere Kyou is win, nutbladder = broken beyond repair

Yep, Kyou’s tsundere scene was so awesome that it merited an entire block of screencaps, a service Shana has also been treated to in the past. Also, thumbs up to KyoAni for keeping Kyou in her thigh highs even while playing basketball.

I’m still wondering whether the Fujibayashi arc will be worked into Clannad, with eight episodes left and Tomoyo + Nagisa to attend to, one of the arcs is going to get dropped off. Given how much Kyou has permeated the other arcs, I’m betting that they’ll hold off on going through her dedicated route, especially given that Tomoyo is pretty popular (she got her own spin off game!). And it’s not like Kyou was going to win anyways…

…because of this scene, which in my opinion seals the Nagisa end. As the final seconds of the basketball ticked away and victory looked like an impossibility, Tomoya’s pessimism takes over and he begins to recall the futility of all his actions in the past, wondering what he was doing playing a 3on3 anyways. And then, Nagisa, out of all the girls, calls out to him, he snaps out of it without a second thought and his body moves instinctively to shoot the game winning buzzer beater. This scene reminded me of a point that I often forget while watching Clannad, before meeting Nagisa, Tomoya’s life was pretty crappy, meeting her was the catalyst that allowed him to make friends with so many people and focus his attention on helping people.

Oh well, not like I wasn’t expecting it from day one anyways.

Comedic balance was spot on again this episode, I lol’d so hard when Tomoyo instinctively shoved her lunch up Sunohara’s nose and thought nothing of it. Add to that pretty much every scene with Sunohara in it, because he’s a walking punchline. There wasn’t that misplaced forced drama that was present last episode either, so the comedy was allowed to take its full effect this time around.

If I had one complaint, it would be that Mei came and went so fast, it’ll be the epilogue until we see her again, if even that. It’s too bad, it was great hearing Tamura Yukari’s voice again, forever ingrained in my head as the voice Nanoha, a voice which is much more suited to loli roles. They should have kept her around, Clannad could use a token loli/imouto character.

Oh, actually, one more minor complaint, what was with the speedlines in the basketball game? Come on KyoAni, I know you guys didn’t have to resort to that.

Anyways, the preview for next week doesn’t really hint at where we’re going next, but it did certainly do a good job in isolating Tomoya. So ronery ;_;

Ryou, fine too, etc etc.

~ Shirukii ~

All the more hilarious since there actually is a Sunohara route in the Clannad VN

This episode was a little weird, I’ve praised KyoAni for managing to merge comedy and drama before, but it didn’t turn out very well this time. The back and forth of comedic relief and what was supposed to be intense drama ended up taking away from both aspects. And it doesn’t help much that I don’t really like Nagisa as much as the other Clannad leads, so this mix up happening in an episode that focuses on her isn’t doing much to help her cause.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Sunohara and Tomoya head to the drama club room as Sunohara talks about joining the drama club in name only, to help Nagisa reach the numbers she needs to reestablish the club. Unfortunately, he gets beat to the idea by Kyou, who gets Kotomi and Ryou to join her, meeting the minimum number of students needed. The other condition that must be met is that the club needs a teacher supervisor, and apparently the only teacher who isn’t already in charge of a club is Koumura-sensei. However, this is where things get a little messy, the music club, led by Nishina, the one who lent Kotomi the violin from the music room, is also trying to reestablish themselves to form a choir, and have also asked Koumura-sensei to supervise them.

School ends and Tomoya heads over to Sunohara’s dorm to kill some time when Misae comes in with a call for Sunohara from his little sister, Mei, but he’s still at school, knocked out in the drama club room. Figuring his sister would be just as weird, Tomoya takes the call and pretends to be Sunohara, apparently she’s not so bright and doesn’t notice going on to tell Tomoya that she is going to be visiting in a couple days, as Tomoya is about to come clean Mei suddenly rushes off and hangs up.

The following day, Sunohara and Tomoya see Nagisa sitting outside reading something, Sunohara grabs it, jokingly suggesting it might be a love letter, but the reality of the situation is far more disturbing. The letter demands that Nagisa give up on the drama club or face painful consequences. The obvious conclusion is that one of the music club members wrote the note, but Nagisa refuses to believe that Nishina or her friends would do such a thing, but Sunohara isn’t convinced and goes to investigate.

In the end it turns out that his suspicions were right, the letter was from one of the music club members, Sugisaka, he calls her out to talk with Nagisa after school. After establishing that she acted alone, Sugisaka goes to explain that Nishina used to be an incredibly talented violinist, her talent was widely recognized and she was on her way to becoming a professional, but then she got into a car accident that left her with an injury that weakened her grip. Now, all she has left is her voice, she may not be able to play violin but she can still sing, so Sugisaka implores Nagisa to give up on the drama club on her behalf.

The story pisses of Sunohara, saying that people who use pity tactics are thoughtless, trying to get what they want with sympathy tactics. He tells Nagisa to ignore everything she’s said and continue fighting for her own dreams, but Nagisa isn’t the type of person who can forget such a story, and ends up agreeing to give up on the drama club.

Afterwards, Tomoya explain to Nagisa why Sunohara got so angry, his situation is similar to his own, he was formerly part of the soccer team until he got into a fight with one of his teammates and had to quit. Nagisa thanks Tomoya for all the help he’s offered her and, naturally, starts to cry, Tomoya goes to comfort her but is interrupted by Kyou who heard the news from Sunohara and bluntly yells at Nagisa, telling her that she’s far too considerate of other people instead of focusing on her own dreams.

Still annoyed, Sunohara suggests going somewhere to fool around, but Tomoya spent all his money on the best Harvest Moon simulator ever, and is thus broke. Luckily, there’s a place they can relax close by, the reference library under Yukine’s care where you can kill some time and enjoy her well brewed coffee. While there, Yukine reads Sunohara his astrological fortune, which says that he’s a very considerate friend and that his lucky word is basketball, this sparks something in Sunohara’s head and he runs off to do some preparation.

On his way home, Tomoya comes across Tomoyo being harassed by the judo club leaders to join the judo team. However, Tomoyo wants to run for student counsel president and isn’t interested in judo. Fuko to the rescue! Like before, she randomly appears to try and solve the situation at hand, but ends up leaving without accomplishing much. In the end, Tomoya stares down the judo leaders and runs off with Tomoyo, who is surprised at what a nice and dependable person he is.

The next day, Sunohara’s brilliant plan is revealed, he wants to have a match against the basketball club to make the music club see how dedicated they are so that they’ll hand over Koumura-sensei. Flawless logic, Sunohara, absolutely flawless. He follows Tomoya around the whole day pushing the idea. Nagisa wonders if it’s alright for Tomoya to be ignoring Sunohara, so he decides to play around with her a bit, telling her that Sunohara is actually in love with him. When Sunohara catches up to the two, Nagisa suddenly gets protective, telling Sunohara that there are limits that shouldn’t be crossed, as a last resort, she claims that she’s dating Tomoya and won’t give him up. Sunohara is rather shocked by the news and runs away crying, leaving Tomoya and Nagisa in an awkward silence, given what she just did. But their raburabu moment is interrupted by a loli who introduces herself as Sunohara Mei, Tomoya suddenly remembering the phone conversation he had with her…

Thoughts

Damnit I need to find some way to cut my Clannad summaries shorter, this is killing my wrists.

Anyways, as I said, really weird episode. There were a lot of high tension scenes revolving around the rivalry between the drama and music clubs, broken up by random comedy scenes like Tomoya’s usual joking. The result was an inconsistency in the mood of the episode, one moment we’re in high suspense, worrying about what will become of Nagisa and her dream to restart the drama club, the next we see Tomoya spazzing out at a cat. Comedic relief works in moderation, used to release viewer tension and simultaneously strengthen the impact of drama to come, but when you jump back and forth between the two, the effect is ruined. When a clear emotional focal point isn’t defined the effectiveness of any individual scene will suffer. Or so I thought *shrugs*

Another complaint about this episode, I have no idea what purpose it served plot wise. It seems as if it was the beginning of Nagisa’s arc, but I’m not sure that’s the case. If you take a look at the preview you’ll notice that it was left completely open ended, you had Tomoyo questioning Tomoya on his love life, then the Fujibayashi sisters doing the same and at the end Nagisa and Tomoya are alone in Sunohara’s room. Also, the subplot of the alternate world was brought back, all these possibilities jumping at us right after the conclusion of Kotomi’s arc is too much, there needed to be some cool down time. No doubt where this is all heading will be explained next episode, but without any indication of what this episode did to advance the plot, it just seems like a huge waste of time at the moment.

Case and point, Fuko’s scene…why? It accomplished nothing, literally. I have nothing against Fuko, but she needs to stay in her coma and wait until the epilogue to show up again.

Despite all the ranting I did this week, by no means was this a bad episode in league with R+V or H20, just a disappointment on Clannad standards. And I may end up eating my own words if this all plays very well into the story at hand.

Finally, for people who have played any or all of the visual novel, I’m hearing a lot of people say that much of the Fujibayashi route is creeping into the anime, can you guys confirm this? I know that Nagisa end is most likely, especially since the animators have all but said they plan to animate portions of Nagisa’s After Story baaaawfest, but “LOL, WHAT A TWIST!” endings seem to be all the rage nowadays. Is there hope for delicious Kyou ending?

Onii-chan? *melts*

~ Shirukii ~

As usual my predictions are garbage, I thought we had at least another two episodes of Kotomi, and instead it all came to a climactic end this week. I think they could have pushed it a little further, but I’m pretty happy with how things turned out, much better than watching Tomoya garden grinding to level up his tools to gold status. I know I risk scorn for saying this, especially from a certain rabid Fuko fanboy, but I thought Kotomi’s ending was much more emotionally impactive, tears of sympathetic joy welled up in my eyes during Kotomi’s monologue about her parents.

Episode Rating: 9/10

Tomoya continues to work away at his gardening project, Kyou, Ryou and Nagisa offering to skip school to help, but obviously Tomoya isn’t going to let them do that. The three help in their free time after school and contrary to common sense and time constraints, they manage to restore the garden to its previous state with time to spare. Admiring his job well done, Tomoya pulls out the book Kotomi lent him and starts to read through it, recognizing Kotomi’s quote “The day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, yesterday a deer, and today, you.” However, Tomoya’s scholastic skills (or rather, a lack thereof) quickly becomes apparent as he falls asleep after about 10 seconds of reading.

Flashback tiem! We get some more insight into Kotomi’s past and more specifically the events that occurred on Kotomi’s birthday. Wanting to help Kotomi make more friends he promised her that he’d bring his friends over to her birthday party, the more the merrier, right? Well Tomoya’s friends are asses about it and flat out reject the idea, ashamed, Tomoya can’t bring himself to face Kotomi and skips her party. But guilt creeps in and he goes to her house afterwards to apologize, instead he finds Kotomi in the midst of almost burning her house down. Luckily, the “bad guy” comes in and puts the fire out, at the same time trying to comfort Kotomi, drowning in her own tears.

When Tomoya comes to, he sees Kotomi standing over him, she tells him that she always remembered the boy who wandered into her yard many years ago, he was her first and only friend and she was always waiting for him.

The next day at school, everyone is waiting at the gates to wish Kotomi a happy birthday. They tell her the mishap about the violin and instead present her with a Nagisa drawn voucher that serves as a placeholder until it gets repaired. Then, Kotomi’s welcomes back Kotomi and tells her that the “bad guy”, who is actually Kotomi’s godfather, is waiting in the school, he has something to give her. With everyone backing her up and Kyou suggesting they meet in the drama club room so she feels comfortable, Kotomi agrees to meet with him.

The thing that Kotomi’s godfather wanted to give her turns out to be the suitcase her parents had with them when their plane crashed. Expecting her parents’ precious paper to inside, Kotomi is surprised when she opens it and finds a teddy bear instead, attached with a note signed by her parents saying that if the suitcase was found it should be returned to their daughter. The file that Kotomi burned as a child was not a copy of her parents’ paper, it was a catalogue of teddy bears, a fact which her godfather didn’t think she’d believe until now, there was never time for her parents to make a second copy, they were editing it to the very last second. Attached with the bear is a note addressed to Kotomi with wise words explaining that even when filled with sadness, the world is a beautiful place.

That afternoon everyone gathers at Kotomi’s place for her birthday party, compensating for his past failure, Tomoya ends up bringing a larger group of invitees than expected. Sunohara is on the way, Nagisa took the liberty of inviting her parents and Kyou…well Kyou invited (forced?) a group comparable in size to Kotomi’s violin recital to attend. Tomoya thinks that’s going overboard, but Kotomi says that it’ll be fine because she has a big yard, which courtesy of Tomoya and co., can actually be used now.

Thoughts

Kinda sucks that the Kotomi arc is ending actually, because thanks to KyoAni’s handling of Key adaptations, you know that we’ll probably never see her again until the epilogue, failing that, random cameos like Fuko’s crane game appearance.

But I am quite pleased at how things came together at the end of Kotomi’s arc. It wasn’t as outright sad as Fuko disappearing, but the suitcase thing was a nice conclusion. Disregarding the fact that an aluminum suitcase could survive a plane crash and make its way around the world, it was a very touching scene. Kotomi’s parents defined themselves through their research, the culmination of which was represented by that single research paper, in essence that paper was a physical manifestation of their lives up to that point. And instead they tossed it out to replace it with a teddy bear for their daughter, I find that absolutely mind blowing.

Oh, and kudos to SS-Eclipse for taking the time to identify all the languages spoken in this episode during the suitcase scene.

As for loose ends in Kotomi’s arc, the only ones I can think of is a definite answer to whether Kotomi’s godfather is the one paying for her living expenses or not. It’s logical to think he is, but Kotomi’s treatment of him prior to this episode would suggest otherwise, if someone were my life support, I sure as hell wouldn’t call him a “bad guy”. Other than that, I can only wonder how Kyou got the violin repaired in time for Kotomi’s birthday after so much emphasis on the fact that it wasn’t possible, unless I’m missing a time skip somewhere? Which is doubtful.

Checking out the preview, seems like we’re getting a Nagisa centric episode next week. Which is odd, I’d have thought they would want to save her for last, unless it’s just a one shot buffer episode into the Fujibayashi arc or perhaps Tomoyo. It’d be interesting if we sped full on into Nagisa’s arc though, I for one would love to see Tomoya end up with someone else with her, just to break the predictability of KeyAni series. But delusions of a Kyou ending aside, I’m thinking not.

Also, looks like we’re getting design changes next week, summer uniforms!

On a random closing note, I lol’d so much at this scene. KyoAni knows their viewers way too well. Even when doing gardening they kept Kyou in her zettai ryouki thigh highs. Thumbs up KyoAni, well done.

~ Shirukii ~