Subculture Anime Blog

Siscon and yaoi extraveganza! Am I suppose to write a final impression?

Summary:

Tomoya jokes about skipping school to go to the ocean while walking with Nagisa in the morning. He even brings up that he and Nagisa have no plans on attending college, but Nagisa still believes it is important to attend to their studies. The both of them become embarrassed when Nagisa describes how important Tomoya is to her, but Tomoya wonders if they could hold hands. When they are assured that no one is looking, they attempt to do this. However, they are interrupted by Kyou on her bike. The two deny her suggestions about loving actions, but she obviously sees through them. After school, the usual group of girls has lunch the in the drama club room. Nagisa explains that Tomoya is at Youhei’s house, and the girls then wonder how far Nagisa and Tomoya have gotten. At the same time, Youhei learns that Tomoya and Nagisa have not even held hands yet. Misae appears at the room to announce that Youhei has a visitor, but this only turns out to be Mei.

After cleaning Youhei’s room for awhile, Mei accompanies Tomoya in visiting the Furukawa family. Mei enjoys herself throughout the night, and in the morning, Tomoya finds that she and Nagisa had talked about him before going to sleep. Tomoya and the girls assist in attending the shop afterwards, but it is not as busy as it was when Mei visited previously. After one customer visits, Tomoya suggests that he isn’t very useful when there are three there. Mei leaves with an idea in mind, and many customers begin visiting the shop shortly after. When Tomoya leaves to investigate later, he finds that Mei had been announcing that there was a cute girl in the bread shop. Akio is surprised at the major success that night, but when Sanae wonders about his thoughts about her bread, he distracts her by claiming his love for her as usual. Mei suggests that Tomoya should do the same thing to Nagisa, but this causes both he and Nagisa to leave in embarrassment.

Mei visits Youhei’s room later, but she actually wants to talk to Tomoya. She suggests to him that she wants to be a cupid of love, but Tomoya misunderstands and imagines a few very ridiculous situations. Mei finally reveals that she is talking about Tomoya and Nagisa, when Nagisa appears “by coincidence”. Mei leaves the two alone, and Nagisa suggests that they go for a walk. During the walk, Nagisa seems out of character. She eventually turns back so that she and Tomoya can go to the bread shop, then suggesting that she would like to be a customer inside. Akio agrees under a certain condition, but this results in in his chasing outside after Sanae as usual. Nagisa is even more out of character when the two go outside afterwards, so Tomoya eventually realizes that this is all Mei’s doing. As Mei leaves, Nagisa finally admits that she acted according to Mei’s suggestions. Tomoya is not angry at her at all, wondering where they should go next. Nagisa suggests that anywhere is fine, and that they are always together.

Preview: Yea yea, the After Story…we know.

Impression:

Wow, I think they took everything I love about Clannad and shoved it all into this episode (well….maybe not everything). I was already psyched at the blushing and hand holding in the beginning, and I laughed even harder when the girls started asking how far Nagisa had gone with Tomoya. Having Mei come back was a very welcome touch, and it takes away all the feelings I had about her wasted potential earlier on. Yukari Tamura even used her Puuchan voice! I was dying when Tomoya imaged the two situations with Youhei. Both were hilariously wrong. Some of the scenarios Nagisa went through were killer, especially since they parodied so many typical harem lead roles. The breath moment was definitely a highlight. It looks like Nagisa’s calling Tomoya “Tomoya-kun” instead of “Okazaki-san” will be another step up in their relationship. Of course, there’s only a whole new season left to cover.

Final Impression:

I was hesitant about picking up Clannad for blogging coverage when it first came out in the fall. It’s not that I have anything against Key/Kyoani works; I love them just as much as everyone else does. I just wasn’t sure that I had enough unique things to say with the show getting so much coverage throughout the blogsphere. I fell into the usual trap of following user opinion on this one, but now I do not regret covering the show at all. From the start, Clannad had me hooked. While still including the same drama we were all used to from Kanon and Air, Clannad introduced a whole new element of hilarity in many of the episodes. Now being well known as the irrational love comedy fan of anime fandom, it was a given that these types of things would strike a cord with me. It might have helped that the first arc was my favorite, and it still is.

As the rest of the series went on, however, I kind of just switched to following along rather than anticipating events. As much as I like these works, I have never been the hugest Key/Kyoani fan around. I did enjoy interacting with everyone else and hearing their opinions, but I just felt like I couldn’t get as excited about upcoming episodes when compared to other shows. When inevitably comparing this series with Kanon and Air, I still enjoyed Air the most out of the three. Clannad was definitely one of the best watches out of the last two seasons though, and I will most likely continue on with the After Story whenever it comes out. If the movie was any indicator, it should be even more emotionally driven than this season.