Subculture Anime Blog

Contains loli abuse.

Summary:

In the school’s clubroom, Tomoya tells the usual girls what he and Nagisa had discussed with Mei the previous night. When Kyou hears about Mei’s wish for Youhei to rejoin the soccer team, she advises against it because of the reputation the members have. When Tomoya and Nagisa meet with Mei again afterwards, however, she still expresses her wish to meet the soccer team. The three do just this, but after hearing about Youhei, the members state their unwillingness to even hear his name. Mei further expresses her belief that Youhei would become even more worthless if he did not have another chance to play, but the team agrees in laughter that Youhei was worthless from the start.

When Yukine is visited by Tomoya and the others, she requests to hear what had happened with Youhei and the soccer team in the past. With this, Tomoya explains the atmosphere of upperclassmen treating first-years poorly that Youhei was plagued with when he first joined the team. Not being able to take this, Youhei one day broke into a fight with all of the members. The girls wonder if Youhei would really be able to enjoy soccer with the team after hearing this, but Mei still doesn’t think there are any other options. Yukine finally mentions that she has an older brother as well; one that has gotten into quite a few violent situations as well. Although she was originally afraid of him, she eventually realized that he had quite a bit of good traits as well. It was only a matter of how he could express himself. After revealing this, Yukine simply assures Mei that there must be some other options besides soccer that would bring about Youhei’s good traits.

Tomoya meets Youhei in class later, but finds that he is still seemingly uncaring towards what is going on with his sister. This angers Tomoya as he expresses how much Mei is doing for Youhei, making Ryou and the rest of the girls appear to break up a possible fight between the two. When Tomoya meets Nagisa and Mei with this information afterwards, they continue to insist that they will go with him to make a request to the soccer team. When the three arrive at the practice field, the team’s captain can only wonder what good the group can do for them during practice. When Tomoya even bows his head though, something that he would have never done in the past, the captain finally agrees to hear the three out. Before the team will directly hear the group’s true request, however, they are forced to help gather stray soccer balls for the team. After awhile, Tomoya realizes that the members are obviously kicking out ridiculous shots on purpose. Mei is hit with a ball after being worn out already, but this does not keep her from continuing.

At the end of the team’s practice session, Tomoya and the others find that not even all of the team has remained to hear their request. When the three finally bring up Youhei, however, the remaining members again disagree to have any involvement with him. The captain finally reveals that they had already sent someone to tell Youhei to come, but he had not even shown up. This brings Mei to tears, as she still believes that her older brother would appear, but this only makes the team start to abuse her even more. This makes Tomoya unable to hold in his anger any more, but before he can lay a hit on any of the members, Youhei shows up to do it first. After a big fight, Tomoya and Youhei lay beaten up in the rain outside. As the two are still angry at each other, they have a fight between each other as well. Tomoya wonders how Youhei could leave his sister alone, even when she was with him, but Youhei reveals that it was because he thought Mei would be fine with Tomoya. After hearing the girls’ cries, however, Youhei finally realizes in wonder that Nagisa is there as well.

When Tomoya and Youhei see each other again on a latter day, both with numerous injuries on their faces, they only burst out in laughter. After these have healed later, Tomoya tells Youhei that he had received a letter from Mei. Inside, she had left Youhei up to Tomoya. This makes Youhei recall that friends made in high school would probably be the only ones kept forever, especially since this was the only time they could play around as much as they do. Tomoya and Youhei eventually visit Akio as well, so that Youhei can request to have Sanae’s hand. This obviously results in a very bad situation for Youhei, as it is finally revealed to him who Sanae really is. This makes Tomoya remember the first time he had met Youhei. The two had simply passed each other after getting into trouble, and only after looking at each other’s faces, they had burst into laughter. From this day on, the two never separated.

Preview: Misae~

Impression:

Cry more, Mei! Cry!!! Then call me “onii-chan!!!” ….ER…..I mean…..uh…… Man! After the past three episodes, this week’s Clannad was way more on the serious side. That’s not to say that it was bad though, because the drama in this episode was probably just as good as it had been throughout the high ends of the major arcs in the first season. Kyoani really knows how to handle their 3D, unlike certain other studios (*cough* Gonzo *cough*), and the fight scenes in this episode were really epic despite how short they were. But since Kyoani is the studio that also produced my favorite FMP TSR (more? where?), it’s not like the potential wasn’t already there. I loved the dialog that flew between Tomoya and Youhei while they were throwing punches at each other, and the flashback at the end of the episode just further established how close the two actually are. I was amazed at how long it took Youhei to realize that Nagisa was with Mei though. I guess it was just the tunnel vision from anger?

With the next episode being a Misae focused one, it is basically confirmed that After Story is going to go through several side arcs before getting to the main dishes. Seeing how much I’ve enjoyed this arc though, I am definitely looking forward to this.