Shameful Otaku Secret!

Two Shadows [Final-ish episode]

[last link to Clannad Info Page]

Sorry, but huh? Am I a terrible person for wanting unspeakable tragedy to befall the characters of these Key/Kyoto animated abominations? I waited a couple days since everybody in the universe who wanted to see this probably has now. So…

The Last Recap

Nagisa is pretty bummed about finding old man Akio’s photos and diaries.

Yes, but he’s still perfectly crazy now, just like a real actor. No need to worry.

But Okazaki pushes her on, after all they can’t quit the play now. Too many sidekicks, tsunderes, and space cadets have put too much effort into it. Okazaki tries to distract Nagisa by taking her around the school festival, which looks suspiciously like… a date?

Apparently the “student council president” role does not supercede the “bear suit” role

But when they get separated, he finds her in Miyazawa’s resource library watching tapes of her dad acting. Now she’s worse than before.

Well, she probably could have picked a worse tape to watch, but I don’t know what that would be.

The play goes on though, or at least it starts to. Nagisa sees Sanae sitting in the audience with an empty seat next to her and the buildup of guilt explodes in front of the whole school auditorium. Okazaki, behind the scenes, can’t just jump out to talk her through it this time, so his finger just hovers over the curtain control button while Kyou yells at him to push it.

And the blobby gelatinous tears flow

But there he is, running in to save the day at the last minute like some kind of crazed, antennaed Superdad — Akio. Obviously meant to be the crowning achievement of the series, he delivers a heartfelt monologue across the room for the whole theater to hear. And he does indeed save the play, and the day.

Well, I mean I feel like — Wait, who are you talking to?

Afterward, back in the theater club room, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Sort of. Okazaki whips out his confession of love, and the wall around the rough heart of the charming delinquent comes tumbling down and all that.

A kiss would have been nice. But instead we get more blobby tears.

What We’ve Learned

That the writers are totally willing to make a show out of loose ends. Or else they’re just trying to sell you some OAVs.

I didn’t really see much of what the girl in the empty world, her high-framerate tin buddy, and the play about them meant to the story. Why didn’t that together in some way?

And Okazaki’s dad — while he showed up at the end, obviously invited by Nagisa, there was zero resolution on that front. For a story that ended up being about the importance of parents and family, I expected more.

“Some stuff happened.” I contemplated using that to summarize the whole show.

However, there is a preview for a postscript — I don’t know, however, if it’s on TV or an OAV. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. And I’ll be wrapping this present up as soon as I further collect my thoughts.

Secret Past / In Preparation For the School Festival

[Clannad Info Page keeps you up to date on the moe]

Falling behind after a week away from home, work, and anime. So it’s dual-post time. That’s fine, these two episodes are part of a pair, really — or more likely, a trio along with the final episode.

Recap

At the beginning of Episode 20, we see the high-framerate girl and robot in the empty world attempting to construct a friend, and failing.

Sadly, Johnny 5 is not alive

Most of #20 focuses on Okazaki’s interaction with Akio, sometimes humorous and sometimes serious, as they search for the story on which Nagisa has based her play idea. Akio finally explains (after a pretty funny scene of the pair repeatedly trying to achieve privacy from Sanae and Nagisa, finally ending up on the roof) to him the “secret” of Nagisa’s past and what makes her feel like she should apologize to her parents. It’s nothing you couldn’t see coming.

God doesn’t hate you, but he does think those antennae are unnatural.

Essentially, they both gave up doing what they wanted to do with their lives (acting for Akio, teaching for Sanae) in order to take care of their sickly moe-itis plagued daughter.

The weird library girl does a charm for Sunohara and Okazaki — the idea is the first person who talks to you after you perform the charm is the girl who likes you.

Poor poor Sunohara.

The scene is cute because she sets Okazaki up to meet Nagisa, and of course for comic relief with poor Sunohara. But most notable is Okazaki first seeing Fuko and desperately pleading with her not to say anything. This marks a first: I laughed at a Fuko scene.

Not just a chuckle either. That was actually funny.

At any rate, the school festival is coming, and the play is finally coming together. It’s a one-woman show starring Nagisa, with everyone else taking on various duties and Okazaki directing.

It’s the end of the season. Hiromi’s wearing them in True Tears, I figured, why not?

Everyone else, however, is still forced to do strange vocal exercises for at least 10 minutes of episode 21, not to mention stretching with fanservicey angles.

Oh is THAT what it looks like.

Nagisa’s nervous, but getting by. Unfortunately, all goes to hell when she knocks over some of the recently-displaced boxes and finds horrific evidence of the Grizzly Bear Truth. Photo albums of her dad on stage, Sanae’s diaries, all telling the story of what she sees as broken dreams caused by her.

What We’ve Learned

Akio’s abandoned dream is acting, not surprising considering his personality, but he seems happy enough baking and running his own business — and everyone loves bread! — so what could be wrong?

For a second, I actually thought it was a Sanae/Akio homemade porn tape. And at that point, I took a long hard look at myself.

No convincing Nagisa of that, she’s only horrified by the irony that his sacrifice is allowing her to be an actress now, even if it’s only for the school festival. It looks like the final episode is fraught with the tragic state of her mind, which I assume is what drives her to the poor health that will kill her. In 22 minutes though?

Thoughts

Episode 21 went by without much event, mostly showing the progress of the theater club —aside from the Main Event of Nagisa finding the box of stuff.

The old man loses his smoke as he loses his shit on the ballfield.

So the highlight reel shines on episode 20’s ending, as the Furukawas plus Okazaki play baseball with some kids in the park. Without going into it too much, I just want to say that final scene is just too fucking kawaii for me to handle.

This runs a close second.

These last few post-harem-thinning episodes have been great, I’ve really enjoyed the developments, not to mention all the Akio. As there are two more episodes of most shows left, Clannad 22 is officially the most anticipated show of the week.

New Life

[Don't know your Tomoya from your Tomoyo? Clannad Info page to the rescue.]

After having to wait an extra week after last episode’s bulldozer-of-bodies, I was set up for disappointment. But honestly, at this phase of the show there should be no wasted minutes, and thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Recap: Okazaki’s final mission

First thing’s first, one of Tomoyo’s first acts as student council president is to allow the theater club to share an advisor with those troublesome weak-handed choir bitches. And Nagisa starts to figure out just how difficult it’s going to be to pull a play off before the school festival.

Okazaki serves up a tasty dish: Bitter in flavor, yet subtley demeaning.

After a counselor has a lot of difficulty trying to talk to Okazaki’s dad about his future, Nagisa has to chase O-Town down and force him to meet the guy.

You’ve created a monster, Okazaki.

Nagisa sees just how bad things seem to be between our ever-sloppier hero and his pops. So, much to Sunohara’s jealous dismay, she offers up her guest room for him. Sanae is happy as a clam, and even crazy old man Akio seems to enjoy having him around to help in the bakery.

I SAID tell me about the damn grizzly attack!

But it’s never quite a bed of roses, is it? Not only is Tomoya uncomfortable in his overly-homey situation, but something is amiss in the Furukawa household, and the villain is Key’s standard bogeyman: a troubled but cloudy past. It seems Sanae runs a cram school for kids, because she’s no longer able to teach middle school.

Okazaki, hero to the kids.

Why doesn’t she teach anymore, wonders Tomoya.

“A lot of things happened,” Akio tells him. Later, Nagisa confesses to him that she feels that she somehow wronged them in the past, but they always tell her she’s imagining things.

Yes, yes. Our special little boy. Yes you aaare.

And the robot in the imaginary world that you totally forgot about decides to try to make another robot. The girl helps it. The CG is very conspicuous.

What We’ve Learned

What did I say? I said there was some kind of horrific grizzly attack in the Furukawa’s past, because no one is that cheery in these stories without covering something, especially not when their daughter has the mysterious moe-itis disease. So Tomoya’s Final Mission (should he choose to accept it) will be to discover what the thing is, and most likely in the process repair his relationship with his father. But next episode’s preview shows us Akio insisting that even if Tomoya finds the truth, he’d better not tell Nagisa.

We also learned that the budget might be slipping a tiny bit. Kyoto is not immortal, I guess.

Thoughts

In spite of the heavy subject matter that’s looming on the horizon, there were lots of scenes good for a chuckle in this episode. Okazaki running from the counselor with Nagisa chasing him had great comic timing, even as it showed Nagisa becoming a more appealing character (she’s gonna die, right? I’ll put money on it).

If only pictures could make the awesome sounds in this shot.

The single funniest scene, though, was Sunohara’s improvised melodrama featuring the theater club’s sound effects synthesizer. Yes, Sunohara is usually just comic relief, but at least he’s good at it. And to be fair, he does toss a little sidelong wisdom to Tomoya later in the episode.

Me too. I guess.

Finally. For the first time in a while, I’m looking forward to what Clannad has in store.