Clannad ep.02

October 14, 2007 | 25 Comments

Sorry for the late review. I just came back from my trip to Japan yesterday and was too tired to write anything. Watching this makes me want to go back to Japan again. I miss everything from the food to the scenery. Oh well, I'll go back again next year somehow. Anyway, this is a pretty good second episode, which is a nice surprise. The series manage to maintain a good balance of comedy and drama while develop the mystery one step at a time. We also get to meet the last 2 new members for Tomoya's harem. Although judging from his reaction in this episode, he seems more of a one-girl man than that cad known as Yuuichi. At the moment the episode seems to be share equally between all the girls. I do wonder if future episodes will focus more on specific girl or if it'll continue the way it is now.

Tomoya finds out that the lines that Nagisa recites turn out to just be a play that she wants to perform once the theatre club is reformed. She also confirms that she intends on doing her best to resurrect the drama club. After the OP, the voice of a boy can be heard again over a footage of a little girl playing with a toy. The boy claims that the girl's life is a lonely one. No one other than the girl exists since nothing is born or dies here. He then starts talking about the body that's made for him and wonder if wishing is the only thing he can do. In the present time, Tomoya is in the middle of wondering about the difficulty of resurrecting the drama club when Kyou suddenly hits him with her scooter. Despite this, she's happy that her scooter is not damaged and won't charged Tomoya the repair fee, completely ignoring the fact that Tomoya was the victim. After Kyou left, Sunohara appears, commenting about how there are many savage female in their school.

In response, Tomoya asks Sunohara why he's at school so early. As it turns out, Sunohara wants to avenge his embarassing defeat in the hands of Tomoyo. Tomoyo is not impressed and warns Sunohara that he better stops now or else he won't be able to come to school anymore. Since Sunohara won't listen to reason, Tomoyo asks Tomoya to be her witness who'll confirm that she just do this in self-defence. With that in mind Tomoyo and Sunohara begins their second battle royale. Before Sunohara can even hit Tomoyo, however, the girl already lightning-kicked Sunohara into the air, scoring no less than 528 direct hits before kicking the boy into a dust chute. Tomoyo then lift one of Sunohara's fingers which are holding onto the chute's side, prompting the boy to fall down. Despite her frustration, Tomoyo quietly mutters that Tomoya and Sunohara brings back memories. When questioned about this, however, Tomoyo pretends it's nothing important.

Later on while walking on the hall, Tomoya encounters two students who claimed that they just saw the ghost of the female students. It is said that the ghost will give a person a cursed item but she looks like a normal student. Tomoya decides to ignore the two and goes to library to sleep. Much to his surprise, he finds a female student inside cutting up pages from the library book. When he reprimands her, she responds by showing him her well-made bento. Tomoya decides to pick the tamago roll and thanks her for the offer. Later on, Tomoya realises that the girl is played by Noto Mamiko, err, not really but he wonders if this is the ghost that other students are talking about. Ryou, however, dispute this by telling him that the girl is probably Ichinose Kotomi from class A. She's apparently a genius student who excells in every subject in national exams. Tomoya sighs with relief and tells Ryou that no wonder the girl is a bit strange.

Speaking of strange, Tomoya tells Ryou that her sister is also strange because this morning she was bi(ke riding to school). However, before Tomoya can finish his sentence, Kyou appears inside the class and drags him outside to talk to him. She tells him that she could be suspended if someone finds out about it. Because of this, Tomoya returns to class and announce to everyone that Kyou is a bi(sexual). Kyou is livid to hear this especially when her sister starts to believe it as well. Later on, Tomoya encounters Nagisa looking depressed. As it turns out, she still hasn't got members for her drama club so Tomoya suggests that he makes a flier. She, however, protests when he suggests that she becomes the president so some guys will join as well. In return, Tomoya tells her to snap out of her feel of helplessness. He suggests that she draws something on the flier too so she draws dango while singing the ED song. Oh noees.

If that's not weird enough, Nagisa yells "Tonkatsu" out of nowhere. As it turns out, it's some kind of a charm for her, where she'd treat herself to a nice dish if she achieves something. Later on, Tomoya meets another weird girl who's in the middle of carving a wooden star with a knife and accidentally cutting herself in the process. When Tomoya asks her if this is the art club or if she's doing her art project, she denies it. When Tomoya asks her what the star she is holding, she goes into a trance of happiness so Tomoya decides to grab the knife so she won't injured herself further. She looks like a little girl in comparison to Tomoya. Anyway, Tomoya tries to tell her that she's injuring herself with the knife. The girl claims that she's not in pain but when Tomoya squeezes her hand, she yelps in pain. Because of this, Tomoya decides to take away the knife before she hurts her hand again. This is why children shouldn't play with sharp things.

Sunohara is surprised when he sees Tomoya posting the flier for drama club. He always thought Tomoya doesn't like club. Unknown to Tomoya, the entire conversation is overheard by Nagisa, who looks upset to hear this. Because of this, he decides to make Dai-kazoku dango for the girl. While painting the eyes, however, his father comes into the room and tries to engage him in conversation. Tomoya suddenly becomes violent when her father asks him if he can help painting the dango. He asks his father why he talks to him like he's a stranger. Tomoya then grabs the dango and run away from home. He only stops when he sees Nagisa cleaning the front area of her family shop. She seems happy when Tomoya gives her the dango, wishing that she can join the big dango family. She explains how she was depressed because she's always left alone in class but she's feeling better now. While the two talk, there's this little girl who, for some reason, looks sad too.

In return, Tomoya explains the conversation that he had with Sunohara earlier. Apparently he and Sunohara were in sports club. Sunohara in soccer while he himself was involved with basketball. Tomoya, however, hasn't played basketball in a while. Upon hearing this, Nagisa invites him to play basketball with her tomorrow. Tomoya is not sure about this but continues to think about it. The next day, he finds out that it's raining outside so he decides to go to school in fear that Nagisa still waits for him. True enough, the girl is drenched in rain waiting for him in basketball field. Despite being angry at her for standing in the rain, he agrees to show her how to throw a shoot. Unfortunately, Tomoya can't do it because he injured his right shoulder after a fight with his father during his 3rd year middle school. As a result, his right arm won't go higher than his shoulder and therefore, he can't play basketball anymore. The episode ends with Nagisa passing out because she thinks she is nothing but trouble for Tomoya.

Impression:

This is pretty good for a second episode mostly thanks to Kyou and Tomoyo. Kyou is probably my favorite character at the moment thanks to her hilarious evil laugh and her general attitude towards Tomoya. I guess she's one of those "Tsundere" girls? I can't help but laughing outloud when Tomoya tells everyone that Kyou is bi to cover up the fact that he almost blurted out that she was biking to school. I also think that of all the girls, she's probably the most realistic character in that she acts and behaves like normal girl, albeit a tomboy one. This is not a criticism for girl prototypes like Nagisa or that girl who keeps cutting her hand with a knife. However, I can't help but wonder why a high school student would act like she's still in primary school. High school is a pretty tough place to be and most teens at that age would have to mature considerably in order to get along with their peers and because they want to be taken seriously.

Tomoyo is another favorite character also because despite her too-good-to-be-true martial arts skill, she behaves like a normal girl in high school situation. I really enjoyed the part where she lightning kicked Sunohara like a professional Chun-Li. Unfortunately it's clear that the writers would not choose her nor Kyou as the default female character. The signs are all here. Tomoya's mind always drifted back to Nagisa, the little girl in that mysterious room looks like Nagisa, and she generally is primed to be the main love interest for Tomoya. That's fair enough because at least Nagisa still has a rather realistic trait to her like wanting to set up the drama club. In a way, she reminds me of Tohru from Fruits Basket except that she doesn't have Tohru's positive attitude towards life in general. As for Tomoya, it's good to know about his past with his father right away. I thought the writers would drag it out for a few more episodes.

Preview

On next week's episode: Tomoya is putting the move on Nagisa.

© memento 2003