Clannad ep.16-17

February 10, 2008 | 16 Comments

I'm sorry for the 12+ hours downtime yesterday if you happen to visit the site and couldn't connect to it. My favorite service provider was down as usual and didn't bother to notify anyone about it. If it's not because I'm too busy these days, I'd spend the time to look for another provider. Unfortunately, not only I have busy schedule these days, I am reluctant to do major move to another server. I just finished an upgrade of the Movable Type blogging software that I use and am not in the mood to do another stressful blog-related maintenance. Anyway, these two episodes show major progress in the storyline. It looks like the writers are going to combine Kyou and Tomoyo story into one arc while inserting some obvious Nagisa/Tomoya moment in between. This makes me wonder if the rumor that the series will get 52 episodes is true or not. Since I have no idea of the story, I don't see why this series can't end in 26 episodes.

Episode 16:

In the aftermath of Mei's arrival, Tomoya decides to explain the misunderstanding surrounding Sunohara. Since Mei can't stay at Sunohara's dormitory, Nagisa decides to bring her to her house. The next day, Tomoya is shocked when Tomoyo suddenly appears and drags him all the way to school. It seems she has heard about Tomoya's tendency to be late and decides to make sure that he never does it again. Upon seeing Tomoya and Tomoyo together, Kyou becomes angry for some reason. Tomoyo, however, asks Tomoya if he has a girlfriend and since Tomoya claims that he doesn't, she thinks it's okay for her to hang around him. Despite this, Kyou drags Tomoya away so he can have lunch with her and Ryou. During lunch, it becomes obvious that she wants to pair up Tomoya and Ryou. On the day of the basketball competition, Tomoya, Kyou, and Sunohara somehow manage to win against the junior players so the basketball team decides to put their best players in the second round. Their expertise almost defeat the group until Tomoya hears Nagisa's voice, asking him to shoot the ball in the last second of the game. In the end, Tomoya's team win by a narrow margin of one point.

Episode 17:

Due to the basketball match, the choir club agrees to share adviser with the theater club. Unfortunately, the student council is against the idea so Nagisa feels dejected once again. Due to the stress, Nagisa ends up falling unconscious and has to stay home for a while. Meanwhile, Tomoyo decides to take her plan to make sure that Tomoya is not late one step further. She comes unannounced to his house and personally wakes him up. Seeing that he can't convince her otherwise, Tomoya decides to ask Tomoyo to do the same thing to Sunohara. Kyou is not happy to see this new development and convinces her sister that if she doesn't act on her feeling, Tomoya will be taken by Tomoyo. Speaking of Tomoyo, she also decides to go home together with Tomoya so Sunohara decides to tag along. He brings them to an area where he usually get bullied so that those who bullied him are afraid of Tomoyo. Tomoya, who understands Sunohara's intention, decides to guilt trip the guy to treat Tomoyo and himself to some cakes at a cafe. The next day, Tomoya is invited by Kyou and Ryou to eat lunch that has been prepared by Ryou. Unfortunately unlike lunch that was prepared by Kyou, it doesn't taste as good.

Later on, Tomoya becomes depressed because he misses Nagisa's presence around him. In order to cheer him up, he decides to drink coffee at the old library. Yukine suggests that he do something from book of charms to improve his luck. Unfortunately, the charm that Tomoya puts into practice is one where he'd get locked together with a girl. Due to Nagisa not being around, he thinks Kyou will do just fine. Much to his shock, he really ends up getting locked together with Kyou inside equipment storage room. In order to end the awkward moments, Tomoya takes off his shirt and chants "curses are nothing to me" since Yukine said that this will end the charm's effect. True enough, someone comes and opens the door. On his way back home, Tomoya realizes that a bunch of gang members are waiting outside the gate to get revenge on Tomoyo. Despite this, Tomoyo refuses to ask for help. Before she gets beaten, however, the school principal and sport teacher arrive on the scene. When the teacher asks Tomoyo if she was the one who started the fight, Tomoya claims that he's the one who started it. As a result, he teacher tells him that he'll be suspended.

Impression:

Episode 16 was quite entertaining and funny. It's obvious now as to which girl will seriously get paired up with Tomoya and as expected, she'll be Nagisa. The entire Tomoya claiming that he doesn't have a girlfriend was just a convenient way of pairing him up with the other girl before seriously setting him up with Nagisa. It's hard to see at the moment if Tomoyo likes him in romantic manner or if she just finds him interesting and different from other boys. Kyou, on the other hand, is slightly puzzling because it's hard to tell if she just want to pair Tomoya up with her sister or if she has feelings for Tomoya herself. Either way, it's highly unlikely that either of them will end up with Tomoya since this episode made it obvious that only Nagisa can motivate Tomoya to do something. As for the subplot, I'm really tired of the theater club vs. choir club situation. It's like that story is being dragged out for eternity without any kind of resolution whatsoever. I guess it's needed here so that they can take Nagisa out of the storyline in the next episode. Although if one takes a look at Tomoya's reaction in episode 17, it's not hard to see that there's no other girl that he'd rather be with apart Nagisa.

Speaking of episode 17, I find Kyou's sudden turn from tough girl to meek and submissive girl to be a bit too much. I know the whole tsundere thing is popular in Japan but girls do not immediately change personality from being tough to wanting to give it all to a boy just because they are trapped inside a room. Besides, it's not like no one is going to rescue them or that it's the end of the world. Anyway, another thing that annoys me is Fuuko and her constant appearance in the story. I think even if she wakes up at the end of the series, I'd want someone to send her to a permanent sleep. She was plain annoying in this episode and interrupted what otherwise could have been a tense situation. The same thing can be said about Sunohara. It's like they just put his character so he can get beat up. The fight itself was pretty good though and I'm glad that the series opt for realism. No matter how agile and strong Tomoyo is, for her to win against that many opponents is just unrealistic. As for the surprise ending, I suspect the reason that Tomoya does this is because he knows that teacher will still blame Tomoyo even if he finds out that she was provoked by the gang members.

Posted by Garten

Comments

February 10, 2008 | Quinn wrote:

It would be nice if 'the other guy' in this kind of harem anime is actually a possible competition for the main lead character instead of a loser like Sunohara.

February 10, 2008 | Setsukyie wrote:

Sunohara is not a loser..
But he's not the type of guy who can compete with the main lead character either...
He's just the 'best friend of the main lead character character' type of guy..
And a very good one too..

February 10, 2008 | RyuSaga wrote:

although at first, i didnt have anytihng against fuko, and hey.... we don't make the story.... nothing we can do about it.. but
her appearances are getting a bit annoying.... in ep 17, it totally ruined the mood of the scene..... within 2 seconds of her appearance, i already started thinking "ah ... shit... "
i do agree that kyou is being a bit unpredictable though.

February 10, 2008 | Folckhart wrote:

I'm glad that the series opt for realism. No matter how agile and strong Tomoyo is, for her to win against that many opponents is just unrealistic"
That's funny, why do you start bothering about realism now , we already watched 17 phantasmagoric episodes, so what is the point ?
It didnt seem realistic to me nor unrealistic , in fact i didnt really paid attention , but if i had to think about it , ill say that , assuming the fact that all the bad guys were normal peoples, it wouldnt have been a problem for tomoyo to beat them all. Because , you can get an idea of tomoyo's supernatural strenght when she fought against sunohara.She is so fast that she can make a 200 hit combo ala shunli in a blink (human cant do that) . She is so strong that she can send her oponent 10 meters away with one kick ( human cant do that too) Plus she seems to have a lot of experience in fighting multiple oponent ( that's why so many bad guys came to gang against her. )

Most of the time , those kind of peoples are over confident , because they outnumber the enemy so they wont be as focused as tomoyo, not mentioning that they look really inexperimented ( one of them hold a badminton bat as a weapon)
I can imagine the outcome of this fight easily.
She first beat several guys in a blink then some of the bad guy will start to hesitate , some of them will charge without thinking , then the second wave will be beaten in a blink too. Then most of the bad guys'll think twice before charging,remembering the pain she already aflicted to them before , then tomoyo will take the initiative and beat the leader of the group , at this point , peoples will start to doubt about their numeral supperiority and the outcome of this fight while tomoyo rapidly beat them one after another.
End of the fighting.

The point is , this anime takes place in a surnatural wolrd ( even if it looks familar , its not the real world) with spirits wandering and paralel dimension etc...
Every anime has his own logic , but sometimes they dont follow it. So if you think about it , if the teachers didnt came , she may have won the battle if you follow this serie's logic.
And yes , fuko is anoying , but remember , this anime is broadcast in japan and the main target is japanese ,so i guess it's one of their niche trend they try to experiment on japanese , so if it gets popular , we'll see more fuko style non sense out of the blue like stuff in the future.Foreigner may hate it but i wonder how japanese reacted to it , there must be a lot of fuko fan art stuff on japanese image board.

What is cuteness? What is beauty ? What are their meaning ? I would certainly not die for cuteness , But would surelly do for Beauty.

By the way , have you seen Kara no kyoukai trailers? Those kind of trailers are so mysterious.

February 11, 2008 | Beowulf Lee wrote:

Ahh... the ever popular Tomoyo thigh meat screen cap.

Just out of curiosity, Garten, do you play eroge's?

February 11, 2008 | Garten wrote:

By the way , have you seen Kara no kyoukai trailers? Those kind of trailers are so mysterious.

Just out of curiosity, Garten, do you play eroge's?

No and no. As for the later, I barely even have the time to play my PS2. These days the only game that I play are mostly portable game (Patapon, here I come!).

February 11, 2008 | grooven wrote:

It will have to have another season to have it done properly since 1/4 of the illusionary world is only done, after story is major long and a huge portion of routes are not there!!! There are needed! Misae, Yukine >.>

Fuko randomness is annoying but as someone said, it is something she would do. So it isn't all that that bad.

As for girls lets not say that since you aren't one. Being one, I know that it is possible. Girls are so random you wouldn't believe...

Also stop complaining about Tomoyo not hooking up with the other girls. Go play Tomoyo after or watch it when it comes out as an anime >.>

February 12, 2008 | asdf wrote:

KyoAni needs to stop messing with Key stuff now - it's ruining their reputation... imagine having another Full Metal Panic quality work in place of this... sigh sigh sigh - I'm so glad it's almost over - what is the "Girls in the Fall" series by the way? We've had Summer, Winter, and Spring - but what is Fall?

February 12, 2008 | Kethy wrote:

Ok, so as usual, I'm glad that, as suspected, Nagisa and Tomoya are definitely gonna be the ones to hook up...
Aside from that, I have to agree that I don't like how the Japanese writers view of women: what, so the minute you're locked up with a handsome guy, you feel so vulnerable and attracted to him that you forget your own personality?!? To respond to a comment above by another fellow woman: I'm sorry, honey, but no, most women don't just randomly melt like that... at least not INSTANTLY! lol
Oh, and did I mention that I'm not too much of a fan of these out-of-space situations like being locked in the gym room or falling on top of each other or bumping into each other (and kissing somehow... as if!!! you'd hit your head REALLY hard in real life!)
On that note, Tomoya's reaction was priceless!!! ha ha ha ha ha ha! His sarcasm and humor are SOOOOOOOOo endearing! I love him!
I have been wondering about that alternate world too (the robot and the Nagisa-look-alike)... what's gonna happen to that, I wonder? I mean, I have been hearing rumors that there are only 26 episodes and we are already at episode 17!!!!
I can't wait for the rest!

February 13, 2008 | Renee wrote:

Ah... These episodes were a bit confusing, since I don't know who it's about. I don't really see Tomoya with anyone, since I can only see them as friends and nothing more.

Did you notice that when the episode isn't focused on someone, they really back out of the plot and their personality doesn't shine?
I realized that when the Kotomi arc was over, she suddenly got "adequate" social skills and doesn't really talk as much as the other girls.

Nonetheless, this was a wonderful episode, and I also agree with you about how Kyou changes when she's with Tomoya.

February 14, 2008 | solgae wrote:

"girls do not immediately change personality from being tough to wanting to give it all to a boy just because they are trapped inside a room."

I think you know why by now. Might be a bit of Yukine's magic and a bit of Kyou's mind as well. Still, I agree it's very much unrealistic.

February 14, 2008 | jordan wrote:

the girls in the fall series would be little busters, if i remeber correctly. I also agree that this can't be told in only 26 episodes, its way too long, unless they cut out a whole bunch of stuff.

February 15, 2008 | grooven wrote:

asdf get a life XD Key is amazing. FMP will get it's day too. Just keep quiet ^-^ There is no Fall. Oh and Clannad isn't all spring it is Winter too >.> and Summer note the summer uniforms duuur

There is obviously going to be a 2nd part it will end with the school life of Nagisa. But 2nd seroes will be about After Story. This is the real meat of the story.

People bitch to much about this show. Hey it is better than alot of what is airing now!

February 16, 2008 | Myssa Rei wrote:

Depite what SOME people might say, I'm still enjoying the pacing of the show, but I'm one of the few who are not holding their breath for an extension of CLANNAD, After or no.

On a related note, it's incredible how much people seem to complain about Tomoya ending up in a relationship with Nagisa (a forgone conclusion, Tomoyo After aside). I think she's a very likeable heroine, and her story brings the theme of 'family' sharply into focus (something people tend to forget in their fanboying over a character). Aside from Tomoyo or Mei's, I don't think any of the other arcs that shows it as well.

February 21, 2008 | Derek wrote:

I guess my question would be not whether it is 52 eps, but why isn't it?

I mean, there's obviously enough material to fill 52 eps, and this is clearly a popular show with a wide demographic reach. So... what would be underlying reasons why it can't be 52 episodes, aside from the fact that certain arcs cannot really be done in the same timeline?

February 23, 2008 | Naomi wrote:

If you enjoy Clannad/Kanon, I strongly suggest True Tears. It also has a protagonist with several girls fighting for his heart. The main characters in True Tears are as mysterious as the girls in all the Clannad/Kanon arcs. The series revolves around an interesting metaphor. It's much more fast paced and gets a bit crazy within the first four episodes. With thirteen episodes, it's overall, a short but lovely series.