Xebek\’s Blog

(This is not the new Kanon; I’m blogging the old one before new one comes out, fair warning)

Yuuichi returns to his hometown after seven years away to stay with his aunt and cousin, while searching to remember about the time he spent seven years ago. He runs into a mysterious girl who seems to remember him, although he knows nothing of her.

Summary:

• We see Yuuichi, main character waiting on a bench. A girl come sup who apparently he was waiting for and after we find out they knew each other and are meeting again after seven years, he heads back with the girl identified as Nayuki.
• Yuuichi heads with the girl to her home and we find out she is his cousin, and he is staying with her and her mom while his parents are away. This is the first time returning to this town after seven years. While unpacking his stuff Yuuichi finds a red hair band, and kind of dismisses it, not knowing where it came from.
• The next day, Nayuki heads off to some school activities she has. Yuuichi stays home and after a while, heads off to buy groceries and to meet up with Nayuki. He heads out, and after realizing how cold it is outside he remembers back to seven yeas ago, a time when he was with Nayuki and he was saying how it was too cold.
• He goes into town and meets up with Nayuki. After giving her money and telling her to buy things since he doesn’t remember what’s good, Nayuki heads off telling him to wait for her. As he is waiting a girl come sup and runs into him, knocking him down. She yells at him for being in the way but all of a sudden grabs him, telling him to follow her and starts running.
• The two of them keep running and end up hiding. A man comes by looking for them and when he is gone Yuuichi asks what is going on. She says she was buying taiyaki and didn’t have money so she had to run and escape. Yuuichi is stunned, that she is the one in the wrong and Ayu just says the reason is because she was hungry.
• The girl identifies herself as Ayu, and he says he is Yuuichi. She seems to be shocked at his name and eventually they part.
• Yuuichi remembers Nayuki and that he was supposed to meet with her. He goes home to find her there, and she is mad about him forgetting her. However, since she was late to meet him she says it’s even. Yuuichi eventually heads off to sleep.
• We see a flashback to Yuuichi as a kid meeting with Ayu as a kid. She is crying because of something and Yuuichi cheers her up, buying her taiyaki. They depart and Yuuichi promises her he will meet up with her again.

Impressions:

Ughuuuu…. Best damn line in the whole show, maybe the best line in any anime. That line is part of what I love about Ayu’s character. Not just that, but her character is hilarious I think. Especially the part in this episode when she was trying to justify taking the taiyaki, saying how it’s a really super complicated story when it turns out she was just hungry.

Nayuki’s character was great too. One thing about Kanon that really is pretty good is the character personalities I think. I loved the flashback to Nayuki as a kid when she was whining and calling Yuuichi a liar, yelling how he would have to eat nothing but red pickled ginger. Her voice seems to go really well with her character and how she was kind of clueless but cute at the same time.

Yuuichi’s past seems to be what this show will focus on the most. Yuuichi finding the headband is likely to be important, because I don’t’ think they would emphasize it so much if it didn’t play some roll later on. He doesn’t seem to remember Ayu at all, although she obviously remembers him. We saw from the flashback how they met when they were kids, and it seemed like Yuuichi is who sparked her interest in Taiyaki in the first place.

Spoilers:

Small note in case you’ve not read my other posts about series I’m re-watching, don’t read this section unless you want spoilers for things that are guaranteed for the end, the above is speculation, below is fact. Well, also since I didn’t know where to put it, below are also some things regarding the remake. In the remake postings this section will also be for comparing the two and if the endings are going same place.

One thing about the beginning of this episode that I didn’t notice the first time through was at the beginning, it showed a nurse looking out a window. Then it showed a shot of someone’s arm in a hospital bed. Now, obviously if you’ve watched it before you realize its Ayu. The first time through when I watched this I guess I didn’t really pay any attention to it.

One thing that I noticed about this episode, although not really about this episode, is that the music playing was the same music in the trailer for the remake. I thought that was really cool and didn’t know until now that they used the same music for that. I just hope they will use the music in the actual remake.

One more thing relating to the remake is the transition between episode halves. Watching this episode I wonder if they are going to keep with the same kind of transitions, using a shot of one of the girls saying Kanon. It’s a really simple thing to do and I think it would be cool if the remake had same transitions, although with the new animation and so on of course.