A compilation episode of both seasons of Clannad.

Impressions:

There isn’t that much to say on this episode, but I decided that I should put something about it up. Looking back I never did post anything on the Tomoyo extra episode for last season’s 24th episode, but doesn’t mean I can’t do anything for this one. However, there isn’t much to say. Obviously as the episode is even titled a compilation episode it isn’t meant to do anything other than give a quick refresher about everything this wild journey of Clannad has been for almost two years.

The episode itself obviously isn’t a substitute for watching the series, as there’s no way it could be intended as so. After all, it was 48 episodes and is one of the most epic and emotional series I’ve ever seen. Really it was aimed at those who had already watched it, reminding them of everything the long series has entailed. I do have to say that I will watch this series again, hopefully in a little less time than a two year span :D

I’ve really said all my final thoughts on the whole Clannad series, the whole thing and just After Story on episode 22’s post as I still really think that is effectively the Final episode as far as the plot and big events go. So read that if you want my take on it, and as I said, as for this compilation episode, it wasn’t anything special, but was a just a nice reminder to those who have watched everything already of what has happened.

We see how Tomoya and Kyou first met, and the troubles Nagisa went though when she started third year by herself.

Impressions:

I liked this episode quite a lot. I’m kind of glad they made this extra episode a prequel and not a sequel. The last episode, the real final episode, had a kind of cinematic ending to it that would kind of be lost if they were to add something to the end of it. I was a bit surprised that this prequel took place so early. From the preview I thought perhaps it would happen only a few days before the first episode of the first season during the first couple of episodes of the first season, but I didn’t expect a whole year. I actually really liked seeing it that early, as it was fun seeing how Kyou and Tomoya met and some of the things he and Sunohara tried to do. It was also quite funny that Tomoya and Sunohara ended up pranking Nagisa like that, if only they knew what was to come…

It does seem as if there is yet another episode, but I don’t have too much promise that it will be anything interesting. It says it’s a compilation episode and they can’t easily combine 40+ episodes into one, or even 23 into one. Plus compilation means its stuff we’ve seen before. I’ll still check it out, but it’s not like this episode where there was original content.

Tomoya looks back on his life, questioning if he should have ever met Nagisa in the first place.

Impressions:

…

Wow… I did NOT expect that to happen. That is the one thing that I didn’t see coming. I thought they would incorporate the miracle talk into this episode, but I thought it would go towards saving Ushio who would be in the hospital. Normally, I would dislike a turn of events like this. Having someone be alive who they just spent a lot of content on showing the results of her death, kind of seems to undo a lot of the series. However it seems that it’s a tragic enough event to happen showing it once, that I don’t mind having the miracle kind of reset things. I found the way they tied in the alternate world very interesting. The girl definitely seems to be Ushio, as a flash of her sleeping kind of appeared when Fuuko found Ushio. Tomoya being the robot, it does shed some light on the metaphor. It was a rather deep connection, and I’d have to watch it again to fully understand, but as it stands now I think it helped give some depth to the story. I do have to say that I found the scene where Tomoya realized that he should have met Nagisa very beautiful. The way she walked by him but the metaphor of the other world showed him or kind of revealed how much he loves her and that he should meet her. Running up and hugging her like that was great.

I think the quote Nagisa said at the end was important to kind of explaining how or why this miracle happened. She said, “If perhaps this town has the same will as that of the people’s hearts, and if we should bring happiness to those who live in this town, if such feelings should exist, then perhaps the town brought about this miracle.”They kept talking several times throughout the series about how the town kind of had a life force of its own. I think that some of that talk, about how the two of them were in this town together, was important to this quote and the miracle that happened in it.

Of course, like the last season the “final” episode isn’t really the last one, as there is an extra episode that seems like it is effectively a prequel, or at least really delving into the time when Tomoya and Nagisa first met. It should be interesting to see. It would have been nice though if they had done an epilogue though. Seeing the quick shots of everyone grown up in this episode was cool, but it would be a lot of fun for an extra episode to have them all meet. I can easily see it happening, Ushio could innocently insult Sunohara or something and so on.

Final Words:

I never could have anticipated this series being so emotional, so tragic and serious and just so good overall. I was expecting to like it. As I loved the previous season, I loved Kanon, and they have very similar feels to it. However the first season didn’t really give off a vibe of there being this very deep and complex emotional side of characters. The first season concluded with an event that wasn’t’ all that emotional, especially compared to similar series like Kanon. It was alright, it had some interesting individual stories of characters, but overall it lacked an important overall plot. It just seemed to be a collection of mini stories focusing on every character other then the main ones. What After Story effectively was, was the Tomoya and Nagisa story. While the entire rest of the series dealt with side characters, this season finally gave some focus to them and in comparison, Tomoya’s arc just blew everything else out of the water. Nothing else even came close to the amount of drama and character development this gave. Clannad is NOTHING without this After Story season. With After Story, Clannad overall has just shot up in my rankings of favorite anime and has officially the saddest anime moment of any anime I’ve ever seen.

I’m still in awe at what this series has done for me. I became so emotionally involved in what was happening to these characters that I didn’t’ care about anything else. They spent their time getting you to really know these characters and then BOOM they throw in some of the most tragic events that can ever happen to a person. Overall the things Tomoya deals with are just miles ahead of the problems others have. This is about blaming himself for Nagisa’s death, realizing the sacrifices his father made for him, seeing that he needs to become a father, finally having happiness after one of the most tragic events to happen to someone, having the person you love who is responsible for making something of your life die, then have that happiness on the brink of being taken away as well. The actual emotions and things going on in Tomoya’s head, you could rally feel them and I think the show portrayed very realistically how someone in that situation may react. Of course it’s easy to point out and say he should just step up and so on, but realistically it’s nowhere near that easy and this show demonstrated that nicely.

One thing I found myself being conflicted on was wanting to see more of the other characters like Sunohara, Kyou, Ryou, Kotomi and Tomoyo. I wanted to see some of them after the five year or so gap. While they did show Fuuko and Kyou, they didn’t really give Kyou a lot of time and Fuuko was out of the loop enough that her appearance didn’t make a huge difference. However, while I kind of wanted to see them and what time has made of them, at the same time that’s the exact opposite of what I had been wishing for throughout the entire series. I made several comments to myself and on the site that I wanted them to stop with these side stories and focus on Tomoya, then when they finally did a part of me wanted to see them. However, overall I have to say that the final segment was much better without them. They had the entire series to be focused on. This was finally Tomoya’s time for some very deep and psychological advancement and development, and cluttering it up with the other characters would have taken away from that.

Tomoya adjusts his entire life to take care of a sick Ushio whose illness is more serious than he had thought.

Impressions:

What the hell is this show trying to do, kill me? I was just sitting there feeling absolutely horrible while watching this thing. They spend a long time setting up Ushio’s character and how important she is to Tomoya, show her being entirely cute and having him just live his life for her and then they go and make her so horribly sick that she looks like she’s going to die any minute. I really could not stand it if Ushio dies. I would just absolutely hate this show. Now, although I’m usually quite pessimistic when thinking about how things are going to turn out in all honesty I don’t think she is going to die, but I would go absolutely ballistic if she did. Still, they did a damn good job of making me worry A LOT over her. There wasn’t a lot more to this episode other than me just being worried about what was going to happen. I’ve come to care so much for Ushio and feel for Tomoya’s situation that I was so afraid of what could happen to Ushio, I didn’t even think of what’s likely to happen or anything like that, I was so caught up in the moment.

Although I probably should have realized this before, I didn’t think that the next episode was going to be the final one. The first season had the same amount of episodes so I guess it makes sense that this one would too, but I was expecting there to be 24 or 26. Seeing the preview say that the next episode is the final one came as a bit of a shock, as in my mind when I was watching the show up to this point I kept thinking about how things would progress at a pace giving that there were more episodes. Seeing Ushio in such a bad condition I figured they had plenty of time to get her better, then…BOOM. Still, I’m sure they will use the miracle theme that they’ve kind of touched on in the past of this series. Although surprisingly not a lot, it’s still there and has been sued before so I think Ushio will be fine. However I expect it to be emotional and I’ll be on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens even if I have a strong feeling one way or the other.

Tomoya continues to live a normal life with Ushio and gets to meet Ushio’s teacher.

Impressions:

I thought this was a very sweet episode, at least up until the ending cliffhanger of course. It was a lot of fun seeing Kyou again, although not much of a surprise as anyone could have figured out she was the teacher. Then of course seeing more of Fuko was actually a lot better than I expected it. She was kind of annoying in some of her latter appearances in the first season, but not only was she not annoying, there were times in this episode she brought up kind of serious topics and made Tomoya cry when thinking about what he would be doing with Nagisa and Ushio if she was still alive. I really do hope they bring the others into the picture again, as not only would it just be great to see the characters again, after a five year time gap it would be interesting to see the changes some of them have made or gone though.

The end was a shock, especially as things have JUST gotten back to a happy place. I really feel sorry for Tomoya, he just keeps having horrible thing after horrible thing happening to him. Nothing better actually happen o Ushio or I swear I’ll go on a rampage. She is too god damn cute and it would be so damn horrible for Tomoya it wouldn’t even be describable. I have a feeling she’ll end up being all right, but still….gah!

Tomoya begins to live with Ushio and goes with her to see his father.

Impressions:

I really absolutely loved this episode. Although it wasn’t as big in terms of emotions or events happening as several of the most recent episodes, there was just something about the feeling of this episode that was great to see. First starting out it was nice to finally see some things be happy for once. A lot of drama and tragedy has happened recently and seeing Tomoya be with Ushio in a very happy way was really something I have wanted to see. Then, although not the most cheerful of subjects, Tomoya’s talk with his dad I thought was great. It was emotional in a non tragic way. He finally really saw all his father did for him with different eyes and the way he relieved his father of this guilt and burden he has been carrying for so long was quite touching I found. The happiness light was a great touch, both when they showed it when Ushio was with Tomoya and then when they were saying goodbye to his father. It was quite emotional but in a very nice wrapping up loose ends kind of way.

I’m really looking forward to them showing more interactions with all the old characters. I loved the bit they had with Fuuko in this episode. It wasn’t super annoying or random like some of the other times they showed her in the past, it was just a nice cameo showing her being somewhat weird but in a believable manner. I’m sure they’ll show Kyou soon because it’s obvious she’s the kindergarten teacher that is away on a break that takes care of Ushio. Since they’re showing her hopefully they’ll show some of the others. A five year gap can really change some of the people so it will be interesting to see them all really settled in whatever careers they are in and so on.

Tomoya learns things about his past during his trip with Ushio and learns what he must do now.

Impressions:

I was really surprised with how much they portrayed Tomoya’s father as a good person. I really did see him as a bad person for how bad of a father he was an all they showed him, and although while those events still exist and he isn’t a perfect person, it was much more understandable and I felt sorry for him rather then disliking him. I mean, after the woman he loved dies he then proceeded to willingly give up everything he had in his life in order to be a good father. Although he hit some bumps, it’s not like he neglected Tomoya. He gave everything he had for him to the degree of falling into despair himself. All things considering, committing to another like that he isn’t so bad. This episode was a lot more interesting and emotional then I thought it was going to be. I expected it to more or less show Tomoya still not being a good father; I didn’t think they’d turn it around so fast. I thought it would only be near the end when Tomoya really got a slap in the face about the reality of the situation, but it happened here. Again, I admit I cried when they talked about Tomoya’s father and compared it to him, then when Tomoya was recalling everything about Nagisa to Ushio. It was a very emotional episode, especially considering no huge event happened, they just talked about the situation.

I’m curious where the series will go from here. I was really surprised with how well they handled things. They gave a good reason for Tomoya to see what he was doing wrong, compare it to what his father went through, and realize he needs to effectively get over it. Right now, the series could almost come to an end. Without any more episodes I could easily see this episode having been the final one. After all Tomoya came face to face with the problems his father had, realizing he needs to do better. He saw how much Ushio needed him, and he resolved to do better. He let his emotions out. It really seemed that when he was crying on the train about Nagisa that it was really the first time he let himself cry over the event. He mentioned how as a grownup there are times you can’t cry even when you want to, and I think that’s the first time he let himself cry over what happened to Nagisa. That shows that he has really actually faced what happened for the first time, and with that things are pretty well concluded. Now, obviously it ISN’T the final episode so I’m curious what they’ll bring into fill up the rest of the episodes. Obviously visiting his father and there will likely be something to do with Tomoya forgiving him or telling him he was a good father. Beyond that the only thing I really want is for them to show more happy moments so they can effectively stress that the tragedy pat has been overcome. I’d love to see the other characters back again, as the OP shows Kyou seems to be working as a kindergarten teacher and the other’s see to have some interaction with Ushio so if that could be shown I think it would be really neat to see.

Tomoya’s life falls into a deep depression after what happened to Nagisa.

Impressions:

It’s sad to see Tomoya the way he is, how far he has fallen with his smoking, letting the house go, and so on, but although its bad to see him like this and of course the ideal is that he would still be a good father, it’s totally understandable. Tomoya was only who he was because of Nagisa. Before him he was a delinquent and just didn’t do anything with his life, to lose her support and just to lose her when he loved her would just disrupt his life in a huge way. He can easily blame himself for her dying as well, as he somewhat did with wishing he had never met her. Not because he dislikes her, but far on the opposite. Because if he never met her there’s a chance she wouldn’t have died. I’m not saying I condone his behavior, in fact I’d really like for him to step up and become a better father and everything like that, but it’s very understandable why he is the way he is.

I’m really interested in how the show will progress from here. Last episode was a HUGE turning point in the way things moved so this episode really more or less established the situation. We’ve still yet to really see how things are going to progress. Sadly, I don’t think Tomoya can just instantly get over his depression and become a good father. As the preview for the next episode shows he bursts out in anger in front of Ushio. Really ideally I’d like for everything to effectively be a happy ending. The show has had enough tragedy in it that an ending on the happy side would still leave the show to be serious. If Tomoya could eventually become like a real father to Ushio, it would e great. However I doubt it will be easy.

Tomoya and Nagisa prepare for Ushio’s birth, knowing what it might cost them.

Impressions:

Wow. This episode was more emotional then I could ever have anticipated. I knew Nagisa was going to die. I absolutely knew it, and I was pretty sure it was going to happen in this episode because of the name of the preview for it and the name of the episode. Still, knowing it was going to happen didn’t do a thing to deter the sadness and tragedy. I fully admit, I was crying during the whole labor scene. Not just watering eyes, but full tears. Sure sad and tragic things happen several times in anime; however this seemed to connect on an almost entirely different level. With both seasons of this show I’ve watched Clannad for almost a year, with each episode being weekly. There was such a strong connection to these characters that I really felt the tragedy happening to them much more. Nagisa was such an amazing character, always thinking of others, very kind and innocent, always hoping for others best and for her to die after having her be such a huge part of this series for such a long time really it home with me. This really was one of the saddest anime moments ever really. There are other anime where I’ve cried, but I really don’t think it compares at all to this series and this episode. It wasn’t just this one tragic event that was sad, its everything that this means. It was them knowing it was a possibility, its Tomoya now hating himself for doing this to Nagisa. I just can’t express enough how sad this moment was and how much it really meant for the series and me.

This episode also really had me interested and curious as to what exactly this metaphor other world thing is. The story of the girl and the robot has been throughout the series but has always been very cryptic about what exactly it means. Then, we have Kotomi again bringing up this topic and issue of other worlds. When she talked about it in the first season, it didn’t seem as if it was that important. In fact when her story boiled down to not really dealing with them very much I kind of dismissed it. However, they brought it up again here, and in such a crucial and important time I the series that it HAS to mean something. Even more, it ties in the play that Nagisa did. Talking of other worlds, Tomoya remembered Nagisa’s play about the world that had ended, and a scene from the girl and robot flashed before him, which is a story of a world that has ended. It’s just taxing my brain as to what exactly this other world thing and metaphor of a world that has ended means. The metaphor scene, which is what I call the whole girl and robot thing, was interspersed throughout the whole episode this time and not just at the beginning. It also seemed to connect far more with what the rest of the series is doing and focusing on, as the robot or girl or both seemed to be dying, and well Nagisa died as well. I don’t’ want to make any real guesses right now, as there are far too many possibilities I can think of, but it obviously means something important and big.

Tomoya starts to worry about Nagisa’s health and condition throughout her pregnancy.

Impressions:

This episode was pretty damn important. Even though it kind of seems that not a lot happened, after all Nagisa and Tomoya just kind of talked about stuff to come, nothing happened with the pregnancy like birth or anything however I thought this episode was one of the most important ones they’ve had in a long time because all of the things they discussed. They really seemed to kind of stress this whole family issue, that Tomoya really is part of Akio and Sanae’s family and there were some strong issues such as parenthood that arose, and things like Akio recalling the night Nagisa collapsed. There were a lot of emotion, most subtle, that were expressed though the characters.

I really just started to tear up at the end of this episode, not because it was a happy moment or a sad moment, but because I just know that Nagisa is going to end up dying. I have this horrible feeling that that’s the way it’s going to end up and hearing them talk about the baby and their future and having this feeling of impending disaster was very saddening. Of course, the preview showing Nagisa writhing in pain didn’t exactly help either, plus the title of the next episode, white darkness obviously seems to imply something bad, the darkness, happens but a good thing comes form it, the white, the baby. GAH! It’s one thing for a sad thing to happen; it’s another to be tortured by knowing it’s going to happen and having to just wait for the moment everything crashes down.