Clannad ~After Story~ [ep 3]

by eternal on October 20, 2008

Oh boy, am I going to have fun with the screencaps this time.


Sanae Sanako, you are now officially awesome.


Worried Sanae = MOE OVERLOAD


lolwut


Somehow I get the feeling he doesn’t mind…


You can’t tell from the screencap, but I believe he was humming Dango Daikazoku. If that isn’t GAR, then I don’t know what is.


lolwut, again.


FACT: KyoAni wants to mess with your head.


So have I.


Don’t go there, man…


Oops, too late.


You’re now realizing that?


I don’t think “idiocy” is the right word for this…


Tearful Ryou is win.


This has probably crossed the interwebs and back in a matter of hours.

Key, why must you do this to us?


Go on, finish the sentence…


EPIC accidental screencap, but needs moar italics.


What would Nagisa think…?


You wish, Tomoya. You wish.


Sunohara’s human side.

So, uh…yeah. Mei. How about that? She was just a side character until recently, fairly forgettable in season one and all-around irrelevant when it comes to the grand scheme of things…

…Or so I thought. Much like Sanae and even Youhei himself, Mei has now crossed my mental boundry between side character and important character, mainly thanks to KyoAni’s shameless fanservice the role she’s playing in the current story arc.

All right, just to get this over with: Mei is awesome. I don’t believe many of the anime bloggers writing about this episode are in any way complaining about the gratuitous amounts of “onii-chan” present in the episode, and she effectively provided an entire series’ worth of fanservice withuot even trying – and without a single shameless pantsu shot or anything of the sort. What’s even stranger, though, is how she fits into the story. I don’t mean this in a serious way, of course; I just mean that it’s utterly hilarious to see a stereotypical imouto mess with the head of one of the most respectable harem leads in history. It was nice seeing Tomoya’s siscon side (strange as that sounds), even if only to laugh at it. That said, I have to admit, After Story has been pretty cruel to him so far; one day he’s blushing over his girlfriend’s mom, the next day he’s blushing over his best friend’s little sister.

I’m tempted to veer away from the comedy and start talking about the development between Youhei and Mei (no, not that kind of development), but for the sake of next week’s episode, I’ll try not to. We can all see the themes of family being miraculously woven into an episode that seemed to be so blatantly otaku-targeted, and I know that at least I’m impressed at their ability to do this. Watching an episode of Clannad these days is like being thrown into moe heaven, but without the blatant escapism and fanservice; and that’s something that very few VN adaptations managed to do.

However, since the story is still continuing, I’ll try to hold back my comments. Frankly, it was nice to see Sunohara act so human, rather than falling into his stereotype – there’s something about fatally flawed characters that appeals to me (probably the reason why I never hated Shinji Ikari), so instead of despising Youhei, I found myself sympathizing with him instead. He really isn’t a bad guy, like I’ve said a million times, and it’s nice to see that he isn’t “recovering” in a matter of minutes, only to be brushed aside by the next “important” arc. They’re taking their time with this one, and that’s a good thing – things like this are what make me love Clannad, maybe even more than the other Key productions. Kanon is pretty much the epitome of the visual novel genre if you ask me, but Clannad is the revolutionary.

However, with all of that said, I can’t help but feel that this entire episode was about Mei and Tomoya’s…er…mental dilemma. Then again, that could just be the siscon side of me talking.

~ ETERNAL
つづく

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

M12 October 21, 2008 at 6:25 am

I’ve always liked Sunohara. He knows when to be retarded, and when to be serious. He’s been through a lot, and I anticipate a touching conclusion to the arc.
Anyway, Mei moved me a little bit in this ep. That’s special, considering I don’t usually care about lolis at all XD.

M12s last blog post..Vinja Scroll

Reply

FuyuMaiden October 21, 2008 at 5:20 pm

I still can’t help but like Sunohara too because he reminds me of my older brother (oh what a poor little sister I must be since I don’t even have the consolation of being cute anymore). But at least he doesn’t remind me of him in terms of stupidity, but rather unintended selfishness.

Sunohara’s a good guy. He just doesn’t know how to act like a good guy anymore (or that’s my take on it).

And Mei has imouto appeal that transcends age, gender, situations, and intelligence. There’d be something wrong with Tomoya if he didn’t have that reaction!

FuyuMaidens last blog post..Anime Weekly (10/13 – 10/19)

Reply

zenical October 22, 2008 at 2:48 pm

This episode touched on Sunohara and Mei and it kinda feels like me and my brother. XD. But no tears are coming out from me! LOL. I guess this is really like a depiction of real life. Brothers are concern but they’re just too…. uh.. whats the word.. stubborn? =_=

zenicals last blog post..Exclusive Figurines for You?

Reply

ETERNAL October 23, 2008 at 3:45 pm

@ M12: My thoughts exactly on Sunohara, for the most part. He’s an underrated character.

@ FuyuMaiden: I think that’s a good way of putting it. It’s hard to know how one should be acting in real life, even though anime characters like Tomoya always make it look easy to “do the right thing”.
And yes, his reaction was perfectly justifiable ;P

@ zenical: We all seem to agree on this point, I suppose; Sunohara is realistic, and at least in my eyes, that’s a good thing.

Reply

Cancel reply

Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: