Feb 26 2009
Clannad After Story 15-16: WHYYYY
I was just going to do Clannad After’s ep 15 and 16, but I wasn’t happy with how episode 16 ended, so I watched all the way up to 18. -wry- Didn’t take many screenshots, though — was too busy being shocked. Just writing up 15 and 16 today, 17 and 18 will come in tomorrow unless I find something else to watch. :)
The prevalent feeling is What The Hell? Major spoilers ahead, by the way. (Since when do my fullposts not have spoilers. XD Or visit the gallery and guess your way through what happened!)
15: Nagisa’s Bombshell: Nagisa suddenly gets pregnant! First up…aren’t they just out of high school?? Not to mention she’s not very strong of constitution, and it still seems like there’s a distance between Nagisa and Tomoya…well never mind, chalk it up to Japanese things. ._. Nagisa is adamant about having the kid.
16: The Tragedy: Pregnancy has complications — she’s 2 weeks premature and snow happens to be falling heavily so all they can do is get a midwife in and not bring her to hospital. Nagisa DIES. T_T I mean, of all things…why play the Dango Daikazoku song in the background while she dies? It’s kinda freaky. :/ Tomoya can’t cope.
These two eps really got my ire up…I was hoping for them to be happy, but guess tragedy had to strike. :S And imo Tomoya is being very selfish. -_- We’ll see more of that in ep 17ish.
@xJAYMANx: True. But that’s only two years! She’s not even 20…by traditional standards that’s probably old, but not by modern standards. Well, not by my modern standards. -wry- That’s probably what I meant by fast.
I teared up as well — especially during the final part when Tomoya was telling Ushio about Nagisa. 19 resolved it well, and I was happy to watch that. But in between was just…ugh. I don’t know. I guess I’m just disappointed to see Tomoya basically revert into the callous youth he was. -_- (Also, is it me, or did he forgive his dad pretty (too?) damned easily? I mean, he’d been estranged from the man for ages..-wry-)
I guess there’re two things I don’t like — good people uselessly dying (though at least there was some foreshadowing for this…and some resolution, too), and kids not being taken care of. He is allowed to grieve, true — and viscerally he probably blames poor little Ushio as well — but he’s still a father. It’s pretty much failing Nagisa by dumping Ushio on the grandparents — FIVE YEARS. Imagine the milestones he missed. :(
@Jay: I think I probably feel like bishing Tomoya for not trying. When niisama first spoilered me, I was like, “o.O No way! Without Nagisa around, Tomoya would just fall apart and revert to his old ways. Nagisa is the better part of him…but then maybe he’d be strong for the kid.” I suppose I’m kinda disappointed to see only the first part of what I said came true. -wry- He wasn’t better than I thought he’d be, after all.
It’s five years, yes — it’s never too late to take back Ushio, but it’s too long to take to realise that he had that responsibility.
The father issue is a completely different one — it just seemed sudden to me, because he went from utter disgust to omg dad rocks! With Ushio, in this episode, we see him warming up to her (she’s so cute =)).
Then again, I don’t have a track record of being easy on Tomoya, so. :P
Thus, the verdict: It could have been worse (he could have completely abandoned Ushio and never made up with his dad) — it could have been better. I only wish it were better. :P
The dango dai kazoku song? I think you haven’t listened to it carefully. I don’t really know much about music, but there’s are two tunes playing. One comes at an interval, where the other one is like a constant flow. It’s a pretty sad song, if you listen to the key that’s played every 4 or 5 seconds. So no, I don’t think it’s creepy.
@Rawr: I am aware it’s in a minor key. XD But the lyrics are happy. (I guess, unless you hate dango and want to eliminate them, then they probably aren’t happy. XD) If I would target a sad part, I would have have said the part about a minute and a half in where they start throwing more instruments into the mix, though…I meant freaky more like the fact that the song has always been associated with happy things for me…but now it’s irretrievably mixed. -wry- After watching a few more eps (20 in particular, I think) — I now think it’s the perfect and only choice. (Because they’ve repeated the song so many times through Clannad, there had to have been a reason for it. :P) Even though it makes me feel sad every time I hear the song now. :(
@jay: Haha, you got it. XD I know, I suck, but I really like happy endings. In this case it’s more like Tomoya’s disappointed me, though. :( It does fit his character — doesn’t mean it makes me happy, the way he’s handled things. -wry-