Throughout Clannad I've stated my disinterest in the whole "other world", supernatural side of the story, but by the end of the last episode and its shockingly cruel climax I was starting to wamr the idea of something, anything, that would make for a happier ending. I'm all for gritty reality, but After Story seemed ready to toss a metric tonne of grit in my eye whilst stranded in the middle of a sandstorm.
Of course, this ending to the story turns it all around via a decidedly trippy first half that really defies explanation - Somehow had clearly been hoarding a bunch of the show's animation budget for this moment though. Acid trip over, we find ourselves "rebooted" back to the point where Nagisa has just given birth, only this time there's no death or sadness, just a nice long montage of happiness for all of Clannad's major characters. Hurrah! I'm not too sure how I'd explain this whole scenario officially, so I will just assume that the town featured in Clannad is running Windows XP with System Restore enabled, and someone screwed up their PC and had to restore back from before the "oops, Nagisa died" save point. Yep, that about covers it.
The series proper ends with some cute Fuuko comedy (I really did laugh out loud at her attempts to act adult), and a very final scene that I can't really explain too well either. It's nothing to do with Windows though.
Despite being all ready to hate this cheap get-out clause of an ending... Well, I kind of liked it. Yes, of course it is a huge cheat after everything they've put us through in recent episodes, but for once I don't begrudge this series a happy ending to polish things off - Clannad was always meant to be a lovable little show rather than some kind of School Days effort, and with that in mind this ending was a pretty good fit. It was nonsense, but it was warm, fuzzy nonsense, so it is duly forgiven.
Complaining because you didn't understand the ending? Sigh...
ReplyDeleteErr, where am I complaining? Are we even reading the same post?
ReplyDeletewhat is the common view of the ending and story as a whole? im sure i already have it in its gist but id like to see if there are any "theories" and other thought trains on the story, particularly the ending... and also he isnt really complaining...just justifying his/her liking of a kanon type cliche ending.
ReplyDeletei fail to see how the blogger was complaining as well. it is stated even despite the shortcomings or not, the ending was cute.
ReplyDeleteif you were not familiar with the game, the ending was confusing. especially when Nagisa had knowledge of this start over while on the hill. sometimes confusion is the viewers fault and sometimes confusion is the fault of the writers.
Where can I get the game not in japanese? do you know?
ReplyDeleteyeah that very last part made the whole thing unravel(the beginning of the episode)??? its makes for wondering was the whole episode up till lil girl and tree a [good] dream? while passed out in the snow tomoya gets delusional... dreaming everything is all good in his mind?
ReplyDeleteReally..So why is ushio under a tree like some ghost child found by a former ghost child? so is ushio a ghost? is this in a different "parallel world"? shouldnt fukko know the girl? blahhh? what is the point of the fukko part it makes it look like none of the "happy ending" events even happened? but supports the last episode that ushio is a dead little girl who is now some child ghost embodied within that tree. HAUNTED TREE! just like haunted schoool freaky lil girls!
It is a little complicated but in the game. Tomoya is I guess the best you can say the "spirit" of the robot doll in the Illusionary world. And Ushio is the spirit of the girl. Now they've been hinting at the orb of lights. If you're able to obtain enough they'll be strong enough to grant any one wish. As you can see as the Illusionary world was dissappearing the girl becomes a whole bunch of light. I guess it's implied that Ushio's wish is to meet her father again in the "Other World" and have a happy life and have this sad journey end. Well the only way for that to happen is to turn back time. That's the best logical sense I can make out of it.
ReplyDeleteAs the anonm commenter talking right after HANNERS, i thank the dude/dudet above me lol. but about the last scenes with ushio (shifting from illusionary world to earth world form), where shes under a tree...does that mean there are two ushios? or did she randomly sleep in the woods...alone while tomoya the father is doing wtf?
ReplyDeleteill mark myself as 88js
ok lets just say she is randomly sleeping in the woods cause shes a weird little girl that enjoys sleeping in the woods alone to make sense of it all! But still what was the flash of the illusionary girl for to let you know that ushio was that girl in the illusionary world that they are the same person?
ReplyDeleteWell hes a hard working father hes obviously at work to pay for future education but is a cheap bastard to let her wander around randomly instead of keeping her in a daycare place. so question then is wheres her good for nothing back from the dead mama!
even back in time fukko should have met ushio at least once cause he works with the guy's sister and their close so hed again ask for tomoya to let fukko meet ushio anyways or have some get togethers and they meet at least once.
so... for closure purposes im just going to think that ushio is randomly sleeping there and fukko is a creepy girl that can smell little girls miles away and this time will be successful in abducting her lol
moral of the story: put your kid in daycare or theyll randomly wander around and go missing
LOL i forgot about Nagisa...what is she thinking leaving her daughter to starfish stalker girl...sigh anyways were probably looking too deep into it...its just a reminder that ushio is God in her own world and that clannad is supposed to be happy.
ReplyDelete88js
No the anime just made it a little bit more complicated. In the game when you collect all the lights you can get the happy ending by playing through Nagisa's pregnancy, while the anime just went through both endings. When you have completed the game the girl of the illusionary world appears under the tree, I think the anime shows Ushio under the tree is to show that Ushio is the girl.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Fuko part before they went back in time Fuko did say she memorized Ushio smell so I think thats what she ment.
Well i think the end with Ushio under the tree it just shows that she's the same as the ghost girl, and Fuuko has that weird sense to remember the smell of little girls she's only met in alternate worlds. And i'm thinking like in the game, Tomoya collected enough lights (cause there was aways a bunch of lights floating around him and one actually went inside him tho only Ushio saw that) and he probably wished for Nagisa and Ushio to still be alive when ushio was actually dying, but for his wish to fully come true he had to call out to Nagisa. or somthing, that's just my theory.
ReplyDeletehello there, i just read watched episode 23 after story and i had to think hard enough to be able to understand what was happening.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is and researched for a bit and i think that people think this as well.
The little orbs, that tomoya sees will grant one wish if enough of it is collected/have.
Obviously, Ushio was the girl in the world that had "ended" and Tomoya was the robbot in some way. As someone said, Ushio turned into orbs and i think that was made the wish and time went back.
But, not only that can change what has happened. Tomoya has too, choose what he wants to do/beleive/want. To either regret the fact that he met nagisa or not have met her.
He lets her walk away but in the end, he shouts her name and i guess because of that choice and with the help of those orbs, one wish to be able to live with happiness and no pain is granted to those "blessed".
well, thats what i think. i am happy about this too. but it was hard for me to try and work it out in my head :D
i dont get why she was sleeping in the woods when fuko sees ushio but yeah, i'll accept what the others say and she likes sleeping around. But, random i know, fuko did still know ushios sent. or well, either she is a ghost :S
i guess, we're left to wonder. maybe they want us to finish it in our minds.
btw, i really like your blog :D
x infinite xx
though this message probably won't be noticed, I'd just like to say this site needs better organization. I just want to read all the blogs posted for the Clannad After Story episodes but no, I had a tough time finding them. I had to click on the month the blog was made and find the episode from the list. thats a lot of effort when it could easily be organized by anime, and I could just refer to the list to go from one episode to the next.
ReplyDeleteclannad After Story is my absolute favorite anime. I'm glad to see other people enjoyed the ending maybe not as much as I did, but they enjoyed it nevertheless.
All you have to do is click on "Clannad" in the tag cloud and it'll open all the entries for it on a single page...
ReplyDelete