[Ascaloth] CLANNAD ~After Story~, Episode 17 at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

[Ascaloth] CLANNAD ~After Story~, Episode 17

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Popularity: 8% [?] Published by Ascaloth February 6th, 2009 in Ascaloth, Anime

5 years have flown by since the passing of the much beloved Okazaki Nagisa, and in that time, the man she left behind has ended up wasting his life away bit by bit, neglecting the daughter in which they had both put so much love into her conception, and in short, slowly but surely becoming the father he used to hate so much for never having treated him properly as family. With the colour having gone out of his life along with his only love, Tomoya is back to where he first started; hating the city which he lives in, drifting along in life without anything really worth living for. Without Nagisa, can Tomoya pick himself up from his slump one more time?

CLANNAD ~After Story~, Episode 17.

It had been all too easy to overlook the Illusory World scenes in the light of the events of the last few episodes, so perhaps it is a good time now to revisit the Girl and the Robot. As it seems, the Girl too seems to be facing some kind of impending doom with the onset of winter, with the little Robot’s attempts at a flying machine proving to be in vain. Even now, there’s still few clues as to how the Illusory World is going to be important to the main narrative, although there certainly has been little doubt that it will be somehow, but with After Story seeming to be going into the home stretch, it looks as if speculations about it over the next few weeks is going to increase by a lot.

It’s depressingly, almost morbidly hilarious how Sanae-san was practically fawning over Tomoya here, almost as if her mindset is "there’s nothing in the way of me hitting on my son-in-law now!" I’ve yet to get over the demise of our beloved Nagisa, but Sanae-san certainly was testing what was left of one’s capacity for humor here. Funny, if not a bit morbid. In any case, it seems as if Sanae-san at least is coping with the loss much better than Tomoya is, although I suppose still having a husband around, and a grandchild now to take her mind off the tragedy, helps. I was expecting an emo-fest in the first minutes of this episode, but they basically skipped all of that to return to….well, about as normal an everyday life in the CLANNADverse as one without the presence of Nagisa would be, I guess.

Oh, and come to think of it, she’s earned the incredibly rare prestige class of "GILF" now, hasn’t she? Wow.

Loli Dango-chan inbound!

For a while there, I was thinking that Tomoya was silently blaming Ushio for the loss of Nagisa; the first few seconds of their reunion in this episode was that tense. The look in Tomoya’s eyes just isn’t the same anymore; it would be reprehensible on the one hand if Tomoya really thought that way, yet on the other hand, it would be so hard to blame him, knowing the great hurt he must still be suffering.

Wait, since when did Tomoya take up smoking?

Ouch. That looks like it hurt. >_<

However, I am not so sure when I saw the interaction between these two; heck, I’m not sure of anything at all, given how ambiguous their interactions were. Maybe deep inside Tomoya does have a grudge against Ushio, but at least on the surface he treats her quite cordially. However, it definitely feels very awkward; it almost seems as if Tomoya sees Ushio as some kid that the Furukawas took in from somewhere, instead of his own daughter. There is a definite distance between these two, and it seems at times as though Tomoya is making an attempt to reach out to Ushio, yet basically has no clue as to how to go about it.

And yet at other times, he doesn’t even take any interest in her as a parent; sure, Ushio was basically seeking attention, but it’s what 5-year-olds do, and when one considers that Tomoya has all but neglected her for the whole of her life, it’s very much understandable why she would engage in attention-seeking behaviour from the father who has never shown any signs of loving her. One just feels depressed seeing all this; it can’t possibly what Nagisa would have been hoping for her family, if she was able to see this.

On another note, the only other time we’ve seen Tomoya like this was in the first minutes of the first episode of the first season, and even that was only a hint, before we got to see his interactions with his harem of beauties. One has to wonder; has the real Okazaki Tomoya always been like that, except we never really got to see it amongst all the time he spends with Sunohara, Nagisa, and the girls? There have been quite a few hints over the series of his self-destructive aspect, that’s for sure.

When he proposed to Nagisa, he asked whether she was okay if it was with someone like him. Years later, he asked Ushio the same thing when she agreed to go on a trip with just him as company. Guy probably has confidence issues; he wasn’t confident that he could be a good husband to Nagisa (as is evidenced later on when he started second-guessing himself in the previous episode), and he isn’t confident that Ushio would be happy to be in his company. Sadly, I feel like I can relate somehow.

The long walk up the sakura-laden path may have come to an end, but a new journey with Nagisa’s legacy is just beginning. The Tomoya-Nagisa dynamic was an irreplacably beautiful if all-too-short experience, but one gets the feeling somehow that the Tomoya-Ushio dynamic will, in time, becomes something quite beautiful in its own right. Another life, another journey, another After Story.

Though our beloved Dango-chan will always be in our memory, it is now time for Dango Jr. to take center stage. Ascaloth, out.

Popularity: 8% [?]

8 Responses to “[Ascaloth] CLANNAD ~After Story~, Episode 17”

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1 Diss 1 comment Feb 7th, 2009 at 1:39 am

Instead of Tomoya becoming his father I see him more of as a reaction to his father. His father clearly resented him but still tried to live with and take care of Tomoya. And it ruined both of their lives. Tomoya would rather have no relationship at all with his daughter than fall into the same cycle. He is actively trying to distance himself so that Ushio forms no attachment to him and thus cannot be disappointed by Tomoya, the way he was disappointed by his father.
2 gonzomehum 5 comments Feb 7th, 2009 at 4:30 am

Or it could be as simple as Tomoya currently lacking any clue at all as to how he wants to act or progress. Five years may seem a while, but having Nagisa torn from him removed what was probably the only real column of support he had.
3 FlameStrike 52 comments Feb 7th, 2009 at 5:56 am

I don’t think Tomoya has time to really think about how he compares to his father yet. But I do believe that when Nagisa dies he thought “I’m not cut out to be a father”, and lucky the best in-laws in the anime-verse came to his rescue. So he’s been able to avoid becoming EXACTLY a repeat of his father. Still he’s not much better.
4 SnooSnoo 175 comments Feb 7th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

Loli Dango-chan is megas cute. Although the voice sounds a little like a boy’s.
5 Tremere 28 comments Feb 7th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

She will get along well with Sunohara Mei and learn some tips from her on how to get Tomoya’s attention.
6 Kuros 1 comment Feb 9th, 2009 at 7:11 am

Wow, such a great summery of the episode,

I sort of feel that Tomoya hasn’t come to terms with dealing with children or indeed being a father. He was pretty much abandoned by his dad and I think this shows because he doesn’t quite know how to treat his own daughter or being able to tell what she wants. I find it quite ironic how Tomoya has started to turn out like his father by spending his time gambling and drinking because he should all to well know what effect this will have on the welfare of the child.
7 LeftArrow 1 comment Feb 11th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

Proof of fuko’s return?

http://brokenanime.com/pictures/clannad/afterstory/op_ed/op_edsmall/07.jpg

you decide

i hope she isn’t going to be annoying
8 ETERNAL 29 comments Feb 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am

That fall looked surprisingly painful indeed 0_o

Do not use any < and > for your own sake. It will end the comment there and then. Also, there is an automatic IQ filter which weeds out comments made by those who accidentally got transported from the stone age.

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