Cruel Angel Theses

Looking at the abortion that was my previous post on Gurren Lagann, I concur that the concept of raving about GL in blog posts was something I certainly underestimated while trying to write about 9 episodes watched in one sitting. If bloggers could be reduced to incoherent wrecks by watching an episode a week, those 3 hours were probably like that overdose of speedball which killed River Phoenix.

This has to do with the little bit of crying that was present this episode, which also happens to be the penultimate episode of Fuuko’s arc. I’ve found it to be an initial downer, but the thought suddenly struck me in the middle of the episode — what if Fuuko didn’t get a Good End like Ayu? Until now I’ve been convinced that Key is like some kind of tsundere bully that trips you while you’re walking and then cushions the impact by throwing a pillow underneath, but what if they decided not to this time around?

That brief insight proved to be truer than I imagined, for the manly tears present in this episode certainly surprised me. It was like waking up to a sledgehammer being swung in my face by a masked figure at my bedside, and while I’m not about to be reduced to a raving tearful wreck just yet, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to say the same as confidently next week.

Mike’s post about Fuuko’s similarities with Ayu “returning to form” wasn’t as off the mark as I’d expected it to be. While Fuuko seemed like Ayu Mach II on the surface, closer inspection reveals her to be more than just that — her arc is essentially Ayu done right, which means that instead of being a copy and paste clone lifted from the dregs of Kanon and given a makeover, she’s more like what Ayu had the potential to be.

My impressions of Clannad are now less severe than they’ve been during Fuuko’s revelation of being an astral projection. While Kanon and Air essentially had a lot of contrived melodrama in that they gave you a setting and premise with aesthetic inclinations that maximised sadness, a group of girls troubled in their own way, and a glowing neon cue that said “Now cry”, Clannad’s modus operandi would be more towards it giving you a cast that you gradually get to know very well, who also just happen to have problems of their own that are bigger than any crying cue would think possible.

The heavy-handed, almost condescending treatment that Kanon and Air had was annoying because if you didn’t cry during the predetermined scenes, the end product was a whole lot of drivel. You had essentially watched till that point for practically nothing as it were, and this resulted in a sense of time wasted more than anything. Clannad subverts this by handing you a hanky, patting you reassuringly on the back and going “Hey, you might be crying soon, but if you don’t? No worries. It’s not like you’re obliged to cry or anything” before walking away.

the concept of a S.N.A.G. in harem was hitherto unknown

There’s a fine line between a character crying because she wants to get you to cry along with her, and a character crying because that’s the type of person she is. Nagisa blurs the boundaries between the two as gently as possible by having a substantial case beforehand — she’s soft-spoken, from a loving, unbroken family that’s as happy as any can get, and kind-hearted. While there’s certainly a motive in her presence, what KyoAni did by juxtaposing both Tomoya and Nagisa’s reactions after the revelation of Fuuko’s worsening state was obvious:

You don’t have to cry to appreciate Clannad. While Tomoya certainly did cry, it wasn’t till he realises the depth of despair that Nagisa is feeling for Fuuko that he allows himself to shed just the tiniest hint of tears, and I wept together with him as a result. The touch of realism in that scene was welcome, for not only would crying in unison mark something of a departure from what we’ve learnt of Tomoya’s character so far, it also shows a strength of Clannad not previously found in Kanon or Air — strong female characters.

I don’t know about you, but the male protagonists in Kanon and Air came across to me as nothing more than convenient Esuna dispensers (or, in Misuzu’s case, a Phoenix Down) for the taking. Part of the reason why I don’t enjoy harem as much as I do the other genres is that I actually prefer my girls to have a backbone, whether in anime or real life. The subservient, dependent, obviously-created-for-pandering archetype sends chills down my spine, and not of the good variety either.

Clannad is therefore doing fine in this respect. Aside from not playing out the crying scene between Nagisa and Tomoya to more hackneyed lengths, Nagisa’s actions showed more to her character than was previously thought possible. Instead of falling into Tomoya’s arms like any self-respecting damsel in distress does, she instead maintains her distance, showing both him and the viewer that she doesn’t require any emotional support just yet, at least not where displays of grief are concerned.

I look forward to next week not only because it closes the lid on this arc, but because I want to be vindicated as far as my educated guesses are concerned. I was told by a informative and reliable source that Fuuko’s arc is one of the longest in Clannad when compared to Kyou and Tomoyo’s relatively short ones and Kotomi’s medium-sized one. While I can say that I’m disappointed at the news given how I’ve seen Tomoyo and Kyou as having more potential for not resembling cardboard cutouts, the discovery of an orchestral version of Kotomi’s theme in the soundtrack that I’ve been looping hints at the design of epic yet to come, so I’ll be sticking around for quite a while longer.