Clannad After Story(the events of, and before episode 16)
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As a general warning: before any of you click the more button to read the rest of this post I will point out that I plan to talk about material anywhere from the first Clannad season all the way up to episode 16 of After Story. If you still want to watch any of the episodes mentioned without being spoiled please do not read any further.
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THE DEATH OF NAGISA
We all saw it coming, some maybe sooner than others. There were signs throughout the series, but even most of these still left me questioning right up until I saw the massive flashbacks signifying the departure of a character. So the big question is did Nagisa have to die?
I will reserve my right to answer this question until I’ve flushed out all of my thoughts on the subject.
Nagisa was always portrayed as the physically weak character. She repeated her third year of high school three times before finally attending class long enough to graduate. Her health, being what it was, served as a catalyst for plot development and played a vital roll in the story of the three people closest to her.
Akio and Sanae, Nagisa’s parents, stated explicitly in the final episodes of the last season that they did not give up their dreams for Nagisa, but instead changed their dream to watching Nagisa grow up. The story of them becoming bakers instead of pursuing their dream jobs may be seen as tragic from the point of view of someone who believes in only accomplishing their own goals, but for Nagisa’s parents being happy with a family was enough. The death of Nagisa from the perspective of her parents is tragedy. Having transferred their dreams onto Nagisa, the death of Nagisa is more like the death of their dreams. On top of that what parent should have to live longer than their child? Was Nagisa’s death necessary for those character’s development? No, I do not believe so. They long ago gave up their other interests to have a family, so the undoing of all of that at such a late stage cannot be constituted as a hardship that will make the characters grow. The death of Nagisa is just a blow. This completely discounts the birth of Ushio, but I believe Akio and Sanae will both take a prominent role in taking care of the child as I don’t view Tomoya as being quite able to handle this yet, as well he shouldn’t.
The third character who is majorly affected by Nagisa’s death is of course her husband Tomoya the protagonist of the story. One of the most important aspects of Tomoya’s life is his relationship with his father. However, we have not spent a considerable amount of time on his father in the anime. The parallel is this: Tomoya’s father, Naoyuki, became an alcoholic and a gambler after Tomoya’s mother, Atsuko, died. This led to fights between both Naoyuki and Tomoya including the one where Tomoya’s shoulder was dislocated. Tomoya’s wife has now died leaving Tomoya a new father. So the real question is how Tomoya will react. Will he become a copy of his father, taking his pain and frustration out on Ushio who could be viewed as the reason Nagisa died? Will Tomoya continue to blame himself causing him to self destruct and neglect his duties as a father?
The main reason for posing this question is also the main reason for the necessity of Nagisa’s death. Without her death Tomoya would never be able to understand his father at all. Tomoya always seems to have the attitude that he could have done it better, that there was no way he could ever understand or accept his father’s actions. As sad as Nagisa’s death is there would be no way for the character of Tomoya to grow in this respect without the loss of his biggest support. Every opportunity for growth is or course accompanied by the opportunity to be completely destroyed.
This entry completely discounts the feelings and potentials of the other characters in the series, but I thought the most important people to touch on were these three. The last character whose life was burdened with Nagisa’s death is a character I know nothing about. Ushio will now have to bear an incredible burden depending on how the characters around her react. The person Ushio becomes will be in large part due to the way the characters in the series treat her. If they treat her like Nagisa’s killer there is no way that could end well. If they treat her like a normal, wonderful, little girl they’ll all have realized her value has nothing to do with the loss of Nagisa. I personally hope for the latter as being raised without a mother is burden enough.
WHERE THE SERIES WILL GO FROM HERE
As mentioned above the potential outcomes for the characters listed are what I think is likely to happen. I also happen to know that this tragedy might be undone, but I will reveal no more along these lines. How characters deal with this tragedy will define them. I doubt any of them will just shake it off, but strength of character will be required for Ushio’s well being.
KEY’S VERSION OF WRITING TRAGEDY
I know people can be fairly dogmatic depending on their stance of the Clannad franchise so I won’t go to in depth. Truthfully some of the writing I’ve found a bit pretentious. They draw you along and then point out something that’s sad and expect the audience to be pulled in too. I didn’t really like the Fuko arc that much (sorry) but as I’ve stated above I do think this is perhaps an instance where the tragedy was necessary for the main character to grow. Good writing, in my opinion, does not merely create a sad situation for the sake of a sad situation; good writing creates a sad situation as a significant obstacle for everyone (including the viewers) to overcome. They show us how a person reacts to something that affects them deeply. Good writing from my definition could even be about how a child struggles to overcome the loss of a much loved family pet. I didn’t feel like the characters were really connected with the Fuko arc and I don’t think much was accomplished. My hope is that the Nagisa arc will do much more. From the setup I gather that the entirety of the story is centered on doing exactly that.
If you don’t agree with my interpretations that is completely fine. I hope you’ll comment and let me know why you don’t agree. I’m not an expert on all kinds of people so there could be some key aspect to one of the personalities portrayed that I’m missing. As always thanks for reading.
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13 Comments
Wow, great post.
I will have to keep checking back here,
as it seems Jason
(Derailed By Darry)
will be gone for a while.
Either way, I really like how you said:
“as a significant obstacle for everyone (including the viewers) to overcome.”
I could not agree more, the reason I like Clannad so much is because it really makes you feel for the characters. This ep is one of the few times I cried watching an Anime.
Either way, great work and look forward to your other posts!
Thank you very much. I really appreciate the compliments. This post has already been viewed more than any of my others (24 views lol I guess that’s pretty pathetic) but yours is the first comment.
I have been growing into Clannad truthfully but I’ve really, really enjoyed After Story because it goes beyond the high school days to there actual lives. The decisions they made pan out and we see the results of their actions. This definitely will not be the last post on Clannad After Story
I also like how it is no longer just a
standard high school drama.
I just can’t wait to see what they do with
8 more eps.
I also hate how every post I read on
ep16 everyone says they saw it coming.
I guess I’m the only one that was hoping for
the best XD
Unfortunately I think the spoiler was on Wikipedia long before hand hence their superior attitude. There are more spoilers from the game since the anime follows it so closely. I didn’t play the game but I did go and look up a lot about it after writing this post. Basically they had prior warning so it wasn’t a giant leap of faith. I, like you, thought they did a lot of foreshadowing but wasn’t sure until the final moments.
Man, my friend spoiled it right before this episode, =(. I was talking to him about the direction of Clannad and he said he wasn’t really keeping up because he figured that it was going to follow the movie… and then he told me that Nagisa dies after giving birth and I was like… damn you. I honestly didn’t really see it coming. Probably because I wasn’t looking.
That’s terrible. Friends should come equipped with sensors that make really loud noises whenever they attempt to say something you don’t want to hear. That would be so useful, like if they wanted to tell you about a bowel movement, or in this case spoil Clannad After Story for you.
I just hope Haruhi is after After Story
I knew that Nagisa was going to die in episode 15… though, I was really hoping she didn’t!! :sad:
Well if it makes you feel better she doesn’t stay dead forever ;)! Though I hope I didn’t actually spoil you.
I really like this post! It actually expressed everything that I thought up to episode 16. I’ve already finished Clannad After Story. The ending was a bit confusing, but I guess you could say it was a happy one. And man oh man, when Nagisa died I wouldn’t accept it at first, I knew it was going to happen but I kept denying it. Though, I guess it happened for a reason. Anyways Clannad is amazing!
Spoiler!!!!!!
Nagisa aint dead…. if u watch all of it she died in an alternative dream where tomoya was thinking things over and when he snapped back to reality he was brought back to the moment where nagisa gave birth and she was still alive…..
@Mmm
Clannad was pretty amazing. Glad you liked the post. I guess the ending was pretty unexpected with the magic magically thrown in, but hey, they wanted to give us a little bit of a break from the torment they put us through all the way through after story.
@Ylli
yes we know Nagisa isn’t dead, but reflecting on the events up to episode 16 she was clearly dead and the Dues Ex Machina at the end bringing her back to life doesn’t overwrite the emotional impact of her dying on the episodic basis after story was coming out at. I dare say that her coming back to life doesn’t make this post any less irrelevant. To Tomoya she died and at the time he needed that to understand some important things about where he came from and who he was. He needed to forgive before he could make the miracle happen of her coming back to life, but he couldn’t forgive until she died.
In my opinion, the ending showed that Tomoya did not regret meeting Nagisa. Even if this meeting would bring them pain… and joy. It is perhaps this lesson on the strong bonds between families that make the ending satisfying. Tomoya gets his reward for understanding that lesson. The bonds among Tomoya, Nagisa and Ushio. And I think that the ending was foreshadowed because of the Illusory World.
i couldn’t agree more, this anime is probably my favorite tv show of all time (although here’s hoping i find another as good/better in the near future)
the death of nagisa was probably the second sadest thing i have experienced in tv… the saddest being the death of ushio
tomoyo tried so hard, and got so far
and then everything he’d worked for dissapeared.
but, in keeping with the theme of the original visual novel and the whole idea of alternative worlds things were fixed (which in no way minimizes the impact of their deaths).
and the magic at the end was foreshadowed at least once, with the flashback of the dorm mother’s experience with the little blonde kid towards the end(ish) of the first series
it was like saying that after all he had been through and all that he had learnt the town/alternative world’s spirits thought he deserved happiness
or, looking at it another way, ushio found true happiness with her father, so alternative world chick (ushio, although originally nagisa) wished that nagisa didn’t die.