Clannad — Misae, Tomoyo Route

Eh, I haven’t been keep­ing up on anime too much since I star­ted play­ing the Clan­nad visual novel. This is my second time play­ing a visual novel, I think. Since Clan­nad takes a while to play, I’ll just be review­ing the routes in couplets. It’ll be Tomoyo/Misae, Fujibayashi/Kappei, Yukine/Sunohara Sib­lings, Kotomi/Toshio, and finally Nagisa/After Story.

Misae

Misae help­ing people with their prob­lems? Awe­some of her. I love how you have to encour­age her to be more viol­ent with every­one to get closer to her. I really like Misae, and it was good to focus on her.

One thing that bothered me was that we never got to see Shima-kitty! Not even in cat form. Yet, we see Botan going ‘puhi’ and what­not. There isn’t even a CG show­ing him. Ah, well. I don’t think the anime ever men­tioned they star­ted going out, which sur­prised me when Shima kissed Misae. I want a CG of that! One thing the anime did a bet­ter job at was when Shima had to leave Misae. In the anime, they’re at the fest­ival and it’s this dra­matic scene where he walks away and she can’t catch up to him. In the visual novel, he…just doesn’t show up the next day in human form. Just as a cat.

While play­ing, a thought hit me: where the hell did Shima go at night? He can’t stay at the school all night, stalk­ing Misae as she goes up the hill. He should have real­ized he didn’t have a home then. Instead, Misae’s friends go: “Yo, let’s go to your house.” Shima: “Sure! Wait…house…something feels off…Oh well, let’s go! Wait, I just remembered I don’t have a house. I’m not Shima; I’m a kitty cat!”

After the whole Shima flash­back was over, I assumed we’d be going back to Tomoya, real­iz­ing he can’t win Misae’s heart. Instead, it’s just cred­its. So we’re not going to see Tomoya’s reac­tion? We’re not going to end his crush on Misae? Disappointing. The end­ing to Misae’s story with Shima goes on into Tomoyo’s route. We get a CG and light-get (and still no pic­ture of Shima-kitty)! Misae be lovin’ kit­ties nao?

Tomoyo

Tomoyo seems to be more naive in the VN, not really under­stand­ing why Tomoya was break­ing up with her. I found her naiv­ety pretty cute and I liked her more for that, though it made break­ing up with her longer than it was in the anime. The post-break up seg­ment was bor­ing, caus­ing me to fast­for­ward it. It was bet­ter as a mont­age in the anime, the VN being filled with more emo ang­sty Tomoya. For the part the OVA did cover, I would say I liked the OVA bet­ter than the VN ver­sion. Still, KyoAni didn’t make the hug as pretty as it was in the VN. Rewatch­ing the last scene, I think the hug was bet­ter in the sense it was more emo­tional to me. When Tomoyo star­ted cry­ing and Tomoya ran to her and hugged her, I felt like cry­ing. Here, I just thought about how pretty the CG was. Play­ing her route was more fun though with all the Sun­o­hara tor­ture and horny Tomoya jokes. Ser­i­ously, he kissed her a lot. I didn’t like being alone with Tomoyo for exten­ded peri­ods of time though. It kind of bored me. Eh, I guess the light-get made it worth it. Must get to After Story!

I did like how the VN strengthened Sun­o­hara and Tomoyo’s friend­ship, so Tomoya wasn’t really the only one who lost Tomoyo. He still was a bit excluded from the couple. Sun­o­hara really is a butt mon­key in Tomoyo’s route. 54-combo hit at the fest­ival? Crown­ing moment of funny. I’d like to say Tomoyo in the VN is much pret­tier than she was in the anime, oppos­ite of what I think of Kyou.

Trashy Segments…I mean the Illu­sion­ary World

Bor­ing. I don’t care that it helps explains how Nagisa gets saved. It’s still the most bor­ing part of Clannad.