Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 19

Oh my, this show.

For a show where batshit insane things happen on an episodic basis, there really isn’t much to say about Jojo’s. I could talk about how shirking common narrative wisdom is being used in the show’s favour, but it would be just as applicable 18 episodes ago as it is now. It’s camp and crazy, and there are Nazi cyborgs. That’s enough to keep me entertained. Your mileage may vary.

Zetsuen no Tempest 18

Rom-Com antics at their fine… actually, at their usual bland level.

I’m disappointed in you, Tempest. After so much faffing about you finally built up some real tension and, silly direction aside, I was genuinely engaged. How do you decide to follow this up? A quasi-recap episode then MOAR WALKING, but now with obnoxious rom-com antics. I could blame the writer of the manga this is adapted from, but I may as well jump on the bandwagon and blame Mari Okada. Yeah, screw you Okada! Stop ruining anime!

In all seriousness though, it does appear to be trying to build some tension again. Here’s hoping it goes somewhere before the finale.

Archenemy and Hero/Maoyuu Maou Yuusha 1-5

Ok, I’m a little behind on this one, but can you really blame me if I don’t find Spice & Wolf‘s shit cousin, produced by a studio involved in a striking amount of porn, all that enthralling to watch. Basing your show around medieval fantasy economics isn’t the greatest first step to making your show entertaining, and throwing in an incredibly half-assed romance subplot isn’t going to help that any.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed all the cynicism in the first ep, but it feels like just as they start to approach the subject material in any real depth, they quickly pull back into dumb (all together now) rom-com antics. When will anime get over its crippling self-confidence issues?

Let’s walk this through.

So you want to make a show subverting the usual hero-nemesis fight-to-save-the-world fantasy plot.
Cool.
You want your series to show the power of clever politics and economic manipulation to change a geopolitical climate, and the power of technology and ingenuity to lift people out of poverty.
Awesome.
Now, you’re afraid that you’re show is going to be too impersonal.
Very wise.
How do you think to fix this? Make the series centre around a budding romance between, ironically, the hero and demon lord themselves.

Ok, let’s clarify something right here. I do not think this is necessarily a bad idea. The logic we just walked through makes sense to me. The basic premise is kind of cool. The problem here is less the concept and more the execution. The economics is decent, but presented in an incredibly dull manner. Lots of people standing round tables talking our ears off. The romance is implemented even worse, to the point of it feeling completely token. For all its flaws at least Lawrence and Holo in Spice & Wolf had some actual Chemistry. They were both interesting, complex characters, and this came through in their interactions with each other and the people then encountered. This alone did enormous amounts to make the comparably poorly presented economics engaging. We were viewing it through the lenses of characters we actually cared about.

On top of all this, as the above pictures show, the female characters are increasingly being reduced to their charms as potential love interests, which is as much disgusting as it is boring.

Ok, enough about this one.

Psycho Pass 18

Do police departments in Japan really have that many plushies and toys?

Yes, I did finally catch up with this one.

While Psycho-Pass is undoubtedly the most interesting show currently airing, I have some serious issues with its current direction, which I’d trace back to around episode 15. The Sybil System was clearly problematic to anyone who was paying attention, but now it’s just downright evil. I can’t even take Makishima seriously as a villain anymore, because the Sybil system just completely overshadows him. Why is the MWPSB not concerned about how blatantly evil the chief is acting? If I were them I’d be trying to find Makishima to find out what the hell is going on, not to try to defeat him.

There’s a lesson here, scale often comes at the cost of subtlety and nuance. The issues with Sybil were so much more interesting for me as a background element, while Makishima’s sociopathy took centre-villain-stage. They were something to be observed through the world and implications of side details and characters, to the point that a lot of people on the aniblogosphere didn’t seem to think Sybil was particularly problematic at all. Motherfucking brain-powered super computers and other ridiculous villainy is turning this into a battle between good and evil rather than between anarchic free will and safe, if somewhat soul-sucking determinism.

All that said I’m completely open to Psycho-Pass wrapping this all up extremely well. In fact I really hope it does, and truly think it might. Urobuchi is extremely deliberate, if nothing else.

Little Busters 20… and in general I guess.

Tezuka is clearly the best character.

Little Busters is undoubtedly a bad show which I watch mostly out of some sick fascination in the bastard love-child which is the product of teaming Key up with J.C. STAFF. In all honesty though, I don’t dread it week-to-week. Yeah, the drama is god-awful, but I find the largely story-irrelevant antics of the group pretty entertaining at points. It’s hardly comedy gold, but there’s something deeply charming about some of the retarded antics our group of lovable, if unbalanced and mentally-deficient high schoolers get themselves into. They’re all pretty two dimensional, but at points there’s some really fun chemistry between them that escalate into these over the top, farcical scenarios.

Of course, as much as I loved Clannad, it lived or died by its drama. Everything else was secondary, if not actively a hindrance to its enjoyability, and ultimately Little Busters will be judged the same way. As it stands I enjoyed parts of Mio’s arc. That’s literally it for the drama segments I liked. Haruka’s arc was tolerable, mostly due to good music direction. Ultimately the main drama in Clannad After Story renders most of the smaller arcs effectively invisible, and it’s going to be really hard to make a final judgment on Little Busters until we reach a comparable central drama point focusing on Riki himself. I’m perfectly open to this arc actually being really good, though to be honest at this point I’m not sure there’s even going to be one. Clannad had a very steady, clear direction in a lot of ways. Pretty much from the start it was clear the sort of person Okazaki is and what his core struggles would be. His characterisation was weaved throughout the arcs quite evenly and steadily. I just haven’t seen anything comparable with Riki yet, so there’s only so hopeful I can be.

Welp, that’s pretty much it. I’m also watching Inferno Cop, but anything I say about it will essentially boil down to “man this show is off-the-wall and funny”, so I’mma leave it out of weekly round-ups.

Clannad [ Subtitle Indonesia ] Completed 1 – 23 + 1 Extra

Type: TV Series

Episodes: 23 – 1 Extra Episode

Status: Completed

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy,Romance, School, Slice of Life,Supernatural

Subtitle : Indonesia

Rating : 8.68 ( http://myanimelist.net/anime/2167/Clannad )

Credit : AnimeSubIndonesia

Tomoya Okazaki adalah siswa sma di sekolah yang di benci dalam hidupnya. Ibunya meninggal dunia akibat kecelakaan mobil ketika ia masih kecil, yang menyebabkan ayahnya menggunakan alkohol dan berjudi. Sejak itu, Tomoya telah memiliki hubungan jauh dengan ayahnya, yang menyebabkan dirinya menjadi bermasalah dari waktu ke waktu. Sambil berjalan kaki ke sekolah, ia bertemu seorang gadis aneh bernama Furukawa Nagisa yang setahun lebih tua, tetapi mengulangi karena sakit. Karena ini lah, dia sering sendiri karena kebanyakan dari teman-temannya telah pindah. Keduanya mulai bergaul secara perlahan, seiring berjalannya waktu, Tomoya menemukan hidupnya yang berubah ke arah yang baru.

Download Episode Clannad [ Subtitle Indonesia ]

Episode 1-23 By IDWS

Clannad After Story [ Subtitle Indonesia ] Completed 1 – 23 Episode + 1 OVA

Type: TV Series

Episodes: 23 + 1 Extra Episode

Status: Completed

Genres: Drama, Romance, Slice of Life

Subtitle : Indonesia

Rating : 9.12 (http://myanimelist.net/anime/4181/Clannad:_After_Story )

Credit : AnimeSubIndonesia, Soukisub & AnimeIndo

Sequel anime kedua setelah clannad. kehidupan kelanjutannya Tomoya. beberapa bulan berlalu sejak ia menyatakannya pada nagisa, Sekarang memasuki semester kedua, ia terus bertemu dengan berbagai macam orang yang berbeda, memperluas dunianya sendiri dalam prosesnya. Selain itu, hubungan Tomoya dan Nagisa mulai memasuki tingkat keakraban yang tidak seperti sebelumnya. Melalui hubungannya dengan Nagisa, dan berbagai pertemuannya itu, Tomoya mulai memahami arti dan pentingnya keluarga. Sayangnya, sepertinya Tomoya dan Nagisa mulai dihadapkan dengan banyak kesulitan dan tantangan di sepanjang jalan.

Download Episode Clannad After Story [ Subtitle Indonesia ]

Episode 1-24 By IDWS

To start, when I started the story I had a game plan. I literally wrote it out before I drafted the first sentence. I want to make it absolutely clear I wouldn’t have started the story if I didn’t fully understand the concept of the Anime. Hell, I did a panel at Anime Boston 2012 about Clannad. If anything that was the place where my understanding of Clannad was really tested and having passed with flying colors I’d say you guys are in good hands when it comes to my Fanfic.

Up until my recently posted Chapter 11 there were only good times for all: The Okazaki family is about to welcome a new member to the family, four friends get married on the same day and Nagisa’s strange illness is cured.  That all changed in Chapter 11. You got Kotomi being taken in for questioning after her new generator fails and then the car accident that takes out the entire family in one way or another. As I said at the end of Chapter 11 bad things tend to happy in threes. Bad thing number three comes in Chapter 13.

I’m not going to give up Tomoya’s condition here but I will say he has an interesting experience while he’s unconscious.  You’ll find out about that in detail in Chapter 14. Anywho the new baby arrives next chapter so there’s that. Chapter 12 will be up before the end of tonight’s NBA All Star game.

Ada yang tau, chara* apa yang aku jadiin header image di blog ini?

Mungkin ada yang tau, ada yang ngga ya. Haha

Dia itu, Okazaki Tomoya. Salah satu chara di anime Clannad. Clannad itu salah satu dari beberapa anime favorit aku neh.

Ada banyak alasan kenapa aku menyukai -pake banget- Okazaki. Yang pertama, dia itu cuek -ga jutek- tapi sekalinya care tuh ya care banget, mau membantu siapa aja, dan paling ga bisa liat cewe sedih atau kesusahan. siapa siih yang ga mau tipe cowo kaya Okazaki *o*

Seperti dalam animenya, Okazaki itu berpacaran dengan salah satu temen deketnya, namanya Nagisa. Nagisa itu anaknya poloooooooos banget dan lugu, padahal dia itu kakak kelasnya Okazaki tapi karena dia sering sakit-sakitan jadi dia ga naik kelas dan jadi satu angkatan sama Okazaki. Dulu, sebelum Okazaki pacaran sama Nagisa, Okazaki selalu membantu Nagisa tiap ada masalah. sampai mereka pacaran juga sih, ga cuman sebelum pacaran doang ._.

Tuh kan dari situ aja udah ketauan kalau Okazaki itu cowo ideal buat dijadiin pacar. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa jatuh hati deh sama Okazaki<3<3<3<3<3

Fruits Basket (rom-com, drama)

Air (drama, romance, comedy)

Angel Beats! (fantasy, drama, action, comedy) – this one made me cry and it has a lot of music stuff in it which I thought was really cool

The Wallflower (Perfect Girl Evolution) (rom-com)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (kids, action) secretly love this

And I am currently watching Deadman Wonderland and Clannad. So yeah – I’m a sucker for rom-com’s. And Avatar: The Last Airbender (which was the first anime I ever watched, by the way).

There’s something very romantic about Irish music. Maybe because Ireland itself has such a romantic landscape. Or it’s something in the culture, a sadness and passion. Maybe it’s just the effect of Clannad’s melodies and Moya Brennan’s voice. Doesn’t matter why, it just is. Soothing and heartwarming. Even Irish fiddle type music that you get drunk and dance a jig to. That’s not exactly soothing in the sleepytime way, but it’s definitely happy-making. Of course it can also be corny and maudlin, but there’s a toothless and cheap version of every good thing, and that should’t turn you off of the real quality stuff. I mean, the whole Riverdance thing is like the Lipton teabag of Irish culture – a flavorless, watered-down imitation of something it’s not even in the same ballpark with.

So. It’s a romance-themed series, which for a show aimed at a male audience these days basically means a harem. But it’s not your typical harem show, for a number of reasons. For a start, the relationship with the “main” heroine is a lot more definite than most. Then there’s the major theme of the series; family. The stories of each of the major characters are all ultimately about their family relationships. For the male lead, Okazaki Tomoya, it’s (initially, at least) mainly about his strained relationship with his father.

For the main heroine, Furukawa Nagisa, it’s (initially) mainly about her relationship with her parents. With Ibuki Fuuko, it’s about her relationship with her older sister. With the Fujibayashi twins, Kyou and Ryou, well… it’s each other. With Sakagami Tomoyo, there’s other stuff involved, but it ultimately comes down to her younger brother. For Ichinose Kotomi, again there are other factors, but it’s ultimately down to her relationship with her parents. Even Tomoya’s friend Sunohara Youhei, it’s largely about his relationship with his little sister.

Tomoya’s a bit of a delinquent, and a tremendous smartarse. It’s mostly the latter quality that makes him an interesting character, and drives most of the humour in the show – primarily with him pulling various pranks on people. But he’s not really happy with his life, or the town he lives in. But this changes when he meets Nagisa on the way to school one morning. It’s not an immediate change; these things do take time, but this is the start of it.

A fateful meeting

Nagisa, meanwhile, has been absent from school a lot due to illness and is repeating her last year of high school. She’s feeling a bit melancholy because all of her friends have moved on and everything she liked is changing, when Tomoya gives her some words of encouragement.

There’s also a sequence throughout involving an unnamed girl and a junk robot in a mysterious world, which initially doesn’t seem connected to anything or make much sense overall, but it does become important later.

Like Angel Beats, the show does both humour and tragedy, though less of the latter than Angel Beats. It also has a supernatural element all throughout, but fairly subtly so. It’s also thankfully far less of a storytelling mess than other Maeda works such as Air or Angel Beats. And it’s very, very pretty. Not just the characters either, there’s some very nice scenery porn on display.

It’s a very good show, which I highly recommend, but the sadder elements do put many people off.

So I harbor a certain (hopefully healthy) skepticism about assigning meaning to the coincidental details that coalesce around one’s personal experience. But that doesn’t mean I am immune to the peculiar flush of pleasure that comes with discerning in a swirl of facts a pattern that flatters my idea of myself. Take my birthday: 12-27-73. When I was 12, I had two experiences to which I can trace almost the whole of my imaginative development: first, I read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and secondly, I heard music by the Irish band Clannad. 1973 was a significant year for both Tolkien (he died) and Clannad (it began). Clannad is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with a European tour. I turn 40 this year, too, and though I have never previously attached much importance to age, this milestone has definitely been a millstone. Perhaps until yesterday. Yesterday, after 27 years, I finally heard Clannad live in concert.

I almost didn’t go. I saw the poster about a week ago. I froze to the spot. I stopped breathing, then I started breathing very fast. But then I walked away and pretended to dismiss it. We didn’t need to spend the money. I hadn’t seriously listened to Clannad in years, just an occasional dip in for nostalgia’s sake. I mentioned the concert almost apologetically to my husband. But as I tried to fill in for him the historical significance of Clannad in my life — it was my very first introduction, not only to a whole genre of music I adore, but to the Gaelic language, my first linguistic passion in a life where language is now at the very center — I became so excited that it was clear to both of us I needed to go.

And now we get to the most delicately personal part of a post which has been shamelessly personal from the start. I have been struggling for the past few years with a loss of self. I felt my spark was going out. I couldn’t locate that center in myself where I find that I have something beautiful to share with the world. I simply couldn’t find it: I could remember that it had been there, but when I returned to the scenes of former inspiration, they were barren. No spark. I felt I had lost my luck: I knew my life had continued to be astonishingly fortunate, but I didn’t feel lucky. I felt my creative life was substantially over, and what would fill the next four decades? I have had hard times before, I have had heartache, but I have never felt that despair and hollowness and sense of being utterly lost.

It was not the concert yesterday that dispelled all these shadows. They have been gradually shifting for some while, ever since I dragged myself up and began interacting with the academic community again (by crashing public lectures at Stockholm University). Since I returned from my visit home, unexpectedly my recovery has sped up. Just yesterday morning my eye fixed itself on the spine of a book on my shelf and immediately, like those colorful lines connecting cities in the back of an airline magazine, my mind began connecting this book with another: they might be read in tandem (in such moments, I always imagine myself in front of a class of undergraduates), but would this suggestive connection hold up critically? I noticed then what was happening: making and testing connections, lines of possibility leaping out in multiple directions — that’s the functioning of my mind as I recognize it of old.

The real reason I almost didn’t go to the Clannad concert was fear: if the concert had been “pleasant” but emotionally empty for me, that would have seemingly confirmed that I was indeed lost, my imagination dying. Instead what it confirmed is that everything that was once alive in me is still very strongly alive. I sat in that dark auditorium, grinning so hard my ears hurt, but with tears flowing, too, every time the well-known voice of Maire Brennan began another song I knew, in the full sense, by heart. That was every song. To paraphrase (and misappropriate) Peter Matthiessen: returning to your true nature is like returning to your long-lost home. My true nature — perhaps not in the Zen sense, but in the sense of recognizing and valuing myself — is to be thirsty for learning, agile at association, inexplicably moved by a certain set of arcane subjects whose value puzzles most people, quick to inspiration and passionate in expression. And so I was in that dark auditorium. And here I am.

It’s satisfying when the numbers line up felicitously. So, if I may indulge one last time in pattern-spinning, it took me 27 years to come the full circle of the influence which began when I was 12. It is not a return to childhood (thank heavens!), but rather a renewal which helps me look forward to my 40th birthday and the second half of my life with confidence. An imagination must have free reign of its origins before it can break new ground. If there is any lesson I wish to impart from this long excursion into the personal, it is this: that it is never too late to restore in your nature that which you love most about it.

Music plays a huge part in my writing and sometimes I forget that and wonder why the muse is being a brat only to realise that I have no music on and she often prefers music to having a movie or television or silence.

What music is everyone else listening to today, for pleasure or purpose?

That’s right, the movie version released a few months prior to the TV series is my favorite version of Clannad. Why? Because whilst I do appreciate KyoAni’s work, there need to pander to a specific crowd limits them a lot. Now, I never saw the Toei version of Kanon. Air: The Motion Picture was definitely an improvement mostly due to the fact that the backstory was better, the focus was tighter, and they didn’t turn the main into a fucking crow, but the romance between a guy in his mid-twenties and a high school girl was kind of gross and they still kept the bullcrap ending with the mother/daughter thing. However, when it came to Clannad, Toei did what most anime should do when it comes to doing an adaptation based on source material, especially from a video game. Adapt it!

Let’s not bring up the TV series since I think we all know what the problems are with that one and instead go to another series that needed a better adaptation: Fate/Zero. I have seen many people complain about Gen Urobuchi’s writing regarding this series and I can’t for the life of me really understand why because it’s not like he wrote the anime itself. Okay yes, we make fun of Maeda for writing the Key stuff, Kawahara writing Sword Art Online, and Nision writing whatever “-gatari” series he’s doing, but at the end of the day, you do realize that these people (with the exception of Maeda’s Angel Beats) didn’t actually write the anime adaptations we’re mostly exposed to, right? I mean did the Katanagatari anime have to put every single fucking line that Nision wrote into the script? Did SAO have to be a wish-fulfillment pandering series of the highest caliber? Did Who Is Imouto have to be the animated series version of an Adam Sandler film? No they didn’t. And by extension, the Fate/Zero anime could have at least animated shit and not put every single one of Urobuchi’s “only works in written form” dialogue into every episode.

Writing for an anime is different from writing novels, video games, etc. I think the numerous amount of failed video game adaptations alone prove this fact. Hell, there’s even a difference between writing for a movie and writing for a TV series. Fate/Zero probably works really well in the novel form, considering that talkiness and info-dumps isn’t as much of a problem when you’re reading it. Yeah, there are a few things that you could blame the anime on him (the multiple repetitive discussions regarding honor between Saber and whoever), but it’s not like the scriptwriter had to copy his dialogue wholesale. I understand the fact that you have fans of the original novel to please, but I’m a fan of the Persona 4 game, and I did not think the stuff copied wholesale into the anime worked well at all. I preferred Persona 4 when it was actually changing what I remembered from the game (the King’s game was fucking hilarious in that regard). If your fans are reasonable, they’d understand (and prefer) that sacrifices have to be made in order to achieve quality. If they’re not, well then fuck them. The reason you’re going to the visual medium is to achieve a wider audience, right? Sacrifice some old fans and bring in a bunch of new ones in exchange.

Yes, there are changes that end up being for the worse. Haganai’s need to insert serious moments at inappropriate times made Yozora out to be more of a monster than she was supposed to be. The Persona 4 anime had some problems as well. And do I even need to talk about what happened with Durarara? But as long as you keep the core of the source material intact, then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Haganai’s serious moments came dangerously close to the series’ core, which is why they fell flat for me. And Durarara was a victim of too many additions to the original material with nothing edited out, which is something we like to call padding. Didn’t work for DBZ and it definitely didn’t work for Durarara. However, on the flip side, we’ve got the Evangelion Rebuild films that are very different (starting from the second movie) to the original Eva anime with fancy mecha battles and happier moments, but they still understand the core of Eva and do their best to leave it alone (Shut up. Lame mecha battles are NOT a core part of the franchise). In fact, they go one step further by hitting on the core in different ways to the point that you wonder if you’re really watching Evangelion, only to think about it for a bit and go “I don’t know what that it was, but it was definitely Evangelion”.

This is why I think Clannad: The Motion Picture is nowhere near the failure that a lot of people have claimed it to be and I actually find it to be extremely underrated. It actually realizes that it has to adapt for a different medium and plays to that strength whilst only keeping the core basics of the original source material in check. Gone is the sad girl melodrama, exaggerated moe characteristics, and (above all else) that “controversial” ending. Instead, we get a story about a guy who meets a girl, falls in love with her, builds a family through her, and learns about the meaning of family through his experiences. It’s a really great story that I want to see more of and without the usual Key aspects that hold it back, that story is allowed to shine through even more. Nagisa still has to die of course and there are about four or five cry scenes, but they barely last five seconds. Plus, that ending. Perfect way to end a heartwarming story. I won’t spoil it, but needless to say, it’s better than the show’s and you don’t need to see any more of what happens after that ending scene. It’s like the Bunny Drop anime ending in that regard.

With that said though, there are two things that hold this movie back. One is the main character, Tomoya. In exchange for having no sad girls, he becomes a total angst-fest who pretty much narrates about his problems every chance he gets. He’s not very engaging of a character, especially since his voice actor is different from the series (Japanese-wise, as the English dub has the same guy), and while it fits his delinquent persona more than it did in the TV series, it also means he’s not given much to do. Stuff mostly happens to him instead of him allowing things to happen, which makes some people question why he’s the main at times. The other thing is…well, you noticed the pictures I’ve been posting right? Yeah, I don’t get what it is with Toei and Key, but the art is pretty awkward and can be even ugly at times. Osamu Dezaki does his best with the budget and that “postcard memories” style he uses in his other films, but man is it bad.

There’s also the nagging feeling in my mind that I love this movie a lot because of my history with Clannad. I mean let’s face it, if you never heard of the franchise and just watched the movie on its own, you’d get a cheap version of Makoto Shinkai’s stuff. Granted the characters in this movie are fun, unlike the ones in Shinkai’s films themselves, but aside from a few of them, they’re mostly shallow support that makes you question why they’re in the movie to begin with.

So whilst I really love this version of Clannad, it doesn’t quite make the top 30 for me. Might make top 50 though.

===================================================================================

Stingers

• Be honest, most of you have never heard of this movie, right?
• Honestly, whilst the English dub isn’t the greatest, I prefer it to the Japanese version because no Yuuichi Nakamura = will not watch
• I probably have different thoughts on what constitutes the core of Clannad that other people do.
• A pity that this was the last thing Osamu Dezaki ever directed before he croaked.

Sturgeon’s Law dictates; “Nothing is always absolutely so” or, in layman’s terms; 90% of everything is crap. Almost anyone with any experience in any medium, regardless of their taste, will tell you that this is an accurate statement and visual novels are no exception. However, even amongst the constant, never-ceasing tides of mediocrity and blatant cash grabs, occasionally you will experience something so brilliant, regardless of the medium, that allows you to once again have hope for the future of the industry and fills you with the bitter-sweet feeling that you will never again be able to enjoy this experience this for the first time.

Rewrite is one of these experiences. It’s just that good.

Some of you who know of my massive appreciation for Key may be inclined to take this with a grain of salt and I do not blame you. I’m not entirely in a position to rule out that bias plays no role in that statement, however, just because I am a fan of Key does not mean I am not able to give criticism where criticism is deserved. Clannad’s art was at best, sub-par and at worst dreadful, but at least it was an improvement on Kanon and Air. Planetarian’s shift in narrative structure was too quick and rushed. Little Busters! rehashed too much old text within it’s repetitive and bland common route. That isn’t to say I don’t love each and every one of those visual novels, but those flaws very much exist. And yet, Rewrite seems to improve on all of these past mistakes. Unlike Clannad, Rewrite is visually stunning. Unlike Planetarian, the narrative shift is foreshadowed and built up to, yet still comes at us out of the left field, much like in Planetarian. Though it has a common route like Little Busters! does, the common route has enough changes each time around to keep the experience engaging and re-reading old text is less of a chore simply due to how far more enjoyable it is. Rewrite is very much the accumulation of experience gained by over ten years of Key history, but how does it actually compare when held under the scrutiny of comparison to Key’s past visual novels. In this blogger’s opinion? Very well. It’s not quite as good as Clannad, but it certainly does stand head and shoulders above any other Key visual novel to date.

GAO; GAO; Blatant AIR Reference!

Rewrite tells the story of Tennouji Kotarou, who’s probably the most fleshed out and developed Key protagonist since Tomoya from Clannad. Indeed, Kotarou shares a lot of similarities with Tomoya. Kotarou only has one person he can call a friend, his childhood friend Kanbe Kotori, and is dissatisfied with his life. In order to “make more memories” and improve the quality of his life, Kotarou decides to resurrect the now defunct occult club at his high school so he can make more friends and explore the numerous mystical rumours around the progressive city of Kazamatsuri that catch his interest, namely the existence of UMAs (unidentified mysterious animals), which are animals that have little likeness to known animals that are rumoured to exist in Kazamatsuri’s forest. However, the existence of the occult club, Kotarou’s inquisitive nature and a secret of his own that he harbours causes him to get caught up in events that far exceed even his imagination.

Akane explains how to survive on WordPress.

Rewrite follows a similar route structure to Little Busters! that came before it. It has a common route and decisions made in the common route put the reader on one of the heroine routes. Once the heroine routes are completed, additional routes are then unlocked which allows the reader to continue the story. A common criticism levelled at Key visual novels, especially Air and Little Busters!, is their focus on the destination as opposed to the journey, with everything in the visual novel leading up to a single route or even a single scene. Rewrite follows a similar method of building up but does it a little differently than Little Busters! Unlike Little Busters!, Rewrite actually manages to make every heroine route and even the common route itself engaging and relevant to the final story and every element contributes to the final story. And while the heroine routes have sub plots and plot holes left unresolved only to be finally explored in the final route, each heroine route still stands tall and can be seen as separate from the other routes, as an independent story of its own. While they ultimately contribute to the visual novel as a whole, every heroine route still functions as its own standalone story, instead of in previous Key VNs where routes are entirely irrelevant to the final route or exist only to prop up the final route. Rewrite gives us the best of both worlds and through this, Rewrite’s climax functions as a climax should; the peak of the story as opposed to goal of the story. Rewrite gives us a journey and a destination.

Rewrite is unique from other Key visual novels by not having Maeda Jun as head writer. Instead, this time Tanaka Romeo takes the helm. Tanaka’s previous works include Yume Miru Kusuri, Kana Imouto and Cross†Channel (you can see my previous review for Cross†Channel here). Tanaka Romeo brings his renowned clever dialogue to the routes he writes, with fantastic wordplay and dialogue battles ever present and constantly enjoyable. The other authors on the project are Ryukishi07, author of Higurashi and Umineko, and Tonokawa Yuto. Of these three authors, only Tonokawa has worked on a Key project before Rewrite, which was Little Busters! Tonokawa, who contributed, in my opinion, the two worst routes in Little Busters!, has improved immensely contributing two heroine routes Rewrite, both of which are fantastic. If Tonokawa was able to improve so much in only a few short years, with this being only the second project he has worked on, he is certainly a name to look out for in the coming years.

Does Kotarou’s blonde hair, wide head and kilt thing remind anyone else of Hey Arnold? 

Despite three authors, two of which had nothing to do with Key before Rewrite and one who had only worked a little on a previous Key visual novel, Rewrite still very much feels like a Key experience. Key veterans Orito Shinji, Maeda Jun and Hinoue Itaru are all involved with Rewrite, the first two working on Rewrite’s beautiful score and the latter as art director, her first time in the role for a Key visual novel since Clannad. Rewrite also has a fantastic voice cast, with big names like Saito Chiwa, Hanazawa Kana and Kitamura Eri all voicing heroines. Morita Masakazu and Konishi Katsuyuki also join the cast. All the elements in Rewrite, from the score to the art to the writing, blend masterfully together to create a consistent theme and a beautiful experience.

Is it just me or does Kazamatsuri have the best high school uniform ever?

If something had told me, after reading Clannad, that Hinoue Itaru would not only become a fantastic artist, but be the art director on one of the most beautiful visual novels I had ever read, I would’ve called them insane. I was sceptical to hear that Hinoue Itaru, not Na-Ga, would be art director on Rewrite but my misgivings were entirely unfounded. Rewrite is gorgeous. There’s really no other way to describe it. It is utterly beautiful. It is easily the best looking Key visual novel to date and one of the most beautiful visual novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Hinoue Itaru’s faces are still a little too wide and the eyes are still a little too off; but these are very, very slight misgivings on what is otherwise a beautiful visual novel. My only major gripe about the art is there just simply isn’t enough of it. There are times when a CG would be utterly perfect but isn’t present and the scene feels lesser because of it. There are also several characters who, despite being fully voice acted, completely lack a sprite. A couple of these voice-acted, sprite lacking characters even appear in a CG or two occasionally, which makes their lack of a sprite seem incredulous in addition to being lazy.

Something that shocked me about Rewrite, especially in comparison to other Key visual novels, is the sheer scope of the story. Rewrite does a lot differently than other Key visual novels, and the consequences of some actions throughout the routes can be quite dire. Though I can’t say how exactly in risk of spoiling it, you will know it when you see it. Rewrite does come across as awfully preachy at times. During the heroine routes, regardless of which route you are on, Kotarou’s intentions, beliefs and convictions remain consistent throughout, though this is somewhat mitigated in later routes. Rewrite is also very preachy with its environmental message. This won’t bother some people but I found it a little heavy handed and tiresome and was glad when later in the visual novel things began to change.

I can vouch for this. 

The biggest issue I had with Rewrite was the simplicity and sometimes complete lack of choice. While choices are very much present in the common route, none of them are difficult and it isn’t hard to avoid bad ends and get onto the heroine route of choice. Within the heroine routes and latter routes, choices are far less common, with thousands of lines of text between choices or sometimes being devoid of choices entirely. That’s not to say linearity in a visual novel is a bad thing, but if you’re going to have choices present, making them so scarce and easy feels lazy. When choices do appear, bad ends happen almost immediately if you pick the wrong choice and will then happily send you back to the last wrong choice you made. Though this is later explored and the final route subverts this approach in a very clever way, it still feels lazy when you’re actually going through it, removing any element of difficulty in route progression. Obtaining all the CGs will not pose any difficulty. In fact, the only thing that may cause some reader’s issue is unlocking the oppai ending, which is certainly worth uncovering obscure local mysteries and hunting through the Mappie segments to unlock.

Speaking of the Mappie segments scattered throughout the common route, I cannot decide how I feel about this unique feature. Mappie segments show a map of an area on Kotarou’s phone with points of interest the reader can click on view dialogue. Often these points of interest will be hidden, which means the reader must search for them. While at times entertaining and enjoyable and at times are used very effectively to blend with the narrative, they can also be equally frustrating and some readers will skip them altogether, missing out on a lot of content.

Mappie segments are at times fun and at times frustrating.

Rewrite is quite a long visual novel and does require a large time investment but it is very much worth every minute. The slice of life scenes in the common route are funny and enjoyable and do a fantastic job of fleshing out the characters and building up to the heroine routes. The character’s are all likeable and the action scenes are exhilarating. Rewrite carries strong emotional impact and at times will have you laughing your head off or making your heart race with adrenaline or causing you to cry your heart out. It has enough Key in it to satisfy the Key fans out there but it’s different enough to give those who’d normally shy away from reading Key an excuse to try it and enjoy it. Rewrite is definitely not to be missed by any visual novel fan.

Finally, a heroine I can relate to.

Rating: 9.2/10

Here is the list of stories I will be releasing as a Manuscript. Click on each title to see them in full at Fanfiction.net:

• Pokemon Ruby: My Version
• Pokemon Kanto: Team Rocket Version
• Night Blood Ties
• Lillina and Fomortiis
• From the Depths of the Abyss
• Call of the Crusade
• Fall of the Lich King

Night Blood Ties, Lillina and Fomortiis and From the Depths of the Abyss will be published together while Call of the Crusade and Fall of the Lich King will be published together. I plan on publishing the Worldbreaker Saga together when it is eventually finished. Same for Pokemon Sinnoh: Legemds with its predecessors.

Some of my best works have turned out to be part of a series. Interestingly, I’m going to publish my A Wonderful Life stories together along with Turnabout Attorneys. I expect to finish all three stories within the next 18 months. I can say for sure that I will continue to write Fan Fiction as time goes on.

If my love for you were a song..My thoughts would become lyrics..Words would fill the pages…My emotions would become melodies..Music would play from my heart..Ever wishing for the dream..To be heard..Hoping to be..More than.. A distant memory..

-Andy1076

I guess it isn’t very cool to admit this, but it first caught my ear because of the harmonies that start at 0.29 …they reminded me of the sort of harmonies you got (get?) in Clannad tracks.  Yes.  I like Clannad.  So shoot me! I like *lots* of stuff, including classical.

Anyway, don’t let that put you off. It isn’t really like a Clannad track, but, it is a beautiful, original track. Sensitive and delicate and a pleasure to listen to….

Clannad is one of the most moving things you could ever watch, so much so that if anyone was hitting a rough bump in life I would suggest them to watch Clannad before anything else. I believe Clannad could change a persons life, whether it be for good or bad though, well that depends on the person and what’s happening in their lives at the time.

The first season of Clannad might seem normal. It’s got some comedy and a few sad scenes and a few happy scenes and a little romance. But, it’s the not the first season where the show shines, it’s the second season, Clannad: After Story. It’s exactly what it says, the after story of what happened in the first season. If this was any normal anime it would probably end with the events of the first season, and we would never see what happened afterwards, but Clannad goes where few others dare to go. It delves much deeper than your average anime. Unfortunately, if I said anything else about it then I would be pushing past my own personal limits with spoilers.

Clannad gives us an exceptional cast of characters, an exceptional soundtrack, and delivers an exceptional story that can penetrate the emotions of even the most unemotional people. It stretches to both ends of the spectrum, Clannad can make you feel sadder than you’ve ever felt before, and it can also make you feel happier than you’ve ever felt before.

The only thing I have to say to those planning on watching it: Don’t watch with other people, unless of course you don’t mind those other people seeing you cry, probably more than you have in years.

PS: After rereading what I typed, I feel like I said almost nothing about what Clannad is. This is probably due to me having very strict “No Spoilers” guidelines for myself, VERY strict. Of course, I’ll try to loosen up in the future, and I could have rewritten my thoughts on Clannad, but in all honesty I believe those planning to watch Clannad should watch it with absolutely no knowledge of the show. For full effect.

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Everything I express on this blog is my own opinion, and should never be taken as anything more than my own opinion.

After this latest update I expect my story to become take the lead in most followed and most favorited Clannad story on Fanfiction.net. At best I’ll have to settle for second for most reviews (currently hav 54 despite only just posting chapter 10) though if I push back the planned time skip I might be able to close the gap with the frontrunner 372 reviews with 20 chapters) a bit. Don’t get me wrong: I write because I enjoy it first and foremost but if my story happens to get that popular then I say why not.

Speaking of which Clannad: A Wonderful Life actually is my most popular story on FFn. Ah! A Bundle of Joy!, which I finished last September takes the #2 spot in terms of most popular while Pokemon Ruby: My Version–finished in 2008–would be #3.

Getting back to the Clannad story: One thing that’s become painfully obviously to me is I have been neglecting the story. I simply haven’t had the time for reasons that are mostly beyond my control. I have also noticed my unually low wordcount per chapter. I usually write more than that on average so I’ll make the concious effort to write longer chapters whenever possible. This will mean a longer wait between updates but I’m at the point where I feel comfortable doing that.

Chapter 11 has the triple wedding involving Ryou and Kappei, Youhei and Tomoyo and Kotomi and Yukimora (my OC. No relation to the famous samurai of the same name). To chapters later the new Okazaki is born. There will be a time jump shortly afterward but like my other story titled A Wonderful Life the story will continue. I deliberately planned it so that the new baby comes in both stories on Chapter 13.  An interesting concept given I am writing both stories at about the same pace.

The next few months I will focus a bit more on both stories as I want them finished in time for Anime Boston 2013. Yes, both stories will end with the same number of chapters, too. They will be two of a kind and have no sequel planned for either story. It’ll be a good read though.

First of all, I was quite surprised the series let Ushio die, but I was still willing to accept it. It can be argued that it was just too much tragedy for a single story, but the thing is in life we all will have to deal with the deaths of loved ones–at least to some degree. It certainly wasn’t fair for Tomoya to have to suffer like that, especially right after he had learned to love Ushio and vowed to do everything he could for her. But the world has never operated in a way that perfectly rewards good people for all their hard work. There are probably very few things sadder than losing a precious child, but it’s something that can’t be helped. (In fact, for most of history, it was practically expected that a family would lose at least some of their children at an early age. And death during childbirth was also much more common in centuries past, for that matter.)

But even after Ushio’s passing away, I still had some hope that Tomoya would be able to hold on to what “family” entailed–the most central theme of the entire series. I wasn’t sure how the series was going to actually go about it, but I believed there would still be some kind of satisfying resolution, presumably of the bittersweet variety. How do people move on after facing the death of a spouse and child? I was hoping the story would actually deal with this. I was hoping Clannad would take it seriously, and show how Tomoya would still hold on to that love he had built for his wife and daughter over the course of the entire series.

I recognize it’s probably insensitive to point out something like “Well, Tomoya still had all his friends, and there were Nagisa’s parents, and Tomoya’s father, etc etc.” After all, it’s not like anyone ever could replace Nagisa or Ushio, not even after entire decades of everyday life. But time marches forward regardless, and you can’t just magically make all the sad events of the past not happen.

But that’s precisely what After Story did in the last episode. And I felt a very unsatisfying blend of confusion and disappointment. It was the epitome of one of my least favorite plot tropes: the reset ending (AKA restarting the timeline, refreshing the storyline, replacing the world with a happy one, etc). It’s not just a deus ex machina to make everything work out–it literally undoes some amount of the story we’ve been going through all this time. Were those tears for episodes 16 to 21 all for nothing? I couldn’t help but wonder.

I’ve read some forums and blog posts concerning the ending of After Story, and suffice to say it just seems too convoluted to actually work for an anime. Perhaps it made sense in the original visual novel, but it just felt out-of-place here. The girl in the other world and her teddy bear robot were certainly present since the very beginning of the series, but their significance was kept far too mysterious for far too long for me to care much about them. If they had simply operated as some kind of metaphor for some of the story’s themes, I would have probably been just fine with them, but having them all of a sudden rewrite history and make everything work out perfectly for everyone just didn’t feel right. I’m perfectly fine with having a happy ending–like most people, I like happy endings–but I want it to… well, make sense? I get that the robot trying his hardest represented Tomoya and all (who likewise was always helping those around him), but it didn’t really feel like Tomoya achieving this impossible happy ending. It felt forced, unclear, and flimsy at best.

How should have After Story ended then? I said last time that everything felt rather nice and conclusive once Tomoya accepted his role as Ushio’s father, accompanied by the conclusion to the overarching subplot with him making amends with his own father. But then Ushio died, which certainly put a damper on things. Could there have been any kind of happy ending after that? It wouldn’t do to just have the series end with Tomoya weeping and suffering for all he’d lost. But on the other hand, it’d likely feel hollow if the story just ended with any kind of message that could be construed as pithy.

Of course, the easiest way out would be to just undo all the bad things that happened–but didn’t the tragedy of Nagisa’s death lead to all the most powerful moments of the entire series? It feels wrong from a narrative standpoint to erase all that. I’ve read some explanations about Tomoya unconsciously collecting magical wisps of light to enable his teddy bear robot-self to alter history, but it still falls flat for me. To me, the ending really needed to focus on Tomoya, all that he’s learned, and all the relationships he’s formed over the course of the series–and tie everything back to Nagisa and Ushio. The team behind Clannad had repeatedly shown themselves capable of creating bittersweet montages set to emotional, moving insert songs. Perhaps this means an ending different from the original source, but sometimes you really have to change the story for it to be effective in a new medium.

The reset ending perhaps works just fine for a visual novel–the idea is Tomoya had to go through multiple histories (i.e. multiple game playthroughs) to help all the other girls in order to save Nagisa and Ushio, right? The very nature of the game then would have made “collecting all the light orbs to earn your happy ending” not feel so jarring, in that case. But for me, having only seen the anime, I can only critique the story for how it played out on-screen. The final episode simply felt out-of-place, both story-wise and thematically. Somehow the creative team thought it made sense to have most of the finale focus almost entirely on secondary characters (e.g. Fuuko), which made the whole thing feel even more bizarre. The combination of a confusing and intangible series of events, a lack of focus on what the audience actually cared about, and what ultimately felt like a cop-out solution to Tomoya’s tragedies just did not sit well with me at all.

Did the ending ruin the whole series for me? No, I still like the rest of Clannad and After Story quite a bit. The characters are great and the vast majority of the plot is handled really well. But I can’t help but admit the ending let me down, which is never a good thing because that is what sticks with you the most when you complete a story. So in the end, it’s simply unfortunate that the series didn’t end in a way that felt satisfying or in line with everything else the storyline had been building up toward.

]]> http://theglorioblog.com/2013/01/22/oped-op-eds-dango-daikazoku-clannad/ Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:00:18 +0000 jelx http://theglorioblog.com/2013/01/22/oped-op-eds-dango-daikazoku-clannad/ http://sosbrigadewestvalleyhigh.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/quick-update/ Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:27:36 +0000 Marcosias Isif http://sosbrigadewestvalleyhigh.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/quick-update/ http://cholisose.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/the-best-of-times-and-worst-of-times-with-clannad-after-story/ Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:39:41 +0000 Cho http://cholisose.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/the-best-of-times-and-worst-of-times-with-clannad-after-story/ I decided I will post my thoughts on episodes 1-21 of Clannad: After Story here, and my impressions on the final episode (ep 22) will appear tomorrow. There will be lots of major spoilers here, so this post is meant to be for those who have watched the whole Clannad series. For a review of After Story without spoilers, click here for yesterday’s post.

And now, CLANNAD: AFTER SPOILERS.

This season of Clannad can be divided into two parts for me. The good news is that the majority of the series–episodes 1 to 21–is very good. The bad news is the final episode… isn’t. In fact, it wasn’t just a weak ending, which I would have probably been (sort of) okay with. This was an ending that just didn’t work at all for me… but I’ll get to that in my next post.

Clannad: True Ending

After Story begins with a bunch of side-stories focusing more on the secondary characters rather than Tomoya and Nagisa, who have become a couple following the conclusion of the first season. These side-stories are great if you enjoyed Clannad a lot in general, though they’ll perhaps bore you if you just felt the series was okay. They can be skipped if you really wish to get to the meat of the series, which begins with episode 9. I personally found the little diversions a lot of fun though, and all the ways Tomoya helps everyone out is still used to flesh out his character bit by bit. Plus, these are the only episodes in which Sunohara does much of anything in After Story, and he’s hilarious.

Episode 9 begins the series of events that makes After Story so unique to me. A lot of it seems pretty banal on paper, to be honest–but the execution of it all is great. Tomoya graduated, while Nagisa has to stay another year due to her illness. Tomoya has to get a job. He struggles to maintain a close relationship with Nagisa due to his work schedule. He continues to hold bitter feelings toward his dad, who inadvertently gives more difficulties for Tomoya to deal with. In other words, these are all the sorts of things people actually have to deal with once they graduate from high school. It’s easy to relate to the situations presented, and since we’ve been with these characters so long we actually end up caring if Tomoya will be able to keep up with his power line repair work despite his poor arm. It’s a relatively small matter, but the fact the series takes its time focusing on such everyday things only makes the major events that much more dramatic.

I personally would have liked to have gotten a little more interesting development from Nagisa through all this, but I accept the story is being told from Tomoya’s point of view, and understand that most of the focus will be on how he approaches everything (such as his relationship with Nagisa). Overall the romance between the two is sweet and unassuming. More adult themes are handled with a sort of charming lightheartedness, and the drama is built upon bit by bit as the characters worry about future possibilities.

One of the more interesting things about After Story is perhaps what it chooses to not focus on. I mean, have you ever heard of a story where two main characters get married at some point in a long narrative, but the actual marriage isn’t a part of the story? It’s certainly unusual, especially when it’s an event that’s given such focus in modern society, to the point where there’s an overwhelming “fairy tale magic” atmosphere forced into the whole thing (for good and for ill). But After Story decided to forgo any kind of marriage ceremony episode (or even scene), which I ultimately found rather refreshing. Whether there was one is really a moot point in the end, and I feel the story wished to home in on the fact that romantic relationships are built on loving interaction between two people over a prolonged period of time, rather than on any one event. Similarly, there are later episodes that deal with Nagisa’s pregnancy, but no scene for the act that led to that in the first place. (Sex is brought up though, in what had to be one of the show’s most hilarious moments. But even then, the sequence of events largely serves to build on the theme of further connecting Tomoya into a larger family community [e.g. with Nagisa's parents].)

Unfortunately, the good times eventually lead to tragedy when Nagisa dies upon delivery of her child, which brings about the saddest episodes of the series. Again, it’s interesting to note what the anime doesn’t focus on, as there is no episode or scene dealing with Nagisa’s funeral. Instead, we get focus on Tomoya’s struggle to move on after the death of his wife. It is, of course, an extremely difficult time for him, and he can’t help but wonder if everything would have worked out better had he never befriended Nagisa in the first place. In reaction, Tennyson’s famous poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.” springs to mind:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

What is lost is lost though, and Tomoya is unable to even bring himself to care for his daughter Ushio. He has become much like the estranged father he grew to hate all this time–and in some ways he may actually be even worse. The theme of parenting a child alone takes center stage at this point, when Nagisa’s parents give Tomoya the nudge he needs to build any kind of love for his daughter. Though she looks just like a tiny Nagisa, and though she was born just as Nagisa died, she is still an individual who desperately wishes for a bond with her father–even if the process is a painful one. These episodes turned out to be some of the very best in the entire series, in my opinion. It pushed Tomoya to limits farther than he could have imagined, and really hit home on the family theme in general.

The fact Tomoya was able to make amends with his father during this process was what really brought everything all together. Tomoya had to learn that despite his father’s faults and inadequacies, his father truly did care for him, and truly did try his best. It didn’t erase the father’s mistakes, but it opened Tomoya’s heart enough for him to in turn come to truly care for his own child. It’s all in all a very well-written set of episodes, and was successful in leading into some of the everyday situations that entail raising a child on one’s own. It was indeed sad that Nagisa had died, but there was a very satisfying sense of progression and even conclusion when Tomoya cried to his daughter, telling Ushio all the things he loved about her mother. As a narrative, things truly felt complete once Tomoya came to see that his family did not end with Nagisa’s passing. Even small and simple scenes such as Ushio hugging Nagisa’s giant dango plushie felt heartwarming enough to give the sense that the story had come full circle.

And this is where I’ll stop for now. Please save any comments on the ending of the series for tomorrow, when I’ll post my full thoughts on Clannad’s conclusion.