It’s CLANNAD: After Story episode 22 – the final episode of the series proper. Stuff happens, then more stuff happens, then other stuff that I don’t understand happens,then it ends.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
This episode starts in the alternate world, where the robot tries to keep the girl moving in the blizzard, but can’t and starts to have thoughts that he should never have led the girl o the trip, mirroring Tomoya’s refound thoughts about how he should have never met Nagisa. The girl then wakes up and tells the robot a dream she had: the two of them lived in another world long ago, and were very close. The robot says they should return, but the girl says she can’t or else all the glowing balls of lights, which are the “feelings of people from the other world” would meet misery.
The girl goes on to tell the robot that he has an alternate self in the other world and that he’ll soon fall sleep in the alternate world and wake up in the other world. However, the girl says that he will get to see her there, but she’ll appear as many shimmering lights which will become a powerful power when gathered together. There is then a huge light and explosion, which blows the robot away and, just before the two disappear from the alternate world, the girl says goodbye, daddy.”
Suddenly Tomoya, who had been moping in a dream-like state “wakes up” and realizes that it was still great to meet Nagisa, and thus “meets her” again in his dream, where Nagisa tells him to never loose himself and never believe that they should never have met.
Then something happens and Tomoya finds himself back at Ushio’s birth, however this time Nagisa lives. When Tomoya looks outside, he sees the town filled with glowing balls of light. We then have a montage of the next 5 years of Nagisa, Tomoya, Ushio, and other people that we know.
Finally, we end with Kouko out walking with her sister Fuko, who is acting childish as usual. Eventually they walk by the hospital, where Fuko senses “someone” and runs off into the woods nearby. There she briefly gets a glimpse of the girl from the alternate world, but then on second look, it ends up being Ushio. Fuko then asks Ushio to play with her and tells her that the fun’s just begun….
OK, am I the only one who thinks that this episode is challenging the last two episodes of Evangelion in it’s abstractness and convolutions?
I somewhat get the “whats,” such as when the robot “returned” to the world, Tomoya “woke up,” though I’m not really sure why nor what all the scenes in the alternate world before this were supposed to do, other than remind us that it was there (and I guess create the relationship between the girl and the robot). Also, I know that the glowing balls were apparently able for Tomoya to “go back” to an Ushio birth where Nagisa survived, but we only saw the glowing balls twice that I can remember, and I’m not sure why this happened now (other than it being caused by Tomoya “waking up”). And what caused the girl and robot to disappear from the world to begin with? The girl dying? I still don’t get that either.
And what was up with the long Fuko scene at the end, which took up the final third of the episode, and seemed to be rather pointless except for having Fuko and having her meet Ushio (suggesting that she saw her in the form of the girl in the alternate world) for…what reason? Hope for Fuko’s future? A Fuko-centric sequel? I have no idea. At first I thought it might lead into the next special episode, but it’s not based on the preview.
In any case, this episode just felt to me like one where a writer or movie director ran out of money and so decided to just “make things happen” to end the story. I realize that such “miracle” endings are nothing new for Key/Visual Arts story, but I at least feel that you could generally follow what was happening with Air and Kanon, though moreso with Kanon. At least Air has the excuse of only being 12 episodes, but even then we had several episodes with Yukito reincarnated to make the final reincarnation at the end not as confusing. The problem here is that everything is explained in maybe 10 minutes and then bang, we’re back to Nagisa living. If they were going to do something like this, I think it should have been better explained so you’re not going “huh? what happened?” at the end.
If this episode was supposed to be emotional due to Nagisa and Tomoya’s reuniting, it didn’t happen to be because I think I was too busy trying to figure out what in the heck was happening.
My other problem with an ending such as this is that it basically buts everything that happened after the Nagisa death episode (episode 16) into an alternate reality that didn’t “really happen” in a sense (unless Tomoya still remembers it, and it’s unclear that he does) because, well, Nagisa didn’t really die in the end. It also creates the paradox of, how could there be a miracle to “save” Nagisa if she doesn’t need saving, and if she doesn’t need saving, then there is no miracle, but if there is no miracle, then how can she be saved?
In any case, I either wish they would have either had a “Nagisa and Ushio are dead, live with it” type ending, or they had spent more than 10 minutes explaining what was happening. And shouldn’t we have seen a lot more glowing balls than we did if they were so important to the miracle at the end?
I guess to round things up, I wondered how they could get everything finished in one episode and in the end, in my judgement, they really didn’t. And even then they still only used half the episode. They just made the ending a muddled, confusing mess which disabled the entire emotional effectiveness of the final third or so of the season. Why cry over Nagisa’s death if she ends up coming back? Why get emotional about Tomoya finally coming to grips with being Ushio’s father if that never happens? And so on. In the end, this episode could have had a worse ending…but I’m not sure by very much.
21 Comments
Yeah, I didn’t quite get the ending as well. I only saw like one, give or take a few, glowing ball in the past episodes. Should’ve took a bit more time to explain it.
However, time reset -> good ending.
I guess another part of the reset I didn’t like (I keep coming up with reasons) is that…what was the moral of the story about Nagisa dying and Tomoya “coming back” to accept it? That a miracle might happen and you’ll go back in time and things will be “right?” I think while the reset does result in a “happy” ending, it does it at the expense of probably the best arc in the entire series.
I go back to thinking that it either needed another ending, or it needed to be explained better so that we actually understand why the past 6 or 7 episodes were necessary to begin with other than beating up on Tomoya.
I think the story is that tomoya had to go through this hardship to make himself a better person.
I still really dont understand this though, after nagisa dying you learn to think ok thats ok theyre living a happy life ushio and tomoya after he realises he needs to be a father figure to her and protect her.
(i especially liked they way they said they were off to nagisa’s picture ) then when Ushio dies i kinda just thought …. “what the hell”. I mean they just completely hate tomoya, i was pretty sad at the end and to have that all turned back into a ending where nagisa is alive, its almost , i dunno “surreal” yo put in terms. You know what i mean ur kinda like… “but theyre dead” ^^
anyway is it just me or isint there 50 episodes? i thought i saw that somewhere, what are the about?
I COULDNT agree with you more.
They should definitely have taken the “Nagisa and Ushio are dead, deal with it” approach because that would make a lot of sense. Moreover, exactly as you said, Episode 16 to Episode 21 was just a waste then. 5 episodes that meant ABSOLUTELY nothing. 5 weeks gone to waste.
Also, the ending just didnt make a lot of sense. I had to read comments by people who had played the game to understand properly what exactly happened. Also, the whole concept is ridiculous. You gather enough “light orbs” and you can go back in time and save someone? Keep at least a hint of reality man. Clannad ~After story was going pretty damn solid till Episode 21. The ending made the WHOLE series into another goddamn kids Disney cartoon where “everyone lives happily ever after”.
Lame.
I for one, couldn’t think of any other ending at this point. After all the warmness of the earlier episodes and all the themes on family and kindness, how could this kind of ending pan out? Nagisa and Ushio both being taken out of Tomoya’s life, leaving him with nothing. What would he have done at this point if he had talked to Ushio in the Illusionary world and woke up back in the “real” one with Ushio dead in his arms? I don’t see how he could recover from this; I wouldn’t even want to see him at that point. All the things that happened to him aren’t invalidated by the ending. Tomoya had to go through all that suffering in order to become a better person, and even though It’s a reset I’m sure he still remembers. This kind of ending was a long time coming.
I agree with you on that, they build up such a nice story only to kill the characters in the end was’nt all that great an idea. However, now that they’ve wasted 5 episodes on Nagisa has died, they shouldnt have just come up with a super freaking miracle and saved Nagisa. They spent 110 minutes (22min * 5 episodes) into showing how devastated and Tomoya is and how hes crying everytime and in 15 minutes (half of episode 22), they’re happily back again like NOTHING every happened. That is just plain wrong.
Secondly, as much as i didnt want Nagisa to die, i will have to admit, the fact that she did die actually made me get hooked on to this show even more. It made it much more realistic, everyone knew Nagisa was sick since the first episode but the fact that they actually killed her took me by complete surprise. They should’ve stuck to the “nagisa dead” thing.
I played the VN all the way through long before I saw the anime go through all of this, and I have to say, bringing her back for the true ending was a lot more believable and fluid. I still think I would rather see this kind of ending rather than just Tomoya and Ushio alone, it wrecks the whole family thing and personally it never felt right. I’ve read a lot of comments with people talking about how Ushio should have lived and then Tomoya and Kyou should have hooked up and all that… but I don’t see than panning out. Where was Kyou the whole time that Ushio was sick? She never even visited, I know the whole thing was surreal but nobody besides the Furukawa family ever showed up or said anything to support Tomoya while he was caring for her (neither in the anime or VN). It wasn’t a wasted five episodes either, with Nagisa out of the picture and Tomoya raising Ushio on his own (eventually) he grew a lot stronger and eventually a lot kinder. That carried over to give him his chance to set things right.
I can imagine how this kind of end can happen in the game – if you play well enough, you’ll get the deserved ending (i.e. you can call out to Nagisa at that time to save her). But the intepretation of the anime is really confusing and disappointing. Though I knew what would happen before I watched this episode, I still couldn’t help thinking: “What the…? They made it feel like after Ushio’s death, the whole happy ending is just Tomoya’s mere fantasy when the truth is maybe he’s gone crazy” or something like that. Anyway, I think this ending should have had more explanation on the “lights” that have been uncousciously collected during the anime, and it should spend more time explaning the alternative world as well.
Btw, about why should 5 episodes be spent on Nagisa’s death – I think it’s reasonable enough because her death cause Tomoya to become depressed just like his father did, so they can clear the misunderstanding that has been there for too long. And also that makes Tomoya treasure Ushio more than just “a baby the girl I love has”, so I think it makes lots of sense after all.
Anw, it’s end and it’s the happy ending I wanted, but somehow I’m unsastified…
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/misc-images-xix/clannad-storyline-diagram.png
For those who didn’t understand the story. Contains lots of spoilers, of course.
i thought the ending was truly immense i can understand it was done rather quick but it still was fantastic to watch both of the series hav been all the way through the wishing orb things were cool in order to bring nagisa back to life and to understand wat part the robot and the girl played through the series people hav been moanin about them 5 eps goin to waste but i though they were fantastic to watch it kept u at the edge of ur seat wonderin wat was goin to happen next and the then cums out with the best possible ending ever great to watch!!!
I agree that one of the morals of the story was ignored when it came to the ending. However, throughout the entire series, the town was described as a place where wishes come true. It also helps with the very first plotline introduced in the very first episode: Tomoya’s feelings about the city. By the last episode, Tomoya has been given a miracle from the city and now loves it as much as Nagisa.
By the way, the ending is actually a lot less ambiguous than it seems. It’s just as it looks: Tomoya and Ushio were the girl and robot reincarnated into another world, Ushio inspires Tomoya to give life another chance, Tomoya calls out to Nagisa and realizes that he wouldn’t wish that he and Nagisa never met, and dead zombie angel Nagisa and Ushio send him back and give him another chance with his family.
It was bit confusing to me, yes, but if you don’t think about it too much you’ll just plain understand it. I think the only real problem with this ending is that, in trying to make it as great as the visual novel’s ending, they didn’t make it very clear, but otherwise it was a strong ending in my opinion.
wow, you guys explain everything so good. I feel so calm after reading, thanks, u’re great!
. I think the ending was good. I think that if Ushio died it would have been a really emo series, which was never the point. Also this ending would have not had any message other than “Life is cruel, deal with it’ which is a really old lesson that ends in an unsatisfying ending. At the end of the day, you want to be satisfied with an ending unless you are an emo-f*g (Doesn’t necessarily have to be an everybody lives-ending, but one that doesn’t completely relly on what would happen in “reality”, unless the series focuses on that… this one doesn’t).
The two posible endings in my eyes were the movie ending or this ending. Either Tomoya lives happily with his daughter, or the miracle finaly happens. With the latter, EVERYTHING is explained and makes sense. The lights now make sense, the story of the girl and the robot makes sense. The morals are still there, and are very powerfull, the fact that you shouldn’t forget what is most important to you, that you shouldn’t forget the legacy of the dead people you loved. You shouldn’t focus on the negatives of life, but on the positives. Yes, Nagisa died, but she left you a daughter, which is a message that connects to that of the first season in the play, where Akio says that their dreams didn’t die with Nagisa, they were reborn.
Just because the story ends with a miracle doesn’t make the lessons any more real for all. And what happened in the previous epsidoes was not pointless because it was the catalyst to the miracle, without everybody’s fight, it would have never happened. I won’t go into explaining every single point in the series, like the lights, the parallel worlds and all the other stuff, but if you think about it well enough it all makes sense and nothing is pointless… except for Tomoyo’s arc ahaha. Tomo-pyon is awesome. If you think any of the final episodes was pointless then you didn’t get the series and you need to go watch more emo series like School Days (Crap show, glorified by it’s stupid ending and pathetic use of human emotions and psychology). Clannads ending is the best, when Ushio died I was about to give up on clannad, thinking to myself how forced the whole thing was for drama, but it all made sense in the end, so it’s all good.
Hmm, I’m still iffy about the ending… It was good and at thr same time it wasnt so good. I think it looked like a dead end for the anime, but I got the ‘magical lights’ thing… I just wish they explained that it was the lights that changed back time. I never played the visual novel and I’m sure that a huge majority of people that watched it also didn’t. I did really like Clannad though, it was genious storytelling untill the ending was rushed so harshly. To tell the truth I think it would’ve been a hundred times better if they just portrayed Okazaki making a wish on the magic lights or something along those lines. With as small a spark as that I think it would have been a much greater success. I’ve gotta say though, I felt a very unfulfilled feeling at the end of it, its a good thing I got so much comedy releif from the extra hahahah. The ending did still have me dissapointed enough to come look for a forum to see if I wasnt the only one who felt it was unfullfulling. I know I wasn’t wrong though after seeing the responses of so many countless others though, despite what a few say, its very apparent it wasn’t a very well planned out ending since it got so much negative feed back. I mean its not like I tried hard to find harsh feedback… all I did was type “Clannad after story ending” into google, and the first thing I pulled up had people complaining in the comments.
Oh well, it is what it is and I wont say I didn’t completely enjoy the anime, because its still one of my favorites. I mean it had awesome comedy relief, that’s something I think key is an expert in; Having great serious story line but somehow implementing incredibly funny comedy relief… I can’t say its better then Kanon, but it was a good watch overall despite the ending. I’d still recommend it to anyone though.
;/ I do think that key realized how harshly they did the episode too though… since they made an entire episode explain the entire story after wards… It made me think a little bit better of the ending, but still didn’t make it a great ending by any means. At least from that we can find out that Okazaki actually did remember the whole Nagisa dying thing…
I really don’t understand what you wanted. I never saw the visual novels, I only watched the anime. Seriously though, It was very clear that the lights were what changed back time. Maybe it was just me, but everything made sense. Was it a perfect ending, no. Was it fullfilling, definately for me. It wasn’t rushed at all, I don’t think at least. Specially when you take into accout that they have been telling the story of the lights that grant whishes for ages. It’s hard for me to understand your point of view, because it’s hard for me to understand what you didn’t understand. But again, maybe I’m the only one who felt that everything made sense in the end. How could they have rushed it after they had 2 episodes to spare? I am 100% sure they knew how it was going to end, and they worked something out that is much more fullfilling than the movie.
What did you want the ending to be? It was obvious that Nagisa was going to dies, so there were two outcomes. Either that was the end of it, or Okasaki’s life was recreated by the lights. Personally, I prefer a happy ending, since in this case, Nagisa not being saved by the lights would not have made the ending any more fullfilling. I prefer a meaningfull, painfull ending to a happy crappy ending. But in this case, the more painfull ending was not meaningfull at all. So I go with a happy ending which was not crappy, it was just sudden.
The story is a fantasy, it doesn’t need to be “realistic”, so I think ending is a fit one for a fantasy. It’s something you could find in Folk tales, a fable, or “Fabulas” in spanish like those read to children (At least to me). I just want people to appreciate the ending the way I do. You just need to see it as a fantastical story, and take reality out of the equation. You need to be happy that a deux ex machina type situation happens where Okasaki’s life is returned to him. It could never happen in real life, which is what makes it so beautiful.
Would you mind, if anyone remember, which episode was Okazaki actually catching the ligh orbs?
I remember him from time to time seeing the light, but never ‘caught any’ of them…
No, I never played the VN myself.
And sorry for writing the comment above before reading aforementioned one.
I empathise with your view ipsilon, a happy ending is more digesting compared to a sad one. Timeline is comfusing, although very well patched together. Although I won’t say the ending wasn’t made in a rush, more developing about their after after life would be great and would impact greater on the theme of family.
Thanks for the summary, it really helped me out. I coudn’t agree more, the ending is a bit confusing, but from a subjective view,
I think the story goes that Tomoya lives in the real world, yet his mind is strange (he admitted to himself in the recap ep — “I have a strange mind”) and he also remembers that Ushio was born twice…
So I am guessing that he has his memory intact after returning to the REAL REAL world of Nagisa’s second delivery…
And “the goodbye papa” scene from the girl in the illusionary world, made me think that WAS USHIO, WHY?
Well firstly, there is a scene they BOTH collapse in the snow = they both dead -_-
And they end up in the illusionary world, with part of their memories, Ushio –> the girl , tomoya –> the robot?
Because they both remember the dango song — another hint.
Hmm, and morever, the adios by the girl made me think that the First Ushio that Tomoya left for 5 Years in his FIRST LIFE is GONE forever, i.e her memory is lost.
I am guessing again…that the second delivery is a NEW Ushio with a new memory…yet contradiction again, what’s with ( I agree with you author-san) last third of the episode with Fuko seeing the illusionary world as Ushio?
Ahh felt great writing this, hopefully made people satisfied a bit.
Regardless, I was happy that it was a happy ending. I coudnt help but watching the montage several time just to embrace Tomoya’s family again and again…
Hi, the glowing balls appeared a few times throughout.. not many. But there was a point where Tomoya saw one lifting into the sky, and the other made mention that since noone else could see it this made him special. I was thinking this might have been refereing to the eventual end. I do agree though that if they were going to ‘happy ending’ the series they should have had atleast a few episodes for the reset..
well, in my opinion, it could have been AWESOME! if the MIRACLE healed Ushio!
i mean, Nagisha sacrificed herslef to give birth to ushio,w e all cried over her death,a dnt eh after allt eh suffering Tomoya and Ushio come together, but as i expected Ushio inherited the illness from mom,
so i always thou the girl in the world was Nagisa to start with, and witht eh Miracle, hmm… well, she somehow got to save Ushio and Tomoya goes back to work and they live all along. Also, this wouldnt throw away the chapters from 16 to 21
The reset ending, well, yes those 5 eps aint a waste, Tooya had to pick up the… “orbes” (if i got ti right), but i dunno, i feel its TOO FICTIONAL for my taste, too much of a miracle -_-
and i COULDNT AGREE MORE! 10 FUCKIGN MINS FOR THE END AND THEN THE FUKO EPILOGE?! that made me more confused than ever, i think i understood EVANGELION better than this -w-! and yes, it broke all teh emotional moment cuz i ahd to pay 150% atention to what the fuck was going on, nad anded up skiping parts of the fuko epilogo cuz i was like wtf! they put it all in 10 mins and then waste the ime on nonsense epiloge!? till i saw Ushio there <<;
ALL IN ALL!!!, i understood what happened with the balls, orbes, etc… but it was basically too rushy, and i’d have prefered Tomoya & Ushio alive, liek ti was since they made up on that trip, and keepign NAgisas sacrifice, adn all, and orbes healing Ushios illness inherited from mom
thou i’d love to see an OVA with Ushio being liek… 10 i dunno, older, like pre teen or soemthing liek that xD it would have been perfect to finish the Ep 22, either before fuko’s epiloge, or amkign the epiloge featuring ushio being older =?
One Trackback
[...] Josh [3/15/09] repeats the general anti-reset sentiment. [...]