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Sailor S
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:47 am
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I'm in agreement with Meggido about the ending. It wasn't enough to ruin the show for me, but it did bump it down from being masterpiece level to just very good. As much as I loved Nagisa I think the story would have worked much better if she had stayed dead. Heck, they could have had her spirit come and save Ushio and that would have worked for me I also feel much the same as Meggido did with what he wrote in the spoiler section. The way they ended it really did degrade a lot of the growth that had happened.
I will say that up to that point, I had to keep properly hydrated because there were a lot of waterworks moments for me. It's just disappointing that the ending didn't sit well with me, because this could have been even better than it was with a better ending.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3820
Location: Louisville, KY
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:50 am
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Megiddo wrote: | To be very clear: I have absolutely no problem with the light orbs or the magical stuff. My point deals with that the light orbs could have been used to save Ushio's life. Not to take him to an alternate timeline/world/whatever just so he could live life over but now with his wife alive. Hell, when Akio went and begged at that spot for Nagisa's life to be spared I don't think he was somehow able to re-live a portion of his life. His daughter was simply miraculously brought back to life. That's all I wanted. That's all I needed. I don't fathom how that (with an epilogue) could be considered an unhappy ending.
The message should be: 'No matter what the trials in your path, they can be overcome, and you can find joy once again' but instead ended up 'No matter what trials in your path, everything will be sunshine and rainbows because magic will bring back your wife that died 3-4 years ago'.
amagee: I'm glad that you were able to find enjoyment via the epilogue. I just cannot do the same. |
oh ho and here I thought I was a dark one on depressing endings lol. The message you received and I received where different, it was through trials and tribulations of helping those close to you one day it will come back to help you in the end. Another factor that was left out is that tomoya himself died as well when ushio did "that was the point the of dream world the older girl=ushio grown up, robot=tomoya's soul, when that dream world was destroyed his soul was released he woke up in other said world basic recantation but tomoya kept all of his memories of the previous world" That's why he was split in a different fragment/time line, Higurashi comes to mind on this level.. Kyonai did not do a good job here I'm willing to admit to that but I still loved the ending call me sap lol.
Last edited by Cecilthedarkknight_234 on Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Mr. Nescio
Joined: 13 Jul 2011
Posts: 165
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 11:54 am
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Quote: | Oh, without question that's true; Clannad is the most refined form of the uber-moe save-broken-girls formula that Key has yet produced, as it takes elements from the earlier two series (also Air) and strives to make them even more efficient in their impact. I don't entirely consider that a plus, though, as it also tends to push away even harder those who don't bite on the moe aspect. Kanon is at least watchable even if you're not a moe fan, while Clannad isn't. |
Ok, I don't think I can agree with this. The way I remember it is that Kanon used the "uber-moe save-broken-girls formula" all the time. In Clannad there was more screen time for supporting male characters (Sunohara, Nagisa's father, Yusuke), the part about delinquents and Tomoya's and his father's relationship (and its well liked resolution), which aren't examples of using the abovementioned formula.
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amagee
Joined: 08 Nov 2010
Posts: 333
Location: Orlando, FL
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:08 pm
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Sailor S wrote: | I'm in agreement with Meggido about the ending. It wasn't enough to ruin the show for me, but it did bump it down from being masterpiece level to just very good. As much as I loved Nagisa I think the story would have worked much better if she had stayed dead. Heck, they could have had her spirit come and save Ushio and that would have worked for me I also feel much the same as Meggido did with what he wrote in the spoiler section. The way they ended it really did degrade a lot of the growth that had happened.
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The character who achieved the overwhelming amount of development from the death of Nagisa onward was Tomoya. While I'm totally alright with peoples' disagreement about the manner in which the happy ending was achieved, the show goes to lengths to indicate that none of Tomoya's development as a character was lost. I think it is viable to criticize the decision to input this important information into a summative epilogue but it surprises me how many people still claim that all his development was lost in the time reset.
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Errinundra
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Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6574
Location: Melbourne, Oz
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:36 pm
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I'm another who thinks that CAS lost its way after Tomoya's father is reunited with Tomoya's grandmother. The four episodes up to that point are exceptional with the field of flowers scene still able to reduce me to tears after many viewings.
It's pretty much all downhill after that. The death of Ushio is poorly written. It failed to elicit either either an emotional or intellectual response from me. It just seemed forced and melodramatic. It also completely bushwhacked the fascinating direction the franchise had been heading at that point. And then it just got sillier, even if the ending was comprehensible from the hints that had been provided throughout the two seasons.
I would have liked the series to have followed Tomoya's life as a single father supported by Akio and Sanae. The shipper in me would like to see him develop a relationship with Kyou or Tomoyo, both of whom are preferable to Nagisa. Kyou, in particular as Ushio's kindergarten teacher, could have provided a satisfactory arc to round out the series. That could have still fitted in with Tomoya been granted a wish.
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3820
Location: Louisville, KY
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:06 pm
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errinundra wrote: | I'm another who thinks that CAS lost its way after Tomoya's father is reunited with Tomoya's grandmother. The four episodes up to that point are exceptional with the field of flowers scene still able to reduce me to tears after many viewings.
It's pretty much all downhill after that. The death of Ushio is poorly written. It failed to elicit either either an emotional or intellectual response from me. It just seemed forced and melodramatic. It also completely bushwhacked the fascinating direction the franchise had been heading at that point. And then it just got sillier, even if the ending was comprehensible from the hints that had been provided throughout the two seasons.
I would have liked the series to have followed Tomoya's life as a single father supported by Akio and Sanae. The shipper in me would like to see him develop a relationship with Kyou or Tomoyo, both of whom are preferable to Nagisa. Kyou, in particular as Ushio's kindergarten teacher, could have provided a satisfactory arc to round out the series. That could have still fitted in with Tomoya been granted a wish. |
Hmm I thought I was only one that wanted kind of spin-off with kyou. If I knew how to program, rip sprites and use realive I would try to make fan game like that or patch or for the offical visual novel...
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Fletcher1991
Joined: 14 Apr 2009
Posts: 514
Location: Long Island, NY
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:11 pm
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I kind of want to buy them but I can't justify it right now at these prices when I own the dvds. Hopefully when I have more money its not out of print or something.
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Kazemon15
Joined: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 400
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:48 pm
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Well, to be fair, everyone who keeps saying it would have been better if Nagisa stayed dead, isn't that what the movie is about?
If I recall correctly, the series and the movie had different endings, so it's not exactly as if you're forced to accept the way the series wrote the ending, just stick with the movie then.
Personally, I liked the series ending better. Like someone pointed out before, it is like a fairytale and there it is bound to have a fairytale ending.
If I wanted a sad ending with hope at the end, I would have stuck with Clannad Movie or even A Walk To Remember for that...
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kazume
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
Posts: 129
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 1:57 pm
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Quote: | The dub does have its missteps, though
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Yeah we know Greg Ayres sucks, no surprise there. He's only good in a handful of roles and Sunohara in this title sure wasn't one of them. Him and the rest of the so-so english dub is forcing me to wait for a price drop despite how good the sow is.
Yeah some arcs do drag on a bit but overall it is a two-parter series worth owning for me personally. I usually watch my shows subtitled but I opt for the english dub whenever I want the rest of my family to join in on the anime goodness who aren't too quick on the sub reading. But this dub in particular is making it really hard to justify forking over the $$$ in this case.
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Errinundra
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Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6574
Location: Melbourne, Oz
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:24 pm
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Kazemon15 wrote: | ...If I wanted a sad ending with hope at the end, I would have stuck with Clannad Movie or even A Walk To Remember for that... |
Nagisa staying dead doesn't have to be a sad ending. Tomoya moving on with his life with Ushio could be very uplifting. The problem people have with the ending of the series isn't that it's a happy ending but that's it's a cheap, cop-out ending that disappoints after the magnificent episodes 17 to 19.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18396
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:59 pm
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amagee wrote: | Just to make sure I'm getting it right, you disagree with the choice of the writers to have Ushio bite the bucket in the first place because it seems overly cruel and unnecessary or is there something else about it in general? |
Pretty much that. It felt redundant because of what happened with Nagisa, both in the late stages of AS and throughout both series. I hated it because it established a "Tomoya can only win/overcome his problems through magical intervention" scenario to round out the franchise's main storyline.
Megiddo wrote: | Unlike Air, somebody doesn't need to pay attention and connect several different facets of the story to comprehend what happens in Kanon, because it is the most omnibus-friendly of the Key stories. That's not a bad thing, but I personally do not enjoy it as much as I do Air (my personal favorite of the Key trio) as I personally love a more involved/over-arching story. |
The 2006 version of Kanon is also the funniest of the three and has the highest technical merits; it's a very pretty series, and I don't think I can quite say the same about the other two. While Air does have more of an overall story, I felt that the story got muddled when it started mixing in the elements from a millennium ago. And, frankly, I found the individual stories to be more consistently compelling in Kanon than in either of the other two series.
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dtm42
Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:14 pm
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So from what I understand, Tomoya did all those nice things for the various girls, and the town repaid his kindness by resetting things so that Nagisa didn't die, correct?
Okay, putting aside how strange it is for a town to have a magical will (and the magical power) to reset things, there is a bigger problem. Tomoya was in a deep depression for five years. It wasn't up to the town to sort out his life, it was up to his friends and new family (the Furukawas). I mean seriously, as it is, the message of the show is that if you do good things then the magical will of the town will make everything better. Why couldn't the message be that if you did good things, your friends and family will repay your kindness by helping you when you need it the most?
Oh but of course, then Nagisa would still be dead. Which would have been far more touching than just magically bringing her back to life. Clannad After Story was brave enough to show the trials and troubles of life beyond the rosy high school setting that most Romance shows confine themselves to. It was brave enough to kill off a major character and then show life after her death, namely how Tomoya reunited with Ushio and moved on. But it wasn't brave enough to make Nagisa's death permanent. And I was pretty pissed off not only at Ushio just dying like that, but then being brought back to life. Well, technically with the reset both never died at all, but you know what I mean.
To me, Clannad After Story with its massive cop-outs seems to enable fans to have their cake and eat it too. They get all the tragedy and drama but everyone lives happily ever after. Reset-button endings can and have worked in the past, but this is just egregiously bad. What's funny is that both Clannad series builds up to it, spending a lot of time with the girl and robot trying to lay the foundations to justify it, and it is all for naught; the ending is still a massive cop-out.
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Kurohei
Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 597
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:19 pm
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As much as I loved Clannad. I feel we were robbed one episode. It needed an epilogue episode like season one had. On another note, it's always disappointing to have a blu ray release later. I already own the series on DVD. Is paying another $60 just to rewatch the show in HD really worth it?
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Canada
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:28 pm
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dtm42 wrote: | To me, Clannad After Story with its massive cop-outs seems to enable fans to have their cake and eat it too. They get all the tragedy and drama but everyone lives happily ever after. Reset-button endings can and have worked in the past, but this is just egregiously bad. What's funny is that both Clannad series builds up to it, spending a lot of time with the girl and robot trying to lay the foundations to justify it, and it is all for naught; the ending is still a massive cop-out. |
And when a show cops-out like that, doesn't it feel kind of insulting? Like, okay, these are by and large emotional junk food on the level of the soap opera, but there's still GOOD junk food that might even push the boundaries a bit. Like you, I got the feeling this was going to morph into something pretty special, yet at the end of it all I was wondering "do they really think I need this?"
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3820
Location: Louisville, KY
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:39 pm
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dtm42 wrote: | So from what I understand, Tomoya did all those nice things for the various girls, and the town repaid his kindness by resetting things so that Nagisa didn't die, correct?
Okay, putting aside how strange it is for a town to have a magical will (and the magical power) to reset things, there is a bigger problem. Tomoya was in a deep depression for five years. It wasn't up to the town to sort out his life, it was up to his friends and new family (the Furukawas). I mean seriously, as it is, the message of the show is that if you do good things then the magical will of the town will make everything better. Why couldn't the message be that if you did good things, your friends and family will repay your kindness by helping you when you need it the most?
Oh but of course, then Nagisa would still be dead. Which would have been far more touching than just magically bringing her back to life. Clannad After Story was brave enough to show the trials and troubles of life beyond the rosy high school setting that most Romance shows confine themselves to. It was brave enough to kill off a major character and then show life after her death, namely how Tomoya reunited with Ushio and moved on. But it wasn't brave enough to make Nagisa's death permanent. And I was pretty pissed off not only at Ushio just dying like that, but then being brought back to life. Well, technically with the reset both never died at all, but you know what I mean.
To me, Clannad After Story with its massive cop-outs seems to enable fans to have their cake and eat it too. They get all the tragedy and drama but everyone lives happily ever after. Reset-button endings can and have worked in the past, but this is just egregiously bad. What's funny is that both Clannad series builds up to it, spending a lot of time with the girl and robot trying to lay the foundations to justify it, and it is all for naught; the ending is still a massive cop-out. |
As stated before kyonai had to adapt something hard or next to impossible to adapt in their time frame, the game ended when ushio died with out said deeds being done because. you die as well. Kyonai had to rush the ending to do the 3 epiosde kyou arc which is why It could not be properly explained/displayed in animated form.
Do I think it's cop-out or magical re-set..yes it's cop-out but however it's not a press button reset. [NOTE: Higurashi - When They Cry season 2 spoiler follows. - Key] This was earned in the same way rika earned her quite life and village to live after 100 years of torture of being killed over and over again "why is it okay for one series to do this and not another?? a miracle occurred'
We could circle argue all day on this, it's a matter of your point of view and this is mine from what I've seen/read on this franchise. In all honesty I think clannad's story should just be shelved now and talked about 10 years down the road.
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