I was pretty damn sad when CLANNAD ended a couple of months ago, as it’s one of my favorite series now. I kinda forgot about what they did with the first season, and how they bundled an extra episode with the DVDs, so I was pretty excited when I heard they were doing the same with the After Story DVDs. Last time, they decided to cover the later half of the Tomoyo arc, and with this episode, they covered Kyou’s arc, which I’ve played through in the visual novel, so I was interested to see how they’d run with it, and they actually surpassed my expectations.

Now, excuse me while I steal Moonlily’s way of expressing her thoughts on individual episodes.

What Happened: Ryou Fujibayashi has decided to come clean with her feelings about Tomoya in hopes to start a relationship with him. Tomoya accepts in hopes that he’ll get to know her better, and the two begin to spend their time as a couple together. Things begin to go great, as Tomoya learns more about his new girlfriend, and gains a new sense of happiness just by being with her.

Normally I don't like Ryou, but I don't think even I could resist those puppy dog eyes.

However, things haven’t been going so great for Ryou’s sister, Kyou. Tomoya runs into her while strolling around town, and the two decide to spend a bit of time chatting together. Kyou asks Tomoya if he’s ever kissed Ryou yet, and to her surprise, he hasn’t. She offers free kissing practice with her, and despite them never actually touching lips, this sparks quite a bit of gossip around the school. To try and put out the rumor that she’s dating Tomoya, Kyou attempts to date Sunohara with a false confession, but this only leads to Sunohara exposing Kyou’s true feelings for Tomoya.

I wish I was Tomoya. ='(

Eventually, Tomoya begins to accept that it isn’t Ryou that he loves, but Kyou instead. Much drama ensues, and Tomoya is forced to confess his feelings to a short-haired Kyou, and like anyone would guess, they become a happy couple in the end, and Ryou doesn’t harbor any ill feelings towards Tomoya.

What I Thought: The episode starts where the intersecting path of Kyou’s and Ryou’s arc initially begins. Kyou’s arc will get you a light, if you decide to go for her, and Ryou’s arc is considered a BAD END, while Kyou’s is what really should happen. The original CLANNAD anime series established that Ryou and Kyou both had some feelings for Tomoya, but considering the canon path is with Nagisa, it couldn’t really go any further than that. That’s what we have these Another World episodes for, though.

Kyou is a slut.

Like I mentioned before, I’ve played (read, rather) through this entire arc, so I wanted to see what they’d change. Luckily, most of the changes were for the better. Certain scenes have entirely different atmospheres to help foreshadow what it could mean, or to just lend a hand to the overall mood, something that was mostly absent from the visual novel. KyoAni used lots of shading and weather elements in a lot of the scenes and gave the entire arc a much darker, yet fitting mood. This really made this episode for me, because you could tell when shit was hitting the fan.

Sunohara; a true bro.

One thing that bothered me though, was that it all felt a bit rushed. I don’t know why they felt compelled to stick to the standard TV air time, but they did, and that sacrified meaning for the scene where Tomoya has to confess to Kyou, considering that kinda just popped out of nowhere. However, compared to how long and drawn out this entire thing can be in the visual novel(a majority of the Kyou arc there can only be summarized as “lots of awkward”), I felt that the anime version was superior. Sure, rushed, but it felt better and I wasn’t bored most of the time.

I'm having trouble deciding whether I love her more with or without long hair.

Despite that, though, it was incredibly powerful. It’s definitely one of those episodes that just has you on the edge of your seat, just bathing in the suspense of the events that unfold in the episode. I was worried that KyoAni had forgotten completely how to pull off believable and well-done drama after K-ON!, but it only took another episode of CLANNAD to make me realize that was all wrong.

In the end, it was a definitely a great final return to the series I loved and followed so diligently.

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