Flavor: Sweet

I think I might be, like, the only one who really really enjoyed this episode… everybody else probably didn’t care about it since it didn’t contain any Kyou/Tomoyo fanservice in it. Well, guys, if you don’t care about Nagisa, you can always stop watching this show, get the damn game and play their obviously inferior story arcs there. Personally, I’ve been waiting so much for this arc and now not even Kyou’s cockblocking skills will be able to interfere with my Nagisa x Tomoya scenes, haha.

But, wait! The show’s almost over and they haven’t confessed their feelings to each other yet! WTH

Flavor: Slightly sweet

Well, looks like the TomoyoKyouRyou arc is finally over. I certainly loved Ryou’s little speech about the future predictions and the scene where they showed Tomoyo’s past with her family, but I personally thought the closure was kinda meh. Not sure why I didn’t like it… maybe it’s because the thought of these girls admitting defeat to the oh almighty Nagisa seemed like a bad ending more than anything else, and I wanted to see them all happy and stuff in the end. This sort of reminded me of Nayuki’s arc in Kanon… except that Tomoyo/Kyou/Ryou got much less screen time and drama than her (especially the Fujibayashi sisters… since most of their scenes looked like fillers to me).

Whatever, now that all these main heroines are out of the way, guess it’s finally time for… oh, guess I’m so excited that I can’t even say it! <insert a fangirl wall of text about how Nagisa is so awesome here>

(On a side note, I decided to spoil myself and read the Tomoyo After manga… I don’t know if I should call the ending “depressing” or “one hell of a WTF moment”.)

Flavor: Mild

Oh noes, TOMOYA IS SO HOT orz. Sorry, I simply had to do that since everybody else is saying things like “whoa Kyou/Tomoyo is full of hotness, etc” like it’s the only stuff that truly matters, hoho.

Anyways, looks like they really decided to mix both Tomoyo and Kyou’s story arcs. It’s kinda weird to see Tomoya constantly switching his attention between these girls, and there seems to be quite an increase in the amount of ecchi-ness and other silly harem stuff, but I guess I’m fine with it as long as they merely show their arcs.

So, here’s the only thing that I really disliked from this week’s episode:

OMG Not you and your damn starfish again! Go back to your coma and stop ****ing showing up.

Yeah, congrats KyoAni, you’ve finally managed to make me hate Fuuko. And the same thing is gonna happen with Kotomi if she keeps getting all that much screen time. More than half of this series has been focused on these characters, so stop giving them so many random appearances kthx.

Flavor: Sweet

Hmm… well, these past episodes have really felt pretty odd to me, with KyoAni mixing stuff from like more than three different story arcs from the game. Guess I’m just used to the common format of presenting each of the main heroines’ arcs one after another.

So, I certainly enjoyed the basketball match. I think it was pretty well done for a show that isn’t sports-focused, and it was definitely more interesting than something you’d find in a series like, say, Dear Boys lolz. I also loved how in the end Nagisa was like “Okazaki-san, shu-to desu!” and that makes Tomoya score the final points to win the match.

*facepalm*

What I didn’t like, though, is how Mei’s visit seemed completely worthless. I thought we’d get to see some kind of cute brother-sister story in this arc, but guess KyoAni wanted to make it look as if Mei’s arc was part of Nagisa’s story so they mixed them up together, leaving out a lot of stuff from it. Nay.

Also, ROFL @ Kotomi being randomly shown simply standing there. I love it how in previous episodes everybody would be all so concerned about her, yet now it feels like they’re completely ignoring her. ^^

…!!!

…?!

Flavor: Mild

Geez, I can’t believe they ruined this scene like that. I was really looking forward to this episode since someone who played the game told me that we were going to get the Nagisa x Tomoya confession this week, but it seems that KyoAni thought that it was too soon for the raburabu stuff to get started, so they decided to screw us Nagisa fans by letting Kyou interrupt the scene with a *****y pointless rant for now. Yeah, I know it’s pretty much confirmed that Nagisa and Tomoya will eventually end up together, but I still found this awfully disappointing.

Well, at least the rest of the episode was quite enjoyable. I liked seeing both Tomoyo and serious Sunohara getting more screen time, though I’m still annoyed at the fact that they keep getting Fuuko out of her usual staying-in-a-coma routine to place her in such an useless and unfunny gag. Also, they finally showed yet another Yukari Tamura loli character Sunohara’s sister this week, so it seems they’ll be focusing on a non-main story arc this time… which is kinda weird considering how much material hasn’t been covered yet and how just nine episodes are left to air from this series.

I’m happy we finally got Kotomi’s conclusion this week, since I was starting to get sort of tired of this arc. Anyways, I didn’t like it as much as Fuuko’s ending, but it was pretty good nonetheless. Just like the last time, this episode was filled with a nice amount of both sad and lovely scenes, but in this case the tear-jerking moments weren’t enough to get me depressed. Still, I’m glad they managed to cover most (if not all) of the stuff that was left unanswered from last week.

Also, I particularly loled at the whole briefcase-passed-on-until-it-got-to-Japan stuff. I thought they’d end the scene with someone saying “miracles do happen!”, but I guess that, in a world where -ghost girls handing out starfish carvings- aren’t that rare, the idea of a teddy bear getting a free tour around the world and reaching its owner completely safe doesn’t sound all that amazing.

Overall, even with all the silly things and lack of tears, it was another great week for CLANNAD. I’m not really sure whose story arc are we entering now, though, so I’m once again looking forward to the next episode.

Flavor: Mild

Yeah, I found this quite disappointing since I was expecting something more exciting after the lack of CLANNAD goodness that we suffered for the past two weeks. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t really find Kotomi’s past that sad or depressing… maybe I just don’t like her that much anymore. The rest of the episode was just Tomoya cleaning up Kotomi’s backyard… which was simply “meh“.

Next week’s episode is called “Theory of Everything”, so it’s most likely that it’ll be the ending for Kotomi’s arc, and everything that hasn’t been explained yet will be covered in this one.

Only watch this if you want to see loli Kotomi/shota Tomoya.

Episode: CLANNAD – 12
Flavor: Sweet

To be honest, I didn’t really like how Fuuko appeared like that… from nowhere. I mean, I don’t hate Fuuko or anything, but it was kinda annoying seeing her show up for a few minutes in a comical scene after all that stuff that happened during the conclusion of her arc.

Anyways, a few things from Kotomi’s background were explained from this episode, like how she has a childhood trauma because of the plane crash were both of her parents died, and the bad guy being, in fact, someone who cooperated with the Ichinose’s research and knew Kotomi since she was a little kid. Also, I found it sort of surprising that Tomoya met Kotomi in the past but didn’t remember until now… maybe I just wasn’t expecting more of this blocked-memories stuff that was prevalent in Kanon.

Well, hope all you guys enjoyed this episode, since we won’t be getting any for the next two weeks. ;_;

Episode: CLANNAD – 11
Flavor: Sweet

See? There were more Kyou story arc pieces scattered around this week’s episode so you fans stop worrying about the length of the show for now. Anyways, we finally saw Kotomi’s failure violin recital and I actually found that scene quite amusing. Also, that old man, who Kotomi refers to as the “bad fellow”, showed up again this time so we know he’s indeed gonna play an important role on the current arc. Can’t wait for next week, since it seems some stuff about Kotomi’s past will be revealed.

Nagisa fights the bad guy, just like the heroine she is.

Kyou’s maternal instincts make her transform into a mahou shoujo to protect Kotomi-chan. OSAKANA DAISUKI!

Humor aside, this scene was quite beautiful. Not sure what she really meant when she said that quote from The Dandelion Girl “The day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, yesterday it was a deer, and today, you.”, though.