クラナド Episode 08

SPOILER Summary:

Nagisa and Okazaki continue to help Fuko-chan with her starfish carvings, but proof that Sunohara’s statement that people were forgetting Fuko-chan is abundant, starting with Tomoyo, who’s troubled that she forgot. Others walk right past Fuko-chan, unable to see her or hear her as she attempts to hand out more starfish. This failure begins to depress Fuko-chan. At lunch, they try to cheer her up and when Fuko-chan zones out, she immediately recovers before Okazaki can pull a practical joke on her. After a humorous verbal sparing between Okazaki and Fuko-chan, they see Mitsui and call her over. However, she acts like it is the first time she’s met Okazaki and Nagisa and feels they are pulling a practical joke on her since she can no longer see Fuko-chan.

Fuko-chan is upset and runs off, leaving Nagisa and Okazaki to discuss what might be happening with her. When they walk home after school, they try to cheer Fuko-chan up. At Nagisa’s home, work on the starfish continue, but Nagisa is finding it hard to contain her emotions, knowing what’s happening with Fuko-chan. When a late-arriving customer arrives, Akio-san does not want to leave the residence section to head into the shop, but ends up stabbing himself in the foot, thus leaving Nagisa and Okazaki to deal with it. When the customer leaves, Nagisa breaks down briefly, leading Okazaki to state they need to be there for Fuko-chan until the end of her dream.

Okazaki heads to Sunohara’s place, where he’s nearly run over by guys fleeing the wrath of Misae-san. Okazaki hands her one of the starfish and invites her to Ibuki-sensei’s wedding. Heading up to Sunohara’s room, he learns that Sunohara has been doing some investigating and has discovered the fantastic truth about Fuko-chan. As such, Sunohara has decided to pay Fuko-chan a visit in the hospital since that’s where she really is. Okazaki is concerned that if Sunohara goes, he will forget about Fuko-chan like so many other have.

The next day, Fuko-chan is having no success at handing out the starfish. When Sunohara arrives at lunch time, he tells them that for some odd reason, he found himself leaving a hospital but he didn’t know why he’d gone. When Fuko attempts to offer him a starfish, he apparently cannot see her, nor can he remember her. Kyou and Ryou arrive to confront Sunohara since he was late for school. However, they too apparently cannot see Fuko-chan either and while the carved starfish seems familiar to Kyou, she cannot remember why it does and as such is frustrated.

Later in the day, Okazaki, Nagisa, and Fuko-chan are sitting depressed when Sunohara arrives as his normal, cheerful, idiot self. He invites Okazaki and Nagisa to lunch but Okazaki turns him down. When he starts to flirt with Nagisa, Okazaki gets made, prompting Sunohara to ask Fuko-chan for support. However, he immediately finds the mentioning of this name as something strange and becomes somber. Despite the please from Okazaki and Nagisa, Sunohara finds he can remember nothing but has the feeling this “Fuko-chan” was someone he didn’t dislike.

Because things have become so depressing, Nagisa and Okazaki decide to cheer up Fuko-chan and head into town to buy her a gift. Eventually, she sees a birthday party set and goes all spacey for it. So it is settled that this is what they will buy her, which pleases her greatly, enough so that she’s moved Okazaki up on her ranking list. The trio then head to a nearby park where after some talking, Nagisa and Okazaki observe the fountain within the park’s pond while Fuko-chan observes from a distance approvingly.

Returning to Nagisa’s home, Akio-san briefly thinks he sees a person with Nagisa and Okazaki, but then thinks better of it as he heads off. Sanae-san arrives on the shop floor to greet them, including Fuko-chan. She suggest the trio take a bath together, then confesses that she can no longer see Fuko-chan though she does still remember her. Like Sunohara, she too figured out Fuko-chan’s true identity and went to the hospital to see for herself. After she returned, she discovered her husband had forgotten Fuko-chan and she couldn’t see Fuko-chan. The trio retreat into the night where sitting on a park bench (Fuko-chan clutching a starfish and her present), they decide to head to the school to pass the night.

Thoughts:

Well, its getting sadder and sadder as Fuko-chan’s story comes to a close. Fuko-chan still had a couple of humor moments, but its sad seeing how so few people can even see her any more, much less remember her. I’ve got the strongest feeling that somehow even Okazaki and Nagisa will forget in episode 9, but whether we’ll get a deus ex machina moment or not, I don’t know. Well, maybe Fuko-chan will somehow get better.

The interesting item was Sunohara’s continued showing of depth. He cut class just to learn more about Fuko-chan, then even went to pay her a visit in the hospital, only to forget why he’d gone to the hospital at all, much less Fuko-chan. And yet even when he couldn’t see her “spirit” form with Okazaki and Nagisa, somehow, the name still came to his mind and it troubled him that the memories he was trying to access were just out of reach.

I guess it doesn’t matter, but that’s pretty jacked up that seeing the actual, physical body of Fuko-chan in the hospital makes you forget all about her or at worst, makes it so you can’t see her spirit form. Weird and as I said, jacked up.