クラナド Episode 12

SPOILER Summary:

Kotomi-chan returns the violin to the girl she borrowed it from. While the violin is old and worn, it is Kotomi-chan’s wish that it not be destroyed by the school. The girl also wishes the same thing. As such, Kotomi-chan makes her standard introduction statement to include a desire to be friends and the girl agrees. Okazaki, who’d been there all along, is glad for Kotomi-chan that she has yet another friend. The following day when Okazaki and Nagisa walk to school, she reports that Kotomi-chan is no longer spending her day in the library, but is now in actual classes. Sure enough when they take a peek in on her classroom, she’s with a group of girls helping them with their math lesson.

Later in the Theater Club Room, Kyou is giving some harsh comedy lessons to Kotomi-chan, so harsh that Nagisa and Ryou are a tad frightened. Okazaki walks into this this as Kyou pronounces that no matter how hard she tries, it will be impossible for Kotomi-chan to master comedy. Nagisa and Ryou come to her defense, but Kyou rejects it. Kotomi-chan decides to try something new she say on TV. While both things she tries has her laughing pretty hard, it has Kyou and Okazaki wondering what the heck Kotomi-chan is saying. The group has lunch together, made by Kotomi-chan and Kyou asks what Kotomi-chan does when she’s not at school. She reads, Okazaki hangs out with Sunohara, and Nagisa just stays at home. Kyou finds this all boring and a waste of their youth, but confesses she does not do anything either. As such, she announces that on their day off, they will have a day on the town — a group date.

The five of them meet up and Okazaki comments on being the only guy. He would have invited Sunohara, who would have jumped on the chance to be out with some girls, but Kyou rejects that idea saying one idiot in the group is enough. When Okazaki asks if the idiot is her, she laughs and says that it is him. He counters by saying that she has to be a close second if he’s the group idiot. They do a lot of window shopping and talking before having a bento outside a burger place. Since Kotomi-chan’s birthday is coming up, it is decided that they’ll get her a heart-felt present.

So its off to the game center where Kyou is trying to score the giant anteater stuffed animal from the Catch Machine game. However, she is unsuccessful in doing so and calls the “oniisan” working the place to complain about it being stuck. He fiddles with the animals inside before closing the machine back up. Kyou is going for her 34th attempt on the machine, but Okazaki is out of money. Nagisa doesn’t feel she can score that stuffed animal nor does Ryou. However, out of the blue, Fuko-chan appears (still wearing the birthday hat) and announces she can help as she’s a master of this game. Nagisa tries to remember where she’s seen Fuko before from, but Fuko tells her not to worry about it as they’ll meet again one day. Fuko’s various statements provokes a response from Okazaki, who then seems to remember having a similar conversation before. He tells Fuko to go for the big animal and Fuko plays, but instead scores the star plushie. She apologizes, saying that the shape of it made her hands move unconsciously, leading Okazaki to tell her it isn’t a starfish. She leaves, saying she wants to help again someday and Okazaki wonders why he told her that wasn’t a starfish.

That evening, Nagisa, Kyou, and Ryou part company with Kotomi and Okazaki and go home. As Kotomi and Okazaki walk home, she thanks him saying that she doesn’t think she would have ever had this much fun if she hadn’t met him. He says he hasn’t done anything special and that they all like her. She decides to give him a gift of a book, which she’s already memorized. She tells him he doesn’t have to read it but she does want him to have it. They are interrupted when the older man she calls the “bad guy” appears. They flee and hide until the man leaves.

Okazaki has a dream about a rabbit, a deer, a boy, a girl, what appears to be the “bad guy,” and what appears to be a house fire. He wakes up from this dream and on his way to school, reflects on how weird his dreams have gotten of late. A girl comes up from behind him, covers his eyes, presses her chest into his back, and says “Guess who?” She has a pun about this and when he “guesses” who this is, she backs off, flushed and saying her heart is pounding. He asks her who put her up to do this embarrassing joke. Kyou steps up and acknowledges being the one who did it. He asks Kyou to stop teaching Kotomi strange things.

They are interrupted by an upset Nagisa who’s asking about Ryou and the bus she normally rides. Apparently there was a bad accident on the city bus that she would normally take to school. This news sends Kyou, Nagisa, and Okazaki running to the scene while it causes Kotomi to enter into a state of shock. At the scene, the accident is indeed very bad, but they find Ryou unharmed, having been forced to take a later bus due to being behind schedule. Kotomi is there and seeing the accident sends her over the edge, where she collapses to the ground crying and saying she’ll be a good girl. They decide to get her to the school nurse right away.

Later when they go to check on her, they find she’s gone home for the day because she’s not feeling well. However, they are unable to get any information due to privacy issues. Kotomi-chan’s homeroom sensei does agree to give them her home address but advises them to to press Kotomi on things. They go to her house and as a butterfly hovers around, Okazaki gets a strange feeling. No one answers the door, so they decide to leave. However, Okazaki can’t shake the feeling about the house and so tells Kyou, Ryou, and Nagisa to go on without him as he returns to Kotomi-chan’s home.

Outside, he finds the “bad guy” and confronts him. He learns that the “bad guy” worked with Kotomi-chan’s scientist parents and has known her since she was a kid. When Okazaki asks about her parents, the man realizes that he doesn’t know things and for privacy reasons, says he can’t say anything more about that. However, he does tell Okazaki that her parents were gifted and found another world they called the “Hidden World” in their research. Learning that Okazaki is Kotomi’s friend, the man asks if Kotomi has mention him at all. Okazaki says she calls him the “bad guy,” and he states that from her perspective, that must be the case. However, he has a message for Kotomi, saying that he doesn’t expect for her to forgive them, but that they still regret what happened that day.

Okazaki returns to Kotomi-chan’s house but doesn’t ring the doorbell, suddenly thinking that he never used to enter the home through the front door. He goes around to the rear of the home (following that same butterfly from before) and has flashes of the unkempt yard and garden being in a pristine state. The sliding glass door is unlocked, allowing him entry. He makes his way up the stairs and instinctively goes to a room and opens the door. There, he finds Kotomi-chan seated on the floor, with tons of clippings covering the walls and floor of the room. One article announces the death of Ichinose family members, which is Kotomi’s family name. Okazaki has a flash of a girl crying and a fire and realizes that he had known Kotomi-chan as a child.

Thoughts:

Fuko-chan gets a lengthy, humorous cameo? Whoa. I liked seeing her again and I guess this means that she’ll get a good end after all. Still, it was weird to have her return out of the blue like that even if I did like it.

And now we start to come to the heart of Kotomi-chan’s tragedy. This is where the story took a more Kanon turn with Okazaki forgetting that he knew Kotomi-chan as a kid and apparently they played together. That’s not a problem thus far and we’ll see where it goes. Actually now that I think about it, the anteater stuffed animal in the game center also seems a nod to Kanon.

Finally, there’s the dreaming of Okazaki and this mention of the “Other World.” I’m going to guess that he’s somehow tied with the girl and the strange robot we’ve seen from time-to-time and that they are in this Other World.