クラナド Extra Chapter
Clannad 23

SPOILER Summary:

Tomoya and Nagisa are walking to school for supplemental class given to 3rd-year students when Tomoya suggests blowing it off for a trip to the beach with Nagisa. She rejects that since school is important and Tomoya is important to her. He suggests holding hands, which has both of them flustered, but before they can finally bring their hands together, Kyou arrives on her scooter, teasing them about the possibility of Nagisa and Tomoya about to engage in a kiss.

At lunch in the Theater Club room, Kyou complains to Ryou, Nagisa, and Kotomi about their summer break being ruined by supplemental classes. Kotomi doesn’t mind since she gets to spend time with everyone and Ryou enjoys the lunches they spend together. Kyou then turns her irritation on Tomoyo, who is not a member of the Theater Club and yet is eating lunch with them. Tomoyo rolls with the verbal jab since she has to be at school for Student Council stuff and changes the subject by asking Nagisa where Tomoya is. She answers that “Okazaki-san” is with Sunohara, which catches Tomoyo’s attention. Kotomi remarks on how Tomoya refers to Nagisa as “Nagisa” and Tomoyo thinks its OK for Nagisa to refer to Tomoyo by his given name, something Nagisa seems to remember someone else telling her.

At Sunohara’s room, Sunohara is shocked that Tomoya and Nagisa haven’t even held hands. Misae-san (sp) comes by to tell Sunohara that a really cute girl wants to see him. Extremely excited by this, Sunohara races out to the common room, only to discover his little sister Mei-chan there. The three work on giving Sunohara’s room a complete cleaning, with Mei commenting on how hopeless her “oniichan” is.

That night, Tomoya returns to Nagisa’s family residence (where he’s still living) along with Mei-chan, where they proceed to have (noodle dish where everyone shares from a center bowl). Mei is going to spend the night with with the family in Nagisa’s room. Early the next morning, Tomoya gets up to find a fairly energetic Mei-chan up and a very sleepy Nagisa. Mei reports that they stayed up late, mainly talking about Tomoya. She tells Nagisa to get a little more sleep, but since they don’t have class today, Nagisa says she’ll be fine.

Nagisa, Tomoya, and Mei are going to work the bakery so that Akio-san and Sanae-san can have the day off. Akio-san is very excited by this and tells Tomoya to make sure he works hard. Sanae-san brings out the bread she’s made (rainbow bread for lack of a better term), and offers one to Mei-chan, who accepts. Despite the sound of crunching glass as Mei chews, she never gives anything away and when asked by Sanae-san how it was, Mei responds that the tray of bread looks absolutely delicious, which pleases Sanae-san. Tomoya and Nagisa witness this and take note for future dealings with Sanae-san’s bread.

Things are quiet at the store since it is summer and the usual student customers aren’t stopping by. A lady pops in to shop and Mei is quick to assist. The lady remarks on how cute the girls are, leading Mei and Nagisa to send the compliment each other’s way. After the woman leaves, Mei remarks on how useless Tomoya was, which he agrees since three people aren’t needed to run the store. Nagisa is happy to have him there though.

Mei tells Tomoya to man the cash register and is off to go round up some customers. A woman enters, soon followed by a (college aged?) otaku-type, who is surprised that this is only a bakery, but decides to buy something anyway. Three more guys appear, all expressing the same kind of sentiments and remarking on how cute Nagisa is. Tomoya realizes what’s going on and races out of the shop to find Mei working over young men, sayint that their store has cute girls, leading the guys to misunderstand what kind of shop this is, but end up buying just the same. That evening, the store has been cleaned out, even Sanae-san’s bread, and when Akio-san checks the register, he figures they haven’t made that much money since the store opened.

Hearing Nagisa’s parents proclaim their love for each other, Mei tries to get Nagisa and Tomoya to do the same, but they get flustered and embarrassed and find other things to do instead. So the following day when Mei is supposedly out with Nagisa, Tomoya goes to Sunohara’s place, where Mei soon arrives. She kicks her brother out so that she can talk with Tomoya alone as the Cupid of Love. Tomoya misunderstands and thinks that Mei is about to tell him of her attraction to her oniichan, which leads to an entire fantasy sequence. Mei brings him back to earth, saying she wants to talk about him. Again, Tomoya heads into fantasy land, using a similar fantasy as before, only with Sunohara and himself as the yoai romantic couple, who end up running on the beach in boxers together. Tomoya finds this image very disturbing and again, Mei has to get him on track as she wants to talk about him and Nagisa. So they talk about it a bit.

On cue, Nagisa arrives, and Mei scampers off to leave them alone. Nagisa addresses Tomoya as “Tomoya-kun” (which surprises him) and asks him to go on a walk. Nagisa struggles to talk with Tomoya (clearly embarrassed) as she tells him he’s lucky to be walking with a slightly cute girl, emphasizing “slightly.” He asks where they are going and she turns around and says they are going home as this is part of the plan (which she then tries to correct as her own idea). They return to the bakery where Nagisa insists on going through the motions of buying a bread product and then has Tomoya pay for it. They head back out and end up at a bench where Nagisa continues working through her scripted performance for the perfect date to get them closer.

Tomoya knows what is up and finally sees Mei-chan, who’d been hiding nearby. She takes off and Tomoya wonders if Mei had something on Nagisa to put her up to this. Nagisa explains that Mei figured that Tomoya wasn’t the type to “press the advantage” on Nagisa, so Nagisa would need to take the lead. Nagisa wonders if Tomoya hates her because of this, which he assures her he doesn’t. He takes her hand and asks her to take a walk with him. She’s flushed by this but agrees, saying she’ll walk anywhere as long as it is with him as she will always be with him.

Thoughts:

Man, this was good stuff. There was plenty of humor, with Mei-chan hustling customers and the other wacky things that went on. However, the icing on the cake was Tomoya and Nagisa taking another step forward together as a couple. I know that their relationship may seem somewhat childish, but I like that as it is so refreshing. There’s none of the massive sexual pressure (despite the sex jokes done earlier) or anything, just good, sweet, wholesome, cute, first love. I loved how it was difficult for Nagisa to call Tomoya “Tomoya-kun” instead of “Okazaki-san” but that was a big step for her. Man, just good stuff.

I don’t know what the DVD extra episode will be about (hopefully another good one like this) but the tiny preview about Clannad: After Story was cool. Can’t wait to see that.