クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 05

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

In the Illusionary World, the Garbage Doll wonders about the firefly-like lights as Mystery Girl builds a seesaw for them to play on. Garbage Doll wonders how Mystery Girl managed before he came her and if maybe he came from another world in the sky.

Tomoya and Nagisa come by to pay Youhei a visit when Misae’s cat flees to them as Misae is punishing Youhei for trying to sell the cat. They then retire to Misae’s room in the dorm where they learn that her cat is “nanashi” — nameless. Tomoyo stops by to gain advice from Misae regarding her student council duties. As they all talk for a bit, a member of the rugby club stops by, so Misae steps out to give him a flier and some suggestions for his date. Youhei is listening at the door and is detected by Misae, who then administers a great deal of punishment. That out of the way, the others talk again.

After Tomoyo leaves, Misae sends Youhei away so that she can talk with Tomoya and Nagisa about attending the same festival as a date. Naturally, this causes the two to become quite flustered. Misae’s reasons for doing this are that the two of them remind her of her own youth. As Nagisa and Misae continue to talk, Tomoya finds himself getting sleepy and the cat appears to be talking to him telepathically about a light in a charm and its ability to grant one wish, which the cat appears to want Tomoya to grant to some girl. With that, he falls asleep.

The story shifts to the past when Misae is in high school where a boy approaches Hirazaki Private High School to see her. She’s waiting for the guy she has a crush on, Igarashi-kun, but the boy’s approach messes everything up for her. He apologizes, saying he’s come to grant her a wish for something she did for him years earlier. She has no memory of the event, but apparently the boy (SHIMA Katsuki) was sick in the hospital and she was kind to him as she visited someone else. As a result of her visit, Katsuki found the will to live and get better and was given the ability to grant her one wish. Her wish is to be left alone, which naturally he refuses.

The following morning, Katsuki is waiting for Misae, leading her friends to wonder if she’s dating him now. This leads to Misae punishing Katsuki for causing another misunderstanding. Katsuki, understanding Misae’s feelings for Igarashi, offers to grant her the wish to marry him. Misae says she cannot accept that since it isn’t right to mess with someone else’s feelings. Thus, a strange relationship between the two develop as she begins to care for the helpless seeming Katsuki (in a non-romantic way) and he’s determined to grant her a wish.

One afternoon while waiting for Misae, Katsuki is approached by Igarashi. Igarashi knows of Misae’s feelings but he has a girlfriend. Since Igarashi doesn’t want to hurt Misae, he figures the best solution is to have Katsuki get the word to Misae somehow. This leaves Misae hurting inside so that when he’s approached by Misae, he can’t tell her what’s wrong directly. Instead, he tells her about a girl he likes who likes another boy who has a girlfriend already. Misae doesn’t catch the inference to herself and accidentally causes Katsuki more grief until she sees Igarashi walking with another girl in the distance, at which point she understands. She wonders why Katsuki is the one crying about this before she slowly backs away and leaves.

Thoughts/Review:

Misae looks like a cross between Kyou and Kotomi-chan in her high school days. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but I guess it is a bit disappointing from a character design perspective.

Speaking of Misae, if she seems a lot like Chidori from Full Metal Panic, there’s a reason for that — they both have the same seiyuu (YUKINO Satsuki). While Satsuki-san has been in a ton of different anime titles (her voice more recognizable in some titles than others), what makes her performance here seem more like Chidori is less the voice and more the fact that whenever Misae gets irritated and inflicts punishment, she breaks out some pro-wrestling maneuver while yelling. Chidori did the same thing in FMP (for those who haven’t seen the show) to the same humorous effect.

As to the story itself, I think we are getting a bit of a clue on the firefly-type lights in the Illusionary World. I’m guessing it is one of these that gave Katsuki the ability to grant a single wish. I’m also guessing that the cat Misae is keeping is in fact Katsuki since (1) the cat’s apparent communication w/ Tomoya was with Katsuki’s voice and (2) it would seem to be in keeping with the supernatural element introduced with Fuuko-chan in the previous TV series. If that is the case, I’m guessing the tissue box may be in order next episode.

Interesting that the cat appeared to talk to Tomoya about this wish granting. Just who is the blurry girl that we see for an instant as Tomoya falls asleep? How is this all connected to the Illusionary World?

I do like how After Story has continued to surprise me by now working on other characters from Clannad and fleshing them out more. I hope this continues before the story completely shifts to Nagisa and Tomoya (which I’m guessing it has to) and hopefully resolves the whole Illusionary World thing.