Clannad After Story 08

Clannad After Story 08
クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 08

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Clannad After Story 08Nagisa and Tomoya are visiting Yukine, who’d very tired from a lack of sleep. Nagisa wonders if there is a charm (spell) that would help Yukine sleep. There is, but it requires a lap. Yukine comments on how her brother used to provide a lap pillow for her, which leads Nagisa to volunteer Tomoya for the job. After some hesitation, she accepts Nagisa’s offer and is out like a light when her head rests on Tomoya’s lap. Tomoya asks Nagisa if this is truly OK. Nagisa admits to being a bit jealous, but a friend needed sleep and seeing Yukine sleeping so peacefully, Nagisa has no problems.

Clannad After Story 08After Yu-kun and Youhei arrive, Yukine wakes up from her nap. They are soon visited by an injured Sudou, who reports that since the other gang thinks Yukine’s brother Kazuto is out of the hospital (mistaking the beating from Tomoyo combined with Youhei’s pretending to be Kazuto as proof), they are going to try to end the gang war for good. Tomoyo enters the resource room causing Sudou to flee. Later in Youhei’s room, Tomoyo is briefed on the situation. She won’t report this to the school and knows Kazuto from her gang fighting days. That said, she believes it will only be a matter of time before the police get involved.

Clannad After Story 08At Kazuto’s gang hideout, the gang treat their wounds, having taken another beating from the other gang. Yukine decides she has to stop the fighting since she cares for people from both sides. She races out into the rain, followed by Tomoya. They arrive at the other gang hideout where the other gang refuses to back down, despite Yukine’s pleas. With Kazuto apparently out of the hospital, they can’t afford to wait, lest they all lose. In the end, the leader of the other gang (Sasaki) agrees to end the war one way — a one-on-one fight between himself and Kazuto.

Clannad After Story 08Back at Kazuto’s gang hideout, Yu-kun reminds the others that Youhei had been bragging about being Kazuto, so he is drafted to fight the other gang leader. The evening of the fight comes and the two sides meet at the river with the fight to take place on a sand bar. Nagisa has special rainbow bread from her mother, made just for Youhei. Also, her father included special jam. Youhei and the other gang members happily partake and are instantly knocked out by the bread. So when Sasaki arrives, the only guy left standing is Tomoya.

Clannad After Story 08Tomoya informs Sasaki that Youhei was never Kazuto and that Sasaki will have to settle for Tomoya instead. Sasaki agrees and the fight is on. It goes for hours, with Tomoya taking a good beating, but giving good blows too, never giving up. As Kazuto’s gang comes too, they along with Youhei decide to race to the river to help Tomoya. Sasaki’s gang sees this and rush to help Sasaki. They stop when they see someone new arrive — Kazuto. When Kazuto charges, Sasaki rushes to meet him, punching him, only to discover that it is actually Yukine in disguise. Tomoya realizes that she did this to try to stop the fight since only Kazuto could do it. Yukine is crying, saying how her brother wanted the fighting to stop.

Clannad After Story 08The following morning, both gangs are in a graveyard where Yukine performs the Japanese headstone cleansing ritual at the Miyazawa family grave, where her brother is buried. Yukine tells the story of how seeing Sudou & Tajima cry at her brothers funeral made her decide to get to know more about Kazuto’s way of life. She was accepted by the gang and they were a comfort to her after the loss of her brother. Since they didn’t want Sasaki’s gang to take advantage of the situation, Kazuto’s death was kept a secret. Both gangs then pay Clannad After Story 08their respects to Kazuto as Tomoya sees an orb of light fly away.

Later at school, Yukine thanks Tomoya, Nagisa, and Youhei for their help. She then tells the story of the orbs of light that appear at happy events in the city and that if one can grab one, they can gain a wish. Yukine doesn’t know if what Tomoya saw was one of those lights and Nagisa recognizes Yukine’s orb story as being similar to the one in the Sanae-san arc. Regardless, Yukine is thankful for all her friends.

Thoughts/Review:

The ties between the world and the Illusionary World are touched on again with the orb of light which Tomoya saw (and no one else did apparently) and Yukine’s story, which ties in with Sanae-san’s story arc (the cat having the orb of light to grant a wish). How all this relates to Tomoyo remains to be seen. Mystery Girl and Garbage Doll didn’t make an appearance this week, so it is hard to say more.

Clannad After Story 08

As to the conclusion of Yukine’s story, just before the midway point of this episode, I began to wonder of Yukine’s brother were already dead. I’m not sure why, but her reluctance to speak much about her brother seemed to be the spark that started it. So when everyone appeared at his grave at the end of the episode, I wasn’t surprised at all.

Clannad After Story 08

Yukine was originally supposed to be one of the main girls in the Clannad visual novel, but if this was the story they had, I can see why they didn’t go with it. Yeah, its sad that her brother died, but the story of two warring gangs didn’t have much impact on me. Had there been more evidence of this gang war all along (going back to Clannad), maybe it would have moved me more. As it is, the story wasn’t bad, just failed to make any connections to me on an emotional level.

Clannad After Story 08

I’m not sure what’s coming next episode beyond a depressed Tomoya. See you then.

 

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2 Responses to “Clannad After Story 08”

  1. Blogima says:

    Yukine’s arc isn’t that good, but had its good points. I don’t like these dull conversations about orbs, but, at least, I liked these episodes. Tomoya’s fight was good, too (kinda used Dragon Ball explosion effects…).

    I don’t get why Sunohara is a punchbag in the whole series, while in the movie, he is a damn crazy fighting maniac…

  2. AstroNerdBoy says:

    Youhei is the comic relief in the two TV series, which is why he’s the punching bag there. I don’t know if he had that role or not in the visual novel.

    As to the movie, I’ve been holding off on watching until after this TV series concludes.

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