クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 22
Clannad ~After Story~ Ep. 22
Clannad After Story 22

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Tomoya finds himself back in the past wondering if he should say anything to Nagisa when they first met, in the Illusion World, Garbage Bot is wondering why he came to this world and realized he’d been here all along with this girl. He is unsuccessful in moving the girl, who now can speak to him telepathically as well as “hear” the robots voice since she is near death. She cannot leave this world because she is the world. She reveals that they were together in another world.

Also, the lights that Garbage Bot remembers seeing are the feelings of the people from that other world. She finally reveals that she and Garbage Bot were very close before and that he exists in both worlds, so he’ll see her again. She then says that her feelings will become the tiny orbs of light in the other world, representing her feelings. She tells the robot that soon he will fall asleep here and wake up in the other world. They skies open and Garbage Bot is pulled apart as he hears the girl say, “Sayonara, Papa.”

Tomoya finds himself at the base of the hill where he met Nagisa and though he’d allowed her to walk by, he screams her name and goes after her. After grabbing her and embracing her, she addresses him in her customary “Tomoya-kun,” saying she was worried he might have wished never to meet her. She tells him she’s glad she met him and that she had a wonderful life. She asks him not to regret anything and he tearfully agrees, hugging her again. With that, she takes him to a place in the city where wishes come true. With that, Tomoya “wakes up” just after Nagisa has given birth to Ushio, only this time, Nagisa doesn’t die. So Tomoya is able to relive the last five years of his life, only this time as a family with Nagisa and Ushio. They take a family trip to Tomoya’s grandmother’s house and Ushio gets to play in the flowers again.

Back in the present, Fuuko-chan is upset over having been treated like a child, which her sister Kouko tries to explain as being partially due to Fuuko-chan’s small stature and partially because Fuuko-chan refers to herself in the 3rd person. Fuuko-chan finds this very rude but does make two attempts to use normal, 1st person speech, but her choice of words makes it sound illicit (to borrow a word). Fuuko-chan smells something and she attempts to coach her sister into asking the right questions for Fuuko-chan to answer. After a while, Fuuko-chan races across a field to a wooded area to meet this girl. There, we see Mystery Girl laying on the ground briefly before Fuuko-chan gets there, whereupon the girl becomes Ushio. Fuuko-chan slowly approaches, wanting to know the girl’s name and wanting to be friends as the fun is about to begin.

Thoughts/Review:

When Mystery Girl said, “Sayonara, Papa,” I have to say that I lost it. Fortunately, I had plenty of Puffs Plus tissues. ^_^ Yes, it was validation of my thoughts that Mystery Girl was indeed Ushio and that Garbage Bot was Tomoya, but the moment was very touching as Tomoya was pulled back into the real world. Well, I say “real world” but clearly, the place he was at when “woke up” was not real. Yes, he appears to be at the moment in Clannad episode 1 where he first met Nagisa but this Nagisa knew him — she called him “Tomoya-kun” which she didn’t do until they were a couple (discounting the Fuuko story arc where she briefly did so there). So was this another Illusion World, only of Nagisa’s creation? I’m not sure at all.

I went back to the first episode of Clannad and watched the intro and the end of that episode. If I had to guess, I’d say that it almost appears as if that was when Tomoya first woke up from visiting the Mystery World. While it made no real sense to me back then, the visuals are astonishingly the same as when Tomoya pondered whether to speak to Nagisa or not.

So I think that in Clannad, Tomoya had been sent back and while he couldn’t remember his time before (save for knowing Nagisa’s play story, suggesting she too had been sent back somehow) nor his time in the Illusion World, he did befriend Nagisa again and he stopped being a delinquent, befriending lots of others as well.

This is where things get fuzzy for me and maybe we’ll get some more explanations in the next two episodes (since the next episode takes place in the past). Tomoya must have been sent back because (1) he had memories of the Illusion World though he couldn’t remember how he knew the tale and (2) the mini orbs of light that were Ushio’s feelings were on Earth. We saw them appear several times during the course of both series and even Tomoya was tagged with one when he squared things with his father (which Ushio saw). But how did he get to the Illusion World in the first place? If the world was one created by Ushio upon her death, then was Tomoya dying at the end of episode 20 when we see him fall over in the snow? That’s the only way I can see him being in both places at the same time.

So, Tomoya gets sent back to make try to make things right I guess, starting with making the choice to not let Nagisa walk by him. She knows him at that point and he her. If I’m right, once Tomoya decided to speak to Nagisa and they have their reunion of sorts, it is then that Tomoya is placed back into the real world after Nagisa says she’ll take him to a special place where dreams come true. So when he comes to at that moment, this explains his thoughts of “change” as he encounters Nagisa as well as the black-and-white world until he forms the words and actually speaks to Nagisa.

That said, I’m still at a loss to explain how Nagisa knew of the Illusion World. At the end of episode 1 in Clannad (and the beginning of episode 2), she says the same words she told Tomoya in episode 22 of Clannad ~After Story~. That proves the reset but not how Nagisa knew of the Illusion World. It seems that if Nagisa had been there, then one of Ushio’s other creations would have come to life as well, but it didn’t. Only Garbage Bot came to life.

So things go wrong, Nagisa dies and eventually Ushio dies. However, in this second go around, Tomoya has one of those lights go into him. Maybe that’s what allowed him to have his wish for Nagisa to say alive this time and to be a complete family come true. After all, other wishes have been granted through the light orbs. Or maybe he’s in his own Illusion World. That seems a bit much but I’m trying to look at the whole picture and there are still gaps as I see it.

Another gap is Mystery Girl-Ushio at the end of the episode. How did Fuuko-chan know she was there? Did she know Ushio somehow? If the globes make wishes come true, then maybe Fuuko-chan recognizes the one that caused her to ultimately recover after years in the hospital. Further, if that’s Ushio, then where’s the Ushio that grew up with Nagisa and Tomoya? Lots of gaps and unanswered questions.

I did like the look of Tomoya, Nagisa, and Ushio as a family as they moved forward in time. Someone said that Nagisa looks totally hot as an adult and I agree there. I also liked how that their group of friends are shown five years after Ushio’s birth.

I am disappointed that Kotomi wasn’t part of the resolution about the Illusion World piece of the story though. After setting up that her parents researched it and that she was going to research it, I thought for sure we’d have some Kotomi screen time on this subject but alas, no.

Two more episodes, whatever they may be.