クラナド Episode 10

SPOILER Summary:

The piece-mill robot (or whatever it is) is in a field with thousands and thousands of tiny firefly-like lights along with the mysterious girl in the white dress as they stand under a blue sky. The girl asks about the world and while the robot can’t communicate verbally with her, he does let her know that not everything is right. The robot lets the audience know, via its thoughts, that it (the soul?) was on another world at some point, but doesn’t remember much beyond the fact that it was there.

Nagisa waits for Okazaki and the two walk to school together. Kyou knocks down Okazaki on her scooter as she races onto the scene. Nagisa is worried about him, and he quickly recovers when Kyou decides to leave the scene. He then checks on Nagisa’s condition, calling her “Nagisa” which Kyou immediately takes note of. She asks if they are dating now since he’s addressing her so informally and they are hanging out a lot recently. They both deny it and site Nagisa’s attempts to start the Theater Club as the reason. After Kyou leaves, Okazaki wonders when he started addressing Nagisa by her given name and as she tries to remember, both have a thought flash about Fuko-chan, though they can’t remember her name, only the positive feelings Fuko left them with.

At school, Sunohara begins talking about his love for Nagisa, and so Okazaki decides to tell him about Kotomi. However, when Sunohara goes to visit her in the library (at Okazaki’s insistence), he can’t her to acknowledge his presence, even after he trashes the place. Okazaki enters and Kotomi is completely absorbed in her book and as usual, won’t respond to anything by “Kotomi-chan.” She sees the mess and assumes he did it. As they clean up, Okazaki convinces her to come to the Theater Club room. She does but she’s afraid of being bullied by Nagisa, who promises not to bully her. The two share a moment with both liking Nagisa’s Dango images. As they make their odd introductions introductions, they banter back and forth until Okazaki brings it to a stop for making no sense.

The three of them walk home and Okazaki has Nagisa go on while he escorts Kotomi home. Kotomi admits to having been afraid of meeting Nagisa, which is how she always is when meeting people. Kotomi gets Okazaki to stop at a bookstore where she gets so absorbed into a book that she starts to cut a passage from it until she’s stopped by him. They walk out of the store with Kotomi now carrying a bag full of books and Okazaki telling her she can’t do things like cut out pages of books in the library or bookstore.

The following day at school, Okazaki has Kotomi meet with Kyou, but she’s afraid of Kyou. Kyou’s forceful nature makes Kotomi more afraid, especially when Kotomi’s attempt to reuse her same introduction she used with Nagisa is apparently rebuffed. Kotomi wonders if Kyou is a bully. Kyou is puzzled by Okazaki’s actions in this matter. When he states he wants Kotomi to make friends, Kyou responds that friendship is earned, not given. Kyou wonders where Nagisa is and after telling Kyou that he’s still helping Nagisa, he also states he’s learned he’s good at taking care of others, hence is working with Kotomi. Kyou, looking out for her younger twin Ryou, sees Kotomi as a new rival (along with Nagisa) to Ryou for Okazaki’s affections. But in the end, she introduces herself to Kotomi.

Later Kotomi and Okazaki discuss things in the library where he tells her she needs more social skills and to learn about joking. She has to book knowledge of comedy, such as comedy from the Osaka region. With that, they head out for another attempt, this time with Ryou. Ryou offers to read Kotomi’s fortune with her cards, but sadly the fortune says she can’t make friends. This is devastating to Kotomi, but Ryou quickly adds that fortunes can be wrong or changed. However, she agrees to be Kotomi’s friend. So back to the library where Okazaki writes an introduction script for Kotomi. Outside, they meet a teddy bear (presumably Tomoyo in costume) where Kotomi says her introductions and when Kotomi reaches the part about being friends, the bear accepts and Kotomi is happy. However, when Sunohara sees the teddy bear, he decides to challenge it and gets beat.

At the place where they sell the bread products, Kotomi introduces herself to the lady selling the food-stuff with Okazaki supervising. The lady knows Kotomi through her parents, who are also apparently very gifted. Okazaki inquires about them but Kotomi doesn’t say much. Further attempts at information are stopped when Kyou arrives and begins to hug Kotomi. Kotomi looks uncomfortable but Kyou and Ryou having talked the matter over want to do something with Kotomi and Kyou wants Okazaki to take them all somewhere. So he does — the Theater Club room.

At the room, Kyou is not happy about this setting, expecting karaoke or the like, but Ryou doesn’t mind. Kyou tells Ryou that she staged this for her benefit (to get closer to Okazaki). The introductions go around and when its Ryou’s turn, Okazaki interjects that Ryou’s hobby is bullying the weak, leading him to get his keester (or face) kicked. This makes Kotomi very scared that she’ll be bullied by Kyou while Ryou and Nagisa feel that Okazaki’s “performance” is good. After Kotomi calms down, Kyou decides she and Ryou aren’t going to be in the Theater Club. However, seeing Ryou, Kotomi, and Nagisa engaged and Ryou seeming happy, Kyou is fine.

The sounds of a violin being practiced draws Kotomi’s attention and the entire group follows her to where a girl is practicing the violin with two others observing. The girl offers Kotomi a chance to play, but when she does, it is a massive noise that is so bad, glass actually breaks. However Kotomi is the only one who didn’t notice how bad it was and seemed strangely pleased by her efforts.

Thoughts:

Well the mystery girl and her mystery robot return. How this will tie into the main story is something I wouldn’t even try to guess. But the lights have been seen before, howbeit only one rather than a ton.

As to the episode, I honestly didn’t think that Kotomi-chan could be as funny as Fuko-chan was, but boy was I ever wrong. Man am I glad to have seen Azumanga Daioh so often because Kotomi-chan’s joke about the Osaka (region) comedy routine made me laugh (something that was a topic in Azumanga Daioh). She just provided a lot of laughs and made this episode a delight.

Speaking of Fuko-chan, I absolutely loved the reference to her at the begining of the episode. Okazaki addressing Nagisa as “Nagisa” was something Fuko-chan wanted him to do. Then when both Okazaki and Nagisa have a joint memory flash of Fuko-chan, I loved it (even though they couldn’t really remember her).

I’m not sure if it is because this story is new to me or what, but at the moment, I do like it more than I like Kanon and I didn’t think that possible.