Daijoubu

I have been anxiously awaiting the end of the Fuuko arc so that I could write more seriously on Clannad then just sex and dangos. What follows will be somewhat in line with my earlier look at Kanon. This post assumes knowledge of of Clannad through episode 9, as well as all of Kanon.

In my post on Kanon, I took that earlier Key-based series to task a bit for the portrayal of its female characters. How does Fuuko’s arc in Clannad compare? In a scrambling of genre elements, Fuuko combines aspects of Shiori, Makoto and Ayu. Like Shiori, she is an isolated character who is brought into a group of friends at school and has her important family relationship with her sister. Next, like Makoto, she is fated to fade away and disappear. Both characters also encounter increasing difficulties interacting with the other characters before they vanish: Kanon’s fox spirit gradually loses her human ability to communicate through speech, while Fuuko ceases to be seen and is forgotten by others. Finally, like Ayu, Fuuko is a spiritual projection of a girl languishing in a hospital. In general, though, while Fuuko does have many of the traits of these Kanon characters, on another level, she is a vast improvement on them, if not necessarily in terms of moe-ness, then certainly in terms of her independence and self-determination.

A problem I had with the Kanon girls was their child-like obsession with and dependence on the male lead, who alternately scolded and teased them in a patronizing way. Certainly there is much of this in Tomoya’s treatment of Fuuko, particularly with the jokes he plays on her when she’s spaced out. One is reminded of Yuuichi and Ayu. As might be expected of entertainment aimed at socially-inhibited young males, the women of both Kanon and Clannad are presented as child-like and therefore, as I’ve noted before, “safe”. They are also presented as quirky, odd and sometimes unpredictable sources of fun. The scene where the two boys watch Nagisa and Fuuko debate over the merits of Starfish vs. Dango Daikazoku is an example: they get all moe and cute in their little argument, then suddenly reach an agreement to differ as a surprising punchline to the joke at the end. The point of such scenes is what funny antics these strange characters engage in, almost like watching unusual animals in a zoo. Thus they are turned into objects of male amusement, although Sunohara’s scenes with Tomoyo also make him into a comic-relief object.

On the other hand, Fuuko’s situation is much more complex than that of Ayu, who is fixated on Yuuichi exclusively. Fuuko has her own goals, centered on her sister’s wedding and her creation of wooden starfish to give out to all of the students. Unlike most of the Kanon girls, she is self-directed, has her own past and is therefore not so focused on Tomoya exclusively. Early on, she is dismissive of him as strange or weird. This is partly a joke, because she is so obviously strange herself, but it does serve to stress her relative independence. When he meets her, she is pursuing her task, and it is he who involves himself in her affairs, at first to solve the mystery of who she is. This actually makes her character less like Makoto and Ayu, who go after Yuuichi, and more like Shiori, and even Mai, who is also on a mission, so to speak. It is also notable that Tomoya and Nagisa are working together in helping Fuuko, and that Fuuko herself wants them to be together in the future. The emphasis here is on friendship and family instead of the girl existing solely for the main guy.

The Fuuko arc is very emotional and many fans cry over it. My favorite scene is where Tomoya and Nagisa wake up, having forgotten Fuuko, but later remember her and she suddenly appears, having been there unseen the entire time. It is true that for many, even the prospect of death is not as scary as the thought of being forgotten. People with money can leave elaborate monuments, or donate money to institutions expecting to get their names etched on buildings. Artists also leave their works behind. Fuuko, on the other hand, faces oblivion but is only concerned about her sister’s happiness. The issues raised by her plight and her selfless dedication resonate with viewers on a deeper level than the circumstances represented in Kanon. Although the characters forget her, she still leaves an impression on them and us. She is more of an individual than Makoto and Ayu, with a mature sense of focus, despite her child-like demeanor.

As I mentioned at the top, I’ve been waiting for the arc to end before I commented on it. I find it hard to do a commentary on each episode. Without finding out, at least, where a particular character’s arc is going, one lacks the full picture to evaluate it–like trying to cut up a movie into 20 minute segments and trying to write about each one before watching the next. Based on the first few episodes, where Fuuko was merely the source of a few repeated jokes, I would not have known how moving her story would be. In Kanon, other than learning a bit more about the girl’s back-stories, you pretty much knew all there was to know about what they were like. With Fuuko, you discover that she has more depth than expected. It’s been noted that Clannad is a far longer game than Kanon and will also probably be a longer anime series too. Already the Fuuko storyline displays more complexity, and if the rest of them continue this trend, Clannad may well turn out to be KyoAni’s masterpiece (at least of the Key adaptations!).

Postscript: I didn’t look at some of the other anime blog’s comments on this arc until I wrote this out, but now that I look them over, I find a lot of agreement. Like me, Mike was initially reluctant about Fuuko, but was won over by the arc’s emotional and thematic success. I also like his comparison of Fuuko’s arc to the structure of ghost stories. I’m in agreement with Moogy that the narrative of Clannad is more successful than Kanon in making the characters more realistic and relevant to each other and to the viewer. And it is surprising to realize that Nagisa did not play such an important role in Fuuko’s story in the game! And while I didn’t cry at the end, it’s obvious that some are preoccupied with this aspect! That and making puns of course!