anitations

[3/12/09] Nazarielle writes that

[I knew that this] kind of end would feel like a cop out and honestly it still did feel that way. They did it in probably the best possible way, but it still feels like cheating. All in all, I think having Tomoya come back to the moment in time when Nagisa died, giving birth to Ushio, was probably the best way to get around the fact that she had already died. Even still, like I said, it felt like it was too easy. And all the emotions spent on the stuff that happened after Nagisa died were null and void.

[3/12/09] Leo_Otaku then provides an explanation of the VN’s mechanics:

What happened was Ushio when she died before in another time line. A version of her was created in the illusionary world and created a body for Tomoya who un-consciously knew the world existed. The point of this world was to collect these orbs. Enough of them grants a wish. The wish saved Nagias from her disease which is linked to the town and that place. Once this was done Nagisa would not die giving birth since her sickness was cured as it was related to that place.

Several people’s sentiments resonate here, noting that the linear anime had to make some compromises, but this grain of salt is taken, and the warm and fuzzy end is nevertheless satisfying (Blkmage, Omni,7 spells out some illogical parts of the anime)

[3/13/09] Hanners thoughts sum up this section:

Despite being all ready to hate this cheap get-out clause of an ending… Well, I kind of liked it. Yes, of course it is a huge cheat after everything they’ve put us through in recent episodes, but for once I don’t begrudge this series a happy ending to polish things off – Clannad was always meant to be a lovable little show rather than some kind of School Days effort, and with that in mind this ending was a pretty good fit. It was nonsense, but it was warm, fuzzy nonsense, so it is duly forgiven.

[3/13/09] Pontifus writes his piece on the end, replying to Nazarielle’s post:

I’d agree [with Nazarielle], to a point — the emotions still happened, but the conclusion didn’t seem to follow up on them in a satisfying way. …You might argue that Tomoya suffered enough, that living through years of loss was adequate to render the show tragicomic, and you could make a good case for that, I think. After all, tragicomedy requires an ultimately good end, I believe. But I’m having a hard time convincing myself that Clannad is tragic at all, ultimately, when all its tragedy is erased by magic.

[3/13/09] In response, Nazarielle modifies his earlier stance:

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said the emotions used on Nagisa were null and void. The point I was trying to make was that Clannad seemed to be, as you said in another post, just trying to do the saddest thing possible, just for the sake of tragedy, because it knew it could reverse it later. I’m not saying they did it just to provoke a reaction (ok, maybe I am), but after what happened, it’s hard for me not to think that they were just trying to hit us as hard as they could, knowing that they could later reverse the sadness and make us all happy at the end. In hindsight, I can’t help but feel that it’s all rather artificial or fabricated.

[3/15/09] lelangir’s tl;dr response:

The take-away message is that in our viewing of Clannad (or any sort of time travel) we have to separate psychological time from narrative time.

There’s also a split at superfani between tragedy/comedy as processes or products:

[3/13/09] lelangir:

I think I would, however, agree with your perspective when looking at Clannad as a narrative whole (despite MADDENING time travel etc.). Tragic elements are tragic, and although it may, in the end, be a tragicomedy, the comedic elements do not territorialize and paint over those past tragedies ex post facto. I think this is what some theorists call entification, when complex processes are discursively transformed into descriptive labels. The classification “tragicomedy” is in fact a process wherein tragedy precedes comedy (or what have you), you cannot merely say that things are “tragicomedic” because that ignores the constructive process of narratives and the personal meanings people construct in tandem with the airing of an anime.

[3/14/09] Cuchlann:

I haven’t seen the show, obviously, but I can say that “tragedy” and “comedy” are defined by their endings, and not the stuff that leads up to said endings. There are some pretty awful things in the beginnings of some comedies, for example, like the threat of *beheading* if the daughters in Midsummer Night’s Dream don’t marry the right people. In fact, as comedies are also, in part, defined as stories that begin in bad situations and better themselves, the terrible, sad moments you’re describing in Clannad sound like more support for such a reading — and I’m guessing from the picture it ends with a child? Classic Old Comedy, with procreation and/or rebirth as the integration ending.

[3/16/09] Though the development of this discourse ends with Pontifus saying:

When I say that Clannad “is,” in the end, comedic, I mean that, in my estimation, its textual cues are likely to result in a conceptual text that is in Aristotelian/Fryean terms comedic, with its good end and all, not that it’s inherently comedic independent of readership. And I’m separating “chronological text-events” and “narrative timeline” into two distinct processes; the latter isn’t too much of a consideration for me here, which is not by any means to say that it isn’t important. What I think I’m trying to say is that I agree with you fundamentally; saying that Clannad is comedic in terms of the end result of chronological text-events is only the beginning of a more robust investigation that must at some point consider narrative timeline, but I don’t really feel compelled to pursue that, as I’m pretty satisfied with the way you’ve done so already :P

[3/14/09] The relatively isolated exchange between omo and lelangir is another take:

omo: There were maybe just a couple moments when the visual imagery evoked real emotion (damn AR getting in the way), but there were definitely one that evoked some emotion in episode 22, when the invariably controversial reset was coupled with just how pretty the whole affair was, regardless to the affront of any pre-conceived notion of fairness in narratives.

lelangir: Well I guess, as you said, the “affront of any pre-conceived notion of fairness in narratives” is precisely what makes us reevaluate the process meaning-making we went through. Those that say something akin to “reset ends trivialize” separates those who get all BAWWW with no remorse perhaps by what was said earlier. …For me, I’m glad I watched Clannad. It’s not like the reset “contradicted” the 30-some previous episodes, but it’s that very contradiction which nourishes the warm and fuzzy but oh so unsettling experience of it all, and it’s not that “contradictions” (warning: semantic issue probably) are always bad either.

omo: I agree. This is a Very Good reset because it adds rather than takes away. Although personally I think the whole dying and tearful bedside scenes are not nearly as so important or worthwhile that even taking those feelings away means anything per se negative. But again, it’s in terms of how you pitch your criticism. I mean, I understand why people don’t like it. I don’t even know if I like it. But I do know what they are trying to accomplish and I got no complaints about what I signed up to watch from episode 1.

[03/15/09] Fuyumaiden also contributes to the counter-discourse:

And the big complaint about reset endings is that it makes your feelings a…waste. Which really isn’t true in this case I’d say. Just because something is forgotten didn’t mean it didn’t happen. You had to see it to be able to really fully appreciate what a happy family is too I think. It’s not a waste if it makes you appreciate the “real thing” even more. Wouldn’t you agree?

[3/15/09] There is some dialogue at Omisyth’s place:

Omisyth: I believe…that simply performing a reset just undermines all of the experiences between the main cast and makes everything that happened seem pointless. …For all that build-up with the parallels between the illusionary world and the real world, it was disappointing (not to mention a little bemusing) that everything simply explodes and we move on to a good end.

omisyth: Ah, I did’t think it was a cheap reset just for the sake of drama, I thought the reset itself, for whatever reason, was executed poorly and undermined the preceding episodes. It may make sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.

sorrow-kun: [There is some writing] which demonstrates that there is some sort of logic behind the ending and it was a little more than just a cheap reset for the sake of drama. The problem is that key events, like just what the city was doing to Nagisa and why and the causal link between her illness and her near death experience, were portrayed so ambiguously in the anime, so it’s easy to come to the conclusion that it was a cheap and meaningless ending.

[3/15/09] Shirukii will have his way:

Reset endings are stupid primarily because they invalidate all the emotions felt during the deaths of the characters that return to life.

Josh [3/15/09] repeats the general anti-reset sentiment.

Some noncontroversial thoughts: xebek, totali, meimi132, hey say anime, animewriter brings in omega point theory

[3/17/09] Michael @ low on hit points posits a hypothetical ending to alleviate across split fans the ending:

Michael: Simply rewinding time undoes all the events that took place that made the story so captivating. It also removes what I believe to be a central theme of the story, in that Tomoya has to walk the same road his father did. Bringing Nagisa back to life destroys that parallel, coming across as “cheap” and even “video game reload save point -esque.” …The miracle should have been Nagisa (spiritually) saving her daughter. Ushio would then be able to grow up healthy alongside her father. This is how I — and I would guess many others — expected the finale to go down. Fans of the game already knew Ushio was dead at the end of ep#21, but as far as I could know she had merely collapsed.

omo: This would not please everyone across the isle. It would only please the people who don’t understand the current ending. However it’s a good try. I think the problem with your suggestion is that it actually alters the meaning of the story. Maybe if you can come up with a method that can retains the reasons why did Ushio and Nagisa passed away, it might work. Personally I think art doesn’t need to be apologetic. Well, it’s another question to ask if CLANNAD is art… But I think it’s a much more meaningful exercise to get people to see why the current reset is actually kind of good, and it isn’t just an exercise in the emotional motions of people dying, miracle saves, hurrah. That’s really missing the point.

Michael: [omo], You mention a “more meaningful exercise to get people to see why the current reset ending is actually kind of good.” How exactly is this ending any good? I mean that seriously and with no offense. Please let me know just what I’m missing here. What exactly is the “meaning of the story?” What exactly were they trying to express here?

The cryptic “meaning” of Clannad might be answered through sorrow-kun’s justification of the show. He writes that the show’s ending fails because it’s ambiguous – the lack of understanding to which omo refers – in that there’s a lack of consistency between the city and illusionary world as absolutely crucial thematic elements. Yet a significant part (perhaps the most important) is that Okazaki’s character development isn’t lost. Indeed, some guy had said on 3/15/09:

I guess, simply, it was a reversal in plot chronology, but not in character development, and I think that the character development is more important.

The exchange between omo and lelangir on 3/14/09 also provides a solution to Michael of low on hit points’ dilemma.

[3/18/09] artefact provides a diagram of the chronology, straight from the land of runes.

[3/20/09] Pontifus’ closing bracket:

My final opinion of a story relies in large part upon my reception of its ending. The ending represents the final few textual cues (provided you read/watch the end last), the culmination of narrative time; it becomes a lens which will forever tint my thoughts on all events before it. Lest I convince myself otherwise, though, Clannad’s narrative time did not end in episode 22 — we might say that its chronological time reached a terminus, but its structural time carries on into 23. What effect does the recent retrospective episode have on me as an ending to ~After Story~, you might ask? Quite simply, it reminds me that the school-oriented first season satisfied me more consistently than the second, which had the potential to exceed its predecessor in my estimation.

[3/20/09 - 3/21/09] There is a dialogue between The Sojourner and lelangir on the overall merits of Clannad in regards to story vs. plot:

The Sojourner: Suffice to say, the plot is the collective of events that have been intricately contrived through cause and effect. …What Forster is trying to say is that the story is not as intellectually engaging as the plot because it only requires  curiosity to captivate readers of a novel, or the audience in the context of anime. …Instead of being critical over what matters, we. the blinded audience, cast the importance of the plot aside and just succumb to the pandering done through relatively irrelevant stories of cute girls.

My message is simply to state how the various side-stories have, through their shameless interruption of the plot, impeded the emotional built up and the overall development of the anime’s plot.  As a result, the side-stories make the main message of the anime unconvincing. Imagine yourself telling a really funny joke to a group of friends and you suddenly derail into talking about something else. Would the punchline be funny after the pause? Sorry CLANNAD, I am not buying it.

lelangir: Clannad is a VN, and, according to the structure of the VN, scrunching it into a linear anime form while staying true to the original material will cause all sorts of problems (i.e.). So we can just say that Clannad is an anime [therefore it is bullshit]. Clannad the anime. Did you get the rest? But what about “Clannad the visual novel”. No tautology there, unless the content of the original truly upsets you; in that case, we can just say “Clannad” – and any further extrapolation is tautological.

The Sojourner: I do not think my logic in saying “CLANNAD is bullshit disappointing” includes the original VN, because all faults lie in just the execution of the anime. Being faithful to the VN can be possible by preserving the “spritiual essence” of the VN and infusing it in the anime; faithfulness does not always equate to conformness to the original content. Of course, Kyoani has contrived to mould the content so as to make the anime as linear as possible but that is another story.

One of the main reasons why I am wrote this post, despite it being pretty obvious to Lelangir, is probably because this anime’s overwhelming popularity can obstruct members of the audience in seeing its flaws. I am just trying to stir the spirit of argumentation (and this post is not only opinion that I have about the anime adaptation).

Perhaps to clarify, the lelangir’s basis for Clannad as tautological can be traced back here [3/15/09]:

Well, I think Kyoani and its creative minds were surely in a syncretic state – they had to balance viewer satisfaction with satisfying their own artistic minds. They had to balance – what Cuchlann and I fight about – the meaningless of art and the superimposed politics of art, entertainment. [This would probably apply to everyone who’s ever had to publish something.]

So then let us say, “to excise, or not to excise, that is the question.” In order to provide the viewer with a narrative that avoids resets Kyoani would have needed to remove arcs, ends, and possibly rewrite some material. Yet they decided to include all the original material in the adaptation. The relationship between these two choices – that of “chastity” or “adulteration” – is not hierarchical. This is not a political question, it is a philosophical question¹, and as such, the significance is not in the result of the deed (higher or lower viewer ratings, more or less money) but in the inseparable morality of the deed itself – the two are merely artistic choices devoid of any intrinsic meaning, therefore, both having no meaning, they are equal to one another.

So for some reason I don’t like bringing up talk about the VN and aspects of adapting material. Yeah, Clannad is an adaptation, yeah, aspects of linearity fail sometimes, that’s inevitable. I’ve been working under the presumption that it is literally impossible to encapsulate the aspect of VN replayability in anime, therefore it’s rather silly to compare an anime to something it is intrinsically incapable of doing because, remember, we’re operating under the philosophy that, basically, the means justify the ends (not a typo). Even if you were to reverse the position, say that Kyoani alters source material, rewrites a few endings, there would still be things that version would be intrinsically incapable of doing, like providing those very reset ends you removed and so forth. [hear hear!]

[3/21/09] Gene’s review:

The thing that frustrated me most was Tomoya being able to change time/reality due to the light orbs (I call them dragon balls). Well he didn’t really do it on purpose. It just kinda happened. Yeah sure, Tomoya got GOOD END, but it felt like I went through those tear inducing episodes with Nagisa and Ushio for nothing. All that development, gone. You know how Tomoya said he felt like he was being toyed around by the city? I think I know what he means.

[3/22/09] dude omisyth is slow:

I get a happy-go-lucky reset which trivialises the preceding episodes and, in Measure for Measure’s case, an ending where all the main characters are paired off and made to marry each other by one egotistical ruler. I receive a comedic ending which completely undermines what I most enjoyed throughout the play and destroys my expectations.