TWELVE DAYS: SUGUHA AND LIFE-SAVING EMOTIONAL SUPPORT

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 1.27.56 AM — THIS SHOT

I hit rock bottom in March of 2016. I was forced to withdraw from my dream school because my depression had made it impossible for me to succeed academically. I can remember telling myself that I’d manage to fix everything, but those were delusions. I was “averting my eyes” from the truth. I was so lonely. As my life started spiraling downwards, I never once considered asking for help.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 12.01.36 AM — it me

I kept telling myself that I had the power to fix my situation all on my own, but every time I tried to focus on fixing things, I ended up just going to bed. I was spending so much time escaping into anime, especially shows like Clannad in which I could live my ideal wholesome trad fantasy.

Screen Shot 2018-12-23 at 11.42.48 PM — I love how I can just randomly insert these Monogatari screencaps an y’all can tell how they relate to my experiences. You *can* tell, can’t you?

I had reached the point where I figured that I don’t deserve the company of other people, but I still strived for companionship, always sabotaging my efforts as a way of sparing the person to whom I was trying to reach out the burden of having to deal with someone as rotten as me. Nobody had to suffer besides me when I spent time with anime. When my entire world finally came crashing down on me, I blamed myself for being lazy, piling on even more self-hatred than I had already accumulated.

Screen Shot 2018-12-23 at 11.34.59 PM — We all have that Ougi voice in the back of our heads.

It was not too lit fam. Anyway, part of me is still ashamed of the fact that I had to take a medical withdrawal from Notre Dame. I know I shouldn’t be ashamed and that I had long lost control of my life by no fault of my own, but I still haven’t internalized that.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 12.25.42 AM — f

When I returned home, I spent like three months almost entirely in my basement, curled up on the couch listening to music or watching anime (It was during that period of time that I first watched Monogatari 20 times in a row). A few days after I got home, I rolled over on the couch in the basement and heard some noise. It was my little sister playing with her barbies, which she hadn’t done in a long time. I chatted with her. I’d been crushed with shame whenever speaking to anybody since getting home, but for some reason, I felt totally comfortable chatting with my little sister then. She was in eighth grade at the time. This became a regular occurrence, and she’d always tell me she loved me when she was done and went back upstairs. My little sister became my best friend and helped save me when I hit absolute rock bottom. One of the most compelling scenes in Sword Art Online is in the first episode of the Fairy Dance arc, after Kirito has met Sugou *gag* and learned that Asuna is going to be married off. Kirito is absolutely devastated. His wife is going to be married off without her consent to a creep that she hates and Kirito can’t do anything about. And yes fuck this conflict it fucking sucks. Maybe it’d be okay if he wasn’t so rapey and the objective wasn’t so blatantly for Kirito to protect Asuna’s “purity,” but oh well. Its a testament to how great a character Suguha is that this is my favorite SAO arc despite all of that. Anyway, with a creeper stealing his online wife, Kirito has totally sunken into a pit of despair. This is rock bottom for Kirito.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 1.25.36 AM — You can’t see his eyes, so you know shit’s serious

That evening, Suguha enters Kirito’s room after he fails to respond to her when she tells him the bath is ready. She enters his room because she cares about her br- see, there I go, that’s way more specific than I need to be, I’m just stating the obvious. Anyways… Suguha’s perspective shapes this scene in Kirito’s room, which Sword Art Online utilizes as a representation of his now devastated internal world.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 1.25.30 AM — Suguha opens the door to Kirito’s room, and with her brings light and warmth. The Nervegear, in the foreground, was responsible for stealing the already distant Kirito away from Suguha for two whole years.

She finds her brother sitting alone on his bed in his room. The room is illuminated only by the moonlight streaming through the huge window in the corner of the room behind the bed and is freezing because it’s the middle of January and he hasn’t turned on the heater. In the first three shots of Kirito after Suguha enters the room, his eyes are hidden by shadows. Suguha turns on the heater and asks what’s going on. Kirito tells her that he just wants to be left alone, which is, of course, the last thing you should say when you want to be left alone. Perhaps Kirito was subconsciously trying to reach out to Suguha in that moment.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 1.25.44 AM — Love how she’s got a bit of that Virgin Mary look going on with that towel

The concern in Suguha’s voice grows stronger in response to that most obvious of red flags and we see a look in Kirito’s eyes more harrowing than anything we were privy to during his experiences in Sword Art Online. Our (new) heroine immediately swoops down on him, taking his hands in hers, and asks him what’s wrong and if he’s alright, to which Kirito initially responds that “its nothing.”

Suguha’s demonstration of her love for her brother brings warmth to the room (she turned on the heater) and to Kirito (grasping his hands). That warmth, that love, allows Kirito to open up to her. We get to see the extremely rare “vulnerable Kirito,” a side of him we’ve only seen him show Asuna. He apologizes to Suguha, expressing his despair, saying, “I’m so hopeless and weak,” then expressing his regret that Suguha has to see him in such a compromised state, something he had sworn not to allow happen. Kirito gives an extremely vague explanation of his situation, breaking down into tears in the process.

Suguha throws her arms around him, allowing him to cry into her, uh, bosom, and tells him to hang in there and not give up on being with the one he loves. She instills hope in Kirito.

The next morning (after waking up in same bed as her), Kirito reflects on and affirms Suguha’s words of comfort and encouragement. And then he conveniently gets a message that leads him to the answer to all of his problems BUT THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT.

Screen Shot 2018-12-24 at 2.03.48 AM — *plot convenience inbound*

Just as Suguha brought love and warmth to Kirito when he needed it most and encouraged him to keep fighting, so too did my little sister comfort me when I needed it most. And since then, like Suguha, my little sister has always been my biggest cheerleader, encouraging me not to give up in my struggles to overcome myself. Oh, and now I’m finally going back to Notre Dame, I’ve finally finished clawing my way back up from rock bottom, and I was only able to do it because I had my little sister cheering for me all along the journey.

I’m gonna be writing more about Suguha, since this isn’t as much about her character as it is about the projections of my own experiences onto this one scene in particular.

TWELVE DAYS: KOTOMI

Kotomi is, like, the worst of Clannad’s heroines.

Tomoya didn’t have to be Kotomi’s childhood friend for this to work out, in fact, it would have been better if he wasn’t. We don’t get any other glimpses of Tomoya’s childhood at that age until After Story episode 18. The only thing that these scenes tell us is that he’s wary around adults at that age. Well, actually, it wouldn’t have made sense for Kotomi to be comfortable talking to Tomoya if they weren’t childhood friends.

Kotomi doesn’t have much agency. Tomoya whisks her away on a tour of the school with the intention of making her friends and teaching her to be funny. Neither of these things did Kotomi ask for. The suitcase comes out of nowhere. Couldn’t Kotomi have overcome this on her own?

Kotomi has a rich internal world invisible to all those on the outside, she sees herself as being on a mission to complete her parents’ research as penance. As a result, it is almost impossible to get through to her. She talks to Tomoya because she remembers him, but what would the benefit be to her of interacting with others and making friends? How does making friends help her in her mission? I’m not saying that there’s no benefit of Kotomi making friends, I’m just questioning whether or not she’s able to recognize those benefits or if she’s just letting Tomoya drag her around. Why, Tomoya, why does she need to socialize more? Some people prefer to be alone, and Kotomi’s willingness to sacrifice her time to learn to socialize makes little sense in the context of her fixation on continuing her parents’ research.

Kotomi’s arc is just a really shitty version of Rin’s development in Yuru Camp, and unlike Yuru Camp, Clannad seems to be forcing Kotomi into socializing, whereas Nadeshiko slowly coaxes Rin into camping with the club. It’s hilarious that Ryou is basically a more nuanced version of Kotomi. It’s obvious that Ryou is just as timid as Kotomi, but has developed strategies to overcome that.

Kotomi, like many characters in Clannad, is excellently animated. Special care seems to be given to her movements compared with other characters. Kotomi’s movements are somewhat sluggish, like she’s some moe sloth. One example that really stands out to me is the scene where Tomoya approaches her in the library and she pats the floor next to her, urging him to sit next to her. The way she sidles on the floor of the library is also well done, and, in my opinion, is evidence of my belief that she isn’t as inattentive as she seems and simply doesn’t want to exert the energy to pay attention to people when they approach her. Ugh, it’s like she’s playing dumb!

Kotomi almost certainly fails to see the point in socializing with anybody other than Tomoya until she’s become friends with Nagisa and the Fujibayashi sisters. If Tomoya hadn’t forced her to introduce herself to all those people, she would never have left the library. Don’t get me wrong, I sure as hell am not praising Tomoya. Some people prefer to be alone. You shouldn’t force people to interact with others if they don’t want to. For Kotomi, there was no reason to have a social life. Her entire world revolves around her quest to complete her parents’ research, and friends would only get in the way. Of course, the way Kotomi was living up until this arc was not healthy at all, but Tomoya has no way of knowing whether or not Kotomi simply prefers to be by herself, and Kotomi is too weak willed to resist being pulled around the school.

Kotomi’s back story is handled extremely well, which is a shame, considering how contrived and manipulative it is. The highlight of these flashbacks is Kotomi’s father, who reminded me a lot of my own. The way he is trying to teach his daughter theoretical physics with a metaphor which he has clearly spent a lot of time carefully constructing felt very true to life, the way a real father would get excited when their child demonstrates interest in what they’re passionate about. As great as this, Eureka Seven does it better in its second episode, when Renton feigns interest in becoming a mechanic, causing Axel, his grandfather, to pull out a special set of tools he had been saving for Renton.

Another great moment with Kotomi’s Dad is when he asks her what she wants for her birthday. When Kotomi tells him that she wants a teddy bear, his voice is giddy with excitement, saying that he’ll find the biggest teddy bear there is. Kotomi’s Dad was so elated because it was the first time that Kotomi said that there was something she wanted. This moment is reflected in episode 18 of After Story, when Ushio stubbornly searches for the toy Robot that Tomoya gave her. When Tomoya says that it can be replaced, Ushio says that she wants the original, because it was the first time that Tomoya had picked out and bought her a toy. That’s a pretty great callback, five points for Clannad.

YEET this is the last Clannad post.

TWELVE DAYS: SOME THOUGHTS ON TOMOYA

BxBvCshCEAAgUyY Tomoya’s depression gradually fades away after he meets Nagisa. Tomoya’s attitude toward school before he met Nagisa was one of resignation and hatred. Tomoya expresses his desire to erase all of his painful memories in the anime’s opening scene. Over the course of the show, except at a few vulnerable moments, Tomoya is dismissive of these experiences when they come up. Tomoya’s actions lead him to join other characters as they explore the most painful memories of their own. Tomoya manages to avoid thinking about his own problems by thrusting himself into the problems of others, not unlike Araragi.

Screen Shot 2018-07-22 at 12.17.26 PM.png — “Mr. Okazaki, you’re no Araragi.”

DADDY ISSUES

Tomoya’s outward attitude toward his Father up until the Ends of the Earth was one of disgust and resentment.

In the first few episodes of Clannad, we see a few scenes in which Naoyuki approaches Tomoya at home. In those scenes we catch Tomoya the narrator off guard. Tomoya, during the scenes with his father, is much different than his usual aloofness would suggest. More than anything, when face to face with his father, Tomoya regresses to a more Shinji-esque character. In these scenes, Kyo-Ani’s expression work really drives home that Tomoya is still a child, one that has been hurt and handles problems by running away.

B2GQYKOCQAAtGhe

Naoyuki is reaching out to Tomoya, trying to reconnect with him, and Tomoya responds by running away. These scenes also betray Tomoya’s aloofness and indifferent attitude toward his relationship with his father. If Tomoya really didn’t care about being family with his father, he wouldn’t cry out in episode two, “don’t treat me like a stranger!”

OH ALSO, TOMOYA DOES NOT NEED TO FORGIVE HIS ABUSER. CLANNAD IS STUPID ABOUT THAT.

Tomoya’s desire to help Nagisa, Fuuko and Kotomi is fueled by his resentment for his father and his resentment for himself. Tomoya knows he’s fallen to pieces since the incident with his father. What Tomoya hates most about his slip into delinquency is that he sees himself becoming his father. Tomoya’s desire to become a better father than Naoyuki drives him to help all of these women that he comes across in his school. This may also explain why Tomoya seems to treat all these girls like children.

Tomoya carries with him a burden of self-hatred that he lets slip into his speech from time to time. For example, in episode seventeen of After Story, Tomoya asks Ushio, “are you sure you want to go on a trip with a guy like me?” Tomoya, between his meeting Nagisa and [the last time Nagisa gets sick] her death, made a lot of progress towards coming to love himself, but after blaming Nagisa’s death on himself and coming to regret all of that time, Tomoya walks back all of that progress. And also actually becomes exceptionally shitty by abandoning his daughter.

Naoyuki’s violent episode when Tomoya was a freshman ruined Tomoya’s school life by forcing him to quit Basketball, the one thing that gave him purpose. Without Basketball and filled with resentment for his father, Tomoya lapsed into delinquency after that incident. That must have been when Tomoya came to hate his school.

Along with the untimely death of Tomoya’s mother, this incident is his and Naoyuki’s shared sob story. The portrayal of Naoyuki in the anime is very interesting. Despite the way Clannad is filtered through Tomoya’s point of view. Every depiction of Naoyuki is supposed to be sympathetic, and I often doubted that he ever hit Tomoya at all on my first watch. Should Kyo-Ani have animated a flashback to that incident? Hmmmm.

Even though Tomoya came to hate school in the wake of his forced retirement from the Basketball team, it wasn’t as though there was nobody at the school that cared for him. Koumura-sensei, noticing Tomoya’s growing disinterest in school, orchestrated his first encounter with Sunohara. In doing so, Koumura brought into a Tomoya’s life a reason not to totally give up on school. A person with one friend is much more social than somebody without any friends, in my experience. It’s not explained in the anime how Kyou became friends (though none of them would have admitted it) with Tomoya and Sunohara, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t have happened if the latter two weren’t already friends. Tomoya was likely en route to voluntary total social isolation before he met Sunohara. Koumura-sensei saved Tomoya from becoming totally antisocial. Without that intervention from Koumura-sensei, Tomoya would have adopted an Araragi-esque loner ethos and probably wouldn’t have been inclined to reach out to Nagisa, let alone embark on his woman-saving crusades of Clannad’s first season.

Tomoya’s perception of each heroine is partially determined by Tomoya’s perception of himself. Tomoya’s perception of each heroine changes based on how Tomoya sees himself in relation to them. ‘Cause he’s a selfish bastard.

Tomoya, in his first interaction with Fuuko, is condescending and takes it upon himself to take away something from her as a disciplinary measure with Fuuko’s best interest at heart. Imagine that you get a B- on a test in Math class because you’ve been texting in class lately rather than paying attention. Then imagine some stranger comes and takes your phone away from you so that you have no choice but to pay attention. That’s what Tomoya does to Fuuko… Fuck that! Who does that? Who the hell does Tomoya think he is? Everybody has a right to make shitty decisions, but Tomoya just takes it upon himself to take Fuuko’s carving tool away from her since her hand is hurt. Nobody asked you, Tomoya! What gives you the authority to just march in and take things that aren’t yours? This is mirrored in episode seventeen of After Story when Ushio’s toy breaks and Tomoya fixes it. After fixing the toy, he tells her to let it dry after before playing with it, but she does not listen and the toy’s wheels stop working. Unlike the case with Fuuko, Tomoya doesn’t actively prevent Ushio from playing with the toy before the glue finished drying. Though it might not have been his intention, this was a far more effective parenting decision. Tomoya treated Ushio like a big girl and allowed her to make her own mistakes. In Ushio’s case, she probably learned from this mistake the importance of listening to adults. Ushio’s mistake was also a step toward her learning the value of patience, which is probably one of the most important things for children to learn. Tomoya’s approach to parenting Fuuko, on the other hand, was to make it impossible for Fuuko to make her own mistakes.

That being said, Fuuko probably didn’t need Tomoya’s aggressive parenting. Tomoya’s first impression of Fuuko is that of a kouhai stubbornly continuing to hurt herself. In Fuuko, Tomoya saw an opportunity to demonstrate to himself that he can be a better parent than his father. In designating himself as the father figure, Tomoya’s lasting impression of Fuuko became that of a child in need of guidance. After Tomoya realizes that Fuuko really is a goddamn coma ghost, he realizes that he actually feels a sense of responsibility for Fuuko. Little does he know that Fuuko is way more mature than him.

So why does Tomoya feel motivated to help all of these infantilized helpless heroines? Everything we know about Tomoya would seem to suggest that he wouldn’t be inclined to waste his time with other people, least of all those like Nagisa who are trying to get the most out of high school and enjoy things like club activities, which Tomoya and Sunohara feel they had snatched away from them. Sunohara even says as much when he notices Tomoya spending time with Nagisa. It’s all about Tomoya’s Daddy issues, that’s what runs his life throughout most of Clannad.

TWELVE DAYS: THE IBUKI SISTERS IN CLANNAD

Yeet yeet yeet. Fuuko’s arc is the part of Clannad that I enjoy discussing most. If Clannad was just the Fuuko arc, it would be one of the most absurd anime I’ve ever watched. Even more absurd is that Kyo-Ani decided to drag it out for a whole six episodes. That’s like one FLCL! All dedicated to Fuuko…

fuko-ibuki

Of course I say that, but to say that Fuuko’s arc is about Fuuko is to miss the point entirely, because it’s not about Fuuko at all. Fuuko’s arc is basically a drawn out less compelling version of Mayoi Snail (though Clannad does predate Monogatari). Like Mayoi, Fuuko, who at first seems to be the focus of the arc, really serves as an agent that brings two other characters closer together. Mayoi Snail brings Araragi and Senjougahara closer together and ends with them becoming lovers, while the Starfish arc uses Fuuko to bring Tomoya and Nagisa closer together. The biggest differences are the means by which these arcs bring these characters together and their duration. Mayoi Snail takes place over the course of a single day, while the Starfish arc lasts a few weeks. Mayoi Snail limits itself to just six characters, two of which only appear over the phone or in flashbacks and another who appears for just one scene. On the other hand, the Starfish arc’s focus on the three central characters is diluted by the importance of the supporting cast and way the narrative ropes in the entire school. That’s not to say that it was a bad decision on Clannad’s part to involve its mostly maddeningly dull supporting cast, I’m just laying out the contrasts between these two similar arcs. Yes, even Kyou is dull, just compare her to actually compelling tsundere characters you’ve seen in other anime, or any Monogatari girl, and Tomoyo isn’t made compelling until after this arc. Obviously, I firmly believe that Mayoi Snail, which I consider to be one of Monogatari’s most foundational and underappreciated arcs, is far more compelling in the manner and degree to which it brings its couple together.

Mayoi Hachikuji is a far better character in her own right than Fuuko, and Mayoi has half as many episodes in her arc as Fuuko. Even though I’d say that Araragi and Senjougahara are the focus of Mayoi Snail, Nisio Isin still crafts Mayoi into a compelling character over the course of her arc. Mayoi comes across as hostile and defensive, not unlike Araragi’s first impression of Senjougahara. Like Senjougahara, Mayoi actively tries to prevent people from getting involved with her, but unlike Senjougahara, Mayoi does it out of concern for the people she encounters. Mayoi’s nature as an apparition isn’t revealed until toward the end of the arc. When Araragi is told that Hachikuji is the lost cow, he immediately realizes that this means Mayoi has been wandering as a ghost for eleven years, trying to prevent people from keeping her company. That alone is just a sad story, and all it tells us about Mayoi is that she is selfless and wise, having resolved to wander alone endlessly rather than preventing people from losing her way just as she had before her life was cut short. On the other hand, Fuuko’s sob story is that she’s the coma ghost of a loner girl whose primary character trait is that she loves her sister and starfish. Later on, it’s implied that she likely won’t ever wake up, though that ends up being untrue. Mayoi, on the other hand, is dead. Mayoi’s character becomes most tangible when she is reflecting upon her family issues with Araragi, in which she articulates her complicated feelings for her father, who she loves but who has been preventing her from visiting her mother.

Monogatari, like Clannad, is very much an anime about family. Clannad is pretty much the poster child for anime about family, yet the extent of Fuuko’s relationship with Kouko, as depicted in the six episodes of Fuuko’s arc is that Fuuko is a good sister and wants Kouko to be happy. Of the two sisters, Kouko, who receives much less screen time, is far more interesting. Nagisa and Tomoya express awe at Fuuko’s devotion to her sister’s happiness, but is it really all that impressive? I mean, Fuuko is a coma ghost, one that doesn’t seem to anticipate ever awakening, so she has all the time in the world. Fuuko doesn’t have to go to classes, and she receives information from her ears in the hospital, so she knows that her sister is hesitating to get married for her sake. Fuuko, being a coma ghost, knows that she can’t effect the world as tangibly as a conscious physical person can, but she can do her best and by a stroke of luck, she manages to find a couple of people that happen to know her sister that are bored enough to spend their time assisting in her efforts.

C9 1

Kouko is actually interesting. Why the hell is Kouko spending every day in the hospital rather than going out and living her own life? Yes, the obvious answer is that she stays with Fuuko every day because she loves her, but I have a feeling that there’s more to it. At some point, wouldn’t Kouko be seen as lazy for quitting her job and spending every day with her sister rather than working? As long as somebody is with Fuuko every day, isn’t that enough? Why does it have to be Kouko? For some reason, Kouko must be the only family that Fuuko has. Why else would she take it upon herself to take care of Fuuko herself when she finally does awaken? Wouldn’t Fuuko’s parents want to live with their recovering daughter that had been in a coma for ten years? They would if they were good parents. In Kouko’s flashbacks during the arc, we see that they were living together before Fuuko’s accident, but it didn’t seem as though Kouko was the head of household, so I don’t think the sisters’ parents were dead.

My theory is that Fuuko’s parents wanted to pull the plug on Fuuko. They should have. Just Kidding. Kouko must have taken them to court and sued for custody of Fuuko. Regardless of whatever the real story is, Kouko is far more interesting than Fuuko because she really sacrifices time from a tangible life to care for her sister then takes her into her home once she awakens. On top of that, it doesn’t seem as though Kouko and Yoshino ever have children. Knowing Clannad, there must be a significant reason that a couple would decide not to have a child. Nagisa tells Tomoya to put a baby in her as soon as Tomoya asks her what she wants. Kouko is so dedicated to her sister that she refrained from having children of her own so that she can take care of Fuuko. But is Fuuko really a character worth taking care of?

My instinctual response is yes, but as soon as I try to think of additional qualities that make Fuuko a good character, my mind goes blank, so I’ll move on and explore how Mayoi and Fuuko function as narrative devices.

Mayoi’s case brings Araragi and Senjougahara closer together by putting on display some of each character’s anxieties and insecurities. By coming to understand a bit of each other’s vulnerabilities, Araragi and Senjougahara’s relationship becomes more intimate, which is demonstrated perfectly when Senjougahara declares to Araragi, “I love you.” The situation also provides an opportunity for Senjougahara to watch Araragi rescue somebody other than herself, which affirms the feelings that Senjougahara was harboring for Araragi. Fuuko brings Nagisa and Tomoya closer together by causing them to work and spend a lot of time together. Not only do they spend a lot of time together, they spend that time together caring for a child (though Fuuko is technically the same age as Okazaki). Nagisa even remarks at one point that she and Tomoya are like Fuuko’s mother and father, and at the end of the arc, the two start addressing each other by their first names.

Tomoya to Nagisa (sin Fuko)

Fuuko’s arc is so mind bogglingly stupid, but at the same time its absolutely delightful and charming. I think I’m good at talking about my feelings, so to wrap this up, let me do a bit of that and hope it will be compelling. Yeah, I really love Fuuko’s arc. Its so fucking silly, and I think its precisely because it feels so silly that it manages to also feel so sincere. But honestly, for this arc, I don’t have some dark personal shit that I can dig up to relate to it. I guess… I guess it feels so satisfying to watch because its so boring, its so much nothing. Just watching a little girl running around trying her hardest is entertaining enough for me, I suppose.

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anime analyses, thoughts on life and humanity and other shenanigans brought to you by John Clark

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