blog好き

Dec 16 2006

Categories: anime, episodic review, kanon, spoilers
Tagged: kanon

13 Comments »

A frenemy indeed!

FINAL WARNING: Spoilers ahead! If you don’t want spoilers, visit the non-spoiler version!

I was reading the latest issue of Time, and I did a double-take when I saw something like “Obama is John McCain’s best and worst frenemy.” Even Time is using this neologism. I always felt that despite being about sad girls in the snow, Kanon is too happy. Irregardless of the ending, no true sadness waits for the girls. And maybe it’s a good thing that Nayuki doesn’t hook up with her cousin. Still, there’s really no real tension between the girls, and Nayuki will even make the sacrifice to help Ayu and Yuuichi meet once again. I guess the point of h-games and anime is to abstract us away from real life issues and idealize the world, but I also think that their purpose is to entertain. As from what 90210, The OC, The Hills, Melrose Place, and Dawson’s Creek has taught us, it’s that jealousy and love triangles can be pretty damn entertaining as well.

I hope that Nayuki and Ayu get a chance to meet Sayuri and Mai in this remake… something that didn’t happen before. Kanon‘s kinda odd in that respect in that the haremettes don’t actually interact much with each other, each on their own island.

Anyway, since Mai’s arc is fairly straightforward, I’ll just do a quick discussion from Kanon 10 (Spoilers).

That said, I’m kinda annoyed that anime adapations feel a necessity to go through every story scenario when the “canon” story is just a single one of them that has minor overlaps. This is especially the case with Kanon… I’m probably the only one here that actually really wanted to see KyoAni do Kanon before another Haruhi, but Makoto, Shiori, and Mai will have next to zero importance in the final arc. Like AIR, Kanon is several side stories and one important one, so why are we doing this awkward mishmash of 4 again, KyoAni? /mutter (Oh, money, right.) – omoroiyarou

I rather that they do a mishmash than reboots after every fourth episode. Still, I do agree that we need new blood. We’ve seen the Ayu path before. Give us something new and end with the Nayuki path or even the Jun path. Anything. As I said many times before, jealousy, boxcutters, and catfights are perfectly acceptable and encouraged.

(Or at least have a poll to decide which girl’s path to pick.)

The Makoto arc I find really creates sympathy and overall good feelings towards Yuuichi that is inevitably going to complicate things when he dumps Nayuki. – serotonin

Nayuki doesn’t really get dumped. It’s more of Yuuichi making a choice and not picking his cousin, which may actually work out well since unlike Kozue-chan, Nayuki’s a first cousin (I think). Nayuki was also the one who gives up on Yuuichi, giving him that farewell kiss– then telling him where Ayu really is. Then in Kazehana, the two sat down no the swing set, and she was still in disbelief that she gave up Yuuichi to a girl in a coma. Poor Nayuki.

After reading this, I’m quite convinced to finish the rest of it, wherever it may go. – Taitos

Kanon, by no means, is heavyweight. After watching an episode of Mushishi or Kino’s Travels, I have to let it sit and digest. Kanon, well, I usually just wonder, “Okay, Code Geass time!” I think the purpose of Kanon is just the moe mode of sad girls in snow. Just like how we don’t take Keroro’s attempts to conquer Pekopan seriously, we shouldn’t take the “sadness” of Kanon seriously. In the end, all the girls end up relatively happy.

I think Nayuki’s role is also important as a contrasting element to the other girls, Ayu especially. Nayuki is the girl that is always left behind, with whom Yuuichi never keeps his promises. – AC

Nayuki is arguably the girl who gets the least happy ending in Ayu’s scenario, but hers is the forbidden love and is also family. My feeling has always been that she eventually realizes that she and Yuuichi just can’t happen in this world unless they move to West Virginia so her telling Yuuichi about Ayu is her way of moving on. She needs to. Too good of a girl to be wasted on Yuuichi anyway.

Ayu being alive just negated all of the powerful emotions that the scene of her parting with Yuichi brought up. I am not sure if the new series can actually fix that. – Lana

Unfortunately, this is basically the opposite of Grey’s Anatomy where people seemingly get better… and then suddenly something tragic happens. Like, oh, someone miraculously recovers from cancer… just to have his wife get run over by a truck when they leave the hospital. That show is the Anti-Kanon. Remember, the base material for Kanon isn’t a chick flick– it’s about a guy trying to score with the women folk. I just think you’re going to sell more copies of that game if the girls are alive and happy rather than sickly and dead.

Despite the sadness, Kanon‘s just not built as shoujo. I think all the games that Yuuichi plays this episode (such as the “That last part is unnecessary” et al) are more in line with the spirit of Kanon than tear jerkers. While Makoto’s story does have sadness, she’s one out of five girls. Mai’s story is much less gloomy (fun and melonpanriffic even), as is Shiori’s. As for Ayu and Nayuki, Nayuki’s is realistic while Ayu… well… I don’t see it much differently than the first 20 minutes of Onegai Teacher. Though I still don’t understand what Yuuichi is thinking… I can understand why he would pass on Nayuki, Shiori, and Makoto, but to pass on the Mai and Sayuri tag team for Ayu? That’s like passing up hawt, steamy threesomes for a girl who has been in a coma for the past seven years and is so mentally behind, higher order speech is “Uguu~” for her. Oh, wait, it is passing up hawt, steamy threesomes for Ayu. Just remember, Kanon‘s originally an h-game… not a shoujo manga.

I just want to see Nayuki tormenting Yuuichi by making dozens of snow rabbits and smashing them to bits in front of him, over and over again. – Eleutheria

Yep, these are my readers.