Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

That is just not true! I am actually a very busy man, you know. You see, because of my overseas trip, I had to catch up on two episodes of CLANNAD, two episodes of ef ~a tale of memories~, and an episode of Gundam 00. On top of that, I have two CLANNAD articles to publish back to back due to the backlog, plus there’s the upcoming Final Critique of ef that I have to plan for……actually, never mind.

CLANNAD (TV), Episode 12.

I never did have a particularly good experience with mathematics. Unlike the stereotypical male, I’m not particularly good at them; I’m better at words than numbers, which is why I’m in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and writing about "emo stuff", quite unlike someone who studies in the Faculty of Science, has a weirdly-shaped dango with bat wings and three penises as his mascot, and has "believe in the me who believes in the me" as his official motto. Or is that "believe in the her who believes in the him"? Or is it "believe in the-"…..blah, whatever. In any case, Kotomi may be one heck of a moeblob, but I think she’s more TJ’s or LianYL’s type. These are the guys who would probably know how to appreciate a girl who can talk maths with them.

And anybody who’s late will be punished!

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Ah, yes. The typical male reaction to being dragged around by a group of girls to go shopping; I know the feeling. KyoAni’s certainly got that one right.

(If you take a look at this scene and at the next two, you’ll notice that it’s always the second person on the left who jerks his or her head up suddenly.)

Whoa. That’s one ginormous anteater. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stuffed toy THAT big……or have I? :p

(One, how did they get that anteater in that machine, and two, how do they expect that anteater to fit into the drop chute?!)

Of all the people who could possibly show up at this point in time, KyoAni chose to summon the Final Hitode Tsukai Fuuko?! WTF?!

Although, if I were to think about it, I’d say it’s one way to tell us that CLANNAD isn’t quite the same kind of "crying game" as its predecessors; Fuuko’s story itself was not particularly meant to wring out every drop of tear from the viewer, and by her unexpected appearance in this episode, I’d say it’s her way of telling us that, "oh sure my real body is in the hospital, but otherwise I’m fine, my problems are solved, and right now I’m having a ball of a time! I’m not a certain Tsukimiya-san, so you guys don’t have to cry for me! :p"

So Tomoya is starting to have strange dreams about a young girl; in the KEYverse, nay, the worlds of visual novels in general, that usually means that the protagonist has a forgotten past with a heroine. This one is pretty traumatic of a "dream of the past", though….and what’s more interesting, the abunai no jiji is in it as well! Just what is he, exactly?

Back to the present, and we see a bus overturned by what is very clearly a Nissan Skyline GT-R BNR34. It’s quite interesting how, in anime, GT-R drivers tend to be shitty drivers who loses to ’80s-era Toyota hatchbacks in street races and crash their cars every chance they get. I mean, you have to be a horrible driver indeed to mangle a car with a trick ATTESA E-TS AWD drivetrain this badly, and especially when you’re not even street racing from the looks of it.

(Is it a good or a bad thing that I feel the need the rattle off the official name of the chassis type and drivetrain of one of Japan’s most famous cars in a CLANNAD article?)

The scream that pierces hearts. I didn’t know Noto Mamiko could scream so well, but scream so well she did, and I think I skipped a heartbeat here. Really shocking to see such a calm, "my pace" lass lose her head in such a dramatic function.

What really caught my attention here was how well KyoAni animated the trauma playing across Kotomi’s face in this sequence, to the point where it is not in doubt that there’s something seriously wrong with the girl for her to regress to such a state. Seriously, this is the hardest scene in an anime I’ve had to watch thus far. Mami-chan’s scream didn’t help matters one bit with her gut-wrencher.

You’re stalking a poor innocent girl in a trenchcoat, hat and shades; it’s no wonder that you look like a perverted old geezer with improper designs on her.

Well if it’s someone like you who looks like he’s going to open that trenchcoat and flash her, no wonder she’s not gonna come out.

So the misunderstandings have been cleared up; the old man is not really an abunai no jiji, but is in fact acquainted with Kotomi’s parents. Strangely enough, he seems to know something about Kotomi’s past that he’s hiding, and for some reason, the school nurse and Kotomi’s homeroom teacher are also keeping the secret for him.

Although this line looks like an SHnY reference, the folks at TWH-Sprocket have assured me that it’s not actually the case. Apparently, Kotomi’s parents were working on some newfangled quantum physics theory called "Calabi-Yau manifold", which when translated from physics-speak to English, means that additional dimensions can be added to normal 3D space and 1D time-space, to come up with the theory that there may be alternate dimensions in this universe…….

……you know what? Let’s just tag it as "Haruhi reference" and run with it. Gives an opportunity for otakus to squee "KyoAni daisuki, aishiteru" and for certain people to complain about supposedly excessive self-referencing by the supposedly-arrogant people at the studio.

And more cryptic talk by the old man, and especially talk of forgiveness and regret. Thus we are led to wonder; just what exactly happened in Kotomi’s past, and what did her parents’ colleagues had to do with the way she turned out today?

That black butterfly’s been flitting around for half the episode, and then it leads Tomoya through the garden path. I wonder what exactly is the significance of that butterfly? It wouldn’t appear so prominently, in so many scenes, without it being importantly symbolic of something or other.

And the bombshell; Kotomi’s parents are actually no longer around. So Kotomi has been living alone all this time? Ow, man……

And Tomoya’s dreams reach full circle, with him remembering that he apparently had a past with Kotomi. This is somewhat similar with Kanon’s Yuuichi-Mai storyline…except that, as far as I can tell, a real tragedy did strike Kotomi; probably the accident that robbed Kotomi of her parents, and from the looks of the dreams, Tomoya was actually there at the scene when it happened. I really want to know more about what actually happened, but that will have to wait for next episode.

So it looks like Tomoya decides to play farmer next episode, and he’s skipping school again just to do it. But that aside, I will be eagerly waiting for next episode as usual, for it seems that the Kotomi arc is going in full swing. No more comedy; it’s heavy stuff from here on.

Unfortunately, from the annoucement on this screen and this thread, the 4:3 TBS screenings of CLANNAD will take a 2-week break. In other words, Episode 12 will be the last new episode of CLANNAD for this year; there won’t be any more until January 11 of next year.