clannad after story ending synopsis (incomplete)

The following text contains an immense amount of heavy spoilers, including the final conclusive ending of Clannad, so either suppress the desire to read ahead or just refrain from doing so entirely unless you’re willing to make that possible compromise to your experience, or if you’re already aware of the following content (or if you just don’t care).

The rough translation of the After Story is now complete (my sincerest gratitude goes to velocity7, the people at wafflehouse and those who contributed which I just cannot thank enough), and expectantly, there’s always somebody out there who’s considerate enough to recompile the scripts from the translation wiki here. And what a great ride it’s been, with all paths + the After Story complete, I am very much eager to announce that Clannad is the defining experience of drama. No, really. If you like the anime, you’re only doing yourself a disservice by skipping out on the game, so get it somehow and play it; you really won’t be disappointed.

———-

100% CG completion:

The initial part of the After Story deals with Yuusuke’s arc regarding his music career, and Sanae’s arc regarding her tutoring career respectively; the latter primarily focuses on Ushio, and is mostly portrayed with a very gloomy atmosphere. It is comprised of a fair amount of inauspicious and generally tragic events. A basic synopsis of the latter part of the After Story is as follows:

Following the calamity of Nagisa’s death shortly after giving birth to her daughter Ushio, Tomoya’s psyche begins to plunge as he distances himself from Ushio and resorts to alcohol and cigarettes, while entrusting the task of raising his daughter to Nagisa’s parents.

A few years later, Tomoya receives an invitation from Sanae to accompany herself, Akio and Ushio on a family trip out of town. Though initially reluctant at first, he eventually submits to this particular request; however, on the day of the trip, Sanae and Akio disappear. While refusing to leave at first without Nagisa’s parents, he concludes that they will not be returning anytime soon; withdrawing his decision to wait, he takes Ushio alone with him, and his conversations with her discloses the fact that she has felt very lonely. During the trip, Ushio confronts her father about Nagisa, in which he refuses to speak openly about it stating that “she should ask Sanae”. The underlying intention to deceive Tomoya was executed in an attempt to mend the ties between himself and his daughter, and to allow him the opportunity to meet Naoyuki’s (Tomoya’s father) mother; though having once met her in the past, Tomoya is unable to recall as he was too young.

Upon hearing the story of how his wife Astuko died after being dealt an unfortunate card by fate, and then subsequently sacrificing everything else in order to raise his son, Tomoya realises that his own situation mirrors the very same tragedy that had befallen his father; after experiencing the comparable pain of loss, he shows empathy towards him. During the course of the conversation with his grandmother, Tomoya begins to have an epiphany of sorts where he comes to comprehend the reality of the situation, understanding that his father does in fact love him, and ultimately realising the significance of Ushio and the importance of her existence. Ensuingly, he decides to repair the relationship with his daughter, and the broken ties with his father. Tomoya’s grandmother also states that she would like Naoyuki to come back to the countryside and live with her.

When Tomoya arrives back home, he approaches his father once again and ascends above the superficial perspective he had of him, allowing both father and son the ability to truly open up to each other. Naoyuki concedes, and responds by removing the “-kun” suffix as to address Tomoya simply by his name alone. After their relationship is mended, Naoyuki leaves town to return to his mother. Tomoya sees him off as a form of acknowledgment that Naoyuki has done his best to raise him, and that he was truly grateful.

As the time passes, Tomoya begins to accompany Ushio as she commutes to and from kindergarten, where he once again meets up with Kyou, and hearing that she now works there as Ushio’s class teacher. Kyou sympathises with Tomoya and offers him her condolences as she had heard the details about Nagisa’s tragedy beforehand. Soon after, it is revealed that Fuuko had been discharged from hospital in addition to completing her rehabilitation. Tomoya takes his daughter to the Furukawa Bakery where he meets Akio; he tells him that Sanae is at the park with a friend, though he is skeptical at first and assumes she ran off crying. Tomoya meets Sanae at the park where he also meets Yuusuke, Kouko and Fuuko. Kouko announces that she is Yuusuke’s fiance and they will soon wed, much to Tomoya’s surprise. Fuuko also takes a special liking to Ushio; she later visits her apartment to play with her, and the two develop a bond.

Shortly after, Ushio falls prey to a fever in which the diagnosis indicates that her condition is just like Nagisa’s. Winter comes, and as the bedridden Ushio’s state begins to degrade severely, Tomoya quits his job to look after her. She then professes that she wishes to travel with her father once more. Tomoya grants Ushio’s request, and as her health starts to rapidly decline, he embraces her once again, and the illusionary world is shown* revealing its nature. It is implied that Ushio has died.

———-

I think if I were left with a conclusion like that, I would be very much inclined to inflict bodily harm on myself in the hopes of terminating my life; thankfully the geniuses at KEY are capable of exhibiting mercy on my currently-fragile mind. There are two endings to the After Story; the first ending (more commonly known as the “Bad Ending”) must to be viewed first as a prerequisite in order to collect all the light orbs required to unlock the True Ending. If you manage to collect all 13 orbs, with the last one likely to be Akio’s, then the true ending becomes available. The true ending is the final culmination of Nagisa’s arc, and consummation of the Clannad game as a whole. Basic synopsis is as follows:

After Ushio is born, Nagisa is thought to have passed away; however Tomoya sees a vision* of Nagisa at the bottom of the hill where they first met. She humbly requests that he not regret having ever met her, despite all the painful events that ensued. Tomoya responds by acknowledging her request, stating that he shall stand tall and live on, proceeding to then ask her to climb the slope once again with him; Nagisa gives him a positive response, and the strength of the 13 light orbs converge. Nagisa wakes up and thanks Tomoya for never letting go of her hand the entire time; the true game credits then roll, with illustrations depicting Tomoya, Nagisa and Ushio living happily.

To view the full true end:

*The world of Clannad has many different parallel universes which mirror each character’s route in the game. In the illusionary world, the light orbs are actually manifestations of a person’s happiness in the normal world. Near one of the endings, Ushio states that she is/will become this world’s (referring to the illusionary world) consciousness, meaning that she is essentially that world as a whole. By obtaining all the light orbs, it means that everybody found happiness, and Ushio was able to be born safely. I’ll elaborate more on it sometime if I’m not feeling too lazy, but that’s just my take on it for now; a brief overview, if ye will.

After the credits roll, a scene with Fuuko and Kouko speaking to each other is shown. Even though it is mostly humorous, with the conversation centering upon her demeanor and her comedic side, it eventually leads to the game’s final monologue by Fuuko.

“Are you there?”
“I’m Fuuko.”
“What would your name be? Please tell me.”
“Become friends with Fuuko and we’ll play together. The fun times are… going to begin from now on.”

That was a very rough translation from the voice patch, but it’s all I could make out of it because those particular lines do not conform with most of the game engine in regards to standardised text, and so it was not translated. It’s a fairly literal translation, and thus does not convey the exact semantics of the dialog, but you get the idea. The context of the last scene implies that she is talking to Ushio.

Got anything you’d like to say? Leave a comment down below!

~ by Espydon on 28 February, 2008.