An excellent episode, but I'll probably be the dissenter here and say this isn't the best episode of the series to date, maybe around the third best definitely in my opinion. The best one is still episode 12 of AS.
And moving on....
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Baseball in the rain. I hate the sport with a stupid passion, but I can't imagine how difficult it must be to play that in the rain. Above anything, the challenge was really nothing more than a customary proof of determination. I doubt Akio really wouldn't have consented to letting Tomoya and Nagisa get married if he didn't hit the ball.
It's really more a trial of passage, whether or not he even hit the thing. I don't know how much proof Akio needs, but I believe all he wanted was to see just how a serious Tomoya was in asking his blessing to marry her. It was more of the multiple challenges Tomoya requested, as well as all the practice he did even in the rain just to learn how to swing better.
Akio said it best I think: "A child trying to grow up".
No doubt he still sees him as some kid trying to steal his daughter, but he definitely knows just how much growing Tomoya had already done. Baseball was merely a formality, trying to see just how much Tomoya has learned and how much he was determined to be with the woman he loved. He could have opted the child's way out, in the form of backing out, childish excuses and the like, but clearly it didn't cross his mind. He knew it was obviously impossible for him to hit that 105kph fastball with his broken arm, but if it was the only way for him to grant his wish, he'd do it even if it really was impossible.
I think Akio let him hit it, even in the game. Shoulder muscle injuries make ridiculous limits to ones arm capabilities. I'd guess he let him hit it to give him a sense of satisfaction, so that he'd have a chance to state is request for Nagisa's hand in marriage, to which Akio would have said yes to anyway. It's a guy thing lol.
"Do you like school?"
She never really definitively answered the question in episode 1, but I'm sure on the day of her mock graduation, she would have answered very differently. High school will have both some of the best and some of the worst memories one will have.
Her speech, while somewhat corny, is her vindication of sorts to the 5 years she had to spend as pretty much an outcast. Sickly, bad at making friends, awkward and clumsy, she asks herself the question on that April morning at the bottom of the hill. She is unsure of what the answer is, and she only does it so she could pull herself through the day, besides the Anpan anyway.
"Then make it fun."
She said so herself. The last 2 years of her high school life saw a drastic change in her person and her life. All because some blue haired delinquent offered to answer her rhetorical question with a challenge.
And there she finds the strength to admit on her graduation speech that somehow, despite the loneliness and isolation she had always felt, she finally felt some measure of happiness and enjoyment in her last 2 senior years. The drama club, the friends she made, the challenges she faced, the sick days she endured...
And, of course, the man she would eventually marry.
Because of Tomoya and her friends, she doesn't regret the days of ups and downs she spent in those hallways. On the final day of her wearing her uniform, she could easily say that, indeed, high school made her happy.
I don't know if it's because I've played the game, but Tomoya's father's expression of an almost empty and emotionless smile isn't really disconcerting. He had always been like that, visually at least, as far as the series and the game presented him to be. If my experiences has taught me anything, it's always these kinds of people who have a lot of things sealed away inside.
"Please take care of Tomoya."
You usually don't expect to hear the groom's father say this, almost as if to relinquish he stewardship of his son to his wife. Then again, how much of a father was he to begin with? Not much, as we tend to see.
But he gives him up to her, almost as if he's acknowledging his failure as a father, as a parent. It is almost like... penance of sorts.
I should also say that the game didn't have a wedding scene so I doubt we'll have one here. Then again, are marriages really all about tearjerking ceremonies, cake cutting and bouquet throwing? Or is it about the union of two humans in a (hopefully) unbreakable bond, beyond life, even beyond death?
And finally, I had a huge freakish smile on my face when he said she'd be "Okazaki Nagisa" from now on.
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KyotoAni can still keep the same ED for the next 2 or 3 episodes, but they definitely need to change it after that. It's going to be really out of place after then.