Oh man, it's been so long since I wrote anything of substance in this subforum.
But yea, It's so unfortunate I'm so god damned lazy with Visual Novels; I'm really not into that medium. I guess I'll have to promise to play Tomoyo After when it gets translated to finally cement myself as a fanboy perhaps.
Though recently, when skimming through Clannad for a new avatar I got reminded of a few things about why she ranks so highly for my character favorites.
In any case, I felt that she was clearly the best character from any Key series to leave an impression. She doesn't seem to be prone to cry over everything (except those things that matter) and actually manages to have a will of her own. Though I find it odd that Key always makes side characters more interesting than their leads. No hate for Ayu or Nagisa or anything, it's just the way it appears, and it's pretty amazing that Clannad AS managed out to turn out that well.
So, Tomoyo kinda breaks the mold by being someone that doesn't need to have a guy come and save him. She doesn't need to, even if she wants to.
The other thing is the utter aura of confidence that shows up frequently on characters that I like a lot. But it's not just plain arrogance to cover insecurity like someone such as Kuroneko. She's confident about her abilities and simply does not give a shit. Something else that kills me is her utter bluntness and use of logic that makes everyone else feel stupid.
Provoke others into attacking and win! Great strategy.
Well, she kinda does. And as said earlier in the thread, it's one of those meh things that gets required because of anime. She wants to be more feminine blah blah blah. I suppose it's kinda cute though; but it just doesn't work out. Though I do like how the anime kinda suggests she'd be more successful if she just does it her own way.
And of course, the character design KyoAni did was just spectacular; she just looks utterly imposing even with the long hair and stature even if she's not even that big herself.
In essence, she become some kind of standard where my favorite characters are derived from. She has the determination and dorky cute but somehow cool aura that Mai and Homura possess; She has the intelligence and not afraid to use it to bully people like Kuroneko, the maturity through hardship of the likes of Rin Tohsaka and Misato Katsuragi, and the battle elegance and good heart of Fate Testarossa.
But a character is not just the sum of their traits, but how they combine together to create the character.
And it's not done in the sense of way of "this character is perfect, you should worship her" such as the likes of Kanade. Tomoyo is simply more believable because of her conflict and flaws. Some characters manage to do that on their own instead of being constantly shoved down our throats (Hi, Kirino)
Even though her character was watered down due to the nature of the anime, it just didn't take that long to become a fan.
