Clannad - Spoilers & Speculation (for experienced Clannad gamers only)

[Kang Seung Jae]

On episode 10:

Do you think they've changed the game story a bit?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by velocity7

Spoiler:

Kanon 2006 already had to fit in too much with five girls, plus Sayuri's sidestory for 24 episodes. Now we're asking five girls, plus probably Yukine and Misae's sidestories, as well as an After Story that's just as long as a girl's route, making it a total of 8 routes to cover. You do the math.

Spoiler:

So... does this mean the bet is on? Whatever they're going to fit into the anime, it'll fit into 24 episodes. Like I said before, it definitely won't be 3-cour; I doubt it'll even get an OVA. As was suggested, some stories may simply be dropped or truncated.

[Kinny Riddle]

Originally Posted by Kang Seung Jae

On episode 10:

Do you think they've changed the game story a bit?

On every episode they changed the story a bit to accommodate a single story, if you're asking.

Anyway, if you're talking about Fuuko's story. Not much, besides Fuuko being made the matchmaker between Tomoya and Nagisa by having them go on first name terms, though only Tomoya was able to break through this barrier, being the maverick that he is. Nagisa would need a little more time.

And then, the ending. In both the good and true end, Fuuko would return to school after "everyone waited" for her. It would have been awkward if Fuuko were to return at once, for that will cheapen the effect of her departure, so her ending was made open-ended, hinting that she may return one day, but not now.

[Sushi-Y]

I don't think they'll do Kyou or Tomoyo's story, not at this pace. Looking at Fuuko's story, it came to me as pretty obvious. If Kyoani wanted to give CLANNAD the same "equal weight for everyone" treatment Kanon got, then there would be no way they could finish the whole thing in 24 episodes. I'm going to agree with a speculation I read somewhere that they'll simply focus on the more significant stories (Fuuko, Kotomi, and Nagisa), while rendering everyone else as supporting roles. They have already extracted a large portion of Tomoyo's route by showing her various encounters with Tomoya and Sunohara, it would be unnatural to go any further into her route if we didn't want to stray too far from Nagisa. It's likely that they'll simply work in critical elements from these supporting characters' routes into the main characters routes, and use that to fulfill the light orb requirements one way or another.

I am almost certain they won't pull a "second season" thing. It's been proven that DVD sales almost always stagger if a series drag on for more than 7 or 8 disks, especially if it's a bishojo game-based anime.

[MaxwellDemon]

Originally Posted by Sushi-Y

I don't think they'll do Kyou or Tomoyo's story, not at this pace. Looking at Fuuko's story, it came to me as pretty obvious. If Kyoani wanted to give CLANNAD the same "equal weight for everyone" treatment Kanon got, then there would be no way they could finish the whole thing in 24 episodes. I'm going to agree with a speculation I read somewhere that they'll simply focus on the more significant stories (Fuuko, Kotomi, and Nagisa), while rendering everyone else as supporting roles. They have already extracted a large portion of Tomoyo's route by showing her various encounters with Tomoya and Sunohara, it would be unnatural to go any further into her route if we didn't want to stray too far from Nagisa. It's likely that they'll simply work in critical elements from these supporting characters' routes into the main characters routes, and use that to fulfill the light orb requirements one way or another.

I am almost certain they won't pull a "second season" thing. It's been proven that DVD sales almost always stagger if a series drag on for more than 7 or 8 disks, especially if it's a bishojo game-based anime.

That would certainly be unfortunate though. Kyou and Tomoyo are easily my favorite characters out of Clannad.

On a side note: As I have said, KyoAni is making it somewhat obvious that Kyou has something for Tomoya already. If KyoAni is planning to forfeit Kyou's route... then how are they going to explain it?

[Sushi-Y]

Originally Posted by MaxwellDemon

That would certainly be unfortunate though. Kyou and Tomoyo are easily my favorite characters out of Clannad.

On a side note: As I have said, KyoAni is making it somewhat obvious that Kyou has something for Tomoya already. If KyoAni is planning to forfeit Kyou's route... then how are they going to explain it?

Everything I said are simply speculations, nothing more. Just like how cyan-san from MOON PHASE has heard a rumor that CLANNAD won't be the 2-cours (24 episodes) that everyone believes, but actually 4-cours. It could simply be another one of those speculations about the production serial number gap between the first and normal edition DVDs.

Spoiler:

According to cyan-san, the speculation goes that the end of the 2nd cour (the 24th episode) would go as far as Nagisa's death, while the 3rd and 4th cours would be a reset where Tomoya goes after the heroine he missed as a way to collect the remaining light orbs (kind of like what happened with Akio's orb in the game).

Sounds a little farfetched, but it would be a nice solution.

[Leo_Otaku]

I think they will include tomoyo and kyou but since their routes could be summed up in small pieces.

But let's see what happens >.>

[Kinny Riddle]

For some reason, when I saw Tomoyo and Yukine standing next to each other in Kouko-san's wedding, first thing that comes to mind:

Spoiler for Tomoyo and Yukine:

Summit of the Delinquent Overlords!

[velocity7]

Originally Posted by Kinny Riddle

For some reason, when I saw Tomoyo and Yukine standing next to each other in Kouko-san's wedding, first thing that comes to mind:

Spoiler for Tomoyo and Yukine:

Summit of the Delinquent Overlords!

Quoted for truth!

Originally Posted by Sushi-Y

Spoiler:

According to cyan-san, the speculation goes that the end of the 2nd cour (the 24th episode) would go as far as Nagisa's death, while the 3rd and 4th cours would be a reset where Tomoya goes after the heroine he missed as a way to collect the remaining light orbs (kind of like what happened with Akio's orb in the game).

Sounds a little farfetched, but it would be a nice solution.

I'm taking a heavy bet on this one. CLANNAD was an ambitious project on Key's part, and so it shall for KyoAni as well. Though 4-cours is a drag, I'm more leaning towards 3.

Here are the routes that must be done, no matter what, in order for CLANNAD to be considered "complete":

Spoiler:

Fuuko
Kotomi
Nagisa
Cohabitation
Childbirth
Naoyuki <-- Tomoya's father, important
Ushio <-- Nagisa and Tomoya's daughter, also important, will lead to time reset no matter what

16 episodes left, and ignoring Fuuko now, we only have 6 routes, leaving only 2-3 episodes per part.

I'm going to bet the following will happen, if they do go 3-cour:

Spoiler:

Kotomi and Nagisa's route will both happen at the same time, probably spanning 6 episodes. Cohabitation, Childbirth, and Ushio routes will happen in the remaining 9 episodes, leading to a time reset.

In the next 13 episodes after that, we'll have Kyou and Tomoyo each take up 4 episodes, then 5 episodes for Tomoya to advance to Naoyuki's situation (would time well with us having had experience with Tomoyo's route), and then a transition to another time reset, to save Nagisa.

[Sushi-Y]

Originally Posted by velocity7

Spoiler:

Kotomi and Nagisa's route will both happen at the same time, probably spanning 6 episodes. Cohabitation, Childbirth, and Ushio routes will happen in the remaining 9 episodes, leading to a time reset.

In the next 13 episodes after that, we'll have Kyou and Tomoyo each take up 4 episodes, then 5 episodes for Tomoya to advance to Naoyuki's situation (would time well with us having had experience with Tomoyo's route), and then a transition to another time reset, to save Nagisa.

Spoiler:

Although that would mean a reset would have to occur after every route (Kyou > reset > Tomoyo > reset > Tomoya's dad (which means Nagisa has to die twice? ).

They would also have to work it into the anime in a way that's natural (making the delay of Kyou and Tomoyo's route look meaningful. For example, have Tomoya "neglect" something important about Kyou and Tomoyo the first time around), otherwise it would just look like they're pushing the 2 difficult routes to the "we'll deal with those later" corner.

Personally, I think it'll be pretty tough to pull something like that off. It would probably work better if they just bite the nail and pull out the incapatible elements from Kyou and Tomoyo's route and focus on resolving their "conflicts" to get the light orb (kind of like their Shiori approach). They could, for example, "get rid of" Kyou and Ryou by bunching them with Kappei's story, and merge Tomoyo's route with Misae's somehow.

[velocity7]

Spoiler for Warning!:

Spoiler for Last chance!:

When we do get to After Story though, I don't think Illusionary World, Chapter 11 will play right at the beginning. It'll likely play when Nagisa dies, for the emotional factor...

[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by Kinny Riddle

Below is an interesting chart that has all the character ending that you can get.

The red bar indicates that you'll end up with the girl in the ending, the farther away from the middle, the more the story feels like a moe bishoujo game.

The blue bar indicates you won't end up with the girl (or guy in Kappei and Koumura's case). The further away from the middle, the less the story feels like a bishoujo game.

(Sunohara's position is not an error, he is placed on that spot for a very good reason. )

Spoiler for Character Ending "Chart":

Spoiler for Some analysis:

Fuuko is right at the middle, because you can end up with her (true end), or you can befriend her while having Nagisa as your girl (normal end).

Nagisa, Kotomi and Yukine are more towards the middle than Tomoyo and the twins, since their stories do make mention of the light orbs and the "Illusionary World", which is the central theme of the whole story.

I still don't like the fact that Kotomi is in her position..... I say she should be between Tomoyo and Nagisa.


As for Sunohara........ his ending is a complete shocker.

Originally Posted by Kinny Riddle

On every episode they changed the story a bit to accommodate a single story, if you're asking.

Actually, I was talking about Kotomi, since episode 10 is the start of her route.

[amoirsp]

Originally Posted by Kang Seung Jae

On episode 10:

Do you think they've changed the game story a bit?

Since Kinny indirectly did not cover your question, I'll just put random inputs.

Yes, they're changed the game story a bit. Will they change it significantly, I don't know, but Kotomi's route shouldn't have much effect. If anything, it's either truncations or odd chronology.

The reason why it's changed is because the methods to meet Kotomi is in complete contrast with meeting Nagisa. Kyoani avoided this by not using emphasis on Kotomi at all, so you don't get the opportunity cost condition. The anime also ignored ditching class. It's incorporated, but certainly not emphasized. (Though I personally don't like excessive Nagisa emphasis, even if she is the most important. Sometimes it's a bit too exaggerated. In her own route she's fine, neutral/interesting in Kotomi's route, important in Fuuko's route, and pretty much irrelevant in any other route ... except Mei and certain scenarios.)

This is an emphasis on a route, therefore Kotomi will retain character focus until her route ends. However, random small things like the book cutting was supposed to be done. Kyoani decided to have Kotomi about to cut down the middle so the shock of "about to cut a page of a book in half" would warrant an immediate "hey! hey!" response. The problem with that is that it makes the actual cutting meaningless (it was supposed to be cutting the corners of the book, like making it rounded, which occurs in many books, though maybe not in that fashion.)

And of course the scenes with Kotomi are supposed to be a lot slower, but it would be way too dragged out and possibly extremely repetitive. Though after what I saw in Fuuko's route, that's entirely possible, but since they already went through a little of it, that was to fast forward introductions.

On another note if Clannad not being 2 cour isn't true, possibilities arise, but then it makes episodes 1 - 4 not make as much sense, as I thought the speed of the episodes were rather fast (on the other hand contrasting to Fuuko's route it felt too slow compared to 1 - 4, resulting in emphasis on a basis that isn't really there aka character development not really there randomly generating foreshadowing that might be missed).

Now Kyoani will likely cover the obvious points. Fortunately the episode provides a ton more than the previews, therefore I'll be like wow, episode 10 provided more than I thought. Likewise it can be utterly disappointing considering I already have gripes on some minute details that were different already, and Kotomi's total screen time doesn't even hit anywhere near half an hour. (though I played the route too many times, and I probably forgot most of the content anyways)

The irony is that Kotomi is met via ditching classes initially since at least the anime stated she's exempted from lessons, therefore she isn't in class, which is why she's in the library anyways. The point of this is that based on the anime's direction, Tomoya does so much focus on Fuuko ... and then starts ditching?! Of course chances are Kyoani ignores this and changes it into "I want to help this girl know some friends" etc etc aka initial main point.

An upside to the route is that having Nagisa around will make sense, though she won't be as important (well, Fuuko's scenario is like the only condition where Nagisa is most significant as a non-primary character if that wasn't obvious enough). I guess Kyoani thought that running Fuuko's route would generate encounters with the characters they intend to input focus on, therefore when running Kotomi's route to introduce her to some people, the momentum seems rather fitting. This just means that there isn't much conflict, but that's probably because the two scenarios are independent (Kotomi isn't in Fuuko's route, Fuuko isn't in Kotomi's route. The anime already makes this indirectly clear since if Kotomi wasn't included in Fuuko's route, just about nothing changes.)

Fortunately you can resolve just about everything in Kotomi's route. I will find it unusual if they truncate anything that isn't necessary to truncate. Good timing for it to be episode 10 too since Fuuko isn't part of Kotomi's route, and other characters have more relevance than they did in Fuuko's route (except Nagisa, who was more relevant in Fuuko's route). It also has the indirect excuse to still have the drama club around.

Like everyone stated, most of the conflict will stem from the Kyou, Tomoyo, and Nagisa imbalance. Normally an anime could run an opportunity cost scenario where choosing Nagisa makes Tomoyo or Kyou a forgone option, but since Kyoani likes to run every single route, that makes the bypass impossible.

The only way I see Kyou and Tomoyo's scenario running without too much confusion is a "Nagisa out of commission" scenario. The problem is that it makes no sense if Tomoya didn't visit Nagisa, so that doesn't work. (Although on the funny mention of the time warp with *that* condition, that does make it possible, just very weird.)

On a gripe note, there are things that happen before that episode 10 preview notice. If they truncate it, it's going to ruin some things. (Note: I'm talking about the rainy day LOL time warp! Nope, Nagisa already opportunity cost two things that occur on that day, and who knows if it's shown later. Possible, since the situations are entirely different.)

[Nerroth]

I get the feeling that if/when an arc is written for Tomoyo, it won't be anything which would leave the door open to Tomoyo After (but they would still have plenty of wiggle room if they did a TA OVA, just by saying at the start 'oh, in this timeline, he's with Tomoyo, by the way').

Spoiler for Clannad idea:

If it's the case that Tomoyo is running for the SC in part to save the sakura trees, it could be re-worked into more of a group effort - as in the members of the drama club help out with campaigning, raising awareness about the sakura, or maybe doing impromptu performances about how depressing it would be if they got cut down, etc.

Therefore, the issue of getting Tomoyo to open up more becomes something that is helped by friendships formed with the main cast, and not directly through a romance with Tomoya.

Gets the trees saved, helps Tomoyo's character develop, leaves the door open for Nagisa/Tomoya (with the odd Ryou/Kyou trouble along the way) and allows Tomoyo to see about finding one of the other decent guys that surely exist somewhere on Earth like a Keyverse version of myself, naturally...

Oh, dear - looks like the mask slipped for a moment, there!

Eh, heh heh heh...

[Kristen]

Well, it looks like they are actually doing the light thingy, since there are two lights. Unfortunately, there only seems to be room on the bottom to do 3 lights. However, they may do a triangle sort of a thing, which would be 5 lights.
I kind of think if they were going to do the lights, they wouldn't do it just 1, 2, and 3. It'd be kind of silly then.
Random hope for a 3rd cour is always fun.

[minhtam1638]

Originally Posted by ChrissieXD

Well, it looks like they are actually doing the light thingy, since there are two lights. Unfortunately, there only seems to be room on the bottom to do 3 lights. However, they may do a triangle sort of a thing, which would be 5 lights.
I kind of think if they were going to do the lights, they wouldn't do it just 1, 2, and 3. It'd be kind of silly then.
Random hope for a 3rd cour is always fun.

I was questioning the placement of the 2nd light myself. It seems to me that they will actually try to do all 13 stories.

[Kristen]

Originally Posted by minhtam2448

I was questioning the placement of the 2nd light myself. It seems to me that they will actually try to do all 13 stories.

Which I figure is absolutely impossible under the restraints of 24 episodes. It just seems most logical to me that Kyoto will do like 37-39 episodes of Clannad, and then air Haruhi on Tanabata (SP?).

[velocity7]

Did we all forget Mei? Her story is a side one, and she was shown in OP for a reason.

Don't forget Okazaki Naoyuki either. His story has to be told.

[PhantomX]

Can someone pm me the spoilers to Kotomi's arc? I haven't played the game, but I'm one of few people that really like spoilers, so I'd like to know how her story is going to progress. Thanks, appreciate it ^_^

[Joachim]

if they do play the reset, i wonder how it will be..., going back to beginning, end with kyou, reset, going back to beginning, end with tomoyo, reset... sounds well.. boring? but i have faith in kyo-ani

though i strongly support a separate ova for both tomoyo and kyou's arc, *praying strongly