藤林杏 (Fujibayashi Kyou)

"You wanna repeat that? If you do it, I'll reward you by sticking my hand down your throat and ripping out your vocal cords."

Fujibayashi Kyou is an often-present minor character who has extra prominence in roughly Episodes 15-18 in Clannad. She never has a fully-developed plot arc for herself: the closest would be her relationship with her sister, Ryou.

(I am aware that Kyou has her own Alternate World episode in After Story; however, since I am focused on how these characters relate to the main plot, I will not be incorporating that episode, nor Tomoyo's for her post. These may be discussed in a separate post later on.)

Personality

Kyou is a high school senior and a punitive class representative with a quick temper (possible anger issues?), a knack for manipulation, some jealousy, and a feeling of protectiveness over her younger sister. Her temper is often linked with her protectiveness to her sister: whenever anything seems threatening to Ryou, Kyou steps in with a flying side kick or an aerodynamic throw of a textbook. For instance, when Sunohara tries to get Ryou to be his fake girlfriend, she becomes distressed, at which point Kyou appears to deal out some punishment on Sunohara. Her manipulation is usually used on either Tomoya or Ryou, for the purpose of getting them together (at least, that's the overt purpose). Though she usually takes out her anger on Tomoya and Sunohara, she has a little friendly loyalty to them as well: when some basketball players criticize her for being the team leader of "bottom-of-the-barrel guys" like them, she gets loyally angry (although part of it might also be defending her own reputation). Besides protecting friends, her sister, and her reputation, she also gets angry out of jealousy over Tomoya (to be explained more below). Overall, her angry, somewhat manipulative, yet still fraternally protective personality (which all seems a bit of a strange fit with her light, dance-ish theme song, "Like the Wind") is shown well in her first appearance:

On a side note: she's also protective of her and Ryou's pet, a baby boar named Botan (who is tied for the cutest pet in the show...at least while she's young).

Story

In the back story extra episode of After Story, we see that Kyou has always had a pretty violent relationship with Tomoya and Sunohara. Her first onscreen appearance is no different in her throwing a book at Tomoya. As seen in the clip above, we first see Kyou stepping in to defend her sister (although I'm not exactly sure what she's defending her from...). Throughout the first 14 episodes or so of Clannad, she is mostly a humorous background character: she especially likes to beat on Tomoya and Sunohara when they do anything stupid or (intentionally or not) pick on her sister. She's one of the people who receives a starfish from Fuko, she helps out with planning Kotomi's violin recital (using her imposing reputation among students to force them to show up...and buy earplugs from her), she works hard on obtaining the violin and getting it repaired for Kotomi's birthday, she helps in cleaning up Kotomi's yard, and she (at least nominally) joins the drama club. One of her most notable moments during these episodes occurs after running over Tomoya with her bike. There's a humorous exchange about the words "bike" and "bi" (it's easier to watch than explain).

Her first real major moment occurs when the drama club is trying to get an advisor. They cannot become an official club without a faculty advisor, so they try to get Koumura-sensei (who helped a bit with Kouko and Yoshino's wedding) to be their advisor. Unfortunately, the reforming choir club wants him as an advisor as well, and traditionally he's always been the choir club's advisor. So the drama club (mainly Sunohara, through Yukine's suggestion) decides to hold a basketball game against the school's basketball teams to get the choir club to give up Koumura. Kyou, with her assertive personality, becomes the team leader and leads her, Sunohara, and Tomoya to victory.

Even though the choir club agrees to share Koumura, the student council won't allow it, thus stalling the formation of the drama club. At the same time, Nagisa falls sick at school and most rest at home for a few days. Kyou sees this as her chance. Both she and Ryou are attracted to Tomoya, and, being the loving sister she is, she sets up many opportunities for Tomoya to see how great Ryou is while Nagisa is away. This involves many lunch dates and such things. But even though she is working to get Ryou and Tomoya together, she still feels a longing for him.

This is made apparent after Tomoya uses one of Yukine's charms. The charm's effect is to get a someone locked in a gym equipment storage room with the person of his or her choice. He does not realize this until he is in the middle of the charm, and he picks Kyou, thinking she'll be a safe choice. The charm ends up working, leading to a very awkward scene:

Even though Kyou is thinking about Ryou, it is obvious she also has powerful feelings for Tomoya: even more powerful than Ryou!

Following this scene, where Tomoya (implicitly) rejects her feelings for him, Kyou keeps trying to get Ryou and Tomoya together, by taking them out to an arcade with a love fortune-telling machine and by bringing food to his house when he's suspended. All her ploys to try to get Tomoya to focus on her or Ryou fail, though, as is obvious as a tennis match where Nagisa is injured by a stray ball. When someone else tries to help Nagisa up, Tomoya reacts rather violently, and he walks her to help himself. At that point, Kyou and Ryou realize whom he has chosen, and they break into tears.

Following this, Kyou once again becomes a strong background character. She is present as the drama club manages to get everything together and put on their show. She's around during Sunohara's arc in After Story, and she shows up at Nagisa's graduation, and again at the New Year's Party, mentioning how far ahead in life it feels like Nagisa and Tomoya are. After high school, she becomes a kindergarten teacher (which seems at odds with her personality), and she ends up, by a twist of fate, becoming Ushio's teacher (and a kind one at that!). We last see her during the final episode montage, congratulating one of her student's on the paper hat he created...a far cry from her early, angry, book-throwing days.

And a side note on Botan: she's around as comic relief throughout the series, and she's even present when Kyou is a teacher...although she looks a lot scarier!

Effect on Main Plot

Her effect is less blatant than the characters I've previously covered. There is nothing supernatural in Kyou's story: no lights or having a body in a coma. The only slight connection would be her helping out with Nagisa's play (which seems to be a story about the invisible world).

She builds up Tomoya and Nagisa's relationship accidentally. I don't think she ever intentionally tries to get them together (at least, not before her collapse into tears at the tennis match). Instead, she's more of a test for Tomoya. When Nagisa is away, will Tomoya stay loyal to her? Is their relationship even strong enough yet for loyalty, or is it just a friendship? While Tomoya is often asked if he is dating someone and always responds in the negative, in truth he is already committed to Nagisa, covertly. He never made a promise to Nagisa or asked her out, but he still feels a connection to her: when she's resting at home, he can't get her out of his head. Even when Kyou tries to get him together with Ryou, he doesn't even seem to notice her intentions. And even when locked in a gym closet with her, when she is hinting about him having sex with her, he doesn't even fathom it. It seems like a sign of an implicit loyalty to Nagisa to me, and in the end it helps him realize that she, not Kyou or Ryou, is the girl for him. So Kyou helps us realize Tomoya's fidelity. Not only that, but it also shows us his chastity: he doesn't have sex with her, even when she uses her "feminine wiles," to some extent.

Themes

The main theme I see with Kyou is family. It's obvious she loves her sister, to the point of being (very) over-protective of her. That can be seen, not only in her frequent physical rebuffs to Sunohara's actions (and less frequent rebuffs to Tomoya's), but also in the fact that she works to get her sister together with Tomoya. Her sisterly love isn't perfect, though: when she's locked in the closet with Tomoya, she thinks about Ryou, but she doesn't reject the possibility of sex with him for her sake. I've heard some say that this shows Kyou's attempts to get Ryou and Tomoya together were really just a way to let out her personal desires for Tomoya. While there might be some truth to that, I still feel that there's some sisterly love in Kyou, however imperfect.

Besides that, I don't see many themes involved with her. There's not really too much self-sacrifice, besides helping out with Kotomi's party and the drama club. There's some perseverance involved with the Ryou and Tomoya ordeal, though, and some signs of mature perseverance as well: even though it is obvious that Tomoya has rejected Kyou's feelings for him (though not in a very harsh way), she doesn't avoid him, but is still able to be his friend.

Reflection

Though Kyou is the favorite character of some of my friends, I've never felt too connected to her. She just seemed like a loud, angry, and manipulative girl that I'd be a little wary to be friends with. I've heard she's more likable in her alternate world episode, which, I must admit, I've never gotten the motivation to watch. She's been described as a tsundere character: someone who starts off hot-headed and angry but turns out to be (at least to an extent) gentle and caring underneath. I can see that a bit in her main plot (after all, her kindergarten teacher self doesn't resemble her high school self too much), but overall I just never really connected with her. Although I still think the awkwardness of the locker room scene is hilarious, I saw her more as a comic relief character that tried to get in the way of Nagisa and Tomoya's relationship. Some people see her as more than that, but to each his or her own; at least she turned out alright as a kindergarten teacher.

Thank you for reading. God Bless, and peace.

Nota Bene: All clips are from the Clannad Central YouTube channel run by the Clannad (クラナド/Kuranado) fan page on Facebook. All character themes and other music from the show can also be found on said fan page, in the music player. My gratitude to them and all the work they do.

一ノ瀬ことみ (Ichinose Kotomi)

"The day before yesterday, I saw a rabbit. Yesterday, a deer. Today, you."

Ichinose Kotomi is the subject of the second minor arc of Clannad: her arc runs between Episodes 10 and 14, roughly.  After that, she exists mostly in the background, as a part of Tomoya and Nagisa's group of friends, and she never really becomes prominent again, except for one scene in the middle of After Story.

(Be prepared: this post is long!)

Personality

Kotomi is a high school senior (as are most of the school characters in Clannad), and she is basically a perfect example of a quiet genius girl.  Her impressive intelligence is made apparent immediately, and it shows itself forth in numerous instances (such as when she bats).  Her shyness is also very obvious.  She spends most of her time in the library, before Tomoya drags her out into the sunlight, and she suspects everyone she meets of being a bully.  Social skills are not her strong suit: she often uses strict, memorized phrases when first talking with a new person (like Nagisa, Kyou, Ryou, etc.), and even after that, her capacity for banter and casual conversation are somewhat limited.  It's not hard for her to talk over people's heads, though.  Kotomi has two passions: studying and playing violin.  The former she is a master at; the latter is more to be classified as aural torture than music, usually (although good violin playing is present in her chamber orchestra theme, "Étude Pour les Petites Supercordes"). 

That's Kotomi in a nutshell: a quiet genius with a distinct lack of casual social skills and a passion for studying and playing violin.

Her social skills and violin playing are readily apparent in this scene:

Story

We first meet Kotomi when Tomoya walks into the library and finds her sitting on the floor, surrounding by very academic books, about to take a pair of scissors to one of them.  After an awkward conversation, Kotomi bids farewell to Tomoya, at least for the time being.  Besides receiving a starfish from Fuko (and demonstrating impressive scientific knowledge about it), she does not really appear again until Episode 10, the episode following Fuko's arc.  After a humorous incident in which Sunohara tries to ask Kotomi on a date and fails, Tomoya begins to talk with her, and he learns how she is basically friendless.  Thus starts the quest of "Tomoya-kun" to gain friends for Kotomi.  (She adds the -kun honorific to Tomoya's name.  This honorific is used to show either closeness (such as between very good friends, childhood friends, or those dating/married) or an attitude of an elder speaking to a younger person (such as a teacher to a student, or a boss to an employee).  Neither meaning is fit for someone your own age you've just recently met!) 

Tomoya introduces Kotomi to all his friends, and, as she is somewhat forced into Nagisa's drama club, she begins to gain at least some social ability.  That is, until she decides she can play the violin.  Her skills cause aural pain to those around her, but her new friends are still kind enough to put on a recital for her.

The fun and games don't last long, though.  Kotomi has a couple encounters with a mysterious man that she calls "the bad man."  And following a scare in which the group of friends think Ryou has been seriously injured in a bus accident, Kotomi goes into a nervous breakdown and locks herself in her home.  Meanwhile, "the bad man" continues to appear.

Tomoya and the gang learn that Kotomi's birthday is fast approaching, so they decide to help her celebrate.  Nagisa, Kyou, and Ryou try to obtain a violin for Kotomi, but it is broken by a runaway driver and must be repaired.  Meanwhile, Tomoya (with later help from the other three) works on renovating Kotomi's yard: pulling weeds, planting grass, rebuilding the flower bed, rearranging furniture.  As he is working, Tomoya keeps getting a nagging feeling that the yard is familiar...and finally he has a revelation.  Tomoya was Kotomi's childhood friend.  He accidentally ran into her yard one day chasing butterflies, and they became friends.  Everything was happy for a while, until Kotomi's birthday rolled around.  Her parents had to leave on an urgent business trip, and Tomoya was supposed to bring friends to a party.  Unfortunately, his friends didn't want to come to a girl's party, so he was too ashamed to go, and Kotomi was left alone...until the "bad man" showed up, that is.  He was a work associate of Kotomi's parents, and he came to tell her that her parents had died in a plane crash, losing a valuable manuscript in the process.  He wanted to look for an extra copy of that manuscript in the house.  Kotomi panicked and found what she thought was the copy he wanted in her dad's study, and she quickly burned it.  This started a large fire, though, that Tomoya (who eventually got up the courage to visit her alone) and the bad man came and put out for her.  Kotomi then learns that what she burned was not the manuscript, but a catalog her parents were looking through to find a teddy bear for her birthday.  After that, she truly became a social recluse.

(See Kotomi's side of the story here, and Tomoya's side here.)

Jump back to the present.  Tomoya and the others finally convince Kotomi to leave her house, and they force her to listen to what the bad man has to say.  He's brought a briefcase that was her parents'.  It turns out this briefcase survived the crash and travelled around the world to her (in either a miraculous or cynically impossible way).  Inside is a teddy bear she requested for her birthday and a letter from her parents.  Kotomi's joy is incandescent as she receives that final message from her parents.



Thus, after her birthday party, ends Kotomi's arc.  After that, she is mainly a background character.  She has her humorous moments, like all background characters, but she doesn't really have any major moments, except for during the New Year's party in After Story.  When all the friends visit Tomoya and Nagisa for New Year's, Kotomi explains her continuation of her parent's work (detailed below in the "Effect on the Main Plot" section) while she has been in America (where she went to study after high school).  The final shot of Kotomi is her wearing sunglasses driving a fast convertible down a winding highway, her hair blowing in the wind.

Effect on the Main Plot

While Fuko helped bring Nagisa and Tomoya closer together, Kotomi didn't really do that.  Sure, the two helped out with planning for Kotomi's birthday, but that didn't bring them too much closer together.  Instead, Kotomi helped build, or, rather, reveal, Tomoya's character.

Along with the building of Nagisa and Tomoya's relationship, the main plot of Clannad also involves the exploration and development of both of their characters.  Kotomi's arc is an example of the exploration of Tomoya's character.  The arc starts to show us Tomoya's childhood: he was a kid who ran around chasing butterflies, and he ran across this strange violin-playing girl one day.  We see how easy it is for Tomoya to make friends (which is a trait he carries, at least to an extent, in the present day as well).  We see how he at first gives up on things when facing challenges (like being ridiculed for wanting to go to Kotomi's party), but in the end he gets past them (not only going to her house, but helping save her from a fire as well).

These aspects are shown in the present day too: he perseveres in landscaping her yard, even when it seems the task will be impossible.  This is also tied into Tomoya's loyalty and devotion to his friends, shown in both his childhood and the present day.  In the end, then,Kotomi's arc helps reveal Tomoya's character: the childhood flashbacks show us that many of his character traits have been with him his whole life.  (By the way, the fact that they were childhood friends is why Kotomi was justified in calling him "Tomoya-kun"...even if he didn't remember this fact.)

The second area where Kotomi impacts the plot is in the realm of the ending and the invisible world.  Though we first saw one of the lights during Fuko's arc, they become much more obvious during Kotomi's.  When she opens the briefcase from her parents and realizes just how much they loved her, the air is filled with lights (again, the lights will be explained in detail in a later post).

Besides the lights, we also gets hints into the invisible world through Kotomi's story.  In her childhood, it is shown that her parents were researching a supposed "hidden world" that was different from our world yet somehow integrally connected.  Her father thinks of the world as consisting of countless invisible harps that when sounded in their individual sounds create a single melody, which explains the beauty of the world (hence Kotomi's name, according to her father: "koto" is the Japanese word for harp).  Her father's words (as relayed by Kotomi) also help explain the "magical" nature of the show: "Those who seek out the truth must not be arrogant.  You must not laugh at miracles just because they cannot be explained scientifically.  You must not turn away from the beauty of this world."  Her mother's words, on the other hand, express the theme of family better: they will be explained below.

At the New Year's party in After Story (a very thematically interesting scene), Kotomi tries to explain the "hidden world" theory using quantum mechanics and theoretical physics.  When that fails, she resorts to the simple explanation that it is somehow connected to our world, even though her parents thought it was a world we could neither see nor feel.  "Time, space, and people's consciousness interact in mysterious ways to change both worlds or create new worlds," she says.  The invisible world could interact with our world: it's truly unknown, because the world has many mysterious aspects.  The "many worlds" theory also comes up in this discussion.

Though all the theoretical discussion is interesting, I think the most important aspect of this is that when Kotomi is talking about the hidden world in After Story, Tomoya has flashes of memory involving Nagisa's play (whose plot is based on the invisible world) and the invisible world itself.  That solidifies it: the Ichinoses' research does investigate the invisible world we've been seeing.

To summarize, then, Kotomi affects the main plot by revealing more of Tomoya's character and by offering insights into the show's magical nature and the nature of the invisible world.

Themes

Again, family is the main theme of Clannad, and it is very present in Kotomi's arc.  Her arc truly revolves around the effect that the loss of her parents (and, in a different way, her childhood friend) had on her.  It is very apparent that she loved her parents deeply, and they loved her.  Her mother's words to her as a child resound as a statement of the importance of family: “Remember, what’s important is always very simple…You are Mother and Father’s most cherished treasure.”  That familial love is important in everyone's life; without that love, it can be hard to truly become a mature person.  Maybe that's one why Kotomi is such a reserved person: the loss of her parents.  In her childhood, she has a good friend that she plays with, and her violin skills are actually pleasing to the ear.  After the death of her parents, though, her entire life becomes devoted to studying so she can follow her parents' footsteps and collecting every reference to them ever written.  She loves her parents to the point of obsession, and their loss truly devastated her.  In the end, familial love is important.  Without it, our development into mature persons is slowed, if not stopped altogether.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Kotomi loves her parents to the point of obsession.  This brings up the theme of perseverance.  Kotomi's obsession with her parents is partly due to true familial love and partly due to an inability to get over the tragedy of their death.  That is why she has her father's study plastered with clippings of newspapers and books that mention them (hence her cutting of books in the library and bookstore).  This started with just clippings related to their deaths.  The closed off room full of clippings and the spot where she burned the catalog represent her mental state in a way: just as she locks herself into that room, she has also locked herself into the tragedy of her past.  Thanks to the efforts of her new friends and the reception of her parents' briefcase, though, Kotomi is able to leave that room, both physically and mentally.  I've always loved the words of her parents' letter to her: "The world is beautiful. Even if you're full of tears and sadness, open your eyes. Do what you want to do. Be what you want to be. Find friends. Don't be in a hurry to grow up. Take your time."  These words are a stellar example of perseverance: even when tragedy is all you know, open your eyes and move ahead.  The world is beautiful.

There's some self-sacrifice present too, in that Kotomi's friends gave up lots of their time in helping make her party the best it could be, and her parents gave up the sum of their entire careers (the manuscript) in order to send one last message to their daughter.

The supernatural is present here in terms of the lights that appear when Kotomi receives her briefcase and the investigations into the invisible world.

Another theme in Clannad is the influence of the past on the present.  To be more specific, you could say the influence of childhood.  The tragedy in Kotomi's childhood kept her imprisoned for many years, yet there were still joyous aspects of her childhood that continued into her adult life: for instance, her love of the violin and her dedication to her parent's work.  We also see that aspects of Tomoya's childhood personality are still present in his older self (see the "Effect on the Main Plot" section for details).  I think this idea can be summed up in the sentence from Robert F. Young's story "The Dandelion Girl" that Kotomi quotes: "The day before yesterday, I saw a rabbit.  Yesterday, a deer.  Today, you."  This sentence is what clicks Tomoya's mind into remembering his childhood friendship with Kotomi. 

Reflection

Kotomi's arc always struck a chord with me.  Besides the main storyline of Nagisa and Tomoya, her arc is my favorite.  I've always felt like I connected with Kotomi.  Maybe it's because I used to be an overly quiet, studious person, maybe it's because I understand what it's like to lose a parent at a young age.  Either way, I've always felt her story was powerful.  I've especially always loved her parents' words: they've inspired me since I first heard them (which is why I quoted them in full above).  The comparison of the world to a flowing melody, the beauty of the world, the necessity of family, friends, and perseverance...it's all extremely beautiful to me.

I also think there's an implicit theme in here as well: the transience of friendship.  While friendships can last for a lifetime, most of them pass away; at the very least, they grow colder in intensity.  Sometimes this happens because of tension or conflict, and sometimes it's just a gradual passing away.  I think both of these can be seen in Kotomi.  First of all, her friendship with Tomoya came to an abrupt halt after her parents' death psychologically wrecked her.  That's an end due to tension (though not tension between the two of them).  Second of all, after their friendship is restarted in high school, during the arc, it slowly drifts apart.  Kotomi very much becomes a background character at the conclusion of her arc.  Though she retains her individuality, the intensity of her friendship with Tomoya dissipates.  Some of my friends have complained about the fact that Kotomi disappears into the background after her arc, but I think it's a sadly realistic thing: I've had that happen to me many times.  I went through 5 or so groups of good friends in my first year of college.  I'd have a great, pretty intense friendship with a group for a while, and then we'd slowly drift apart, and I'd eventually merge into another group, and the process would repeat.  So I think Kotomi's arc is realistic in that way.

Overall, I do believe that I love Kotomi's arc, and I think it's a powerful tale that adds to Clannad's themes and helps reveal Tomoya's character.  So now we end with a look at the final glimpse of Kotomi in the After Story montage during "Chiisana Te No Hira," as she drives off into the (most likely American) sunset...

Thank you for reading.  God Bless, and peace.

Nota Bene: All clips are from the Clannad Central YouTube channel run by the Clannad (クラナド/Kuranado) fan page on Facebook. All character themes and other music from the show can also be found on said fan page, in the music player. My gratitude to them and all the work they do.

伊吹風子(Ibuki Fuko)

"Fuko has an average Earthling's thought process! Fuko's neighbors often say Fuko is a very normal Earthling!"

Ibuki Fuko (yes, I use the Japanese name order, just because I can) is the subject of the first minor arc (because I refer to all arcs besides Nagisa's and Tomoya's as minor, even if they are important)  in Clannad. Her arc runs between Episodes 2 and 9 (roughly); after that, she is only seen intermittently in occasional "Fuko Ninja" moments (like the one the picture is from), until the last quarter or so of After Story.

(Since Fuko is an important character, this post is long: be prepared!)

Personality

Fuko, personality-wise, is a quirky, hyper, stubborn, often childish high school sophomore (in Japan, high school is three years rather than four, as it is in America, so a high school sophomore is a first-year student). She believes starfish (hitode) are the cutest things on the face of the planet. This belief is so adamant she gets into a short fight with Nagisa over which is cuter: starfish or dango (watch it here). If she's around starfish or starfish-shaped objects, she can go into a trance because she cannot handle the cuteness (as in the beginning of this scene). Her childish stubbornness that her views are right, even when there is evidence to the contrary, can lead to physical pain (like when Tomoya keeps getting her to hit her cut hands because she won't admit that they hurt). When meeting someone for the first time, she will quickly make a judgement of them, a judgement that is often very persistent (as when she refers to Tomoya as "the person whose existence is weird" or immediately takes on Nagisa as a friend). That being said, she is also impulsive, such as her sprinting into the forest in the final scene of After Story. Her childishness can often lead to day dreaming; for instance, she imagines many strange ways to inform the school that the sculptures she passes out are starfish. Amidst all the quirkiness, hyperactivity, stubbornness, and childishness, she has some maturity, most evidently shown in her devoted love to her sister, represented in the starfish sculptures (to be explained below).

In summary, then, Fuko is an exemplar of childishness (which her character theme, "Hurry, Starfish," portrays well), yet with some mature family loyalty also.

To see Fuko's personality in action, here is her first appearance:

Story

We first meet Fuko as a strange girl alone in an empty room after school, carving some sort of star-shaped object with a chipped knife (as we in the scene above). Tomoya finds her there and takes the knife to keep her safe. Later she finds him eating lunch outside with Nagisa and pesters him to get the knife back. Soon Tomoya runs across Fuko again: this time, she's handing out her star-shaped sculptures to people. According to her logic, if someone receives a gift without reason, they feel like they must do something in return: her suggestion is that they attend her sister Kouko's wedding. Tomoya and Nagisa agree to help her, yet soon they discover the truth about her, and why she never leaves the school: she is actually a sort of "ghost." The original Fuko was hit by a car on her first day of high school and has been in a coma ever since: she's really Tomoya's age. The Fuko Tomoya and Nagisa know is basically Fuko's consciousness taking a physical form, in a magical, unexplained way. Tomoya and Nagisa check with Kouko (who used to be an art teacher at the high school; Nagisa had her as a teacher her first year) to confirm this truth. Then Nagisa takes Fuko (with the fake family name of "Isogai," stolen from the Furukawas' neighbors) into her home. Everyone begins to help Fuko out: Tomoya, Nagisa, Akio, Sanae, Kyou, Ryou, Sunohara, etc. They even hold a mock class for her with Sanae as teacher, because she has never been in a class before.

Then her story begins a tragic turn. As starfish sculptures (for we have learned that they truly are starfish, not stars or shuriken) are passed out and word of Kouko's wedding is spread, the school's Founder's Festival approaches. Tomoya and Nagisa decide to invite Kouko to the Festival and have her meet up with Fuko. Unfortunately, Kouko cannot see her sister. After that, other students around the school slowly stop being able to see her, and they forget her existence, which coincides with Kouko's information that the original Fuko's condition has worsened, and she may never wake from her coma. As more and more people forget her (which also happens to some due to their visiting her in the hospital), Tomoya and Nagisa (the last to remember) buy her a birthday set and have a pre-celebration for Kouko's wedding the next day (which will be at the school). They fall asleep with Fuko sitting between them: when they wake up, she's gone, and they've forgotten. At Kouko's wedding, they suddenly remember Fuko, and she reappears; at the same time, they learn that everyone who received a starfish came to the wedding. Once Fuko thanks Tomoya and Nagisa for all they have done, and congratulates her sister, she disappears for good.

...Or so we think. Throughout the rest of the first season, Fuko (who no one recognizes) appears intermittently in random moments ("Fuko Ninja" moments) for comic relief. For instance, when Kyou is trying to win a claw game to get a gift for Kotomi's birthday, Fuko appears to help, only to grab a starfish instead of Kotomi's gift. Or when Tomoya uses a charm to have the first person who speaks to him be the one who likes him, Fuko is the first one he runs into, though he keeps her from talking.

In After Story, Fuko is non-existent until the last quarter of the series, when Tomoya and Ushio are introduced to her by Kouko. She has just recently woken up from her coma, and though physically she is as old as Tomoya, mentally she is still a childish high school sophomore. She becomes good friends with Ushio, playing with her often, and multiple times trying to steal her.

The final time we see Fuko is when she is walking with her sister to get a check up at the doctor (she did come out of a ten-year coma: she needs check ups!) and, after some pestering of Kouko, she runs into the forest and approaches a girl under a tree...hence the shot in the opening theme of the first season.

Effect on the Main Plot

I think the most crucial thing Fuko does for the main plot is to draw Nagisa and Tomoya together.  Though they had already been working together on the drama club, she brings them together to work on a more immediate goal: her sister's upcoming wedding.  An experience of joint effort often brings people closer together: that's why retreats and other events often have teambuilding exercises involving joint effort, such as a relay race or constructing a sculpture.  These types of things join people.  And that's what carving and distributing the wooden starfish does for Nagisa and Tomoya.  Not only is the joint effort a cause of closeness, but Fuko herself works to bring them together.  The pre-celebration scene is where this is most shown, I believe.  In the scene, Fuko orders Nagisa and Tomoya to call each other by their first names, because they are close enough that they should be doing so already.  She succeeds with Tomoya and fails (at least for the time being) with Nagisa, but overall she still succeeds at bringing the two together.  And it's an effect they feel after she's gone: in a scene later in the show (I can't at present remember exactly where), Tomoya is calling Nagisa by her first name and then reflects, "When did I start doing this?"  It shows that one person's influence can persist, even when that person is lost in memory.

Fuko also leads Tomoya to connect with Yoshino, Kouko's fiancee.  Though Tomoya originally meets him in a random encounter, he continues to come into contact with him due to his being engaged and later married to Kouko, who he comes to know because of Fuko.  Yoshino is a key player in Tomoya's character development in After Story, so Fuko's influence here is definitely important.

You also first see a light orb (crucial for the ending) in Fuko's arc, when everyone holds the fake class for her, she becomes class leader, and Sanae tells her that all of them are her friends.

In After Story, she acts somewhat as an older sister to Ushio, and, in the process, I think she also helps Tomoya grow closer to his daughter.  After all, she sparks a bit of a defense reaction in Tomoya, who tries a few times to protect Ushio from Fuko's strangeness.  And there is the final scene, which I will analyze in a separate post (because overall I'm still not completely sure what to make of it).

Now for a couple theories I've heard in regards to Fuko's influence.

One theory is that Fuko is the sheep seen in the invisible world in the beginning of the second episode of After Story.  The weight of that theory depends on your interpretation of the invisible world, which I'll cover in a later post.

Another theory, which I think is true, was espoused by Nathan in his recent blog post, and that theory is that Fuko is a foreshadowing of Ushio.  He says Kouko and Yoshino are foreshadowings of Nagisa and Tomoya (their appearances seem to indicate this, as the former pair resemble older versions of the latter pair), which I had never thought of before, yet it makes total sense.  It's also a good explanation for Yoshino's key role in helping Tomoya take on his husbandly and fatherly duties.  In regards to Fuko, her being like a child to Nagisa and Tomoya is obvious.  At one point, Nagisa even tells Tomoya, "It almost feels like we're her mother and father."  And at the end of the pre-celebration party, Tomoya says that it feels like he, Nagisa, and Fuko really are a family.  You can't get more blatantly obvious than that.  Thus Fuko does even more for the main plot: she introduces Nagisa and Tomoya to role models that are like older versions of themselves, and she prepares them for the experience of having a child.  So all in all, Fuko really works in getting the two prepared to be a family.  (Again, I give all credit to Nathan for this insight).

In summary, then, Fuko's effort on the main plot is to bring Nagisa and Tomoya closer together, introduce them to role models, and prepare them for the idea of their being a family.

Themes

Fuko definitely showcases the importance of family.  By some mysterious circumstance, she got a chance to engage the world after being in a coma for two years, and she dedicated all her time to making her sister's wedding the best it could be, and to making her sister as happy as can be.  Of course, maybe her love for her sister is what gave her the chance to engage the world anyway.  Maybe her deep family love "incarnated" itself in a way so that she could affect things with her love.  No matter how you look at it, though, Fuko shows the deep, affective love that can be found in true family.

What I have just mentioned above also ties into the theme of self-sacrifice.  Instead of using her time engaging the world to her own benefit, she uses it to help her sister.  (Since true love is self-sacrificial, this theme is integrally tied into the theme of family and family love, I think.)

Another theme is perseverance.  No matter how many times Fuko's starfish are rejected, and even when people stop being able to see her, she still presses on in her quest to show her love for sister and to help her.

Fuko's story also shows the presence of the supernatural (like the idea I referred to in my introduction as "magical realism" or a "fairytale").  It's never explained how Fuko's consciousness becomes physical and able to affect the world, and the fact that everyone forgets her is not exactly explained either.  They're supernatural elements to her story, and supernatural elements are key to the entire show.

As I continue to evaluate, analyze, and reflect on the series, I'm sure I will recognize more themes, and I will explain them then.

Reflection

I have many friends who are attached to Fuko as their favorite character and favorite arc.  While she's not my favorite character (I think Akio holds that place for me), I do think she has the best of the minor arcs (although there's a special place in my heart for Kotomi's as well).  Its length gives you a chance to really connect with Fuko before her bittersweet disappearance.  She worked so long and hard to make her sister's wedding a beautiful reality, and she succeeded, yet in the end, she disappeared into the mist.  It truly is heartbreaking, and a big part is how engaging her character is.  Her quirkiness catches your interest, and I think her childishness gives her a powerful potential for connection.  It's hard not to be entranced by the innocence of a child, and I think Fuko captures that essence of childish innocence.  I think that's part of what makes her so captivating a character and, in turn, so heartbreaking.  Her recurring comic relief moments are always refreshing; everyone (including I) loves to see a beloved character return, if only for a minute.  And her recovery from her coma in After Story is pretty high up on the list of joyful moments in Clannad.  I think Fuko is one of the greatest chracters, due to her lovable quirkiness and childishness, her ability to engage the viewer, and also her example of familial love and self-sacrifice. 

And the fact that the last lines of the series (not counting the extra episodes) are from her just proves her worth all the more.

Thank you for reading.  God bless, and peace.

Nota Bene: All clips are from the Clannad Central YouTube channel run by the Clannad (クラナド/Kuranado) fan page on Facebook.  All character themes and other music from the show can also be found on said fan page, in the music player.  My gratitude to them and all the work they do.