AIR - Common Route Discussion

Key Discussion
#34

Have you never seen the anime either???
Best get those tissues ready

This was really interesting! I’d never thought about that in this context before!

This was actually one of my favorite parts of the common route. (by favorite I mean most interesting - not happy that it was happening).
Misuzu never really getting a chance to see her mother Although this is a huge part of the plot later on and still managing to keep a smile on her face.

But one of Haruko’s best scenes in the common route is where she is just drinking and Yukito looks over at her and thinks how now she is drinking and laughing and having fun with him, but before how many long nights and years has she just been drinking alone till the wee hours of the morning night after night after night.

I think the theme of poverty is really important and portrayed very well in AIR in showing how not it affects a family. With the Kamio TV being old and you having to wiggle the antenna to get it to work right to them having one little fan to keep the house cool, and just from seeing their house there really isn’t a lot. And this theme of poverty only continues to grow stronger as you get deeper into Misuzu’s route and especially during the Air arc.

3 Likes
#35

I like your theory. I especially like how you apply it to Yukito’s situation.

However, Haruko’s situation is a bit different from the regular japanese family involved in overworking. You see, the stereotypical Japanese family has the father working all day and the mother left to take care of the children and be a housewife. It’s a very patriarchal society, and even now, women have a hard time struggling to get a decent job.

As we all can see, Haruko is a single mother struggling to raise Misuzu. In a patriarchal society like that, women don’t have it easy. Actually, it seems it is pretty common in Japan for single mothers to fall below the poverty line (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201409090005).

This patriarchal society explains many things, actually. Why their house is in a somewhat sorry state-of-affairs; why Haruko has to work the afternoon shift, and so on. And I think these factors contribute heavily to Haruko’s relationship with Misuzu. I’ll touch about that more in the podcast, trust me :wink:

I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but if Haruko had a regular working schedule, then he would have the time to spend with Misuzu. She might not even resort to drinking alone, but instead, choose to spend that time with Misuzu.

So yes, this does seem to touch on the problem with the labor system of Japan, but it isn’t entirely all about simply being overworked. The patriarchal system, I wager, also contributes to it.

2 Likes
#36

Yes, this will end up focusing on single-parents. AIR is set in Kami in the Kochi Prefecture, a place with a high amount of single-parent households. You see multiple people in this situation in AIR, however all of them manage with it differently.
The common route only has so much in it, so I had to limit my example to only Haruko~

A lot of the situations in AIR are related to the setting. Not many people around, seemingly close-knit community where a single dog can become famous, high amounts of old people and single parents, small clinic run by a family instead of a hospital, and of course all of the characters knowing each other and guiding Yukito around.

2 Likes
#37

Once again, please don’t spoiler-tag things without giving some indication of what you’re spoiling.

#38

Oh god, that’s gonna be tricky… The spoiler is it’s self a spoiler…
I’ll just remove it.

#39

19 posts were merged into an existing topic: AIR - Common Route Discussion EX

#40

I was wondering about this. How’d you figure that out? XD

#41

Interviews some time ago. I don’t have the exact sources right now, but there’s this old thing about scouting out AIR locations.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070302103022/http://htc.moon.st/ota/05041601.html

1 Like
#42

So Minagi is best girl and Hijiri is fucking amazing.

#43

Totally agree with you Pu… wait, Purple?
Hey guys, come see this!

Meanwhile, their partners in crime, Michiru and Kano, are the worst of the bunch. Kano’s much better than Michiru, but compared to Misuzu and Minagi…

2 Likes
#44

I don’t exactly know why people love Minagi so much. Her manner of speaking frustrates me.
I quite like Kano, though, and I hope her route doesn’t ruin her for me.

I guess my opinions are subject to change once I finish the game :stuck_out_tongue:

#45

I am a huge Minagi fan
Once you start to become more acquainted with her her manner of speaking does get a little better
I absolutely adore Michiru though! I think she’s awesome :smiley:

Kano on the other hand ><
She’s my least favorite Key heroine out of all of them
And Hijiri is just as annoying ><

Today I finished July 22nd which ended with Yukito getting led by Potato to where Kano was possessed and Hijiri comes up and they have the whole pervert-confusion dilemma that dragged on forever

I believe the 23rd is the last day of the common route with the bad end?? I think so

#46

Its interesting to me how much Air’s common route hints towards the character routes. (Kano Spoils) You have Kano’s little episode at the temple with the ominous speech and blacking out. (Misuzu spoils) Misuzu’s mention of her other self in the sky is repeated and Yukito take a keen interest in it(Minagi Spoils) Minagi has the near slip up during her introduction

I don’t really remember Little Busters or Rewrite dropping such obvious hints (or allusions) to the character’s route during the common. It also makes it interesting that Yukito is able to (bad end spoils) shut down his curiosity and convince himself that the thought that Misuzu could be the girl in the sky is nonsense and just walk away

1 Like
#47

I’ve only played a few routes of Little Busters and I have not played Rewrite but the foreshadowing in Little Busters is ridiculous (although a lot of the foreshadowing is for Refrain but there are still some allusions for each character’s routes)
For instance, (Komari spoils) When Komari is talking about her goldfish but she can’t remember what happened to it (it died) and she just remembers that one day it was there and the next it was gone. (Mio spoils) Mio’s nickname is literally “no shadow” because she always carries the parasol and is silent like a shadow and the “no shadow”-ness plays a huge role in her route (Haruka spoils) During the sleepover Futaki is brought up and Haruka makes a scoffing noise in passing or whenever Futaki is mentioned Haruka is noticably wanting to change the subject. That’s just some examples but it just goes to show that there’s a lot that if you aren’t looking for it you won’t notice. Key really is amazing at foreshadowing in all of their games and AIR is definitely no exception.

3 Likes
#48

It may just be a case of I went into Little Busters blind and so didn’t really know what to look for in the routes whereas I have seen the Air anime so I have a clue of whats up. I didn’t miss the Refrain cues though in Little Busters (well I did when I played through but after Refrain I caught them) and it was amazing how well they camouflaged all of it while giving you so much information. The only thing is in Air I feel like its a little more direct its in the common route in that (Misuzu) the game has basically already told us that Misuzu is going to be his girl with wings. I personally thing they could have left that ambitious and sorta strung the reader out a bit especially with every heroine’s fixation on the sky (wings, astronomy, etc.)

1 Like
#49

I do agree with that.
(Misuzu) I think it was day 02 that Misuzu is like “the girl with the wings you’re looking for I think is the other me in the sky.” and Yukito is like “yeah probs.”
Even Misuzu’s quote in the opening theme gives it away - and you don’t even MEET Misuzu until after the opening theme.
And the Memorial Edition of the game cover and OST cover pretty much give it away too.
Like we can tone it back just a bit
Thankfully there’s a lot left to be discovered with Misuzu

#50

Yeah AIR’s format is very noticeable weird. (Overall VN spoilers) Like, if Yukito’s journey is searching for his girl with wings, it’s very strange that the first girl he meets is obviously that person. By going into the other routes, you have to knowingly avoid Misuzu. It’s like you’re going out of your way for something you know isn’t what you’re looking for. It could’ve been done a lot better.

Speaking of, I just finished my readthrough of common. It was actually a lot shorter than I was expecting, so I was a bit taken aback by how sudden it was. Going back to how AIR is formatted weirdly, I guess a lot of these ‘common route’ scenes are in part broken down into the Minagi and Kano branches, which makes things weirder again. I still think this was the best way to tackle it for the bookclub though. I’ll save most of my thoughts on the route for the podcast.

So, how far through common are all of you?

I’d actually like it if you guys could remain conscious of something. I decided to make it 2 weeks per route to give members plenty of time to read, but it’s quite possible that in future bookclubs we’ll need to cut down the reading time to one week per route. (looking at you CLANNAD.) With that said, I have a request.

If you can, try to get each route read within a week. I’d like for you guys to help me judge whether a week per route is a reasonable amount of time or not. I know everybody has different lifestyles, so the time it takes everyone will differ from individual to individual. But I’d really like if I could get some kind of understanding of how long people are taking to read each route.

If you can’t squeeze it into a week, don’t force yourself! Basically what I mean is, if you can, avoid loafing around just because you have two weeks to spare. If a lot of people show me they can get the reading done in the timespan of a week, that will be quite reassuring.

Let me know how you go.

#51

Weird, from my playthrough, I wasn’t able to get that Kano scene, even though the choices I made was supposedly going to give me that scene. I’m gonna go back and try and get it now.

I’m not using the walkthrough, BTW, so I’ve seen a few different stuff that you others may have not yet. Especially with Misuzu suddenly breaking down. That was some crazy stuff

EDIT: Okay so apparently, you need to both ask Kano about her bandana AND perform the puppet show for Hijiri to get the Kano sumo scene then pick the right choices there to get to Kano’s possessed scene

#52

The common route is definitely short so a week should be fine
Also Misuzu’s route in Dream and the Summer route are both relatively short so one week should be fine
Kano and especially Minagi’s routes are on the long side so 2 weeks should be needed for that and for the true Air arc

#53

I just finished all of the common route, with all the decisions, and, hopefully, all the combinations of decisions. Well I didn’t stop at the bad end, but I finished everything up to July 23 :slight_smile:

It’s interesting how some decisions affect others days after you choose them. Like how you have more than one opportunity to get hit by Haruko’s Bike :wink: