Minagi Route portion of the bookclub is now OVER. As always, feel free to continue discussing stuff here, but the bookclub will now be focusing on the Kano Topic for the next two weeks. See you there!
OK so, um… this is kinda embarrassing but… I forgot to post the last bit of the MINAGI ROUTE TIMELINE. So, uh, here it is. And I actually wrote this part not Pepe:
MINAGI ROUTE TIMELINE (GOOD END)
-Minagi slowly walks towards her mom, who calls out her name; her real name.
-“Of course there is meaning in wings that cant fly: they’re precious memories of when you used to fly through the sky.”
-Michiru visits Yukito that night and entrusts Minagi to him because she says “She’s going home soon.”
-Michiru is a piece of “the girl in the sky’s” sad dream; one of her feathers
-“Humans cant live without memories”
-Yukito and Minagi and Michiru spend all the next day making “happy memories”
-Yukito shows Minagi and Michiru his puppet show one more time; they seem to be the only ones who enjoy it…
-The three go up to the roof to watch the first star appear
-Minagi and Michiru want to make a wish to the star to completely clean their hearts… but Yukito rejects this: “I dont want to pretend the way I’ve lived up until now can be simply wiped away”
-Minagi blames herself for the “Dream”: for Michiru’s death and for her father leaving, and for her mother’s mental illness. She reveals that she knows who Michiru “is” and runs off.
-The next morning, Yukito meets Michiru up at the shrine. After walking around for a bit, Michiru requests a favor from him…
-Yukito runs through the rain, searching for Minagi…
…“Please help Minagi wake up from her dream”…
Yukito trudges up the seeming endless flights of stairs, and bursts through the door to the roof to find Minagi crying
-Minagi was scared of leaving Michiru, scared of what would happen when she woke up from the dream, but Yukito holds her and convinces her to let it stop
-Minagi thinks back about her life and family leading up to the miscarriage of her little sister, and remember the day when she first met “Michiru” near the station
-Minagi takes Michiru to meet (and say good bye to) thier mother
-Two girls run by the three at the end of the day; “I wanted us… to walk throught the same wind…”
-They combine all three jars of stardust into one and spend the rest of the day laughing together
-Minagi finally teaches Yukito and Michiru how to blow bubbles… and just as the sun is setting, Michiru blows a bubble and disappears
-Yukiro and Minagi rush to the roof to find Michiru standing on the other side of the fence…
Michiru says she can fianlly leave because Minagi can now smile for someone besides Michiru, and makes one last request of Yukito: to find “the girl in the sky”
-“Make the world full of smiles… so that everyone lives with warm hearts…”
END OF THE DREAM
MINAGI EPILOGUE:
Yukito decides to finally leave the town
Minagi gets a letter from her father saying that Minagi now has another little sister and Michiru decides to go meet her…
“Ok Michiru, lets be friends…”
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I still stand by my statement that this is an amazing route that’s hampered down by a terrible ending. The good end, I mean. The bad end was pretty good in my opinion, even if it wasn’t perfect. It is most certainly a route that stands out on it’s own as something completely distinct from the rest of AIR, but at the same time an amazing piece of writing. The supernatural elements are conducted very elegantly, and do a great job of creating suspense and tension. It’s an interesting way of addressing the problem of people who are unable to face a cruel reality. I don’t think the route would’ve been the same if it had happened a decade earlier; the fact that they’ve had to deal with the aftermath of Michiru’s stillbirth for years is pretty significant.
Minagi as a character hasn’t left that much of an impression on me coming out of her route, but at the very least she seems like she would be fun to be around, in my opinion at least.
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I said a few times that I quite like the ending. I honestly feel like it signifies Minagi’s ability to move forward. I think one theme was that both Minagi and her Mother were too stuck living in the past. That’s the reason why Michiru was so afraid of showing herself to her Mom; she was afraid that if her mom saw her as “Michiru” it would cause her mind to regress even further. The fact that Michiru’s mom was able to call her “Michiru” and still consider her a different person (Minagi’s friend) shows that her mother was able to get over her pain over the loss of her own Michiru.
I think the same applies to Minagi’s case with her half-sister. The fact that she could call her “Michiru” and still see her as a different person shows that Minagi was able to get over her own pain. If she hadn’t gotten over, then she might have broken down sobbing upon seeing the letter from her father.
P.S. Minagi is Uraha
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But whyyyy did they make the new Michiru look and sound exactly the same as the old one? I wouldn’t have minded so much if she were at least a different person. She feels like a replacement. The ending wouldn’ve been so much more impactful to me if there was no replacement.
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I have always considered the new Michiru a ‘reincarnation’ rather than a ‘replacement’. Which is also why I liked the ending.
If you buy into that theory… I dunno, I think it’s pretty poorly thought out.
Hmm yes, that’s a valid argument. I guess it adds to the effect? Like if she wasn’t over Michiru, she might have still handled it well if her new sister didn’t look like Michiru? That’s a bit of a stretch, though
That was the point, I think. You are supposed to be angry because that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing. It makes you feel bad inside but… it’s something that so many people end up doing in the real life.
On that note, IIRC, the sex doesn’t happen in the normal ending right? It only happens in the good ending? Or am I mistaken? :x
Wat. The normal/bad ending sex scene was the most impacting sex scene of the series, how could you forget?
By not actually reading the sex scenes?
(and by being pepe, that helps a lot)
I read without h scenes, but the context of the moment they have sex is very significant.
Well then I guess just being pepe with horrible memory is the sole cause of my forgetfulness
So, in the Normal Ending, Minagi and Yukito are just running away from their problems? I mean, for her to be dependent on him and leave town together with him is upsetting because that won’t make the problems go away, it’s a temporary solution, not a permanent one.
In the Good Ending (the Canon Ending to Minagi’s route), Minagi herself was able to reconcile with her mother, and her father called her to tell her to visit his new family. She was able to solve her problems with aid from Yukito, who is about to leave town? (AIR Spoilers for the events in Misuzu’s Route, as well as for the True Ending to her route) Wait, wasn’t he suppose to look for the Girl in the Sky (Misuzu)? Why is Yukito leaving town now? Of course, before he even left, Minagi talks to him about the letter she got from her father. I just want to ask, isn’t the Good ending (the ending talked about in this paragraph) the True ending to Minagi’s route?
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You’re right. It sort of feeds into Yukito’s character. He’s always trying to get out of town. And if you go down Minagi’s route, he’s already given up on finding the girl in the sky in that town. So him leaving town might be disagreeable to some, but it makes sense. It’s pretty lame that the dialogue choice that decides which ending you get is whether you ask for a kiss or not.
But yes, the Good Ending to Minagi’s route is the True Ending to Minagi’s route. Minagi and Yukito amicably part ways, and Yukito leaves town, which he had planned to do anyway.
So, as you said, the Good Ending to Minagi’s Route is the True, Canon Ending to said Route, correct? What I mean is if the Good Ending is Canon to Minagi’s Route specifically, especially since unlike her Normal Ending, her Good (True) Ending has credits and it’s the resolution to her problems as she and Yukito part ways on good terms with him leaving town.
I wonder, didn’t Minagi go to her father’s home to see her little sister at the end of her route? Also, does Yukito stay in the town at the end of Kano’s Route? Why would he stay if he thinks that the Girl in the Sky isn’t there? Did he choose to give up on his quest entirely and live for his own happiness. Thanks for your answers, Rin. I hope that you can answer these new ones. Heck, can anyone here answer my questions? I’d appreciate it.
@Aspirety Hello, Aspirety, I covered the spoilers about the events of the Good Ending, or most blatantly the True Ending, to Minagi’s Route with spoiler tags.
Also, is the Good Ending the True, Canon Ending to specifically Minagi’s Route? I talked about this in my spoilered post that has the spoiler tags. Can you answer my questions that are on that post? It was posted yesterday.
Now that I think about it, Yukito can only help out only one of the three heroines with their problems, the other two are blatantly forgetten. Doesn’t this bother you? I mean, by the time you get to the Air Route (the Final Route) (Air Route Spoilers as well as Minagi, Misuzu, and Kano’s Routes Spoilers) you’re basically going over Misuzu’s Route as you have done in the Dream Arc, only with Yukito as a crow while the Yukito in the Air Route disappears later when he sacrificed himself for Misuzu as he had done in her route in the Dream Arc, the first arc of the story of AIR. However, Kano and Minagi’s problems are not solved and are forgetten in the Air Route.
In fact, those two heroines have very short cameos in the Air Route, so I would very much like the ending to the Air Route (unlike what we got) to be better than their (Kano and Minagi) individual True Endings in their own Routes since you (and Yukito) are basically abaddoning everything you have done for those two (due to the fact that you haven’t interact with them at all in the Air Route as human Yukito) when going for the Final Route, which is basically Misuzu’s Route, revised. I don’t think that Death and Birdification are good consequences (for Yukito (both as a crow and human in Air Route and Misuzu’s route), Misuzu and the other two heroines) for not helping with Kano’s ghost psycho problems with her deceased mother and Minagi’s problems with her own family problems with her mentally-ill mother and estranged father. Also, Misuzu’s Route in the Dream Arc, what happens to Misuzu after Yukito disappears into light(?) after sacrificing himself to give her more time? I need some clarification on this.
Minagi does indeed go to her father’s house at the end of her Good Ending, and it’s symbolic that her new half-sister has the appearance that Michiru had. As for Yukito leaving town at the end of Kano’s route, I don’t think he does,
since he’s got an established job and love life. Whether he gives up on his quest for the girl in the sky or not is entirely up for you to decide, but I choose to think he just decided he wanted to live life without worrying about it anymore.
After the stuff he’s seen, who can blame him?
