So I finished the route and I’m gonna keep most of my notes for podcast but I’ll just say this. Notice that throughout the entire route, Fuko never cried.
This is the one route in Clannad that has always rubbed me the wrong way.
I’m all for supernatural shenanigans, but astral projection is something which really bothered in this particular route. I know the use of out of body experiences has been used before in Key stories, (and previously in Clannad, e.g. Shima) and this is no exception, but I just wish (no pun intended) that these supernatural elements (which don’t relate to the light orbs) that allows things like this to happen were somewhat explained. If not in the route, then at some point throughout the novel in some external event.
If it’s acceptable to let us know precisely how the mysterious light orbs work in a nice small piece of exposition, then it would be pretty sweet to put some of the other bizarre plot mechanisms in to perspective too.
Whole series spoiler
From what I’ve gathered having finished the novel, we don’t ever find out how this other strange stuff works (Shima, Fuuko, Akio’s prayer). Which is a shame in my opinion
But aside from that, it was a nicely written route as far as I’m concerned.
I wasn’t sure how old Fuuko was, so I thought it was super creepy seeing Tomoya share a kiss with her… I honestly thought she was about 10 years old the whole time, until I looked it up on Google. I may have missed the part where they specify her age, but apparently they are the same age? Interesting.
I also played both endings for her route for the sake of 100% completion. I for one much prefer the friendship ending, as opposed to the one where they start dating. That’s probably because of the misconception I had about the age at first… But I also just feel they aren’t compatible 
Same. I mean at the end after Tomoya forgets her, Tomoya is mysteriously holding Nagisa’s hand so you know Fuko ships them so really I feel that ending feels better.
So I went and finished this route and I guess this is the first route I’m going to have to give a 3 for in CLANNAD. I just thought that it was pretty average.
I guess the problem I had with it was that the main point of the story lied in the situation, rather than the emotions of the characters. And the situation in and of itself is one that is just too out-of-this-world to relate to. Fuko was pretty stoic about the whole situation and having hear bare her emotions just a little bit more would have made it better, in my opinion.
At the end of the day, it was nice to see her finally achieve her goal, but I just wasn’t able to feel the kind of emotional impact that the writer was trying to portray… Probably because I didn’t see it as much of a hopeless cause as other similar situations. Also probably because the bad end; which in other stories makes me more aware of the gravity of the situation; made me feel quite nice as it shipped Tomoya and Nagisa in a very sweet and natural way. You know something is wrong when a bad end makes you feel good
But hey, the route was still pretty entertaining in its own regard. Fuko is just really fun to bully and I would most definitely make her drink juice through her nose, if given the situation (I guess that puts me down to the level of Sunohara but who cares~~).
Plothoooooooles
Or maybe he was to busy trying to get them kids to have good memories.
That’s why the “Fuko ending B” exists and is much much better than the ending A. Definitely felt that this route’s romance was just put in for the sake of being so.
They did start school at the same time, so yes, Fuko is the same age as Tomoya, albeit stunted growth from being in a coma… Wait does that even physically happen?
Fuko is very stoic, and in general is not the kind of person who would probably be able to cry in front of others. It took her almost until the end of the route to really even know how to lean on Tomoya or Nagisa a little, and she seemed to be aware that people were going to forget her impossible existence anyway. Because of this Tomoya is our main point of reference for the emotional side of things - the way that reader is more in tune with Tomoya emotional creates a sort of feeling of watching over Fuko as opposed to being directly involved. I think it worked, but I can see how some people might not have gelled with it.
Favourite route so far! Fuko is just precious and it had my two favourite things: humour and feels. First half of the route was incredibly funny with the pranks and just overall how Fuko talks and acts and informs you (falsely) about herself. Second half was just feels everywhere
It was a whole lot of Nagisa, especially in the beginning until you learn more what’s going on with Fuko, which I didn’t like as much. I was also a bit weirded out by the whole uh…spirit/ghost thing? That was going on. The students were talking about a ghost girl but I thought they were just being silly kids but NOPE, NOT REALLY so that was a bit odd. With that being said, I think it was overall handled well and made for some emotional moments later on in the route. The ending was sweet as well.
So favourite route so far, yay!
Time for this shit.
Fuko’s Character
Did you know? Starfish literally shit from the same place they eat.
Fuko figuratively shits from the same place she eats.
Wow, what a coincidence.
The Route
Hey you guys know how Biz was saying the one thing he didn’t like about the Sunohara route is how the whole scenario felt unbelievable and just played up to make a story? I didn’t fell that with Sunohara, I did feel that with Fuko.
It’s out of place, it’s completely wild and unfocused, and honestly I think the best way to describe the entire thing is it felt like Maeda just shitposting to give himself a break between writing all the good in Clannad, it has some absolute bizarre, quite funny lines but the plot and writing is just so terrible, shitposting is really the best word to describe this route.
Overall
The appeal levels of this route to me are absolutely zero, I give it a At least Tomoyo had a good route to go with her shit personality/10.
This seems to be a very divisive route, from what I can read. I personally like it so far, but I’m biased because I love Fuko. She’s one of my favorite characters, just because her interactions with Tomoya are so fun. The fact that you need to essentially follow Nagisa’s route to get to Fuko is something that I wouldn’t have known without the walkthrough, so I’m not really sure how I feel about that. Also her whole condition seemed completely out of left field in the anime, but after reading Kanon I feel like it’s pretty standard Key at this point. Maybe that’s why they didn’t seem to make a big deal about it in the VN. Like I was expecting all characters involved to freak out but they sort of just… accepted it.
I still have a ways to go, though I don’t know exactly how much I have left. I just stopped shortly after getting Fuko Master, and plan on resuming tomorrow so I’ll probably post my full opinion of the route then.
Same. I did tell biz “Wait til you get to fuko route”
I quite like fuko as a character as well because she’s just really fun to bully but I think that, looking at her route from a more objective point of view, it isn’t written verry well…
Yeah see, that’s the thing, most people will relate this to Ayu route from Kanon. But the thing is while that route had the whole astral projection as the key point to the story, this route has it as part of the setting. You learn about it fairly early on, and it sets the stage for Fuko’s wish to grant to her sister… But it doesn’t become anything more than that, and thus, looks for no further explanation.
As I’ve stated previously elsewhere, the aspect of love transcending death always gets to me. So when the route actually remembers that that’s what’s going on, it packs a nice punch. Other than those moments, we have moments filled with real dread, and lastly, slice-of-life scenes. Guess which of these I don’t like because it drags on foreeeeever. Combined with an awkward romance I really wish it didn’t exist, this route just feels like slowly crawling through mud to get to some not substantially better than what’s in other routes.
Like @Pepe said, the bad ending is really weird. First of all, what really changes in the bad ending? Tomoya doesn’t remember Fuko, but the wedding is still happening. I guess, Tomoya isn’t able to tell Kouko about being friends with Fuko, so it doesn’t reach light orb levels, but it doesn’t feel very bad.
I also found a lot of nudges to After Story, especially if you date Nagisa. I mean, that’s cool how Maeda makes stuff consistent.
You can make it the level of Tomoya just to feel better.
This just makes me want some stupid Kanata fan art with starfish.
Some of the slice of life did really drag a bit. It would have been nice if they had played up Fuko and her impossible existence more. Still I really like any conversation Fuko was involved with.
Also, I wish there was a fan disc with a gag route for The Final Starfish User * Fuko.
I don’t see the friendship end as a bad end at all, just an alternate one. Now that I’ve finished the route myself, I actually like it better than the romance end. Having all of her friends remember the starfish at the same time has a bigger impact, at least for me personally. This route didn’t really impact me emotionally until the end, but it still got me good. I guess my final thoughts are just that the pacing of this route could have been better, but I ultimately still enjoyed it.
Correct: it’s not. There is an actual bad ending though. If you choose to let Akio carry Fuko to school, or -while dating Nagisa- tell Fuko to get off you, you get a bad ending.
I guess the kanji would be different, wouldn’t it? Ah well I guess it works in speech 
It’s just a pun lol, though I’m certain it was done on purpose. Though I am kind of wondering if inspiration to make Fuko a starfish girl was derived from that wordplay.
Uhh, @Kanon can you tell me why the fuko’s route is bad way to go?
? I thought that she must has some drama story in Clannad’s visual novel after I knew about her truth from anime.
Oh, Well She’s one of my favourite character too.
Almost forgot to write about this route!
So, uh, yeah, Fuko’s route. It’s a thing. Let’s take this from the top. Fuko is a pretty damn entertaining character, and the slice of life parts of this route are very enjoyable and made me laugh a lot. Especially the pranks, man do they get funny sometimes. I also liked seeing Kouko more in this route (some of you might remember seeing her in the Misae route flashback) and I kinda wish she’s be more prominent in the game as a whole. Oh well, I’m content with what we got.
As for the story. Hmm. It didn’t work for me. It just didn’t. There are many times where I felt there was a plot point introduced that was just there to be sad without making much sense to me. Prime example, everyone forgetting Fuko. The reason for it is so vaguely defined that I simply could not get attached to the whole situation. I would’ve been much more into it if I thoroughly understood why Fuko was being forgotten and why it had to happen this way. Heck even if it had been explained in hindsight as sort of an “OH SHIT NOW I GET IT” moment it’d have been perfectly fine, I love those moments. But here? I felt like I was thrust into a tragic situation before I understood why it was a tragedy. Which just left me with a disconnect.
I mean I can make theories as to why people don’t perceive Fuko. It’s heavily implied that anyone knowing about Fuko’s accident and current condition is incapable of perceiving Ghost Fuko’s form. And that the projection’s strength depends on real Fuko’s current condition, as evident by more and more people forgetting her as she gets worse. But there are holes in that theory. Such as why Fuko’s first friend, who should’ve known about the accident better than anyone, is capable of seeing Fuko. Why her and not most of the other third year students? Why do even the Furukawas, having spent so much time with her, eventually just forget about her? And Tomoya? But not Koumura? And then Tomoya manages to remember? So you can just casually ‘remember’ her after all? Why didn’t that happen with Sunohara and all the others before and… it’s just like whaaaat is going on I don’t get it.
Also, the whole astral projection thing seems weird to me. Why, in a world with a well-established supernatural element, the light orbs, do they introduce this phenomenon as a separate thing? Why not just have it be that (After Story slight spoilers) Kouko got a light orb from getting Yusuke out of his rut as a musician, and that light orb granted her wish of ‘letting Fuko have a student life’? Actually I guess you can make a theory that that is indeed what happened, but the severe lack of hinting towards it makes me apprehensive to commit to accepting that as my explanation for what is going on. It frustrates me because even the slightest thing could’ve made all the difference and made me accept this whole scenario with no further issue.
That’s not to say I was left completely cold by the emotional aspect of this route. A large part of me just wants to say “who cares about the details, this is a girl trying her hardest to make her sister’s wedding a happy, cherished memory, and then she’s caught up in some tragedies. That’s the story.” But accepting that is rather difficult for me, especially in a game with sooo many good emotional routes where I had absolutely no problem getting attached to the situation at hand.
I don’t consider this a romantic route at all by the way. This route ships Tomoya x Nagisa pretty much all the way anyways.
Oh, and I don’t really get the ending. I suppose I’ll make this a Key Point. What did you make of the ending? Did Fuko really wake up? If she did, there’s a glaring inconsistency in the non-romantic ending at least: (Nagisa/Koumura route spoilers) Generally Nagisa does not return to school after falling ill until the school year is already over and done with and Tomoya graduates. This means the scenario of Tomoya, Sunohara and Nagisa walking side by side at school after all that’s happened is basically impossible. Unless somehow Nagisa magically got better quicker, or Tomoya and Sunohara both ended up repeating a year for unexplained reasons. Neither of which make any sense to me. If she didn’t, is that scene just a metaphor for what is awaiting Fuko when she wakes back up? Maybe.
So yeah. There are many reasons as to why I couldn’t appreciate this route all that much. Which is kind of sad, but it still had its moments. The comedy was pretty good, and more of Nagisa’s family is always welcome.
Tomoya and Sunohara both ended up repeating a year for unexplained reasons.
WAIT WHAT THE FUCK MAEDA YOU ARE LITERAL GARBAGE.
After I saw the last appearance of Fuko in the anime, I decided to make the last word to her.
And the Last Word is…
“Fuko, May Fortune be with you…”
