CLANNAD - Fuko Ibuki Route & Character Discussion

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.

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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.

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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 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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?:open_mouth:? 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.:wink:

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.

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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…”

Fuko is my least favorite of the main heroines in Clannad, and I’m not a fan of her route.

It feels like a combination of the major plot threads of Ayu’s route in Kanon with some sisterly love thrown in. It’s hard to suspend disbelief that hard, and it’s only made harder by the fact that I just don’t like Fuko all that much. The sort of friendship she has with Tomoya is the highlight, but it makes for mostly amusing gags rather than the sort of meaningful relationships Tomoya builds with the other heroines in their own arcs. I understand that you’re supposed to get the feeling that Tomoya is watching over her like a sort of father figure, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

Fuko easily has my least favorite route of the main heroines.

I admit, Fuko probably wasn’t the best way to start reading CLANNAD.

I imagine Maeda was sitting in his dark corner of the office while penning the first draft, and was like, (slight Kanon and AIR spoilers) “Hm…Hisaya-san really had something going with Ayu. Michiru didn’t work, but I guess second time’s the charm, huh?

And that will be the extent of my Kanon and AIR references for this post. (Please read Kanon, by the way…we have a bookclub going on…)

Anyway, my exposure to the anime has made me rather partial to Fuko. She was my favorite character in the anime, although I wasn’t quite sure why. I guessed she had a charm to her that the other characters (save TomoyaGalaxy and Sunohara) seemed to lack. My love for Fuko drove me to attempt to join the CLANNAD Bookclub, but alas, I was too broke at the time. My love for Fuko had to be locked away, and she faded into obscurity while the Ayus and the Kuds and the Shizurus filled the gap left behind in my loli closet.

But I never forgot Fuko. Now, as I stand here, having read her route, I can finally stand here to say, it was everything - and yet nothing - like I expected.

Fuko’s character maintains a focus on distributing her wooden carved starfish to her fellow students in the hopes of promoting her sister’s wedding. Although her devotion to this task proves that she’s a modestly strong character, it doesn’t mean that she is unmalleable. She eventually comes to recognize when her efforts aren’t doing much good, and she comes to appreciate the people closest to her even if she never asked for them to be her friends. The route is equal parts about Fuko’s efforts towards learning how to be friends with others and Kouko’s movement towards a life independent of her younger sister’s influence.

If I had to point out any flaws with these developments, there’s little opposition to them. Sure, Fuko does get turned down a few times, both Galaxy and Sunohara have to find their own reasons to help Fuko, Kouko is restricted by her own feelings on the issue, and Nagisa…just does Nagisa things. There’s not much opposition to anything, so there’s not a whole lot of conflict beyond the inevitable (which just gets conveniently overturned by Key Magic anyway) or the petty.

And then there’s the romance scene, which is…kind of weird. I mean, it’s not out-of-character for Nagisa to push herself away from Galaxy or others out of false modesty, but pairing people together? The way she words it sounds like a death flag or something…and should the reader choose to kiss Fuko, Fuko’s reaction sounds out-of-character, kind of a “let’s be lovers just because we can” sort of deal. It’s kind of forced, to be honest. No wonder they kept that part out for the anime. :confused:

Still, I can get behind this route for being both enjoyable and heartwarming when it needs to be. I like the character interactions even though almost none of the characters significantly change over the course of the route. I feel that Maeda had something of value to say in this route, a message of putting faith in others, even when all seems hopeless, which speaks volumes to me. I can’t really judge this route fairly in comparison to the others (seeing as I haven’t read them yet), but I still hold this route in high regard nonetheless.

It’s time for Galaxy to make a name for himself…through baseball! :smiley:

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Is this a localization thing? CLANNAD came out a year before Avatar.

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Yeah, it’s a localization thing. The localization team did really well in incorporating western references

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Is TLA really that old… Anyway, the original ヒトデ使い would conventionally get translated to starfish user, so the joke comes at a minimal loss in accuracy. They done good.

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I knew somebody here would know better than I do! Thanks!

This was my favorite arc in the anime mostly for the emotional impact; I’m not quite sure now that I’ve re-experienced and appreciated better the other narratives, but I still like it even now but much because I just do. The initial SoL was draggy as most initial SoL scenes Clannad has, but once the story got to the Fuuko pranks, everything was nothing less than entertaining. The only jokes I couldn’t like were the ones involving deep wounds: I like my dark humor sometimes, but that was a bit disturbing for me. XD

I also used to hold Fuuko as best girl, but I guess my tastes have changed over time. Of course I still adore her – she’s this socially awkward girl who’s doing her best not just to make friends, but also to achieve her sister’s happiness. It’s sweet, but she also has a surprisingly strong personality, which has been touched upon here before.

While reading this route, I was pretty much prepared to agree to the criticism that a lot of the drama felt like they were just happening for no particular reason other than being a drama fuel… right until one of the dialogues mentioned about “dreaming…” and HOLY SHIT SOMETHING DAWNED ON ME. (I’m not sure if this sort of discussion happened in the bookclub… sorry if this turns out to be merely redundant. :yahaha:)

Do you know the feeling when you have a dream, and when you wake up, you begin forgetting about it?

That’s it! That’s exactly it!

Because Fuuko’s physical body is still sleeping, her experiences as a manifestation in the school grounds is her physical body’s dream, and so is her existence as such to people around her. So when her physical body suddenly inched closer to death, her current dream and her existence as a dream was disturbed, and that was why people were starting to forget her – at that point, she was being a dream about to be forgotten.

And that also perhaps explains why people who see her physical body no longer see her dream – those people were already in her reality side of things, something like that.

Fuuko’s story at this point comes off to me as a story of a girl who wishes for her happiness while dreaming, but because she wishes for her happiness to truly happen, her dreams spill over to reality. It’s weird, but I kinda like it. (potential After Story spoilers?) Maybe I’m getting somewhere about this being her dream world thing to the entirety of Clannad’s narrative… let’s see. :))

I think I can give this a score of 4.25: a bit too much plot holes, but enjoyable all throughout.

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BlackHayate02 well I was about to try and write a little something to say why I adore Fuko and here route but you pretty much said everything here for me already!

Her trances and Tomoya’s pranks are a highlight even if I feel a little cruel for enjoying them! She’s an adorable and idiosyncratic but probably insanely frustrating little sister and it did give the tragic feels when we learn the truth and she starts to fade from memories of others.

I wasn’t aware of the concept of Ikiryō so that was interesting to learn and it helped me to understand the thinking behind this slightly odd scenario which on the face of it needs major suspension of disbelief. It was definitely portrayed better in the VN compared to the anime as is the mini arc generally IMO except the rather forced romance option.

Fuko: I am horrible! Wait, that makes Fuko the horrible one! :grinning:

I would give 4.5 Starfish Benders / 5 but will vote 4.

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That’s something interesting! And definitely something that flew over my head while reading the novel, heh. But yeah it makes sense that that’s what Maeda was trying to show off during her route. A lot of people do seem to attach being in a coma as akin to being “in a dream” so it was a nice touch… If only it wasn’t already done before, heh heh heh

I really enjoyed Fuko’s arc. I always have a strong connection to characters that don’t want to be forgotten. I remember seeing promotional art of Fuko and her wooden starfishes and made tons of ideas of why she was giving these starfishes away. I was hoping it had a magical connection like she had to give them to assert an existence. But then when the game was released I found out about the story and then read it for myself.

The whole astral projection I know has to do with connections to Japanese lore (Ikiryo) and then J.M Brennan whom t Maeda really admires and uses a lot of magical elements in his stories ( he published books such as The Astral Projection Workbook: How to Achieve Out-of-Body Experiences). I’m super fascinated with magical realism myself and Japanese lore and seeing a return of this from Kanon Ayu’s route, which is my favorite from the the entire game but this time it has a different take. It wasn’t a sad attempt like in (Little Busters spoiler) Komari’s forgetting trope with her brother, which has been done numerous times, and I found it to be one of the worst parts done in a Key game

To me Fuko had something she wanted to accomplish, I love how it transcends in her current condition. I feel it isn’t just for her sister but affirms her own existence to world. One thing I noticed was the symbolism of the starfish was missing. I do recall discussing this back in the day, but that starfish (ひとで) 海星 is the same pronunciation as (ひとで) 人手 which is another person’s hand. So when she gives the starfishes to as many people as she can it’s like a handshake, a greeting.

I also recall a scene in the illusionary world where it clearly indicates Fuko’s presence. I’m not sure at what part but I think she helps you there once you complete her route. I’m thinking this is the part where she’s back into her coma like state.

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