Discussion topic for CLANNAD -Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de- Episode 01: Be Brave, told by Nagisa Furukawa as written by Jun Maeda. For general discussion of Nagisa’s character, please visit her discussion topic.
Spoilers for the vanilla CLANNAD are permitted, but please tag references to other Side Stories with the [spoiler] tag, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
How would you rate this episode?
0 voters
Not a bad start. This episode in particular was featured during one of the bonus episodes of the anime series, so I’m familiar with the plot, but what this episode gives us is some insight into Nagisa’s time as a student before the events of CLANNAD. She was very awkward and clumsy, but even she was able to make friends, if only for a short time before they graduated ahead of her. It’s a sweet story, and I guess there’s also the ironic twist that hers and Tomoya’s fates were bound from before they met on the hill. Funny that Tomoya never did recognise Nagisa as the girl who fell for their prank, but I guess they wouldn’t be committing her face to memory.
It’s a great prologue to how life was, for Nagisa before she met Tomoya. Shy, awkward but more than that, she didn’t have the confidence in herself. And Akio insisting for her to talk about Ultraman probably wasn’t helping much either…
But this short episode showed that Nagisa did have friends who brought her shopping too. And in the background, we have our comedy duo with their pranks.
If you’ve watched the anime, you’d probably feel that Tomoya’s voice feels a bit out of place. But I guess that’s fine since it came out before the anime after all.
But I think the best part of this short story. Is the ending. And the words that Tomoya inadvertently wrote to her that he would repeat in a way soon enough.
"Don’t let hardship get you down BY よろしく "
@Aspirety I think that Tomoya and Sunohara saw Nagisa from a distance so probably they couldn’t see who it was. And I think, it would be a year before Tomoya and Nagisa meet again, so I can’t blame him for not recognizing her.
Hopefully there’ll be more guys who will comment here. Looking forward to seeing what you write.
It could be because I already saw the bonus episode adaptation on this story, but I wasn’t really that impressed. The ending was sweet with the ball, but its not like we really found out anything new about any characters. One thing that kind of bothers me; Akio acts goofy and all, but he actually understands people pretty well. Surely he would have understood the Ultramom thing was a bad idea. I guess he could have meant it as a joke and Nagisa took it seriously, but its hard to tell.
I remember this story from the bonus episode in the anime, so like the majority of CLANNAD we’re off to a familiar start.
It’s never outright stated in this story, but it’s implied that it takes place either during a time before Tomoya formally met Nagisa or (especially in the anime’s case) an alternate timeline where Tomoya never bothered talking to Nagisa on that fateful day. The focus here is in Nagisa trying to make friends despite her unfamiliarity with the students in her class and her poor social skills. The writing in this chapter is unmistakably introverted and cold, and Mai Nakahara’s lonely-sounding narration only emphasizes that fact.
I like this chapter. It’s an interesting start to what I assume will be a short, but harmlessly pleasant experience. As I read the other chapters, hopefully I’ll learn something new about characters I’m already quite familiar with. 
It’s true, it’s never outright stated, but from the circumstances we can infer that this is the entrance ceremony where Nagisa first becomes a third-year, Sunohara and Tomoya become second-years and Tomoyo (probably the girl with the glasses giving a speech) becomes a first-year. So a little over a school year before the start of the main CLANNAD story.
As I’ve also seen the anime episode that covered this short story, it was nothing new to me either, but I still liked it. This sort of short and sweet everyday story just works with the CLANNAD cast.
The first line is “This morning, I become a third year.” How is that not clear enough?
Well now I just feel silly ^^;
I’m pretty sure Tomoyo didn’t transfer into their school until she was a second year. I might be missing something, but I think the girl with glasses is just supposed to be a random background character. (Although she would still be a first year at whatever school she’s going to)
Funny trivia fact regarding that: the actor for Tomoya here also played him in the Motion Picture, if memory serves.
I’m with Aspirety here. This was short, yet sweet. I kinda miss the bits with Kyou, but I think they might be incorporated into a different story. I like GotoP’s art style, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it later on.
Well I’ve finally gotten to starting this series. Took me long enough, right? :love:
As everyone agrees, it was a short and sweet story. The best part was the sheer coincidence that caused Tomoya and Sunohara’s prank to get her to finally talk to her classmates. I’m sure she had a pretty enjoyable few months after that, thanks to their (inadvertent) help.
Which begs the question though… Why did she even pull it in the first place? Well, I guess she really just did want to have something fun happening in her life. She was pretty lonely, quite socially awkward, and didn’t have anything to lose. And she didn’t lose anything. Good job Nagisa :yukismil:
I’ll join the “short and sweet” brigade here. I think what’s good about this “prequel” is that we see just a little of our protagonists before the events of the VN and gives us a bit of an insight into the previously unseen backstory that the writers must have created for the characters during the development of Clannad. In fact the most interesting Side Stories for me have this prequel nature.
