Discussion topic for CLANNAD -Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de- Episode 05: Me in those days, told by Tomoyo Sakagami as written by Jun Maeda. For general discussion of Tomoyo’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
Unlike all the other side stories up to this point, this one isn’t set before the main story, but during Tomoyo’s route. Interesting!
Wait what the hell? Is this a shounen manga all of a sudden?? This is cool!
No way! Kazu-san? Kazuto Miyazawa, Yukine’s brother appears for the very first time! He seems like a really fun character, wish I could see his face. I guess this loosely inspired what we got for Yukine’s route in the anime. What a fun and exciting side story! And damn, unnamed heroine is best girl! Where’s her route??
Also also, who the heck is Ai Maeda? A relative of Jun? That’s the name of the person who voiced the nameless girl, it would seem. Could be a coincidence. Kazuto was voiced by someone with the surname Baba, as well.
Well well, what do we have here!
This was an incredibly well written episode. The action scenes were breathtaking and full of suspense. Not only this, but it shows an insight on how Tomoyo was during those days and how the gangs worked at that time. Instead of what I thought, that Tomoyo just wanted to fight crime in a more violent way, it is more like she wanted to fight to flee from her present. (Little Busters! Spoilers) It reminds me a bit of what happened with Masato. He started fighting not because he liked to, but to find a reason to live in some sense, even if the fighting itself wasn’t his goal.
Also, Kazu-san, presumably Miyazawa Kazuto, made an appearance as a really interesting character. He gave that feel of being badass, but also smart enough to talk sense into anyone, kind of like Kyousuke in Little Busters!
What I loved the most however about this route though, was that last scene, where Tomoyo is being dragged by Tomoya while the girl who attacked Tomoyo with a knife in the past walked by. At that point we kind of saw the internal conflict Tomoyo had. She had to choose between her past and current life, and we see how she just says that she likes what she has now.
It was so concise, yet so powerful, that I can’t say anything else than that it is beautifully written.
Maeda’s stories in this short story collection so far haven’t fared well compared to Kai’s, but here we get a firm winner. Of course, this is Tomoyo we’re talking about, who I’m sure Maeda fantasizes about even during his fairly-recent hospitalization. Joking aside, this is easily his best contribution to the Side Stories so far, with great writing, fight scenes and a nice bit of fanservice. 
Kinda hard to point out exactly when this story takes place, but I assume it’s before Tomoyo’s route in CLANNAD. Anyway, Tomoya and Tomoyo are on a date, and Tomoya asks about her past. She recounts a story about how she ‘lost’ a fight and discovered her reason for fighting. Perhaps it’s because I’m expecting a lot from Umineko at the time of this writing (since I am reading both that and this in tandem), but I really enjoyed the fight scene in this story. I guess that says a lot. 
Anyway, another thing I liked about this route is that not only does it tie in to Tomoyo’s development in her own route, but it’s also linked to Yukine’s route in some way. Kazuto Miyazawa himself shows up midway through the fight scene Tomoyo recounts, giving her assistance and apologizing for his gang’s incompetence. It helps illustrate what a good guy Kazuto is (I mean, it’s something I already know from everyone who talks about it in Yukine’s route), as well as drive in the moral this story seems to go for: that although most people act in a way that’s disagreeable to others, it doesn’t make them inherently evil, just misunderstood. Everyone has their goals and means of achieving them, even though some will oppose them because it conflicts with their own goals and values. I think the ending helps drive this point even further, showing that Tomoyo has found what she was looking for her entire life in her relationship with Tomoya, and the girl who was once her opponent shows her approval. 
Can’t wait for episode 6!
This story didn’t strike me all that much. Perhaps I wasn’t in the mindset to enjoy the gripping action of her fight, or perhaps the comedic relief of a metal pipe hitting her opponent kind of put me off. All-in-all it was an alright read, with not much that we could gain from that we didn’t already gain from Tomoyo’s route in the VN. I guess we learned that her being a delinquent didn’t really mean much and was just a “phase” (in that she was just finding herself amidst her family issues) but that was something that one could easily infer from her route anyway.
Well that’s totally cool! I’m surprised you even noticed this. Kazuto is a cool guy and I wish we could see more of him
This one left me pretty cold. I thought at first that Tomoyo was perhaps winding Tomoya up with a fake story for some reason but it was all played straight. I just really don’t enjoy fight scenes, though of course there’s more to it than that as Tomoyo finds a new purpose, and the pay-off of the last scene. Still, as Tomoyo’s route had covered a fair bit of her past I suppose there wan’t much left as the seed for a new story except perhaps the events that led immediately to her leaving her old school and moving to the new one in Clannad.
