That sounds like a certain other main character from a certain other Key game
Okay, I guess we’re gonna ignore that sudden twist at the end…
Putting that aside, this route was amazing! It felt just like the right length, didn’t overstay its welcome and managed to deliver some powerful messages. For a while I was expecting the route to be a bit like Yukine and have a more simple message by posing this duality between Tomoya who continues to live a stagnant life and Kappei who is milking every drop of life he can. But then of course, the medicine comes in, and we’re suddenly taken down a very interesting path. For once, it’s not all about Tomoya and his relationship! Tomoya becomes the side character. This is super refreshing to see from Key, and not something they do very often at all.
In many ways, (Kyou) this felt like a sequel to Kyou’s route, which ended on the note of Ryou finding a boyfriend at the hospital. Certainly seems like they’re connected by the red string of fate. Where Kyou’s route used Ryou as a bit of a device to help forward the plot, this route finally gives some justice and development to her character. It’s like, the Ryou we saw at the very end of Kyou’s route is more fully fleshed out and explored here. Does make me wonder if Kappei would’ve received the surgery without Tomoya’s help, though.
Some really top voice acting in this one. From Sunohara’s screams of agony to Ryou’s outbursts of crying, really good stuff. Sunohara was amazing fun in this route. I can’t help but feel like Sunohara in this route was too gay for anime.
Kappei’s character is amazing fun too, just saying. Might be one of my favourite characters in the game.
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He’s definitely my favorite male character in the game! Although that isn’t saying much
Another thing that I wanted to mention about the route, but wasn’t sure I should bring up, was that it was really easy for me to interpret Kappei as transgender. This might just be me projecting my own gender-weirdness onto the character, but for most of the route I could easily see Kappei as someone who was transitioning FTM. (The hang-ups with manliness? A masculine name to make it obvious he was male? Mysterious pills he doesn’t want to talk about? The signs are all there!)
Of course, deep down I knew that it wouldn’t be the case, because I would never expect a popular Visual Novel from 2004 to seriously address that topic, especially considering how homosexuality and bisexuality gets treated as more of a punchline. This route and the bad Sunohara end sort of exemplify that. I’m not offended, by the way. It’s just an interesting thing to think about, and can lead to deeper discussion.
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I actually thought that kind of too. When we first saw him I was almost expecting a reveal in that direction, though I agree, if they had gone in that direction it probably just would have been played for comedy.
Theory crafting!
Since people mentioned the possibility that Kappei might have actually died… It got me thinking, so I read into this a little bit. Warning if you do not like over-thinking and speculation, I recommend you stop reading here.
Nonetheless I had fun looking into this. 
Ryou tells us that the cancer Kappei is suffering is Osteosarcoma (* gasp * they explained what someone’s illness is in a Key series?? Well there goes the typical stereotype out the window eh?)
And she also says people who recover from this cancer are people that don’t show signs of relapse after 5 years.
In real life, (it’s a real condition, for anyone that was wondering). Wikipedia says that in regards to treatment “Overall, 65–70% patients treated five years ago will be alive today”
The CG we see at the end of the epilogue is the exact same CG we saw pre-time-skip.
To clarify the CG is first seen before the time-skip. And the epilogue took place 5 years after the events of Kappei accepting the treatment.
Technically speaking we don’t see Kappei character sprite in the epilogue at all. All we saw was the CG we saw pre-time-skip, only this time the CG had a glaring white filter layered over it.
We can’t see his wedding ring on his right hand finger on the CG, and his left hand is hidden from view on the same CG. We know they are/were married at this point because Ryou shows off her wedding ring which is seen on her sprite during the conversation outside the ward.
Tomoya walks into the hospital ward and then we read a line that says
“Hey, it’s been a while…” followed by the CG we saw pre-time-skip adorned with the light of god almighty.
Theoretically speaking this could imply the interpretation that Kappei has died is possible.
We didn’t see his sprite, and the CG we saw was one which was technically one from 5 years ago.
Ryou’s lines are very vague and implies there’s a possibility Kappei is in the hospital ward as they spoke in the corridor. But the evidence suggests there are 2 ways to interpret the situation.
If we go by the statistics. There is a 65-70% chance he is alive, and 30-35% chance he is dead.
So IN THEORY @Aspirety is technically not wrong in assuming that there is a possibility that Kappei died.
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To me, this suggests that Kappei may have been in critical condition. As you cleverly pointed out, we didn’t see what he looks like in the present… For all we know he could have lost all his hair from the treatment, but they decided they didn’t want us to see Kappei like that.
If this is the case… It really changes the way we look at the route and the ending, doesn’t it?
I think it doesn’t really matter whether kappei survives or not; what’s important is that he was able to change his outlook on life and could dedicate those past 5 years to making the person he loves happy,
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light orb tho
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I was a little unclear at the end of the route if he lived or died, but considering the game shifted so quickly to him finding the experimental treatment that wouldn’t require him to lose his legs, and the fact that Ryou was being quiet about it, I figured I was probably supposed to think he lived. I mean, it would be kind of a jerk move to call Tomoya out there if Kappei was not doing well without giving him some kind of heads up.
I know this will make me sound like a horrible person, but one thing I was disappointed by was that there was that experimental treatment at all. I think the stakes should have stayed at legs or life because I think that ties more in with the ideas of moving forward better, and really I felt like it kind of cheapened the weight of the choice (for me at least)
It occurs to me that this route really focuses in on what Tomoya told Nagisa early on - about how even if everything changes and the fun things you new are gone you just need to find new ones.
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Even if that experimental treatment works, I doubt he’d be able to run the way he used to. That fact itself still keeps Kappei’s internal struggle of “I don’t have any meaning to life other than running” intact.
Although it does cheapen his excuse to Ryou about not wanting to be a bother to her if he loses her legs… I feel like that was really just an excuse and at that point he was just drifting, waiting to die… Until he found a new reason for living.
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Yeah, and they mentioned that the rehab would be really tough. It is more about the symbolic loss though - hence the part where I sound terrible - I just think there would have been a lot more impact in seeing him go through with losing his legs and finding happiness despite having completely left that part of his life behind him.
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Honestly for me the legs thing didn’t have the emotional impact it could have because I talk to my boyfriend and he emotionlessly ruins things for me!
He used to be a track and cross-country runner in his high school days, won trophies, got a scholarship. Now he races cars recreationally which, you know, also uses legs. So talking to him I was like “wow can you imagine losing something so central to your identity? What would you do?” (You know, asking him because he has first hand experience with the whole legs being a huge part of his life thing)
And he just deadpans “Uh, get the surgery???” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And it is that easy for some people, but not for others. It must be hard for some to lose something so important to them.
But yeah his reaction the way it was just ruined a lot of the dramatic tension for me x)
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Gotta love this route.
For such a short story, there’s so much I like in this route. It manages to combine ‘accepting your fate and still making the most of it’ and ‘don’t give up and accept a bad ending if there can be a good ending’ which are both themes I love to see in visual novels but don’t get along with each other well all that often. But this route did it wonderfully.
It was a foregone conclusion to Kappei that he would not get surgery because it would mean losing his legs. That train of thought prevented him from even looking further into surgery at first and realizing that he can get surgery without losing them after all. He was stuck in a strange position where he had honestly given getting surgery some deliberation and made the doubtlessly hard decision not to have it, which in turn was probably a major reason why he was able to enjoy his remaining life the way he did, but in the end it still ended up being a decision made on a basis of wrong information. Well now he can look back on the time he spent misinformed and be happy he didn’t waste it by moping around and instead ended up finding his partner for life!
(Little Busters! Spoilers) The whole new surgery type thing reminded me of “It’s not enough” in quite a few ways. To me they both represent how getting hung up on a bittersweet note even though a way better ending can still be achieved is a terrible idea.
(Tomoyo After Spoilers) It didn’t occur to me until Aspi asked whether or not Kappei died in the end, but if he did die I actually see quite a number of parallels between this route and Tomoyo After After. In both cases it’s the husband that dies and the wife that keeps on living a happy life with no regrets. At the very least the After route may have been inspired from this one. Crap, now I’m imagining Ryou going through the same three years Tomoyo went through. Good luck with that…
Ryou was great in this route. While we didn’t get to see a whole lot of their interactions I still felt Ryou and Kappei were a pretty cute couple, especially with the way they fell for each other instantly. Solidifying that she really just crushed on Tomoya for no big reason. TBH I wasn’t bothered by the whole rape threat thing just because Ryou was the one doing it. I couldn’t for the life of me see her go through with it. But it did serve as a powerful message to Kappei, conveying just how much she really wanted him to stay. Though I do agree with @kyuketsukimiyu on that if the lie that she was pregnant hadn’t been debunked so quickly, that’d have left a bitter taste. Generally, if the scene hadn’t been executed the way it was, my thoughts on it could easily be way in the other direction. As it was, it was just a hilarious moment.
The overall atmosphere of this route was just so pleasant, too. Kappei’s antics and Sunohara being a butt served as great comedy, but even in the less silly scenes Kappei just really kinda… brightened everything? I can very much empathize with Tomoya when he says (paraphrased) “the world looks more beautiful when I’m with you.”
On the subject of memorable lines I can’t forget the “with love even a lie can become the truth” line which pretty much made me squee. Yusuke’s appearance in this route is pretty damn amazing in general. Besides the wonderfully cheesy lines he still spouts in every scene he’s also the total MVP of this route. He’s the person thanks to whom Kappei first got extremely attached to running, and yet now he can look back and admonish himself and claim he said an irresponsible thing. And he actually manages to take responsibility for it, too, by giving Ryou the push she needs to be able to convince Kappei.
Unfortunately there’s one thing that’s hard to forgive this route on, and it doesn’t really come through in the way this bookclub is structured, but I had a couple of discussions about it with @Pepe: Getting the good end of this route if you don’t know how it’s done can be a total bitch. How in the world you’re supposed to know that you have to have met Yusuke way back near the beginning is anyone’s guess. I mean sure Kappei references him as his inspiration but it’s even very possible you don’t even know it’s Yusuke he’s talking about! And if you happened to not help Yusuke on that one Sunday, tough luck, Ryou and Tomoya just sit in the park, nobody came, Kappei went on to die, everything sucks.
It’s especially bad since most of the other route bad ends in this game are resolvable simply by going back a choice or two and picking something else. Not the case here. You mess up early, it has it’s ripple effects and there’s no way to make up for it so starting over from scratch it is.
Speaking of alternate endings, I do wonder how the whole surgery thing ends up in Kyou route. It seems pretty obvious Ryou still ends up with Kappei there, but the surgery issue is unresolved. Maybe Ryou’s experiences with love and relationships allows her to find the right words to convince him even without Yusuke’s help? I don’t know, but that’ll be my headcanon for now. What do our podcasters think?
Overall an easy 5/5. I really wish they had just put this route right inbetween the two seasons of the CLANNAD anime.
Huh. Y’know I love this route but Kappei is probably my least favorite male character in this game since the others are all just wonderful. I guess Koumura is barely below. But Tomoya, Akio, Yusuke, Naoyuki? Great stuff.
Pretty sure we would be getting one even if Kappei does die in the end.
Heh, I was the one who brought up the violin thing in Kotomi route and yet this didn’t bother me one bit this time around. To me this time it fit perfectly well into the story, for reasons I outlined above. And I don’t think it cheapened the impact because Kappei was still ready and would’ve accepted losing his legs. It just wasn’t necessary.
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That doesn’t match up with what I think a Light Orb is.
With a dead ass Kappei, what I think of a Light Orb would not cause it to show up.
I concur. In my humble opinion he’s alive because of the light orb. I could be wrong, but I feel that way. It’s hard to deal with the ambiguity in Key’s VN sometimes. 
As a side note, I know the anime isn’t canon, but in the 2nd OVA: Kyou tells Okazaki that her sister is ok and in love with…, and it always felt (to me at least) that is like a good ending for her sister’s route.
okay so a lot of people are starting to call it “rape” but, really, I don’t view it as such. If she does go along with it, I’m pretty sure that once they get started, Kappei would willingly go all the way. He is kind of a perv, after all :kurumu: It was definitely a silly way to do it, but it was pretty much tantamount to Ryou saying that “I want to have a future with you at all costs and that can’t happen if you let yourself die”. Ryou’s decision is pretty silly, as was shown. So i do agree with you when you say:
Such is the pain of no walkthrough play orz I have many bad memories about meeting yoshino because of this
I would ask what you really think a light orb is but I guess that can wait until we get to after story
yes yes, I’ve read Clannad VN. It’s just that I don’t strictly consider the VN adaptations… but it definetively influenced my point of view regarding to what happened to Kappei
“Instead of adjusting to what’s around me, I force those around me to adjust to me.”
Summoner spotted!
You did well to notice that. I believe there’s a reason why they did that and I’ll talk about it on the podcast!
I have recently come to notice just how interconnected all the stories and characters in CLANNAD are. Even Kappei, who only makes a personal appearance in his own route, is connected to Yoshino , who encouraged him as a kid. (after story spoilers:) In Yoshino’s route, we find out that Yoshino not only had influenced people like Kappei, but was also influenced by them. He came to notice the power of his songs, which unfortunately slowly brought an end to his career. And let’s not forget who Yoshino is engaged to. Kappei quickly formed new connections with Tomoya and Ryou, bringing a huge change to the latter’s life as well.
You can really tell that the town itself plays an important role as the place where all these people meet and connect.
