I said it in some other thread.
Something that appears in a situation of absolutely fuckin’ happiness, a situation that I don’t think would be happy enough if Hiiragi-chan was as alive as Sunohara’s sex life.
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Have to say this is the first route I’ve finished that has suffered from being a bit unnatural and far-fetched, and yet it had one of the best climaxes I’ve seen with very clever pacing that I love.
Worth the hit in the end but everything else seems jumbled together just to reach that climax, because they knew that what happened before the actual problem wouldn’t particularly matter and I think it winds up a bit boring- But thankfully it’s not very long.
4/5. If the setup went any longer it’d probably be lower. It’s like… 3.5/5 as is, so I’ll be nice and round up.
Also this is the best CG in the game thus far.
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In both routes, we have a girl (Misae, Ryou) who’s got a superficial crush on a cool and manly boy (Igarashi, Tomoya). But then, a nice, weird boy (Shima, Kappei) appears out of nowhere. The girl’s crush is quickly forgotten. A genuine connection is formed between the girl and the weird boy. They get along great and they soon hook up, facing the trials of love side-by-side.
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I’m not against Kai as a scenario writer. I mean, when it really comes down to it, he has his own personal style of writing that just seems suited for the position he was given. He probably had to work hard to get where he got today, and I’m sure he had every intention of sticking to the central themes of CLANNAD.
Case in point: this route.
Kappei Hiiragi is a lone traveler looking for a job, a place to live and a purpose in life. He may act and look a little strange, but he is by no means unfriendly. Although he’s rather self-centered, he is grateful for the things other people do for him. He never intended to find a reason to stay in this town, but it is human nature to find a place to call home and settle down with a loved one. In the process, though, he forgot about his own weaknesses. As a cancer patient with no future in sight, he surrendered his will to live even though the reasons to stay alive were right in front of him. It was only after he realized that he could provide something he never received in life - a family - for another that he decided to preserve himself.
I enjoy this route for not only how well it fits with the general theme of CLANNAD, but also for relatable it is. Kappei is a little loose in its storytelling until halfway through, but because it leaves time for TomoyaBaby (and by extension, the reader) to get to know Kappei, it makes the drama that much more involving. Kappei feels like a real person I might just happen to meet off the street, and every time I meet him on the street, I feel interested in what he’s doing wandering around. Watching him rot from cancer and trying to get him back on his feet is involving and inspirational. Seeing him survive to become a husband to Ryou (especially after the events of Kyou) is a heartwarming conclusion, although not quite a tearjerking one. Still, I feel like hugging the poor guy… ;;
I can’t think of any complaints, save that a lot of Kappei’s actions and backstory is told to us, not shown. Granted, I could easily write this off as how I would see it if I were actually talking to Kappei in the middle of the street or during a hospital visit. It feels personal and, in the case of the latter, rather tragic. I’ve seen how conversations like these play out before, so this kind of personal confession feels quite familiar to me. I guess that goes to show how complex a character Kappei is. 
Next up is the little demon sister herself, Mei. Here’s hoping I can contain the Loli Loli Hunter within~ ^^;
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I can definitely see some people being thrown off by two things: (1) a sexually confused Sunohara being played for laughs, and (2) Ryou’s desperate attempt to save Kappei via a rape threat. I find it easier to pass off the former as inoffensive, as I didn’t really feel homophobia from its writing. (And Sunohara has always been the chew toy of the story. Poor him.)
On another hand, the latter… it’s possible to actually play the scene without the threat though. In any case, that wasn’t really the thematic point of the story, so it’s forgivable at least. (Plus, she actually let him know such a motive, so… 
)
With that aside, I really enjoyed this route a whole lot: it was at a right length, and there was no boring moment. Kappei is just very entertaining, and he really has good chemistry with Ryou. It was definitely Ryou’s nurturing personality that Kappei found to be attractive, while Kappei, as random a dude he is, has this emotional maturity that pairs well with Ryou. Yeah sure they sparked too suddenly, and we don’t really see much lovey-dovey stuff between them, but I think what we see of them already suffice; I’m convinced enough that they care so much to each other.
Plus the forced romance is definitely not out-of-character due to how random Kappei is and how easy to sway Ryou’s heart is
Plus the comedy is just pure gold, and I never found them tiring. The gory fairy tales scene is a highlight, and so are the /triggered/ Sunohara scenes and Ryou initial mistake of saying that she’s pregnant. The couple suddenly holding hands was funny too.
The thematic point definitely leans to how a family can be your reason for being. It’s been expanded before here already, so I’ll just stop with that.
4.5/5; it has its flaws, but definitely the most enjoyable route so far. should have been in the anime too
edit: for reference, I’m following Kaza’s reading order
Edit2: I looked up on the liquid nitrogen treatment mentioned in this route, which led me to a Wikipedia article (how reliable) on cryoablation. The funny thing is that, while it is indeed used to treat certain cancers, osteosarcoma isn’t one of then. 
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I wasn’t a terribly big fan of this route. I felt Kai tried too hard to make the readers like Kappei by having every character he encounters treat him with kid gloves. Tomoya isn’t nearly as trollish to Kappei as he is in other routes, and Kappei is a painfully easy character to make fun of. Kyou is also sidelined way too easily here (seriously, when would she ever just let one lecture from Tomoya dissuade her from wanting to know something she was intensely curious about?) Ryou and Kappei having chemistry is understandable, but other than their first interaction together, this is all told rather than shown. Since this romance is critically important to the end of the route, I find this unacceptable. In addition, Sunohara falling for Kappei lead to some strong comedic moments, but the gag was stretched far too thin, and the rape jokes in this route were unfunny and tasteless. In my mind, that whole end bit where Ryou tries to persuade Kappei was tonally uneven.
However, in spite of what the first paragraph might make one think, I didn’t think it was total bunk. I did enjoy Kappei as a character for what he is, and the fact he’s both a free-spirited, idealistic individual, while inside being a world-weary cynic, is immensely interesting. The tearjerker moments where his friends find about his condition hit the mark for me. Yoshino’s sagely advice felt surprisingly organic, in spite of his rather sudden appearance. And seeing Kappei finally accept what he still has in life is very satisfying. Although, letting him walk again in the long-run hurts the message in my mind. It defeats the big issue he had with the operation in the first place.
In spite of these peeves, however, I still enjoyed the route. I’d give this one a 3/5.
But in spite of these
I’d say otherwise, and this has been addressed in this thread before:
To say in my own words, his despair in this situation kept him from looking further for solutions. If he continued to resign to his fate, I doubt that he’d be able to see the possibility that he can do away with his cancer and still keep his leg.
Going with this, Kappei did mentioned about how technological advancements came into play to this conclusion. I get the impression that he has the illness for a fairly long time already (I’m pretty amazed that it didn’t metastasize considering that), and when he got the diagnosis for the first time, the alternative treatment hasn’t been discovered yet. So the alternative treatment only came about after he decided that he won’t have his leg amputated.
Yes, it does come off as defeating the point of the whole thing, but I do like to think that it makes a lot of sense.
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You make a good point. Knowing that, the approach they take to the treatment for his cancer has a level of nuance I was ignorant of prior to your response.
You bring up an interesting point with how long he’s had the cancer. I had actually assumed it happened in his third year of highschool (which would have been 2 years ago, considering his age), but I’m starting think he might have even been a first year when it happened.
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I just assumed it from the hints that he had already traveled a lot by the time that we got introduced to him. It could be a lot shorter that I imagined it. XD
So I randomly looked up on osteosarcoma, and looks like the fact that amputation was his only choice at that time meant that the cancer was already spreading on the surrounding tissues of the nearby affected bone. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it has metastasized at that point though. I honestly don’t know how long it takes for osteosarcoma to metastasize, but with this information, and the fact that the affected bone is the calf (lower leg), we might be able to infer how long he has been travelling.
On a side note, Kappei getting so easily tired might also suggest that he had been taking chemotherapy. It would have been more interesting if that was the kind of drug that Ryou found out rather than Codeine (which is a painkiller btw). Though it’s hard to think of this as the case when there’s no sign of his hair going thin at all. :<
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Kappei is quite the energetic keet, the kind of guy you meet by having him bump into you, keeps conversing with you about strange random stories or his day to day life, and never leaves you alone. It sounds annoying and yeah he can be a bit annoying, but at the same time he is very friendly, tries to live life to fullest and looks at the good in other people…well except maybe for Sunohara. So for the most part, I like him fine.
His backstory of being an orphan and having osteosarcoma which ended up killing his career as an athlete, and the desire to live life till he dies is depressing, but at the same time I can’t help but feel frustrated with his motivation for not wanting to take the operation. On the one hand, I can understand that he doesn’t want to lose his legs as they are his reason for wanting to live life and he feels that it is what defines his existence, in addition to not wanting to be a burden on Ryou. But on the other hand, I couldn’t help but agree with Tomoya that Kappei has Ryou who loves him and will take care of him and accept him for who he is, and that should be a reason for him to keep living. Not to mention, it kind of harkens back to what Tomoya said to Nagisa in the beggining of the VN to find new things to appreciate, so in that sense Kappei could find a new reason to keep living in Ryou. This frustration made Ryou’s convincing of Kappei to accept the operation so that she can experience the stuff she wants to experience with him, and her declaration to be with him even if he loses his legs all the more satisfying though.
Speaking of which, Ryou’s role in this route was pretty nice. She and Kappei share chemistry with one another and the scenes between them were pretty sweet, especially the aforementioned scene where she convinces Kappei to accept the operation. We also see a rather spunky side of Ryou in the route as she threatens Sunohara to not do perverted things to Kappei, lies to Kappei about doing it with him when he’s sleeping, and near the end does some funny things to Kappei in the hospital.
As for Sunohara, his shtick of falling for Kappei, dreaming of doing obscene things to him and being in denial that Kappei is a guy was funny, but it did wear its welcome out a little later on. The scenes with Yoshino were pretty good too and I’m betting he was the guy who told Kappei in the orphanage to find something to believe in and push forward in his life.
I guess one last thing I want to mention is that while I was reading this route, I started to find some similarities between Kappei and (Little Busters spoilers) Koshiki Miyuki from Little Busters in that both of them lost their talent via a disease, which made them lose their reason for living. In Kappei’s case it was osteosarcoma which ended his athlete career and made him lose his talent for sprinting, and in Koshiki’s case it was a disease that resulted in her loss of eyesight for one of her eyes and pretty much ended her career in archery. Additionally when you get down to it, both of them tried to take their own lives as a result. Koshiki’s was direct and tragically successful. Kappei’s on the other hand was indirect, gradual, and thankfully averted with the help of Ryou, Tomoya, and indirectly Yoshino. It might not be huge similarities in hindsight, but it was something I noticed regardless.
So overall, I enjoyed Kappei’s route. It was short and to the point, and it did its job of reminding us the readers that we’re not alone and there are people who love us, need us, and accept us for who we are.
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To this day, I’m still pissed Kyoani didn’t even show him. Like okay, I see skipping his route, but like just show him at the end with Ryou in the hospital -__- Boooo.
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Was checking out the interview from the Clannad Visual Fan Book (I don’t know why it’s called a “fan book.” It’s basically the same as the Perfect Visual Books released for later games), and they mention some neat details on what they initially wanted to do with Kappei’s story. First they describe how Kappei and Ryou’s story would have continued into After Story. This got scrapped because After Story uses the data of your Nagisa playthrough, so you wouldn’t have gone through Kappei’s story in that timeline. Kai also brings up a version of the story where Kappei died, and that would affect Tomoya’s character during After Story; that seems to have been scrapped for more thematic reasons. Lastly more as small trivia, Kappei’s route was also supposed to be even harder to get onto and complete, requiring specific routes to be completed first and so on.
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