CLANNAD - Kyou Fujibayashi Route & Character Discussion

[LinkThinks]

Discussion topic for Kyou’s route and the Ryou ending of CLANNAD. In the Anime, this refers to ‘Another Chapter: Kyou’, the final bonus episode of After Story. Please mark references to events of any other routes except common with [spoiler]. Character discussion of Kyou’s character is also welcome, but for Ryou, refer to her own Character Discussion Topic. Their birthday is the 9th of September!

This topic also hosted CLANNAD Bookclub discussion from this post onward, and was referenced in our Kyou Route Podcast.

What would you rate this route?

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[solidbatman]

Because I’m lazy and Key VNs are way too long, I used a walkthrough and skipped Ryou’s route entirely. Never cared for her anyway. I’m not really a fan of those timid girls that won’t speak up for themselves. At the same time, I liked Kyou as a character, but hated the way she went about doing everything. One should never sacrifice one’s happiness to make another happy like she did.

[Takafumi]

The thing about this route is that, instead of making me enjoy it, the writer{s} just made it frustrating for me. I actually came out of the route hating Kyou and Ryou more than before I went into the route… It’s similar to Haruka’s route from Little Busters in that aspect.

[Wicklebee]

I hate Ryou. If you don’t know why, here’s a small tidbit. Kappei route (so Aspi doesn’t click this by mistake). The stupid “I have your child” showing her idiocy and her hypocrism showing out of having sex in a hospital with a recovering patient when aspiring to be a nurse. And that’s without me going into why I hated her through only Kyou’s route, which should be obvious when you find out this next half.

Kyou was my favorite Key heroine and couldn’t be dethroned until I played Rewrite, meaning no LB heroine, or Kanon heroine (who a couple I overrate) could topple her. Now she’s not even top 5 (since finally LB girls could pass her). Also her character theme brought me the most joy out of all and topped my char theme list… also until Rewrite. But Kyou probably held that spot for 5 years, just to give a glimpse.

[JDAM_Cid]

I got respect for Ryou in Kappei’s route, which became one of my favorite routes in Clannad

I kinda hated Kyou in Kotomi’s route

As for their respective routes, Ryou one was all lovey dovey, with fortune telling stuff and that, but that made it frustrating once I got into Kyou’s route, since you have to reject Ryou in order to go for Kyou… ;_;

…Guess I’ll re-read Clannad once it makes it to Steam, since many things got lost in currently available VNTL

[Pepe]

I don’t have much to say about how I think about the Kyou route, but I can explain how I feel.

For some reason, whenever I think about the Kyou route, I get this feeling of melancholy and loneliness. I just simply can’t explain it, but I do.

As for character-wise, I quite dislike Kyou, but I like Ryou. I really hate bitchy characters and Kyou takes the cake. Yes yes, I know she is tsundere and everything, but you can make tsundere characters that aren’t bitchy (see: Lucia from Rewrite).

On the other hand, I like kind and helpful characters (well, I guess people in general) and I see Ryou as someone like that. Sure, she’s really shy, but her wanting to be a nurse says a lot about her wanting to be helpful.

[cheerful_tambourine]

When it comes to these two, I think it made sort of a bad first impression on me that Ryou’s route (and then Kyou’s route) were the first two I played, and it kind of made me feel like… here is this visual novel about family and family ties and all these routes which are based in family situations! First route: sisterly boyfriend-stealing SIGH OKAY THEN.

On a rational level I find it an interesting little subversion to the ‘usual’ date-sim sort of scenario, in the sense that Ryou and Tomoya try hard, certainly, but just can’t make it work, because the spark isn’t there. You simply can’t get a good ending with her; it’s just not there, it can’t happen, you can’t force it. The whole Kyou-Ryou route has this “you can’t force - or deny - an attraction” thing going on, and it’s more difficult because the two of them are sisters, and it’s an interesting scenario to contemplate.

However, on an emotional level, I just never warmed up to Kyou. I’m not fond of her character archetype, and I was just mad that Ryou only got half of a route and no Good End, haha. I mean, obviously she gets her own good end on Kappei’s route, but that’s not something you find out until you get to that point in the game yourself. Personally, I liked Kyou much more as a character when she was in other people’s routes. The focus on her, though, not so much.

I wasn’t a fan of the “let’s sqash a whole route into one episode” thing that the anime went for, but I think I kind of appreciated the bonus episode for its brief length, so it wasn’t all so drawn out and I spent less time disliking it.

…Also I played their routes when I was in university - I very vividly remember thinking “I have no lectures today, I can spend all day playing Clannad”. So I spent the day playing through Kyou’s route! A week or two later I found out I’d had an essay deadline that day I’d been completely unaware of - I’d written the essay even, I just completely missed the hand-in deadline. I mean, if I hadn’t been playing Clannad that day I just would have been doing something else but it’s still stuck in my mind as a negative association, haaahhgh…

[Aspirety]

…except for the fact that Ryou does have a good ending

[Pepe]

That’s arguable, as many would not consider it a “good” ending. The emotions were artificial and the decisions pretty much forced. Which is why that is only a possibility of the story, but not the story that the writers intended with the Fujibayashi route. @cheerful_tambourine puts it very well: there isn’t really chemistry between them, and you can see that highlighted when you see Ryou’s interactions in Kappei’s route

[Bonecuss]

Also there is no Light Orb.

[Doublethree1]

There’s a couple other routes without one Fuko off the top of my head

[Bonecuss]

Oh okay, I haven’t fully played the game so I didn’t know that.

[Doublethree1]

I still wouldn’t count her as having a route though. Mainly because completing it gets you no closer to After Story. You aren’t required to see it nor will completing her route instead of Kyou’s let you get to it. I’m pretty sure every other character route is required.

[Pepe]

I would also argue against that route having a “good” ending Although in after story you end up getting her light orb, which does represent Fuuko’s real good ending

[Aspirety]

Bookclub discussion begins from this post onward!

[kyuketsukimiyu]

I finished Ryou’s route and am working on Kyou’s route right now.

Based on the buzz around Ryou’s route I was kind of expecting to see the relationship fall apart even in the best ending. Instead they just kind of hint that it is a doomed endeavor and finish it. I thought it was really interesting that the fortune telling machine pretty much lectured Ryou about respecting Okazaki’s life choices preemptively.

Ryou and Okazaki have terrible chemistry. I don’t dislike Ryou, but the two just don’t match. She seems very much like the high school girl who got a crush on a boy in class who seemed cool and is now wrapped up in the idea of relationship. This is normal, but not sustainable.

I just got to the part where Kyou runs off after confessing to Sunohara. I feel bad for both her and Ryou. Kyou started setting Ryou up with Okazaki because she truly cares for her sister, and Ryou surely had no idea about how her sister felt. So they ended up in a position where at least one of them would have been hurt regardless and Kyou kind of tried to shoulder all of it, but based on Okazaki’s resolve she starts to buckle.

More added on 12/21/2015
I finished this route last week. I was really impressed with the emotions on this route. Ryou being torn between not wanting to lose Tomoya to her sister, but also knowing she kind of took advantage of Kyou’s caring personality to give herself an edge.

It is good that Tomoya is written in a way where you don’t hate him for moving from Ryou to Kyou. So much of his hesitation is just his desperate search to find a way out without hurting Ryou, and he eventually has to face the fact that not hurting her was not a possibility and drawing it out would only be worse. I am glad that while you hear after a time skip Ryou has a new boyfriend, but that it is not a part of the route and Tomoya has to face the pain head on.

Ryou gets really uncomfortably invested in keeping the relationship together. That she comes right out and says she will replace her sister…well, lets just say I am glad Tomoya was on the same page as me about that. I kind of wonder if she would have been so desperate if the rival had not been her twin sister. Despite the fact that Ryou and Kyou are close I am sure there are many times where Kyou’s more upright personality has at times made Ryou feel like she is missing out.

Final thoughts:
-Sunohara is amazing in this route
-Kyou looks adorable with the shoulder length hair
-I feel compelled to collect all of the dating advice given by Kyou from this and all the other routes.

[ZakM]

Personally I did not enjoy this route as much as I once used and I can’t quite put my finger on what it was that irked me this time.

However one part I loved which stood out to me in retrospect (which admittedly I’ve probably over-thought a little) is in regards to Botan’s ‘back-story’ which is subsequently an important part of Kyou’s character, in another small piece of exposition which at first glance seems insignificant, but in my opinion provides some rich food for thought.

I mentioned the way Yukine’s route used a piece of exposition to clarify some of Clannad’s greater plot which was seemingly deeper than it came across. However it this case, the use of exposition does numbers for Kyou’s character in the long haul as well as her route.

Just so everyone knows what I’m talking about, I’ll copy paste the text of the section of the route I’m referring to;

Kyou speaking to Tomoya about how she found Botan:

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"He was trembling here all by himself, his parents and siblings were nowhere to be found. It seems boars only take care of their children if they follow them. I don’t know if he got separated or lost but he ended up alone by himself, and so I took him home with me.

Boars actually forage for themselves even while young. Their mothers don’t give them anything other than milk. I guess in a way that’s how they teach them how harsh life is."

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There’s a few things I want to talk about and some points dabble into spoiler territory for After Story which I’ll blank out so you can read at your own discretion.

Firstly it’s pretty weird that Kyou would take home a boar of all things, but this is part of her character which was quite nice to see. It demonstrated a maternal and caring side of her which contrasts her surface personality of being a nasty brute. Botan is in a way someone/thing that had a profound impact on her mentality after seeing what he went through and having to care for him as a pet.
This for me revealed another side to Kyou, because on the surface she’s a sassy son of a gun, but when it comes to something that she cares about (Ryou, or Botan) she becomes extremely protective in a kind of motherly way. Paralleled by the way she was deeply saddened from seeing Botan separated from his family.

Although I would have liked to see Kyou’s character be handled in a way that wasn’t just 2 extremes (tsundere fluff eh?) this piece of exposition also relates to her feelings for Tomoya in a way.
She loved Tomoya, but knew Ryou liked him too. But her primary response was to encourage Ryou to chase after Tomoya which created a nasty love triangle. The important part I want to draw here is the way that Kyou, despite being usually hostile for comedic effect, when it involves someone she cares about she feels the need to help them in anyway possible to make sure they are happy because she can’t stand to watch someone feel lonely.

But oh dear…
Situation where she cares deeply for 2 people with no options to make every party happy. Her inner conflict causes her to break down transitioning us in to a highly melodramatic ending.
I dont like the way the route was executed myself, but I respect the thought gone into the characterisation because it ultimately gives foresight to the reader of how she might progress in future.

And now spoiler territory!

After Story major spoilers The reveal of Kyou’s motherly personality and care giving attitude is kind of a subtle foreshadow of her untold aspirations of wanting to become a kindergarten teacher and caregiver to children. A lot people say that Kyou would have been the perfect step-mom for Ushio if Tomoya ever decided to remarry at some point after Nagisa’s death (in a hypothetical scenario where Ushio doesn’t die) and I can’t help but agree. Kyou’s route solidifies just how strong her feelings are for Tomoya. I can see it happening, definitely.

Overall I’ve grown to really respect Kyou’s character. Even if specifically her route was slightly… over-doing it on the drama side of things.

[fuzzlekins]

Man this route, or routes I guess, make me feel very conflicted. I’m a lot like Tomoya, I suppose. It’s hard when you have people that you care about and want to put their happiness ahead of yours, especially in a love triangle situation. All parties involve were to blame, yet they all cared about each other, so I can’t hate any of them. Since I’ve also experienced both sides of one-way attraction I can relate a lot to Kyou’s route. Even though it worked out in the end, it really could have ended up with everyone unhappy, and I still don’t quite feel satisfied with the way it ended, even though I can’t think of a better one.

A lot of people seem to have a strong preference for one twin or the other (even if its based on negative opinions) but really I can’t seem to choose. On one hand I think Kyou has a lot of bad habits and aspects that are really unappealing, but a lot of the other aspects of her personality are very relate-able and resonate a lot with me, like her motherly attitude with those she cares for and hiding her feelings by acting like her normal self.

I also feel like Ryou as a character could be more developed, because I’m sort of curious as to the basis of her attraction to Tomoya in the first place and her sudden transition into boldness seemed a bit too sudden. At the same time, she’s the kind of character I want to root for. I want her to be happy. I think that Tomoyo really helped her get out of her shell more and I liked that part of the route. I’m glad that there was an ending for her, but I don’t like how it’s so short and just a cut off version of Kyou’s route, because it kind of makes you feel guilty for being faithful, know what I mean?

In the end it’s just a very conflicting route for me. It’s certainly a more traditional romantic drama, but the way it was written resonated with me emotionally.At the same time the ending didn’t really make me feel good, and I can understand people who don’t like this route because of the love triangle drama.