CLANNAD - Kyou Fujibayashi Route & Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#72

I definitely can’t agree with that… In Tomoyo’s route he just decides to break up with Tomoyo because of the social pressure of their situation. If he really thought about the long term, then he’d realize that that wouldn’t be the right solution to her long-term issues.

Everything that Tomoya does in the early parts of CLANNAD he does because he is weak. He is insecure about his own emotions and finds an escape through the different routes. Even in Nagisa’s route he chooses to move out of his own home instead of confronting his own father.

So when you say:

He would not realize it because, again, he is very weak. His entire thought process during the route is that he does not want to end up hurting Ryou, and even if he manages to break up with Ryou, he fears that Kyou would not accept him. His entire thought process is driven by his fear to hurt other people and fear to not be accepted. And I think that fear and insecurity fits Tomoya to a T. He is not a long-term thinker, and neither is he very smart about his relationships. I personally think you give him too much credit.

Sure, he also does that. When you choose not to pursue Ryou, he tells her off. A lot of it is anchored in the choice mechanic, again. And because you do not have this choice in the Kappei route, it fails to become more believable. But analyzing his own insecurities makes me believe that he might not even have been assertive to Kyou in kappei’s route. We just don’t see that because we do not go down that timeline.

#73

I will agree that Tomoya is quite emotionally unstable(Big After Story spoilers) Even after spending a long time with Nagisa, he ultimately isn’t a strong enough person and hasn’t matured enough to take care of his daughter on his own.

I do see your points, but I’m just not convinced. Call it stubbornness if you’d like, but I find it hard to stomach that Tomoya would be this indecisive and cruel, even with his insecurities. It doesn’t help that he’s quite slow to take the romance route in other stories and doesn’t broach that possiblity until he starts having feelings for the girl.

I appreciate this discussion, though, it’s been very enlightening. :slight_smile:

#74

Well I can see how it would be hard to stomach at least. Just one last thing I want to point out is that Tomoyo is in no way, as you put it,

He does not wish anything ill on Kyou nor Ryou. He simply wants the best outcome for everyone but is too afraid to take the step in the right direction. At least, until Sunohara gives him some perspective

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#75

I will concede he’s not malicious by any means. But I still believe that Tomoya is simply too conscientious to let this situation stand by as long as it did. Sympathizing with him and Kyou was extremely difficult at various times in this route, even with the revelation later on that Kyou was somewhat exploited into helping Ryou get together with Tomoya.

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#76

Maaaaaaaaaaaan I don’t think any other route in Key (barring a certain route in Rewrite) made me feel so frustrated and uncomfortable going through it like Kyou route did. I feel so bad choosing to do things against Ryou. And I feel so bad for Kyou sacrificing herself like that.

Which basically means I like this route a lot.

And which is why I’ll begin with the stuff I don’t like about this: reading it can get tedious as heck. Maybe standard galge routines aren’t my thing haha. Also, Ryou’s stutter-y lines gives me a secondhand sore throat. Not like I dislike it much. And the voice acting for Kyou in the rain scene is so dry. She’s supposed to be crying, but her voice don’t seem to reflect it well enough. It’s supposed to be hard to speak while crying. It really dampened my enjoyment of that scene. :((

The rest? Damn perfect; I love it. The characters have so much depth to them. Their emotions are so well conveyed by the writing.

And man do I really like stories good at bringing out the worst of the main characters: Tomoya didn’t want to cause pain to others, so much that he ended up hurting people unintentionally (funny enough, one of the stories I’m planning to write took inspiration from this - I watched the OVA btw). Kyou would rather sacrifice her happiness for the sake of others, but because she can’t keep doing that for long (sh’s just human), she caused things to get complicated. Ryou’s feelings made her do selfish things, and at the same time, led her to sacrificing her identity. The result: a deconstruction of high school romance, dragging it out of the rose-colored lens it’s often viewed on.

The story really stands on solid writing and realism. The awful stuff that the characters did? Happens in real life too often. Society should begin accepting consensual polygamy tbh

Lastly, I quite like both of them, but I think I like Kyou a bit more. Kyou’s now among my best gril candidates; she’s too savage to not like. Ryou’s pretty close, at least for now.

4.25/5 for me. Had more flaws than the previous routes I’ve read in this VN, but had a very compelling drama to it.

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#77

FINALLY someone else who gets it!

But yeah, amazing route, and glad you liked it too :kyouevil:

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#78

I’m conflicted in this route. On one hand, I’ve heard people argue that Ryou’s actions are douchy(?) - even when she knows her sister likes Tomoya, she still asks her to help them get together, ignoring her feelings, as well as Tomoya’s. Heck, even at the end, she tries to be act like Kyou just to be with Tomoya, even if it’s clear he doesn’t share the same feelings towards her.

But on the other, I empathize with the reason why she does it - she’s desperate. This relationship isn’t something she can get. Like, at the moment, she really can’t imagine them being together, no matter how much she tried. So, what does she do? She asks help from her sister, even if it hurts, she’ll bear with the guilt, just to get what she really wanted, Tomoya’s love/attention(?).

Cause of this, I really don’t know what to feel for Ryou.

For Kyou, I just think it’s sad that she’s willing to go through this much for her sister - just cause she was not confident in herself and the answer Tomoya would give. I guess she underestimated the pain she would have to bear by helping her sister.

For this route, I really love it. It feels the most…human out of all the routes I’ve read (Fuko, Misae, and Tomoyo), which makes for interesting discussions especially on the matter of emotions and rationality. Thus, I really really love this route.

The biggest thing I hate is that I had to kiss Ryou to progress. I didn’t know that so I had to retry the route multiple times before resorting to a guide. I guess it’s important to the story of the route, but still, it’s Kyou’s route!

So, now I’m confused…who’s in the wrong here?

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#79

There has been quite a lot of study, because identical twins as we can expect are ideal subjects for the Nature vs Nurture argument.

E.G. The Mystery of How Identical Twins Develop Different Personalities

I take your point that this is pushing the envelope here though!

Same here, but the Clannad Side Story #4 - while being average quality, does look at the Ryou vs Kyou situation before the events of Clannad which could veer the reader wither way! ( won’t say more : spoilers )

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#80

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I seem to be missing a CG, anyone help?

#81

It’s from a different route, don’t worry.

#82

Thanks, I was confused, but now I’m good.

#83

I finished the Kyou route recently, and it was very different from what I expected. On the one hand it’s a great route, I think the struggles of the 3 main characters (Kyou, Ryou and Tomoya) are portrayed really well and their flaws made them very human. The inner monologues of Tomoya were very interesting and it highlighted how emotionally unstable he actually is. It’s definitely one of my favourite routes, but as a Kyou fanboy I also was slightly disappointed I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked to. The other routes generally have a strong focus on a single girl, and I feel like Kyou had less of that, but I suppose it’s not that surprising considering that the route is about both twins after all. But I will surely read the route again in the future, and this time I won’t have these specific expectations (and will probably like the route even more for that reason as well). I’m just kinda sad there’s no Kyou After or something. Ah well, that’s just my inner Kyou fanboy speaking again, sorry for rambling on lol.

I know this is a comment from a year ago, but I just wanted to reply to it anyway. I listened to her voice acting during the rain scene for a second time and I agree it’s too dry, though it didn’t bother me to the point where I enjoyed the scene less. Interestingly I think she did a much better job on the same scene in the OVA, where she sounds far more emotional. Not sure if they didn’t coach her properly on the scene in the VN or something, but yeah… In the end I’m okay with the scene regardless.

4 Likes
#84

Let me say one thing before i begin I generally hate love triangles in stories. The reason? cause it often depends on character behaving like idiots. The character starts off with oh i love both of them and ends with ah i didn’t really love girl A instead i was in love with girl B all along.

Clannad breaks this norm but not in a good way and still makes me want to shit on it.Tomoya starts to go out with Ryou as a test to see if he would come to like her in the future, okay that’s fine, then shit gets flipped. He practices kissing with Kyou and even fucking picks up her fav.stone (azmanite or whatever the fuck it was) still the guy has so much problem with even considering a tiny possibility that he might like Kyou and not Ryou until later. Ok maybe i can’t blame this as being conflicted or ignorant of your feelings is a main part of these kind of routes.

I’ll say what i like about this route now. 1. The romance - i love high school romances and the fortune telling scene is easily one of my favorites from this route.
2. Drama - you ever get that feeling where you feel so emotional even though the story is unlikable for you? i felt it the atmosphere created was strong enough to make me feel emotional,

Now the bad points.1. Ryou’s transformation - while i like it very much,it’s so sudden. It’s hard to believe she changed so much in one day. 2 The drama - why am i bringing this up again? cause it’s both a strong and weak point of the route. While it successfully creates a good atmosphere the story is still unpolished in my opinion with characters making unnecessary mistakes. especially tomoya being a pathetic shit.
Let’s get back to Tomoya, so when he does realize that Kyou has feelings for him he still goes and kisses Ryou, cause he want’s someone to be there for him, cause he wants someone to need them, cause he feels happy with Ryou by his side. Now before this i mentioned trying to date for a short period to see if they can like each other, that type of thing can’t cause much harm to the feelings of the girl but kissing, goddamm there’s a line that you shouldn’t cross if you aren’t sure you’re in love, purely pathetic! even sunohara knows what’s better then him (don’t tell me in the end he still worked up to fix his mistake he had wasted far too much time and hesitated one too many time before finally doing it).
Kyou is also an idiot, while tomoya clearly tells him to think about his feelings she pushes him towards Ryou and then gets her feelings hurt, this self harming thing is not something i like.
Ryou is also in both their league ,she’s so stubborn and shit but at the end she gains her senses before the other two so she’s somewhat high for me then them.
All characters beside sunohara are unnecessarily stupid in this route.

#85

And that’s exactly what makes this route so good. Because people make unnecessary mistakes, all because of a petty thing called emotions. Despite that, these unnecessary mistakes in this route still remain believable, which in turn makes the characters feel like real people! And i love that

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#86

Yeah they were pretty stupid in the route. But iirc a lot of what transpired in the route happened because Kyou and Tomoya didn’t want everyone around them to get hurt.

The two were sacrificing themselves by suppressing their true feelings because they didn’t want people around them to get hurt. But they didn’t quite realize that their own sacrifices are causing these exact people to get hurt, and even when they are already made aware of it, they couldn’t assert their feelings because they really are afraid of the pain it can cause to people around them. It’s a very real situation, actually, and it’s hard to escape from it because not too many people want to actively inflict pain on others.

(BTW, Sunohara is in a perfect position to be in his particular role in this route – he’s an outsider who happens to be close to Tomoya, so he’s able to observe and assess the situation as a whole with a clear mind.

Ryou, meanwhile, was in a rather weird position. It was easy for her to act selfishly at first because their self-sacrificing is easily giving her the opportunity to be, but she was mature enough to realize that she’s going to get hurt either way anyway. :uee: That’s why she was able to give Kyou the push she needed near the end.)

1 Like
#87

This is where our opinions differ. Remember that white disclaimer “this story is fictional and in no way is related to people in real life…”. Writers make their story on guesses, how the character will react in that situation, everything is their imagination. We the readers are who decide if it’s believable or not. To me this is not, too much exaggerated drama, unnecessary choices. Where someone else will call it a complex story built on emotions i call it a mess.

I think i mentioned it in my post but maybe i was too blunt. Yes she was mature and the end is where the story stops being stupid. I only complained that her change was sudden but not unwelcome and by this time she had seen enough to make this decision and actually show growth.
It’s just the mess all three of them cause before is just unbelievable and honestly i knew from the start that i won’t fully like this route.

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#88

That’s… not what that sentence means.

It doesn’t mean that the entire premise is fictional, it’s a legal insurance against anyone who may think this is targeting someone or a group specifically to avoid lawsuits (especially since this sentence appears at the start of the game and not at the start of the route). It’s the difference between that and when a story is “based on real facts”, but it doesn’t actually address the authenticity of the characters in the way they’re written in any way, shape, or form.

I’ll agree with Hayate here because it’s important to remember that these are just teenage kids: yes, they’re dramatic. Pretty much everyone is in high school. Look no further than your typical “teenage romance” and you’ll find examples of ridiculous love triangles (that honestly aren’t worth it) even in real life, and sometimes with much more dramatic outcomes than in CLANNAD. It’s the reason why teenagers are the characters in story like these because they’re still immature enough to make the plot work in a cohesive manner, where adults wouldn’t be able to.

It’s a very heavy matter of having either experienced or witnessed it to truly understand, but while disliking it is one thing, discrediting it is yet another and not a very fair one.

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#89

I know that sentence is to avoid legal lawsuits. It’s the fictional part that i tried to get at. Not everything is fiction but most part of the story is, it’s writers imagination, at least that is what i get from it. And that was what i was trying to tell, it’s just a bad example.

Did i discredit it? All the things i’ve mentioned are the reasons why i dislike this route. I feel it’s too much drama, i feel tomoya is pathetic. I believe everyone is an idiot beside sunohara. These are all reasons why i dislike it. Teenagers behaving in a way that i don’t believe they would, i guess it’s kinda discrediting but i have yet to see such complicated shit, if it really is hard for me to believe then it is something i dislike rather than something I’m trying to discredit.

#90

Writers don’t have personality disorders, though. The fictional aspect of the story only refers to the tropes of the Japanese media genre, and you CANNOT say thay CLANNAD is a fictional work that doesn’t actually know how to write realistic characters when that is literally its selling point and what makes it the most popular VN in existence.

And yes, it’s discrediting. Your belief is a belief, but it is not knowledge. You may dislike it and find that behaviour stupid from on a logical standpoint of an adult, but it’s fundamentally impossible for you to prove that teenagers wouldn’t act that way, so affirming that it’s not beliavable and henceforth is “just the writer’s imagination” is kinda insulting their ability to write people and not characters. How do I know? I’ve gone through the same shit in my own adolescence, so much that I found Kyou’s route to be one of the routes I relate to the most in the entire novel, and I have experience with writing as well.

Personal experience and beliefs are the basis of a lot of things, but just because it’s not something we can reason doesn’t automatically mean it wouldn’t happen or doesn’t make sense and that’s what makes or breaks an open mind.

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#91

So i see that the main thing here is here that i lack knowledge and experience, looking through my past it’s come to be true. Now when i read this post i do get how am i discrediting the people behind writing and now that i’ll never be able to explain my point without any experience of the real thing cause the only thing i have in this aspect is my intuition based on the people around mee. I’ll take back the believable part and leave it at that the behavior is not understandable or something i can relate to.

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