Character discussion topic for Naoyuki’s character in CLANNAD. Feel free to discuss the entirety of the game without fear of spoilers, but mark any references to other Key games with [spoiler].
His birthday is the 1st of May.
All in all, he’s a great father (and character). But I’m just a little uncomfortable with how they overlook the fact that he ruined Tomoya’s shoulder when assessing him at the end of After Story.
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Naoyuki is a character I’m rather familiar with, thanks to the non-canon visual novel, CLANNAD: The Past Path. Although I won’t discuss anything that doesn’t necessarily apply to his arc in After Story, I may discuss some things that both novels cover.
For a majority of the game, Naoyuki is the source of TomoyaDango’s physical and emotional pain. You wouldn’t think at first glance that Naoyuki is a bad person, but Dango’s internal monologue elaborates on their true relationship: distant and cold. Naoyuki has all but given up on directing Dango’s decisions, and walks a very dangerous path into his own ruin, even getting thrown into prison. Dango thinks him a horrible person, even after Nagisa tries to convince him otherwise. It isn’t until several years later that he suddenly realizes just what his father went through.
Naoyuki acts as yet another parallel for Dango, further enforcing one of the overarching messages of After Story: if nothing is learned from the mistakes of the past, it repeats itself. Dango realized just at the right moment that he had fallen into the same situation as his father, but rather than ignore the advice of his grandmother, he chose to do for Ushio what his father couldn’t do for him. It’s a stunning piece of character development that almost drove me to tears (you guys know the drill by now).
It brings a nice sense of closure to yet another character. I have a feeling what follows next is going to be new for me, given that I only have my vague knowledge of the anime to go by. Hopefully it’s just as good as what I experienced here. 
Objection!!!
We are showed pretty clearly, during Tomoya’s early life, that his father did for him exactly what he was doing for Ushio. The whole big realization was that Tomoya always blamed his father for being a horrible father when, in fact, he was a perfectly good father at the start. Even better than Tomoya was! But, well, shit happens, and whose to say that exact sort of estrangement would not have happened to Tomoya and Ushio down the line? It’s sad to think about, but it’s still a possibility
This is one point where I think a lot of people really just blow off everything that Naoyuki accomplished with “well he hurt his kid”.
The guy made a mistake during an argument with his teenage son and accidentally screwed up Tomoya’s shoulder. This makes him look incredibly terrible when you consider that sports were one thing Tomoya seemed to really have this sense of longing for.
But, before we start to demonize the man for his mistake (singular, mistake), let’s look at what he accomplished. He raised Tomoya to apparently have some decent moral fiber. He raised his kid in the only way he knew how, working himself to the bone, giving up pretty much everything else in his life (which likely led to the issues for which Tomoya loathes him), but in exchange for the hardships in his own life, he managed to bring up someone who would eventually be capable of loving someone as unconditionally as his father had loved him.
The outlook Tomoya has of his father for most of the VN is terribly biased by the mentality and outlook on life of a teenager. Following the accident, Naoyuki realized he’d royally screwed up. It’s very likely that the “cold, distant, inattentive” feelings that Tomoya expressed such distaste for are his father’s way of shielding them both from future hardships. After sacrificing so much for the sake of his son, perhaps he really just wanted to avoid anything that could break the bond (however weak) they held as father and son?
I know it’s likely an extremely optimistic outlook on the man, given that we’re not really presented with much to go on outside of Tomoya’s internal monologues… But some part of me really wants to believe the best in him; after all… What father wouldn’t go to such lengths to ensure their son’s happiness?
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I’d definitely disagree that Naoyuki was a perfectly good father. Obviously Tomoya’s negative view of Naoyuki is pretty exaggerated. That’s the point, as it’s one of the numerous cruxes of Tomoya’s character development in After Story.
That being said, his general behavior is far from a shining example for Tomoya to follow. IIRC, Naoyuki was a full blown alcoholic and had a lot of issues with drugs in general. Even if we write off Tomoya’s injury as the result of a simple mistake, there’s also the bit in After Story where Naoyuki’s actions screw Tomoya out of a good job offer. The dude tried hard and did things the only way he knew how, but that doesn’t handwave away the shitty things he did. I actually like this sort of ambiguity to Naoyuki’s character, because it makes him feel very human despite how relatively little screen time and dialogue he actually has.
Conversely, the scene where they attempt to redeem everything Naoyuki has done is easily my least favorite part of After Story, and maybe even Clannad as a whole. It handwaves and erases all the ambiguity to his character and suddenly presents him as a glowing example of fatherhood, when really the dude fucked up royally hard in a lot of ways. Just as he worked hard to raise Tomoya, a lot of his actions still caused Tomoya substantial undue grief, and I dislike that they try to downplay all of those things. To make things even worse, they do this by introducing a character from out of freaking nowhere to deliver some grand speech, who then proceeds to never be relevant at any point in the story ever again.
I mean, it’d be like if you said Tomoya literally abandoning Ushio for several years was ok because he at least had the sense to leave her with loving and caring relatives, rather than trying to raise her while he himself was slipping farther and farther into depression. Yeah, he certainly could have done things much, much worse, but the dude still fucked up super hard.
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Naoyuki represents every father. Nobody is perfect, but the drive and love for your child is still there, no matter how flawed of a person a father is individually. Naoyuki was a pretty pitiful guy, and didn’t have much or really succeed at anything. In order to raise Tomoya he had to go through so much, to the point he mentally couldn’t take it and turned to alcohol and drugs. But the love is there. It’s always there. This game shows that, even the smallest, most insignificant person, can make a change on somebody and in the world, both good and bad. And, while his best wasn’t what most people would say is honorable, he still tried his best, even though he royally fucked up at times. Even if his kid hated his guts, he still loved him, this whole time. That’s what I get from it at least.
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I 100% agree.
To add to this, I feel Naoyuki is also an exceedingly stubborn individual. I understand wanting to take care of your child in principal, but even when he started falling apart, he didn’t even try to let his family members and friends help him. He insisted on doing everything himself, and this caused nearly irreparable damage to Tomoya’s character.
And at the end of that section of After Story, couldn’t he have been a LITTLE more apologetic? I mean, Tomoya is crying his eyes out and apologizing for everything that happened, and he acts like he was working hard the whole time, even thought he’s just been drowning his sorrows for 10+ years. I’ve disliked Naoyuki ever since.
Even though it poorly handled Tomoya, I actually feel the movie handled Tomoya’s father a LOT better than the VN/Anime did.
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First of all you all have been saying that Naoyuki did drugs. Now where in the hell is it mentioned in clannad VN that he did drugs? there’s mention of alcohol and smoking but no drugs.
Naoyuki lost his wife, the love of his life. But he didn’t let this keep him down, he focused his life on his son Tomoya. His sole goal became to take care of Tomoya. We always say that Naoyuki took Tomoya’s dreams away (basketball) when he broke his shoulder, but we never think about what his dreams were.
He certainly had his own dreams when he had gotten married. But he gave all that up and made growing up Tomoya his dreams. He worked hard every day, lost his friends, lost his job, only to put a smile on his son’s face. He provided everything for Tomoya even when he was beat up in life. When Tomoya grew independent as Naoyuki’s mother said he started hating his father, probably because of all the debts he collected. Naoyuki was a broken man the only thing left in his life was Tomoya and he started despising his father. His motive for joining basketball was only so he can get away from his father.
Now i will admit breaking his shoulder was a bad thing but did he do anything worth despising afterward?. I don’t think so. He thought he failed as tomoya’s father so he turned into a stranger. He fucking regretted it, he thought like this he can’t hurt Tomoya anymore. He still loved his son, we see these interactions when Tomoya is making dangos for nagisa or brings Fuko’s starfish, Naoyuki approaches tomoya ,every single time. All he wanted was to go back to those days when he and Tomoya were close, if not as his father then as a stranger.
In after story when Tomoya and nagisa go to his house and a shady man comes who tomoya drives away. “I think my luck is finally coming around” these are a desperate man’s words who probably thinks if he can get money he can get his son back. He was reckless but all he did was for Tomoya.
Tomoya is not only his son but he’s the only thing left in Naoyuki’s life to bring him happiness. Look at how happy he is when Tomoya bring’s nagisa to home,how happy he is when he tells him they’re getting married.
You say that he didn’t have to raise tomoya by his own, well that was his purpose ‘a father is supposed to be an individual that can take care of his kids on his own’. that’s a bad mentality but it is what it is even tomoya showed this when he didn’t accept money from Akio.
Even if he did some wrong things, he did a lot more good things. All for his son.
Being a father is difficult, not only you have to raise a kid but also tackle work,friends,society,family. A single father is a very difficult job.
My dad doesn’t talk much to me, only about how my studies are going and if i need anything. do i feel like we’re detached? Fuck no. I still remember how he held my hand when we walked in crowded streets as i clung to him, when he used to surrender his body after coming from a hard day of work and picking me up in his arms, there were many times of happiness. I can’t believe how he put up with my bullshit all these years, while still dealing with so many difficult times. Even though we don’t communicate much we still haven’t grown apart, we’re still as close as we were then. I respect him for everything he did as a father and a person.
If Naoyuki is a bad father then tomoya is shitter then him.
Abandoning your duties makes a bad father, trying to fulfill them yourself does not.
(I’m by no means insulting tomoya both him and Naoyuki are great fathers)
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The way I see it, he made two major mistakes, breaking Tomoya’s shoulder being the lesser one.
I believe therein lies the actual problem. Even the broken shoulder was something Tomoya could’ve forgiven him. But the worst part was that Naoyuki started to distance himelf from his son, pretending to be a stranger. Because being referred to as “Tomoya-kun” by the only family he had made him despair and angered him more than anything every time he heard it from his father’s mouth.
Sure, Naoyuki wanted to protect his son from whatever accident he might cause next, thinking the boy could take care of himself just fine and that would be for the best, but that was actually when Tomoya had needed his father the most. Because after losing his dream, Tomoya was left all alone.
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