Won’t put in my full thoughts/analysis until I finish the VN, but one thing I’ve always really liked about the Tomoya was that I could relate to his emotions and actions despite not being in any situation even close to his. I’ve never had any problems at school, I have plenty of good friends, and no girl has ever needed me to help them solve some kind of life problem. But I have always felt like I could understand his experiences. And he’s just a cool kind of guy when he’s not in forced delinquent mode.
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I guess that’s just a testament to how well written a character he is! It proves that you don’t need to be LIKE someone to EMPATHISE with them. I think that’s a common misconception people have when it comes to fiction.
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[quote=“EisenKoubu, post:10, topic:33”]
It’s too long? Maybe I was right in picking Little Busters…
[/quote]It feels kinda long and repetitive at some points because it has so many routes. But that doesn’t really make it bad. It was still the right choice to go with LitBus! though.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:11, topic:33”]
It had less routes than Clannad, but Clannad’s routes were all pretty much better than Little Busters!'s
[/quote] That is very much so a matter of opinion. One that I just don’t agree with.
Please by careful in listening to Taka, @EisenKoubu. His opinions can be very insightful, but also tend to be outliers. Not that no one agrees with him (I do on several things), just make sure to get others’ opinions as well.
[quote=“EisenKoubu, post:12, topic:33”]
I bought the vanilla version
[/quote]Pah. Bad move in my opinion. Especially with the EX/ME patch supposedly being done soon. I’ve heard from many sources that Saya’s route is second best only to Refrain.
[quote=“EisenKoubu, post:12, topic:33”]
unlike Tomoya, who pretty much stayed static throughout the anime. It’s not good to have a weak main character in a story full of interesting and extremely likeable major characters.
[/quote]HOLD UP. There are two things very wrong with what you just said.
First, I don’t know what anime you watched, but Tomoya changed a ton. There is absolutely no way you could look at the Tomoya at the beginning of the first season and tell me he’s the same as the Tomoya at the beginning of After Story. And even more so is that Tomoya different from Tomoya at the end of After Story. The whole story is about him learning about family.
Second, go read Little Busters!, and then go read the Riki discussion here (particularly my post), and then try and tell me you have something against weak characters. Please. I dare you.
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I don’t think that’s the best comparison. Riki was objectively strong. Tomoya could be considered strong, but he’s quick to give up on anything and everything. That’s why I prefer Naoyuki over Tomoya.
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I wasn’t comparing Riki to Tomoya. They’re lives leading up to the start of the VNs are pretty much the opposite (Riki was alone at first, and then has a bunch of friends who support him by the beginning of the VN; Tomoya has family and friends at first, but is slowly growing more and more alone when the VN starts).
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I’m not really sure how you could say Riki is objectively strong for the majority of the game.
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Unless you as the reader chose to ignore people or give up on them (which applies to Riki too of course), I don’t remember Tomoya giving up on anything except for after Nagisa died, and his dad, which I wouldn’t call quick: he’d hated his father for two years by the time the story starts, and he hadn’t really been on the best of terms with him for years before that since his mom died.
In fact, the anime pretty much portrays him as literally not giving up on anything, since it has him help almost everybody.
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Better cover those spoilers.
Riki is objectively strong, but not when your spoiler tag says. This isn’t a Litbus discussion, but you should know what I mean when I say he is strong.
Cite examples where Tomoya DIDN’T give up when solely tasked with something. I can’t think of any. It’s been years since I read it, but I should be able to remember at least one instance of him being “strong.” We’re talking good ends here btw. There’s a reason that people say the Tomoya in Tomoyo After isn’t the Tomoya in Clannad. The Tomoya in TA doesn’t give up.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:16, topic:33”]
Cite examples where Tomoya DIDN’T give up when solely tasked with something.
[/quote]OK
He doesn’t stop trying to convince Kappei to get the surgery when Kappei himself has decided he just wants to die.
He doesn’t stop helping Fuko handing out starfish and convincing people to come to Kouko’s wedding.
He doesn’t leave Kotomi alone, even when she hides and tells him she doesn’t need him.
He doesn’t stop helping Mei with Sunohara, even if it means fighting the soccer club, even if it means fighting Sunohara himself.
He doesn’t stop visiting Yukine, even when her friends tell him to leave her alone (VN) or when he has to fight the other gang himself (anime).
And he doesn’t quit the drama club, even when Nagisa herself wants to quit.
Though now that I think about it, I will concede that he gave up in Tomoyo’s and Kyou’s/Ryou routes. And he didn’t really do anything in Misae’s except talk to her…
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Did I unintentionally start an argument? 0_0
[quote=“yerian98, post:13, topic:33”]
First, I don’t know what anime you watched, but Tomoya changed a ton. There is absolutely no way you could look at the Tomoya at the beginning of the first season and tell me he’s the same as the Tomoya at the beginning of After Story. And even more so is that Tomoya different from Tomoya at the end of After Story. The whole story is about him learning about family.
[/quote] It’s been a while since I watched CLANNAD from beginning to end, so I don’t remember Tomoya changing all that much. If he has, my bad.
[quote=“yerian98, post:13, topic:33”]
Second, go read Little Busters!, and then go read the Riki discussion here (particularly my post), and then try and tell me you have something against weak characters. Please. I dare you.
[/quote]I don’t have anything against weak characters. But I’ve been hearing so many people’s opinions and going through so many visual novels that I don’t know what to consider strong or weak anymore. I’m not an expert in writing. I want to be one, but as I stand right now, I am nowhere near that point. I’m sorry to offend you. And please be patient. SAL seems to be taking forever with my package.
[quote=“yerian98, post:13, topic:33”]
Pah. Bad move in my opinion. Especially with the EX/ME patch supposedly being done soon. I’ve heard from many sources that Saya’s route is second best only to Refrain.
[/quote]I am not rich either.
[quote=“yerian98, post:13, topic:33”]
Please by careful in listening to Taka, @EisenKoubu. His opinions can be very insightful, but also tend to be outliers. Not that no one agrees with him (I do on several things), just make sure to get others’ opinions as well.
[/quote]So you’re telling me to take everything he says with a grain of salt? And how am I supposed to get others’ opinions? I can’t will people to answer my questions. I might as well just shut up and not ask at all.
I appreciate your patience. For a moment, I felt a little uncertain about my ability to speak my mind in a positive light.
[quote=“yerian98, post:19, topic:33”]
This is just how Taka and I talk to each other.
[/quote] Such a strange way of conversing…
[quote=“yerian98, post:19, topic:33”]
Because of me, theres kind of a running gag here now about people who haven’t read LB!.
[/quote] I understand that kind of situation, but it still kind of hurts to be on the receiving end. And how old is this forum, anyways?
[quote=“yerian98, post:19, topic:33”]
Chronic problem of art lovers.
[/quote]Are all art lovers unemployed, living with their parents and still trying to graduate from community college? XD
[quote=“yerian98, post:19, topic:33”]
But he’s often that one guy who hates something everyone else loves.
[/quote]There’s always one guy. I’ve got some of my own unpopular opinions, too. For example, I said in the Kanon discussion that I don’t like Shoujo no Ori as much as everyone else because it’s a tad repetitive.
Anyway, I appreciate your understanding, @yerian98. You’re a cool person. 
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I think that on an individual level, Tomoya’s character can be viewed as weak. He is far distant from any resemblance of the Nietzschean Übermensch, throughout the series establishing himself among dependent relationship. We see the relapse of his nihilistic lifestyle once Nagisa passes and only after his epiphany, realising his negligence, begins to invest in Ushio, gaining some sort of direction in life. A similar theme to what is presented to us in the prologue, when he first meets Nagisa, telling her to find new fun and happy things. Whether to credit this new-found strength to Tomoya or his relations with others is up for debate. Although, it can be argued that having the foundations of one’s motivation be based on something so fickle can also be seen an weak and unreliable.
That doesn’t take much effort.
Group work. He had a whole family helping him.
Same as Kappei. The only one putting in real effort is the person the route focuses on.
Actually, that’s my favorite moment in the VN. Surprised I forgot that one. He did it out of frustration, so I’m not sure it counts, but I’ll give you it.
I don’t remember that happening in the anime, but VN-wise he didn’t do much that route.
Again, that’s not much effort. All he has to do to fulfill his “goal” in that situation is motivate her… something he’s done accidentally in the past.
Unless I present something specifically as a fact, it’s aaaalll my opinion! So yeah, take opinions with a grain of salt. You like different things to me of course~ The problems I have with stuff might not mean much to you, and vice-versa~
Discussion! It’s not often we have a Clannad topic active.
Does everyone else love you? Because I don’t hate you
It’s good. Definitely worth a purchase. I just think it gets over-hyped on Kazamatsuri.
Have you met @Kanon? He communicates through a strange pattern of insults and badly-disguised innuendo.
A year since closed beta almost.
BLASPHEMY. It’s actually because the track is around 1 1/2 minutes long, but it usually ends up looping in scenes.
Well, you can’t hedge your bets on a single thing. My partner is in a similar situation to Nagisa physically. I just have to accept that her life might not hold out for as long as I wish. Sounds cruel, but she doesn’t want me to be sad~ Tomoya had it good despite the bad stuff.
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Takafumi:
Everything you just said in reply to me because I have the same response to all of them
My point wasn’t that he worked really hard to help all those people. Indeed he did have a lot of help from other people (especially depending on other decisions you make concerning other people earlier), and a lot of them it seemed like they helped him more than he helped them. Like I said, the story is really about Tomoya learning about family, etc. and growing up.
My only point was that (even if it was something he just did naturally, on accident, didn’t work hard for) he didn’t give up, at least not to the extent that you were proposing.
I would love to hear at what points you felt like he always gave up so quickly.
[quote=“Takafumi, post:22, topic:33”]
Does everyone else love you? Because I don’t hate you
[/quote]Love you too, Taka no homo
You’ve already mentioned the big ones. Ushio, Tomoyo, Kyou/Ryou, Naoyuki, school overall, and a bunch of small things. Compared to Riki, Tomoya is the weak one in my mind.
I have a question about Tomoya. I know I’m bringing back old news, but it’s in my mind. Does Jun Maeda/Key choose who voices Tomoya in the anime, or does the animation studio choose ? I know Tomoya had 2 different voice actors for the movie, and the series, so I’m just wondering,
Jun Maeda is a scenario writer of the visual novel; he has very little influence on the production of adaptations of his work. I doubt he has much influence on the choice of voice actors for the visual novel, but he might have some say. Regardless, Tomoya was an unvoiced protagonist in the original game, so I’m sure it was up to the anime production teams to decide who would voice him.
So here’s a topic that spurred off of a discussion with @daysofsummer and @kyuketsukimiyu on Twitter…
Excluding Nagisa, which girl do you think suits Tomoya the best?
It’s as good a point as ever to discuss, since the bookclub is now past the point where we’ve covered all the female routes except for Nagisa’s. Why exclude Nagisa? Because she is objectively best girl for Tomoya (fite me)
As for my analysis… I might have to do a process of elimination on this one. First let’s take out the obvious: Fuko shouldn’t be in a relationship with Tomoya and the romantic ending is a joke. She’s fun to bully, but her personality clashes too much with Tomoya to even make that something worth considering.
Ryou doesn’t have much of a chemistry with Tomoya either. Sure, she does get her ending with him, but it feels like Tomoya was just going with the flow and that sort of relationship would have fallen apart in the long run, I wager.
It’s a bit hard to push him with Mei at this point because of the age gap, and while it isn’t that much of a gap to matter in the long run, Mei still has a lot of growing up to do in the meantime.
Kotomi seems like a good choice at first: she genuinely causes Tomoya to grow as a person. However, that attitude also has one flaw: Tomoya himself is flawed, and has his own set of problems, none of which are worth scoffing at. I just feel that Kotomi lacks the social awareness to be able to help support Tomoya in handling his problems, once he needs to confront them. While that may not negatively affect Tomoya’s relationship with Kotomi, it would definitely keep him at a standstill, and that wouldn’t be good for Tomoya either.
Then we go over to Tomoyo, who may seem the exact opposite of Kotomi in that regard. However, she is pretty pushy, especially with things that she thinks is right. Tomoya, on the other hand, is very very stubborn about his problems. Once Tomoyo decides that Tomoya needs to face his problems head-on, she will push him to do it. That can only end up with Tomoya’s stubbornness causing him to walk out, both from his problems and from Tomoyo.
Misae feels a lot like an older sister to Tomoya, frankly. However, it would end up a bit too much, as it would cause Tomoya to be reliant on her in many situations, much like the majority of the dorm boys are reliant on her. Misae also has leftover emotional baggage that seems as if it would be impossible to heal, should Tomoya had pursued a relationship with her.
Which leaves us with… Yukine and Kyou. The chemistry between Yukine and Tomoya definitely felt natural, as it did with Kyou. Tomoya definitely has the guts as well to handle Yukine’s posse, so that shouldn’t pose much of a problem either. Kyou might be pushy in the same way Tomoyo is, but she knows when to stop early enough to to prevent Tomoya’s stubbornness to take over. When that happens, I think that she’d actually be more understanding than any of the other girls.
It’s definitely a close call between the two but I’m gonna have to give it to Kyou. She’s known Tomoya for a longer time and can deal with him when he needs to be dealt with. Whereas, while Yukine’s overly-accommodating personality works with Tomoya for the most part, there might be times where he just needs that sort of push to be a better person.
Delving heavily into After Story territory here, but it has always been a headcanon of mine that, in some alternate universe, Ushio doesn’t die and Tomoya learns to get over Nagisa’s death and finds in Kyou a good wife and potentially a good mother for Ushio. Well, at the end of the day, it’s still just a headcanon and shall remain inside my head 
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I generally feel that Tomoyo is the second most fitting behind Nagisa, and here’s why:
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Tomoyo is the only heroine besides Nagisa who puts any sort of effort into combating some of Tomoya’s own problems - mostly regarding his “delinquency”. While her route does show that this sort of falls apart when he’s not with Tomoyo, she at least puts in some marginal amounts of effort, which is better than every other non-Nagisa heroine, who simply receive Tomoya’s help. Basically, she demonstrates that she actually cares about Tomoya’s problems, and shows that she is willing to help him out with them.
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Tomoyo also has a history as a delinquent. This is a natural sort of bond between her and Tomoya, and while I felt it was under utilized in Tomoyo’s route, it would also give Tomoya something to grasp on to as far as improving his own life. As an added bonus, Tomoyo even had a troubled home life, something else she finds common ground on with Tomoya.
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Nagisa’s route and After Story pretty much specifically demonstrate that Tomoya wouldn’t just “walk out” on Tomoyo if she tries to push him to face his problems. Nagisa pretty much does exactly that, and while he never truly responds positively to it, he doesn’t push her away and it doesn’t negatively impact his relationship with her. Tomoyo herself has also proven that she can curb his negative school habits without eliciting a negative response from him, so it’s likely that he would just respond similarly to her as he does to Nagisa.
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Tomoyo isn’t that pushy to begin with. I don’t think there’s really much to say here, but Nagisa is actually a lot more pushy than Tomoyo is, and Tomoyo is generally less abrasive than Kyou.
I think I could say more, but those are my general thoughts on the matter.
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I haven’t finished After Story, or read Tomoyo After - both of which could change my perspective on this.
I did not really like Tomoya and Tomoyo together. I love Tomoyo, and you can really tell that she does love Tomoya, but I just didn’t like the dynamic between them. Tomoya didn’t feel like he ever had to do any of the heavy lifting in the relationship himself.
I think Kotomi is the best fit for Tomoya outside of Nagisa. Kotomi is needy enough to let Tomoya be dependable, I agree that Kotomi is not going to push Tomoya to confront his problems with his father, but I think as the relationship strengthened Tomoya would be able to confront the new problems that would flow into his life, especially because Kotomi lacks the awareness to care about what other people think in face of what she wants.
Yukine is an interesting choice - I can see her be a good fit. She is, from what I have seen, a very good balance of needy and giving that she would be able to slowly nurture Tomoya’s growth.
Ryou/Fuko are both out for me too, Ryou and Tomoya lack chemistry, and while I think there may be a world where Tomoya and Fuko could end up together, I do not thing any of the routes in CLANNAD show this in an appealing manner.
Again, I haven’t finished After Story, but Kyou is not really on my radar. To a degree I kind of forget about her outside of her construct as Old Friend With Crush. I enjoyed her route, but really, I didn’t get much of a feel for what she would be like in a relationship with Tomoya since it kind of finished with the start of that. I do think she is bossy and expectant enough while being loving and perceptive where the dynamic could be really good.
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Just reading through some old posts and after all these years, I think I actually agree with you, haha.
Both of them learn and grow a lot, but in the end Tomoya doesn’t really have to prove himself like Riki does. I guess that kinda goes back to my comment about how relatable Tomoya feels? Ive said it before and I’ll say it again: theres no way I could ever take on Riki’s role; I would definitely act more like Tomoya, and I guess that makes me weaker than Riki too.
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