Discussion of Ushio’s character in CLANNAD. Since her existence itself is considered a spoiler, it goes without saying that this topic will contain spoilers for the entirety of CLANNAD, particularly After Story. As such, feel free to post without use of [spoiler] tags.
Ushio’s birthday (stated only in the CLANNAD movie) is the 24th of December.
Ah Ushio. One of my favorite CLANNAD characters, actually. Her arc is easily my favorite part of the Clannad anime as well as the visual novel. Her interactions with the other characters in the show - which have been around for 39 episodes longer no less - are great and it feels right how they interact with each other. Episode 18 of Clannad After Story is still my favorite episode of any anime ever. Thinking about it, I may have not continued to pursue Key works if it hadn’t been for Ushio.
Then there’s the whole illusionary world subplot which even for Key I find to be a fantasy aspect that’s a bit too poorly explained. But then it never did negatively affect my enjoyment so whatever. The only thing I dislike about the illusionary world is that it makes me feel like the Clannad True End is what all the plotlines ultimately culminate in, which as an avid Tomoyo After fan leaves a bit of a sour aftertaste.
This is actually true for me as well in a way. I found out about Clannad through a bunch of “Saddest Anime Moment”- videos, and when I saw they had the balls to kill of a small child like that I really wanted to watch that show. From the flower field up until Ushio gets sick is the most enjoyable part of Clannad for me; it combines the feels from losing Nagisa with the hope of living with Ushio. I really want an ending following that plot-line without Ushio dying; we have the technology so it should be an option. More Ushio in any form would have been appreciated really, she is so wonderful to have around but it doesn’t last long enough.
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This is hard.
Ushio is the cutest most lovely bundle of amazing scene making little thing, but she herself, well she’s a child, her personal depth is quite shallow.
And I don’t like to say that. It sounds bad.
But Ushio is practically the most important thing in Clannad, it’s her being there that brings the best scenes and interactions, she is a treasured character.
Well I shouldn’t have to try and explain, anyone who watched Clannad should know what I’m saying.
Just believe and it’s all fine. Tomoyo will collect enough light orbs from helping people online to get her happy ending.
Dude like, Ushio doesn’t exist in Tomoyo Afters reality.
I said over in the Nagisa discussion that
I take that back. Ushio is the embodiment of everything I love about CLANNAD. She is the 5 years of melancholy and depression and anger that Tomoya suffered after Nagisa’s death. She is the rekindling of love with his child. She is the rekindling of love with his friends. She is the rekindling of love with his father. She is the ultimate reality of death that we all face.
For god’s-sake she IS the f’n Illusionary World.
Ushio is the light. Ushio is family. Ushio is CLANNAD.
Captain Obvious~ That’s fine with me.
@Yerian great sentiments - ITA 
Watching the anime I found the Ushio arc gives one of the few examples where the animation makes more of an impact for a character than the VN.
Ushio is totally adorable in the VN but the anime raises Ushio’s cuteness to pan-galactic superdeity+ level [/Fuko] and I say this as one of the least “aww, ain’t kids cute” persons on the planet.
For next level of cuteness, apply nekomimi 
Just finished the After Story anime for the second time and I have no idea why it didn’t occur to me before but I presume there is a symbolic/metaphysical link between the robot toy that Tomoya bought Ushio and the junk robot in the Illusionary World. A subconscious memory perhaps because it meant so much to her in the real world which is why she “recreated” Tomoya in that form which has reasonable resemblance to the toy as best as she could make using junk.
I’m sure this must have been realised by everyone but me!
There are plenty of subtleties to Clannad that you don’t pick up on until the second time. It’s so well done.
