My favorite scene: The end of Tomoyo After. The two things I like the most in Key stories are their ability to convey big emotions and their ability to change our paradigm (as Hisaya says in CRYSTAR “You must give meaning to your tears”). Both of these things were here for me. The scene is extremely powerful with its minimalist presentation and bittersweet ending. I also think that Maeda breaking the conventional way of writing and talking “directly to us” is what makes it powerful, it reminds me how the playwright Brecht used the distancing effect to make his messages more powerful.
After finishing the VN, I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending during several months. I remember that one day, I had to participate to a short comedic movie with friends and to keep my seriousness during some scenes, I just needed to play Harmony with Sorrow in my head, it worked extremely well.
The end of Tomoyo After reminds me that no matter how life sucks sometimes she still deserves to be lived because there’ll always be someone to help you and because life is truly a wonderful thing. Reminding that helped me during some hard parts of my life.
MOON.: The last part of the VN was very well made with scenes like the flower field scene or the goodbye to Boy in the MINMES but my favorite is the black and white psychological scene at the end. It was a living nightmare and it made me fell like losing my mind. Also, the H-scene between Haruka and Ryousuke is my favorite H-scene ever.
ONE: my favorite route is the Mizuka route but I like the route as a whole and not for a specific scene. So I think my favorite scene is when Kouhei leaves Akane at the end, it makes me want to cry every time. I also really like the scene where Misaki explains her problem under a starry sky and her sad moral about enjoying the beauty of life through other people.
Kanon: I hesitate between the scene where Ayu is leaving Yuuichi, wanting him to use her last wish to make him forget about her, and the wedding scene of Makoto, which is the conclusion of an excellent crying story. I can still hear the ringing of the bell that only plays in the VN when the lifeless arm of Makoto touch the ground as she dies.
My favorite scene of the Key anime adaptations is the Sayuri scene from Kanon '06 where she explains the meaning of Kanon, it made me realises the value of the slice of life part in Key works.
My 2 favorite scenes from the manga are also from the Kanon manga… And keep in mind that I’ve experienced all the English adaptations and extra things of the Key VNs I’ve read, I don’t know why Kanon got such good adaptations but it’s just how it is. Anyway, my favorite scene of the Key manga is from the second manga adaptation of Kanon when we see Ayu’s soul saving Shiori from death by using her last wish. Great illustration of the wishes theory and pretty sad scene since Ayu is sacrificing herself probably like in the VN.
My second favorite scene of the manga is in the Kanon & AIR Sky manga, it’s in the chapter Regret, Sayuri and Kaori talk to each other about regrets and the chapter ends with a picture of Kaori crying while holding the shawl of Shiori. This is the best illustration of the Kanon’s theme of regret I’ve seen.
AIR:
The goal scene, the whole end was a perfect conclusion for the VN for me. Through the effort of everyone, Misuzu is liberated from her curse and she dies in pure happiness after having passed the best (and also shortest) summer of her life. I love this bittersweet ending and the abstract epilogue following it.
The dinner scene between Michiru and her mother is my second favorite AIR scene, it’s just crazy when you think about what is happening. I just can’t imagine this kind of stuff outside of Key, their supernatural stories are just awesome when they’re well made.
CLANNAD: I would say three scenes: Fuko wishing to her sister to seek her own happiness as she symbolically dies, Tomoya reconciliation with his father and his past and the flower field scene where Tomoya find a new reason to live and Ushio find the father she wanted.
CLANNAD Side Stories: the end of Misae’s story. It made me love Stand By Me.
planetarian:
the death of Yumemi since my favorite thing about the VN is the devotion of Yumemi towards humanity, planetarian changed my view on robots.
My second favorite scene is the projection which reminds me how much beautiful humanity is.
Little Busters!: I’ve not finished the VN yet so I’m going to say the end of Kud’s route. It was shocking, sad and ultimately beautiful. Kud understood that her home was with her loved ones and she understood that she didn’t need to follow the steps of her mother, however she still decides to takes this path for herself. I loved the route as a whole and the fact that Kud is totally useless during the whole story and even a bother at times despite the fact that she wants to become as useful as her mother, really touched me.
I also really liked the end of Mio’s route where Riki becomes the blue of Mio and Midori.
Angel Beats!: I don’t remember a lot of things from the anime since it was long ago and since I had a pretty bad experience with it (I want to give it a second chance though). The scene that I preferred from it was the ending where Kanade leaves the MC forever after conveying her feelings, that was really sad.
Key related things:
CLANNAD The Past Path: The flower field scene at the end was really satisfying and the scene where Yui leaves the protagonist was very good, that was a good idea to include her in the story.
sola: my favorite scenes are the surreal scenes were Yurito and Matsuri are looking at the sky, with them, Matsuri shows that we can profit of the beauty of the world through other people, that’s a really sad moral. The end where they both dies is also quite sad.
Sora no Method: the end or the scene when Nonoka came back to the town again, what I like about the anime was the concept of friendship tied by the disc and not a scene in particular though.
CRYSTAR: My favorite part of the game is the end of the chapter 5, it was extremely well made and Thelema made me cry. I also love the inner conflict scene with the choices at the end which conveys the main theme of the game and the scene with Kuon that we see every time when the story repeats itself. Kuon is my favorite character with Thelema and that might be because I’m in the same situation as Rei in this regard.
Utawarerumono 3: my favorite scene is the last fight of the game but as something that Suzumoto could have written it’s the scene with the mother of Osthor which was very sad.