Kanon - Mai Kawasumi Route & Character Discussion

[Naoki_Saten]

My biggest issue with the route is the long flashback scene with Mai and her mother. That entire subplot was pointless and shoehorned in, in my opinion. There was no foreshadowing for it, and it didn’t really have any impact on later events either. We see within that scene Mai’s desire to go to the zoo and her love for animals, which means that both originated from before the time-frame we’re shown, and therefore can’t really be used as foreshadowing.

While the bunny zoo scene was the most emotional scene in the route to me, I do admit you’re making a good point. The event itself didn’t have much meaning for the actual plot. However, I would argue it was still necessary and that it was well executed.

The readers needed to know that Mai had a special power. Otherwise, the reveal about the ghosts being her own creations would come out of nowhere. Also, her power is related to death and it must have awakened at some point. Wouldn’t it be a terrible waste not to make an emotional scene about how it was awakened?

[machelmore]

I meant to address that when I first posted it, but I forgot about it.

And I would’ve gotten away with too it if it weren’t for you meddling kids.

Ok, so Mai’s power and its properties are revealed before the mother scene. So by the time it happens we already know that she has a power and what its consequences were. I assert that its origin is superfluous. I present Owari no Sekai Kara as my proof. At least to me, not knowing where her power came from or how it originated had absolutely no bearing on the story. This is because the story would just never have happened if she didn’t have them. The premise doesn’t need justification, at least in my opinion.

[Takafumi]

Ten years. I feel like they really missed a chance for an emotional scene here by ending it so quickly.

That’s not exactly the point though, and this links very well with your mention of Afterglow, which indeed invokes an image of hope, but also highlights a darker truth.

That section of the route isn’t about Mai and Yuuichi together. In some ways it isn’t even about Mai. It’s about Yuuichi. Throughout the route Yuuichi is stubborn and incapable of understanding Mai, but he lives as if he understands everything. This causes pretty much every dispute in the route.
So when we get the “Yuuichi figured out everything that was happening” section of the VN, where Yuuichi yet again believes he understands Mai’s situation, we’re once again shown that Yuuichi is in fact missing crucial information.
It’s not the ending of the VN, despite what Yuuichi initially frames it as, because Mai hasn’t even begun to come to terms with herself.

And the Afterglow is an interesting signal of this, because Afterglow is always the signal of Kanon’s what-if scenario. It brings about a dream-like conclusion that isn’t realistic but that Yuuichi chooses to believe in. It can be seen as a way of running from reality, and in every instance it feels like an extension of an already foregone conclusion.

To Yuuichi, and to the reader by extension, this is where the story should end… But to everyone else in the world, ending it there would be selfish. Yuuichi is the only one to have gained, and he didn’t even have to respect other people to do so. None of the details about Mai’s history matter to Yuuichi or to the reader, but it matters immensely to Mai. The entire struggle of her life was born from those events, and she in such a deep refusal of her past and her self that she’s perfectly willing to knowingly kill herself.

Yuuichi’s just running from anything serious, as he always has. Even at the end, when he imagines a future he could’ve spent with Mai, he is truly lacking in understanding of other people, and if it wasn’t for a wish bringing the world into Afterglow, Yuuichi would’ve failed to do anything.

[Ganesh_Swami]

Alright just finished Mai and sayuri route and now i’m gonna post an incoherent mess because if i wait any longer i’ll just pass this up being how lazy i am.
At first Mai’s route feels a little hard to comprehend as we’re thrown in this mess of demons without any explanation, Yuuichi is also there standing like “oh demons! they sure are frightening but i’m more interested in this girl”. So here it goes Yuuichi and mai spend time together with each day, they grow to care for each other, yuichi even fall for her.Yeah that’s completely normal (it’s not sarcasm, i genuinely think it’s normal).
All the guys before me has explained this prison thing very well so the only thing i have left to say is that the revelation seems a bit sloppy, kinda out of a nowhere Yuuichi gets a memory fairy drilling in his head and then he remembers just in the nick of time, i don’t get why that situation was perfect for this,cause Mai was dying or cause it was time to wrap things up? Also that bunny ear cg is so ridiculous for me to take the scene seriously (Don’t be offended, this was just a personal issue i had).

My biggest issue with the route is the long flashback scene with Mai and her mother. That entire subplot was pointless and shoehorned in, in my opinion.

I agree with mach that the Mother scene is just a cheap attempt to make us cry for one last time and damm it’s good! easily the best part of the route for me, but… It completely breaks off the story pacing, i feel like immediately after Yuuichi’s dream it should have been epilogue time, while in some other situation it would have been worked but this was crammed in the last few minutes of the route, Character backstory should’ve come in between the conflict or before it, not at the end. While i agree it’s selfish to leave out this chunk of Mai’s struggle but when looking at it from a story pacing standpoint, it just doesn’t belong there.

Also this is Key so we may as well say fuck off to common sense while we still have time

Sayuri route
i like this better then Mai. It’s a heartwarming and totally believable story. while at the start of the Mai route because of this key magic (supernatural) many things were incomprehensible (they also are at the end of route but it’s little better as we got some explanation for all the supernatural).
While Sayuri is lacking any supernatural ,doesn’t need explanation and thus removes a load off my brain where i try to accept yeah this thing makes some sense. Not to Say Mai is bad, it’s pretty great but i still like sayuri more.
How one person who had lost her will to live found it in another person along with her happiness. A good lesson.

[StarfishBender]

Mai’s story (2006 anime only for me) didn’t give me that many emotional feels but I did enjoy it. I thought I knew where the dance scene was going but enjoyed being completely wrong about it. Loved the whole friendship with Sayuri, even if it’s a bit distracting waiting for the “aha ha!'s”, a really nice portrayal of the chalk and cheese camaraderie where they both find something they deeply need in each other…

I have to guess that the anime shortens the end a bit as it seems a bit sudden, plus we don’t get the perspective of a bad ending ( well I assume that’s the good ending!). There’s something about Mai’s quiet and rather lonely dedication to her self appointed task that makes me think that the Fate series drew a little inspiration for Saber - but then again maybe it’s just a trope being shared.

Would give 3.5 out of 5 again but overall a bit more consistency for me in the character interest compared to Makoto means I’ll bump it to a 4 vote.

[Shizuru-chan]

I haven’t read the VN yet but from what I’ve seen in the 2006 anime I can easily say that Mai is my favorite Kanon heroine and one of my favorite character ever. She shows who she truly is only with her friends and she is more sensitive than how she looks. The fact that Mai always hold her feelings and just care about the others really touched me. She couldn’t accept herself but Yuuichi allowed her to love who she is. The ball scene is my favorite scene of the anime and her theme is my favorite music too. I think I can’t express how much I love her! I hope I will be able to read her route soon in the VN!

[StarfishBender]

Trust me now that I’ve read the VN I can say that if you like Mai in the anime then you won’t be disappointed with the VN route! There’s a bit more mystery in Mai’s VN route compared to the anime.

[Shizuru-chan]

Yes the first time I saw Mai in the anime I immediately wanted to know her story so now I can’t wait to read the VN!

[LittleBraver]

This has to be my least favorite route. I really liked all of the mystery and action in the former half of the route, but once the ending started approaching I quickly lost interest. Everything was all too confusing. I get what happened, I just did not really care for how they went about it. I’m also not really sure if there’s a message to be interpreted here? Maybe “be honest?” I don’t know, I didn’t really like the ending parts enough to the point where it ruined the route as a whole for me. And as I understand it, this route is a love it or hate it route. The miniature route with Sayuri was interesting but I couldn’t really get any feeling of attachment because of how short it was, unfortunately.

Mai as a character, I didn’t mind so much. She was one of the two heroines of Kanon that felt like she had an extra layer to her beyond her archetype. I appreciated her backstory and her small, but important, amount of growth during the route. Her relationship with Yuuichi is cute, but I think it’s only better in hindsight, as without it, it just seems like two awkward kids that maybe have crushes on each other. Which I am sure is kind of what the writers may have been leaning towards. I have heard that this route is done better in the anime, so I look forward to watching it. But from the visual novel standpoint, this went from very high highs, straight down into low lows.