I actually thought Makoto’s route was the best one in the entire game, besides maybe Ayu’s. But a lot of that came from how unexpectedly relatable it was (replace “expiring miracle” with “dementia/Alzheimer’s” and it actually hurts to read).
I don’t really remember the opening of her route so I won’t judge that, but Makoto’s final days was a highlight of the game for me.
Yeah you’re totally right about the dementia/alzheimers analogy. I feel like that was the big message of the route: what it means to watch someone you love slowly lose themselves and disappear.
Bookclub discussion begins from this post onward!
I haven’t finished her route yet, nor I know if I’ll be able to do so since Makoto is my least favourite character from all KEY works (at least, everything I’ve played/watched from KEY). Still, here are my thoughts until now.
She starts off claiming that she lost her memory and in a matter of less than 12 hours she has found her new home: Akiko’s house. Now, I won’t discuss whether Akiko was way too permissive or not. I think that belongs to the Nayuki’s thread or somewhere else, but not here. However, what I find unbearable is that despite having been welcomed by complete strangers and having been invited to stay at their house, she doesn’t care even the bare minimum about the inconveniences she might cause (and in fact, is causing).
This leads to an interesting question. How old is Makoto? She acts like a noisy brat but she phisically appears to be from 14 to 18 years old (maybe closer to 14). This difference between real age and mental age is what really bugs me. My guess is that all characters in Kanon where designed to fill some kind of moe, and thus, Makoto was there because a childish active girl was needed (yup, that’s right, Ayu wasn’t enough). Once they created her and her personality, they thought about a more or less fitting backstory for her. This is why, in my opinon, this character route doesn’t work all that well: they had a character that didn’t fit well with Kanon’s theme.
Anyway. this is it for now. I’ll keep posting as I read through the route. I may not like Makoto, but I will surely enjoy discussing about her with you guys. :kyogrin:
I originally rated this route a four, but upon this rereading, I’m legitimately considering giving it a five. This is Maeda’s best-written route out of the three he wrote for this novel, even though it’s not without its own tiny problems.
My approach in analyzing this route is going to be a bit different. I have no Key Points for this route, because the route pretty much does all the deep thinking for us. Still, I wanted to point out my own personal thoughts and feelings on the characters and themes of the route in the same vein as Nayuki, just with less open-ended discussion. And it definitely isn’t because my Key Points for common or Nayuki were complete garbage or anything… ._.
Makoto can be best described as a child in a teenager’s body; she’s curious, playful, and has no clue about how the world works. It is her strict purpose, she believes, that Yuuichi is the source of all her problems, such as the loss of her memory and her poor treatment around the house. Yuuichi takes it upon himself to rectify her childish behavior, and as the route progresses he becomes something of a father figure to her, for better or worse. Yuuichi’s actions, however, are not quite in her best interest until the 17th, when he discovers that she really has no home to go back to. Yuuichi and Makoto both are shown to be conscientious characters, in that they mean no harm to each other in truth, and only interpret each other’s actions as malicious because it conflicts with their own personal desires and standards. Yuuichi especially develops as a character through his increasing interactions with Makoto, subtly coming to understand the value of human life and coming out of his own selfish circle. The change is small but significant, as the ending hints at him coming to tolerate the more mundane parts of life that only Makoto seemed to care about.
The backbone of the whole route, however, takes the form of Mishio Amano, a quiet girl who takes interest in Yuuichi upon recognizing his relationship with Makoto.
EDIT: While I was originally going to talk about her here, my notes are simply too large to place here without getting flagged for being more about her than Makoto. Instead, you can read my unabridged notes on her character here.
Just to point this out, I noticed the presence of several objects and themes that Maeda would later go on to use in future stories. The dilemma of Makoto’s fading lifeforce reminds me of a similar dilemma in AIR, particularly the curse of the girl in the sky as mentioned in Misuzu’s route and Summer. Family and friendship are both prominent themes in this route, and said themes would get a much greater focus in AIR, CLANNAD and Little Busters. And speaking of Little Busters, those who have read even some of it would know that Rin and Makoto share a similar taste in accessories and pets.
Just thought I’d put that out there. :3
Anyway, I also wanted to point out, as another excellent use of background music, how Winter Fireworks is used here. From my personal notes:
Now comes the inevitable question surrounding everything that happens in this route: was it all worthwhile? Regardless of what I or others have said before me, I believe that, in the grand scheme of things, this was an excellent, thought-provoking route. I’d even go so far to say it’s one of my favorite Key routes ever. What makes me appreciate it even more among others is that it is definitely the beginning of something far bigger for Maeda, something that would help him come out of his own hole as well.
Mai’s next, I assume? Better make sure my skip button works and I have lots of ginger candy.
Makoto’s arc raised an interesting question for me. What does Makoto’s arc say about the way we treat those who are about to die?
Reading through this arc, I realized that the way people treat their beloved friends and family on their deathbed is very different from the way they treat pets. For people, the focus seems to be on the living: allowing everyone to have a moment of closure with the person that they are about to lose. For pets, though, we focus on the soon to be departed, comforting them and making sure their last moments are the best they can be.
While we all likely have different images of how our last moments will be, I imagine my last moments will be spent comforting my loved ones. Offering my final good wishes to each of them, telling them how much they meant to me, and letting them know that I am at peace. Even if I was in pain, and all I really wanted was release, it would be my responsibility to see that I left the ones I cared about as best I could. Perhaps this image has come to me from culture (I must admit, it feels a bit cliche, and I’ve never been present for someone’s death), but it’s hard to imagine feeling selfish in the last few moments of being myself. I might have a few last requests for myself, perhaps a good last meal or a few items to help comfort me, but I feel like my main interest would be for the world that I’m about to leave.
If I had to deal with the loss of another, I think I would assume the same of them. I would want to make sure they had their affairs in order, and I’d be ready to take on any responsibilities they had for me. There’s a reason why a dying person’s last wishes are considered sacred, and I’d treat them with appropriate reverence. Sure, I’d want to make sure they were comfortable, but more than that I’d just want to take advantage of those last moments so I could remember my life with that person as I went on in my life without them.
Compare this to how people treat pets in their final days. I’m reminded of the story that went viral called “I died today.” The story follows a dog’s last day before being put down. Everyone joins the dog for a picnic on the floor, and the dog gets to eat cheeseburgers, human food that he only gets normally as table scraps. Then, the dog takes a trip to a park and plays in a water park. I’ve never known a dog that didn’t get excited when going to a park or playing in water, and the pictures made it look like this dog was having the time of his life. The last time of his life, but the time of his life.
In the end, the way we treat those last moments is so different. For humans, the legality of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide is hotly debated and varies from place to place. For animals, though, euthanasia is almost unilaterally considered merciful.
Makoto’s arc really feels like the last moments of a pet. Everyone’s focus seems to be on Makoto, and making sure that he final days are as good as possible. Yuuichi lets her sleep in his bed, Nayuki comes outside to play in the snow, and even Mishio is willing to suffer through the pain of loss just so Makoto’s final days can be a little brighter. To the end, Yuichi is doing what he can to ease her fear and distract her.
While one might say that the disconnect is a result of pure selfishness, I think it actually comes down to an understanding of the future. Animals, we assume, live in the present. They don’t think about what’s to come, and only give the most passing consideration to things that have happened before. All that matters is the here and now, the body and the senses. For people, though, the future is a tangible thing. Even as we die, we think about what the world will be, even if we won’t be in it. To comfort an animal is to ease the pain of the instant, to comfort a person is to assuage their fears for a world that goes on without them.
Well now that I’ve gotten a bit of headway in the route (and am not as rushed as I was during Nayuki route), I figure I can contribute some more discussion on here. So far I’ve gotten the bad end of Makoto’s route, which is pretty easy to do by ignoring Amano all the way. So far my only comment about the route is, well, it’s kind of a boring read. Sure, all the pranks slowly disappear once the route gets started, but I feel the events where you interact with Makoto are a bit too repetitive for their own good.
Another thing I disliked about this route so far is that I had a hard time empathizing with Yuuichi’s emotions towards Makoto. He starts with such an antagonizing view towards Makoto, but as we reach the end, he has this sort of closeness to Makoto that I cannot understand. He even goes so far as to internally be angry at Nayuki for calling Makoto “that girl”. As I read this route, the only emotion that is shown to me as a reader towards Makoto is pity. And I am not all that convinced that pity is what Yuuichi feels towards Makoto by the end of the route.
Man, I really wasn’t expecting to like this route as much as I did. After the stunt Makoto pulled with the cat on the overpass, I wanted nothing to do with her but her route just came out so well. It really struck all the right notes and her growth as a character and the impact it has on Yuuichi really sold this route well for me. Either way, time to get in to this route.
The first few days are really welcome with Yuuichi getting back at Makoto for the trouble she’s caused him and him trying to motivate her to keep her job. She opens up so much more after he brings her back. I’d like to believe it’s because she has Piro™ back with her and it’s Piro opening her heart up instead of Yuuichi bringing her home just so it hurts even more when Piro disappears later on in the route. Either way though, she became so sweet after she came home and that was a welcome change to the angry, vengeful Makoto we first meet.
She also began actively bringing herself closer to Yuuichi by waiting for him after school and wanting to do all sorts of different activities with him. This was a surprising turn of events and I totally didn’t see it coming. It was a very welcome change from the pranks though as we get to see Makoto grow much more as a character and see that she doesn’t actually think too badly of Yuuichi or that her opinion of him has changed drastically. That said, how does everyone feel about the whole “let’s share a bed because I want to be with the cat and the cat wants to be with you” thing? I thought that was very strange but it was actually easy to accept after I considered the bond she had made with Piro after she had run away to find him.
Yuuichi even started opening up to Makoto after seeing her change in attitude and because of Amano’s words to him. Finally believing that she is an amnesiac, he accepts her as one of the family. Mean Yuuichi is cool, but nice and playful Yuuichi is pretty damn awesome as well. It felt weird for the first day but I got used to it quite quickly. I do feel it’s Amano’s words that push Yuuichi to really want to learn more about Makoto and spend time with her instead of his dreams.
Makoto’s clumsy nature really turns tragic after figuring out why she is that way. It only get magnified by Yuuichi getting abandoned by Amano, who has been guiding him through the Makoto situation, leaving him to figure out how to handle everything on his own. It was completely heartbreaking watching Yuuichi trying to take care of Makoto and keep her happy as she slowly drifted away while Nayuki doesn’t seem to do anything to lighten his load. She even goes as far as to call her “that girl” instead of “Makoto” after Yuuichi spends his night trying to find Makoto after Piro disappears.
The final days were so well executed (Nayuki route) in comparison to Nayuki’s awfully written last week in her route and really was the highlight of this route. Yuuichi finally figures out what he needs to do for Makoto to enjoy her final days and Amano decides to come back and help him through it. I was also very surprised at how quickly Akiko accepted that Makoto was the fox that Yuuichi cared for as a kid. She didn’t even think about it, just took it at face value. I guess then that would mean she knows of the legend of the foxes on Monomi Hill then and believes it to be true after Yuuichi’s story.
Akiko is seriously a hero, man. She plays with Makoto all day so Yuuichi can have a break and go to school. Then she agrees to go out for dinner even after she already cooked for the family and doesn’t make a big deal out of it. And everyone convincing Makoto to join in the picture was such a great scene as well. They just had to lay the heartbreak afterwards too. That last day just tore me apart and was an emotional roller coaster. I really just loved this route from beginning to end and I’m excited to see if the other routes wil captivate me the same way. If I had to pick, I would say the big theme of this route is coming to accept loss.
My one big complaint though is that all throughout Kanon, the town is always covered in now, yet Monomi Hill or the surrounding hills never have any snow on them. What’s up with that?
Amano “Perhaps if we were to gather many of them (foxes) in one place, one could cause a miracle.” (CLANNAD spoilers) Replace the foxes with light orbs. Tomoya really learned from Yuuichi’s plight.
So going into this as a first time reader of Kanon, I have no idea what to expect other than what reading most of Key’s other works has taught me (prepare for tragedy to strike anytime, especially right when it seems like things are getting better for everyone.) I enjoyed reading about the young, ebullient Makoto in the common route and was excited to see what storyline her route had to offer.
For the most part my expectations were met. Makoto is definitely a defined character. Hopelessly immature, but with a lot of heart. She tries her best, but just doesn’t seem to “get” how a human should behave. She doesn’t act like a normal person…because she isn’t. What was quirky, annoying behavior becomes rather harsh in hindsight.
Allow me to go on record here stating that I do not like Yuuichi much at all, but he definitely found his heart in this portion of the story. I thought the way he cared for Makoto, in her final days, her final moments, was uplifting and a splendid change from the way he half-heartedly reacted to Nayuki falling into his lap. Being the romance sucker that I am, I held out hope that maybe Makoto would somehow “get better”, that Yuuichi’s love would be the remedy needed to forestall Makoto’s fading strength and memory, but such hope was naive and in vain. A harsher person might wonder if Yuuichi genuinely loved Makoto or just felt sorry for her, treating her with the love and attention one might treat a terminally-ill acquaintance.
One frustrating thing is the existence of Amano. I felt like it was pretty contrived to have a character appear out of thin air to just give Yuuichi the answer to Makoto’s strange behavior. I feel like it could have been handled better, challenging Yuuichi to put together the answer for himself. Makoto gave him a few hints with her selection of manga.
I’m not even going to go into how off-putting, mood-whiplash-y, and awkward the ero scene was.
Overall, it was a worthy read. I stop short of calling it “entertaining” because that word feels inappropriate. I am excited to dissect Mai’s route next week. This is my first post here, so please treat me kindly! 
Second report: Makoto’s route until day 20.
I’m sorry, I won’t be commenting on your opinions just yet, I’ll come back to them once I finish the whole route (hopefully tomorrow). However, i’ve read them all and I must say that there are pretty interesting ones. Anyway, off I go.
I previously said that Makoto was unbearable, and it might be so during the the common route, but once we enter her route, she starts opening herself up to everyone and stops being so aggressive towards Yuuichi. This was probably the main improvement, since there were times in which it was just plain tiring having to watch how she was constantly angry for no reason.
It is at this moment that we realize that Makoto really has a pure heart of a child, not only a childish attitude, so she actually wishes all the good to the ones that have welcomed her when she had nowhere to go.
Hence is here one of the route themes: Makoto’s route explains how despite being a total stranger you can help someone during his worst days. Makoto was clearly despaired when she lost her memory, as the reader is showed when Yuuichi finds Makoto with Piro on Monomi Hill.
It is also at this moment, when we officially meet Piro. Before this point, he was just a random cat, but it is now that it becomes something more. Piro’s existence is what probably saved Makoto from despair. She was all alone without any clue on what to do. However, Piro was in a somewhat similar situation and this is what allowed a bond to be created between them. This reminds me of a Spanish saying (“mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos”) which would translate into something like “If many people have the same problem, knowing that you are not alone won’t help solve the problem, but you will sense a feel of relief from knowing that, indeed, you are not alone”.
This idea could be summarized as follows. Human beings strive for comprehension, even though comprehension alone might not solve their problems.
Now totally changing the topic, I want to mention some things about the comedy at this point. The route started off pretty dull and with the boring and repetitive pranks. However, once Makoto starts acting more friendly towards Yuuichi, we also start seeing “Boke-Tsukkomi” comedian duo conversations with very interesting responses. Apart from that, there are various memorable quotes, such as “Good point… what IS there to talk about outside baseball season?” and my personal favorite (I’m guessing @Aspirety agrees with me) “I’ve been snogging the cat?!” Please mention this scene in the 30 seconds summary.
Related to this, I found that Yuuichi’s assholeness is directly proportional to his affection / friendliness status towards his acquaintances. As both Makoto and Yuuichi start being friendly to each other, Yuuichi starts dropping some harsh lines from time to time: “What’ve you got to scream about? Come back in 10 years, kid.”
So, all in all, the route seems to be evolving to offer a more satisfying experience. Makoto is no longer an annoyance and we are seeing a bit of her backstory, along with some much needed decent comedy.
I promise I’ll respond to almost all of your opinions before the podcast. Third (and last) report coming soon.
Final report has finally arrived, though one day behind schedule…
This has been a pretty interesting route. It started off pretty badly but started getting better and better steadily, building up to a, in my opinion, perfectly written ending.
From day 20 onwards we start seeing the true gist of the route. Makoto starts behaving in weird ways, looses some of her dexterity at some basic skills and, finally, Amano appears to reveal the truth.
Regarding her, like @EisenKoubu, I’ll give my opinions about her in her topic, since I could talk about her for a while and she doesn’t strictly belong to this topic.
Anyway, it is revealed that Makoto is a fox Yuuichi had taken care of when (suspense suspense) he had been in the town 7 years ago. Hooray for the memories theme. Though it is OK to have the memories theme in some routes, the fact that they seem to be appearing everywhere is starting to bother me, but now I’m just deviating from the topic.
Makoto’s condition keeps getting worse and Yuuichi feels really concerned about her. Nayuki doesn’t seem to care all that much from what we see form her reactions, but Akiko looks as if she is going through the same pain as Yuuichi, only that she hides it until the very end, when she, almost crying, replies to Yuuichi with a “Take care”, knowing that she won’t see Makoto again.
This particular line from Akiko was very striking, since we don’t usually see Akiko show her true emotions. She always plays it cool and remains calm in every situation. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this as well.
And now we get onto the more philosophical part of the post: Makoto’s last days once Yuuichi knew what was about to happen. Yuuichi was quick to realize that there was nothing he could do to sabe Makoto and, instead, started pleasing every single one of Makoto’s requests, as, since she was about to be gone forever, he at least wanted her to depart having been the happiest she could have been.
Yuuichi no longer cared about himself, as we can see when he reads that manga he hates to Makoto, just to try to make her smile. He really suffers because Makoto no longer gives clear signs of emotions and he doesn’t know what she wants to do, if she is having a good time or if she is just tired of playing.
To the reader, all this emotions are not only showed with pure writing, but also with heart touching music. My personal favourite of the route was “A Newborn Wind”. It gave me that mixed feeling of the ending of something good. All the good times, the farewell times and the painful times mixed in a single melody. And, in fact, I don’t like all that much the voiced versión, but rather this instrumental versión, the sounds of which evoke fragile snowflakes falling down on a lonely person who is absorved in his own thinkings.
Coming back to the story, I found something curious: the presence of the snowman on Makoto’s “wedding”. That snowman looks like a symbol to me. It is said that it isn’t a well made snowman, so, I’ll take my guess and I’ll say that the snowman represents Makoto’s and Yuuichi’s relationship. Something with potential, but not well built from the start. And I say this because Yuuichi starts trully “loving” Makoto (as lovers or brothers, whichever is fine) when he knows that she will disappear. This means, that he really has no time to get to know all about her, nor time to build some last longing memories. All he will keep from these days is that Makoto was a por girl or, let’s call it spirit, who gave everything she had to be able to stay with him for some time but he couldn’t do everything he could, since he had lost so much time at the beginning of their relationship.
What are your thoughts on that snowman? Also, what do you think about Yuuichi’s and Makoto’s relationship?
Now, let’s look at your thoughts about this route!
He surely starts caring more about these mundane things, but may I ask, why? Is it because he trully starts seeing those things as important? Or is it because by caring about those things he makes Makoto happy, which seems to be his goal during Makoto’s last days.
That question is up to answer by every one of us, and we will all give slightly different answers. Let me highlight it so that it get’s some attention during the podcast. Was it all worthwhile?
My opinion on this goes as follows. For it to be worthwhile, Yuuichi has to feel fullfilled. Yuuichi feels relieved because he knows that he isn’t all alone because he has Amano. However, when Amano went through this she was alone and she didn’t end up pretty well, I’m sure that if you asked her just after that, she would have said that it wasn’t worth by any means. Yuuichi however, wasn’t alone, and that helped him overcome the pain, so if you asked him, he might say that Makoto had been happy enough and that his pain was worthwhile, since he could share it with another person and wasn’t as tough for him.
I might even write this on a Wall in my bedroom. Nice conclusion and I totally coincide with you. However, while it’s true that Makoto was treated, by this definition, as a pet, a couple question arise: Should she be treated like a pet or like a human? What makes Makoto want to reincarnate as a human at all cost to spend some time with Yuuichi?
I don’t find it tall that strange. If we consider that Makoto’s motivation to transform into a human were to be with Yuuichi, it isn’t weird that she comes up with excuses to be more with him.
When you can’t understand these things: KEY Magic. Or maybe symbolism? OK, let’s go big on this one and let our imagination take control. What I’ve associated snow with in Nayuki’s route and in the common route is that snow is some kind of thing that covers Yuuichi’s memories from 7 years ago. Once he starts remembering, snow melts. Since the scenes that happen at Monomi Hill take place after Yuuichi remembers what happened 7 years ago (fully or partially), it may be a reference of Yuuichi having gone through that snow cover and having rediscovered his old memories.
This is it. Now time for a closure. Makoto’s route started quite bad, but evolved brilliantly. While the main issue I had with the route was Makoto’s character itself, the story told and the way her last days are written and presented make up for it excellently.
I thought I wasn’t going to like this route, but overall, I pretty much ended loving it. I’ll give it a 4, since my only 5 so far has gone to CLANNAD After Story and I don’t feel this route is as good as that.
Anyway, cheers and let’s hope for a good internet connection to be able to hear the Podcast!
Aaaah I’m really late on this again sorry I have to make another bad post.
The Route
I like this route but I don’t like this route this route has really good parts but really eeeeh parts. I cannot care one bit for Makoto and her attitude at the start, but I’m in love with how Yuichi and her interact once she gets less feral, he even compares himself to a father which is really nice aside from the part where he fucks her raw in sub zero temperatures. That part I enjoy, it’s well written and is just feel good to read, unfortunately, with her shitty attitude at the start, and something I’ll get into later in this post, I can never find myself remembering this route fondly. Something that is amazing, however, is the H-scene
FROM THE PEOPLE WHO WOULD BRING YOU ‘I could really go with fucking this delusional girl who thinks she’s 10 and I’m her brother’ COMES THE OG IN ‘what the fuck even is this porn’: the great ‘I just fucked a girl who is mentally regressing into a fox’. FEATURING DOG PUNS AND SNIFFING THE CUM. My choice of music for this truly majestic scene is I Am My Own Master Now, as it is the theme of the character who is a dog and I am, frankly, a fucking savage.
Unfortunately the fun ends there, thus begins the worst part of the route, the Auu phase. It’s effective sure, but it sure is dull, reminds me of another VN released after this, a boring dull extended scene of one simple minded character slowly deteriorating while barely able to make conversation, I simply cannot find it anything but boring honestly. I like Yuichi devoting to her, I like her fixating on marriage, I love the family taking her out for a day, the route even puts more character into Akiko than she gets in her own daughters route. It’s all really good but Makoto just doesn’t contribute anything to that herself and I feel it just weakens the entire structure. I KNOW the fact she doesn’t is the main point, but the character central to all this has no character makes me just unable to praise it.
The wedding scene I cannot complain about, it’s simply and overwhelmingly good scene, whether it was intended or not, Makoto crying at her veil blowing away could be seen as a way to have her symbolically crying about her impending doom, finally letting the tears flow that she has been too dumb to genuinely shed. It’s really nice to think of it that way, but I do think that might just be reaching too far. Still, the scene is wonderful, I find it hard to deal with Makoto’s eyes slowly closing over several CG’s as Yuichi plays with her bells, as he desperately tries to keep her awake. The emotional impact of this scene is raw, putting the photo after she disappears is an excellent effect, I cannot praise the entire scene enough.
Makoto’s Character
I said it all earlier, I dislike her at the start when she’s just being a little shit, she’s cute and very well suited to Yuichi in the middle, then she becomes an Auubot and I can’t stand her. There was potential for good there, it comes out clear as can be in the middle, but unfortunately the great Auuing of our time ruins it for me.
Amano’s Character
Lets talk about the best part of this route and the most criminally underutilized part of Kanon, Mishio fucking Amano. Amano is an astounding thing to look at, she’s a character who’s been a Key Protagonist, she’s had her sad miracleless route and it broke her. Her only request to Yuichi is fascinating, she tells him to be strong, it says a lot about the character, about how clearly she regrets having been crushed by her own event, and how she’s still effected by it greatly, since her first reaction is to, after warning him, try and run away from it.
Her scene with Makoto is wonderful, showing the I C E C O L D girl as the most gentle thing ever is one of the peeks into what her pre-breaking personality was, something that I find deeply interesting. But the biggest Amano scene for me is in the Epilouge, when you really see peeks of her true personality, making strange jokes with the straightest of faces.
"Don’t you think it would be wonderful to have candy fall from the sky!"
That line there makes me think so much about this strong and strange personality, this character we’ve never seen, who once broken but is again beginning to surface thanks to the ordeal, I don’t wish we could have seen her originally, I think not seeing it is what makes it so fascinating, but it’s always endeared me.
Overall
I came here to shit on this route, to shit on Makoto, and yet reading it this time has made me realize something, this is really good and any feelings of discontent I’ve had for it for years have waaaaaay less foundation than I’ve always believed they did. Makoto’s character isn’t as bad as I recalled, sure she’s a little shit at the start and an auubot at the end, but the middle part is really good, and the auubot content is absolutely smothered in really good stuff from every other character around her. There is one flaw to this route that I will not say until later in the bookclub, but I am honestly feeling so surprised right now that in my 9 year relationship with Kanon my thoughts on something in it have been changed so drastically.
I think it’s creepy. 
Actually, I feel it’s representative of the kind of relationship that Makoto and Yuuichi have. There’s a distance because of their perceived differences, and Makoto certainly respects that distance. It’s a little complicated to answer this question, actually. It’s been established that the cat has taken a preference to sleeping with Yuuichi before, so Makoto’s probably telling the truth when she says that Piro wants to sleep with him. However, she likes sleeping with Piro, so this means sleeping beside Yuuichi as well, a compromise she is willing to make. When Piro leaves, she’s grown too attached to the idea of sleeping on Yuuichi’s bed that she can’t see herself sleeping anywhere else. Animals are creatures of habit, anyway.
Even Jesus cries for the people he loves.
I’d much rather leave this to your own conclusion, but I personally believe that Yuuichi changed because of his experience as Makoto’s father figure, in both seeking out for what he considered her personal well-being, and in seeing that her decision to be human to search for him was not in vain. After her passing, he found himself changed subtly from appeasing her to the very end, learning to tolerate what he considered childish and sappy for the sake of another. It’s a subtle, natural progression that I think anyone raising a child might undergo, and considering the usual themes of Maeda’s stories, I think that was the point.
Uh…she loved spending time with him, and seven years is a long time to wait for his next visit. I’d turn into a form that would kill me slowly too, if it meant I would see a good friend again.
What’s to say that the route hasn’t already told us? Yuuichi said it seemed like a surrogate Nayuki, and that its melting was a sign that it had given its blessing to his and Makoto’s ‘mawidge’. It didn’t seem to have any particular features on it that would work as symbolism, although I like to think it would look like this:
Having finished the route recently I can say that I have the same opinion of this as I did when I read it way back when. It wasn’t very well-written but the emotional impact was quite powerful. While I am leaving a good number of my thoughts for the podcast, there is one thing I would like to bring up: Yuuichi’s character development.
I honestly felt that Yuuichi’s development was severely lacking in this route. Some may argue "oh but he changed from being a big dickface to Makoto into a tender and caring lover/father figure/whatever you may call it… But Yuuichi was also only being an ass because Makoto was being a little bitch the entire common route. In that sense, I can’t really say that Yuuichi’s personality changed as much as his reaction to Makoto’s personality changed; and that’s only natural.
If anything, the one to undergo the most character development is Amano, and despite her short appearance it the route, they handle it very well. That epilogue definitely shows just how much development she has undergone from the moment you meet her just because of how she decided to become friends with Makoto. But, with that being a somewhat minor point of the story, I can’t quite praise it for that.
Sure, that’s completely normal, but (Nayuki’s route spoilers) Nayuki was in a similar position and didn’t even go and visit Yuuichi (she knows where he lives since she said that she wrote some letters to him) . So what is it that made a difference.
This^. Amano was such an interesting character in this route and I would have loved to see a route of hers in the VN.
We are never told that Makoto knew where he lived during his seven-year hiatus, and if I remember correctly, he did promise he would come back, and she trusted him more than enough to wait for so long. After seven years, with growing impatience, she decided she wanted to meet him faster. Similar to Nayuki’s route, she discarded a greater happiness to achieve a goal of hers faster, with fatal consequences. Also (and this is just a personal theory of mine, don’t take it to heart) perhaps part of the deal that turned Makoto into a human ensured that she would be able to see Yuuichi again somehow, through manipulation of fate or something. You could just broil it down to “It’s Key Magic,” and it would probably be a better explanation as to how Makoto was able to meet Yuuichi after so long.
In the hopes of beating some people to the punch, I found some information on kitsune, or foxes, and the legends that surround them.
Amano refers to them as ‘Youko’; an uncommon term referring to fox spirits that can be easily interchanged with ‘kitsune’. They first appeared in Japan in the seventeenth century, and unlike Chinese fox spirits, they were quickly accepted as part of Japan’s official religion. There are some differences between Chinese and Japanese fox spirits, but I’ll focus on some of the details on kitsune that I found that bore some resemblance to the events of this route.
Kitsune are said to possess significant intelligence, perhaps beyond that of humans, and blessed with a long lifespan and some magical power. Despite being called fox spirits, they are not ghosts; instead the term refers to fox-like creatures with supernatural abilities.
Kitsune may take human form, particularly beautiful women. Their transformations are not limited by age or gender, and they can duplicate the appearance of a specific person, (anime spoilers) which makes the part of the anime’s ending with Makoto suddenly appearing to help Yuuichi make a whole lot more sense. A common belief during medieval times was that a woman encountered alone, especially at dusk or night, was likely a fox.
In folklore, kitsune are often presented as tricksters, either out of their own amusement or for purely malevolent purposes. They often play tricks on people who are overtly proud, boastful or greedy, but some stoop as low as abusing the poor and humble. They target men the most, using women as vessels of possession instead.
Alternatively, kitsune are portrayed as lovers or even wives. These stories tend to involve a young human male and a kitsune who takes the form of a human woman. The outcome is, more often than not, marriage between the two, with the kitsune woman being a faithful and loving wife until the husband discovers the kitsune’s true nature and forces her to leave. In some cases, the husband wakes from the whole ordeal as if from a dream, and returns to his family in shame.
There are far more interesting details out there about kitsune, but those are the ones I found that bore some similarities to Makoto’s route. Maeda certainly did his homework, it seems. :3
Just before the podcast I wanted to join in the Kitsune discussion.
From what I looked up, pretty much everything @EisenKoubu is true, however I’d like to point out that according to my research, those kinds of “bad kitsune” are not popular in the Japanese folklore, but rather in the Korean and Chinese ones. So there goes my theory about Makoto actually wanting to punish Yuuichi for his rather cold attitude towards others and his tendency to bully everyone who seems to be friendly to him.
I also found interesting that, according to the tales, these foxes are able to transform into humans only after something in between 50 and 100 years, so that would make Makoto quite old. Also, foxes are considered to be pretty wise and intelligent, so it strikes me that Makoto would give up her life to be just some time with Yuuichi. Or perhaps, this just adds more value to her sacrifice.
As a side note. I saw that kitsune appear to have a white orb resembling a white pearl. That orb is the source of their magic and they die if they are appart from it for a long time. Also, if people find these orbs, they may return them to their owners and expect a favor in return. This concept seems to kind of (CLANNAD spoilers) CLANNAD’s light orbs which grant small wishes to those who posses them.
I strongly recommend you to read more about them by doing some research on the Internet. They explain a lot of facts that are used in many Visual Novels, anime, and other Japanese media, so I think you would benefit greatly from it!
One interesting we thought about during the podcast, and we were surprised that nobody talked about it here, is the ending. We suddenly see a CG of Makoto appearing in the meadow together with Piro:
So we wanna ask you: What the fuck just happened???
My own interpretation is that it is a literal continuation of Yuuichi’s last line saying “I know what I would wish for” and goes on to show his wish… But what do you guys think? Is there something more to it?
We also didn’t see much talk of Kitsune folklore here! Are many people here familiar with Kitsune folklore and how it relates back to this route?
One thing in particular I’m interested in learning where ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ comes from. Is there some kind of myth about foxes and grapes? All I get from google is hentai.
