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.