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!
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.
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.
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.
Okay, in a little after the podcast but in none the less.
I was kind of disappointed by this route I guess. I hate Makoto - I have no interest in brats and pranks. The thing is, her deterioration in both the Toei and KyoAni anime still normally destroy me and in the VN I was ‘meh’ about the whole thing. Part of it might be me not having put in the voice patch - unlike how I think that helped me enjoy Nayuki’s route the application of the music and slow scenes was just kind of dull, and I felt like I lost a lot of impact from not hearing the vocal deterioration and only having Yuuichi’s description about it.
So in the KyoAni anime there is an old crush and a lot more information about the fox and Yuuichi’s time together that did a lot to flesh out this arc - are they really made up for the anime? In the VN I didn’t really feel that strongly about how much the fox loved Yuuichi when he was a kid or how devastating the separation was. Abandoned pets are a pretty good way to punch my feels and I felt like the story gave me little reason to be invested in the relationship between Makoto and Yuuichi.
The sex scene was weird. I didn’t really mean to trigger it, and like, with Nayuki she says things like how she doesn’t want it but still gives Yuuichi the go ahead (and I could go on a separate kind of tangent about that sort of sex scene Makoto doesn’t really do this - she shows up barely able to talk, they have quick sex outside in the cold because that is what Yuuichi “wants to give her as a human” or something like that. Then they try to frame the relationship as more fatherly or brotherly…ugu
One scene that strikes me reading it is the way the veil gets blown away after the ceremony - as if even the wind is saying that the two of them are not going to be allowed their forever and nature and Makoto’s end is unstoppable. the image of her belled hand on the grass was perfect way to punctuate the emotional finale.
It’s one of Aesop’s fables
It is pretty appropriate for Makoto’s character - consistently through her story she belittles the things she cannot have but wants - such as the fun purikura experience, hanging out with Yuuichi, etc. Yuuichi himself can kind of be thought of as “grapes” hanging out of her reach and she spends so much time resenting him for it.
I just finished reading Makoto’s route after re-reading once again and I notice some points that I might have missed before. Of course, Makoto was really a spoiled brat and always love to cause trouble to Yuuichi and at first I didn’t like her back then because of all the mischief and annoyance she had brought upon him. It almost felt like Yuuichi was like a father figure to her and wanted to discipline through her actions and have to explain that doing things like that can be very hurtful to others. I can’t really blame him for that but sometimes he can be very harsh to her that even Akiko had to advise him that he needs to be gentle on her because she is a girl.
Throughout her route, I wanted to mentioned that Yuuichi had stated when he dreamt of the Makoto he knew that was a different ‘Makoto’ that he had loved before but I was not sure if it was really explained who that was and that he said that the current Makoto might have been friends with her. Another thing was when Amano had said that she was a fox-spirit and told the legend about the ‘kitsune’ and where they had previously lived before, there was a text that mentioned about Feleya Hill but originally it was called Monomi Hill because of where the fox-spirits had resided and she said that they loved to cause bad luck to the villages that at once had been many problems in the past. Anyway, I think I understand why Amano had mentioned this to him about why Yuuichi would suffer, even though knowing herself that it was going to painful for him in the end. It was hard re-reading this again because of the emotional state that Makoto was going through and I felt just like Yuuichi that the only way to ease her suffering was to try to make the best out of it and not have any regrets. The fact that miracles were presented once again signify that as Amano had stated was only a transient miracle and it would only hold on for a while and disappear, and also the fact that miracle of what Makoto had went through could be worthwhile if only to meet Yuuichi again despite the pain he had caused her.
Overall, the scene that really got me the feels once again was the very scene with them both playing with each other at the hill as the end grew near and it was Makoto’s wish of wanting to ‘get married’ in order to for to them to be together. Near the end, I thought it was amazing how Amano had changed from her personality when you had first met her that she didn’t want to involve herself with anyone and how distant and unfeeling back then to the person that is able to smile for a long time and imagining where candy could fall out of the sky and how they both laughed was really heart-warming and endearing. I also wanted to talk about that ending that @Pepe had mentioned about that last CG where it did seem confusing about whether Makoto was either alive or not. I kind of want to say that when Makoto wished for spring to always last forever that there would come to be a time when she would come back and play with Yuuichi and the others once again. I don’t really have a real explanation for it but that what I think for the moment as Yuuichi would have love to see her and welcome her back. I would rate this route a 4 out of 5.
I liked this route in the anime more than the VN (don’t hate me ) and I’m not sure why.
First off I want to say the pacing was great. Nothing abrupt or confusing, except for the scene with Makoto dropping the cat off the bridge. If I remember correctly, they PLAYED HAPPY MUSIC WHEN THE CAT FELL. LIKE NOOOO. Y THO. There was one part where Makoto was arguing that the cat was wild and was not meant to be domesticated (or something along those lines) and I thought that this represented her mentality at the time, a strong, independent fox who don’t need no man. However towards the end she became very docile and wanted to spent all her time with Yuuichi, which seemed very “domesticated”. Apparently foxes can only become domesticated over years of selective breeding (click here), so as Makoto regresses to her fox mindset, she is slowly becoming a house fox(I wasn’t really going anywhere with this I guess).
I rate 3/5. It was pretty solid in my opinion, but didn’t really grab my interest.
I don’t actually know what happens (even I don’t know what the heck is going on here), but the CG of Makoto sleeping in the meadow together with Piro (said meadow being where she met Yuuichi for the first time) is likely what Yuuichi would wish for and tells Amano what his wish is. Of course, we don’t know if Makoto has come back or not. Is she back to life? The CG doesn’t make things clear. What about you, Pepe?
So, I don’t know the VN at all so I have only the 2006 anime to go on ( get used to that disclaimer, I’ll be using it frequently).
Just let me say Goddam you Key for making me like this sort of thing that I would have dismissed until recently as of no interest to me. Like others I couldn’t really stand Makoto early on although it was funny to see Yuuichi’s reactions, but in the epis 7 - 10 I gradually warmed towards the character more. Even though I’m not that empathetic to animals obviously the drop the kitty scene was a bit WTF?! I guess that the VN takes longer to develop the changes as it all felt a bit rushed from “I think I see what is going on here…” to “Ah yes, I was right”. Plus the fact that Amano seemed shoehorned in very conveniently.
Makoto’s rapid deterioration did feel like an analogy to that of a difficult but much loved pet, and I got the feels of trying to make their last days happy and about what we’d think they’d want (easier with Makoto of course as she had been able to express it). The “marriage” is kind of touching and I can’t make up my mind whether the end is “real” or just showing what Yuuichi hoped for. Well I did get a bit weepy anyway.
I really can’t imagine any way in which H scenes would add anything good to this! If I could give 3.5 then I would but as I expect this not to be one of the stronger routes I’ll have to settle for 3 albeit a good 3.
When I first read Makoto’s route many years ago, I was not a fan of the first half but well enough enjoyed the latter half. This time, surprisingly, that opinion holds true. Now that I am better equipped as a reader, I feel much better about tackling this again.
So the first impression Makoto gives off is pretty bad, in my opinion. She is a girl who hates Yuuichi but can’t remember why. That sets the stage of every encounter by forcing me to ask why I should care about scenes with Makoto. She seemingly has no goal or motivation behind her until you find out much later on, and I think that’s a flaw.
Until the route starts proper at the scene where Makoto drops Piro onto the freeway (an action I am still not a fan of, regardless of what came from it in terms of characterization), this route is nothing. Makoto is a one-joke character who does nothing but play stupid pranks in every scene. I absolutely hated that. It doesn’t foreshadow anything, it is just there to waste my time and dislike Makoto. One scene of this is enough to get the point of this character trait across; anything afterwards is filler. It’s much like the Lucia in the common route of Rewrite, and I wish it was condensed or even taken out, as her being a prankster isn’t even relevant to her actual character.
Once Makoto is finally held accountable for her actions, then the route actually starts. This is where it gets good. I really like Amano’s role in the story, despite being a carbon copy of Akane from ONE. This part really sets up Yuuichi as a character well, mostly in the 2006 anime. The idea of the kitsune? legend is such a solid basis for a Key route, I really wish it was done more in other things. Perhaps it would have rounded out a rather foundationless route from AIR.
From then on, Yuuichi fulfilling Makoto’s wish of marriage is great. It is the first crosshair on the theme of coping with loss that Kanon brings to the table, and while being a rather stock plot at this point it polishes its mould well. There’s not much else for me to say here. I’m glad the story actually takes the risk of bittersweetly separating Makoto and Yuuichi at the end, rather than bring her back and undermine the impact she left behind.
All in all, I like this route. I wish Makoto wasn’t so annoying towards the beginning, but that’s what the skip button’s for I suppose.
) and I’m not sure why.