Kanon - Makoto Sawatari Route & Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#41

Oh how easy to overlook this as we go thought the zany pranks for the umpteenth time…

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I’ve been musing over the song title Fuyu no Hanabi, which as gorgeous as it is hardly evokes the vision of the flashes and bangs of fireworks. I discovered this

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/kitsune-yokai-fox/
The marriages of foxes (to each other, rather than unsuspecting humans) are said to account for two odd natural phenomena. One is kitsune-bi (狐火, meaning “fox-fire”). This is what’s called will o’ the wisp in English – mysterious flickering lights seen at night in natural areas like forests and especially wet places like bogs and marshes.

Could the melody of the tune be trying to evoke the image of “fox-fire”?

#42

Nope! Because it’s used for almost all flashback scenes and has a much stronger association with Ayu than Makoto.

#43

Okay, I’m overthinking it then!

#44

This route ended up being my favorite route. Makoto is really endearing, albeit annoying to read at times. She had me going “auu” anytime things inconvenienced me for a couple days. But the ideas of acceptance and family presented in this story are really well done. Not to mention it’s absolutely heartbreaking, but it didn’t feel “bought and paid for” if you know what I mean. It felt like it was only so heartbreaking because of the acceptance and feeling ideas being recurrent and especially well written. I feel like they wrote Makoto to be pitiable, especially during the later half of the story. But they didn’t do it in a way that diminishes her character. Because she was pitiable, but not weak.

I felt the relationship between Yuuichi and Makoto was really nice, but the element of romance did sort of weaken it, in my opinion. Playing the Standard Edition, this H scene where they consummate the romance didn’t feel like it was timed very well, and felt more like it was just sort of included in there because visual novels had to have H scenes as a standard, or something like that. But even without that scene, I feel this route would have been a lot better without a romance. By the time the actual romance in the relationship begins, Makoto is not really in a state to be romanced. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I couldn’t really get into it.

But that hardly detracted from the route as a whole. I feel it executed its moments wonderfully, delivered its messages wonderfully, and reinforced its themes wonderfully.

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#45

Yeah Makoto gets that a lot :yahaha: She’s probably one of the first examples of a “woobie” in that regard. But that doesn’t make her hardships any less valid, I feel, and I’m glad to see there are people that still consider her route as their fave.

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#46

In the 2006 anime, towards the end of Makoto’s route we see that the shop which sells the nikuman is called Kitsune:

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