Discussion topic for Mishio Amano’s character in Kanon. Please tag references to any arcs of Kanon outside of Makoto’s arc with [spoiler].
Her birthday is the 6th of December.
Aww yeah, Amano.
I like her a lot, it’s real interesting to put her next to Yuuichi to see how differently the loss of their fox effects them.
My absolute favorite line from her is the little snippet of her original personality that emerges after the ordeal when she calls Yuuichi unromantic for shooting down her idea of candy raining from the sky.
She’s my favorite part of the route by a good long shot. Criminally under appreciated character.
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Why are you so awesome, Kanon.
I lub dis girl. She really coulda used some more spotlight imo. Certainly Kanon’s Inoue for me. Cool character though- Her role is really nice, as Kan said. Is a nice point of compare/contrast to the events of said route.
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She even LOOKS like Inoue.
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I’d be lying if I said Amano had a super big impact on me; most of her story consists of hints, while she certainly has the potential to be a heroine that didn’t happen. Kanon has many characters that have the basis of a heroine, and if Kanon was released today that would probably happen in an expansion. If we look at her, she is a normal girl who lost a dear one(maybe twice); she is not very social and seems afraid to commit as a result of that trauma. That might be a bit generic but definitely can be made into a good route. Her route would probably have to be a follow up to Makoto’s route because how would they ever meet otherwise?
Even though Amano is younger she comes of as someone strong to rely upon because she is experienced with the foxes, but is it really so? I’m not sure if she would count as emotionally strong; she went through a great trauma, and got over it kinda.You wouldn’t expect anyone to walk away from something like that unharmed but a strong person won’t let it ruin their life either. I guess the best thing for a character to do is let the incident become a positive force in their life, and after some time she does risk her own well-being in order to help someone in the same situation. So in a way maybe Yuuichi helps Amano move on as well, by being there for her to help.
Character analysis is hard, I never know what questions to ask; usually I don’t go beyond whether I liked having them on screen or not.
Yeah she ain’t emotionally strong at all , that shit broke her, totally changed her personality. Her appearing strong in the route is simply her trying to protect herself by not getting involved.
The whole Makoto ordeal was overall good for her, having Yuichi there to have someone to relate too, and seeing him continue to live on helped her come out of that shell a little.
She could have used more facetime for sure, but I don’t think a route is needed, her story and development is clear.
I do what I can. /pose
Taking another page from my notes here:
[quote]Yuuichi’s attitude towards Mishio is actually pretty normal compared to everyone else he meets; he doesn’t call her by weird nicknames, doesn’t care about formalities with her, approaches sensitive topics carefully around her…he treats her like a normal person, which says something about what he considers ‘normal’. Does a person with few distinguishing characteristics look normal to Yuuichi, or is there something I’m not seeing here?
What strikes me as even more interesting is the fact that Amano is comfortable without friends. This, of course, stems from the fact that she’s adamant about staying away from relationships that hurt her emotionally. She knew immediately that Makoto was a fox for whatever reason, and the fact that Yuuichi knew her made her even the slightest bit curious about him.
Her reluctance to help him came from her past experience, something she found reasonably hard to just shrug off. It serves to guess that what she went through is only a preview of what’s to come, and indeed it happens. She seems to know more than she lets on, but Yuuichi’s intervention prevents us from immediately knowing the truth.
In the same vein as (Nayuki spoilers) the repressed memory of Nayuki’s confession of love seven years prior, Yuuichi holds a repressed memory of Makoto that somehow Mishio shares. By this point, Yuuichi has begun to treasure his relationship with Makoto, like how a parent grows attached to his child. Inevitably, though, the past catches up to him quickly.[/quote]
[quote]Amano calls sometime later to check up on Makoto’s condition, despite stating earlier that she desires no part in the matter. Why she decides to help Yuuichi now is uncertain, but her information helps Yuuichi prepare for Makoto’s next fever, the end of her life.
Amano’s description of the legend of the fox-spirits is very reminiscent of, but not necessarily similar to, the legends told in AIR, and perhaps the idea may have originated here. In fact, many objects and situations (as mentioned in my Makoto post) sound like they were reused in Maeda’s later stories.
It’s my view that Amano did this because she found an obligation to help Yuuichi bear through the pain of losing Makoto. The common connection between them is that the ‘bad luck’ they receive is not traditional punishment, but torture through having a loved one taken away. This ‘tragic love’ is not an uncommon theme in Japanese romance, even to this day. In fact, it’s part of what makes Key novels great.
Yuuichi decides to bond with Amano despite her aversion to such a bond. In this, not only does Yuuichi feel better about Makoto fading away, but it also gives time for Amano to grow beyond her behavioral shielding. Inverse to expectations, their friendship grows because of Makoto, and by the end of the route their mutual assistance helps them overcome their previous issues. I would actually love to see an Amano route if Kanon ever gets remade.[/quote]
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This post complements my Makoto’s route review in her topic.
Mishio Amano, a character that when first appears makes you go “Where have you come from? You don’t appear on the game cover!” to “I really don’t know why you are not in the game cover and why they didn’t make a route for you!”
We actually don’t know much about her, but that’s what makes her story appealing. She is introverted, extremely shy and always feels kind of gloomy. We are later told that she had an experience with a fox spirit who ended up disappearing. She was really pained by having to watch how that fox spirit had to disappear and she couldn’t do anything about it. She was left in despair. She felt so much pain that it radically changed her personality. Actually, I ended up feeling more for her than for Makoto or Yuuichi in this particular route.
But it is this whole “something horrible happened there, and we know what happened but no how happened” what makes you feel for her. She probably went through a lot, but probably never had anyone to help her nor anyone who would believe her story.
I’d instead say that she grew accustomed to not having any friends. During her first days after the trauma struck, she probably isolated herself from everyone and ended up loosing her friendship bonds. With time, she grew accustomed to that and thought that it wasn’t that bad to be alone and, therefore, she didn’t need friends.
However, when he meets Yuuichi and knows about the whole Makoto issue, she feels instantly connected to him. Of course, she still keeps her shy personality and doesn’t want to get too involved as this reminds her of her previous traumatic experience. However, she knows what Yuuichi is going through and tries to help, not Makoto, but rather Yuuichi, by “befriending” Makoto. When Yuuichi sees this, he feels really alleviated to see that he is not alone.
At the same time, Amano finds a new friend, a really close friend because they understand the main trauma of each other perfectly. This leads to what appears to be a close long term relationship as it is hinted after the credits.
All in all, Amano could have had her own route, where more about her backstory is explored and how Yuuichi helps her get over it, while he has to deal with his own pain from seeing Makoto disappear. That would have been a great improvement to Kanon overall, since it would imply a route in which the same events repeat after time (an ongoing theme along the VN), but not only this, but also they try to overcome the pain these events cause, one person in the present, and the other person, trying to overcome those same events that happened to her in the past, both helping each other out.
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