May your wings hold your own happiness.
I am proud to present the final AIR Bookclub Podcast: AIR Route. It's been a long journey up to this point, but I hope you enjoy hearing our thoughts on the final route of the game. Joining me are the regular cast sans
I skimmed through the mp3, and everything seems to be fine. Good music choice. I’m still stuttering quite a bit. And where’s Bowiie’s last-minute clip? XP
It was great being part of this podcast with you guys. I will miss you guys for the CLANNAD Bookclub, but I do plan to jump back in to the podcast of whatever Bookclub’s going on when I get back. Who knows? Maybe it might be the Little Busters! Bookclub… 
Congratulations to Bowiie for becoming both AIR MVP and Biz MVPotato! You definitely deserve it more than I did. (pachi pachi pachi) 
Youtube bideo is still processing T_T
Well I’m gonna listen to just the first half for now on the mp3~
About 3 hours left on the YouTube 
Some comments on the first half:
Oh god just hearing you guys talk about the last misuzu scene in the podcast is making me tear up ;_;
Regarding the question “Why a crow?” and I always thought it was because Misuzu had this “wish” written in her things that she wanted to do: befriend a crow. Because Yukito wanted to be with Misuzu, I guess, unconsciously, he realized that that was the way he could do it without hurting her. In a way, I am suggesting that Yukito had some control over it.
But Bowiie’s symbolism is just great. It makes a lot more sense too, I think. Sasuga @Bowiie
Anyway, I love how you all took a look at the characters and the different perspective we all have now after reading the whole thing. That’s something that I didn’t think of doing because I was too focused on the “what the fuck happened” part of the VN, so thanks for talking about that, I liked it 
Now for the second half:
Great research on the buddhism thing @Aspirety. It’s definitely one point-of-view that we’d have to take into account, considering the heavy implications of buddhism, yeah.
Regarding the suffering: I view it how Kanna is suffering. Kanna is suffering because she had gotten attached to Ryuuya. A winged being, not supposed to be attached to worldly things, gained desires for this worldly person, thus increasing her suffering. (thank you AIR movie for making me think of that hue)
Attaching that to the concept of “how to remove suffering” by removing attachments, I want to attach that concept into Kanna’s soul. After all, the curse is not only affecting Misuzu, but Kanna as well. So, now, how did Kanna remove her own suffering? I think it might have been related to good memories. Like I said in my post in the AIR topic, her regret was that she wasn’t able to complete her “mission”. After gaining those happy memories from Misuzu, she could finally achieve her mission, and leave without regrets and attachments.
Okay noooow we get into timelines~
@Bizkitdoh says that Yukito still disappears to create “where we are”. However, that totally contradicts the entire Relief ending (because Yukito doesn’t disappear). Even if we are in the same world, I still wonder about this violation of causality. Whether or not Sora exists during dream makes no difference to that, I feel.
Unless, of course, everything was already “fated” and Sora could only exist, but then again, what are the routes? They are not fated yet still “happen” somehow.
I did notice that thing about Sora not being in the CG of the epilogue, and I took that concept to assume that Sora was not in Dream. But, of course, there were some flaws in that line-of-thinking, so I didn’t go into it too much.
NOW THEN
@Aspirety’s theory including buddhism and the “wheel of time”. Maybe the world did end, and only in the next world that got created did it include Sora, because Yukito’s soul only got reborn in that next world. In that case, who were the kids in the beginning of AIR route? Were they not the same as the kids in the end of AIR?
UPDATE: After hearing Biz’s point on all this, I might have a thought on this. Maybe they really are “fated” to be there. Maybe Yukito’s soul is “fated” to be inside Sora and inside that Boy. Maybe Kanna’s soul is “fated” to be inside Misuzu and the girl. Even if what allowed that to happen in the previous worldline did not happen again, it still happened because it had been “fated” in advance. RIP causality.
So now, Maybe the kids on the beach at the beginning of AIR were indeed the rebirths of Yukito and Kanna/Misuzu. But because the curse had not been broken yet in that worldline, they could not “reach” the end of infinity and, in a sense, they are a different person.
(I’m obviously still not satisfied with all this, heh)
Nice work with the BGM when you started on your spiel of pre-history, @Aspirety. The reason why I thought “why is that the saddest memory?” is because that’s when the meteor hit and killed all the dinosaurs! I kid, I kid. But that’s a possibility, hey.
Aaaand now the beach scene
Yeah, I like that you don’t jump to conclusions that the guy is a rebirth of Yukito (unlike the consensus of the Japanese community). But back to the question. They have these memories because they existed after the rotation of the wheel in time that included AIR route. So, again, are these the same kids during the beginning of the AIR route? If they are, would they be capable of having those memories? Hmm hmm hmmmmm
Now then, on to @Bizkitdoh’s point. There does seem to be a possibility that the girl on the beach at the end of AIR is actually Saika, yes. In that case, the world seems to be one where “fate” has already determined the rebirths of souls. In Dream and in AIR, Saika is cursed and is a rebirth of the winged ones. In the rebirth of the world, at the end of AIR, now where the curse is already broken, Saika still have the soul of the winged ones… buuuuut because the curse is broken, Saika is no longer cursed.
HOWEVEEEEER. If Saika, who holds the soul of the winged ones, is “healed” in this new rebirth of the world, why is Misuzu still cursed? If that theory holds with Saika, then it should, theoretically, hold for Misuzu, yes? Unless Misuzu isn’t cursed in the epilogue. huh. Or unless Saika is still cursed in the end of the epilogue, huh.
You guys never answered “what do they mean by end of infinity” XD Well, after thinking about it, I believe that “infinity” here represents the curse, because it happened for what seemed to be an infinite time. Because the curse had been broken, they are beginning their life, as @Bowiie said, without that monkey on their back, and they are witnessing the “end” of “infinity”.
And now I gotta think what AIR means to me. Huh, I’ve been thinking about that for a while, but I should collate my thoughts on that sometime.
Now then, podcast comments. As usual, great job with the music and editing @Aspirety. I love your choices. However, I feel kinda bad that I didn’t hear much of the thoughts of @EisenKoubu and @Iotheria 
So mostly, it felt like aspi, bowiie and biz talking…
I definitely agree that having this bookclub gives me a different view of AIR, as compared to if I read it by myself. I put a lot of my thoughts of that in the bookclub response topic XD
Big congrats to @Bowiie for winning the AIR Bookclub MVP! I wholeheartedly accept you as our MVP Your insights are great, your responses on the forum were great. Heck, even your dedication to making artwork was great! All the potato love~ It’d be great to have more guys like you in the next bookclubs
WHOOO HYPE FOR CHARLOTTE PODCAST. I am in for that, 100%, all the time yo. This is my informal application to the weekly charlotte podcast 8D
(I noticed you used a different recording for the ending sentence shhhhh)
[quote=“Pepe, post:6, topic:1245”]
However, I feel kinda bad that I didn’t hear much of the thoughts of EisenKoubu and Iotheria So mostly, it felt like aspi, bowiie and biz talking…
[/quote]By that point in the podcast, and even a small while before that, I was honestly sick of analyzing AIR, not to mention it was just about my regular bedtime. I had a script before me, although quite a lot of what I said in the podcast was thought up on the spot (as you can obviously tell by my stuttering). So I just let everyone else carry the discussion while I took time to rest and listen to AIR music.
Dinosaurs: Romantic! That explains that last CG we see of Kanna flying with pterodactyls (?). I interpreted it (on the spot) as not so much that she was alone while the dinosaurs were there, but that she became alone once they went extinct. Anyway, I really liked that.
Not past, future: Wooooooah! That was awesome. Pachi pachi pachi.
Aww, no Kanon bookclub yet. Looking forward to the Clannad bookclub and the Charlotte podcasts meanwhile! Those sound like they’ll be super fun.
Any chance of doing a special podcast for things like the new Angel Beats! OVA when it’s out? I’d be interested in that.
A Hells Kitchen podcast? That’s definitely something we’ll consider! I’d like for the podcast to become more of an organic thing that can talk about whatever we want.
