After seeing a post about wifes and anime girls and watching the CLANNAD movie, it made me think about something about Nagisa and CLANNAD. In the previous two posts made a few months back that I mentioned about moe although I never really talk about moe or the so called moe competitions out there, but it’s quite evident I really like, Misuzu and Shiori. There is one character I haven’t touch that have both personalities of these girls I mentioned… Nagisa Furukawa.
Nagisa is the combination of Shiori and Misuzu in my opinion. Misuzu because the fact she is a shy girl and doesn’t have any friends because in the case with Nagisa, her friends have long been graduated and she is innocent. Then, why Shiori have anything to do with Nagisa? Shiori in the sense that Nagisa have a similar sickness, but her determination and unwilling to give up. Also, they both have a interest in drama since Shiori mainly watches drama while she was at home and Nagisa have a interest in drama with her determination of wanting to revive the Drama Club. Another thing with Nagisa and Shiori is that they are ordinary and wear plain clothing. If you notice the clothing that Nagisa and Shiori wears, you know why.
Nagisa is like Shiori and Misuzu in a sense… We take them for granted until they are gone. (in Nagisa’s case, in Clannad After Story Episode 16 until she returns in Episode 22).
Nagisa starts out in the beginning of the show as a shy girl and unable to walked the hill since her friends have graduated and she no longer have the courage to walk up the hill. With the help of Tomoya, she was able to walk up the hill on the first day of school.
Sadly, her illness causes her to get held back in her last year of high school and caused her loneliness. In today society, we rarely see that, except with quiet and shy people.
Nagisa seems to show her determination to try and revive the club although the club seems to shut down when she opens the door with shaky hands and being melancholic after seeing the packed boxes, but she doesn’t give up. Next day, she makes a poster:
Like with Shiori with her obsession with ice cream and Misuzu with her “extra thick peach nectar,” Nagisa continues the tradition with Dango because they are cute although not as popular as it was used to. Big Dango Family resembles a cheerful and happy world where people and famlies get along and flourish. This is important later on since CLANNAD is about families after all… and Nagisa starts one with Tomoya later on, but at a expense (which will be talked about next part). Also, the poster seems to bring out Nagisa’s personality, as her being innocent.
Nagisa wanting to see Tomoya to play basketball waits in the rain, which in contrast is sorta the same thing with Shiori, which disobeys the doctors order just to see Yuuichi after school. Nagisa realizing that Tomoya can’t shoot and apologizes since she know that she was wrong and faints because of her illness.
Later on, Nagisa makes friends with Fujibashi twins, Kotomi and Fuuko and starts to warm up instead of being shy and lonely.
Another trait that Nagisa seems to have is she is naive. For instance, Tomoya grabs Nagisa and runs away from Sunahora. She protects Tomoya from Sunahora since she thinks he is trying to make Tomoya gay and admits that she is Tomoya’s boyfriend, which caused Sunahora run like a nut job. Although she doesn’t mean it, she eventually start having a relationship with Tomoya since the two seems to have a lot in common and that they both care about each other.
Tomoya reacting to someone who wants to help Nagisa after she fell and hurt her leg in Episode 16 of Clannad… Now there evidence that Tomoya does love Nagisa romantically. In the visual novel, the relationship starts right after Tomoya embraces Nagisa after the Nagisa gives up on the Drama Club since she want the choir club to keep their advisor.
With the growing of Nagisa’s relationship with Tomoya, she seems to care for him a lot more before she met him, even after she performs her play, she still cares about Tomoya and doesn’t want him to do anything wrong. For instance, with the PA calling for Tomoya and him running away, she chases after him and drags him back by pulling his arm. This proves that Nagisa, although she is ill is caring and also very determined, which is not the case with Shiori and Misuzu (they do care, but not the same as with Nagisa and Tomoya.). The way how she try to revive the Drama Club with the help of Tomoya, Sunohara and friends and her performance on stage shows her determination of achieving her goal.
However, her dreams of performing stage drama came at a price since Sanae and Akio have to give up their dreams to take care of Nagisa, which caused herself to become melancholic and also caused her to suddenly cry on stage after the curtains were lifted up after being reminded of Akio’s dreams of performing theater after watching a video of him performing before her performance. With the encouragement from Akio and Sanae, she was able to break from her depression and able to achieve her dreams that her parents have sacrificed.
After sweeping away her tears, she starts to perform her play, which is flawless… both in the Anime and TV show:
Like with both the TV series and the movie, Tomoya officially confesses his love for Nagisa, which have been evident across the whole season (and also the Nagisa arc in the Visual Novel). Tomoya and Nagisa seems to be the dream couple… most say… but I still prefer Tomoya and Kyou… *runs*
Next time, we will discuss why she is the ideal girl in the 2nd part of the story, After Story.
Attribution Information
Fanart used in this post is made by moonknives,
Ooooh man. ^^ Yes, I can’t access my episodic reflections, nor do I know if I have a blog entry about her, but Nagisa is something.
From the get go she was something really amazing, but simply because she was pretty normal. She wasn’t eccentric nor did she have some special quality, but that’s what defines her… she doesn’t need anything extra. Beautiful existence!
Love Love Love!
Her strong aspects lie in her quiet sort of determination to see things through to the end and not many people out there are willing to give it their all in the face of the odds that Nagisa had to overcome, but the fact that she was able to surmount those obstacles was what made her all the more special. Even better was seeing both her and Tomoya grow up and mature together since they learned so much from one another and through that, the relationship was made all the stronger (which is why episode 16 of the AS was such a tearjerker: she basically leaves a void in Tomoya’s life and nothing could immediately fill the role she provided).
Thats why the story seems to be great, mainly because of Nagisa… I believe that her character development during the first season and soon the second season I will talk about later next week is what developed her determination which allows her to go through her having a child and taking birth in their home since it’s very risky and can cost her own life, which will be heartbreaking…
But, there are some people doesn’t seem to like her because the anime didn’t cover the relationship between Tomoya and Tomoyo or Kyou enough…. That is not a reason not to like her, so if is that so, it’s better off playing the visual novel to find out those arcs since the anime and the movie only focuses on Nagisa and Tomoya.