Well, it’s never too late to post about Shiori’s birthday, right?
To keep the summary short, today was the last day Shiori can attend school and Yuuichi plans a birthday party at the Hyakkaya. Yuuichi tried to invite Kaori, but she doesn’t want to go. At the party, Shiori blows out the candles. Later on, Kaori comes to the party and Yuuichi and Kitagawa does some embarrassing things and they begin to warm up.
After Yuuichi and Kitagawa embarrassed themselves, this scene is where Kaori finally recognizes Shiori as her little sister. After they left, Yuuichi and Shiori went to other places to have fun like:
After they had fun, night fell and they were at the fountain. Shiori reveals what happened after she met Yuuichi and Ayu. She felt depressed and bought a box cutter so she could slit her wrist, but stopped when she remembered when she met them and started laughing and then crying. Yuuichi gives her present at midnight and they kissed on the cheek (in the visual novel, on the lips of course.) Shiori goes off somewhere and Yuuichi notices she was missing for a long time. He comes to the vending machines and saw something written on the notebook, saying goodbye.
Although there are some differences with the adaptations (Understand the differences in the media!)… It was good. Some differences were:
– Kissing scene takes place on the same time mentioned above. In the Anime, this happens after Shiori’s birthday party.
– Two times, Yuuichi takes Shiori to the shopping district to find a present… In the anime, this happens once.
– In the Anime, Kaori acknowledge that Shiori is her sister after her birthday party. In the VN, this takes place after they have a outing at the cafe.
– Yuuichi takes Shiori to the Hyakkaya cafe. After ordering, Kaori and Nayuki entered, but Kaori was reluctant to come since her sister is there. In the Anime, this was done during the birthday party.
– Towards Shiori’s Birthday, Shiori lies down on the snow since she couldn’t walk, but was able to make a sketch of herself on the sketchbook with the same message as mentioned in the anime.
The visual novel of Shiori’s arc was alot more dramatic and sad than the Anime… and after playing Shiori’s arc, I agree that the anime took some of the emotional aspect away… Otherwise, it was still good because Shiori is after all my #1 favorite character.
Verdict
9.7/10
I just finished Kanon, and Shiori’s arc was really good. The visuals at the end of the episode were mind blowing. I like how far Shiori’s gone even though she was all alone. Just seeing other people have fun was good enough to keep her going. Great episode; sometimes a kind gesture, no matter how ordinary, is truly priceless.