On the evening of June 7th, Ryuji Kageyama sat in front of his TV waiting for Clannad season two's final episode, caught between excitement and dread.
He was excited because the official announcement had confirmed that both Nagisa and Ushio would come back, and since this was the last episode, every remaining loose thread should finally be tied up.
He was terrified because the last several episodes had left him traumatized.
From episode sixteen through last week's episode twenty-one, he had no idea how he had even survived.
Episode eighteen had at least won him ten free meals off his buddy Haruto, but on the whole he was still furious. He had wanted to grab Yuta Shido by the collar and beat some sense into him on multiple occasions.
This final episode should not have any more knives in it. The official statement had promised a happy reunion ending. But the psychological damage had already been done, and he just could not stop worrying.
Regardless, he was going to see it through. No matter how brutal Clannad got, it was still a masterpiece. Not some throwaway piece of garbage.
With those thoughts swirling in his head, ten o'clock arrived.
The final episode began.
Per tradition, it opened with the little girl and the robot, though in previous episodes those scenes had only lasted a minute or two.
This time, the girl-and-robot segment ran four or five minutes.
And for the first time, Ryuji actually understood what it all meant.
The world the little girl and the robot inhabited was the "neighboring world" that Kotomi had once mentioned. The little girl corresponded to Ushio, and the robot corresponded to Tomoya.
Every single thread came together here. Every gap was filled.
At the very end of the segment, the little girl hummed the melody of the Dango Family song. Then a brilliant golden light pierced through the clouds and fell upon both of them.
"Goodbye, Daddy."
The little girl said those final words, and then, engulfed in blinding golden light, everything dissolved into nothing.
The scene shifted back to the moment the male and female leads had first met. But it was slightly different this time. Here, the male lead had not spoken to the female lead. They had already passed each other by.
The male lead's consciousness returned. He spun around and shouted, "Nagisa!"
He dropped his bag and ran to her, pulling her into his arms.
Though it was the scene of their first meeting, both of them seemed to carry the memories of everything they had shared together. They exchanged words of relief and gratitude.
Then the Light Orbs activated, and the scene rewound to the day Ushio was born.
In the original version, after Ushio's birth, the female lead's face had gone deathly pale. She was barely clinging to life, and after a few words with the male lead, she had died. But this time, while the female lead was still weak and drenched in sweat, her complexion was not nearly as ghostly. She was not on the verge of death.
"Mr. Okazaki, mother and daughter are both safe. You can relax," the doctor said.
The male lead could finally breathe.
In front of his TV, Ryuji exhaled with relief too.
They had finally made it out of hell.
That bastard had finally acted like a decent human being.
The second half of the episode was all warm, healing content. But even after watching the entire finale, Ryuji still could not stop the tears.
He was crying from being moved.
He wiped his eyes, turned off the TV, and leaned back against the couch, feeling strangely hollow.
It was as if he had lost something precious.
But the ending had clearly been a happy reunion.
So what was this feeling?
After thinking about it, he found a reasonable explanation: this was probably just the magic of a true masterpiece.
When a masterpiece ended, you were left with that sense of loss.
He sat quietly in the living room for a while, then went to his room, turned on his computer, and checked the online reactions.
As expected, the comments were already pouring in.
"That bastard finally decided to be human. Those dozens of boxes of razor blades were not sent in vain."
"Clannad is over. I have mixed feelings. Part of me wishes it had gone on longer, but another part knows this was the perfect place to end it. I really did not want to get wrecked again."
"The ending was perfect. Exactly what you would expect from Yuta Shido. I just wish the family reunion had lasted a little longer."
"I used to think Clannad season one was the pinnacle. Then season two came along and showed me what a real masterpiece looks like. Compared to season two, everything I used to call a masterpiece feels ordinary now."
"The last few episodes were brutal, but at least the ending was happy. Thank you, President Shido."
"When it comes to making people cry and moving them to tears, no anime will ever surpass Clannad. And looking backward, nothing before it comes close either. I am calling it now: this anime will become a timeless classic. The kind you can watch ten or twenty years from now and still be deeply moved."
...
Before the final episode aired, people had still been cursing Shido despite his attempts at explaining himself. But now, some were already switching back to the respectful "President Shido."
The manhunt had naturally been called off too.
As for the anime itself, the internet was awash with praise. One comment in particular had been liked by a staggering number of people.
"Spelled CLANNAD. Read as Life. I first heard about CLANNAD when season one ended. I knew it was a tearjerker. I knew it was supposed to be deeply moving. But I still did not watch it.
I actually started watching from season two, episode nine. I had heard that in this school slice-of-life bishoujo anime, the male lead had somehow graduated from high school. That was weird enough to make me curious, so I checked it out. And from that episode on, I was hooked for real."
"Especially the male lead's experiences afterward. They felt so real. They felt like actual life. This anime also taught me so much. I am genuinely grateful I watched it. It might become one of the most valuable things in my entire life."
Under that comment, countless people were posting the same phrase: "Spelled CLANNAD, read as life."
Ryuji scrolled through quietly, liked several comments, and left his own "Spelled CLANNAD, read as life."
After that, he still felt like he had not said enough. So after gathering his thoughts, he wrote something of his own.
"I have been watching since season one episode one. Like countless other viewers, I was wrecked and moved to tears again and again. Now that it is over, I feel empty inside. I do not know when President Shido's next anime will come out, but I hope it will bring everyone just as much emotion."
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