Kaginado: Reflections After The Second Half and Welcoming The Year of The Rabbit

“I don’t think it’s possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.” –Christopher Hitchens

After Yuri and the SSS arrive at the school festival, she announces her intention to destroy this world and its god, feeling that the idyllic life here must be a ruse. To this end, Yuri tasks her force with capturing mascots from the other storylines to force the god’s appearance. Later, Yuri tries to hijack the buses taking the others to a summer trip, but when Yuzuru develops trauma from being within a tunnel, the SSS’ ploy fails, leading them to be buried in the beach as punishment. Back at school, Yuri next tries to put on a concert, confident that god will show up if they create some noise. Over time, the SSS begin settling into life with the other characters, and Yuri herself becomes excited about the student council president elections, feeling she can become god-like in the role. When the nail-biting election campaign begins, countless candidates join, and Yuri decides to sabotage the votes in her favour. For her actions, Yuri is thrown into solitary confinement, and meets Ayu, who’s confined for having stolen taiyaki. On the day of the election, it turns out that votes were evenly distributed, and when Ayu arrives, the other students pursue her so she can vote and break the tie. After elections end, the characters reflect on how being together has helped them to gain a better understanding of one another. The show thus draws to a close, and while Ushio is sad to see things end, planetarium attendant Yumemi reassures her that the show will continue so long as she remembers it. Nagisa and Tomoya arrive and pick up Ushio, while the Junker thanks Yumemi for another excellent performance before the pair set about preparing the planetarium for the next showing of Kaginado. With this, Kaginado‘s second half draws to a close, and with it, a wonderful parody of the worlds within Key’s impressive compendium is done. Kaginado was a part of the twenty-first anniversary project, and as a crossover, this series of shorts wound up being a very gentle and entertaining way of celebrating Key’s most iconic characters in a respectful, but cheerful manner: Key’s visual novels have a reputation for bringing tears to the player’s eyes, and anime adaptations have been similarly touted for their emotional impact, so being able to see the characters bounce off one another and parody their own past experiences shows that, while Key may excel at poignant stories, their writers also have a sense of humour.

The highlight of Kaginado‘s second half lies with the introductio of characters from Angel Beats!. After Kaede, Yuri, Yuzuru and the SSS join the party, Kaginado becomes even livelier as Yuri and the SSS do their utmost to cause a disturbance such that Yuri may draw out the world’s god so she can have a throwdown with them. To this end, the SSS embark on the same activities they had originally carried out within Angel Beats!, and while Yuri is certainly trying to take her work seriously, the fact that Kagonado is a parody with no regard for emotional tenour means that unexpected events thwart her every attempt. Kaginado shows how Yuri’s original plan within Angel Beats!, despite being motivated by rightous feelings of resentment and a desire for vengence, was ultimately one that couldn’t succeed. Angel Beats! would ultimately have Yuzuru approaching things with heart rather than bullets, leading the characters to make peace with their pasts, and here in Kaginado, Yuri similarly fails as those around her begin accepting the outlandish would that is Kaginado. That Angel Beats! premise works with both a dramatic and comedic environment speaks to how there are cases where how a story unfolds is dependent on the author’s intentions. Since Angel Beats! had been meant to pull at the viewer’s heartstrings and create a story of making a sincere effort to make peace with one’s past, things were more serious as Yuruzu strove to understand the world he found himself in. On the other hand, Kaginado is simply meant to parody these stories and give them a humourous twist. Yuri’s plans seem out-of-place, ill-conceived and unnecessary. However, despite the gap on intentions, the outcomes end up being the same after Yuri realises that within the other worlds, there were other characters who share her feelings. By hanging out with Kyou, Nayuki, Komari and Kotori, Yuri realises there is worth in this world, and ultimately decides to live life to the fullest, while at the same time, choosing a path most consistent with her desires. Because of the implications that Kaginado brings to the table, the parody series also reflects on the strength of the writing in Angel Beats!, a series that, after over a decade, still remains immensely enjoyable to watch.

Screenshots and Commentary

• The last time I wrote about Kaginado was near the end of August, and back then, my original plan had been to watch the second half shortly after: Kaginado‘s second half had begun airing during the spring of 2022, shortly after my move, and I had been settling in then, leaving little time for my other pursuits. Once things had settled down during the summer, I began watching Kaginado, but my usual propensity for procrastination meant that once I’d finished the first half, I found little time to continue as the fall season began, and Yama no Susume: Next Summit kicked off.

• However, within moments of starting Kaginado‘s second half, it immediately returned to me as to why I found the first half so enjoyable. The characters in Kaginado are largely faithful to their portrayals in their respective series, but additionally possess a modicum of awareness about how they were treated. This drives some of the humour; watching Ryou hand Botan to Ooyama, seemingly in order to spite Kyou, only for Ryou to betray Ooyama and alert Kyou to Botan’s position, was hilarious.

• Classic elements from Angel Beats! make a return in Kaginado, with details like Yusa’s role as Yuri’s intelligence officer being faithfully brought over. Yusa’s story in Angel Beats! is that of a tragedy, but owing to Angel Beats! runtime, most of the characters’ backgrounds actually aren’t explored, and it is not lost on me that two twenty-five episode seasons would probably be required. In place of this, Angel Beats! ended up receiving a visual novel, but after the first volume was released, no more news of the project was heard.

• Yuri’s plan to cause disruption in this world mirrors her old actions, and right out of the gates, I was reminded of the original Angel Beats! – as the story goes, I decided to pick the series up eleven years earlier because one of my friends had sent me Lia’s My Soul, Your Beats, and curiosity led me to watch Angel Beats!. After finishing Angel Beats!, I was greatly moved and proceeded to give CLANNAD, Kanon and Air a go. Each of these series were characterised by the balance of comedy and drama, as well as an overwhelming feeling of yearning.

• In Kaginado, the drama and tragedy is entirely discarded, leaving the entire focus on the comedy. Much of the humour is dependent on a familiarity with Key’s other works, and as such, folks who’ve not seen a handful of Key’s shows or played through the visual novels will find some of the moments in Kaginado difficult to follow. For instance, when Kaede shows up in the SSS headquarters, this is outrageous because originally, Yuri had gone to great lengths to keep Kaede at a distance, including setting traps. Here in Kaginado, Kaede is able to saunter freely into headquarters without any resistance, and playing on her love of the Sichuan dish, mapo tofu, she’s always seen with a bowl in hand.

• Although short, every episode of Kaginado is packed to the brim with hilarious moments; when Yuri’s initial plans fail, she decides to pull something during the big class trip to the beach. Her efforts end up failing, since her SSS are not equipped to deal with people possessing extraordinary combat prowess. The unexpected moments that occur in Kaginado means there is never a dull episode, and the series utilises its new additions from Angel Beats! to great effect.

• Kaginado‘s irreverent and whimsical presentation of elements from Angel Beats! serves to put things in perspective – although Angel Beats! had its share of comedy, a consequence of Yuzuru’s initial attempts to adjust to life in the Afterlife world, once Yuzuru began empathising with Kaede and began making efforts to make amends, the series became increasingly poignant as it became clear that every last person in the Afterlife had come in because of their own regrets, and this world had become a place for everyone to overcome said feelings of longing.

• Moments like Yuzuru’s sacrifice in Angel Beats! are brought back in irreverent but hilarious ways, ones which do require a priori knowledge of Angel Beats!. After the bus enters a tunnel, he develops a panic attack – his original story was that in life, he’d been a bit of loser, but ended up turning his life around and aspired become a medical doctor as a promise to his sister. En route to the entrance exams, a rock slide trapped his train, and Yuzuru ended up organising a survival effort, but died from dehydration and exhaustion moments before rescuers came through. In the absence of this background, Yuzuru’s outburst would not make much sense.

• Kaginado‘s first half had a swimsuit episode, so for kicks, the second half has a beach episode, and for good measure, both the idea of rendering the girls with a higher level of detail, and the battle between two pairs of siblings, make a return. Here in the second half, meta-humour remains present, although it is the SSS that drive most of the comedy – as punishment for their antics, they’re buried in the sand and forgotten wholly.

• While Mai and Sayuri enjoy the beef bowl at a beach house, today’s the first day of the Chinese New Year, and yesterday evening, I sat down to a wonderful New Year’s Eve dinner with family. It’s the first time I’ve had family over at the new place, and we ended up picking up a poon choi (盆菜, a Cantonese dish with whole prawns, fish balls, pork knuckle, braised pork, cabbage, scallops, abalone, chicken and a bunch of other flavourful ingredients I can’t remember), white-cut chicken (貴妃雞), stir-fried prawns (炒蝦 ) and shiitake on a bed of lettuce (冬菇菜). Dinner extended well into the evening, but it was great to host our first-ever dinner and relax with extended family.

• The Chinese New Year always creates an interest in horoscopes, although here, I note that people take an interest in horoscopes because they are way of comforting those who are facing uncertainty in their lives. Where tried-and-true methods fail, people look for patterns and hope in anything they can find, and astrology offers this. For instance, my own horoscope for the Year of the Rabbit is that, if I work hard and manage my finances well, I’ll have a good year. At first glance, this does sound like my financial fortunes will improve, but it is, in fact, contingent on my putting in an effort to improve things. My horoscope is therefore fully accurate, provided I take the initiative to make it so.

• Similarly, if I receive word of incoming bad luck, it’s simply just a caution to not overdo things – receiving poor fortunes simply means that one should be more observant of their surroundings, and more mindful of themselves. Back in Kaginado, things switch over to a concert that Yuri organises; she hopes things will be noisy enough for the gods to appear. Unfortunately for Yuri, while the concert is a success, and Masami disappears after performing the ballad she always wanted to perform, the gods don’t appear, and instead, attendees are treated to Lia’s Aozora, one of her most iconic songs that was used as Air‘s ending theme.

• Later, for no apparent reason, the characters across the different Key universes are pitted in a one-on-one against one another, and the characters in the show I watch end up winning against their opponents. Mai’s sword technique destroys her foe, while Kanna overwhelms her foe when she flies into the skies and loses all of the clothing in the process. On the other hand, when Matsushita squares off against Kotomi, I had expected Matsushita to win owing to his martial arts skill, but Kotomi cheats by breaking out her violin, which returns as a weapon of mass destruction.

• As a callback to the first half of Kaginado, Kyou had already foreseen this happening – here she sits, with a smug little smile on her face and her pockets full of cash, ready to enjoy the show. Little details like these weren’t necessary for Kaginado, but their inclusion serves to accentuate the humour. The resulting pandemonium is befitting of a show like Kaginado, and once Kotomi’s done her beatdown on Matsushita and everyone in the stadium, judge Kaede break out her “Harmonics” guard skill in retaliation, lamenting how her mapo tofu is destroyed.

• Later, while a pair of sleepovers are happening, the secondary characters who were shafted by their respective stories commiserate together in what is visibly a miserable time. It’s easy to laugh at them, but of everyone, I feel most pathos for Nayuki and Kyou – I’ve experienced precisely what the pair have gone through before, and it deals one’s confidence a crushing blow. One thing that I would’ve liked to see, even though this is strictly unnecessary from a storytelling perspective, was seeing how Kyou and Nayuki found their footing after losing their respective love interests.

• On the other hand, the heroines’ get-together is set in a neatly-organised room, and the lights are on. Conversation is spirited, but once it turns out Riki isn’t a heroine (despite being voiced by the legendary Yui Horie), the others pull him aside for “research” purposes. This was one of those moments that I don’t have any background in, and as such, the moment flew over my head. However, it also suggested that perhaps now is the time to get into Little Busters.

• Towards Kaginado‘s end, Yuri ends up deciding that she wants to take on the role of a student council president, having seen how much power the role entails. Originally, Yuri had sought the power to help those around her after losing her siblings and her own life during an armed robbery that went bad – she most regretted being unable to protect them, and since then, had sought vengeance against the god of a cruel world. Angel Beats! had left the existence of a god ambiguous and suggested that any higher powers in their world did not intervene in the world of humans, but was benevolent enough to give people a second chance.

• Admittedly, seeing Yuri’s determination in Kaginado was adorable because of all the characters, she feels the most unable (or unwilling) to accept Kaginado‘s world – she retains all of her old resolve to destroy this world, and this comes across as being immensely out of place, leading to humour. With CLANNAD and the other characters, their comedy comes from being placed into ridiculous situations or what’s known as meta-humour, in which the characters critique or challenge the writing that created their circumstances.

• However, even Yuri begins showing signs of desiring a normal life: after her latest tantrum, Yukine passes her a cup of tea, and Yuri loosens up a little. Here, I remark that discussions on Kaginado have been limited despite the series’ entertainment value, and this time around, I do have a guess as to why this is the case – CLANNAD, Kanon, Air and Angel Beats! are older than a decade, and the constant stream of anime means that older titles can be forgotten. Interest in Kaginado is understandably diminished, although it’s worth reiterating that folks who have previously seen Key’s works will find Kaginado worthwhile.

• To Yūichi, Tomoya, Yuzuru and the others, seeing their worlds collide in a hilarious way leaves them without words – as the student council president race heats up, smaller groups form as the campaign for different things, and this creates a multi-way race. Seeing this leads Yuri to employ under-handed techniques to win the election, and while Angel Beats! may have accommodated this because of the Afterlife’s unique setting, the other characters eventually intervene and chuck Yuri into solitary confinement for some self-reflection.

• Seeing Ayu and Yuri together is something that was only possible in a crossover like Kaginado – Ayu’s here for stealing taiyaki repeatedly, and is apparently a repeat offender. This room was seen in Angel Beats!, used to confine students engaged in misconduct. It speaks volumes to how memorable Angel Beats! had been; even eleven years later, I still recall smaller details within the anime. While I’ve watched many series since then, the fact that Key adaptations still stand out speak to their staying power.

• Although the so-called losers end up bemoaning their fate and even coughs up blood, the four of them pull their act together and try to encourage Yuri to simply do her best. Things turn around after the SSS appear, having rounded up the traitors within their ranks. Seeing this returns Yuri to her old self, and she resolves to campaign with all of her heart.

• Going through Kaginado is a far cry from my usual anime experiences: since episodes are only four minutes each, it was possible to watch the whole of Kaginado in a single sitting, and this in turn made the series very easy to go through. Normally, I watch one or two episodes of a given series in a day, and it takes an average of two weeks for me to complete an anime if it has fully aired. While some people prefer watching their shows all at once, I’ve found that this can be an exhausting process. I personally enjoy going through things more slowly so I have time to take in something and give some thought to what I watched.

• There is no right or wrong way of watching anime, and different people will find different processes better suited for their schedules. Back in Kaginado, after the campaigning comes to an end, and the results are in, it turns out Ayu was absent from the vote, making her Key to a tiebreaker. The entire school ends up pursuing her across Japan to secure her vote, and in the end, it looks like the new student council president’s identity is a mystery. However, with the elections over, everyday school life returns to normal for the students, who welcome the routine and enjoyment of an ordinary life.

• Throughout all of Key’s works, it does feel that the ordinary as something to cherish is another common theme. In keeping with tradition, Kaginado also presents this, albeit in a more roundabout way as the series parodies every aspect of the works the characters featured in. Overall, because of its presentation, I count Kaginado to be an enjoyable experience that is worthwhile for anyone who is a fan of Key’s works. Since Key series tend to be emotionally charged, it is nice to see everyone interact in an environment where there is no tragedy.

• Kaginado features six of Key’s works, and here, I’ve featured stills from the four series I’ve previously watched. At present, I feel that my next Key adaptation is going to be Little Busters; this anime is actually quite lengthy, running as long as CLANNAD did. With my schedule, assuming I start next month, I could be done by the time summer arrives. On the other hand, I’ll probably look at Rewrite at a later date; I’m still on the fence about this one owing to the more dramatic portrayal of the supernatural, but again, Kaginado has shown me there may be merit yet in keeping an open mind and giving this one a go.

• Once Kaginado comes to a close, Ushio expresses a desire to see more of the world, and Yumemi explains that while the show’s done, it will continue living on so long as she remembers it. Kaginado was one of the projects done to celebrate Key’s twenty-first anniversary, and over the years, this developer studio had accrued a reputation for creating works of emotional impact. With their extensive history, Key continues to produce visual novels and kinetic novels (essentially digital picture books), and their company also produces their own music through Key Sounds Label.

• With both halves of Kaginado in the books, and the appearance of Planetarian‘s Yumemi, I am reminded of the fact that while I have watched Planetarian in full some six years earlier, I never got around to watching the Planetarian movie despite having promised one of my readers I’d do so. Because it’s been so long, I don’t think said reader is around, but there probably is merit in my going through the Planetarian movie at some point in the future so I can finish things off.

• We’re now a shade over two thirds of the way through January, and with Bofuri and Mō Ippon!‘s third episodes past, I plan on writing about them. Both series have impressed me enough to warrant a discussion. In addition, word has reached my ears that Maiko-san chi no Makanai-san‘s live-action Netflix adaptation has become available. Titled The Makanai: Cooking For the Maiko House, this series will present Kiyo and Sumire’s experiences from a different perspective and looks promising. I look forwards to writing about this along with, Lycoris Recoil and a revisit of Kokoro Connect come February.

Having now completed Kaginado, I am reminded of the fact that amongst Key’s works, I’ve yet to take a look at Little Busters! and Rewrite. The Key adaptations I’ve seen so far (Air, Kanon, CLANNAD and Angel Beats!) have been remarkable experiences, masterpieces, because of their ability to strike a balance between comedy and drama, using moments of levity to build a connection to the characters such that when tragedy struck, the impact was felt ten-fold. However, Key works have also accrued a bit of an unfair reputation amongst some viewers, who feel them to be inconsistent and incomplete. These sentiments come from the storytelling approach Key works tend to take; because Key stories are rooted in themes of longing and regret, their resolution is reached when the protagonist is able to overcome their past regrets and make peace with what’s happened. Because different protagonists have different backgrounds and regrets, it can be a little tricky to definitively tell when a resolution does occur, and this in turn creates a situation where a given story’s ending can come across as open-ended or inconclusive. However, this mode of storytelling is consistent with the idea of transience, and folks who approach Key’s works aware of this have typically found moving stories. With this in mind, Kaginado acts as encouragement for me to give Little Busters! and Rewrite their fair chance: these series have initially not drawn my interest, but seeing all of the characters here in Kaginado, having a ball of a time with folks from Air, CLANNAD, Kanon and Angel Beats! has piqued my curiosity. As such, I do see merit in taking the plunge and giving the remainder of Key’s animated adaptations their fair chance. In the meantime, today is the Chinese New Year, and I’d like to wish all readers a Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Kaginado: Reflections and Understanding the Effective Amusement in Crossover Parodies

“I think a lot of the time, you just parody yourself.” –Dylan Moran

Whereas Key adaptations have garnered a reputation for being heartbreakers and portray tragedies, Kaginado is a parody series produced by Liden Films Kyoto Studio and acts as a massive crossover for Key’s most iconic series, including CLANNAD, Kanon, Air, Little Busters! and Rewrite. As a part of the twenty-first anniversary celebrations, Kaginado brings back memorable characters and their traits from their stories, allows everyone to mingle in a shared space, and derive amusement from the antics that follow; Ryou laments her lack of presence compared to Kyou, Youhei challenges Mai, Lucia, Koutaro and Yuiko to a soccer game after he receives complaints, Yukito finds his puppeteering skills completely outmatched, and Kouko invites the older sister characters to discuss what they admire most about their younger siblings, only for things to devolve into a baseball game in which the younger sisters unleashed their repressed dissatisfaction at their older sister. Later, the male leads discuss the frustations of being a protagonist in their respective stories, and everyone prepares for a massive culture festival, only for the finale event to be crashed when Yuri announces she hates this world and plans to take the fight to this school with her SSS members. Hilariously light-hearted and poking fun at virtually every aspect of Key’s best-known works, Kaginado is a gentle series that shows Key as having a sense of humour about their previous titles. While I have seen Angel Beats!, CLANNAD, Kanon and Air, coming into Kaginado, I did not have any familiarity with Little Busters! or Rewrite. In spite of having two shows I’d never watched before, Kaginado‘s setup nonetheless created a novel experience in which I would find all of the moments funny.

By definition, parodies are dependent on a priori knowledge of a work to drive its humour. When I was in middle school, The Matrix and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was all the rage, and I spent many an hour laughing at the outrageous portrayal of The Matrix and Star Wars as fans poked fun at all aspects of these films. However, from the humour, it became very clear that one needed to have seen the originals in order for half the jokes to work. For instance, watching the Merovingian’s henchmen using weapons like an inflatable banana and a board with a nail in it as weapons against Neo during the chateau fight is dependent on having seen the original chateau fight. Someone lacking the context would not likely find these details amusing, and as such, watching Kaginado thus became an exercise in understanding what makes parodies work – whereas a traditional parody will often only focus on a single work, Kaginado is a crossover, and this allows characters from multiple stories to mingle together. Commonalities that the characters share allow one to gain a better of measure of how they act in their own series, as their combined interactions often create chaos in this shared environment. Since the problem of context is eliminated, one needn’t have seen every work in full to enjoy things, since knowing even about just one or two of the works can be enough to understand the context of a joke or exaggeration. This is where Kaginado succeeds as a parody, and even provides the incentive for one to give the other Key series a chance.

Screenshots and Commentary

• While CLANNAD presented Ryou as being shy and timid, Kaginado gives her a more sullen and moody disposition. Here, she does fortune telling for some of her classmates, and the results leave Kano bleeding. The visual style in Kaginado is quite similar to what World Witches Take Off! did, with both chibi and blood being used in a highly stylised manner. The characters look adorable by default, but they can also convey humour exceedingly well: in fact, of all of the slice-of-life parodies I’ve seen, Kaginado most closely resembles World Witches Take Off!, which I similarly enjoyed for its over-the-top exaggerations.

• Much as how World Witches Take Off! had done, Kaginado episodes start out being self-contained experiences, but over the course of the series, the episodes begin to tell an overarching story. Some of the humour in Kaginado is inappropriate: during a soccer match where Youhei challenges the swordsmen of Key, Youhei and his team have their clothes blown off. As memory serves, soccer was a big deal in CLANNAD, being the reason behind how Youhei and Tomoya reconcile during the events of ~After Story~, but here, the soccer game is purely done to drive a few laughs.

• The chibi art style is meant to be cute rather than alluring, so Kaginado is able to further make fun of things by having the characters rendered normally. Despite only running for three minutes each, Kaginado‘s episoldes pack a considerable amount of laughs into its runtime, using everything from gags and timing, to visual elements. However, unlike the Flash parodies I watched back in middle school, the art style in Kaginago is consistent, and the voice acting is spot on: all of the voice actors and actresses reprise their roles.

• Seeing Nagisa again immediately brought back memories of ten summer earlier, when I’d been watching CLANNAD to unwind from my busy and demanding schedule. I had entered CLANNAD because, after Angel Beats!, I became curious to see what Key’s other works were like. At around this point a decade earlier, I also joined the AnimeSuki forums with the aim of promoting this blog and getting to know other fans better. Although I was unsuccessful in gaining new readers, I did end up befriending a few of the forum’s members, most notably, Ernietheracefan, Wild Goose and Flower.

• These were exemplary members of the AnimeSuki community, being the precursors to the current community I’m with. While Wild Goose and Flower are now inactive, I still converse with Ernietheracefan from time to time at alternate venues. Over time, AnimeSuki’s community has become increasingly inactive, with only a handful of regulars still discussing anime: over the past few years, some users begun emphasising politics over anime to the point where the political threads are more active than the anime thread. For this reason, I do feel that I’ve done everything I could there, and while I’ll continue posting links back here, it feels like it’s time for me to call it quits.

• Back in Kaginado, during a flea market of sorts, Yukito spots an opportunity to try and make some coin by showing off his puppeteering skills, only to be promptly defeated by everyone else. In Air, Yukito’s success was already limited, and he ultimately made ends meet by taking up odd jobs around town. Here in Kagonado, the most successful business by far is Kyou, who has Kotomi put on a lethal violin recital and then “convince” audience members to pick up earplugs. Small details, like Kotomi going barefoot, show Kaginado‘s commitment to authenticity: Kotomi originally eschewed shoes for comfort.

• Yukito’s luck runs out when Ayu runs through the scene, trying to escape a taiyaki vendor that she’d just stolen from. In the process, she tramples Yukito’s puppet and destroys it totally. Early in the series, Kaginado explains what its title means: かぎなど simply means “Key et cetera“, and this is fitting considering that it takes Key’s works and adds on a comedic piece to it. Ayu’s entrance is almost entirely dependent on being familiar with Kanon and how Ayu initially greets Yuuichi.

• Kaginado is at its best when the characters act contrary to their usual selves, and here, Ryou, Shiori and Haruka share a hi-five after deliberately thrashing their older sisters with baseballs and calling them homewreckers. Ryou and Shiori certainly wouldn’t have done this in CLANNAD and Kanon, so the humour comes from seeing this dramatic contrast in actions. What makes the moment doubly strong is how confident Kyou and Kaori are in their younger sisters’ love for them, speaking to a disconnect that can only result from how the stories were originally written.

• For me, the segments of Kaginado that were most difficult to follow involve the characters outside of CLANNAD, Kanon and Air, but even in scenes featuring characters from Little Busters! and Rewrite, so long as characters from the Key series I’ve watched were present, I could still follow what was going on. Aiding in Kaginado‘s ability to elicit a smile was the fact that the incidental music used is sourced from other Key series, which similarly creates a disconnect; while the music is wistful and has a visual novel-like feeling, the mood in Kaginado does not match what they music conveys.

• The final few episodes of Kaginado are dedicated to a school-wide culture festival, which sees Kanna, Ryūya and Uraha arrive to check in on Misuzu. This was a surprising development, and I remember that when watching Air, it had felt quite jarring to suddenly be transported back into the Heian Period. While this explained Misuzu’s unfortunate curse of being forced to die and reincarnate whenever she discovered friendship, Air‘s ending was a little tricky to follow. It turns out that Yukito’s kindness would manifest in a crow, and Haruko ends up loving Misuzu as her own daughter, so when Misuzu dies, she is at peace. These memories return to Kanna, breaking the curse.

• Back in Kaginado, Fuuko, Ayu and Shizuru reunite after originally disagreeing on which form of marine life is the best. Until Kaginado, I’d never thought it was possible to see Ayu and Fuuko in the same room together, and it turns out that Shizuru loves saury. Jun Maeda is fond of giving characters a favourite food in his works, citing that it helps to give them a unique identifying trait which allows his characters to be distinct. This works well enough for each work, and the bonus is that, when a crossover like Kaginado is made, it allows similar characters to naturally group together.

• While the characters from different series might be similar, they have their own unique personalities and idiosyncrasies, so humour results from them clashing despite their commonalities. However, there are some characters that simply get along with everyone, and here, Sayuri passes cake to Michiru in a moment that warms up all of the café’s spectators.

• Kaginado‘s variant on the café simply has patrons watching the students act adorable, which is something I’ve never seen before at any school festival: normally, shows would prefer to have students actively work on an experience that attendees can then enjoy, but as a crossover parody, Kaginado is free to completely disregard convention. In this way, Kaginado has all of the same spirit and creativity of the Flash parodies I watched back in middle school. My favourite of them remains The Matrix Has You, which had been a collaboration between several animators.

• Kaginado neatly answers what would happen if Kanna actually met Misuzu. Moments like these are only possible in crossover parodies, and while Misuzu doesn’t have quite as active a role here in Kaginado as she did in Air, the moments that were portrayed were hilarious: my favourite would be when Haruko breaks a scene by suggesting that Misuzu is going to be late for school after she slowly steps towards the goal line as she had in Air‘s final moments. One would imagine that such a meeting, seeing Misuzu at peace with her world, would be Kaginado‘s equivalent of Air‘s resolution.

• While Makoto enjoys a BBQ pork bun and spends time with Mishio Amano, I decided to return to campus today for kicks: back in 2017, it was announced that the story of Leon the Frog was restored to its original glory, and having never climbed the stairs of the social sciences building from basement to the thirteenth floor when I’d been a student, I decided to make the ascent. After returning to my favourite outlet on campus, the Korean BBQ House, for their grilled chicken and beef combo with a side of tomato salad and honeyed potatoes (which tastes exactly as good as I remember), we swung by the building and made the full climb: the entire experience took around twenty minutes, and it was fun to read it from the bottom floor to the top floor, including one H-scene whose relevance to the story still eludes me.

• I note that I have previously mentioned the Social Sciences building in my post on Magia Record‘s “Breakup Staircase”, and folks curious to see what those stairs look like will finally have some photos. Back in Kaginado, when the culture festival’s beauty contest comes on, Tomoya and Yuuichi decide to take to the stage themselves after Mio suggests Riki would’ve won. Hilariously, Nagisa doesn’t seem quite so worried that Tomoya’s kitted out in the girls’ uniform, and she seems more concerned as to whether or not Tomoya might actually win. Here, it suddenly hits me that the protagonists of each Key series appear to be given less time on screen than the secondary characters, which really allow them to shine, and as such, when Yuuichi and Tomoya attempt to take back the spotlight by force, one cannot help but laugh at how absurd everything is.

• Nayuki doesn’t actually get much screen time in Kaginado, and here, she attempts to stop Akiko from selling her special jam with Sanae’s bread: Akio’s already down fore the count from attempting to consume Sanae’s bread when it’s already been given some jam. The combination has been implied to be potent enough to knock a grown man out: CLANNAD ~After Story~ had something similar happen during a fight between Tomoya and some of the city’s rival gangs, but back then, it was only implied that Sanae had managed to get her hands on Akiko’s jam.

• The resulting hilarity from the beauty contest has Mei so embarrassed, she can only cover her face in shame. Kaori is completely unamused by what’s unfolding before her eyes, while Shiori is content to simply keep eating her ice cream. The beauty contest’s setup is actually reminiscent of a faux cosplay contest that Otafest had hosted in some years, and while I myself could never don a seifuku and walk across a stage with confidence, I can easily see that events of this sort are treated as being highly entertaining.

• In the end, even Tomoya and Yuuichi’s efforts fail: in a stunning twist, Angel Beats! Hideki Hinata takes the top crown, and Yuri Nakamura reveals herself. Since Angel Beats!‘ cast had been absent from the other eleven episodes, their appearance was all the funnier, and I found myself wishing that they’d shown up earlier. While Angel Beats! had been quite poignant, the series had numerous comedic moments, as well. However, this finale is not the end of Kaginado: a second season began airing back in April as a part of the spring season, and I’ll be looking to watch it, as well.

• Overall, Kaginado is a series that will appeal to fans of Key and have some background of the series (I would suggest that having watched at least two or three Key works is sufficient to understand the jokes), and I certainly had a blast with this short anime. My Kaginado experience thus draws to a close, and I’ve only got one more post left for this month: I will be revisiting Kantai Collection: The Movie to commemorate the five year anniversary to its release. Beyond this, it’s full steam ahead as I enter September. The month will kick off with Jon Creator’s Showcase, and then it’s onto ARIA the Benedizione, which I’ve waited for quite some time to share my thoughts about.

Through its caricature of aspects from Key’s prior works, Kaginado proved to be a delightful series of shorts that also had the unexpected side effect of sending me on a journey down memory lane. I picked up Angel Beats! after curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see the anime behind the Lia’s My Soul, Your Beats!. When I watched CLANNAD, I was staring down the MCAT. Three months later, my enjoyment of CLANNAD ~After Story~ led me to give Kanon a whirl, and in trying to hunt down music from Kanon, I came upon Natsukage, an iconic song from Air. Seeing all of the characters returning in chibi form to bounce off one another in a zero-stakes environment proved most cathartic, and as a result, I found Kaginado to be a fantastic way of lightening up the mood from series that were otherwise emotionally-charged journeys. Kaginado gives Youhei a chance to shine where Tomoya had previously dominated, shows Ryou and Shiori’s repressed anger surrounding their older sisters, openly confirms what happens when Akiko’s special jam and Sanae’s artisan breads are combined, and even has Tomoya and Yuuicihi take to the stage for the beauty contest to show how things are done. Having all of the characters retain their old personalities, but otherwise act in ways that are contrary to how they’d act in their respective series serves to remind viewers that as serious as Key’s works usually are, if the tragedy were stricken from their worlds, the characters would experience life in an over-the-top manner, one that is sure to put a smile on viewers’ faces.

Air: A Reflection At Summer’s End

“Isn’t that a romantic thought? That your true self is in the sky!” —Misuzu Kamio

Yukito Kunisaki is a wanderer with an unusual talent: the ability to use limited magic in animating a puppet. He travels from town to town with the aim of supporting himself, while at once seeking out a “Girl in the Sky”, a function he inherited from his late mother. Upon arriving in the coastal town of Kami, and after failing to impress the local children, he falls asleep on the seawall, only to encounter Misuzu Kamino. Enticed by her offer of a free meal, Yukito soon becomes friends with her and manages to convince Haruko Kamio, Misuzu’s foster mother, to allow Yukito to sleep in the garden shed. Yukito also meets Kano Kirishima and Minagi Tohno, coming to learn of a legend from a thousand summers previously. Borne of a curse from the Heian period, when the ancient winged being Kannabi no Mikoto (Kanna) escapes from captivity with the help of Ryūya, a member of her guard, and the Force-sensitive Uraha. While their escape was successful, priests soon caught up to them and cursed Kanna to eternally die and resurrect whenever she discovered love. It turns out that Misuzu was the latest reincarnated form of Kanna, and so, after kindling a friendship with Yukito, she fell in love with him. Misuzu’s story is later recounted from the perspective of a crow named Sora, and it turns out following Yukito’s mysterious departure, Haruko and Misuzu spend more time together as mother and child up until Misuzu’s death. This is Air, the first of the Key adaptations and the second series the Kyoto Animation produced: dating back to 2005, Air nonetheless has a timeless feel to it thanks to Kyoto Animation’s technical prowess, which was apparent even this early in their career, as well as the unusual and riveting story from the source materials itself.

From a narrative standpoint, Air is predominantly about how even if love is a transient state, the treasured moments that two individuals spend together are well worth the pains because they create a unique bond. This love is represented in Air both in terms of familial love, as well as romantic love. Despite their short time together, Yukito grows to care greatly for Misuzu not merely because of her being the individual he was fated to seek out, but because of her kindness. Similarly, in accompanying her and showing her friendship, Misuzu comes to love Yukito. While their time is cut short, their emotions and experiences remain genuine. Following the Summer arc, the bonds between Misuzu and Haruko are developed: having long regarded Misuzu coldly for fear that she would forget her, Haruko decides to make up for the lost time. While building a bond with Misuzu does end up causing Haruko great pain when Misuzu does eventually die of the curse, the pain is offset by Haruko having creating priceless memories and making the most of Misuzu’s remaining days. Then, no matter how short-lived love might be in some cases, it by no way diminishes its authenticity when it does manifest, and that the cost of love is far outweighed by the worth of having had the experience. This imagery is vividly presented in Air, augmented by extensive use of the summer season as a visual backdrop: like love, summer is a beautiful season occasionally marked with inclement weather, and is finite in length. However, it is in this brief period where things are truly magical, and while summers inevitably end, the memories they wrought remain with one forever.

Screenshots and Commentary

• Misuzu Kamio is Air‘s heroine. She is very similar to CLANNAD‘s Nagisa Furukawa and Kanon‘s Nayuki Minase in terms of personality, being kind and gentle, with a somewhat immature predisposition at times. While Yukito initially grows tired of her seemingly boundless optimism, her persistence in befriending him leads him to come around. Misuzu was voiced by Tomoko Kawakami, who passed away in 2011 and also played Aria‘s Athena Glory, The Girl from the Illusionary World of CLANNAD and Sayuri Kuruta of Kanon.

• Air is set in the coastal town of Kami, in the Hyōgo Prefecture. The choice of location, a quiet town with a small population with a lack of activity, creates a deliberate sense of solitude that forces focus to be on Yukito and Misuzu. Anime taking this approach tend to feel very lonely and melancholy, creating a sense of yearning and wistfulness, and for me, there’s an appeal to series with this particular aesthetic.

• Yukito comes from a line of sorcerers with the ability to manipulate objects to a limited extent. While is puppeteering skills are initially weak, his time with Misuzu helps him appreciate what his audience seeks from his plays, and over the course of Air, he is able to impress audiences to a greater extent. Of the male protagonists in a Key adaptation, Yukito has the least development of everyone in comparison to Yuuichi and Tomoya, since he’s supposed to represent the player character.

• A short walk in Kami leads one out of town into the rural areas. The gentle quiet of the countryside amplifies the feeling of isolation, although Yukito is not without good company. He encounters Kano, an unusual girl who wears a ribbon around her wrist to seal her “magic”. It turns out that after coming into contact with a cursed feather, Kano manifested an unusual condition, and the ribbon was meant as a means to help her cope.

• Aside from setting the standard for Kyoto Animation’s visuals, Air also would set the precedence for the quality of music that would go into its works. Air‘s soundtrack is a timeless collection of vocal pieces from Lia, which capture the empty majesty of the sky, and Jun Maeda’s incidental pieces serve to both set the mood of a moment, as well as convey additional aspects of a character. In particular, Misuzu’s theme, Natsukage, has become a favourite of mine: if there was a single song that captures how the summer feels, then this would be it.

• Out of the gates, Air makes extensive use of supernatural elements to capture the idea that human emotions, both good and bad, sometimes defy known understanding and therefore can only be captured by means of magic. This is a recurring theme in Jun Maeda’s works – the way things works out in reality sometimes can appear to be the work of a higher power. In Air, the lack of contemporary implements such as phones give the setting a timeless feel, making it feel more plausible for magic to exist as a natural part of the world.

• Hijiri Kirishima is Kano’s older sister, and after running into Yukito, decides to offer him work. In Kami, Yukito also runs into Minagi and Michiru; the former shares many unusual conversations with Yukito, while the latter is fond of pranking him. While the characters initially appear disconnected, they are all related to an ancient story from a thousand years earlier. Elements of reincarnation and rebirth are present in Air, although it is presented as a curse rather than a blessing.

• While initially appearing dull and lifeless, Yukito’s background from a family of sorcerers and his connection to the “Girl in the Sky”, coupled with a kind disposition despite his cold appearance, means that he’s an integral part of the story. Over time, he grows to care for Misuzu even as her condition fails: the curse of a thousand years means that when she discovers love, her health and memories fade and condemn her to death.

• The wide open skies above Kami are deliberately presented as vast: Air itself makes extensive use of imagery associated with birds, flight and feathers to signify a longing to soar into the expansive sky and explore. Society’s rejection is then a refusal to explore what could be, and how despite a laggard society’s effort to suppress curiosity, it will always linger. I imagine this to be a secondary theme in Air, and admit that it took me three revisitations to really get a handle on what the series was about: unlike Kanon and CLANNAD, Air is a bit more abstract in its presentation.

• The mysteries in Air are indicative of the notion of curses being extremely long-lived, to the point where for future generations, they simply become something that they adapt to. Yukito and the others are not fully aware of the story, but bits and pieces of it are told over time, filling in the mystery. The feathers will occasionally manifest, and these snow-white feathers of purity speak of bygone times, of something unspoilt and untarnished.

• Misuzu holds the rather romantic belief that one’s self exists in the skies above, unfettered by worldly concerns and untroubled by the comings and goings of the world. A long time ago, I had a friend who shared similarly romantic beliefs, and although time resulted in our drifting apart, these thoughts remain behind. One wonders what it would be like to have the sort of freedom a bird might, and it attests to humanity’s incredible resourcefulness that we’ve both been able to soar into the air as a bird might with aircraft, as well as replicate the experience with microprocessors and LED screens.

• Minagi’s story was perhaps the most rushed in Air; after events of her past, Minagi’s own mother forgot about her existence, but Yukito ultimately helps to set things right when he speaks with the irreverent Michiru and determines on how to reach a solution. With things settled, Minagi departs for an unknown destination, and Misuzu collapses unexpectedly, setting in motion the final events of Air.

• The origins of the thousand-year-old curse is found in the Heian Period, which spanned from 794 AD to 1185 AD. This period was characterised by a substantial Chinese and Buddhist influence, and is known for its artwork. It turns out that long ago, there were winged beings of great power, and society’s fear of them led to their extinction. Samurai Ryūya and Force-sensitive Uraha strive to protect Kanna from the pursuers after they manage to fulfill Kanna’s wish of locating her mother, and eventually, after Kanna is cursed and killed, Ryūya and Uraha conceive a child together with the aim of breaking this curse.

• The third segment of Air follows things from the perspective of a crow named Sora. Here, Misuzu stands outside on a hot summer’s day. The alternative perspective offers new insight into Misuzu’s world, and that despite her lack of friends, her world is one of optimism and making the most of things. Her appearance in this moment here is the anthropomorphism of what I’ve come to long for in the summer: an encounter with someone like Misuzu or Nagisa in a verdant field and endless skies. Of course, this is just a dream, and given the geographical setting of where I am, such a dream is unlikely to come to fruition.

• Following Yukito’s disappearance, Haruko resolves to look after Misuzu, whose health worsens by the day. Eventually, Misuzu’s father comes to pick her up, and while the old Haruko would have no objections, over the past while, she’d come to bond with Misuzu and sees her as a daughter. Misuzu’s father reluctantly allows Haruko to look after her for a few more days. With her hair short, Misuzu resembles Kanon‘s Ayu Tsukimiya. Having covered two of Key’s biggest titles, my sights are now set on writing about Kanon: I watched it after finishing CLANNAD and felt it have less of an impact, but the series remains exceptional, worthy of being counted as a masterpiece.

• While I’ve referred to the town of Air as Kami, the real Kami actually does not have a hill overlooking the sea and is quite flat. Contrasting her initial cold treatment of Misuzu, Haruko comes around and begins regarding her as a proper daughter. Despite their short time together, the memories they share become priceless: each of the three arcs of Air appear to be unified by the idea of how transient and fragile relationships can be, but still have great importance and worth nonetheless. Air covers numerous other themes, as well, but at a very basic, broad level, the theme I’ve found Air to be most forward with is thus.

• Today was the last day of August: this month is typically one of the nicest of the year, with warm temperatures and sunny skies. We’ve had a good amount of sunshine and warm weather this month, allowing me to capitalise on the weather and go for a walk under what is the closest my area will get to the skies I’ve seen in anime. I may live in the city, but there is plenty of green space that makes the local area look like satoyama. Today, on the other hand, was rainy and moody, but it didn’t stop me from making the most of the day. After hanging out with a friend downtown, I helped prepare a home-made short-rib with a custom dry rub on a bed of peppers. Made from locally-sourced meats, the result was juicy and delicious.

• In this post, partially a reflection of Air and partially me reflecting on the last day of August, I’ve featured moments that predominantly have the blues and greens of summer. Air, however, also makes use of other times of day: like Kanon, CLANNAD and virtually the rest of Kyoto Animation’s works, the colouring and time of day become critical in conveying a certain mood. Intense saturation during the evenings, for example, indicate emotional distress or troubling times.

• Misuzu’s death is inevitable, and one of the most difficult moments was watching her struggle to stand and walk over to Haruko. Misuzu eventually dies on the beaches she loved, in Haruko’s arms. While the curse appears to claim yet another life, the combination of time, Yukito’s befriending of Misuzu and willingness to return as a crow to retain the lost memories, and Haruko’s accepting of Misuzu as her own daughter, the sum of these actions allows the curse to lift. In this case, Air is really about showing how compassion and kindness has a nontrivial impact in ending even something as powerful as a curse.

• In the end, the children at the end don’t have any significance to the story. Air is regarded as being somewhat difficult to understand, but in spite of this, still retains a moving story. With Air done, I will be turning my sights towards Kanon at some point. We now enter September, and I’ll be doing reflections on both Sounan Desu Ka? and Dumbbell nan Kilo Motteru once their finales air. Beyond this, I am pushing through Metro Exodus at a high rate and will be looking to finish before mid-month, so there will be posts on this. Finally, Battlefield V will be getting a post, as well: while the game has seen numerous setbacks, there are still a few things to consider, especially as I pass the one-year anniversary of Battlefield V‘s open beta.

Whereas I’ve actually finished Air some years ago, I encountered considerable difficulty until a recent re-watch of the series that led me to consolidate what I had to say about things. Being the earliest of Kyoto Animation’s Key adaptations, Air bears all of the hallmarks of later series, featuring exceptional presentation of the different stories, and initially, I appreciated Air purely for its technical aspects. The story itself came across as being more challenging to follow, but after revisiting the series and its persistent use of endless blue skies along a quiet coastal town as a backdrop made it explicitly clear that the summer was very much a core aspect of Air. Besides representing a season of life, exploration and possibility, summer also ends more abruptly and noticeably than any other season. It is the season whose presence is most strongly felt, and whose temporal nature is most apparent. As Air is set in the summer, it stood to reason that the choice of season was almost certainly to augment the themes in Air. This connection, on closer inspection, seems very natural: the love portrayed in Air, while transient and short, is very poignant, moving and powerful precisely because it is not endless. Thus, Air seems to also indicate to viewers that the ending of summer is not something to dread or despise, since the finite nature of summer gives more value to the memories created during its course. This is appropriate, given that August now draws to a close, and while winter may approach with a tedious inevitability, there is always the consolation that the days will grow warm again.