After 4 and a half months with only hours to spare before my self-imposed deadline, I'm finished with this game! My original plan was to finish it before the movie/anime comes out in January, however, that deadline got moved up because of the Prelude DVD that's coming out on 11/17 (I'll be receiving it mid-December). So having missed many of my self-imposed deadlines (i.e. Girl's Bravo manga before the DVDs), I wouldn't let myself slip this one. So for the past few days I've been furiously reading away at this visual novel.

I only have one grip for this game. It's very long. It's more like "Lord of the Rings" long as opposed to "Titanic" long where most of the dialogue and situations were relevant and interesting. Nevertheless, I probably spent in excess of 40+ hours on it since June, even with following the walkthrough. From what I've read, native Japanese players have said that they can finish the game in under 20 hours. On top of that, I probably only played on average an hour or two a week up until just a few days ago. Because of that, my memory is a little fuzzy about the earlier stories, especially Kano's, but I'll see what I can pick out of my forgetful brain.

But besides that, I think this story is incredible and very complete if you finish everything.

I haven't played Kanon yet, so this is my first Visual Arts/Key game. While I'm still (very) partial to Kiminozo, the character designs for Air are pretty good, better than Natsuiro no Sunadokei. Personally, I like the in-game graphics better than the CG ones that you're supposed to "collect." I noticed that the characters are a bit different in the two picture modes. Namely, I noticed that the girls's hair have different colors in the CG stills and regular graphics. Strange. Since I played this on the PS2, my picture quality probably isn't as sharp as the PC version, but I've seen screenshots of the PC version and I seem to prefer my PS2 images. It's a bit softer and pleasing rather than the sharp and crisp PC image. The PS2 version doesn't have the nudity scenes, which for this game, is very appropriate. With such a strong story, I don't know why nudity was even needed. Maybe that's why Clannad isn't an 18+ game. Despite it being edited out, it was pretty easy to tell, at least for Kano and Minagi, where those scenes would have occured. The cheesy come-on lines that the girls say, "I want you to find out if I'm the girl" and "Make me fly" (or something like that) were the worse lines in the whole game. But like I said, there's no reason this should be an adult game.

The intro song to Air has become one of my favorite songs. I don't have the CD (yet), so in order to listen to it, I have to fire up the PS2, but it's worth the effort. I was hooked at first by the intro movie, but the song grew on me and I started liking it without the visuals. A lot of fans also like the ending song too. I haven't really caught on, but I've only listened to it once (there are 5 endings, but only one of them has the vocal version of the song). The background music is excellent too. My favorites are the orgel versions of the intro song as well as the background that plays during the intro when the mother is talking to the child. The voice actors/actresses do very well too, and from what I read, is unique to only the console versions (PC version doesn't have voices). I'm too lazy to find their names, but I'm sure I would recognize some of them. My favorite has to be Misuzu's voice. The part that I slightly disliked was the heavy accents some of the characters had, in particular, Haruko and the cast of "Summer."

The gameplay is like any other romantic adventure game. I think this one is probably the least flexible out of the games I've played. In other games, you're allowed to scroll back through the text and pick a line and have the accompanying voice play. In this game, you get a history of all the text, but there's no way to get them to be spoken. The best you can do is manually scroll back (think rewind rather than chapter search). A slight pain in the butt for someone like me who likes the sound of spoken Japanese. One nice touch I liked was at as you finished each of the chapters, the intro screen would change. The background to the music page also changes as you finish stories.

Finally, the story and summary. Like I mentioned previously, I'm going to do this all out from memory so I might get some details out of order or even wrong, so bear with me (unfortunately, it's almost impossible to "flip" through the game and there's no novelization that I can cheat off of).

The game has three parts to it. "Dream" "Summer" and "Air." When you first start playing the game, you start in the "Dream" chapter. Here, there are three possible scenarios to follow; you can either choose to be with 神尾観鈴 (Misuzu Kamio), 霧島佳乃 (Kano Kirishima), and 遠野美凪 (Minagi Toono). In other games, this would be it. You can pick one girl and get an ending. However, in Air, even if you play the game over 3 times with all the girls, you're still only half way done with the game (I think I griped about this in August or something). So after you complete the good endings for all three girls, you unlock the "Summer" chapter (the intro screen changes from day to dusk). "Summer" is by far my favorite story as you find out so much about the main plot and realize that the story, when taken as a whole, is very profound (my second favorite is Minagi's story). There's only one path to take in "Summer" so you don't have any choices to make. Finally, after finishing "Summer," you (finally) unlock the "Air" chapter, or rather, the real story.

The plot is very deep and I'm sure that people who played the game have argued about what means what. There's a lot of interconnections between the stories and heavy use of symbolism throughout. From my simple-headed point of view, this game is fundamentally a story about parental love, especially that between a mother and daughter. Each of the stories has some elements of that.

"Dream"
The main character, 国崎往人 (Yukito Kunisaki), arrives at in this small country town with only a duffle bag and a puppet he's had for over 10 years. As a child, Yukito's mother told him the story about the winged girl in the sky and he started on his journey in search of that girl. As a wanderer, he doesn't have much money and relies on his puppet act to earn some. However, it's not an ordinary puppet. Apparently, he possesses magic that allows him to move the puppet without any strings. So he arrives at this town and bumps into the naive Misuzu. Despite the fact that he finds her a bit annoying, she invites him to stay at her house saying that her mother, 晴子 (Haruko) wouldn't mind. Haruko is a single mother who has a tendency to crash her motorcycle into the garage every night and is a heavy drinker. She at first doesn't like the idea, but allows him to stay and also enjoys his company. A few days go by and Yukito meets some of Misuzu's other classmates, Kano and Minagi (with Michiru).

Kano Kirishima's Story
Kano is an active and energetic girl that Yukito meets near a river. She's almost always tailed by a strange dog, Potato and wears a yellow ribbon/bandana on her right wrist that she never wants to take it off. Kano lives with her older sister, 聖 (Hijiri) who is a doctor at her self-run medical clinic. Yukito meets Hijiri outside the context of her sister and only later finds out that they're related. So, after Yukito decides to move out of the Kamio house, and after a few nights sleeping outside near the closed-down train station, he moves in with the Kirishima's, sleeping on the couch in the clinic. In return, he helps out with manual labor. While a little hyper, Kano is just a regular girl. Except that occasionally, she loses consciousness and seems to be possessed by a vengeful spirit. When she wakes, Kano knows nothing of what's happened. However, Hijiri has seen her lapse several times but doesn't understand who it is and what it wants. Kano's yellow ribbon is also a mystery. Kano explains that she was told that if she ever took it off, she would never acquire magic. She feels both fear and hope for that article of clothing. We later find out the whole story. Kano and Hijiri's mother died when Kano was very young, so she doesn't have any memories of how she was or what she looked like. At the summer festival after their mother's death, Hijiri bought Kano some balloons which she wanted to use to fly into the sky and meet her mother. However, that wish wouldn't be granted. Later on, Hijiri and Kano return to the shrine and see a bright white feather inside. They both touch it. While Hijiri is fine, Kano hasn't been the same since and had developed her second personality. With this second personality, Kano seemed to be injuring her own wrist so Hijiri tied the ribbon around it telling her never to take it off. Hijiri also studied to become a doctor, like her dad, just so she could help Kano. Ever since, Hijiri has been like mother to Kano. Kano's situation is getting worse until one day, Yukito finds her at the shrine by herself bleeding from the wrist with no signs of an open wound. Hijiri and Yukito then decide to visit the feather inside the shrine and try to find a connection. When Yukito touches the feather, he's has a dream where he listens to a woman, 白穂 (Shiraho) from a few hundred years back about her expriences with 八雲 (Yakumo), a child her husband found. Apparently, Yakumo had a rather ugly birthmark and also had wings. Because of the locals who though he was a bad omen, she was forced to sacrifice him and it's his feather and his spirit inside of Kano. While Kano is recovering from her apparent injuries, in her dreams, she finally gets to meet her mother. She tells her mother that she has to return, for her sister, for Potato, and for the person she's in love with. She then finally gets to thank her mother for giving birth to her, even though it probably caused the mother's premature death. Story ends with Kano, without ribbon, and Yukito watching balloons fly into the sky.

Minagi Tohno's Story
While Yukito was still living at the Kamio's, he meets a girl, Michiru, at the abandoned train station. Michiru is quite the brat, however, the friend she plays with there, Minagi is almost the complete opposite. Minagi is a mysterious and quiet girl (and doesn't speak in complete sentences, grrr...) who Misuzu explains is actually very smart in school. After Yukito moves out, Minagi helps him out at the as he's living at the train station by bringing him lunch. She also has a knack for carrying around tons of coupons for rice which she gives freely to Yukito. She explains that her father used to work at the station so she also gives him the keys to the showers so he can wash himself. Things are interesting with the three characters as Michiru and Yukito don't quite get along, but Michiru likes Minagi, and Minagi seems to have a crush on Yukito. Despite their friendship, there are a few touchy subjects. One is that Minagi almost never talks about her mother and Michiru seems to avoid that topic too. Yukito gets a little hint when Hijiri asks Minagi about her mother, but doesn't know more than the fact that she's sick. Michiru herself is also a strange character as she says she goes home, but it feels like she disappears until the next day. One day, as Yukito is redeeming the coupon for rice, he meets a woman at the rice shop who is carrying excessive amounts of rice. He helps her out, but even a strong guy like him as a few problems. The lady explains that she's buying rice so much rice because her daughter likes it so much. Yukito meets Hijiri soon after and she explains that the woman he met was Minagi's mother. Yukito comments on the fact that the mother seems perfectly healthy. Hijiri tells him that she doesn't have a physical illness, but rather, a psychological one. Later, Yukito observes as Minagi enters her house and he overhears her mother call her "Michiru." For three days after, Minagi doesn't come to the station to play, causing some concern. Yukito asks Michiru to go check up on her, but Michiru refuses to go. A few days later, Minagi runs away from home and stays with Yukito. She explains the her mother had been living in a dream. The Tohno household used to be a warm and loving one with a mother, father, and Minagi herself. The family was expecting another daughter, whom they named "Michiru" and little Minagi was looking forward to it. However, her mother got sick and had to be hospitalized. Minagi, thinking that it might be her younger sister's fault, acts like an older sister and scolds her yet unborn sibling. After that, Minagi's mother had a miscarriage. The miscarriage caused the mother and father to split and Minagi started blaming herself as she thought it was her fault that Michiru was never born. She lived for a while with her father, but then moved in with her mother. He mother, however, had gone delusional and imagined that Michiru had actually been born and started calling Minagi "Michiru." With her guilt, Minagi decided to play along. However, in the past several days, the mother's dream finally ended and she no longer thinks she has a daughter named Michiru. However, she doesn't remember having a daughter named Minagi either. And so without a sense of belonging, she runs away from home hoping to be taken to the sky. However, Minagi herself is also living in a dream and that is the Michiru that she plays with. They met years ago and Minagi has taken her in almost like the little sister that she never had. Michiru explains that her time with Minagi is almost over and she has to return to the sky. Minagi invites Michiru over to her house to have dinner with her mother and Michiru finally gets to meet the mother that she would have had. The next night, Minagi and Michiru say goodbye to each other (very tearful moment). Not much time passes before Minagi gets a letter from his dad, who had re-married and had a daughter. Her name is Michiru.

Misuzu Kamio's Story
Misuzu is the klutz out of the three girls. While naive, she's extremely cheerful and happy. But even so, she has very few friends. She lives with her aunt, 晴子 (Haruko) and soon has a third person, Yukito, move into their house. The reason she does have any friends, as she explains, is that she knows she's different. Ever since she was little, she's had these mood swings where she would just start crying for no reason at all. Haruko would later explain the reason that Misuzu lives with her. Misuzu is the love child of her sister and another man. When her sister died, Haruka explains that Misuzu was forced upon her. Because she doesn't have a true mother and father also makes her feel more alienated from her peers. Misuzu tells Yukito that she feels like there's another part of her somewhere in the sky and that she's has that girl's sad memories. After several days of normal living, things start happening to Misuzu. Yukito's mom told him once that there's a girl who dreams. She first dream about the sky. Then to the past. After that, the dream will start eating into her. First, she won't be able to move her body. She'll then feel pain where she shouldn't feel pain. Eventually, she'll start forgetting to the point where she'll forget even her most important person. Finally, on the morning that her dream is over, she'll die. The mother told Yukito that the girl will refuse help, but the mother wants Yukito to find this girl and save her because he's the only one who can. And just as her mother described, Misuzu shows the same symptoms. Misuzu has dreams every night, dreams about being feathered girl flying in the sky with clouds above and beneath her. She able to see the world below, but can't reach it. Then one day, Misuzu wakes up to find that she's lost movement in her legs. Her condition progressively gets worse and Yukito finally can't take it anymore. He tells her that he's leaving and forgetting about her. She doesn't want him to, but she let's him go. However, he leaves but quickly changes his mind and comes back. However, he isn't able to wake Misuzu up. Yukito then begs to be able to start over again from the day he met her.

"Summer"
1000 years in the past, 994AD to be exact. 柳也 (Ryuuya) arrives to be one of 神奈備命 (Kanna Binomigoto) guards. They have a unique introduction as she falls from the sky on him. Kanna is a winged-person, however, she hardly ever shows her wings and is being protected in a shrine. Her attendant is 裏葉 (Uraha). Kanna and Ryuuya soon get close and she tells him that she would like to meet her mother. Later, Ryuuya hears from the other guards that there's a mother and child winged-person in the south. He also hears that they're about to transfer Kanna somewhere else (not South), but the guards are to stay here. Not being satisfied with this and sensing something's wrong, Ryuuya, Uruha, and Kanna escape on a rainy and cold night. Just a few hours after they leave, they hear and see fires. Apparently, people were after Kanna and had set their old shrine on fire and are now on the lookout for her. Ryuuya manages to trick some of them into going in the wrong direction and they manage to run away safely. They travel for days on end to the place that Ryuuya heard about. Kanna is very childish, so most of the daily routines of gathering food and water is done by Uruha and Ryuuya. Meanwhile, Kanna has taken up practicing how to juggle. They eventually come to a small village where they finally meet some civilization. Kanna has an interesting time here where she tries to talk to a chicken. Uruha tells Ryuuya that she heard there are guards up ahead blocking the road. The guards are making the girls who try to pass show their backs. They then decide to go a separate route where Ryuuya has some risky battles with magical priests guarding the mountains. They eventually find Kanna's mother. They have a quick moment of joy before Kanna is told to leave. Her mom gets mortally wounded and tells them that Kanna is the last of the winged-people, and as such, she has to have happy memories. As Kanna's mom dies, Kanna comes to understand her significance. However, warriors and priests are now coming to where they are, wanting to kill them. Kanna decides in order to save Uruha and Ryuuya, she has to distract them. So she bears her wings and flies into the sky, grabbing the attention of the people hunting them while the other two escape. She then suddenly disappears. Later, Ryuuya and Uruha try finding out what happened. They find out that the Kanna's extermination was politically motivated. They also find out that no one knows what happened to her. Uruha later learns the mystic arts and is able to use magic to try and find Kanna and sees something frightening. Kanna's been sealed in the sky by the magic cast that night. She also sees that in Kanna's reality, Ryuuya has died and Kanna's lamenting over his death. Uruha tells Ryuuya that one day the magic will weaken and Kanna will come back to earth, however, that won't be for at least 100 years. And even then, she might just be a memory. With that, Ryuuya and Uruha decide to have children so that their descendants can look for her when she does return.

"Air"
Two days before Yukito arrives and meets Misuzu, Misuzu finds a black crow and names it Sora. The game now is show from Sora's point of view (who I imagine is in someway related to Yukito after Yukito make the wish to start over again). Sora sees Misuzu's first attempt at waking Yukito as he's passed out on the embankment. She can't wake him up. The next day, Misuzu explains to Sora that she's gonna try and get make some appointments with friends for the summer, however, she comes back empty handed as she knows the reason her classmates don't want to be around her is because she's different. However, she says that the guy sleeping yesterday doesn't know her past and so she's going to try and be his friend. The story then progresses as it did in Misuzu's "Dream" chapter all the way until Yukito makes the promise. Sora sees that Yukito disappears, but then suddenly Misuzu comes back to life again. Apparently, saving that winged-girl is one of the powers that Yukito possesses, even if it does kill him. So now, Haruko decides to be not just a guardian, but be like a true mother. Despite the fact that she still can't move her legs, Haruko spends the days playing with her, taking a bath with her, and cutting her hair. Misuzu's condition gets worse though and one morning, she loses memories her memories of Haruko. Misuzu had told her mother that this day would come, but Haruko still struggles with it. It's also at this time that Misuzu's real father, 橘啓介 (Keisuke Tachibana) shows up and wants to take Misuzu back with him. Haruko doesn't want to give her up, but Keisuke asks Misuzu. Without memories, Haruko worries that she'll say the wrong thing so she tells Keisuke to come back in 3 days. 3 days pass, but Misuzu's memory doesn't come back so Haruko willingly hands her over to Keisuke, who promises to have a doctor see her. Haruko has her fall asleep and brings her to the beach to hand her over. However, as she's being carried off by Keisuke, she wakes up and tries to walk back to Haruko. Keisuke realizes that Misuzu really wants to be with her, so he lets her stay. Days later, Misuzu tells Haruko to stand at a distance and she'll try to walk towards her. However, she gets to about a few steps to the finish line before she tells Haruko that she's reached her goal. Haruko insists that their lives have just started, but for Misuzu (and her other self, Kanna), she's already found happiness (and hence Kanna is released from her curse). She falls into Haruko's arms and dies.

Now that I think about it, there's a lot of symbolism that I had missed during the story. Ah well. I'll see the story unfold again in the anime in a few months. I'll be back to heavy duty manga reading tomorrow (hopefully). Hmm...what should be my next game?

Rating: 4/4