The following week, the fourteenth episode of the second season of Clannad aired.
The plot moved very fast, so fast that a group of fans in Japan were dazed.
In the first season, it took over twenty episodes of serialization to establish a romantic relationship.
Only two or three months into the second season, Nagisa Furukawa had already graduated high school with the male lead Tomoya Okazaki, met the parents, got married, started working. And now the female lead was pregnant.
This sudden development was completely unexpected for the fans.
For a normal romance anime, by this point, it would have concluded due to declining popularity.
Why is it so hard to find family-oriented anime on the market? Is it because there's no audience for this genre? Of course not.
It's because this genre is hard to depict. The heart-fluttering moments of romance and the hot-bloodedness of battle can lean on the creator's imagination to play out, and the audience can accept bizarre developments.
Family-oriented plots don't have that much room for maneuver, though. They need to feel realistic, yet be interesting, and keep people watching without getting bored.
In all the works Rei had seen in his previous life, very few could pull this off.
Clannad was one of the few works he believed depicted the family portion far better than the romance portion.
In the Japan dimension, the massive global fanbase in Japan also began to scrutinize the work Clannad.
The romance plot was a bit slow, but the family depiction in the second season brought tears to people's eyes with every episode.
During these few weeks, the discussion heat for Clannad even caught up for a stretch.
Its popularity couldn't compare to Naruto or One Piece, but compared to the Bleach anime which was still dragging out the plot in Hueco Mundo, having entered the Hueco Mundo arc for thirty or forty episodes without even seeing a shadow of Grimmjow, Aizen, or Ulquiorra, all while fighting some Privaron Espada, it wasn't bad.
"Is this Shirogane-sensei's true strength? I've never seen him depict this kind of plot before."
"Every week this month, the Clannad plot has moved me. Shirogane-sensei is truly. I'm crying my eyes out."
"He's still growing, still evolving. Let those people saying he'll run out of talent go bury themselves."
"Is this a family-oriented anime created by a married man? It's so good."
"Nothing grand, no bizarre developments. With so many fantasy elements in the romance plot of the first season, in the second season, Nagisa Furukawa is a good girl who longs to graduate normally and wants to become a gentle wife. Tomoya Okazaki also went from playing around all day in high school and being good-for-nothing to experiencing the bitterness of life and working hard for his family. Their story is plain, but moving."
"True, if it depicted the male lead striking it rich after graduation and giving Nagisa Furukawa a good life, it would be too cliché. This kind of story where two ordinary people head toward marriage and then pregnancy is what touches me."
"The viewership rating this week is 6.91%. The second season's plot will catch up to the peak popularity of the first season soon and break 7%."
"Shirogane-sensei, keep it up. Just keep creating at this pace. I think Clannad is great, much more to my taste than the Big Three."
"The best works this season are Gundam and Clannad season two. I don't really like watching the Big Three. I think they're much worse than Demon Slayer or Attack on Titan. Shirogane-sensei's best work is Hikaru no Go, hands down."
"Stop arguing about these topics, or the Big Three fans will rush over for a holy war. Everyone has their own preferences. Just stick to what you like. Don't use such absolute tones online to start wars."
"Five years ago, I was a hater of Shirogane. I was a bit jealous that Shirogane-sensei was two years younger than me but could achieve such success, so I hated on him without thinking. Now I'm convinced. Is there really such a freak in this world who serves as the screenwriter for five top-tier anime at the same time? One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Clannad, Gundam. The five most popular anime this season are all his. And the styles are so different. Is there any genre in the anime field he doesn't know?"
"The sports progression of Hikaru no Go, the hot-blooded battles, the romance of Clannad, the bloody suspense of Higurashi: When They Cry. Those works are there. Emmmm, the most classic detective works in anime and pure comedy works haven't been seen from him yet."
"Don't say that, I feel like they might show up next year or the year after."
Among all the works Rei aired this season, the atmosphere in the discussion area for Clannad was the most harmonious, no question.
The Gundam plot involves war, so the atmosphere is one of sacrifice and heaviness. Whenever someone is knifed in an episode, everyone is uniformly cursing Rei.
In the comment sections of the Big Three works, out of ten posts, three are free-for-alls between the three fanbases, one or two are cursing Sakura or Orihime Inoue, and the rest are normal plot discussions.
As for Clannad.
Normal anime viewers are all gathered here. Everyone is enjoying the harmonious family atmosphere in the second season plot depicted by Shirogane. Moving, tear-jerking.
Another week passed.
The fifteenth episode of the second season aired.
This episode's plot focused more on the female lead Nagisa Furukawa's morning sickness and pregnancy reactions.
Nagisa Furukawa stubbornly requested the male lead to let her give birth to the child at home. She didn't want to go to the hospital for delivery. Professional doctors would be invited during the birth process.
The Japan audience didn't care about such details. Everyone was immersed in the anticipation of the birth of the leads' child.
And then.
In the middle and latter half of this episode, the inhumane plot appeared.
Previous plots had emphasized it more than once.
Nagisa Furukawa's health was very poor. She attended the third year of high school three times, and each time she fell ill in the second semester and couldn't go to school, so she had to withdraw and repeat.
This time.
During the season when the leads' child was about to be born, Nagisa Furukawa's body began to show symptoms of weakness again.
Through the conversation between the male lead and his father-in-law, the audience also learned that Nagisa Furukawa almost died of illness when she was a child. It was because of a series of metaphysical operations by the father-in-law that her health mysteriously improved, but from then on, it seemed Nagisa Furukawa's body became linked to the town's fate.
In other works, the audience would think such a metaphysical setting was the screenwriter trying to be mysterious.
In the first season, though, even a soul entity like Fuko Ibuki appeared, and the second season even had the cat's favor plot. Now, the sudden revelation that Nagisa Furukawa's fate is bound to the town, while the town is undergoing major commercial development.
A group of Clannad fans in Japan were left with nothing but question marks after watching episode 15.
Among these Clannad fans, the number one fan who could most influence Rei was Miyu.
"What are you planning to do, Rei?"
At night, Miyu, unable to sleep, shook Rei's shoulder.
She had been torturing Rei for two hours.
"You're not really planning to make it depressing, are you?"
"If you're that interested, go to Illumination Animation tomorrow, and I'll show you all the subsequent storyboard scripts for Clannad."
Rei was being tortured by his wife, but he stayed tight-lipped and didn't reveal any details of the subsequent plot.
He just made it clear that if Miyu found it hard to watch, she could choose to read the entire script. But then she would lose the fun of following the anime, and the experience of seeing the produced animation later would be a different thing entirely.
"Dammit." Miyu clenched her fist and gave up the interrogation in the end.
Now, any word Rei said to her would be a spoiler, affecting her enjoyment of following this anime in the coming weeks.
"I hope you act like a human being this time. There's no need to make a family-oriented anime like Demon Slayer."
"You'll understand when you see the last episode." Rei said with a smile, then turned his head to look at his daughter sleeping in the cradle nearby. "Look at Hina. She's also watching the Clannad anime, and her emotions are much more stable than yours."
"She only half-understands what she's watching now, what does she know?" Miyu pouted and lay down, pulling up the covers.
"A good story always has turning points. You have to accept it. I'll say this first, this is the last time I'll ask if you want to go to Illumination Production Company to see the rest of the plot. Since you refused, don't expect to get any spoilers from me before Clannad finishes," Rei laughed. "In the next two months, you cannot come to settle scores with me just because you're unhappy with Clannad."
"Okay."
"I know." Miyu said, looking at Rei. "I'll save up all my emotions and explode at you after Clannad finishes. You said it yourself back then, the anime Clannad was created for our daughter. If you make it a bloodbath and keep dealing out heart-wrenching twists like your other works, don't blame me for punishing you as a father on behalf of our daughter."
Time moved into November.
Temperatures dropped across Japan, and snow even began to fall in some places.
The anime Clannad entered its sixteenth episode. The most critical point of the second season and the biggest turning point of the entire series.
As evening approached, a group of office workers headed home, each with their own plans.
As for Haruka, her plan was simple.
From Wednesday to Sunday, she went home to watch anime.
One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Clannad, Gundam.
She followed all of Shirogane's works, but so far this season, Clannad was her favorite, hands down.
On her subway ride home, she browsed online comments.
From last week to this week, Clannad fans still hadn't let Shirogane off the hook.
As long-time anime fans, they could all sense something bad coming from the plot of episode 15.
Whether it was the original game or the adapted anime script, Clannad had never hidden this sort of thing from the audience.
From the music style to the storyboards, everything was a hint.
It was hard for normal anime fans to imagine that a series whose first season was a youth romance would go this far in the second season.
Coming up with a plot that even an elementary school screenwriter wouldn't dare write after drinking fake liquor.
Most fans, Haruka included, thought Shirogane was just being mysterious, making Nagisa Furukawa suffer more during childbirth to increase the suspense.
The fans' criticism of Shirogane was mostly focused on this point.
Seeing so many people roasting Shirogane online, Haruka felt a bit better.
"Do you understand now, Shirogane-sensei? People don't like this kind of plot. I'll forgive you for last week for now, but for episode 16 airing this week, just stick to a normal, warm, and harmonious family atmosphere. Clannad."
"Can't surpass long-running shonen hits like One Piece or Naruto in terms of popularity or commercial value, so why bother causing such a stir?"
After getting off the subway and returning to her rental, Haruka took a nice bath, grabbed an ice-cold beer from the fridge along with her takeout, and waited in front of the TV for Clannad to start.
The time came, and the anime began airing on schedule.
At the start of this episode, that slightly sad BGM tune that Haruka didn't like played again.
Even the protagonist, Tomoya Okazaki, was feeling lost.
Nagisa Furukawa's health was deteriorating, yet she insisted on giving birth at home.
In Rei's previous life, this part of the plot wasn't heavily detailed in the anime, but the reason Nagisa was so stubborn was that she wanted her husband to be the first person to hold the baby after it was born, not anyone else.
This was an obsession rooted deep within Nagisa Furukawa's character.
Nagisa's character setting linked her life to the town. She couldn't explain why, but her survival instinct made her unwilling to leave the town for a large hospital in the city to give birth.
In the Japan version, Rei added more detail to this aspect, so Clannad fans like Haruka didn't dwell on these points.
Seeing the protagonist fall into confusion as the due date approached.
He was already considering all sorts of worst-case scenarios, blaming himself in his heart with thoughts like: if he hadn't gotten Nagisa pregnant, or if they had never even met, she wouldn't have to risk her life to have a child.
"Tomoya Okazaki is so naive. But it's understandable. He's only been out of high school for a year, a nineteen-year-old boy." Haruka let out a soft sigh.
She believed that the greatest source of mental exhaustion for a person was regret over past choices and fear of an uncertain future.
But human behavior is determined by one's perception at that specific moment. As long as one's mindset doesn't change, even if time were rewound a hundred times, they would still make the same choice a hundred times over.
Applying this to the anime, even if Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa started over a hundred times, they would still fall in love and get married. There are no "ifs." It's all inevitable.
"Be stronger. Tomoya Okazaki, you're about to become a father. Still thinking like this makes you far inferior to Nagisa. She's a wife who chose to walk this path with you without hesitation, even knowing the dangers of giving birth in her weakened state."
The subsequent plot points were all foreshadowing for Nagisa's labor.
This included the protagonist reuniting with various characters who appeared in the first season.
And conversations with his parents-in-law.
And then.
Midway through the episode, the oppressive atmosphere lifted, showing Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa's family sitting together in the living room, looking at a large pile of dango daikazoku plushies with happy smiles.
The BGM became cheerful.
The visuals of the story became much brighter.
Nagisa agreed to go to the hospital to give birth to avoid any danger.
Two weeks before the due date, a heavy snowstorm hit the town, blocking the roads.
More critically, due to the sudden change in temperature, Nagisa went into premature labor.
"Huh?" Haruka's heart tightened in one beat.
She believed on instinct that Nagisa Furukawa, as the sole heroine spanning both seasons of the anime, could never be killed off by Shirogane.
This didn't need any theoretical support.
Looking back at the decades-long history of Japan's anime development, there had never been a romance anime where the heroine died halfway through. Since there was no precedent, Haruka didn't entertain the worst-case scenario.
Rei could only think that the imagination of Japan's anime fans was still too limited.
In Rei's previous life, such plotlines weren't common, but they weren't isolated cases either.
For example, the romance manga Fuuka is a classic case where the heroine is struck and killed by a truck halfway through her romance, out of nowhere.
Most importantly, the heroine who died in Fuuka was the daughter of the protagonists from the author's previous manga, Suzuka.
This single plot point offended a group of manga fans from both of the author's works across a ten-year serialization career. Yet, it didn't stop both manga from being adapted into anime in Rei's previous life.
In the Japanese manga industry of Rei's previous life, there were plenty of mangaka who let themselves go to create what they considered "artworks." As long as an anime fan was willing to sift through the waves for gold, they could encounter any kind of crap.
But the Japan anime industry was relatively simple. So, within Japan, even seeing Clannad's plot develop to this point, Haruka's heart only tightened. She didn't think this situation would lead to any real danger for Nagisa Furukawa.
"It's just. Shirogane-sensei's way of making this childbirth plot more dramatic."
Haruka steadied herself and smiled.
"All right, stop pretending. Just finish the labor scene quickly so the heroine suffers less. Then, let the baby be born safely."
Haruka continued watching. The animation style became soft, and the humming of the classic Clannad BGM, "Dango Daikazoku," began to play.
As the protagonist Tomoya Okazaki's heart tightened, he bowed his head in prayer.
Along with the solemn expression of the doctor assisting in the delivery.
The sound of a baby's cry rang out in the anime.
In that instant, Haruka's eyes welled up with tears.
This was the emotion born from following this anime for forty episodes, witnessing so many romantic entanglements between the leads, and seeing them marry and have a child in the end.
To someone who hadn't seen the previous episodes and was watching this for the first time, it would seem unremarkable.
For Haruka, and for the millions of Clannad fans in Japan.
That single cry of a baby drew out all the emotions the fans had for the characters in this anime.