After figuring all this out, Ryosuke's nose felt sour on the spot.
To be honest, it's really hard to fully straighten out the timeline of a work like Clannad if you only watch the anime.
If it were a game player like Rei in his previous life, they would understand that this work shares certain similarities with works that manipulate worldlines, like Steins;Gate.
First of all, if you want to reach the true Happy End (HE) in the Nagisa Furukawa route, you need to connect it three times.
That is to say, it corresponds to three playthroughs.
In the first playthrough's plot, it's the story that the anime follows up until the 21st episode of the second season.
Nagisa Furukawa dies, and her daughter Ushio Okazaki falls ill five years later, following in her mother's footsteps. Tomoya Okazaki falls into despair, and his subsequent life is basically wasted.
This work itself has some slight supernatural settings, which can be seen from the Fuko Ibuki arc. Once the audience accepts the setting of a surreal existence, they can understand.
After the Ushio Okazaki of the first playthrough dies, she becomes the girl in the Illusionary World, only she has lost her memory.
The robot in the story is the Tomoya Okazaki of the first playthrough, who falls into this world connected to the town's fate after his death, losing his memory as a human too.
The two meet in this world, but neither remembers the other, yet they perform a series of actions on instinct.
The goal is to change the ending. In this world linked to the town's fate, there exists something that can reverse everything. The kagayaku tama born from the feelings of happiness generated by the town's residents across various worldlines.
Now, Ryosuke couldn't deduce the plot to such a detailed extent based only on the details given in the anime.
The emotions the story wanted to convey surged in his heart without any reservation.
In the animation, kagayaku tama filled the sky, dancing in the air.
In Ryosuke's eyes, tears overflowed.
That stream-of-consciousness scene of Tomoya Okazaki's regret appeared again.
At the very beginning of the story, on that slope where Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa first met, Nagisa Furukawa turned to walk away.
But Tomoya Okazaki lifted his head and turned to run toward the girl.
"Nagisa." The boy shouted with all his might, running to embrace the girl.
"Nagisa, I'm right here."
"Tomoya, I'm so glad. You finally spoke to me. I was worried that you, Tomoya, would overthink things and feel it would be better if we had never met." Nagisa Furukawa said in a gentle voice, hugging the protagonist.
Ryosuke's eyes widened.
This.
This wasn't just the protagonist's stream-of-consciousness fantasy.
This was real. Representing a fork in the road of life's choices.
If it were just letting someone choose again in history, with the knowledge and experience they had at that time, they would make the same choice ten thousand times over.
One of the powers of the kagayaku tama collected by the girl and the robot was to give Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa another chance to choose after knowing all the future fates of them being together.
If the price of being with Tomoya Okazaki was that Nagisa Furukawa would die during childbirth two years later.
And their daughter would follow in her footsteps six years later.
Would they still choose to be together?
Life would turn into a tragedy in full.
Tomoya Okazaki made his choice.
Even so, he still chose Nagisa Furukawa.
Unlike Tomoya Okazaki, who had to go through confusion to figure it all out, Nagisa Furukawa's choice was the only one from beginning to end.
"I'm so glad I met you, Tomoya. I'm so happy. So, don't be lost anymore. No matter what things await us in the future, please. Don't regret it."
I used to believe in science, but now I believe in kagayaku tama.
Ryosuke clenched his fists and pulled out a tissue to blow his nose with force.
Sometimes it wasn't that he wanted to cry, he just couldn't help it.
The scene shifted, and the slope where the cherry blossoms were in full bloom disappeared.
The camera moved to the home where Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa lived later.
That one winter, the day Ushio Okazaki was to be born.
The cry of a baby echoed through the room.
Tomoya Okazaki snapped back to his senses. He seemed to have experienced a lot, yet he had forgotten it all. He just held his wife's hand and couldn't help but cry out loud.
His wife died.
Ryosuke held his breath.
He guessed a possibility.
In the animation, Nagisa Furukawa, who had closed her eyes, opened them and looked at her husband gently.
At this moment, Ryosuke's heart was filled with a sense of healing.
Amazing.
This plot.
Yeah, since even Fuko's soul could appear in the first season.
And there was the cat's repayment plot in the second season.
Why couldn't the kagayaku tama that the protagonist helped these characters obtain, which flew into the sky and drifted into the Illusionary World to be collected by the girl who was the incarnation of Ushio Okazaki, reverse the past?
The sentimental divine BGM, Dango Daikazoku, played again.
"We were just together all this time, right?" Tomoya Okazaki said with a sob of disbelief.
"We have been together all this time." Nagisa Furukawa looked at her husband.
The cry of Ushio Okazaki as an infant echoed through the room.
The midwife asked Tomoya Okazaki to help wash his daughter for the first time.
The mother, Nagisa Furukawa, watched from the side with a smile.
Before he knew it, Ryosuke had already stood up in the living room, his eyes red, a smile forming on his lips without him noticing.
In the animation, Tomoya Okazaki's family sang Dango Daikazoku together for their daughter, Ushio Okazaki.
The sound of this song's BGM overwhelmed everything.
The background animation paired with the BGM showed the passage of time.
Ushio Okazaki's first steps.
Her first meal.
The first time she played baseball.
The first time she went on a trip with her parents.
The fatherly and motherly love she hadn't received in the previous loop, she received all of it this time.
In that golden rice field, the little girl ran through it with laughter and joy.
Tomoya Okazaki's meeting with his grandmother in the second loop.
His reconciliation with his father in the second loop as well.
All the important characters who had appeared in the first and second seasons of this anime made an appearance.
Until the end of the animation, the second cutest existence in this anime, Fuko Ibuki, woke up in the hospital.
As lively and silly as usual, she interacted and talked with her sister, Kouko Ibuki.
In the end, in the grass of the town, she saw someone sleeping.
It was Ushio Okazaki, who had already grown into a little girl.
The final shot of this anime was the scene of the two of them encountering each other under the trees.
"Great. Everyone gets a happy ending."
Ryosuke couldn't help but cheer.
The excitement in his heart was hard to put into words.
This plot is divine.
Logic told Ryosuke that there were too few clues given early on for the final timeline reversal.
His sensibility crushed that logic.
What else could it be?
If the plot were portrayed by logic alone, wouldn't it just be a tragedy for the protagonist's whole family?
This is the most divine ending for this anime.
Ryosuke was excited in his room for a long time before he remembered what he was supposed to do.
He quickly opened his computer and logged onto the website.
The official website of Tokyo Television Station, Shirogane's official verified account, and major anime forums were being overwhelmed by topics related to Clannad.
Even the twin pillars of popularity in Japan, One Piece and Naruto, paled in comparison to Clannad tonight.
"I was wrong. I shouldn't have doubted God Shirogane."
"Great God Shirogane is on another level. To think it would be an ending like this."
"The Shirogane Animation official website has released a huge amount of promotional materials, including background settings for the Clannad anime, the special nature of the town, the origin of the Illusionary World, and other data."
"My life is complete, having seen this anime."
"The number one romance anime in Japan, bar none."
"The number one anime in Japan."
"Don't say that, or the Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece fans will come running over in a bit."
"What's there to fear? Just for tonight, if anyone dares to say a bad word about Clannad, watch them get roasted to pieces."
"To be honest, I finished watching it while crying my eyes out. I didn't fully understand a lot of the plot, but I was moved beyond words."
"Shirogane-sensei is truly. I'm impressed for life. An anime whose reputation was being dragged through the mud before the final episode aired reversed its word-of-mouth with just one episode."
"I mean, why didn't he say so earlier? If he had said so earlier, I wouldn't have bashed Shirogane-sensei. This is awkward now. I even have to go and delete the posts where I bashed him a few weeks ago. Looking at my comments insulting him in those posts, I feel like a clown now."
"Me too. I've made a fool of myself. I even organized a Shirogane Crusade Group with over a thousand members. Now all thousand people in the group are cursing me, calling me a dumbass. If it weren't for me, they wouldn't have been incited to bash Shirogane-sensei. Sigh."
"Sigh."
"I made a bet with a Clannad fan yesterday that after Clannad's conclusion, it would become the worst-rated anime of Shirogane-sensei's career. Whoever lost would call the other 'daddy.' What do I do now?"
"That's nothing. A famous anime content creator posted a short video last week saying that if Clannad's rating didn't drop below 8.0 on its final day, he would directly eat shit. Now that guy's account has its private message function closed, and the number of comments on that short video has jumped from ten thousand yesterday to sixty thousand now.
If he doesn't fulfill his promise, it's likely that for a long time, this account will be under continuous attack and ridicule from Shirogane fans, and he can forget about normally receiving commercial sponsorships."
"The most divine anime I've ever seen. Bar none. When will the Clannad anime BD be released? I'll buy it, no question."
"Me too. Of all Shirogane-sensei's works, it's my favorite. It far exceeds the Big Three. It's even a bit higher than Hunter x Hunter."
"Don't start a flame war, though I think so too."
That night, Clannad's rating rose from 8.5 before the final episode aired to 9.7 overnight.
The over one hundred thousand insulting posts on the Shirogane Animation official website were deleted by the fans themselves overnight.
Rei's account was full of comments apologizing and saying sorry.
Major anime news media in Japan even worked through the night to publish articles, giving Clannad a massive boost.
In terms of commercial value, Clannad is far behind the Big Three.
In terms of word-of-mouth for the work, a certain gap appeared between the Big Three and Clannad after tonight.
Whether Rei's other works are masterpieces is a matter of debate among various fan groups in Japan.
In the introductions on major websites and media the next day, Clannad was labeled a masterpiece straight out, and almost no one refuted it.
Its reputation was so good that among Rei's past works, only the Chimera Ant arc from Hunter x Hunter and Steins;Gate could compare.
Monday.
"It's over."
Rei got up early in the morning and looked at the gloomy weather outside the window, not wanting to go out to work.
As late December approached, the weather this year was very cold.
"Stop dawdling at home. The year is almost over. If you don't take these few days to finish those important matters, do you want to handle them on the New Year's Day workdays? Let me tell you, our daughter and I have been looking forward to the New Year's trip for a long time. Don't you dare drop the ball."
"That's right, that's right, Daddy." His daughter, Hina, was three years old. She was still holding her milk bottle and drinking in the morning, echoing her mother's words.
"I know. After I finish some wrap-up work for the Clannad anime over the next two days, our family will welcome the New Year with ease." Rei smiled and waved, putting on his coat and preparing to go out.
"By the way." Before Rei went out, Miyu looked at him. "The collaborating peripheral merchants have finished Clannad BD discs and various peripherals. Have them send a set over. Our daughter loves this work so much now. She's ready for a second loop rewatch."
Rei looked at his daughter Hina and smiled.
"Understood."
Clannad had ended, but its popularity didn't fade fast like many of Rei's previously completed works.
The reason a classic is called a classic is that it's very little affected by time, and even if the era changes, people who watch it ten or twenty years later will still find it a classic.
Clannad was such a work, no question.
When talking about romance and family-oriented anime, it was a work that couldn't be bypassed in Rei's previous life.
In Japan, Clannad was becoming such an existence.
Rei was very confident that let alone the near future, even ten years from now, when new anime fans in Japan's anime circle looked at the must-watch recommendation lists, Clannad would be there.
"So, another year has ended."
Rei looked at the sky and sighed with such emotion.
December flashed by.
January arrived.
In the new quarter, Rei had no new anime series starting.
There were only the Big Three steadily galloping through Japan's anime circle.
The peak popularity of Clannad last year once surpassing the Big Three was terrifying, but after Clannad ended, there wasn't even a decent challenger left in the market.
Across the entire month of January, anime viewers in Japan discussed the new January series that didn't include any of Rei's works. After everyone had finished watching Clannad, many works, especially in the romance category, seemed boring at a glance. The threshold was too high and would take some time to lower.
At the end of January, Clannad peripherals were launched on a large scale globally, and the sales speed of various peripherals was astonishing.
Including the various authentic official Dango Daikazoku pillows that appeared in this anime, they were sold out across all channels, and scalpers doubled the price.
Along with the market launch of Clannad peripherals, the animation commercial district built around Shirogane Animation was also partially opened before the new year holidays under Rei's hint.
Not only did Rei prepare to hold a "Shirogane Comic Con" at a newly built site nearby in the name of the Shirogane Animation production company.
He also invited a group of famous Japan cosplayers and ACGN fan dance groups to perform.
The anime trailer for Puella Magi Madoka Magica, set to air in April, and the anime trailer for the Death Note, set to air in July, would also be announced for the first time at the Comic Con site.
The time was set to start from the first day of the new year after the new year holidays in mid-February.
Related activities would be held for five consecutive days, from the first day to the seventh day of the new year.
Related news flooded the screens of the vast majority of anime fans in Japan's anime circle in almost three days.
A themed Comic Con for related works personally held by Shirogane-sensei himself around the Shirogane Animation company?
That new ACGN fan pilgrimage site in the Tokyo area that had been rumored on the internet for a year or two was finally, for the first time, going to let Japan's anime fans visit?
Moreover, at these activity sites held by Shirogane-sensei, there were also closed beta versions of mobile games for the three major works, Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece, developed by Shirogane Animation for tourists to try out.
To promote this new animation district he had invested in and built, Rei had also put in a lot of thought.