Kanon 10 - If only Mai's arc would come...

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Well, get on with it, Makoto.

If you've been watching along, you should know just what Makoto should be getting along with - and for the less Auu-inclined like me, should've been getting along with last episode or the one before - and if you haven't, as I always say, go watch the series, now, and come back, because Kanon 10 is serious spoiling business (although, only up through Kanon 10). I'll have the tissues waiting.

It's too bad that the section before the jump is shorter than usual, but that's because this is a pretty important episode to the series, and I don't wish to spoil it. Although sometimes I feel that if you try to read between the lines really hard you already know what's going to happen, just from these previews.

Oh, and we've got one day to the Haruhi invasion of North American stores. Looking forward to the resurgence of Nagatoism~

Continue past the jump as always...


So. Yeah. Makoto. She's dying...still. Her vocabulary has just about gone to naught and she doesn't do much else but lay around on the floor and jingle her bells. (there's got to be some innuendo in that somewhere)

Yuuichi ditches Makoto for school, which is odd given his recent demi-obsession with her. It doesn't make Makoto, who accepts no substitutes, very happy either.


But we do get some more of Side Character Amano, who is making her last appearance in this episode. Maybe it's the fact that I just came off an hour-long Yuki image search, with the fact Amano has purple-ish hair and is really quiet, but Amano isn't too bad of a character. She has a lot of development over the four-odd episode in which she appears, opening up and becoming less cold to people like Yuuichi. It's like a low-fat version of the typical Kanon girl; all the emotional development (or devolution, in Makoto's case), without all the plot, and cute.


Oh yes, ominous title card. Think Makoto's going to live? Wish a little bit harder...


Yuuichi brings Makoto and Amano together for some yuri action memory recollection, as Amano uses her awesome This Has Happened to Me Before powers to help Makoto remember her and Yuuichi's name. You ever thought remembering a name would be so cute a scene? Imagine if Yuuichi had done this in the first episode with Nayuki.

Wait, don't.


Of not really important but sort of interest is that Amano knows the same hair-stroking technique that Mai demonstrated a few episodes back. Where did they both learn it from? Is this something Amano learned from her past experiences with foxes? Did she ever go to Mai? How the hell does Mai know all this (answer: because she is cute and awesome)?

Maybe it's just a generic animal technique thing. That would make the most sense. I'm no good with animals, don't ask me.


Oh, but Amano is still as realistic (pessimistic?) as always, confident that Makoto is going down. She knows the truth, which is probably why. It would be out of character for her to be unusually bright, unlike...


Nayuki, who also bids goodbye to Makoto at school. She takes the more 'denial' route, talking about how she wishes to play with Makoto again, and tell her all sorts of things, and everything. Something says that just isn't going to happen... But at least Nayuki, outwardly, is happy for once (increasingly rare of late), perhaps because Yuuichi finally genuinely thanked her. For this, at least.


One more reaction to the final farewell of the side cast to Makoto, and this time it's Akiko. Crying. Something you never thought you'd see happening...but Akiko has a human side too, an emotional side, behind the Really Nice Parent exterior. Don't worry - she gets plot development too, later on. Luckily? Hmm...


In one last Everybody-With-Makoto scene, we finally revisit the picture booth in the Happy (But Not Really) Times Musical Montage, where the Minase family takes a picture together, finally fulfilling one of Makoto's dreams of really being accepted and part of a loving family (i.e. not being abandoned).


They also light fireworks. Makoto has the best, and largest, damn smile on her face here, one we haven't really ever seen from her. It's too bad that's the joyful smile of a child...


And now, with everybody out of the way, it's time for Yuuichi to spend the rest of the time with Makoto. They read the Unnamed Manga, again, for the billionth time (counting off-screen readings), play a bit, sleep with each other a bit and so on. Finally, Yuuichi comes to the issue of fulfilling Makoto's final wish. Remember what that was...?

"I want to get married...with Yuuichi."

This one's going to be a bit tricky for the Harem Master. He can't quite afford a full ceremony, both money-wise and harem-wise (I could so see Nayuki going boxcutter in this case), so he takes the next best option...


Monomi Hill. Of course. It really is a very beautiful hill, even when not covered in snow like the rest of Kanon (or perhaps that's why), and this scene is something that has to be seen to be believed. The grass animation is top notch.

They spend some time together doing who knows what, perhaps playing with the bells or reading manga again, while waiting for the sun to set. This is because, 1) sunsets are pretty and 2) nothing important happens in Kanon unless it's sunset (or later).


And then, uh, they get married. Yuuichi reads the rites, and gives Makoto a veil, but there are no "I do"s or kisses shared between the two. Makoto's in no position to plant one, and Yuuichi's saving his for the True Ending.

By the way, the line after the one in the screenshot is "for as long as we both live." Something says Yuuichi's marriage is going to be shorter than those of American supermodels...


Yuuichi ponders, almost in a post-mortem fashion, Makoto. Was she happy beneath that tsundere exterior? Was her wish granted? It's funny that he thinks of himself as the 'person she hated', when, of course, it's the opposite. He also mentions how everybody really loved Makoto (including himself, although maybe not in the way Makoto would have wished), and the energy she brought to the Minase household.


And then the veil flies away, and I think, for only the second time ever, Makoto cries. She really, really cries. Makoto completes an amazing range of emotion for being so regressed in this episode, from the sheer amazement of the fireworks to the complete breakdown of losing the veil; she must really know the significance of such a veil. Or maybe it's just pretty in the wind.


So the two sit down, and wait, wait for the end. They play with the bells for what I imagine is an eternity. Never has a $1 item been the source of so much emotion and entertainment.


Eventually though, Makoto starts getting tired, starts not being able to ring the bells, starts closing her eyes and...


What.

She leaves in much the manner that she appeared, quickly and without warning. There is no slowly dissolving away in sparkles, thank you for everything ending. It is sharp, blunt, and more than anything else, truly powerful. I don't care if you hated Makoto. The execution of her ending will at the least send shivers down your spine, and at the most reduce you to a blubbering wreck. Such is the power of Kanon.

You best get used to it.

Also, note how Monomi Hill is all snow-covered now. That's some magical power Makoto's got there.


The episode caps off with just one more Amano segment, in which we get the development I was mentioning above. She's much more bright and cheerful all of a sudden, which is an interesting contrast to a slightly sullen Yuuichi. Perhaps she knows this, and is trying to cheer him up. But she also reveals a plot twist that will shake Kanon for episodes to come...



-CCY

P.S.

See, Amano can smile and joke too!