Quote (zarkadon @ Mar 19 2012 02:38am)
yeah, I kinda found Clannad's ending a bit confusing. The anime doesn't explain the whole orb collecting thing where once Tomoya has them all he can ask for a wish to help himself as a reward for helpin everyone else. Unless you've read about this or played the Visual Novel it doesn't make much sense, one is the ending you get just by getting to the end of the story and the other one is the one you get if you've completed the whole thing.
Exactly. I had almost forgotten about the supernatural elements of the show when I was watching the ending since they only appear on so few occasions and are never explained.
As you said, you need to have played the VN to know how important the orbs are to the story´and the creators should have kept in mind that not everybody have done so and given it some sort of clear build-up.
When they pulled that 180 straight out of the blue in the last episode it made the whole thing feel... unreal and sort of meaningless to me I guess.
They build up so much tension and sadness during the earlier episodes and then without any sort of foreshadowing everything's supposed to be all warm and fuzzy because of some devine power that ultimately is never explained.
At least in Kanon (2006) they make more regular use of the supernaturality throughout the show and explain it a bit more which doesn't make things feel as farfetched at the twist in the end.
I love AS as much as the next guy, but the ending kept me from bringing myself to give it a score of 10.