In truth, many viewers had already felt that something was off when, in the earlier episodes, the protagonist's father ended up in prison.
A normal youth romance anime would never place such a heavy plotline at the center of its story. That kind of development felt as if it belonged to another genre entirely - something more bitter, more adult, less concerned with preserving the softness expected from young love.
But AD had not only included it, it had kept scattering hints afterward.
The clearest example was Nagisa Furukawa's illness. For three consecutive years, every time graduation approached, her body would collapse. Her health would deteriorate without warning, leaving her so frail that even maintaining an ordinary school life became difficult.
Miyu Morikawa watched the story unfold with a bad feeling pressing against her chest.
"Sora isn't planning to turn this into a tragedy, is he?"
Otherwise, there was no reason for the anime to keep bringing up Nagisa's illness again and again.
The story continued.
Because of her accumulated absences, Nagisa could not graduate. It was an objective requirement, one that could not be bent. Even the teachers at school were powerless to help her.
And so, in that episode, all the friends Nagisa had met and helped throughout the first and second seasons gathered together to hold a graduation ceremony meant only for her.
Inside the anime, after enduring so many painful things, Nagisa looked at everyone with a gentle expression.
"I've always been shy, and I was never good at making friends. When I entered my third year, I couldn't attend classes and had to repeat the grade. In the spring of my second third year, I was alone in the classroom. I was afraid of coming back to school, so I stopped at the foot of that hill. It was Takasaki who encouraged me to move forward again."
The soft spring breeze, the pink sakura petals drifting through the air, the friends gathered around Nagisa, and Takasaki looking at her with affection he could not hide.
It was a simple scene, paired with quietly sentimental music.
And yet, with almost no effort at all, Miyu felt her eyes begin to burn.
"After that, my health got worse again, and I had to repeat my third year once more. I wanted to become stronger. Even with a weak body, I wanted to keep living with strength. Everyone here gave me that courage. This year, I was alone again. Even so…"
"Even so, I still feel that my life at this school was something irreplaceable. It took me five years to reach this moment, but this is the school I love most. The school where I fought with everything I had."
"Thank you, everyone."
Miyu stared at Nagisa on the screen, dazed.
What a beautifully written character.
From beginning to end, she had never once complained about the unfairness of her fate.
That way of facing life, still filled with hope despite everything, was already far too rare in the real world.
A faint warmth slowly spread through Miyu's chest, and deep in her heart, she could only mutter one thing.
"You damn old fox, Sora. Let this be the end of the twisted fate you prepared for her. From now on, just show Nagisa and Takasaki's married life. Please, for the love of everything, don't pull anything strange."
The thirteenth episode of Clannad second season ended with the protagonists once again visiting Takasaki's father in prison.
In front of him, the two announced that they were getting married.
Takasaki's father, separated from them by the visitor's partition, smiled gently and gave them his blessing.
Then the two left the prison hand in hand.
And walked side by side down a street filled with blooming sakura.
Miyu took a deep breath. The emotion inside her was impossible to suppress.
That damn old fox Sora really knew what he was doing.
On the NatsuYume forum, the anime fans who had waited two weeks for the second half of the season to begin finally became fully active that night.
"This episode was amazing."
"I honestly didn't expect such a quiet plot to make me cry."
"Kantoku Sora's Natsume Yuujinchou is the same. A simple story, but it makes you want to cry."
"On the surface, the plot seems simple. But in reality, dozens of episodes of character-building have been working on us from the inside. Long live Nagisa Furukawa."
"Right now, I just hope that old fox Sora doesn't pull any absurd tricks later. Please, no suffering."
"Every time they mention Nagisa's illness, I start trembling. Based on the setting, it seems like she almost died from it when she was little, and only managed to grow up after her father carried her to a mountain to pray for her or something. If that's really the case, now that the illness has come back, could Kantoku Sora…"
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. She's the heroine. Have you ever seen the heroine of a romance anime die?"
"Yes. In Natsume Yuujinchou, the female lead, Xia Ling, had already been dead for decades at the start."
"…"
"…"
"Natsume Yuujinchou is an exception. If the heroine of a romance anime dies, who is the protagonist supposed to date? A ghost?"
"To be honest, I feel like the second season of AD doesn't really feel like a romance anime anymore. The first season was definitely school romance. But the second season is much more about the growth of the male and female leads, their transition from students into members of society, and their change from lovers into husband and wife. It feels more like a story depicting the different stages of their lives."
"Exactly. Nagisa's parents' relationship, the conflict between the male lead and his father, and the way they support each other through the lowest points of life until they can walk out of the darkness… that's the real main thread of the second season. That's why these episodes are so moving. To put it bluntly, just watching two people date would never move me to tears. But an anime that explores family really can break through my defenses."
"I still have no idea where this story is going from here. Before the second season aired, I thought it would be extremely hard to continue the plot, since the protagonists had already confessed and started dating. But against all expectations, I've watched all the way to episode thirteen with genuine enjoyment."
"Hahaha, same here. Romance anime usually ends once the leads confess. I never imagined Kantoku Sora would still be able to create so many touching and interesting storylines afterward."
"Even now, I still think it's not as shocking as Steins;Gate, but compared to the anime from the four major TV stations this season, it's on a completely different level."
"Don't even mention those useless four stations. They've been targeting Kantoku Sora for three years. If they had actually managed to produce something decent, some anime capable of going toe-to-toe with him, I wouldn't say anything. But looking at it now, it's a joke. I haven't watched anything from those four in a year."
In the first week of October, after the second half of Clannad second season began airing, its popularity was clearly higher than in the first half.
Its ratings also rose for the first time to an impressive 5.51%.
That same first week of October, among every anime and television drama airing in Japan, AD once again stood at the very top of all TV programs in terms of ratings.
Even so, Japanese media outlets had not been reporting much about AD during that period.
After all, it was a romance anime. The genre had a natural ceiling. Its ratings performance was unlikely to surpass Steins;Gate.
What truly drew the attention of many media outlets instead was Your Name, scheduled for the New Year season, and Attack on Titan, set to premiere in April.
As time passed, production on both works also entered an intense stage.
Sora and Yumi, both major NatsuYume figures with more than twenty million followers each, would basically release character designs and bits of information that could be disclosed every few days.
Especially for Attack on Titan.
The few designs of abnormal Titans that Sora had revealed so far, combined with the worldbuilding premise of humans inside the walls struggling for survival against Titans outside them, left both his fans and the media itching with curiosity.
A battle anime created by Sora.
That phrase alone was enough to set expectations ablaze.
Within Southern Alliance TV, promotion for the two anime had already begun. During morning news programs and late-night commercial slots, viewers of the station could frequently see promotional ads.
After all, Sora was a shareholder of the station and, at the same time, the current face of its programming. A request like that was nothing excessive.
However, Sora no longer had the time to care about public opinion outside the studio. With three anime entering the most intense phase of production at the same time, he and every employee in the company were pushed by brutal schedules until they could no longer distinguish day from night. Many times, they simply slept at the studio.
Under those circumstances, the fourteenth episode of AD aired smoothly.
And, to the fans' surprise, the plot revealed that Nagisa Furukawa was pregnant.
That truly was…
A development beyond everyone's imagination.
Japanese anime fans had never imagined that one day, the heroine of a romance anime they were following would directly become a mother within the story.
Could it be that the main storyline of AD was meant to portray the protagonists' entire lives?
From falling in love during high school, to marriage, to having children after graduation, all the way to old age and the end of life?
Then came episode fifteen.
And once again, a development appeared that countless fans found difficult to accept.
As Nagisa's due date approached, her illness returned.
She could not move properly or walk around. She could only lie at home and rest.
Even the doctor, after visiting her at home, frankly said that given her condition, the delivery might carry some danger.
This plot…
It made Sora's fans watch with a heavy weight pressing down on their hearts.
Although the fifteenth episode's ratings once again broke a new record, reaching a high of 5.57%, the fans' dissatisfaction with Sora grew deeper day by day online.
By this point, everyone certainly recognized the quality of Clannad story. Otherwise, the anime would not have reached such high ratings, nor would its score have continued to rise.
But, you damn old fox Sora, why do you keep clinging to Nagisa Furukawa's illness?
What exactly did she ever do to offend you?
All of us fans know she is the heroine. We know it is absolutely impossible for her to die from an illness.
But as the creator of the work, do you not feel even the slightest compassion for the characters you write?
Nagisa Furukawa is such a good girl. Why must you, year after year, at regular intervals, make her suffer from this inexplicable illness?
The one who is sick is not Nagisa Furukawa.
It is you, you damn old fox Sora.
"I can't take it anymore. Kantoku Sora, take my attack!"
"I'm willing to sacrifice ten years of Kantoku Sora's lifespan in exchange for Nagisa Furukawa's health, so she can live to be a hundred."
"Why exactly did Kantoku Sora give Nagisa such a serious illness? How does that help the plot? I don't get it."
"Maybe it's foreshadowing, like in Steins;Gate. At first, everyone thought some of the settings were ridiculous, but after the final reveals, we realized how brilliant they were."
"I'm finding it hard to watch. Even knowing Kantoku Sora can't actually do anything to Nagisa, just thinking about her giving birth while sick makes me feel awful."
"Reality is already frustrating enough. You damn old fox Sora, I'm begging you, don't let AD have even the slightest depressing plotline from now on."
"Same here. At least with AD, I can't bear to see anything heavy. The best thing would be for the story to continue happily like this until the end. I guarantee that if Kantoku Sora designs the plot that way, the ratings might even break 5.7% by the finale."
"Kantoku Sora, as long as you don't torment Nagisa later, we'll still be good friends. When Clannad Blu-rays go on sale, I'll definitely buy every volume."
"Me too."
"I don't want to see Nagisa suffer. Ideally, when she gives birth, it should be like taking a nap, and the baby just goes 'biu' and pops out."
"Actually, Kantoku Sora could consider making a third season of AD, mainly focused on the two of them raising the child after the birth. I would absolutely watch it."