Crystal Tokyo Anime Blog

      Well, another Halloween is upon us anime fans and we should all rejoice in this once a year opportunity to freely express your wildest cosplay ideas other than at a convention without the questioning glances. Also one of the better aspects of this holiday is all the free goodies you can receive if you still at that age where you still can go trick or treating.

       As you get older, Halloween is one of those holidays where you actually get to have more fun. When you get to your adult Halloween party you get all sorts of good treats such as candy and jello shots, and nothing makes a party more fun than skimpy costumes, and lots of “juice”.

      Below are some Halloween anime and manga themed pictures, and further down you’ll find some suggested Halloween cosplay ideas. Click on Images to view at full size.

Some suggested Halloween cosplay.

       And one final word of advise girls, when your leaving the party never leave alone make sure you take a guy with you or you may run into the following creature, and you know what happens if you get caught by it.

       This episode begins with Sora talking with her friend for back home and the issue of whether Sora has found a boyfriend yet comes up. Then Gouta tells Sora that he will take her somewhere in order to show his appreciation for Sora helping him use his powers for the first time.

        So they board a train and Gouta tells Sora that he’s taking her to the sea, and while there are on the train Sora’s says that it looks like there are on a date, Gouta says you don’t have to say “it looks like”. When the get to the sea they do a lot of fun things and they talk about life and magic. Sora asks why Gouta has stopped surfing for now, and he tells her that he can’t use it as an excuse to avoid magic. As Sora and Gouta are walking they start holding hands. Later, Gouta gets a call from Hiyori asking him if he wants to meet her to hang out, but Gouta tells her he’s at the beach with Sora.

       They spend more time by the seaside then they find a lost little boy and they help him find his mother, after the boy (Sota) is returned to his mother Sora and Gouta joke about his name is made up of parts of both their names. After they return the child they do some window shopping, visit a temple, and get their  fortunes, then Gouta takes Sora to the place he wanted to show her. Gouta takes Sora to a restaurant that’s built on a cliff that overlooks the sea, it has a spectacular view of the ocean. As the sun is setting Sora takes Gouta’s hand a places a beautiful gemstone that she found by the sea inside his hand telling him that this gem of the sea is her gift to him.

       Before Sora and Gouta head back home they share a kiss at twilight on a observation deck, and then next day Sora and Gouta are openly holding hands in public. At school the news of Sora and Gouta going to the beach has made it around to everybody, and Gouta gets congratulated by other students for finally being able to use his powers on the dolphin rescue mission. After school a nasty thunderstorm hits the area and when Gouta gets home he views Sora and Hara in a suspicious looking situation from a distance.

      Gouta starts thinking bad thoughts about Sora so as soon as the rain has stopped he wanders around town in a bad mood doing things just to kill time. Then Gouta wanders into a bar (the same one Hara hangs out at) and he orders a strong drink but he gets only served tea, and then he tells the bartender he has nowhere to go back to tonight, the bartender asks Gouta if he wants some food and he says yes. Well, that’s all for this episode.

        This was a really bittersweet episode, the sweet part was watching the budding relationship between Gouta and Sora and it reawaken feelings of melancholy inside me. It made me long for those innocent days of my youth when there was magic in the simple acts of holding your girlfriend’s hand for the first time, and sneaking that first tentative kiss, ahhhhh, to return to sweet days of youth.

       But after drinking in the sweetness of the first part of the episode I felt a slightly bitter aftertaste creeping into my palette. Now it all starts to make sense to me, and I don’t think that I like where it’s heading. Sora’s dead father, her sudden illness, and her mother and friend telling her not to over do it, somethings very wrong with Sora. I know that this is going to tear me up because Sora is one of those perfect girls that can only exist in manga and anime, she a ray of sunshine, and she everything that’s you  right with the world. When I watch Sora’s good and cheerful nature it’s like taking a drink of sweet tea after a long hot day, so as the last three episode come to pass I’ll probably need some tissue paper.

         This episode begins with Youhei skipping some classes at school and at lunch Nagisa and Tomoya explain the Mei and Youhei situation to the other girls. Kyou thinks that it’s a bad idea to have Youhei try to rejoin the soccer team, and it’s basically confirmed that the soccer team is a bunch of bullies. Later that afternoon Tomoya asks Mei again if she’ll reconsider the situation and she says “no”.

       So, Mei decides to go to the soccer club to ask them if her brother can rejoin the club, and Tomoya and Nagisa go with her. When Mei asks if her brother can rejoin the club they insult Youhei, and then they insult Nagisa and Tomoya. Later the three of them go to Yukine for some advise on the situation and she asks why was there problems between Youhei and the soccer team, so Tomoya tells her the story of how Youhei was bullied as a first year student until he snapped and got into a fight with the upperclassmen.

        Later that afternoon Youhei shows up to school and Tomoya asks him where he was at and he says that he was doing what he wanted to do. Tomoya tells Youhei that Mei was worried about him, and he says that he doesn’t care because she’s with Tomoya now. Youhei also says that Mei no longer cares about him, at hearing this Tomoya grabs Youhei by the shirt and starts chewing his ass out. A fight almost breaks out between them but it’s broken up by Kyou, Ryou, and Kotomi.

        Later, Mei wants to go back to see the soccer club again, and Tomoya tells Nagisa to go home and he’ll go with Mei. Nagisa refuses to leave even though Tomoya says that a fight or something else could happen, she says that she wants to be there for Mei. So they go and ask the team president for permission to have Youhei rejoin the club, Nagisa and Mei plead Youhei’s case and even Tomoya bows his head pleading Youhei’s case, after listening to their case he tells them to shag balls.

        As the team is training they kick the balls wildly on purpose trying to wear out the three of them, and eventually Mei gets hit by a ball that was targeted at her on purpose. After practice is over Mei goes to see the upperclassmen and they basically reject the idea of Youhei rejoining the team, and they keep insulting him again. Then the president tells Mei that her brother knows exactly what is happening and he won’t do anything, Mei breaks down in tears and they continue to insult her.

        Then the president grabs Mei and begins to hurt her, just as Tomoya says he’s had enough and goes to fight the club members, Youhei shows up and kicks the president for hurting his sister. So all the members that are left in the club room start fighting Youhei. Tomoya tells Nagisa to take Mei and run as he jumps into the fight. After the fight is over Tomoya and Youhei are laying on the ground pretty beat up and Youhei asks if they won the fight but Tomoya says he doesn’t think they lost. Tomoya tells Youhei to apologise to Mei because if he did the right thing none of this would have happened.

        They start arguing and Youhei asks if Tomoya is picking a fight and Tomoya basically says yes, they get up and face each other and neither Nagisa of Mei can stop them. They start kicking the crap out of each other and hurling insults and accusations towards each other and finally Mei and Nagisa break up the fight.

       The next day on the way to school Nagisa and Tomoya run into Youhei, and after a few seconds of staring at one another Youhei and Tomoya start laughing at each other. A few days later Youhei receives a letter from Mei and it seems that things are patched up between them. Then Tomoya takes Youhei to meet Akio, “Sanae-chan’s father”, it’s pretty funny to see Youhei’s and Akio reactions when Akio thinks that Youhei is there to steal his wife. Then we get shown a montage of how Youhei and Tomoya first meet and how they became friends. Well, that’s all for this episode.

       Well it was interesting to wrap up the Youhei/Mei story arc, even though this episode patched up the relationship between Youhei and Mei I’m still kind of pissed at him. I didn’t buy his relaxed attitude towards the suggestion that Tomoya was dating and most likely sleeping with his younger sister, the whole it’s OK because it was you and I knew you would take care of her didn’t make any sense to me. I could have bought this line of thinking if Mei was say 17-18 and Tomoya was like maybe 20-21 but it’s totally different because Tomoya is around 17 and Mei is maybe 13, that’s really pushing it.

       But in the end Youhei showed up and did the right thing in defending his sister from the soccer club, and he also did the right thing when he fought Tomoya because he thought Tomoya should have defended his girlfriend Mei. I also like how Tomoya and Youhei were back on good terms the next day, many times in my life I have had bad fights with my friends only to be drinking beers with them in a day or two.

       But what stands out to me about the first few episodes of the ~After Story~ is that they almost have the feeling of being filler episodes. We all know what the real meat of the ending of Clannad will be, but it almost seems that the creative team couldn’t fill out 24-26 episodes dealing with the final conclusion of Nagisa/Tomoya/dream world storyline. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the ~After Story~ episodes so far but what I’ve seen doesn’t strike me as being very important to the final conclusion of the series. Another series that I really loved had the same kind of problems, In Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water there were the infamous “Island episodes”, those episodes were know for their poor animation quality (no such problem with Clannad ~After Story~) but they were also considered by fans to be there for filler purposes only, as nothing in them really advanced the story other than allowing the series creators to extend a planned 26 episode series to a 39 episode series. Well, I’ll hold my judgement on whether the ~After Story~ needs 26 episodes or only 13 episodes.