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The Big Long Universe Difference Post
Apr. 2nd, 2011 08:34 pmOkay, so. Yuuko's AU takes elements from every Kanon adaptation I know (excluding the light novels, as I haven't actually read them), as well as having some new content because it's a gswap AU and things will necessarily be different from if Yuuko were a guy. I'm organizing this explanation post FAQ-style, just to make it more accessible to the canonblind, especially since Key (outside of Angel Beats! and possibly CLANNAD) isn't too popular on LJ, at least compared to the overall size of the fandom. It's also convenient for if anyone wants to ask anything else about Yuuko's universe and how it differs from the norm.
What's this "variation" thing anyway? Explain that before we get to the universe differences.
"Variations upon a theme" is the big thing with Kanon. Most of the routes in the original game follow a particular pattern, with Shiori being the odd haremette out, and even hers has a lot in common with the rest. Yuuichi comes to town, he meets a girl he doesn't remember, they become close, he helps her with her problems, he has a horrible epiphany that the whole thing is entirely his fault, and he does his best to fix what he can. Aside from that, different things happen. He may or may not meet any of the other girls; the problems differ with each person; he may fail or succeed, and he may not know which it is for a long time. The different adaptations are also variations in this way. Things happen in different orders (like which route is addressed first). Characters and items move around (such as how Yuuichi never ditches Nayuki in the manga, something he does a lot everywhere else, and she instead becomes something of his sidekick helping the others; also, like how the headband is in Yuuichi's room in the 2001 anime, rather than in the clearing as in the original game and other adaptations). Characters sometimes act differently (Wonder Three, anyone?). Though the core is the same, the details change.
Yuuko's AU is, by necessity, another variation. It's that simple.
(I'd recommend watching or playing CLANNAD to understand variations more thoroughly; for those who don't want to, they basically work much like the "fragments" of the When They Cry franchise. Unlike in that series or CLANNAD, though, Kanon doesn't directly address the relationships of variations to one another, and each just stays in its own world.)
Okay, so. Name changes...
...are relatively simple and can be traced to the characters' original names. They aren't all of the lazy genderswap "add -ko to guys' names and -suke to girls' names" convention... although some of them are, like, say, Yuuko herself. They're still fairly easy, though, like Ayu -> Ayumu. "Mahiro" comes from the kanji in "Mai", and "Ikuko" comes from the kanji in "Yukito" -- in fact, it can be alternately read as "Yukiko". "Yuki" is a variation on "Nayuki" that still references "snow", if not "seven". "Makoto" and "Jun" are kept due to their unisex nature, although Yuuko does call male Makoto "Mako-pyon" because she's an utter troll.
Speaking of which, your snarky, devious troll Yuuko...
...comes mostly from the 2006 anime, though you can play Yuuichi as such a character even in the original game, and even the bland Yuuichi from the 2001 anime acted like that once in a while. She's not, though, going to the lengths of the unsympathetic jerk from Kanon Another Story: Wonder Three. (Iori and female Kitagawa do get some of their characterization from Wonder Three, though -- particularly W3!Shiori's love of technology and Kitagawa's nice-guy sidekick nature. Iori's not a brat, though, and fem!Jun's still a failing failure.)
Ikuko. Please explain what brought her here.
Running out of bus fare. How else does she get anywhere? *shot* Okay, okay. There is a largely non-canonical, yet official, Kanon/AIR crossover manga in which the haremettes go around being cute and Yuuichi and Yukito bro it up about the strange people they seem to attract. When I was re-planning Yuuko's AU to make it not just a retread of the 2006 anime (as it was when I first played her elsewhere), I remembered this manga and considered inserting parts of the other game, or at least Yukito/Ikuko, as one of the major changes in this variation. I brought Ikuko in because:
-I wouldn't even need to jump through any hoops to get her to the town Kanon takes place in, unlike anyone or anything else in Kasumi.
-Her nature as an "Angel Seeker" provides a good contrast to Mahiro's status as a "Demon Hunter", in particular, how neither party is entirely normal, how Ikuko's powers have been bred out of her bloodline to the point where she's useless in a fight whereas Mahiro is weakening hers by killing them off as demons, how neither the "angel" nor the "demons" can really be classified as such, and how both their stories deal with closing themselves off to other people.
-Ikuko is a parentless hobo. Akio takes in strays like a cat lady.
-For the sake of semi-realism, Yuuko needs more female friends who aren't complete failures, and Ikuko was really the only option looking through official materials.
So that's how she's there, but what does she do once she's there that would change the story?
That's simple. Like the other drifters and lost people, Ikuko ends up in town, meets and befriends Yuuko, and gets taken in by Akio -- sharing Yuuko's room because they've only got two spare rooms and the other is for Makoto and Ayumu. Ikuko's search for the cursed reincarnation of the last winged being leads her to suspect a number of Yuuko's friends when she notices their problems, and she starts getting into her life more. Ikuko is the biggest help during Mahiro's scenario, due tothe above compare/contrast being too hard to resist, plus the fact that she can actually use a sword; she and Mahiro end up good friends, and she helps to uncover the truth about his powers before he can try to off himself to get rid of the last "demon" (still not before Satoru nearly gets killed, though). This, in turn, recovers Mahiro's healing abilities enough that he can save Makoto, thus filling the plot hole left by some adaptations that attempt to bring Makoto back and offer no reason why.
Ikuko doesn't have much of an impact on the remaining three arcs aside from living in the house and being one of Yuuko's friends. At the end of the main story, she leaves to resume her journey, and presumably they meet up again when Ikuko's own story begins in Kasumi.
Arcs: which order are you going in?
Iori -> Mahiro -> Makoto -> Ayumu first half -> Yuki + Ayumu second half, much like the 2001 anime. However, like the 2006 anime, the lines won't be so clear, and people's stories won't just stop because someone else is getting focus.
Anything particularly different about Yuuko herself?
Besides being girlier, no. She was, however, fairly concerned when Ayumu first "kidnapped" her and when Makoto first "cornered" her -- both, of course, abated by their complete failure at life -- simply because girls are socialized to be afraid of guys and think that anything they do will result in ending up dead on a TV antenna. The first was abated by Yuki's also being "kidnapped", a variation on the scene that I took from the manga. Also, her trolling attempts sometimes take the universe difference in mind -- instead of asking Makoto to buy her a porn magazine from the corner store, she asks him to get her erotica and romance novels from the bookstore and to ask the sales clerk if he has any questions about it.
So, what did happen in the specific character arcs? I'm canonblind.
Iori is Kaoru's younger brother, but Kaoru has basically disowned him and won't acknowledge his existence. This is because Iori's dying, and Kaoru would rather lose a stranger than someone he cared about. Yuuko finds out and fails to bring Kaoru around at first, but decides to hold a party for the birthday Iori's not supposed to be able to live past, inviting everyone they both know. Kaoru eventually shows up late to the party and acknowledges his brother's existence. Iori is soon admitted to hospital, but thanks to the miracle mentioned below, is out within a few months and can return to school.
Mahiro is Yuuko's childhood friend, as mentioned in her app, and a "Demon Hunter" who breaks into the school at night and fights invisible demons; Yuuko goes to visit him, bring him food, and eventually help him fight, as does Ikuko later on. He's constantly blamed for vandalism due to the battle damage, and he doesn't fight back because either the student council and teachers won't believe that there are demons in the school or his magic will be exposed and he'll have to go into hiding again. Yuuko decides to improve Mahiro's reputation and has him take her as his date to the seniors-and-dates-only banquet, which turns out to be a horrible idea, because demons trash the place and all anybody sees is Mahiro "going insane", i.e. fighting them. Satoru, Mahiro's only friend before Yuuko and her buddies, is badly injured when he tries to find out what Mahiro, Yuuko, and Ikuko (and occasionally Ayumu and Makoto) have been doing in the school at night; Mahiro nearly loses his mind, but Yuuko snaps him out of it. Other changes to his route can be found above, in the section on Ikuko's inclusion. Mahiro does not end up in the hospital because he does not attempt suicide in the first place; due to the miracle (which I will explain), Satoru gets out of the hospital in time to graduate.
Makoto, or "Mako-pyon" as Yuuko likes to call him when she feels like being a troll, is the fox Yuuko secretly kept and took care of as a child, then abandoned when she had to go back home. Not understanding why she did it, he felt betrayed by her for all those years, and when he saw her again, he recognized her instantly. Now, the foxes on Monomi Hill are known for not being regular animals, and they have the ability to create one miracle for themselves at the cost of their memory first, their life not long after. (This is not the miracle mentioned above. Please take note.) The fox used this to turn into a human with the name and appearance of Yuuko's first childhood crush, Sawatari Makoto (who had been much older than Yuuko was and had, of course, aged, but fox!Makoto made himself look like the 16-year-old variety Yuuko would remember if she remembered anything). Of course, he didn't remember why he had done this, but he remembered one more thing when he first saw Yuuko: "I hate this person." Yuuko takes him home when he passes out from hunger, and despite her protests, Akio takes him in. After all, Yuuko is the only clue Makoto has to his identity. Thanks to Amano Mitsuo, Yuuko's antisocial underclassman, Yuuko finds out Makoto's true nature and just how long he has to live. When his human mind starts to degenerate, she grants his last wish -- to have a group of friends who could accomplish anything with him (as the store clerks would not have directed a teenage boy to the shoujo manga when he asked for something to read, therefore he'd end up with a different dream than WANTING TO GET MARRIED). As noted above, Mahiro's power brings him back just before he vanishes.
Yuki's issues were brought up in the app. While Ayumu is off being comatose and not projecting his spirit anymore, Yuki has his own things to deal with -- Akio gets into an accident, leaving Yuki alone. Yuuko tries to help, but Yuki rejects her like she rejected him as a child; this brings back another piece of Yuuko's memory. She gathers everyone together to help Yuki, because holing oneself up in one's room just isn't healthy, and because Yuki has been nothing but nice and helpful and all Yuuko's ever done is neglect him. Though she can't return Yuki's feelings, she offers to always be there from now on, and their other friends agree. Finally, Yuki returns to normal.
Ayumu's issues were also brought up in the app. When he disappears for the second time, he makes one last wish on the angel doll for a happy ending for everyone. Yuuko had told him that she absolutely wouldn't -- couldn't -- forget again, and that real happiness didn't come with forgetting life's mistakes and bad luck; it came with fixing them, or at least doing your best to work through them. Ayumu took back his wish for Yuuko to forget so she could be happy, then, and made another wish to repair what was broken, but not to make it as if it had never happened in the first place. The wish became a miracle. (Yes, the one I was talking about before.) Iori, Satoru, and Akio all make it out of the hospital as good as new, everyone is happy, and Ayumu himself...? Yuuko thinks he's dead, but Akio and Yuki reveal otherwise: he's in a coma. Once Yuuko finds the bandana and gives it to him, he finally wakes up.
I've only seen the 2006 anime. Where'd this or that come from?
First of all, congratulations, that's my favourite version of Kanon. (It's also the most commonly seen version, so I'm tailoring this answer to those who have only seen it.) Everything else does have its own basis, including:
-Yuki occasionally tagging along: The Kanon manga.
-Kitagawa's personality being fleshed out from "buttmonkey" and being more of a foil to Yuuko: Kanon Another Story: Wonder Three.
-Techno-geek Iori: same.
-Makoto surviving: Kanon/AIR crossover manga, the implications at the end of the 2006 anime, Kanon Kazahana (sort of).
-Ikuko: Kanon/AIR crossover manga, though her presence in the plot of Kanon is invented by me, since that manga took place during AIR and after Kanon.
-The reason Yuki sleeps: The original game.
-"Seduce the headmaster": If anything like this comes up, assume it's from the original game. (This one was, by the way. For serious.)
Why would you ever genderbend Kanon? Seriously?
Because Kanon is falling into Seinfeld Is Unfunny territory. It was one of the first, if not THE first eroge to make Plot With Porn marketable -- in fact, the H-scenes are pretty obviously shoehorned in -- and, while Tokimeki Memorial from seven years earlier (coincidence???) was the first major dating sim to give its heroines personalities, Kanon's Yuuichi was the first male lead to be fleshed out beyond an audience surrogate. Sure, the game just focuses on relationships, and sure, its characters are made from pure moe concentrate, but games like Fate/stay night and Saya no Uta would not have been made without Kanon.
In short, I'm sick and tired of people rolling their eyes over "generic moeblobs", so I gswapped the male lead.
I have more questions.
Well, then, ask me here!
What's this "variation" thing anyway? Explain that before we get to the universe differences.
"Variations upon a theme" is the big thing with Kanon. Most of the routes in the original game follow a particular pattern, with Shiori being the odd haremette out, and even hers has a lot in common with the rest. Yuuichi comes to town, he meets a girl he doesn't remember, they become close, he helps her with her problems, he has a horrible epiphany that the whole thing is entirely his fault, and he does his best to fix what he can. Aside from that, different things happen. He may or may not meet any of the other girls; the problems differ with each person; he may fail or succeed, and he may not know which it is for a long time. The different adaptations are also variations in this way. Things happen in different orders (like which route is addressed first). Characters and items move around (such as how Yuuichi never ditches Nayuki in the manga, something he does a lot everywhere else, and she instead becomes something of his sidekick helping the others; also, like how the headband is in Yuuichi's room in the 2001 anime, rather than in the clearing as in the original game and other adaptations). Characters sometimes act differently (Wonder Three, anyone?). Though the core is the same, the details change.
Yuuko's AU is, by necessity, another variation. It's that simple.
(I'd recommend watching or playing CLANNAD to understand variations more thoroughly; for those who don't want to, they basically work much like the "fragments" of the When They Cry franchise. Unlike in that series or CLANNAD, though, Kanon doesn't directly address the relationships of variations to one another, and each just stays in its own world.)
Okay, so. Name changes...
...are relatively simple and can be traced to the characters' original names. They aren't all of the lazy genderswap "add -ko to guys' names and -suke to girls' names" convention... although some of them are, like, say, Yuuko herself. They're still fairly easy, though, like Ayu -> Ayumu. "Mahiro" comes from the kanji in "Mai", and "Ikuko" comes from the kanji in "Yukito" -- in fact, it can be alternately read as "Yukiko". "Yuki" is a variation on "Nayuki" that still references "snow", if not "seven". "Makoto" and "Jun" are kept due to their unisex nature, although Yuuko does call male Makoto "Mako-pyon" because she's an utter troll.
Speaking of which, your snarky, devious troll Yuuko...
...comes mostly from the 2006 anime, though you can play Yuuichi as such a character even in the original game, and even the bland Yuuichi from the 2001 anime acted like that once in a while. She's not, though, going to the lengths of the unsympathetic jerk from Kanon Another Story: Wonder Three. (Iori and female Kitagawa do get some of their characterization from Wonder Three, though -- particularly W3!Shiori's love of technology and Kitagawa's nice-guy sidekick nature. Iori's not a brat, though, and fem!Jun's still a failing failure.)
Ikuko. Please explain what brought her here.
Running out of bus fare. How else does she get anywhere? *shot* Okay, okay. There is a largely non-canonical, yet official, Kanon/AIR crossover manga in which the haremettes go around being cute and Yuuichi and Yukito bro it up about the strange people they seem to attract. When I was re-planning Yuuko's AU to make it not just a retread of the 2006 anime (as it was when I first played her elsewhere), I remembered this manga and considered inserting parts of the other game, or at least Yukito/Ikuko, as one of the major changes in this variation. I brought Ikuko in because:
-I wouldn't even need to jump through any hoops to get her to the town Kanon takes place in, unlike anyone or anything else in Kasumi.
-Her nature as an "Angel Seeker" provides a good contrast to Mahiro's status as a "Demon Hunter", in particular, how neither party is entirely normal, how Ikuko's powers have been bred out of her bloodline to the point where she's useless in a fight whereas Mahiro is weakening hers by killing them off as demons, how neither the "angel" nor the "demons" can really be classified as such, and how both their stories deal with closing themselves off to other people.
-Ikuko is a parentless hobo. Akio takes in strays like a cat lady.
-For the sake of semi-realism, Yuuko needs more female friends who aren't complete failures, and Ikuko was really the only option looking through official materials.
So that's how she's there, but what does she do once she's there that would change the story?
That's simple. Like the other drifters and lost people, Ikuko ends up in town, meets and befriends Yuuko, and gets taken in by Akio -- sharing Yuuko's room because they've only got two spare rooms and the other is for Makoto and Ayumu. Ikuko's search for the cursed reincarnation of the last winged being leads her to suspect a number of Yuuko's friends when she notices their problems, and she starts getting into her life more. Ikuko is the biggest help during Mahiro's scenario, due to
Ikuko doesn't have much of an impact on the remaining three arcs aside from living in the house and being one of Yuuko's friends. At the end of the main story, she leaves to resume her journey, and presumably they meet up again when Ikuko's own story begins in Kasumi.
Arcs: which order are you going in?
Iori -> Mahiro -> Makoto -> Ayumu first half -> Yuki + Ayumu second half, much like the 2001 anime. However, like the 2006 anime, the lines won't be so clear, and people's stories won't just stop because someone else is getting focus.
Anything particularly different about Yuuko herself?
Besides being girlier, no. She was, however, fairly concerned when Ayumu first "kidnapped" her and when Makoto first "cornered" her -- both, of course, abated by their complete failure at life -- simply because girls are socialized to be afraid of guys and think that anything they do will result in ending up dead on a TV antenna. The first was abated by Yuki's also being "kidnapped", a variation on the scene that I took from the manga. Also, her trolling attempts sometimes take the universe difference in mind -- instead of asking Makoto to buy her a porn magazine from the corner store, she asks him to get her erotica and romance novels from the bookstore and to ask the sales clerk if he has any questions about it.
So, what did happen in the specific character arcs? I'm canonblind.
Iori is Kaoru's younger brother, but Kaoru has basically disowned him and won't acknowledge his existence. This is because Iori's dying, and Kaoru would rather lose a stranger than someone he cared about. Yuuko finds out and fails to bring Kaoru around at first, but decides to hold a party for the birthday Iori's not supposed to be able to live past, inviting everyone they both know. Kaoru eventually shows up late to the party and acknowledges his brother's existence. Iori is soon admitted to hospital, but thanks to the miracle mentioned below, is out within a few months and can return to school.
Mahiro is Yuuko's childhood friend, as mentioned in her app, and a "Demon Hunter" who breaks into the school at night and fights invisible demons; Yuuko goes to visit him, bring him food, and eventually help him fight, as does Ikuko later on. He's constantly blamed for vandalism due to the battle damage, and he doesn't fight back because either the student council and teachers won't believe that there are demons in the school or his magic will be exposed and he'll have to go into hiding again. Yuuko decides to improve Mahiro's reputation and has him take her as his date to the seniors-and-dates-only banquet, which turns out to be a horrible idea, because demons trash the place and all anybody sees is Mahiro "going insane", i.e. fighting them. Satoru, Mahiro's only friend before Yuuko and her buddies, is badly injured when he tries to find out what Mahiro, Yuuko, and Ikuko (and occasionally Ayumu and Makoto) have been doing in the school at night; Mahiro nearly loses his mind, but Yuuko snaps him out of it. Other changes to his route can be found above, in the section on Ikuko's inclusion. Mahiro does not end up in the hospital because he does not attempt suicide in the first place; due to the miracle (which I will explain), Satoru gets out of the hospital in time to graduate.
Makoto, or "Mako-pyon" as Yuuko likes to call him when she feels like being a troll, is the fox Yuuko secretly kept and took care of as a child, then abandoned when she had to go back home. Not understanding why she did it, he felt betrayed by her for all those years, and when he saw her again, he recognized her instantly. Now, the foxes on Monomi Hill are known for not being regular animals, and they have the ability to create one miracle for themselves at the cost of their memory first, their life not long after. (This is not the miracle mentioned above. Please take note.) The fox used this to turn into a human with the name and appearance of Yuuko's first childhood crush, Sawatari Makoto (who had been much older than Yuuko was and had, of course, aged, but fox!Makoto made himself look like the 16-year-old variety Yuuko would remember if she remembered anything). Of course, he didn't remember why he had done this, but he remembered one more thing when he first saw Yuuko: "I hate this person." Yuuko takes him home when he passes out from hunger, and despite her protests, Akio takes him in. After all, Yuuko is the only clue Makoto has to his identity. Thanks to Amano Mitsuo, Yuuko's antisocial underclassman, Yuuko finds out Makoto's true nature and just how long he has to live. When his human mind starts to degenerate, she grants his last wish -- to have a group of friends who could accomplish anything with him (as the store clerks would not have directed a teenage boy to the shoujo manga when he asked for something to read, therefore he'd end up with a different dream than WANTING TO GET MARRIED). As noted above, Mahiro's power brings him back just before he vanishes.
Yuki's issues were brought up in the app. While Ayumu is off being comatose and not projecting his spirit anymore, Yuki has his own things to deal with -- Akio gets into an accident, leaving Yuki alone. Yuuko tries to help, but Yuki rejects her like she rejected him as a child; this brings back another piece of Yuuko's memory. She gathers everyone together to help Yuki, because holing oneself up in one's room just isn't healthy, and because Yuki has been nothing but nice and helpful and all Yuuko's ever done is neglect him. Though she can't return Yuki's feelings, she offers to always be there from now on, and their other friends agree. Finally, Yuki returns to normal.
Ayumu's issues were also brought up in the app. When he disappears for the second time, he makes one last wish on the angel doll for a happy ending for everyone. Yuuko had told him that she absolutely wouldn't -- couldn't -- forget again, and that real happiness didn't come with forgetting life's mistakes and bad luck; it came with fixing them, or at least doing your best to work through them. Ayumu took back his wish for Yuuko to forget so she could be happy, then, and made another wish to repair what was broken, but not to make it as if it had never happened in the first place. The wish became a miracle. (Yes, the one I was talking about before.) Iori, Satoru, and Akio all make it out of the hospital as good as new, everyone is happy, and Ayumu himself...? Yuuko thinks he's dead, but Akio and Yuki reveal otherwise: he's in a coma. Once Yuuko finds the bandana and gives it to him, he finally wakes up.
I've only seen the 2006 anime. Where'd this or that come from?
First of all, congratulations, that's my favourite version of Kanon. (It's also the most commonly seen version, so I'm tailoring this answer to those who have only seen it.) Everything else does have its own basis, including:
-Yuki occasionally tagging along: The Kanon manga.
-Kitagawa's personality being fleshed out from "buttmonkey" and being more of a foil to Yuuko: Kanon Another Story: Wonder Three.
-Techno-geek Iori: same.
-Makoto surviving: Kanon/AIR crossover manga, the implications at the end of the 2006 anime, Kanon Kazahana (sort of).
-Ikuko: Kanon/AIR crossover manga, though her presence in the plot of Kanon is invented by me, since that manga took place during AIR and after Kanon.
-The reason Yuki sleeps: The original game.
-"Seduce the headmaster": If anything like this comes up, assume it's from the original game. (This one was, by the way. For serious.)
Why would you ever genderbend Kanon? Seriously?
Because Kanon is falling into Seinfeld Is Unfunny territory. It was one of the first, if not THE first eroge to make Plot With Porn marketable -- in fact, the H-scenes are pretty obviously shoehorned in -- and, while Tokimeki Memorial from seven years earlier (coincidence???) was the first major dating sim to give its heroines personalities, Kanon's Yuuichi was the first male lead to be fleshed out beyond an audience surrogate. Sure, the game just focuses on relationships, and sure, its characters are made from pure moe concentrate, but games like Fate/stay night and Saya no Uta would not have been made without Kanon.
In short, I'm sick and tired of people rolling their eyes over "generic moeblobs", so I gswapped the male lead.
I have more questions.
Well, then, ask me here!
