First Impressions / Kanon

Summary:
During breakfast, Yuuichi has on his mind what Mai said about the demons being after him, though his attention is soon turned to Ayu commenting on the jams that Akiko made. The mention of the special jam wakes up Nayuki and causes her and Yuuichi to leave the table abruptly. On the way to school, Nayuki presents Yuuichi with a set of bunny ears because she remembered that he wanted to know how to make a girl cute. Seeing the ears causes Yuuichi to flashback briefly to a scene from his past with a girl with similar ears on standing in a golden field. Come lunchtime, Yuuichi finds Mai sitting at the normal spot alone because Sayuri is going to be late. He asks her about the demons going after him, but Mai doesn’t know. All she says is that until he came, the demons didn’t appear with such frequency. A bored Yuuichi then suggests they play shiritori and they do so until Sayuri finally comes with lunch. Sayuri reveals that Mai loves to play shiritori and they did it all the time whenever Mai came over to her house.
After school, Yuuichi tells Nayuki that he’s joined a club: the Demon Extermination Club. In truth, he’s practicing his sword fighting skills, and Mai finds him working outside in the snow. She points her shinai at him, and before he can fully realize what’s going on, she attacks. He’s able to hold out against her flurry of blows, but Yuuichi’s subsequent charge earns him a beating. Mai ends up calling him slow and telling him that he needs to understand that he’s weak to know how he should move. He actually performs better the next time, though the two are soon interrupted by Sayuri. She thinks they’re playing and wants to join in, but Mai doesn’t take her lightly and easily bats away her wooden sword. Sayuri feels that she’s just interfering, and – to Yuuichi’s surprise – Mai actually agrees. After Sayuri runs off, Mai admits that she loves Sayuri, which is why she did all that. Yuuichi ends up running into Sayuri again later that afternoon as he’s walking through town, and the two sit down together for some drinks.
Sayuri apologizes again for being a nuisance, and Yuuichi ends up asking her why she worries about Mai so much. Since he compares her to an older sister, Sayuri admits that she did indeed used to be one. She recalls that her father raised her without spoiling her, though other people pampered her. Because of this, she decided to be strict with her newborn brother Kazuya. However, Kazuya was slow at growing physically, and didn’t talk or laugh. He was always alone, but Sayuri continued to be strict with him, even when she wanted to be kinder. When Kazuya ended up in the hospital and didn’t get better, Sayuri decided to break her rules. One night, she brought him the food and toys that he had wanted, including a set of water guns. Sayuri had broken down crying as she admitted to loving Kazuya, and he had actually laughed for her. That was the first and last time they played together because Kazuya soon died. Sayuri admits that she started to talk about herself in the third person starting from then because she could only see herself in an objective way. She had only started laughing again since she met Mai, and so she feels that she was the one who got saved. From that first time, she’s wanted to be together with Mai.
Listening to the song playing in the cafe, Sayuri asks if Yuuichi knows its name. Since he’s heard it before, but doesn’t know what it’s called, Sayuri reveals that it is Canon by Pachelbel. She explains that while it repeats the same melody, it sounds the beautiful harmony little by little. Sayuri thinks that their lives would be better if they could change things little by little, but where every day doesn’t seem different. She feels that some day, she’ll probably be able to remember Kazuya without the sad feelings. Afterwards, Yuuichi tells Sayuri to call him once she’s done preparing the food for Mai’s birthday. He goes home, but leaves before dinner to go tell Mai to go home for the party. Sayuri calls up the house and finds Yuuichi already gone, so she assumes he went to see Mai. She takes Mai’s present and heads for school, which Yuuichi learns about only after he calls up Akiko back home. Sayuri arrives at school and finds a running faucet in the bathroom, so she goes to turn it off. A demon appears in the doorway and heads straight for her.
Rushing to school, Yuuichi sees a shocked Mai fall to the ground. He then notices that Sayuri’s body is lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. They take her to the hospital where the doctor tells them that it’s not as bad as it looks, but Sayuri will have to stay at the hospital. Since they’ve already contacted her family, Yuuichi and Mai leave the hospital. Mai ends up grabbing her sword back from Yuuichi and going on a rampage in anger and frustration. Yuuichi eventually restrains her, but she’s blaming herself for what happened and feels that she’s the only one who isn’t getting hurt. When Mai tries to stab herself with her sword, Yuuichi knocks it away and makes her realize that she’d only lose everything by hurting herself. She admits to not wanting to lose all the things they’ve created together, so Yuuichi decides that they should go back to school to finish things. After calming back down and returning to school, Mai says that there are three demons left. She and Yuuichi quickly become surrounded and have to face off against the demons.

Preview:

After watching this episode, I ended up listening to Canon in D for quite a while. It would seem that this is where the title of the show comes from since the original German for “Canon” is “Kanon.”
Well I had expected Sayuri to get hurt, but thankfully it wasn’t too badly. Mai went pretty berserk because of it, though I can only imagine how she would have reacted if Sayuri had died instead. They did finally explain why Sayuri refers to herself in the third person, which had been slightly bothering me ever since she was introduced, but never enough to call attention to it.
Next week looks like Mai and Yuuichi are in for a big fight and we’ll finally get to find out about Mai’s past.

53 Comments

  15. Yes yes yes yes yes! They actually did Sayuri’s Arc with the same pictures and everything. Color me omega impressed. This is probably my favorite episode in the series now.

    Other then that, looks like the Mai arc has two or so episodes left in it. I don’t think they’d draw it out any longer, looking at where they are now.

    Likkun
    Reply

  17. This looks like it is going to be brilliant … normally I’d wonder about the time budget for the rest of the series but I have a feeling that KyoAni is one company that ACTUALLY FREAKING STORYBOARDS an entire series rather than wandering aimlessly from week to week as most production staff shows seem to.

    Vexx
    Reply

  18. Once again:how is you all have already watched this already?I have waited a torrent for it whole evening,moyism was first with a raw,and got it downloaded now 23:55 Swedish time.I probably comment more in tomorrow,when i have seen this two or three times,so i really have a picture of events in Kanon ep.14.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  24. Really? I haven’t been tracking much new recently, just watching. Well, I guess that’s a good sign that they’re actually planning ahead and not trying to squeeze in every little thing into the last few episodes.

    Likkun
    Reply

  30. >>oh shi- what the heck is up with those eyes!?>>

    She’s around 5 years old, of course her eyes will take up more of her face, that’s the way anime is, if you don’t like it, stop watching anime

    mikemil828
    Reply

  31. Likkun:

    KyoAni did the right thing, as a matter of fact.
    Sayuri did attempt to slit her wrist after her lil brother died in the original story of the game, and what we see in that image was the scar. It has nothing to do with the injury earlier which she got it from the ball, which explains y its on different hands.

    Bloody Nightingale
    Reply

  33. On the hand, I find the little Sayuri amazingly cute…. small children (in real life) naturally have a larger eye-to-head ratio and a smaller head-to-body ratio. Couple that with anime eyes being larger to express emotion in cartoon form and you get pics like that. What makes it work is the amount of eye detail the animators put in it. An “american style” cartoon rarely puts so much textural detail in the eyes so such a ratio would look a bit scary but then you see the same “eyes get bigger” in a lot of american work as well (in fact, the japanese were taking notes about Disney films in the 50s and 60s to evolve the look they give us today).

    Vexx
    Reply

  34. Sorry about double post… just confirmed for myself we’re going to get 26 amazing episodes … if this ever R1’s I’m going to be soooo broke (but happy).

    Was watching 2002 Kanon to review for some forum comments ….. the art and animation quality is so painful now… and the story chops/cuts… I can see why the japanese fan buzz has so dustbinned it. For myself, I respect it because it was sort of my introduction to the dramatic capabilities of anime but it’ll be consigned to my history vault.

    Vexx
    Reply

  35. Anybody have a guess on which DVD this episode would be on? I’m kind of hoping that they’ll have the series divided into arcs. If so then I kind of want to know what number this would be so I can start saving up.

    Likkun
    Reply

  45. Omg the wrist thing! I didn’t even notice, but I never knew much about Kanon until this series anyway. But wow if what you guys say about that being in the game is true than props to KyoAni for putting such a detail in there, like onscreen form less than a seconde. But that’s so sad….poor Sayuri…both before and now 🙁

    ShinSenshi
    Reply

  47. mai really amazing and beatiful. i hope yuichi will end with her. nayuki is fine too 🙂

    i dont like ayu at all. hmm shiori is cute and kaori ,sayuri :D.

    so what will happen next weeks ? is there any spoiler or something like that ?

    kerem
    Reply

  48. They definately prolonged the series, I haven’t finished up the 2002 make of Kanon, but I did make it to episode 5, definately a decent anime, 26 episodes though is a bit more than the 13 in the original make. If you check Animenfo.com it says there are only going to be 24? Has it been confirmed anywhere on exactly how many episoes there will be? I’m going to write a review of the 2002 make on my blog over at Anime Alcove, but I’m also going to be comparing it to the 2006 make when it’s finished being produced.. Definately love this site and hop step jump..

    Anime Alcove
    Reply

  50. That part where Sayuri told about her brother made me cry again… WHY IS IT THAT KANON MAKES ME CRY EVERY WEEK?!?! Gyah… This episode was really wonderful…although all the episodes are wonderful… I can’t wait to learn about Mai’s past! Yuuichi’s flashback had me excited!!!

    And while I’m commenting about Kanon… WAHH MAKOTOOOOO~!

    Rosegirl18
    Reply

  52. Gah…this episode weirded me out a bit at one part.

    Since the beginning of this series I’d recognized the piece of classical music that was playing, but I’ve never known the name of it. I just knew it from the sound. So anyways, when that music started playing in the coffee shop in this episode I started thinking to myself what it was, because I wanted to know. It’s a really beautiful song and I wanted to find out. Mere seconds after asking myself this, Yuuichi comes out and asks Sayuri “Do you know what this song is?” or something like that.

    It was seriously so freaky. O_O But I’m glad to have it answered for me. I really love Canon, and now I know where the show’s name came from. ^^

    Tori
    Reply

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