Summary:

Through Tomoya’s first days at work, Nagisa is there to wake him up every morning and to greet him when he gets home every night. On one particular night, she feels bad and apologizes for bothering him with her talking, but he feels that she shouldn’t be the one apologizing. Tomoya is getting more accustomed to his job, though Yuusuke still lectures him a lot on the proper way to do things. After observing him one day, Yuusuke finally asks Tomoya about why he seems to do things the hard way in regard to always using his left hand. Tomoya claims that this is easier for him to do, so Yuusuke drops the subject since Tomoya isn’t messing up the procedure. Nagisa thinks that it’s better for Tomoya to tell Yuusuke about his bad right shoulder, but Tomoya worries that doing so might lose him his job. Nagisa is also concerned about Tomoya being lonely when she’s not there, but he reassures her that he just sleeps once he’s by himself. At work the next day, Tomoya and Yuusuke run into a former co-worker of Tomoya’s father. Yuusuke tells Tomoya afterward that their job takes them various places, so this kind of thing happens occasionally. He describes it as the moment of feeling how small the world is, but Tomoya feels that his world is growing.

At home, Tomoya proposes to Nagisa that they go on a date, but it turns out that she has a mock exam and can’t make it. Tomoya ends up spending his time with Akio, and they head to a toy store where Akio has a lightsaber battle with the owner. The owner has readied a Bengal monitor lizard for Akio, and Akio plans to put it on his wife’s back. Tomoya opposes the idea, but Akio calls it a little stimulation to keep married life fresh. As it turns out, the animal that Sanae likes the least is the Bengal monitor lizard, and she panics when Tomoya slips the lizard under her shirt. She runs around the neighborhood trying to get someone to take it out, and so Akio chases after her. While this is going on, Tomoya runs into one of the neighborhood women and tries to apologize for the commotion, but she reveals that the people in the neighborhood say that every day is fun thanks to those two. Nagisa comes home to find her parents and Tomoya still running, and she tells him later that she thinks he deepened his bonds with her parents. She also brings up how the Founder’s Festival is coming up, so Tomoya agrees to go with her.

However, Tomoya takes on more responsibilities at work, and the boss notes that they’ll be getting a big contract soon. That means there’ll be an increase in working on what would be a day off, so Tomoya later warns Nagisa that he might not be able to make it to the festival. Although silent at first, Nagisa eventually tells him not to worry about it and claims that it’s good for his job to be busy. When the day before the festival comes, Tomoya nevertheless tries to ask for the following day off, and he’s relieved to find out from Yuusuke that they don’t have to work. Yuusuke also asks Tomoya about his right shoulder and reveals that he had already figured out Tomoya’s physical problem. He hadn’t told anyone because Tomoya hasn’t messed up on the procedure of their work and was trying to overcome his handicap. That being said, they’re going to get some troublesome jobs from now on, and Yuusuke offers to help for the difficult stuff. He thinks of work as something where others help supplement what one person cannot do, and his point is that Tomoya should be careful about things that could lead to accidents and make Nagisa sad.

That night, Tomoya stays at the office after everyone else leaves, and he ends up getting a special job from the boss that needs to be done right away. He succeeds in doing it on his own, though Yuusuke comes by the work site after he heard about what happened. Yuusuke inspects Tomoya’s work and seems to be fine with it, so the two go home. The following day, Tomoya promises to meet Nagisa at the school gate for the festival, but he gets a phone call first from his boss saying that Yuusuke is back at the site from the previous night because of a mistake he found. This leads to Tomoya running all the way there and apologizing for not doing the job properly. Yuusuke blames himself for not finding the mistake and urges Tomoya to go meet with Nagisa, but Tomoya insists on taking responsibility and helping fix the problem. The two don’t finish until much later, and Tomoya doesn’t arrive at the festival until it’s already over that evening. He finds Nagisa still waiting for him at the gate, and instead of being angry, she’s very understanding about his job and offers him some grilled corn.

The next morning, Tomoya finds out that everyone at the office had heard about him missing his date with his girlfriend and working instead. No one is angry about the mistake he made, and Yuusuke explains that what’s important is how a person makes up for a mistake. He points out that Tomoya did his best and that the customer wasn’t bothered, so things are fine as long as Tomoya doesn’t repeat the mistake. Yuusuke notes that if Tomoya is feeling sorry, then he should follow up on any failures that the people who will be training under him some day will make. That – and love – is what Yuusuke declares is Tomoya’s job. As everyone then gets ready to go out on the job, the boss hands Tomoya a permanent name plate for the board that denotes who’s at work, and Tomoya hangs it up next to everyone else’s.

Preview

Considering all the disappointments that she has to go through this episode, the fact that Nagisa doesn’t appear to let it get her down for more than a moment and sticks with Tomoya through it all says a lot about her. I think that’s what they call true love and devotion. In fact, the two look like such a good couple together that they might as well be married (I assume that there’ll be some marriage scene in the future). Yuusuke also comes across as a really nice guy this episode, though a bit dorky toward the end with that love comment. He and Akio are probably going to be Tomoya’s lifelines if and when things ever get really tough.

For the most part, there’s nothing monumental happening right now in the story, and I doubt there will be for a few episodes as Tomoya (and Nagisa to an extent) grows into his adult life. It looks like from the preview for next week though that the two will at least get to spend more time together.

29 Comments

  1. Something thats been bugging me about the Work life arc so far…
    Show Spoiler ▼

    also (Read on if you dare) Show Spoiler ▼

    Overall though. I am glad we are progressing right along tracking Tomoyas growth as a man and re enforcing the family theme overall.

    Dan
  2. @ Dan: I was wondering the same thing about the living arrangements. Toning down their interactions because of the guff it generates just seems too ridiculous – But we Japanese are ridiculous ppl anyway, especially when it comes to censoring cartoons of all things 😀

    I also think they will take that route for the show’s end. Not only will that sort of ending fit Clannad perfectly, but it will give the poor chaps a chance to laugh, cry, & be ‘enlightened’ all at the same time. When was the last time was a show deep enough to do that…never. Now if only I could feel some of those emotions, but that’s just wishful thinking on my part 🙁

    Megas
  3. @Megas I could see that.
    For the record, Do ya live IN japan or are you a japanese expatriot?
    I ask because I’ll be goin to japan come july of 09 for the next 3 years.
    Seriously, I will have to say that Evangelion is deep as long as we are in agreement that the storyline closely mirrored the wall by pink floyd. Other than that, I would love to see an anime with some sort of depth to it.
    Needless to say, the key genre (plus Kana imouto) have more or less spoiled me when it comes to good deep storylines.

    God could you imagine Kana being animated?
    It would be a shit brix kind of day indeed.

    Dan
  4. I think this was an excellent episode and that served the purpose of showing Tomoya’s transition into adult hood and the hardships of work, as well as Tomoya’s own character development. He has become much more responsible and cares about the world around him and his impact on it. It’s a farcry from the pessimisstic bum just living every day for the heck of it at the start of episode one.

    I have a few minor compliants though, but it’s mostly game to anime related. Like how Nagisa and Tomoya have more intimate scenes in the game, where Tomoya’s struggles overcoming his handicap at work were shown more, and how Tomoya’s epic speech about why he had to take responsiblity for his mess up were removed. Overall I still think the anime did a great job.

    FlameStrike
  5. @Dan : I’m in the states now. I go back to Kanto (Tokyo & Saitama) from time to time for family crap & whatnot. I went back last year for 2 months & it was just so bloody expensive; poor wallet had way too many heart attacks.

    Evangelion is the poster child for a mindf**k. Too bad it didn’t make me laugh as much as this show – it would have been perfect.

    An animated Kana Imouto would probably even get my stoic self teary-eyed. I almost did with Air, but I had nothing it came to this & Kanon. Kana would have half of Otaku nation on suicide watch. Its fine for a game but I can’t imagine it being animated at all. I myself would mind it one bit.

    Megas
  6. I loved this episode, even as there’s nothing much happening at all in the storyline…

    It just gives me such a feeling of ease and tranquility, pity it won’t last forever…

    It certainly would be nice to have more intimate scenes between Nagisa and Tomoya. An animated Kana Imouto would be something to watch, wonder if that’ll ever happen.

  7. Oh god. There were so many places where something could’ve gone seriously wrong, but never did. Probably the worst thing that happened was that Tomoya missed the actual Founder’s Festival, but it wasn’t that important in the end. My heart was about to skip at countless moments.

    Gad I get so nervous easily.

    starss

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