So the backstory reveals Nagisa’s parents were both very busy business types. And that one night they couldn’t manage to get a babysitter, so they just left her, when she was like two or three years old, by herself that night while they went off to some important meeting or whatever.
Nagisa manages to get outside, confused as to why her parents just left her all alone, and nearly dies due to the cold temperature. She’s saved at a hospital but now has some vague disease for life as a result.
Her parents vow to be better, both quit their jobs, and start their own bakery so they can always be there for their daughter.
…….so yeah, I’m not sure how child services work in Japan, but in the US, that child would have been removed from their care insanely fast after nearly getting their child killed because “OMG, important business meeting!” So let’s just reflect that her parents should be grateful as fuck they still have custody.
Now, why hate Nagisa for this? Well, mind you, the characters have been working on this play the whole season. Kind of a big deal.
So when Nagisa discovers what happened to her as a child as she was too young then to remember it, she……proceeds to blame herself. She sees the moment where her stupid ass parents nearly got a toddler killed and concludes, “OMG, I’m awful, I ruined my parents’ dreams!”
After this idiotic interpretation of an event where two adults nearly causing a child to lose her life, she proceeds to later freak out on stage and nearly ruins the play everyone had worked so hard for. It takes her dad showing up and declaring that she is her parents’ true dream-
-that she finally grows a few brain cells and realizes blaming herself is stupid beyond belief.
But yeah, worse arc from that writer, even worse than some of the arcs in Air (though that was likely due to anime rushing the original visual novel arcs, Air having only 12 episodes compared to Kanon having 24 and Clannad having 48). Ruined the character for me, and couple that with her lack of chemistry with the male lead (seriously, they act like siblings more, it’s gross to think of them hooking up), I wasn’t touching Clannad After Story with a ten foot pole. Kyou and Tomoyo were the real MVP ladies of that show, and either would have been an actual good choice for the male lead to end up with.
