On My Love of Key, and the Problem with Magical Illness
My first real meeting with Key and Kyoto Animation was watching Air when it was first released. I had been reading the webcomic Megatokyo, and the main character and author both were often mentioning their love of the previous Key game Kanon, as well as watching this show based on their newest game. I was intrigued and still new to the medium of visual novels, and gave it a watch.
Air very much suffered from being a long multi-route visual novel adapted to only 13 episodes. The last half felt rushed and confusing, and upon my first watch I had no certain grasp of what had truly happened when it was over. But it was the first anime of its kind that I watched, and together with the incredible animation from Kyoto Animation, it made a huge impact on me. I remember being quite stunned with it the evening when I watched the last episode. I had trouble sleeping, and even woke up during the night and couldn’t fall asleep again because I simply felt too sad, still thinking of that ending.
Air instantly became one of my new favourite things, and fostered a long love for both Key and Kyoto Animation. And yet, even from that first watching, it had one big issue that would forever bug me.
It was a trait that would continue to be part of their stories, and even was all the way back from Kanon. The “magical illness” = a strange ailment that a heroine suffers from, that doesn’t ever really get explained with a real world equivalent. In some stories like Air it is explained literally through magic, while in others the real nature of the illness is skirted around and mystified forever.
Though it still nagged at me, by the time I moved on to the rest of their stories, I was making my peace with it as it continued to show up. None of them had it in a way that bothered me as much as it did in Air, not until I very recently made it to Summer Pockets. And then it was there again, grating against the little immersion I had managed for the story.
The problem with Air and Summer Pockets was that the predicament the heroines found themselves in because their ailments were very close to my heart. I felt I knew them, that the description of their issues and the consequences thereof were so familiar and understood to me. I suppose some would call it, “to be seen”. My own pain in relation to these things were recognised and acknowledged with feeling, and it made me feel connected to these stories and characters so much more. Even though, in the end, I guess that wasn’t the intent.
Because then it turns out to just be magic. It’s not real. These kinds of ailments and consequences don’t really exist, unless you’re cursed or maybe just a ghost from somewhere. Now cry, because it’s very sad.
It was like watching someone get so close to speak about something real and important, and then lose their courage and throw it all on the floor at the very last second. It was disappointing.
In the case of Summer Pockets, it’s a game I was generally not impressed by. Recent Key just hasn’t “done it for me”, likely due to the change of authors – which maybe makes it even more bothersome. Just one route made me feel this connection and interest in the story once more, for a different reason than what Misuzu brought to the table, but it was again quickly tossed to the side for the sake of a supernatural solution that felt too similar to what they had already done before. The one thing that felt like it might set it apart was nothing at all. In the end, what was meant to be an emotional finale and catharsis felt lacking. It didn’t hit as hard as Air, but still left me with a big sigh.
I still love Air very much, and keep Misuzu and her predicament close to my heart. Her story is still good, magic and tropes and all, and I have my own personal connection to it that I try to keep in spite of how some of it is handled. For some, these are just sugary stories with big-eyed infantile girls meant to manipulate you into crying (and for the most part they’re right). To me, stepping so close to hit something real, they are more than that, in spite of their flaws.
Now, everyone remember to go play Little Busters, the best Key visual novel out there, in spite of the many pitfalls of its own. You can thank me later.
