Kanon (visual novel)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Yuuichi goes beyond Deadpan Snarker to all-out Byronic Hero, and then there's Nayuki.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: Nayuki isn't despised per se, but being Yuuichi's cousin seems to have impaired her popularity as a romantic option outside of Japan itself, with some bloggers calling her "incest girl."
  • Non Sequitur Scene: The sex scenes in the original game suffer from this. They happen and then they're never mentioned again (beyond the screen immediately afterwards), even if the follow-up scene would warrant a mention. Particularly glaring in Shiori's and Ayu's scenarios, where one of the characters reminisces about everything they've done together and mentions everything except the sex. Makes it kind of easy to make the clean version, huh?
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Akiko Minase is quite popular with Western fans, to the point that some are surprised that she doesn't have her own route in the game. For proof, see the sheer amount of fan art starring her here: 1
  • Fan Nickname: Akiko Milfnase.
    • Kyuuichi, specifically for the 2006 anime's incarnation of Yuuichi.
    • Main Girl, Incest Girl, Sword Girl, Fox Girl and Sick Girl for the haremettes.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Nayuki; nothing's wrong with the Official Couple, but going with Nayuki could have saved the poor boy a lot of grief. Or not.
    • Some people are surprised that there aren't more Yuichi/Akiko shippers out there. In fact, they also found it surprising that Akiko doesn't have her own story path in the game.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: The first episode establishes Yuuichi's gadfly/troll nature by pretending to have forgotten Nayuki's name and teasing her, in response to her question of whether he remembered it after seven years of separation. We also had Nayuki's "Liar..." played for domestic comedy later in the same episode. Then Episode 22 comes, and we find out Nayuki's side of the scene: she was truly afraid that Yuuichi had forgotten her after seven years, and was dead serious when she asked him whether he remembered her name. In addition, her "Liar...", said in the midst of a Heroic BSOD, punches harder than before. Ouch.
    • On a smaller scale, there's Makoto's Verbal Tic, "auuu". It turns from cute to tragic once it becomes the only thing she can say.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While Kanon 06 is rather popular and beloved on the West, in Japan it seems to be all but forgotten entirely, seeing how it always performs like utter crap in popularity polls while its "siblings" AIR and Clannad do much better. Especially Clannad, which almost always wins "biggest Tear Jerker" and similar awards, something quite Egregious considering how much it owes to Kanon in the first place, so you'd expect people who likes one to like the other and vice versa. Seems not.
    • Also see their results on the original Saimoe: Air got one girl in the Top 8 and Clannad got several twice. Kanon? Mai made the Top 32 (THIRD round). That's it.
  • Hollywood Homely: Mai.
  • I Am Not Shazam: Ayu's name is not Kanon. The main character of that other series called Kanon linked at the top of the page is named Kanon, but Ayu is not.
  • Memetic Mutation: AM I KAWAII UGUU~?
  • Misblamed: Mai's aunt was the one who made her display her powers on the television show (and they wouldn't let her leave until they did), not her mother.
    • Actually, nothing was ever said about her aunt, nor was it stated that Mai was actually forced to exhibit her powers. For all we know from the flashbacks, she might have simply gone along with it without knowing what would have happened afterwards.
  • Moe Moe
  • Squick: It's bad enough that Yuichi has sex with Makoto after she begins losing her humanity (or even at all), but they also do it doggie-style.
  • Tear Jerker: The entire series, for starters.
  • Uncanny Valley: Their eyes are big even for anime standards.[1] Some finds this a bit unsettling than cute especially for newcomers to the series.

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  1. though these type of games do have the tendency for big eyed characters