story

plot

settings and themes

Story

Tomoya Okazaki is a third year high school student who dislikes his life. However, Tomoya finds that his life is about to change when he meets Nagisa. Tomoya's mother Atsuko died when Tomoya was young, leaving his father Naoyuki to raise him. After the accident, Tomoya's father turned to alcohol and gambling, and held frequent fights with his son. One day, Naoyuki, again arguing with his son, slammed Tomoya against the wall, dislocating Tomoya's shoulder. Ever since then, his father has treated Tomoya nicely, but distantly, as if Tomoya and he were strangers rather than a family. This hurts Tomoya more than his previous relationship with his father, and the awkwardness of returning home leads Tomoya constantly to stay out all night. Additionally, the injury disables Tomoya from participating in his basketball club, and pushes him to distance himself from his school and other activities. Thus his delinquent life begins.

Tomoya's psychology is further developed in his dreams of a bleak world. In the first few dreams of that kind, he sees a world which is devoid of all people except for this one girl, whom is never shown but is spoken of. Each time he dreams he finds out more about the world. Later on, Tomoya finds out that the girl has a special ability to fuse junks together to create new things, with which she creates a body for him. Thus he is reborn in this world, and fills time following the girl around. Tomoya conceives that only the two of them are "alive".

To pass time, Tomoya and the girl try to build another doll with more junk they find, but as it has no soul, it fails to come to life. Eventually, winter sets in, and the girl becomes cold to the point where she cannot move any more. Remembering a distant world where he came from, Tomoya convinces the girl to build a ship so that the two can escape the winter and continue a happy life. However, their flight is doomed to meet tragedy.