Nagisa Furukawa

Nagisa Okazaki, née Furukawa , is one of the main heroines of Clannad. She is the daughter of Akio Furukawa and Sanae Furukawa. Tomoya Okazaki throughout the Clannad manga and anime. Nagisa becomes an even greater force in the anime in the ~After Story~ arc, culminating in her marriage to Tomoya and the birth of their only daughter, Ushio Okazaki.

Nagisa's signature theme is a song named Nagisa, after her, from which various songs such as Dango Daikazoku, Small Palms, and Nagisa: Parting at the Foot of the Hill are derived.

Appearance
Nagisa is a cute olive-skinned girl with short wavy red hair that reaches a little below her shoulders, big and downward-slanting amber eyes and she has a frail physique as noted by Tomoya Okazaki, therefore she is petite for her age, due to her poor health and weak immune system.

She also has two prominent ahoge sticking out on top of her head. The two ahoges resemble the letter 'M', and she inherited that physical trait from both of her parents (Akio Furukawa and Sanae Furukawa).

She usually wears the Hikarizaka Private High School uniform, but her casual attire is light and girly.

She wears 2 red clips at both sides of her head. Nagisa usually leaves her hair down, but she ties it more frequently into a ponytail or a bun during the After Story arc.

She blushes a lot and she is noted to be very cute even though she denies it wholeheartedly.

Personality
Nagisa is a shy girl who is always kind and sweet towards others, even going out of her way to assist a stranger to a fault. She is selfless and self-depreciating as she thinks lowly of herself and values other people’s happiness more than her own. Nagisa is naive and optimistic, as she always sees the good in everyone. In After Story, she is noted to be smart and diligent by the manager of the restaurant she is working in.

Like her mother, she is very sensitive and feels insulted easily. Nagisa is earnest, disliking jokes and pranks.

At times, she can be confident though, like her determination in starting the drama club. Especially after meeting Tomoya Okazaki and other friends, she grows more stronger, even to the point of somewhat bossing Tomoya around.

Nagisa is seen as a strange girl by her peers, having a habit of motivating herself by muttering the names of food that she plans to eat. Her favorite foods are anpan, a type of sweet bean bread, and pork cutlet (which is Kyou Fujibayashi's best course).

Despite her introverted personality, she is hyper and energetic. Nagisa is bubbly and cheerful, especially since she is very fond and passionate of the Great Dango Family. She also loudly sings the theme song all the time, providing some comic relief. But she is also embarrassed a lot so she tends to talk to a lot to fill in conversations, however, usually with meaningless chatter that makes no sense.

Nagisa always speaks politely as she calls people by honorifics. She always ends her sentences with "desu", which can be considered as her verbal tic. Nagisa is a girly girl and speaks in a high-pitched voice, the highest of all characters.

Although Nagisa is airheaded, she is perceptive of other people's thoughts and feelings. Nagisa is thoughtful and catches on to how people feel and the situation that causes them to be the way they are.

Because of her cute and childish demeanor, she sticks out like a sore thumb, attracting the attention of strangers, including bullies and several male customers.

Biography
Nagisa is in her third year throughout the time she is depicted attending the Hikarizaka Private High School.

Due to an illness which lasted nine months, she was forced to repeat her final year of high school; as such, she is a year older than her classmates, including Tomoya Okazaki.

Her poor health continues to serve as a major plot catalyst throughout Clannad, and it is revealed that she has periodically suffered long bouts of illness since the age of five.

Although she has no memory of the incidents, Nagisa nearly died as a child due to her parents' unintended negligence; their preoccupation with their careers prevented Akio Furukawa and Sanae Furukawa from caring for her properly during her illness.

Nagisa's life was spared, however, after Akio begged for her to become healthy again.

Clannad
Nagisa is the central heroine of Clannad.

She is introduced at the beginning of the first episode of the Clannad anime,, wherein she meets Tomoya Okazaki on a long hill path in front of the school, and she is also the first character to speak in the anime. In the visual novel, Tomoya quietly voices his thoughts out before he meets her, when we are introduced to her strange habit of motivating herself by muttering the names of food that she plans to eat.

In the anime, her introductory monologue begins with the name of her favorite food, anpan, while in the VN she starts asking herself whether she likes this school and whether she'll be able to like it if all funny and happy things are gone.

She also displays a great liking for the Great Dango Family, a commercial, cultural mascot and fad. Nagisa lives with her close-knit family in the residential quarters of Furukawa Bread, her parents' business.

Throughout the first storyline of Clannad, we are slowly introduced to new aspects of Nagisa's character; she does not have much self-confidence, and her insecurity requires her to seek help in order to motivate herself through the day.

Nagisa desires to join the Drama Club; however, the Club was disbanded the previous year when all the members graduated, and no new students showed interest. Having discovered this, she and Tomoya work to reestablish the Club. In, Nagisa and Tomoya discover that they cannot advertise to recruit new members, having missed the deadline to do so.

In order to establish an officially-recognized club, they find they need at least three members, as well as a teacher to act as club advisor. The only available teacher is Toshio Koumura, who asks them to discuss their plans with the Choir Club, to whom he has already pledged his support as advisor.

The members of the Choir Club tell Nagisa about Rie Nishina, a member of the Choir Club who used to be a very good violin player, but she is now unable to play due to an accident. After listening to Rie's story, Nagisa abandons her dreams of reestablishing the Drama Club, believing the Choir Club to be in greater need of Koumura as an advisor.

Youhei Sunohara, a friend of Tomoya's, is furious about the story, and decides challenge the Basketball Team to a to show the Choir Club members that it is wrong of them to hide behind their handicap. His plan is a success and the Choir Club agrees to share Koumura with the reestablished Drama Club.

After Tomoya has a falling out with his father, Nagisa suggests Tomoya move into her house until things settle down and Tomoya agrees. Curious about a play Nagisa is working on, which bears a striking resemblance to the Illusionary World he has dreamt of, Tomoya seeks information about its story, leading him to learn the secrets behind Nagisa's illness. Nagisa, accidentally learning of her past, feels guilty about her role in forcing her parents to give up their dreams. During her performance in, Nagisa begins crying, forgetting to recite her lines. However, Akio Furukawa calls out to Nagisa through the hall, assuring her that she is not at fault and encouraging her to continue to follow her own dreams. Sanae Furukawa and Tomoya join in Akio's encouragement, and Nagisa successfully performs the play.

The following day, Tomoya confesses his love to Nagisa, in which she accepts his love and the two begin their relationship as a couple.

~After Story~
After enjoying some time with her friends and living a normal high school life, Nagisa succumbs to her sickness again in the ~After Story~ arc that she is forced to repeat her final school year for a third time.

She tries to reestablish the Drama Club once again, but does not succeed, lacking the great encouragement she received from Tomoya Okazaki while he was still a student. However, she manages to continue attending school every day, and dons a brave smile throughout the year.

When Tomoya leaves the bakery to move into his own apartment, Nagisa visits him almost every day and cooks meals for him, keeping him company. She is always seen encouraging him to do his work even if it means that she is left on her own, such as when she waits for him at the for over an hour.



When winter comes, Nagisa becomes ill once again, though not enough as to make her repeat her third year yet again. When her illness forces her absence at the graduation ceremony, Tomoya organizes a mock ceremony for her in. Soon after, she and Tomoya get married (which now makes her Nagisa Okazaki).

Along with Rie Nishina, Nagisa begins waitressing at a family restaurant. Nagisa becomes pregnant in that she and Tomoya decide to name their child Ushio Okazaki, borrowing the  of Nagisa's name.

In, Nagisa enters her final months of pregnancy and the strain on her body causes her to fall ill once more. Nevertheless, she perseveres and successfully gives birth to her daughter, Ushio; however, she dies shortly after childbirth. Ushio would suffer her fate and die of the same mysterious illness several years later.

Both Nagisa and Ushio are eventually resurrected when Tomoya wishes for a miracle to turn back time. Despite deciding to avoid his first meeting with Nagisa, in order to change their fate, he finds he cannot let Nagisa go, but by calling out to her again, he proves he doesn't regret meeting her and the delivery goes well, allowing both Nagisa and Ushio to survive.

Quotes
"Um, I think someone better for you will show up."

- Nagisa to Youhei Sunohara

Etymology

 * The name Nagisa means "beach, shore, water's edge" (渚).
 * Nagisa's surname Furukawa means "old, antiquity, ancient time" (古) (furu) and "river, stream" (河) (kawa).
 * Her married name Okazaki means "ridge, hill" (岡) (oka) and "cape, peninsula" (崎) (saki/zaki).

Trivia

 * Nagisa either has a verbal tic or speaks politely as she tends to end her sentences with "desu".


 * Nagisa resembles Sekai Saionji from School Days. Furthermore, according to 0verflow's official adultery chart, Sekai eventually has a child by Makoto Itou, who resembles Tomoya Okazaki.