Another World: Kyou Chapter

Another World: Kyou Chapter is the twenty-fifth episode of Clannad ~After Story~, an. This episode is set in an alternative world that is separate from the main timeline and was first released in Japan on July 1, 2009.

Plot
In one of the timelines (more akin to the Fujibayashi Twins' route in the visual novel), Ryou confesses her love to Tomoya and they both begin dating. At first, things go very well, however, Tomoya soon notices that Kyou has been acting strangely, and eventually he confronts her. Kyou at first acts as if nothing's is wrong but following an incident in the park, which led to rumours of her and Tomoya kissing spreads throughout the school she finally admits that she too is in love with him, but never confessed because she was too scared to risk being rejected or hurting Ryou's feelings.

This creates an uneasy love triangle among Tomoya, Kyou, and Ryou. Whilst Tomoya does his best to make things work out for all of them, and continues dating Ryou, he eventually realises that this cannot continue.

He turns to Sunohara for advice, and although his friend jokes around a bit, he agrees that it is not right to carry on like this. Sunohara tells Tomoya that deep down he already knows what he has to do: decide which twin he is really in love with! Although he sympathises with Tomoya's predicament and unease, Sunohara makes it clear that Tomoya is not going to come out of this situation cleanly. Either way - he will end up hurting one of the twins feelings!

After a heavy amount of soul-searching, Tomoya finally realises that he is in love with Kyou!

Shortly afterwards, he finds Ryou and very reluctantly breaks up with her. As he feared this breaks her heart and she runs off absolutely miserable. The following day, Ryou is absent from morning lessons, but in the afternoon Tomoya comes face-to-face with one of the twins and thinks that it is Ryou. In a heartfelt confession, he apologises for what he has done but admits that at the end of the day he is in love with her sister. However, it turns out that the person he has confessed to is Kyou who had cut her hair short like Ryou's.

It turns out that Ryou had actually realised Tomoya loved Kyou more than her, and when the two finally meet she encourages Kyou to work up the courage to confess. Ryou also breaks up with Tomoya with no hard feelings, telling him she had fun and wants to cherish both the good and painful memories they had together. Tomoya and Kyou then officially become a couple, and are shown walking along a road together, with Kyou taking the opportunity to kiss Tomoya.

Major events

 * Tomoya and Ryou become a couple, but eventually, break up.
 * Tomoya and Kyou become a couple.
 * Kyou and Ryou's feelings about Tomoya become obvious.

Appearances

 * Ryou Fujibayashi
 * Tomoya Okazaki
 * Kyou Fujibayashi
 * Youhei Sunohara
 * Botan

Trivia

 * Together with Another World: Tomoyo Chapter, Kyou Chapter forms one of the only episodes where Nagisa is not mentioned or shown.
 * Likewise, the other girls in the series (Tomoyo, Kotomi, Fuko, Yukine etc.) are not seen or mentioned.
 * This episode is one of the most cut-down episodes of the entire series that was based on Clannad's VN. It's based on the events of Kyou's route, yet approximately 75% of the events that were there aren't shown in the anime. Even more, in the OVA Tomoya appears to just date Ryou so both she and Kyou will be happy about that while in the visual novel he actually enjoyed dating Ryou until he started to understand his true feelings.
 * This episode was the only one throughout the entire anime franchise in which two of the main characters were shown kissing (Tomoya and Kyou).
 * This episode is billed as the 24th episode on the DVD Boxset.