Clannad

This show is an absolute disaster. The main character, Okazai, is incredibly bland, though still somewhat tolerable, as is Sunohara. Then there is Fuko, whose presence is nothing short of infuriating. Her voice, demeanor, and entire existence are exasperating beyond belief. However, the most detestable character of all is Nagisa. No words can fully capture the sheer hatred this character inspires. Feeble-minded, weak, and unbearably fragile, she is an insufferable presence. How anyone could possibly relate to or enjoy this character is incomprehensible. Her voice is grating, akin to nails on a chalkboard. Even her father’s sacrifice, abandoning his dreams of becoming an actor for her, elicits nothing but pity. It would have been better if she had never survived childhood. This character is utterly loathsome. Watching this show felt like pure torture, an experience akin to enduring the iron chair, agonizing, endless, and unbearable. The only reason to persist through such misery is the much-praised After Story, often described as one of the most heartbreaking anime experiences. Now it remains to be seen whether that reputation holds true.

I can already tell people are expecting a very trollish review but to me, this is my most unenjoyed and possibly most hated anime of all time. Lets just get into the review though shall we? Also this is for clannad not after story. after story was okay but I am treating it as its own thing. Story 2\10 I mean it was your normal slice of life anime but even for that the story was pretty bad. It never had a main girl besides attending school and for a slice of life, it made absolutely no sense since some paranormal stuff were happening like ghost girl in the first arc. Not the worst story but it was basically go to school and lets try to tug on your hear strings while being funny which ultimately felt more like watamote to me than comic relief. Worst part of all is that everything was predictable for me right down to the smallest detail not because I am good at that it just felt like where else would they go with that. There are other problems but that would contain spoilers so I will cap it right here. Art 2\10 Now its fine if you thought the art was good, but I have seen clannad fans acting like the art was perfect and from what I have heard "should be put in a museum". Now comparing this to other animes made from kyoko animation, it is definitely the worst product I have seen from them animation wise. I have no idea why eyes were too big but that is just one thing. My biggest problem was that it all felt choppy. For the year 2007, if felt like so many other animes either brought something new to the table when it came to animation or were simply better so for the year 2007 it just fell short. Sound 2\10 Now I do my research most of the time, but for this one thing I am about to say I did not. What I really disliked was the fact that they had one track play for about 25% of the time and it got really annoying to me. It was just unmemorable to me in general but at the end of the day its just music preferences. If you thought the music was better I understand why. Characters 1\10 Finally I get to be salty. The majority of characters were flat out trash\generic and I will go over all of them individually. Going to go in no particular order though Fuko Ibuki 1\10 every time she came up I just wanted to cringe. Throughout all episodes even after her arc she would appear for short periods of time with the same wooden starfish joke and it was just unfunny to eventually being cringey or I would flat want to skip it.Nothing really to that character besides a cheap trick to pull on your heart strings Nagisa 5\10 Nothing really wrong with her besides being the generic shy girl\sickly one. She had her good moments nothing really to say besides I wish every other character was more like her so I can give a better score Fujibayasha twins The two purple hair girls in short, one was generic shy one and the other one was basically your hey look I can beat up our mc a few times I am a generic tsundere Just generic dating sim girls but worse which makes sense since this was a VN before an anime. Sunoharah Basically your generic best friend comic relief who is a huge pervert and all girls hate him just the same old jokes for every upisode got very annoying. Kotomi 4\10 Her arc was the least painful thing to sit on and after that they toss her away. she was the quiet library girl typical generic shit you would think with a sad backstory. Not a bad character but nothing really special besides one thing I really liked. She was the only girl not thirsty for our MC 100 percent of the time. I liked how she needed to be worked for and even than she likes him like every other girl but she is not slobbering all over him. Tomoya 1\10 I can say I enjoyed this character the second least. Generic hey I can beat up everyone in the school and 1v50 rival gangs but inside I feel insecure. Just horrible character throughout everything. Tomoya 1\10 Our main MC oh yea in a nutshell generic MC of any harem like anime with the hey look I am depressed. Nothing stands out with him and his backstory is nothing really but does explain how he became a delinquent. Overall I just could not like most of the cast they all did not ever feel important to me. Final judgment 1\10 First off even if you put this review as not helpful or hate em general since clannad fans a bit unrational at times. I like animes like this I usaully give most slice of lifes a 4-7 rating or if it has lots of emotion like anohana, or your lie in april, I give them very high scores 8-10. Point of all that was showing that its not because I dislike animes like this its just this particular anime I will never get why its popular. I believe just a theory here but it was good for its time and characters like that fit the bill for that time. I see most people who watch clannad now of days really hate it or simply could not get through it which I had the same problem but eventually did. Mostt fans are people who grew up with clannad so maybe its a generation thing and for some reason even though I watched it maybe 09 or something I just simply hated it.

There are many types of anime, though you can generalise them in being either fulfilling your expectations, or not. However, every so often, there is an exception of a unique anime which is by far superior though you never expected it to be. The latter defineately describes clannad. I started with no expectations from clannad, but it turned out to be one of the best anime I have ever seen, if not the best. Story: 10/10 On the outside it seems to be the ordinary slice of life drama - ordinary boy meets many girls, helps them, and in the end benefits too (not to forget the touch of harem). But clannad is different in that it pulls on your heartstrings, making you go through every emotion: you cry, you laugh. You smile with pride, frown with dismay. The best aspect of it was the comedy, which was perfectly executed and the humour was intelligent and witty. Every story arc you can easily understand and relate to, and each one is unique and spectacular. The main storyline is also just as good, with some mysterious aspects (there is a parallel little story about a little girl all alone in the world with a robot). I liked the fact that the story wasn't all centred around the main character, but it portrays many different storylines in which our main protagonists just happens to be there to help. Art: 9.5/10 I found the art very soothing and beautiful to watch, it used soft colours and textures which portray the scenes and emotions well. The designs of the characters were also unique to each individual, and you enjoy watching them. Sound: 9/10 The opening of the series I never grew to like, though the ending song 'dango' was extremely cute. The other music used throughout the series however, was exceptional. It flowed with the mood of the scenes perfectly and even to listen to it by itself is enjoyable. Character: 9.5/10 The characters in clannad were very well developed, you are able to gradually build a detailed picture for each one and understand their personalities; almost at a personal level. Every character has a warm feel, and you have a wonderful time in their company. I especially liked the main protagonist, Tomoya, he has a very direct and witty personality which anyone would instantly love, and is the centre of conducting all the comedy scenes. As the story progresses, you learn more about him and start to understand and relate to him more. Enjoyment: 10/10 I enjoyed every second of this anime - it was done perfectly in every aspect, but I especially enjoyed the comedy aspects to it which were hilarious. It had the correct balance of everything you would want in a slice of life drama. I can guarentee whoever you are, and whatever anime you may like, you will at least enjoy parts of this anime. I'm sorry if this review is rubbish, it's hard to describe something which is so good that its indescribable. To understand it, you can really only experience it for yourself. I strongely recommend clannad, you will not regret it.

I swear, it's criminal how CLANNAD has been shortchanged so horribly by the polarity of the opinions of the people who watched it. For good or bad. STORY: The premise is less than ordinary, though understandable, considering this started out as a visual novel (read: harem). KyoAni has done a decent job on adapting the game paths into one coherent story, but there are a couple of significant errors. 1. Fuuko path. Dragged wayyyy long. The BAW atmosphere was beautiful, but when you try and stretch it over 7 episodes (and sacrificing the time for the other characters' arcs) it becomes a chore. It becomes worse when you're crying and yawning at the same time. 2. The other arcs. Thanks to Fuukodrag, all the other characters had to suffer from big reductions to their paths. Kyou and Ryou, and Kotomi to a lesser extent, all suffered from this, such that Kyou and Ryou's arcs seemed almost like an afterthought. 3. Inconsistency in tone. As a result of the two factors above, we went from long-drawn, depressing BAAAAAW to rushed, wow-that-was-fast. Which was really jarring. ART KyoAni, for all its reputation on its production value, showed a lack of consistency for this anime on one thing. The one flaw that jumps out at me - the mouths are almost always differently positioned between episodes. And at certain moments, it looked almost as if their chins took up the entire lower portion of their faces. A big part of it is undoubtedly due to the unfortunate placing of the mouth right in the middle of the face in the visual novel (lol Key), but then I'd have expected KyoAni to get their animators to stick to the same position. The art and quality is otherwise fine, and the animation is top-notch. SOUND Simple, and generally well-matched, if underwhelming. A lot of it is lifted straight from the visual novel, and I find most to be unimpressive, except for the ones in the Fuuko arc. The ED was beautiful though. CHARACTER I mentioned earlier that they dragged out Fuuko's arc too long. This has another consequence - some of the characters are not well-developed. Kyou and Ryou had potential, but their arcs were too short. Also, the girl-by-girl order the KyoAni decided to go with caused another problem - girls that were all the focus the previous arc would simply almost disappear from the story from then on. Again it's understandable, but its still something that (with the exception of Fuuko which needed no workaround) wasn't resolved. What KyoAni did do right, however, they did very well. Fuuko was so endearing and the developments so heart-tugging that it left a deep impression on me for a long time. And Kotomi, despite the shorter arc length, was similarly well developed, and so was Nagisa, the main girl. Even Sunohara, the side guy, got in a bit of development. Which is commendable, considering that their characters are all rather cliched, and typical. Which again, is all due to the source material. ENJOYMENT I wouldn't lie, I enjoyed it mostly. The BAAAAAW moments, and the trademark KyoAni humour injections, done to perfection, were great. However, many times I found myself wondering when the episode would end. Major markdown. OVERALL Decent, but one can't help but feel that KyoAni could have planned the pacing much better. Plus, it doesn't help being too faithful to a source material which is not adaptation-friendly. Though I guess this couldn't be helped, considering this is what KyoAni is known for, and it's an image they want to keep.

While I usually find writing something about anything hard I think I can make an exception for this show. Before Clannad, I had only watched action anime (most with a little romance involved) but this was my first venture outside of the genre and I'm glad I did it although it was never intended. After exhausting pretty much every reputable action series I decided to give another genre a shot. Every site I went to mentioned this series so I decided to give it a try. From the first two episodes I could tell it was different from anything, as many have described it as "poetry" and I completely agree. Even as I write this i look back on how much the series moved me and genuinely inspired me to be a better person. The main character, Tomoya, shares many of the same characteristics as most males in the center of harems. He seems oblivious, undesirable, not wanting a relationship of any sort and yet he has several to choose from. However, the 'hero', if you will is not as oblivious as he appears at first recognizing each of the girls' feelings while not allowing his preferred relationship to try and interfere with their's. While I only gave it a 9 (the art seems outdated for 2015 but its not really an issue) this is truly the greatest series I've ever watched as it pulled me along an emotional journey of many real-life situations and I can't wait to watch After Story.

Clannad, a series that is top of the slice of life genre but does it deserve to be there? Short answer no. Clannad is a series with an incredible loyal fanbase from both Kyoani and Key, this fanbase is the key to the ridiculously high rating this anime obtains. Before I get started I want to break down this review into a short sentence, the first series "Clannad" (not after story) is overrated due to everyone's reaction to the second season, people mindlessly give this anime a 10 because they rated after they had watched both series rather than prior to watching After Story. Story 5/10 This is one thing I want to clarify to all anime watches, it is nearly impossible to have a 10/10 story in a slice of life anime. This is the story of the life of Tomoya Okazaki as he goes through a semster of highschool. Like in any slice of life he comes across hurdles in order to get to point where we see the joys of his life. It's meh, the same formula rehashed. Characters 6/10 This is where slice of life is strong and clannad, for the most part, lacks a strong cast of characters. Disregarding Tomoya and Nagisa, we are left with a plane group of teenagers with our rehashes of key's prior works. The only shining characters outside of the main cast are the parents of Nagisa who make for a nice change. Music 8/10 It's Kyoani, the one thing they are known for is music and animation, in this anime they did not disappoint, especially in the music department. Animation 7/10 Very Simple, honestly wasn't the greatest thing of it's time but there were many beautiful scenes in the anime which is why I gave it that scores. Overall 5/10 I believe Clannad is a work that, once again, has been ruined by Kyoto Animation, it had the possibilities but it was poorly executed. This anime is meant for people who are impulsive, who like to emote, not for someone who rationally thinks about things eg strength of plot/characters and I believe the scores that Clannad gets are reflective of the childish fanbase that this anime has accumulated. At the end of the day music and animation don't make an anime amazing, it's the plot and characters which make us think that truly make the anime great.

As I read through these reviews, I become more and more convinced that the people writing them are confusing this show with Afterstory. Yes, Afterstory very rightfully has a special place in most of our hearts for being a compelling and emotional ride (starting from episode 8). However, this review is not about Afterstory- it's about Clannad. For all of it's amazing reviews, season 1 of Clannad is a piece of work so overwhelmingly cookie-cutter that it may in fact be the most overrated romance story of all time. First, let me discuss what I liked about Clannad. Comedy is undeniably the best feature in this otherwise lackluster show. The comedic moments were scattered throughout the series, and were generally centered around either the MC liking to mess with people, the MCs sidekick friend doing something stupid, and Nagisa's dad being Nagisa's dad. Any scene with Nagisa's dad (Akio) is automatically gold, and that's a fact. Overall, the comedic antics in this show helped bring life to the otherwise stale and overplayed plot. Now let's get to the plot. The plot of the show feels like a poorly paced adaptation of a bland, generic harem visual novel. Look! The MC is a delinquent and nobody likes him. Except for the girls who keep showing up in his life and inexplicably falling for him. I wonder which one he will choose! Aside from there being nothing original nor interesting about any of the characters (except Akio), the entire story itself is weak and poorly paced, attempting to develop the girls in his harem but ultimately rushing through development and not even attempting to explain why most of these girls like him. I cannot begin to count how many times I rolled my eyes at this series, especially during the second half. The anime had spent so much time attempting to give backstories to side characters that it completely neglected the arguably most important girl until about episode 20. Until then she can literally be characterized as "she's there in the background somewhere". And that's where my other main issue with Clannad is - the character motivations don't make sense. People tell me that things are explained better in the visual novel, but this isn't the visual novel. I should be able to understand why a character feels a certain way about another character after watching 23 episodes of a show, especially when those feelings are the entire premise to Afterstory. And yet, due to poor (or nonexistent) character development and pacing, I find myself having a hard time believing any of the feelings that these characters have towards one another, causing their actions to make little sense. Viewers have to so boldly suspend their disbelief just to accept things that should be second nature to any well-written show. To summarize, Clannad is absolutely nothing special. The only reason this show is ranked so high is because season 1 rides on the coattails of the success and acclaim of Afterstory. However, the show isn't outright terrible. It may be cliche and underwhelming, but it certainly could have been worse in many aspects. The primary reason I write this review is because of how grossly overrated Clannad is. The best way to see this show is as a necessary evil to those who want to watch Afterstory. Attempting to get more out of this show than that will leave you dissatisfied. Side note - for those who want to watch Afterstory, I recommend watching the recap episode of season 1 and then starting Afterstory at episode 8. I guarantee that you will not miss anything.

Our society nowadays has the habit of trivializing High School romance. I lay blame at the feet of the Disney movies, putting unrealistic expectations into the heads of young children. Years later when they have a legitimate crush, they equate it to love in just three weeks. The rest of us are just nodding along with small smiles, silently counting down the days until reality hits them on the head with a baseball bat. Is that a slight hyperbole? Yeah, probably. But it still holds true that we view teenage relationships with a bit of apprehension. It is odd then that the most popular (and most praised) romance anime takes place in high school. I'm going to be honest, I have no clue why this anime is viewed with such reverence. Clannad and it's sequel series Clannad After Story are by far and away viewed as the pinnacle of their genre. While most of the praise is reserved for the sequel series, Clannad itself has many rabid fans waiting to pounce and explain why it is worthy of such praise and devotion. I'm here to provide an alternate perspective, I don't think this is one of the most emotionally compelling anime there is. In fact, I found the romance of this anime to be the show's greatest hindrance (I will elaborate on that shortly, don't discount me just yet, save that for later). Oh, and one more thing to mention, this show is a harem. BOOM, take it fans! Fuck your painfully biased opinions, allow my foot to make contact with your ass and send you flying into a large target with CLANNAD'S A HAREM painted in the center. Yes, Clannad's a harem. That being said, it is vastly different from the general thoughts applied to that genre. This show has more emotion attached, the main character doesn't get a "harem ending", and there aren't as many accidental sexual situations for the main character to get slapped. But it is still a harem. To quote the synopsis, *AHEM* "Claiming he has nothing better to do, he decides to help her achieve this goal along with the help of four other girls." One guy (most of the time) and four girls. Accept the truth people, accept the truth. Anyways, onto the meat of the review: Story: 5 Let me make one thing clear, Clannad's story and premise deserve better than a 5. The reason the score loses so many points is due to the execution. Clannad was my first foray into an adaptation of a romance visual novel. Prior to starting the series I expected genuine wonderment as to which girl the main character would end up with. Unfortunately that expectation was brutally murdered in the first few minutes as we met the main heroine (only heroine, if we're being entirely honest) of the story. If you have a brain you can immediately predict the ending of Clannad, it is so obvious you almost second guess yourself thinking it couldn't possibly be that obvious. That itself is not an issue. The issue arises when this show introduces other heroines and their feelings expecting us to latch onto the belief that these girls stand a chance. All of the other characters had their stories and problems that were explored, and they really weren't bad, but I had to question their existence in this story. What was the point? Why introduce these characters and their stories? We all know that the main heroine is going to emerge the victor per se; so why not focus on her and the main character and their lives/friends rather then introducing pointless love rivals? Having more than one love interest can certainly be an interesting plot point, but this anime fails in execution completely as we meet a girl, say hi, help her out, before saying goodbye and returning to the main heroine. Said girl then becomes a very obvious side-character and is scarcely mentioned again. This show is ultimately a character driven show, and the story should have focused on them more as a collective rather than honing in on the romance between only two... Art: 7 The animation is pretty solid. It was easy on the eyes with a nice, and bright color palette. Overall it is nothing to write home about, but I have nothing negative to say. The character designs are exceedingly moe. I still don't even know how to define that word, but these characters are all cute and adorable blobs of moe. Whether you like the character designs or not is entirely based on one's own tastes. Some people cannot stand seeing these older characters with cute childlike faces, an understandable perspective. Others love those designs, and others (like myself) just don't care. Sound: 7 The OST does its job. When watching this show whatever track is playing will undoubtedly compliment the scene. But I'll be honest, I don't recall a single track from this entire anime. The voice acting for this anime is hit or miss. To compliment the moe aspect of the animation, the voices of certain characters will sound exceedingly childlike. This touches back to that idea of personal preference, some will like this, others will not. Now granted, that is just the sub, but the dub is most definitely something I would not recommend. The dub has the opposite issue of the sub, so that many of the voices sound like they belong to people 5-10 years older than high school. The acting in the dub certainly isn't bad, but it just feels wrong. Character: 8 On first appearance most of these characters can be filed into some sort of cliche. The nice one, the delinquent, the tsundere, the class president, the naive one, the eccentric, and finally the perverted best friend. So with a bunch of cliches why am I giving a score of 8? The answer is that nearly every character in this show receives excellent development. Even minor characters aren't left stagnant. Tomoya Okazaki- The main character of this show. He is introduced as a school delinquent with a dour disposition. He is a pretty solid character. Avoiding spoiler territory, he has a fairly sad history and his demeanor towards life is understandable knowing that. He is fairly sarcastic at times and was by and large a good character. Nagisa Furukawa- Ugh, here we have the main heroine of the story. Ya know, I don't dislike Nagisa. It is nigh impossible to dislike this girl. She is the cliche nice girl I spoke of earlier. She is also a character I feel doesn't get a ton of development. Sure she also has a history, but she is forever the sweet nice girl. For a character that is really the second main character, I found this to be extremely disappointing. There is a line in the sequel series in which the main character thinks to himself that Nagisa is one in a million. My thoughts on the matter were akin to "Umm, not really. I can think of a dozen other nice girls that could fill her role almost to a tee." Many would vehemently disagree with me, saying Nagisa is an awesome character with incredible development. Really though, Nagisa's "development" comes from her parents. She is the only character who's family is really shown, and she benefits from it greatly. Her parents are both very solid characters, Akio and Sanae Furukawa are both good characters, and they provide a backdrop for people to like Nagisa. If you had given any of the other heroines half as much screen time as Nagisa they would've been far better characters. Kyou Fujibayashi- The tsundere. The end. No, not really. Kyou initially appears as no more than your average tsundere, but develops far beyond that. Kyou is my personal favorite character in this show. Her relationship with Tomoya is extremely funny to watch as they have a constant back-and-forth friendship. She is also very devoted to assisting her sister in her relationship endeavors with Tomoya, a very good sister, actually. Kotomi Ichinose- The genius girl that is naivety personified. She also has a good history and it becomes apparent thanks to spoilers I will not be mentioning. Tomoyo Sakagami- The class president. Ok, not yet, class president is one of her goals though. She is also an impossibly good fighter capable of reaching 1000 hit combos that the show …

*Re-upload as the first review was pretty bad to be honest* *This is just a review of Clannad and does not take into account any of the events which occur in After Story* Clannad is a series that I never believed that I would watch due to my particular tendency to watch more action orientated anime. So when a friend of mine forced me to watch it I wasn't expecting to continue it. So lo and behold I am here having watched the whole series within the space of three days, something I thought I would never do, writing this review. So without further ado let us commence. Story- 7.0 The story of Clannad revolves around a slacker by the name of Tomoya Okazaki and his interactions with multiple girls within his high school. There are several arcs, each of which focuses on one of the girls but the overall story focuses on the rebuilding of the discontinued drama club. The overall plot of the show is somewhat forgettable but the arcs themselves are good. In particular the first arc was brilliant, mixing comedy with emotion to the point where I was laughing in one scene and tearing up in the next. Subsequent arcs stuck to the same formula but did not reach the heights of the first arc but were good none the less. Also the pacing can be quite slow at some points and is definitely off-putting. Overall the story was enjoyable to watch and is very good at points but is nothing tremendously special. Art- 9 Kyoto Animation really knows their strengths when it comes to animation. Get a bunch of cute girls, give them eyes the size of half of their face to make them cuter and Walla we have ourselves a money making machine. Anyway back to the animation. The quality, as per usual, is very high and remains in accordance with the high production values of Kyoto Ani. The characters movements are fluid and the colours and backgrounds are vivid and bright. The character details are great but it is the character designs themselves which is the thing I have a problem with. This is due to there being three characters with a different shade of purple differing them and another 2 characters having slightly different facial features that differ between them. This is more a problem due to source material rather than the animators themselves but come on you can do better Kyoto Ani. So they did. All throughout Clannad there are scenes from a different dimension. These scenes are some of the best that I have ever seen. They were beautifully executed; the character movements were almost life like, the detail put into each scene is extraordinary and the ambient lighting always fits the mood exquisitely. Sound 7.35 (Soundtrack-8.7 and Voice Acting-6.2) The soundtrack in this anime will have you reminiscing about the scenes that certain tracks accompany. The tracks are very well composed and match the scenes, moods and atmosphere exquisitely. Also the ending is very cute and catchy and plays a major role in After Story. The gripes I have with this soundtrack is that, for all the very good pieces there are, there is no piece that I have found to be special. This is one of the few anime that I have watched in both English Dub and the original Japanese. Overall I cannot comment on the Japanese as I do not understand the language (unfortunately) but I can feel the emotion which is put into the voices of each character. The English Dub, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter on its own. When I watched the first episode of the English Dub I felt that it was quite a jarring experience. However, by the end of episode 3 I had become accustomed to English voices and by episode 7 I had become reasonably attached to them. The quality of acting throughout was good and I felt the emotion pouring through the characters.In particular praise should be given to David Matranga and Andrew Love who voiced Tomoya and Akio respectively. It was mainly due to the way in which these two characters were portrayed that I liked them so much. However even with the quality of the voices the script produced for this anime was far inferior to the original Japanese Dub. On the whole it was only a couple of voices that irked me but nothing major and it was quite enjoyable to listen to, albeit with some shoddy writing at times. Character- 7.5 This is the main driving force behind Clannad and if this had failed the whole anime would be worthless. Thankfully they did not fail and became the pillars that the series relies upon. All the characters fit into a stereotype and many fit into one, *cough* moe *cough*, but all of them undergo character development to some extent. It is the attention to detail that I like watching in this anime as no one character is ignored. Each character, apart from Ryou, has a depth and a personality about them which makes the viewing experience more enjoyable.This is especially present in Tomoya. His is a character which is similar to many other characters in anime but I feel that he stands out among the crowd for being eerily relate-able. My qualms come in the form of the main female lead Nagisa who I felt was kind of un-interesting in comparison with some of the other female characters such as Kyou, Kotomi and Tomoyo. But on the whole there is not a whole lot to complain about and the characters are nicely fleshed out and developed, albeit a little bland at times Enjoyment-6.6 I did like the series as a whole and was an enjoyable experience but it was mainly the melodrama throughout the series which kept nagging at me and reduce the overall immersion that I had. At times it enthralled me but other times I found it to be quite boring and it was this inconsistency which drops my enjoyment down quite a lot. Overall- 7.49 This is a very good anime on the whole, excelling in the animation and soundtrack elements and has some very good characters, albeit a bit bland at times. If you like a romantic anime with some slight harem influences then this will fit you fine however be warned that the anime is rather slow at points and does rely on some melodrama from time to time to try and stimulate your tear ducts. Like I said at the top none of this review takes into consideration any of the events of After Story. I hope that you found the review helpful and any feedback would be greatly appreciated =D

Recommendation: Clannad is not your typical slice of life anime. It boasts in a quality plot with an emphasis on the relationships between the characters. This never felt like a harem and has little to no fan service. There are many hilarious moments but equally as many tragic moments. A tissue box is also recommended. If you want a straight up slice of life that seems real, relatable and mature, this is for you. If you want a go happy on rails anime, this isn’t your best choice but I’m not stopping you. Clannad’s premise tells the tale of Tomoya Okazaki, a 3rd year student at Hikarizaka Private High School. Despite being at the school for three years, he hasn’t befriended much people and has earner the title of a delinquent, being late many times and skipping classes. His only friend is Youhei Sunohara, a fellow delinquent and class clown. One day on the way to school Tomoya met a girl (Nagisa Furukawa) at the bottom of the hill; speaking about how happy moments don’t last. Whether this is a destined meeting or not, Tomoya’s life is about to change. A new transfer student aiming to become student president, a silent girl hidden amongst knowledge, a weird cherry girl with a starfish, and more embracing friendships with his current friends. Clannad primarily focuses of Tomoya’s interactions with his friend, their relationship with him and his personal growth. One of the biggest strengths of the anime is its ability to tell a story, and boy what a story. The over-arching plot follows Tomoya and Nagisa’s attempt to act out a play. The plot focuses on Tomoya’s evolving relationship with Nagisa, and also on the other relationships between him and the other characters. The plot itself is very consistent with barley any plot holes and only minor problems with pacing. The story plays with emotions constantly and becomes a rollercoaster of emotions. This is the typical method Key adopts to keep players interested in the game and characters. The moment you meet a character it becomes light hearted and humorous then the next moment it gets serious and sometimes tragic. For the most part the anime keeps its humorous aspect and sometimes you question how after some heavy plot twist and you are still able to laugh off to some stupid action by Youhei. It somehow manages to still give you a laugh throughout the entire series it is the experiences that are shared between the characters that build on upon the plot and the overall theme. One of the biggest differences from previous Key adaptations is that Clannad is a much more mature story with more mature and complex characters. The tragedies that unfold are indeed mature, and for that I think it is a much better plot. The mature themes further develop a much deeper story and this too creates a more relatable experience and a highlighted personal response. It does at times get inspirational since many of these problems are relatable. I guess since it tackles more mature themes, such as death and self-blame, it becomes a much better anime for it. It’s just that there is so much that makes the characters human and the interactions between them much more interesting and real. The anime is split up into multiple arcs, which primarily focuses on one specific character. The arc builds up the characters, indulging in the backstory of the character and their evolving relationship with Tomoya. There have been a few consistencies with the arc lengths, some only lasting a measly few episodes and one lasting about seven. Of course pacing should be an issue when adapting a visual novel, since there is so much to cover within a limited frame, but Kyoto Animation- Kyoani for short- has done a good job trying to pace well. Though there are those small issues with the arc lengths, since the shorter arcs mean less development for that character and their importance to the overall plot may seem misplaced. The anime may have a somewhat slower start in its first arc but it is just as effective as the other arcs. Each arc places much empathises on each of the main characters whom play a big role in the overall plot of helping Nagisa in performing her play. With the relationships being so important, having distinct and interesting character is a must need. Character development is one of the story’s most important aspects. Thankfully, all the characters are unique and have characteristics of all shapes and sizes. Tomoya himself is not the usual delinquent, usually speaks in a somewhat sarcastic tone to make a mockery of others for his own benefit. His daily monologues are enjoyable and bring out a witty and hilarious tone to the serious. Despite all this, Tomoya still acts in a very mature way and still has well intentions to try and help people, but usually in his own way. This all contrasts with Nagisa’s personality, which is as pure as it can be. She in fact loves the dango daikazoku (big dumpling family) which aired in the past as a happy and cute family. She likes to hold old fashion values such as the strong relationship between the family members, which leads ultimately to happiness. She is usually seen as a weak minded person, usually being gullible to Tomoya’s antics and ploys. But, there are many times throughout the series that shows her personality growing as she eventually gets closer to Tomoya. But as with Tomoya, she likes to help others, but usually right until the end in a more moral and understanding nature. This contrast between the two characters creates some interesting chemistry and plentiful interesting situations. Not only is their relationship important, but it affects both of them in major ways. Well get to see Tomoya grow from an ignorant child who cares for himself towards a more grown and mature person, all thanks to Nagisa. Their relationship affects each other quite a lot over time, showing their growth is something we all like to see and believe. All the other characters are just memorable, and to say so myself, quite attractive. Not in the sense of physical beauty, but their personalities are attractive. Well, I guess their looks are also attractive. The cast is filled with many personalities; from a cute small girl with a starfish that is arrogant to a cool and calm girl, with womanly qualities and is strong both physically and mentally. It really helps when we learn much about their backstory during their specific arc. Since it was adapted from a visual novel, where possibly every girl you meet can become a potential partner, each character in the anime would go so well with Tomoya. Since the story is told from his view, we get to know what he thinks, what he feels and essentially live as he does. I will not go into further detail with the characters but they are so relatable, which makes us get somewhat emotional. It would be wrong if you didn’t finish the anime without a new favourite character. Whether it’s the lovable Fuko, cool and calm Tomoyo, smart and shy Kotomi, the ever so tsundere Kyou or the imouto Mei. Nagisa’s parents too, get a mention since they are so kind and rather cool. Sanae Furukawa, the mother, is an innocent mother who bakes bread for their business and usually runs away crying due to her bread skills being rather bad. Though, she is super supportive for Nagisa and Tomoya’s relationship. Akio Furukawa is father everyone wants. He is funny, cool and overall awesome. But his most highlighting trait is being a father. He does get serious when protecting his daughter and takes extreme measures to make sure she is happy. From hiding skeletons in the closet (figuratively) to openly supporting her in the time of need, Akio is one great and loving father. A major emphasis of the plot is placed on relationships, and this focus of building relationships allows us to connect and relate to the characters, to feel what they feel and mimic what they do. The main relationship is between Nagisa and Tomoya, and through that we can see and understand their past experiences through their i…

This is my first review ever! :) Clannad was something that made me change my views on normal slice of life animes in general. Although I do admit that watching the first few episodes did not change my mind (although rewatching them again after it was absolutely fantastic!). I do agree that it pales in comparison with After Story, but it is nonetheless great and tremendously better than your average slice of life anime or any normal anime even. Story - 9/10: The story was great overall since it does not only brought about the depth of the characters but on how effective the way the stories were told. You can have any normal story of how this girl becomes an orphan, or how this guy could not be the person that he wanted to be because he could not play the sport he wanted to because of a terrifying event - and all of this would still be obscure in its meaning if it wasn't told properly. Clannad does not have any problem with that. It brings about events and tells them so effectively that the viewer would easily get immersed with the plot easily. Characters - 10/10: Here is where Clannad shines best. All characters are intriguing not because they are mysterious, because they're not (well not that much). They are however so complex in such a way that they are thoroughly human. Don't get me wrong we have Sonohara as this normal comic relief but even he has some depth in him and he shows it subtly. Though tsunderes supposedly are complex but have now become stereotypical, Kyou is different to me because precisely of Ryou, her sister. The dynamics between the two shows how these characters are quite different from standard anime stereotypes (though I am a bit disappointed that they do not have their arcs). Nagisa however, at first seems stereotypical but she would have her character development late in the season, where it is absolutely terrific (in my opinion of course). Then there is Tomoya, the delinquent, in which I think though is the most developed character in the course of season one. Other characters such as Fuko, Tomoyo, Sanae, Akio - all of them are also well written. Sound - 7/10: I particularly do not like the sound much, since it is not very distinct with other animes but it is good nonetheless. It does not affect the anime, at least and provides a good way to fill the silence. The one thing I like however is the Big Dango Family song, which is really memorable and quite catchy. Art 10/10: Of course, with Kyoto Animation's works you could only expect the best. Clannad here is no exception. The places, characters and facial expressions are all so well drawn and so beautiful. Enjoyment 10/10: I did enjoy Clannad greatly. When I finished it, I know I will have to watch it again. I know that After Story is way better, which a lot of people do say. I even agree. But Clannad is great nonetheless. It made me smile, made me feel sad - within a single episode or within a single scene. Overall - 9/10: Clannad truly is a great anime. The reason why I gave it a 9, is how I think it did not utilize its full potential yet (which is of course, apparent in After Story). It already knows how to explore its characters but it lacks the great ending (good but not great, and of course in my humble opinion). Still, a great anime.

Well, I've been surprised again. A pity it was in a negative way this time. Due to the enormous repercussion Clannad has I thought I would give it a chance, since so many people said it was beautiful, tear-jerking, sad, etc. Drama my arse. Clannad is drama as much as Naruto is. Yeah, you read it right. I'd dare say that Naruto might even be more successful on its attempts to drama than Clannad was. I was utterly disappointed by how lame the attempts to pull tears out of your eyes in this series are. The producers relied so much on (poor) humor, that every time where you had a "dramatic" moment it ended up coming across as exaggerated or unnatural. Even more unnatural are the attempts to a supernatural approach. They just don't fit, sound forced and nonsense. Clannad might have been a lot more enjoyable if it was reduced to 12 episodes only. There were at least 7 complete unnecessary episodes, and several other ones that could have been reduced to half of what they are. Not only does this dramatically decreases the pace of the series but it also gives the show an overall feeling of lack of creativity since the episodes just drag on lame jokes and useless dialogues. The characters are really shallow, extremely stereotyped and hard to connect with. They overreact or act unnaturally on almost every conflict that they face. Nagisa's constant promptness to tears drove me crazy. While Kyoto Animation did a good job on Air and Kanon (2006) it's hard to understand what they were trying to do in Clannad. There was an attempt on focusing on family relationships, but even this is extremely poorly done. The soundtrack is very repetitive, the art has nothing original to it and quite often I felt annoyed by the voice of some characters (Nagisa being the most annoying of'em all). Once again, it's really difficult to me to understand the hype behind some animes. I'll give a chance to Clannad ~after story~. Since my expectations are so low I might as well be surprised positively this time.

If anime as a whole were to hold an Olympic-type gathering of all the genres that make up "anime", I would want "Clannad" to be the representative for the romance genre. "Clannad" is probably the most highly-touted love series in anime today. Its sequel, "After Story", holds the number one slot on this site in terms of overall rating (Avg. overall score of nine). The prequel, in my opinion, isn't, and should not be far behind whatsoever. "Clannad" is a solid, fantastic piece of romance, that has lived up to my high expectations, and surpassed them. It's a series that has something for everybody: love, fantasy, slice-of-life, school, cuteness, harem, etc. Albeit, with that glowing introduction, I had a really tough time enjoying "Clannad" when it first began. This stint of boredom lasted for about the first five episodes, then quickly disappeared and was made non-existent. Encompassing those first five episodes or so was the "Fuko-arc". This being a love anime that has many important (girl) characters that pertain to the pacing and depth of the plot, you're going to get a side-story on each important one. I guess it's just my bad luck that they started out with, in my opinion, a boring, shallow, and redundant plot to portray a character that rarely, and I mean RARELY, shows up in the future episodes (mainly as comedic relief). But, like I said, from then on, the show got great. Really great. Now, I thought this show, from looking at the introduction to this story, that it was going to be a weeper. How mistkan, and thankfully so, I was. This series had me laughing more than the over-glorified-as-a-comedy "Seto no Hanayome". However, for all the serious types out there, don't worry, you've got your themes that act as allegories for the characters that are being showcased; some very sad moments; and morally-questioning and pull-at-your-heat-strings-moments aplenty. Unlike most romance animes, this one really seems to have a consistent arc of the theater that underscores each encounter and drives the story forward at a pace that's just right. 9/10 - If only they had taken those first five episodes out.... The art is really the highlight here. The "dreamscapes" are nothing short of breathtaking and the "everyday animation" is definitely above average. What denotes such a high score is 110% attributed to the alternate reality that's fully-saturated with themes, symbols, and motifs. Even though the animation outside of the dreamscapes are alright, you cannot overlook the amount of attention to detail, workmanship, and care went into producing those scenes. My only gripe about the art is that the characters initially (especially Sanae and Nagisa) resembled aliens. Their hair and eyes kind of threw me for a loop, but it eventually becomes irrelevant and, like Fuko, you forget you even had the thought in the first place. 10/10 - The dreamscape animation was better than some feature-length anime films. I thoroughly enjoyed the sound here. The script was well put together, the funny bits were surprisingly funny, the story was well-written, and each voice actor or actress was voiced very well. I really have no complaints. 10/10 - You'll find a surprising amount of clever, comedic lines hidden throughout "Clannad". I could write a 10-page paper on the characters in "Clannad" without mentioning everything. With that being said, I'll keep this brief. Each character is represented as a viable "candidate" for Tomoya's partner, and you're left satisfied and intrigued at each character's side-story as to how they became the way they are. It can come across as a harem-like, which I would say to you: "Yes. Yes it is." This is a harem anime in disguise. Poorly hidden, maybe, but fun for everyone, and never acts as a deterrent to the enjoyment of the anime. I, personally, gravitated more to another girl than the one he ultimately ended up choosing, but I really don't care. Too many times have I come across romance animes where it's left wide-open for you to interpret. Here, they give each girl valuable time and opportunity, and end up with a clear victor. The girls that are left unchosen even audibly concede defeat, discretely so, to the girl who has one Tomoya's heart. It's surprising at the blatancy and audacity of the creators, but its uniqueness comes across in a pleasantly blunt manner that doesn't dissuade the viewer who hadn't picked the girl that Tomoya had chosen to lose complete interest. 10/10 - I'm usually not a fan of giving each character a mini-arc or side-story, but "Clannad" definitely threw me a curveball that I thoroughly enjoyed. This series is really the lovechild of (almost) every sub-genre of romance anime out there. And who knew it wouldn't make such a mundane color like brown, but instead, (my favorite color) green. "Clannad" is definitely a series that's a strong contender for my favorite romance anime that I've seen so far. Knowing that there's a movie and true sequel, I can't wait for it to compete. Enjoyment: 10/10 - I wish I had stumbled across it sooner! Overall: 10/10 - Deep when need be; funny when it was appropriate; but always spectacular.

Clannad was surprising on my first watch, before I had seen it I expected a typical Harem, Visual Novel adaptation. What I got in the end was something very different. ==STORY== The story plays out how you would expect a VN adaptation to. We basically follow Tomoya Okazaki as he interacts with the female cast through different story arcs, helping them with their problems. Some arcs are far better than others, and vary in length but do well to keep the focus on to 1 girl at a time. Throughout these Clannad offers a host of different things for different types of viewers. A fair amount of humour, quite a lot of fanservice, some is just blatant, but mostly subtle (some attire choices and close up shots I noticed were indeed intentionally there to appeal to the audience watching Clannad for its Harem elements), and contains a lot of fantasy related themes. Clannad is also very heavy on drama which carries it at most points, and even the occasional action scenes. ==CHARACTERS== Clannad offers a healthy variety of likeable characters, they consist of many different personalities, but some characters being far more interesting than others. One of the problems I had was with the main character Tomoya, the self-proclaimed 'deliquent.' There is the problem already, Tomoya is no deliquent, actually he is probably one of the friendliest protagonists you'll see, often helping out people for no particular reason, despite having a troubled past, and a horrible relationship with his father, overall I found his character often monotonous. But it is his interactions with the girls which remain key throughout the series. I feel Tomoya's friend Youhei at times offers more intriguing moments and at some points kept me watching. ==ART & ANIMATION== It's hard to put into words how spectacular the art is in Clannad but then again I'd expect no less from KyoAni. The female characters never fail to be moé, Nagisa in particular as her character has a naivity that accompanies her design. If you do notice the backgrounds (which you most likely wont considering the characters often stand out) they provide mostly the colours of greys, beiges and browns which are often known for being particularly dull, however in this case, they manage to give those colours a shine that brightens up the background as a whole. The addition of fallen Cherry Blossoms near Cherry Blossom Trees and on roads in outside settings is a nice touch. Animation is less to be talked about, since most episodes are the characters, sitting, standing or walking not much about animations needs mention, when animations occasionally become more complex (referring to Tomoyo's 200 hit combo, among others) it delivers flawlessly. ==SOUND== The OP in Clannad is nice and very fantasy-like. The ED IS catchy, at first it'll seem like a Japanese nursery rhyme, but hear it enough times and you'll be singing along to it. Background music is often a solo piano score to fit romantic or sad moments which is pulled off well, but other than that, background songs aren't anything noteworthy. And seiyu's do well to sound as cute, youthful and as energetic as their character may be, but I can't judge the voice acting properly since I don't speak Japanese. ==CONCLUSION== I've given Clannad a fair amount of praise so you are probably wondering why didn't it get a higher score? And here it is, not enough happens in Clannad, it will often be a series of tiring conversation and boring/mindless activity, one after the other. And it is this activity such as, handing out stars, playing random sports, designing posters that left me often dissatisfied. More so when the story as a whole tends to drag on through some parts. At times I wanted to get the episode over and done with. I did intend to give Clannad a lower score but when noticing the overall quality of Clannad I could never give this a true low score. I just feel Clannad is not enjoyable enough, everything is done OK, from story to character development but satisfaction is not usually present. Despite this Clannad can appeal to a wide audience and is one of the most universal animes you'll probably see.

One way to put my confusion about Clannad is that it's either the most cynical, or pure-hearted anime I can ever remember seeing, and I have equally reacted to both of these ways of viewing it, like going back and forth between the duck and the rabbit in the famous optical illusion. "Clannad" apparently means family in Irish, which according to the show seems to be what ultimately makes life great, but the main character's "clannad" consists of a bunch of girls who are all in love with him and a friend that's mostly there so the girls actually have a choice. And they do not choose him, rather he is the target of most of the show's jokes. Ironically, considering the main theme, the only social depiction even close to being realistic is the one of the relationship between the main character and his drunkard father who once hurt him so gravely that he can't lift his arm over his shoulder anymore, which fits so badly in with the rest, and is so little explored, one must assume it solely exists to make the character in his otherwise all-too-fortunate situation possible to relate to for viewers familiar with reality. And this is just one of many parts of Clannad that suggests some very meticulous engineering on behalf of the creators to appeal to young, lonely men. Perhaps it's no coincidence the writer of the visual novel the anime is based on is originally educated as a psychologist. One seeming example of his skills put to use is that every single girl in the show acts like a vulnerable, socially stunted child in some way, and the main character even has to teach several of them the basics of social interaction throughout. Just the kind of girls someone who finds three-dimensional girls threatening would be delighted to meet, in other words. Which is no criticism of anyone's social abilities, but rather of the cheap tricks Clannad uses in its attempts to get under your skin. Another example are the supernatural elements. Magical realism is one of my favorite tropes in fiction, but in Clannad it seems to serve no other purpose than to allow the easy creation of unreasonably pathetic and tragic backgrounds for the girls. Despite Clannad's eagerness to manipulate, its bland-looking school hallways and classrooms, as well as characters that look so similar to each other I had problems differentiating many of them for the first half of the show, all accompanied by a repetitive, tacky soundtrack that seems taken straight out of a hotel elevator ... Well, sometimes Clannad manages to be genuinely touching. Mind you, not even as close to as often as it wants to be, but in particular in the later episodes. It's also very funny at times. I don't really laugh when I watch stuff, but a running gag where the usually serious main character fools the other characters by saying outrageous things with a straight face, often pushed me. And in interviews the writer of the visual novels seems very sincere about his work. So what is really Clannad? Manipulative and hypocritical? Or very sappy, but occasionally moving and often fun? Probably all these things, but in total not very good.

The third Key adaptation by Kyoto Animation, Clannad. Once again we are reminded of how great these 2 names go together, after giving us Air, and Kanon 2006, Clannad is a really good romance/drama anime that should not be missed by fans of either of the 2 previous shows. Story: This time around our main male protagonist is Okazaki Tomoya, a high school student with a not so enjoyable past. Throughout the story he will meet the 5 main girl protagonists. Just like Kanon was done, after using the first 4-5 episodes to introduce us to the vast amount of characters in this show a set amount of episodes were designated to completing the arcs of each of the main girls. Now as far as the actual story goes, Clannad is definitely the more comedic one of the 3, there are lots of laughs to be had in this show and as the arcs reach a conclusion Kyoto turns on their famous "tears" mode done so many times before with Air and Kanon and give us scenes that will prob make you cry. I did find that as the show was reaching the final episode the content was going to get rushed, Clannad is way bigger than Kanon and Air were in amount of story so trying to fit it all in 24 episodes was going to be a challenge (yes im including the OVA ep 24). A good example of trying to rush things is shown with 2 of the arcs, they are merged together and then in 1 swift move they are brought to a cold hard stop and conclusion...unfortunately this was done using my 2 fav characters so it really really hurt me :( Art: By now it is almost fact that Kyoto = amazing animation. This show is no different. The characters look gorgeous, there is barely any scene in the entire show that looks sloppy, the colours are bright and overall this show is great eye candy. 10/10 is almost a default score here. Sound: As massive as the soundtrack for Clannad is, it is not my favourite. None of the songs really catch my attention but that does not mean that the show sounds bad, in fact its great! The background songs really reflect the atmosphere and they are effectively used to create tear jerking moments or comedic gold moments when needed. The voice actors did a great job too. Character: This is IMO the best aspect of Clannad. The characters of Clannad are so varied that you can barely see 2 characters with a similar attitude. Our hero Tomoya is a kind hearted person on the inside but he loves playing pranks on people specially his best "friend" Sunohara. Speaking of Sunohara, he is prob one of the most unfortunate persons I've ever seen, almost every scene with him is guaranteed to become comedy gold, but also he can get into some very serious situations. The main girls of Clannad are Nagisa, she is the shy, helpless, no self-steem girl and also the main female protagonist (meh i dont really like her :p). Kotomi is a genius girl that is very naive about real life situations and is bad at socializing with others and making friends. Fuko is the small, weird, girl that does and say things that not anyone would do. Tomoyo is one of the best ones IMO she is a gentle and caring girl but at the same time is able to beat up anyone in school if provoked, teamed with sunohara she gives some great moments. And last we have Kyou Fujibayashi (my fav :P), she is the hot blooded, quick to act tsundere girl or Clannad, and she will protect her younger twin sister Ryou at all costs. If you have seen Lucky Star you would see the extreme resemblance between them and Tsukasa & Kagami lol). More interesting characters to mention are Akio and Sanae, which are Nagisa's parents, Akio is possibly the greatest anime dad in existence lol he likes to say things before thinking of who is around, which mostly end in Sanae crying and running away while he gives chase. Wow i've written so much about the characters, and there are even more i havent mentioned, this is why Clannad has IMO the best characters from all 3 shows. Enjoyment: I would be lying if I told you I didnt enjoy Clannad, its one of the best shows out there right now. But I was somewhat disappointed at how Tomoyo and Kyou's arcs were treated in the anime. It hurt the score I was planning on giving this show. No more 9.5/10, but you get a nice 9/10 Overall Clannad once again demonstrates that when you put Kyoto and Key together you are bound to get some great anime, with great story and great animation. Its also good to hear that the After Story will be animated because without it Clannad is just not complete...in KyoAni/Key we trust.

I checked the box that said “I’ve only watched Clannad Season 1,” but I’ve actually watched the entire series. Are you kidding me? Are you calling this anime a work of art? The storytelling is terrible. The characters are terrible. Their behavior, personalities, and types are terrible. In Season 2 (Clannad: After Story), it crosses moral boundaries quite a bit. Despite all this, I can’t understand how it’s so popular. Nagisa’s mom is dating Sunohara—seriously, does that even happen? Are you kidding me? Nagisa’s mom isn’t bothered at all; in fact, she’s happy about it. Plus, she acts differently around Sunohara—what kind of message does that send to the audience? You fill in the rest. Another controversial situation: Okazaki and Sunohara’s sister are hanging out together. But this isn’t just casual hanging out—you know what I mean. There’s a weird vibe in those scenes; it’s disgusting. The only good thing is that I really laugh at Nagisa’s dad. The only thing they got right in the anime is Nagisa’s dad’s personality. Of course, even if he witnesses disgusting things in some scenes, he doesn’t say a word. If I act like I didn’t see what I just mentioned, he looks like a good guy. All the female characters in the anime are unbelievably terrible. They have these ridiculous, pointless problems. My rating for Season 1 is already 0/10. There’s nothing important about it. There’s a lot more to talk about, but I’ll stop here.

(This will be a spoiler-free review but I will refer to certain characters) Please refer to the main Clannad page for a plot description. I'll just write my positives and negatives for the series here. Positives: - The comedy in Clannad was one of the best things about it for me, especially any Sunohara scene and also anything involving Akio Furukawa (particularly the scenes with his wife). I was only disappointed there wasn't more of it, I think Sunohara could've had his own show :P - The episodes that focus mainly on the theatre club were interesting and felt as if they were going somewhere; although again for me there wasn't enough focus on this in the series - The music was good, especially the ending song. However, one piece of music gets repeatedly played whenever something remotely sad or depressing happens, so for me it lost its impact and instead became a signal that something melodramatic was about to be shoehorned into the episode. That got tiresome... Negatives: - Personal choice, but I really didn't like the character designs of the female characters. The way their eyes were drawn just made them look a bit soulless so it was difficult to take any sort of 'emotional scene' seriously - Speaking of 'emotional scenes,' the melodrama in this was about as subtle as a wrecking ball. I enjoy drama but Clannad just became more and more ridiculous as it turned into a competition of 'Which girl can have the most disastrous back story that has nothing to do with what's going on, doesn't progress the story and will be forgotten about in the course of the next few episodes??' It just became silly and made it quite difficult for me to keep wanting to watch. The Kotomi and Fuko arcs are especially guilty of this. - Fuko-chan. Bloody Fuko-chan. So very very annoying. Conclusion: As you can probably tell from my score I didn't really enjoy this :P It had potential with the comedy and theatre club angle but just got lost in a sea of impossible-situation-overdramatic-ness. I think it could've been done far better. Though from what I've heard, if you have enjoyed other series from Key such as Kanon and Air then you'll probably like this. Thanks for reading!

I had high expectations for this series, someone told me to watch it and I eventually got to it. Story: I'll break it down into the different arcs in order. Fuuko - I hated this. I wanted to drop the series because it dragged on way too long. 9 episodes? C'mon, that's almost half the series if you don't count the supplementary episode(s). Fuuko was cute and all but the same thing happened every episode, it got so bad... Had I known this from the beginning I'd have skipped the middle of this arc and skipped to the conclusion. A problem I and many others had with this arc was that other characters were rushed or weren't developed enough due to the length of this awful section of the series. Kotomi - This is where the series got a lot better, exactly what I was expecting. This part of the series had many memorable moments and was written pretty well. Each episode had a cliffhanger making me want more. I was relieved to see this follow the Fuuko arc and thought the conclusion was fine. Tomoyo - She didn't really get anything. In terms of her character, you kind of wanted more of her and she was pretty interesting but nope. For what she got, it wasn't bad. There was a nice cliffhanger within her two or so episodes. The conclusion was a bit lacking but things seemed to have worked out for her. Nagisa - This was done well too. I had no complaints, I could watch through each episode with no problems and each episode was enjoyable. The drama really picks up here and it was a very satisfying arc. Art: It didn't get a 10 because it didn't seem like Kyoto Animation worked as hard on this series as they did with the others. It still looked pretty nice compared to other shows so it gets a 9. Sound: Sigh... the opening was really really bad. The ending here wasn't a bad song it's just not something I'd add to a song list. I just did not care for them. Considering this series is more of a comedy (And I use the term very lightly) than a drama, I felt one upbeat song would've been more proper. None of the bgm was very good, none of it stood out. As for voice acting, no problems with the actors. Didn't really hate any of them and the voices fit well. Although Fuuko got annoying quick. Character: A few characters made a good impression on me. Most of the rest were probably not explored enough so I didn't really have much to say about them. I liked the way Tomoya pulled pranks on Fuuko, it made her arc less stupid. More than that though he seemed to develop well as the story progressed. He started to mature a bit and interacting with the others made him change for the better. Still lacking a bit as the lead character but there is a second season... Kotomi wasn't a bad character. It's just that when Kotomi's arc was over, she was just there. It's true that I wouldn't know what to do with her character either but she played no part in the rest of the series. She was given an offer to study abroad and I thought she should've left right there since she took the offer later anyway. Tomoyo just did not get that much. What I mean is that her episodes were good but I just felt something was lacking. It struck me as odd when her character makes a shift of personality just out of nowhere. When she was introduced in the Fuuko arc she was reused for the same thing over and over giving birth to a commonly used gif. Her general character at the beginning was not too talkative to others. Then again, it's Sunohara who approaches her most of the time. Then later, she acts more social and friendly towards Tomoya out of the blue. I liked her change but it was so out of place that I have mixed feelings. She is a character I have respect for and I'm glad she got that Ova. I didn't care for Kyou and Ryou because of how they were handled in the series. There wasn't really anything for me to pick up from these characters. They should've gotten their own arc but they were just splashed into certain episodes so they didn't get much development, I blame Fuuko. I definitely liked Nagisa's parents. They were a joy to watch and were very funny. Wanted to see more of Yukine but I guess she was just there for the characters to talk to. Perhaps she and other side characters will be addressed in the second season. The rest of the characters I didn't mention I don't hate but they weren't great or they just did not stand out to me. Enjoyment: I almost gave it a 6, but rethought it. Like I said the Fuuko arc was dragged out garbage but the rest of the series saved it. Another problem was how hard they tried to make the series funny. Like I said Tomoya's pranks are pretty funny and so are Nagisa's parents but many times you can tell when they want you to think something's funny when it clearly isn't. That bothered me a bit. Not to mention, they repeat certain jokes which get less funny and just lame to watch. I liked the morals of this series which is having a family in your friends. Seems to me this series is a little overhyped probably because of the success of Kanon which I thought was amazing (After the dragged out arc of that series) As for re-watch value, I would not watch the entire series again, just certain scenes. Overall: It was good. Can't say it would become a personal favorite but I'd kind of recommend it to others. There are other series I'd recommend first but I'd get around to telling people about this. I would definitely warn them about the Fuuko arc because it's really just a pointless, dragged out, waste of time. Thank you for reading my review. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Hope this helped.

For me, Clannad was a truly unique and enjoyable experience. It has the power to draw out the emotions of the viewer like no other anime I have ever seen, and the slice-of-life / fantasy / romance mix was so well executed that I would get shivers after many episodes down the left side of my body (yes, the left side, I suppose that's because the right brain is the fanciful open-minded, creative side). Anyway, lets get on with this review. STORY: 9/10 Okazaki Tomoya is an average "delinquent" - too lazy to study or do anything worthwhile. He spends all day hanging out with his friend Sunohara, and they basically waste their time doing nothing. However, all of this changes when Tomoya meets Nagisa, a girl a year older than him that had to return to high school due to her missing a year. From here, it takes off fairly quickly, and its the unexplained wonders of the story that make it such an amazing anime to watch. These moments wouldnt be complete without the great music, however. ART: 9/10 I really like the eye styles in Clannad and how the characters are drawn. Other than that the art is just your average school-anime art with your average school-anime backdrops, except when it, at times, goes into 3-D (which looks fantastic but doesnt happen too often). That said, I don't have any beefs with the art, it's all about how they draw the characters, which was done very well. SOUND: 10/10 The OP and the ED were never very good, in fact I pretty much didnt like the opening at all and I forgot what the ED was. I just have to give this section a 10 because the background music is just SO amazing. It captures perfectly the emotions of the characters and the mystical scenes that take place every once and a while. Without this music, the anime would have half the emotion that it does now, so kudos to the music writers, I can never get some of those songs out of my head now... CHARACTER: 9/10 I docked one point cause some of the characters are pretty stereotypical. Passive agressive friend character. Tsundere (hint hint my avatar) girl with a sister who is basically the shyest person ever created ever. Aaaand of course all the filler characters who don't matter. But there are plenty of unique characters in this anime, and even the cliche characters never got on my nerves (well... pretty much never, fuko...). In any case, as Clannad went on I found myself getting more and more attached to these characters, who end up being very well fleshed out. There's always one character that you will connect with in any good anime, and this anime is no exception. ENJOYMENT: 10/10 What more is there to say about this anime. Truly fantastic and a joy to watch. It may start out a bit slow, but please bear with it for the first few episodes. I found the slow pace to be relaxing, since I live in the U.S. where every day is about rushing to do something important. Clannad has been my source of relaxation on those hurried days, its just an anime about love, life, and life's mysteries. With all the fast paced shows of today, Clannad is a sigh of relief and a must watch.