Ranked #1172

Clannad (Movie)

*An alternate interpretation of the Clannad story centered around the Nagisa x Tomoya couple.*

Did you get confused with the ending in Clannad After Story? Did you wish for a more realistic ending? Did you know that Clannad The Motion Picture might just be what you are looking for? Or perhaps you have heard of Clannad and Clannad After Story from all your friends, but you have yet to try it out? Clannad The Motion Picture (TMP for short) provides a great summary of all the major events that took place in the ~46 episodes (excluding OVA/recap) series between the two main protagonists. Please be mindful that the movie is retelling a story in ~90 minutes that its TV counterpart took ~1100 minutes to tell! Thus some events may seem to occur at an unreasonable pace. But nonetheless Clannad TMP is still a movie that a true Clannad fan should not miss out on.

While the story is still being told from Tomoya’s perspective, many aspects of the show depart from the TV series. Assuming you have the background from the TV series (if you have no background what-so-ever please skip the rest of this paragraph) then you should be warned that first of all, this is purely a Tomoya x Nagisa scenario with all other heroines playing a minor role, or in some cases did not even have a role. This means that Tomoya never develop any kind of deep friendship with the others and consequently did not help them when they were troubled. This in turn means no light orbs … hence a more realistic ending.

Although Clannad is a slice of life/romance anime, its similarities end there with other show of the same genre. Clannad is like a milking machine. Its whole purpose is to milk out all your emotions that you often don’t have toward anime. While the movie did not do very well in this department compared to the TV series (largely due to the lack of character development and coverage), the overall story in the movie did manage to create a similar atmosphere for viewers. This means that we still get the usual comedic side of a delinquent high schooler lifestyle. It also means a confused protagonist at a loss after being challenged by the hardships in life.

There was this “illusionary” world in Clannad TV series where they featured, with great CG animation, a girl and a robot built from scrap metal. Mirroring this concept, Clannad TMP also has an illusionary world. But instead of the girl and robot, we have a “clown”. The symbology in the two illusionary worlds is slightly different but both fit perfectly fine in their respective show. These illusions generally give the viewers more background on the characters and the way they think/feel about certain things.

Like previously stated, the characters in Clannad TMP consist of Tomoya and Nagisa. Their role did not get amplified compare to the TV series, instead the other characters just never get enough screen time. One strong point about the characters in the movie is that there is no ambiguous character relationships developed between Tomoya and various heroines. This allows us to truly enjoy Tomoya and Nagisa’s journey through life instead of wasting our time rooting for other females who will never end up with Tomoya.

One glaring eye poison of the movie is the character design of the lovable Nagisa and her equally adorable mother, Sanae. They look like characters drawn from a low budget production in the 90s (actually the looks are straight ripped out from the manga, but Toei Animation should have improved on it). Thankfully there does not appear to have much character “deformation” in the other characters, they all look similar to their TV counterpart which is definite a welcome for most fans. And thankfully (again) there does not appear to have any ear poison either. Although nothing sounds too spectacular from the movie (especially when compared to the TV series) there is no serious window shattering horrid nightmarish music/soundtracks. Lastly I recommend you not to make any comparison between the TV series and the movie since:

1. The movie was made before Clannad season one so technically there was nothing to compare to back then.
2. The movie was made by a different animation studio (Toei Animation) compare to the TV series (Kyoto Animation). read more

Review Has Been Updated (twice)
This is my final review of the Clannad movie, as I now have a different opinion of it since watching all of the anime and playing the game itself.

I went into this movie fully expecting it to suck. I read so many horrible things about it, and there was that boring trailer... this movie had failure written all over it. I was very surprised, it did not suck at all. It does suffer from some problems though, and I have gone back to my original review and changed it slightly to represent how I feel now, after time.

Story: The main thing to keep in mind while watching this movie is to not compare it to the real Clannad. Consider this an alternate universe or a watered-down retelling. There are things the story does that I really loved, but it doesn't really match the series at all. During the movie they would constantly flashforward to several years later as we see Okazaki's life in the future, and it certainly isn't problem free . These ongoing revelations make the entire movie seem really bittersweet when we see him happy, as we know something dark is coming. This is something that is not felt in the anime at all, and is a very nice touch. This movie does have a very different feel than the series at many times. So that is why it may not appeal to everybody.

Honestly, there is a lot of great aspects to the anime series and game that wasn't in the movie. This movie is the core of the Clannad story, only condensed and changed to fit the running time. But you can't really hold that against the movie. It's a movie, not a series. For what it was adapting, I think they did a really good job.

Art: Okay, the art is bad. However, I have seen much, much worse. I'll admit the art is not horrible, but it could have been better. The split-screen thing it did at times really annoyed me.

Sound: Nothing really special here. The music didn't hit me as amazing in any scene, but it went well with the movie, I suppose. Not much I can say about it. I have memories of better Clannad music.

Character: Being as this is a movie, there is no way that they could do as much with the characters as the anime and game did. Okazaki and Nagisa are the main characters. Sunohara and Nagisa's parents play about the same role (and on that note, Nagisa's father is just as funny as he was in the anime, but with less screen-time due to length, we don't get to see as many fun antics), Kyou and Tomoyo play supporting roles. Kotomi gets a small un-named cameo in 2 scenes. Fuko and Ryou are not mentioned or seen at all.

Without the Fuko and Kotomi arcs of the first season and the 2nd half of After Story (which are my favorite moments of Clannad ever) the characters in the movie do not do as good as they do in the anime (I would have given them a 10 if I was reviewing the anime series).

But here is the thing, for the characters shown in the movie, they are handled really well. I loved every one of them because I treated this as it's own story. Seriously, the development and emotional scenes are what saved this grade from mediocre. There are some really great emotional scenes, as some characters are pushed to their emotional limits.

Enjoyment: I did enjoy this movie. It's not Clannad at it's best, but it is still Clannad.

Overall: Overall, this movie gets an 7 from me. It was really good. It might not be as good as the game, but I think for what it's adapting, it did a pretty good job. The foreshadowing done by the flash-forwards gave the movie that bittersweet feeling that really got to me. They may not have gotten into the best parts of After Story, but they left it on a note that some may even enjoy more than the way the anime series and game ended.

Is it the best way to witness the Clannad story? Not really. The anime has a lot that this movie doesn't, but at the same time, the anime wasn't perfect either. After the Kotomi arc, the show started to drag on a bit with Nagisa's arc. Then in After Story, the show started out really dull and didn't kick in until the 2nd half of the series. The best way to get Clannad is to play the game, honestly.

My advice: WATCH THIS MOVIE!
Consider it a re-telling of the core of the Clannad story, and don't hold a grudge against it because your favorite characters and scenes are not in it, and don't hold a grudge against it because the animation is different.

This is a really good movie and if you liked the TV series or not, give it a try.

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