Huge spoilers for both series also.
STORY
Clannad is a TV anime adaptation of a Key VN made by Kyoto Animation in 2007. After Story is a sequel to the original and aired in 2008. It has often been
hailed as the greatest love story of all time as well as the best of Maeda.
It is the story of highschool students Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa's love for each other and their journey into adulthood. The original series started
as your usual romcom harem anime, coming from it's roots as a dating sim VN. However it quickly becomes apparant that there is really no competion in the Tomoya bowl
and Nagisa is OTP.
The story is split into arcs, each spanning over 3-5 episodes. They usually are centred around introducing a new character and how Nagisa and Tomoya interact
with them. Many will say that the first season is nothing special and Clannad's charm is only found in After Story. While I agree that After Story is better, Clannad
works nicely as a standalone show with a relatively closed ending with Nagisa and Tomoya holding hands.
For this reason the announcement of a second season so soon after the first ended was met with some opposition from fans saying that they could only make the
story worse, although I don't think they are complaining now.
Clannad After Story is a very different show than its predecessor. It focuses of much bigger themes and covers a huge amount of time. It may shock old-time
hogh school romance fans to see that the characters actual graduate and go on to get jobs, get married and even have children.
However, not everything is daijoubu in their relationship. The show's greatest feat, in my opinion, is the way it realistically portrays the struggles and
hardships of life leaving you feeling deeply depressed. It tackles the problems of morals also. What is the most important thing to you? What do you strive for most in
life? How do you cope with loss? It portrays these themes in a realistic, albeit dark manner allowing the viewer to really believe that these people could exist and it
is not far-fetched at all to want to lead a life such as their's.
The start of the second cour of After Story is where things really start to kick off and is where the most praise for the franchise is directed at. In episode
13 Tomoya and Nagisa get married, a thing that is rarely seen anywhere in anime. By the next episode she's pregnant with a baby girl and shit gets real. It shows the
couple's lives being thrown into the adult world unprepared for the reality of it. It shows just how real these things are and how they are not as far away as everyone
believes them to be and you yourself will go through these things in the near future.
The comedy in the series was also surprisingly good and uplifting. The repeated gag of Sanae's bread didn't get old, no matter how many times it was used
(Fuko's thing kind of did though). Although the comedy was not the main matter for the series, the little that was there was done in very high quality KyoAni style
(Nande ya nen!).
Of course now I must talk about the final episodes of the series from episode 16 onward. During the birth of Nagisa and Tomoya's child, named Ushio, Nagisa
dies due to her weak body, a fact explicitly stated throughout the story. The following episode is set 5 years in the future where Tomoya has fallen into depression
and care of Ushio has been put into Sanae and Akio's hands. Over the course of these 3 or so episodes we see Tomoya learning how to be a good Father for the first time
and how Ushio has been struggling without her real parents. The topic of Tomoya's Father is also finally addressed and we learn that his wife also died at a young age,
causing him to fall into a depression just alike to Tomoya, meaning that Tomoya finally understands his Father's suffering leading to the pair's reunion and
reconciliation and a very touching scene where the Father can finally feel that he tried his best and that his only son no longer despises him.
Eventually we see Ushio fall ill to the same disease as her Mother; and, at such a young age, she is unable to recover and dies at the age of five. At this
point we are told the meaning behind the secondary story of the girl and her robot. Although much of the real explanation is left up to the viewer, it is revealed that
the girl was actually the soul of Ushio, and the robot was Tomoya. Tomoya finally realises that him meeting Nagisa was truely a good thing, even though it lead to her
death. He realises that he made her life better and she made his so too. He also knows that if he had never met Nagisa then Ushio would never have been born, and
giving birth was most certainly what Nagisa really wanted, even though Tomoya though that it was completely his fault for Nagisa's death. Most of episode 22 is spent
inside Tomoya's mind as he realises these things and understands the reality of life.
Suddenly we are back at the scene of Ushio's birth, however, this time Nagisa doesn't die and recovers successfully from the birthing process. May orbs of
light are seen outside in the town, and images of all the people that Tomoya had ever come across during his life flash before his eyes. Now, I see this as showing
that due to Tomoya's perserverence and how he fought through each loss in his life and came out the otherside on top, his suffering was rewarded by the happy future he
had wished for; if it is real or if it is fake is another matter entirely, but Tomoya now gets to understand his standing in life and how so many relied on his help
and company to get by.
PRODUCTION
The animation is of a very high standard due to a large budget and a studio perfectly picked for the story. Kyoto Animation had previously animated two of
Key's other VNs: Air and Kanon; and so were well aquainted to the required screen play and soundtrack required, making this the greatest Key x KyoAni Anime in my
opinion. Being made in the mid mid-late 2000s, the CGI is as bad as to be expected. Although not over used to any extent, certain parts, such as the robot, often came
across rather jarring and didn't totally fit with the show's themes.
As for the soundtrack, many pieces stand out as iconic anime classics such as 'Roaring Tides' and 'Town, Flow of Time, People'; however the stand out
performance was the song 'Nagisa' based around the melody of the first ED 'Dango Daikazoku'. The simple melody has become synonimous to the series and can push many a
grown man to tears just from overexposure to the track
CONCLUSION
If you haven't watched this masterpiece you're completely missing out on one of the greatest stories the medium has ever told. Get on that shit, you also
shouldn't of read this review dude.
For me the series gets behind the reality of everyday life and reveals the truth of life. There is no ultimate goal in life, so living just for society and for
economic gain has no real meaning in the end. The only way to truly get anything out of life is to live your life for yourself and others.
Holy shit I went on a bit in this one, almost certain no one will get as far as to read this line.
META
Length- 4 cours / 49 eps / 19.6 hrs
Release- Fall 2007 & Fall 2008
Studio- Kyoto Animation
Source- 2004 VN by Key
RATING
Watch?- 100%
Best Character- Akio+Sanae Furukawa
Worst Character-Fuko was a bit annoying
Best Feature- 2deep
