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).

WARNING: SPOILERS WITHIN

NOTE: The purpose of this review is to compare the movie to the visual novel and the anime

It pains me to think of what this movie could have been!

I am a huge fan of the novel and anime series, but I always heard the movie was mediocre or worse, so I never took the time to watch it. However, when my wife and I bought the series on DVD, the movie was included, so we thought, "Why not?" I watched it, prepared to strongly dislike it, and I did . . . until the last half hour. I am not going to waste ... time discussing the individual parts of the score I gave. Instead, I want to share why I was so heartbroken by the end of this movie.

Before you even watch this movie, consider that the movie will attempt to do what took the anime 10+ hours and the visual novel around 100 hours in . . . 90 minutes. Yep, this is the biggest flaw of the whole movie; I told my wife after watching this that if this had been about three times as long, I probably would've liked it more than the anime. Let me explain why.

The first hour was a botched mess. It was basically a summary of the school arc, and a bad one at that. It just seemed like a really lame romance where boy hates school, girl loves school, boy helps girl in school, girl helps boy to love school. Sure, that is arguably the way the school arc happened in other media, but the difference was execution. The school arc here felt very shallow, whereas there was depth and purpose for it otherwise.

The characters were alright, I guess, but they didn't have the time they needed to develop. Important characters like Kotomi, Kyou, and to a lesser extent Tomoyo were basically cameos in here, and it honestly didn't make sense to even include them (though Tomoyo is somewhat justified, the movie really didn't need her either).

The whole Illusion World concept was also wrecked; they bothered to introduce it, but they never explained its true significance. True, they kind of made their own definition of it, which actually worked okay, but I wish they just never introduced it. It would've saved them time, and I picture the audience being left confused on the whole thing.

So, that's the first hour. What about the last 30 minutes? Let me tell you something; in my opinion, if the last half-hour was given more time to work with, it would have rivaled After Story.

The last half-hour primarily focuses on the aftermath of Nagisa's death, and unlike After Story, it felt much more dramatic and tragic. Don't get me wrong; After Story made me cry when both Nagisa and Ushio died. But there was a level of hopelessness in this movie that was not reached by the anime, and I think this is where the movie excelled.

The environment is very dark, Tomoya expresses a shockingly dark level of anguish. Tomoya doesn't work, doesn't cook for himself, refuses to talk to anybody . . . it was heart-rending just to watch. The emotion I felt when they portrayed Nagisa's death and Tomoya's descent into depression was similar to that of After Story.

Eventually, the gang (Tomoyo, Sunohara, Kyou, and Nagisa's parents are the ones I remember off-hand) take Tomoya to a train station to finally meet Ushio. There were about 5 minutes left in the movie at this point, and I wondered how they were gonna do everything post-Ushio in that timeframe. Tomoya and Ushio have a tearful, beautiful reunion as Tomoya accepts her as his daughter.Tomoya also mentions his interpretation of the Illusion World at the end which, albeit not quite as good as the real deal, was a fitting conclusion to his experiences. . . .

Then the credits roll.

I was shocked to see the movie end that way; no raising Ushio, no Nagisa coming back from the dead . . . none of that.

As I thought on it, I saw the brilliance in it. Unlike After Story, which gets a little more into the fantasy side (which isn't a bad thing; I gave AS 10/10), this movie was very realistic. It was a very fitting ending, and I wanted more. I wanted to see Tomoya's journey to Ushio in greater detail, and I wanted to see more of that alternate universe where Nagisa DIDN'T come back. The last half-hour was done superbly. It was such a shame that it never got the love it deserved.

My final verdict: 7/10
I wouldn't recommend this as a stand-alone movie nor an introduction to the Clannad universe, but I would recommend it to Clannad fans, so long as they clearly understood its flaws (not every character you like is in there, and it is way too short), as this movie gave me a very moving alternate setting. The anime still outshines the movie in every single aspect, but I strongly believe that the movie would've been just as great if it had more time. I enjoyed it, and I was entranced while thinking what could have been had Nagisa never come back.

Let's not mince words here: the first season of Clannad was fair enough but it spent way too much time on trivial bullshit that didn't even matter once After Story came into the picture. As for After Story, I absolutely adore the show but let's be real here: the first eight episodes were HORRIBLE and the way it all ended made it lose a LOT of points in my book and the books of many others. At the behest of one of my friends, I decided to give Clannad: The Motion Picture a try and it managed to do EVERYTHING that the TV series failed ... to do for me. Is it perfect? Not at all, but you know what? It's a million leagues better than the first season of the TV series and it's certainly something that should be watched by all, especially people who went into the first season and came out completely and totally underwhelmed.

Clannad: The Motion Picture is actually the first adaptation of the Clannad visual novel. It was made by Toei Animation in 2007 but it was promptly overshadowed by the TV series produced by Kyoto Animation a year later. Despite my rather low opinion of Toei Animation in general, I must say that they really did a great job with the adaptation. If you're one of those people who believe film adaptations will always be inferior to their televised counterparts, hear me out: making a film adaptation of something (especially visual novels, given that they have so many nuances that just don't translate into another medium) is one of the most thankless jobs anyone can ever do. Whereas a TV show has the benefit of more time to tell a story, movies have to deal with a fixed time slot that isn't broken down into smaller segments so the audience has to watch the entire thing in one sitting.

In a perfect world, every film adaptation in the world would be 100% faithful to the source material and we wouldn't have so many people complaining how the source material is infinitely superior to the adaptation. Alack, this is reality and not every irrelevant detail from the source material you happened to like can be included in the finished product. Things have to be cut out for the sake of both time and narrative consistency. From this standpoint, Toei Animation really did a great job as they took everything that they could work with from the visual novel and scrapped whatever didn't work within the context of the movie. They also made some alterations wherever possible so that the entire work would be a self-contained story and didn't force you to take up the source material or another adaptation just for a sense of solution. If you read all of this and you're STILL fretting over the small details, keep in mind that this is an entirely separate work from the TV series and the visual novel. Just think of this movie as an alternate universe version of Clannad and go from there.

With all of that nastiness out of the way, let's talk about how events actually play out in Clannad: The Motion Picture. Simply put, this movie's the more direct adaptation of the Nagisa route from the Clannad visual novel. Instead of having Tomoya bounce around from girl to girl until he settles down with Nagisa, the focus of the narrative stays with Tomoya and Nagisa throughout the entire movie. We get to see how that fateful encounter with Nagisa at the bottom of the hill all those years ago went on to affect Tomoya's life in ways he never thought possible as well as his growth as an individual. That actually brings me to what I like most about Clannad in general: Tomoya himself.

I don't like Clannad because of the romance. Hell, I'd fucking HATE this series if I focused solely on the romance. What really made me take a liking to Clannad in the first place was Tomoya and how relatable he actually is (well, for me at least). At face value, Tomoya is your standard visual novel adaptation lead: he's a fairly good-looking teenager with a snarky demeanour. However, Clannad goes above and beyond when it came down to how he was written. He's more than just a standard visual novel lead, he's like an actual person. He has goals, has struggles of his own, he's got emotions and all that stuff. Think of it like this: as much as I adored White Album 2, Haruki was no better than a self-insert protagonist and I couldn't find myself wanting to care about him one way or the other. Tomoya on the other hand is a far cry from a self-insert protagonist and what's more is that I actually find myself wanting him to succeed in his endeavours and I actually want things to end up happy for him in the end.

On a slightly different note, Nagisa was also quite a delightful character. Whilst the TV series in general portrayed her as a moeblob/idealised girlfriend character that I couldn't find myself caring about one way or the other, Clannad: The Motion Picture gave her an identity of her own. She still has that weak constitution, don't get me wrong. However, she isn't written in such a manner that's meant to evoke an emotional response out of you. She's strong-willed, endearing (and this time, endearing like a human and not like a beagle puppy), and I actually found myself caring about Nagisa as an individual. That's something the TV series completely failed to do for me, by the way.

On another note, the other characters were also quite lovely to say the least. For one thing, I don't find myself feeling visceral hatred toward Sunohara since he's not an insufferable moron. Sure, Sunohara is still a headstrong oaf, but he's actually an oaf that makes me laugh rather than scowl in frustration. Speaking of which, Nagisa's parents are back and Akio never ceases to make me laugh in earnest. He's just as entertaining and likeable as he was in the TV series. Speaking of which, Sanae's here too and I don't find myself wanting her to be crucified by Shion anymore (probably because she's not making shitty bread and dating high school students behind her husband's back anymore)! So that's always nice.

Going off on a tangent, this movie managed to make me laugh... a lot, actually. The comedy throughout the entire movie was spot-on and didn't get annoying after a while. Tomoya's still snarking away at everything and Sunohara's antics actually make me laugh raucously instead of making me want him to die a gruesome death because he was annoying. This movie also knows when to cut the crap and take itself seriously whereas the first season suffered from extensive cases of mood whiplash. Yeah... you can tell that I don't hold the first season in that high of a regard, right?

From a production standpoint, Clannad: The Motion Picture is an odd case to talk about. The watercolour stills used throughout the movie were beautifully designed as were the backgrounds and decorations and such, but the character models were rather lacklustre. The animation itself is more of the same, and that's actually kind of disappointing since Toei Animation tends to give their films more budget than they give their TV shows. Everything still looks great, don't get me wrong but from an aesthetic standpoint, Kyoto Animation spoiled Clannad in ways that Toei Animation never did.

Sound-wise, the OST is quite lovely. It's mostly remixed tracks from the visual novel and it does lack certain tear-jerking themes like "Yuki Nohara" from After Story but it's the way the OST is used that really makes it stand a cut above the first season. On that note, the English dub is also quite lovely (take THAT, you mouth-breathing weeaboo dub haters!). Whereas the first season was quite hit/miss given that Steven Foster was the ADR director there was no shortage of moments that sounded awkward or whatever, the movie shares its ADR director with After Story's. Everything sounded natural to say the least, the voice actors did an amazing job as always, and all that stuff. Really, what more could I want?

Would I say I enjoyed this movie? Well... yeah, I enjoyed it a lot. Whilst I still prefer the TV series (mostly because of After Story, but that's beside the point), the movie managed to do what the TV series failed to do for me. It gets to the point quicker, there's less meandering, Nagisa actually has a personality, and so on and so forth. If you're someone who has never watched Clannad before, I'd actually go so far as to recommend you watch this movie in lieu of the first season and then pick up After Story from Episode 9 onward. I really don't understand why this movie gets so much hate. It does what it does incredibly well. Who cares if the other girls don't get their arcs adapted? If you want Kotomi, Tomoyo, Fuko, or Kyou, go play the goddamn VN or something. I swear, the shit some people end up doing confuses me to no end. Anyway, that's all for now. Feedback is always welcome and with that, I'm out. Peace :)

I've just finished the movie. In general, it was great.
I don't think that the movie will spoil the series, because its alternative to it, but who knows. By the time I'm writing this review, I've
seen only 20 episodes, so I don't know how the anime ends.

Anyway, I'll start the actual review.

Art / Animation:
to tell the truth, it was horrible. There was time where I wondered if I'm watching a movie from the end of 2007, or a movie
from the early 80`s. Though the backgrounds scenery was pretty good, the characters looked awful, with a lack of proportion and made some ...
weird moves. I just couldn't ignore it, and I think that it was the only thing that spoiled my enjoyment of the movie.

Sound:
Nothing special, really. It was fine, and I haven't noticed it for most of the time. The ending theme was nice, but that's all. The new version of Dango Daikazoku was cute and feet with the style of the movie.

Story:
The story was great. There were even some scenes that almost made me cry, and some that made me laugh. As far as I saw from the series, the story in the movie was better. I haven't played the game,
but I think that the meaning behind CLANNAD was transferred better in the movie. A lot of the changed scenes fet just right in the movie. The fact that they've 'jumped' from the past to the present kept me interested, and the change of mood of each scene made a lot of Impact on me, and it was a great idea. Just KEY's style, and there was no disappointment here for me.

Character:
The characters personality was kind of different from the anime. Kyou's (really minor role) personality was completely different from the anime, and Tomoya was kind of strange to me. But hey, that may be just my imagination. But besides that, the characters were great. Each of the main characters has gone through development, especially Tomoya. The scene with his father and the lat scene were just great, and almost made me cry.

Enjoyment + Overall:
I think that the only bad thing here was the art, the rest ware really good. The implementation of this movie was wonderful, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. If after the anime I've thought that the CLANNAD story has nothing special, after seeing this movie I realized that I was really wrong.
If you didn't like the series, see this movie.

Before I say anything, I think the Clannad TV series is amazing, I know i'm going to end up comparing parts of this to the TV series on accident, just because a subbed version of the movie didn't show up until the series was in the late 20's.

Instead of the usual format of explaining each of the 5 categories (Story, Art, Sound, Character, Enjoyment), i'm just going to tell you what I was feeling right after I watched it.

The first hour or so of the movie was ok, I found a little boring to be honest. I paused it for a second and ended up ... watching the Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou concert, and completely forgot I was watching this movie for a good 30 min until I remembered I hadn't finished it. The animation quality wasn't really up to par on this one. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing either. I think the worst aspect of this movie was that the music didn't fit with the movie AT ALL, unlike the Clannad TV series in which the music flows perfectly. The music wasn't bad, but put together with the Clannad atmosphere, it was horrible.

...and then came the last 30 minutes of the movie. Holy shit that was amazing. The ending of this movie is the closest i've ever been to crying during an anime or a movie. I'm trying not to spoil too much, but the ending was breathtaking.

I'm giving this an 8/10, even though it disagrees with my individual ratings on this review. (They end up to be something like 6.8). I would've rated this a 6 or a 7 like my review numbers said, but along with Sunohara being so damn funny the entire movie, the amazing ending bumped it up to an 8.

Thanks for reading,
Max/Pokedude97

"Сlannad" begins from the visual novel released by Key studio in the 2004th year. After, based on the story, was published 4 manga series, animated film and two anime series.

So, if you're wondering whether to watch a movie after watching the 2-seasons of the series, this review will be helpful to you.

The story begins as the original, Tomoya Okazaki studying in senior year of high school. As he been a child, his mother died, because of this, his father had started drinking. Later, in a fight with a drunken father Okazaki injured his shoulder and was forced to give up basketball, relations between the two ... soured. In school, he meets a strange Nagisa, who wants to restore the drama club.

Of course the first thing that catches the eye is Art, he is different from the TV series, as the in animation involved Toei Animation (in the TV series, the animation is engaged Kyoto animation)
So let's focus on the differences between the film and the TV series:
 
One of the main differences is the number of characters. Many characters not at all in the film. In Movie we have: Kyou, Sakagami Tomoyo, Sunohara, Ibuki-sensei (but her daughter not featured in the film), Yoshino Yusuke, Sanae, Akio, Okazaki Father, and of the actual protagonists.
Don't have: Miyazawa, Ryou (sister Kyou), Misae, Mei (Sunohara sister), what is quite strange, all of these characters are interesting, in the novel (and in the TV show) they have a lot of time, but there should be consider the following facts: the film was released before the series and the film lasts only 94 minutes, and the budget, as we see, are not allowed to use more time.

As for the characters, they also have differences. For example the character of the main characters, in my opinion, is different from the series. Okazaki, throughout the film seems not at its best, both at the beginning and at the end, serves as a not very successful and cheerful teenager apparently here present share Shounen genre that shows the formation of male personality. If in the TV show, he never allows himself to be rude to other people, even though we know about his dim past, here in the very first scene is noticeable that he is building in itself is not the best person for dialogue.
Furukawa Nagisa also slightly different character here, In the TV series, she is not self-confident personality, very shy of other people, here a little bit wrong, it appears as a character, who have a clear objective, restore the drama club and nothing can stop this. "I'll draw and 100 of the same, how much will need to draw and hung everywhere, "she says. She still polite to people, is in poor health and appears to us as a very gentle man. Also, before the performance, While reading a monologue, she is absolutely not worried, moment of maintaining her morale , alas, is мissing.

So throughout the show, Okazaki has a dream, a nightmare from which he wakes up in a sweat, it is known is the illusory world that is shown in the TV series and in novel, as you can see, these two worlds are linked. In the series, in an illusory world, we see a girl and a robot, in the movie, we are see the robot clown, later he approaches the "Tree of Hope", which supposedly symbolizes Okazaki meeting with Nagisa in the real world, but in the TV series, we don't know from whence Okazaki knows the story and the script for the scenes, as soon as he notices that Nagisa shows on Scene it is his dream, he realizes that they see the same dream throughout his life, touched by monologue, assuming that this is the fate, on the emotions he tells about his love to Nagisa

Further, the story continues of the words of Okazaki, after the so-called "White Darkness" (After the death of Nagisa and Ushio birth). He starts talk about how little time they spent together. He tells how he worked with Yoshino, (In the movie Sunohara also worked with Yoshino, while in school), he tells, how they had fun together, they even called themselves and their friends "Great Dango Family" (Nagisa loved this).
Toward the end of movie father Okazaki comes to him and said: "You're just like me". This words bring Okazaki rage, though the father is right, Okazaki refuses to listen to him and drives out of the house, which leads to the end of the dialogue.

The end of the movie is average, not the worst, but Ushio does not take part in any way in story. As in the series, after Nagisa's death, Okazaki refuses to communicate with anyone, his father, asking friends son, so to speak the whole "Great Dango Family", help him (son), not to repeat the story of father exactly the same as him. Okazaki was forcibly are taken on a journey.

Whatever it was, thanks to friends, Okazaki meets Ushio and when she runs to him, he notices that she stumbles and then it wake up his father's feelings and love for child, He catches her and understands that he loved her with all his heart.

And yet, even though a lot of things missing in the movie, it is necessary to understand that he went out before TV series, although it was filmed on the novel, and the novel has all these characters (Fuuko, Ryou etc.). Even knowing the whole story of Clannad original and novel, watch this film interesting every minute as if slowly hypnotizes you and you already can not come back from the screen.

Clannad Movie shows how good can be an original story, though shortened in some places.

I just finished this movie, and it was great. If you plan to watch this do not count on that it will resemble the series. It has a small part of the story that is near the serie but when you watch it you will se that they focus more on nagisa and okazaki then the series did.

Story: in short, I loved the story. It was alot better then the one in the serie, why? Because they focus more on the Nagisa & okazaki relationship and they dont focus on the other characters so much like the series did. And because of that the movie ... surpasses the series with horse lengths. And the movie continues more after were the series stopped and you will get surprised what happens (No spoiler here)

Art: I completley loved the art, the thing with the animetion is that you got that little old school feeling when you watched it and that is completly my taste. It was thought some scenes were they did some weird moves that looked terribly awful. But there wasnt so many of those so that gives the art a high score. They also made a really nice work with the coloring. The color looked good and they were good with the shadowing so it almost feelt like it was a real movie.

Sound: nothing special really, it feelt little weird in the start, because some characters had the same voice actors as the serie but some didn´t. and that lowers the score just because that. But they managed good with the side sounds, trains, cars, music etc and thats a big plus (+).

Character: okazaki and nagisa was alot better character wise in the movie then in the serie, but they dont focus so much on the other side characters. But I was expecting that from a movie that is 1.5 hour. The serie was alot longer and could there for focus more on them. But I loved that they didnt show exactly everything with the side characters in the movie and focused more on the Mains.

Enjoyment: Was outstanding I got completley lost when I watched it and I can not stop thinking about how good it was. I think it was because it was alot shorter then the serie. The serie just made you loose intress in some parts. But if you want to completley enjoy this you should watch the series first thought, Because they jumped alot in some sceenes in the movie. And you might wonder "wtf happened between those scenes?" if you havent watched the series.

Overall: It was amasing, it was the sound that draged the score down, but if you can forget about the voice actor thing, you will completley love this movie.

The anticipaded CLANNAD movie turned out a bit less than I thought but I don't regret watching it. It wasn't a waste of time, in my opinion, but it could have been better.

Story
Basically, the story is about the sole relationship of Tomoya and Nagisa. It stars just as in the CLANNAD anime, with them meeting on the hill towards the school. The main thing I liked about the story was that it changed the lines and the events. The secondary characters didn't get too much time to actually have a story but that's normal in a movie (take a look at AIR the movie) and ... I'm honestly not bothered by it, the story about Nagisa and Tomoya was enough for me. Even though I was expecting a bit more drama and touching moments, I think it was pretty much great, not to mention the last scene was very touching for me.

Art
Well, the art was fair, they kept the original movie drawing they got from AIR the movie and it's not that I don't like it, but it's a bit bland. Could have been better, if you ask me, and I wish they put a little more effort in the backgrounds and scenery. Well, maybe I'm just used to the KyoAni awesome animation, who knows.

Sound
Not much to say here, it was good but nothing more. The one thing I enjoyed at full was the ending song (1st one) that's a different version of the CLANNAD Tv ending "Dango Daikazoku", sung by Eufonius, and I love that band. The one thing that really bothered me was the change of the Tomoya seyuu, I would of liked it to remain the same since it took a good 15 minutes to get used to it.

Character
It kind of lacked. I'm honestly giving it a 7 out of good will. Let's just say that I was expecting a bit more character development from the others but that's just the way it is. They kept the original personalities for most of 'em except for Sakagami Tomoyo. She seemed a bit different, and being a Tomoyo fan it was a bit of an eye-twitcher. At least they changed Sunohara to the real punk he is in the game (haven't played it but I know he was tons tougher than the Tv anime).

Enjoyment
I enjoyed it. It has it's bad parts but I can't say it wasn't good. I was expecting a bit more coming from CLANNAD but I think I'm too much of a Key/KyoAni sucker. Key should stop making movies and go directly to Tv anime from now on. Don't expect TOO much if you want to watch it.


Final Overall Grade: 7.4, rounded up to 7.

I've seen Clannad 1st season and those two chapters and I can say that I'm not big fan of it. I had a free time so decided to see the movie, don't know why. I don't know why the serie is more popular than the movie and why this movie is so underrated. Personally I think this movie is much better than the anime. The anime is kinda slow and boring with lots of nonsense elements not to mention very childish. The movie on the other hand is more realistic and the story is amazing and emotional. I mean I was crying like nuts ... the last half hour and even started to like Nagisa. So give this movie a chance, it's not that lame as people say, it's a lot better and deserves a chance.

I always felt this movie was so underrated because of the series. I think the main reason why is because the movie is basically a summary of the entire series, but the movie is so well paced and doesn't feel rushed at all unlike most other anime summary movies. The ending is even more realistic. Well let's get this review going!

Story: Like the series this movie revolves around a high school boy named Tomoya who meets this young girl named Nagisa at a hill on the way to school underneath cherry blossom trees. He decides to talk to her and from then on their relationship ... blossoms. The romance is sweet and focuses more on the dreams that Nagisa had for acting and how Tomoya grew to realize his feelings for her in a heartwarming way. It's something that I myself could relate too. There are many feels in this so beware of crying unless you've seen the series although since it's more real to life so you might want to get a tissue box.

Animation: The art is good, but not as good as the series. It has the same character designs, but the lighting and beauty of it is more outdated compared to the main series. It's not terrible or even bad. It's mostly just good.

Sound: The music was beautiful like in the series. The voice acting was quite good too and if you enjoy dubs then this one is pretty good, not the greatest dub ever, but I still think it's good. The music is what I really enjoyed about it though. It truly matched the mood of the story so well.

Characters: Tomoya is the main male protagonist. The main girl protaginist is Nagisa as earlier mentioned. Tomoya has a sad past that causes him to act like a delinquent although he's truly a kind and caring person who helps Nagisa to accomplish her dreams of performing on stage. Nagisa however is a very sweet girl who can be shy and sometimes she even says the name of one of her favorite foods out loud to herself so that way she'll work up the courage to do something like go to the drama club She loves to sing that cute and adorable song, Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango.
There's also Sonohara who is Tomoya's best friend and is mostly there for comedic relief.
Then eventually you get to see Ushio. She's so adorable. All she says is "Daddy," but she's the cutest. By the time you her you'll literally cry from your heart.

Enjoyment: I honestly loved this movie and yes I saw it before the series. I'm still deciding which I like better. The series or movie. No matter what I think this movie was how a summary anime movie should be made... Just so well paced and beautiful on every level for me. I enjoyed this because of how much the characters made me love them. Nagisa and Tomoya are still my favorite couple to this day and the movie is no exception. I also loved the true to life ending and it made me cry out from my heart ans soul. I just love this masterpiece without a doubt.

Overall: If you love romance drama anime then it's worth the watch if you don't feel like watching the entire series and it might get you interested in the main series like it did for me. I hope you check out this awesome anime movie! At least do it to see Ushio or hear the adorable Dango song. Tomoya is my personal favorite though Nagisa and Tomoya are like ying and yang.

Ending quote: "But the one thing I will never forget is that smiling face."
*Bursts in tears*

Whilst I have many problems with anime that come from the hands of visual novel writers, my main problem is that they always feel like the writers came up with the set pieces and character types first and then strung a plot around it. And as impressive as those individual elements may be, you can't carry an entire series on them alone for the same reason you can't carry it on just animation. That may work in a video game where the excellent interactivity can carry you through some semi-major plot failings (the Tomb Raider reboot comes to mind), but in an anime, it's fucking ... jarring and it gets old real fast. Oh, and they're never funny. So if anybody wants to know why I don't like Zvezda, Classroom Crisis, Charlotte, and whatever the fuck that Plastic Memories thing was, that's why.

Basically, I like plot and story to go hand-in-hand. And in most visual novel anime (and most anime for that matter), plot and story seem to be taking turns in a game of Monopoly with "story" being lousy at playing the game. Whilst there may be one or two other exceptions to the rule, Toei's Key films are probably the only visual novel adaptations I've watched in where it feels like stuff is actually happening on a constant basis, which is part of the reason why I have a certain fondness for them. Other reasons include decent characterization that drives the story, having some fucking closure to something major without any chance of a sequel, and (most of all) the drama actually being kinda good. But then again, it's Osamu Dezaki. Saying his drama is good at this point in time is like saying Ikuhara anime are delightfully quirky.

So the film shares the same plot beats you know from the Clannad story - Tomoya meeting Nagisa on a hill, him having a bum shoulder, having a kid with Nagisa, Nagisa going to heaven, etc. etc. - and we see everything through Tomoya's eyes, but they're executed very differently here in the same way Majora's Mask is different from Ocarina of Time despite having so much in common. The story actually takes place during the After Story portion where Tomoya is going through a rainy depression, causing him to flashback to the school stuff as he narrates about the girl who would become his wife and how the two got to know each other over time and how they meet other characters along the way and all the other expected beats you'd expect from a shoujo romance.

Through the use of this narrative trick, Clannad maintains a large amount of focus as we follow a guy through his self-defeating journey towards adulthood with the relationship as a central focus not unlike 5 Cm/s. But there's more to this narrative trick than summarizing the story in ninety minutes or resembling the most critically acclaimed romance anime of all-time. Said change to how to tell the Clannad story actually evolves into a magnifying glass that really sheds a whole new light on that "dating sim" style of storytelling that was popular around the early-to-mid 00s and that Clannad happened to bring to an inexplicably popular level even before it became an anime. In that sense, it's basically Monogatari if Monogatari wasn't fucking boring, padded, meme-grabbing, hypocritical trash.

Let's face it, there's nothing inherently wrong with the whole "boy saving girl" thing and the reverse is true as well as long as they don't make the characters to be cocky bitches whilst doing so. Wish-fulfillment like that is present in some of the most epic and well-revered of classic dramas and just because they tend to have better characterization shouldn't excuse that fact. I'm still calling bullshit on Ushio and Tora's flimsy justification on why the characters at the center of most of the episodic conflicts happen to be young females who have a tendency to not keep their clothes safe whenever a monster appears in their vicinity. Yes, it came from a different time than stuff like Green Green or Da Capo, but that doesn't exempt it from criticism when it gets adapted in present-day, especially given the other changes the creators are doing in order to cram over thirty volumes worth of material into 39 episodes.

By directing Clannad like one of his 80s classics with all the split-screens and sakura petals and tributes to other 80s-90s anime romance dramas and such, Dezaki is saying that in theory, the source material's premise is no less stupid than say Aim for the Ace. I mean let's face the truth: all dramas are emotionally manipulative in the same manner that all skunks smell bad or all Uwe Boll movies are godawful. But as Jean-Luc Godard once said, "It's not where you take things from — it's where you take them to." No, there's nothing wrong with Nagisa existing just to be an emotional support whose main role is to die in order to have a baby. Lara's crew in the Tomb Raider reboot pretty much exist to die in order to be a part of her character development. Do we complain about that? Well okay, some do, but I very much doubt most people who like the game are fans of Maeda.

But at the same time, this movie is aware of how fucking stupid the VN adaptation boom was, and still is to a degree, and whilst it doesn't hate it (why else would Kotomi get a two-second cameo as a band conductor in this film?), it can't help but poke fun at it by vastly changing the character roles. In this interpretation, Tomoya is basically the Key girl that needs help because he's an entirely reactionary character who mostly just gets lead around by Nagisa, Sunohara, and whoever else managed to make it into this film, and most of the crying aspects fall on him. Oh and he's voiced Kenji Nojima, which can be a bit off-putting if you're used to Yuuichi Nakamura's pimp voice - but given he also voiced Tatsuya from Mahouka, I think a fair amount of people won't mind at all.

There's more gender diversity in this iteration since a bunch of the girls got excluded whilst all the important male characters get to stay, and they all have lives separate from Tomoya regardless of their sex. Most of them show up because someone Tomoya knows is closely associated with 'em, rather than being close with Tomoya personally. But at the same time, they're still the most important aspect of the story. Just in a different way that acknowledges the visual novel story's love for quirky supporting cast members to make our hero feel more important whilst being a middle-finger to the power-fantasy/sexist elements that said medium is most famous for. Without wishing to spoil anything, the ending of this film is drastically different from the series in that it ends with the cast reuniting to take the story in their hands one last time in a way that really got to me. My love of Saturday Night Fever's ending is all but well-documented at this point, and I think this film plays what I like about said ending with a take on the power of friendship/family formula that works.

With all that said, even if you don't appreciate or believe the whole meta-narrative thing I think this film goes for, the Clannad movie still functions well as a standard romance drama about a boy meeting a girl, falling in love with her over a shared dream that is admittedly woven into the narrative as elegantly as a crocodile is woven into Swan Lake, realizing he hasn't grown up once he loses her, and taking the first step towards being an adult when he's forced to confront his hypocrisy head-on. As I said earlier, Toei's version automatically has the advantage over every other visual novel anime ever by having the characters make stuff happen on a regular basis and not having said stuff consist of nothing more than a bunch of disjointed setpieces and character types. Two automatic gold stars in this accursed genre, amirite? It also helps that Nagisa stays dead in this version and all the characters take themselves seriously for the most part, rarely pausing the story for a minute to show off some stupid quirk.

Sunohara definitely comes off a lot better in this version of the story, that's for sure. In the more popular iterations of Clannad, he was an obnoxious idiot who kept challenging girls to fights and abandoning his sister over a misunderstanding whose very concept was so retarded I'm not even sure how it made it past the editing stage. But in this iteration, he's a lot more mature - as well as a bit more monkey-like, but he got a few laughs out of me so I let it slide. From getting a job in order to support his family to beating up a bunch of students who were invalidating Nagisa's posters, this is the kind of friend you want by your side, even though he commits acts of public urination from time-to-time. And the other characters are fine for the most part. Tomoyo and Kyou could have been extradited without changing the story in any significant way and I can't say I'm a big fan of Nagisa's childishness even though she's a more proactive character here, but some things just never change.

I've heard a lot of people dismiss this thing as a summary film - which wouldn't make sense considering it came out a few weeks before the series did - but there's way more going on in this adaptation than just adapting all the Nagisa parts whilst everyone else's story can all get run over by a lawnmower. But labels aside, this particularly summary film does what many people consider to not be possible and make Clannad good. I say it makes it great. With a tightened narrative, well-rounded characters, a very 80s soundtrack that I admit to liking way more than I should, and changes to the source that show its love for the VN boom whilst criticizing its more unsavory aspects through the vein of an 80s drama, Clannad: The Motion Picture is not only the only good Key anime, but the only good VN-related anime I've ever seen (unless you count Psycho-Pass, which I don't), and nothing that's come out before or since has been able to change my mind on that. The animation is garbage, but apparently I'm the only one who doesn't let that bother me. I like this film and I'm saddened that Dezaki had to leave us before giving us a version of Little Busters that wasn't like having your head shoved into an oven.

After finishing the anime, I really wanted to get more Clannad so i looked up Clannad and I found this movie. I always wanted to see how the creators could make an equally good retelling in 1:30 minutes. This is it. There may be minor spoilers but I don't think it will ruin the enjoyment of the show. WARNING: This story is a tearjerker.

Story: The story is quite different than it was in the anime. Given this, do NOT compare the two. The characters are the same, Nagisa and Tomoya are the main characters, Sunohara, Sanae, Akio, etc. ... are the supporting characters. I found the story very interesting and informative (it filled in gaps in the anime) and the scene where Nagisa performed on stage was excellent. I really enjoyed Tomoya's reaction to the play and to the little confrontation with his father. The story messes with your emotions because it starts off happy and cheerful, but midway through the story takes a turn for the worst. The plot development is good, it keeps the viewers interest. It starts off slow and eventually picks up speedwise. Soon enough, you'll be eager to click the fast forward button to see the ending. It is that good. Even though we knew something bad was going to happen, we wouldn't know what it would be until we saw it. The only problem i found was that the transitions were quite fastpaced. Some i found quite confusing, that i had to resort to rewinding and rewatching.

Art: The art is decent as usual, i really liked the character's appearances. The scenery and blowing sakura blossoms were quite nice. Nothing wrong here.

Sound: Nothing out of the ordinary. I liked the sound effects during the play. Dango song got kind of annoying though.

Character: Given the time restraints, i think they did a good job, however i would have liked the creators to stretch the climax a little bit more. For me, it was quite rushed and it didn't leave as huge impact as I had expected. There were some missing characters that I had wanted to see, Kotomi, Fuko etc from the anime. But their absence isn't a huge problem; the movie was mainly Tomoya & Nagisa. Tomoya was the most developed character and very few times have i seen a character suffer through so much hardship and emotional trauma. His character was what made me give the movie an 8, being a main character he has to have his ups and his downs otherwise the movie ends up being a borefest. I also enjoyed seeing more of Yoshino, he had more air time then the anime. Same with Sanae and Akio.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed this movie, except for the fact I had to go back and rewatch a part because it didn't make sense. Then again, it was at 11 pm and i was tired. It could've been the subbers, but i watched it again and it made more sense than before. It was quite quickpaced, as previously mentioned, but that is expected due to the time restraints. If you are a fan of the Clannad TV series, you definetely don't want to miss this movie. The ending is very emotional and will most likely cause you to shed a tear. I know i had my moments.

Overall: Overall, this movie is very good, I highly recommend it, it has alot, if not everything a Clannad fan would want from a movie based on it. The story basically fills in the gaps that the anime had left behind. To fully experience Clannad, one should see both the movie and the anime. It fills in everything, expands everything and was an excellent addition to the Clannad series.

An excellent retelling of one of the greatest romance stories of our time. It's Clannad but without the harem anime influence and it also provides a glance at some of the mysteries of Clannad and the story as a whole. It even sheds a little light on anpan (just watch it lol). Personally, I never liked Nagisa that much and I always wondered why Tomoya chose her over the others, but this movie shows why they are so compatible and goes deeper into Nagisa's character. The show didn't leave me with the impression that Tomoya or Suhei were delinquents but the movie brings that out ... in their character as well. Also, the alternate world that you see in the show is given more meaning and background. The art isn't as great as the show and it's a little slow at the beginning because it is the same plot that you watched in Clannad but you can't claim to be a Clannad fan without watching this movie.

Clannad: The Movie is a film I can watch any time, any place and still feel enthralled as if it were the first time.

As the precursor to the popular 2007 Clannad anime, the movie depicts moments and a perspective uniquely different from the anime. It's a fresh and original take on the story and covers the most important events well in a 90 minute runtime.

To someone who has only seen the 2007 anime, this movie will be jarring to you. The tone is very dramatic in contrast to the anime and a lot of the characters you may have loved in Clannad take ... a back seat in the movie. Some characters don't make an appearance at all which may or may not displease you based on how you felt about them before.

To someone who's seen neither Clannad 2007 or this movie, the story may confuse you because of the order they decided to place events. If you're watching the English dub, the pronunciation of some names may bother you as well. Good note that the same voice actors in the movie went on to voice the same characters in the anime. It's something I appreciated since I watched both in dub.

Some of the angles in this movie are righteously jarring. The director is audacious in his attempt to make scenes interesting and unsettling but after three times, the bubble lens effect gets annoying. Some scenes give the impression of a hallucination with the resampling effect they use but I just thought it was my media player acting up.

I think Clannad: The Movie is a bittersweet retelling of Clannad's Visual Novel story and for someone who just wants to put their foot in the water, it's a good place to start. None of the characters are overbearing or intolerable in the movie and the colors and music collaborate well to illustrate the feelings inside Tomoya Okazaki.

To someone who's never seen Clannad; good luck. But if you're looking for the real emotional experience to feel something really pull at your heart, I suggest watching the 2007 anime first.

Rview about this movie:

First, watch the whole anime first. well 1-22.

Story: Just perfect, ok it has some things changed from anime / novel, but it includes the core of the Nagisa's arc, so if you love Nagisa, the story is what you expect.

Art/sound: After you watch KyoAni, well this movie seems plain, but art is well made and at the end you are so into the movie that you don't care. Sound is decent, some visual novel / anime music, some new, and the new dango dango dango, that somehow it sounded weird at first, but now i love it.

Character: well i say 9, ... but not every character, some characters don't´t appear and some have different rols, but the main line characters are what they are supposed to be. Also same Nagisa voice helps a lot.

Enjoyment: i enjoyed so much this movie, cuz it is important to add some after story to the animation, and Nagisa is my favorite character. Also if you watched the anime, you can think the second part of the movie as the continuation, the ending is something you must see. Now the opening of the anime will make a bit more sense, and you´ll be happy.

Thanks for reading, Clannad is so far 1 of the best animes ever made, i think, so you should watch everything related =P

Clannad Movie

It's a pre-anime work, so try to assemble in 1:30 of 47 eps film from the two seasons, the construction of the film is better than the first season that I found dragged at first, but I understood why it was that way, but after seeing two seasons in the overall set left a lot to be desired, it ended up looking like a great summary of the summary, it's good,
but it is still not the final conclusion. It is worth seeing to appreciate the work as a whole and see one of its endings.

Clannad game

Anime based on a Visual Novel of the same ... name, where you have the option to choose which path you will follow and which girl you will try your luck and conquer, each with a personality as in a typical Slice of Life, as you cover the story of the person who tries to conquer you advances in memories,
trauma and drama.

I've just watched this anime and my review is going to be short. Why? Because the movie is just well, how do i put this? The story is very simple, very rushed and little character development. The animation isn't as good as the series. Tomoya seemed strange compared to the series and don't really fit well. The music seems inappropriate at times. After hearing dango song from the series, the song in the movie is weird. But i got use to it and found it catchy even.

The strange thing is, despites all those points, i enjoyed the movie, alot. The simplicity of the story ... and the way the merge the plots though abit rushed is really able to tug heartstrings. Maybe is because the movie is so normal, everything happens realistically(except the comedy parts) and Tomoya faced a normal problem, not the common "flirt with all the girls and don't know who to choose" problem. The showing of friendship when Tomoya was in depression was also great.

The last scene was truly heartwarming. A must watch, even if it seems boring at first, preservere and watch till the end

From this movie, i realize, the ending does make a good show. You can have crappy animation, rushed storyline, possibly weak plot or plot development and lousy BGM. But throw in a great ending and the show will make anyone's day.

Review: Clannad Movie

To start off this review, I just want to say that I'm going to be comparing the Movie to the anime series, like the differences similarities and which I thought was better, I'm also going to be talking about how the movie adapted the source material, Okay then, lets get this started.

Clannad Movie is something I have been meaning to watch for a while now but only just got around to it, and I did watch the anime first a while ago, so this review will come from the perspective of someone that watched the anime before the movie, I will try to ... have a non biased view of the movie as a whole though, just so you can get a Clear idea of what the movie is like without my personal views interfering.

As you could probably tell from what I just said, the movie did come out first, before the anime series did, just by a couple of months though, as the film aired in September 2007 and the anime aired just one month later in October 2007, with the release of both adaptations so close together, I think it is a given that there would be differences between the both of them, which, depending on where you stand of the whole thing, the differences in the adaptations can either be a good thing or a not so good thing...yeah. Having differences between the two adaptations can help as you can get a different perspective on the original material that you might not have gotten had they not of deviated. I haven't played the visual novel, which happens to be the original source material , so I couldn't tell you which adaptation is more faithful, as this is a movie though, im going to guess that the movie is the less accurate of the two, with them having to condense most of the story within a 90 minute runtime.

So before I continue any further with the analysis of the movie, I think it would be good to have a look at the story of the movie for those of you that are only interested in that, this will not include any spoilers though, so don't worry. The story of Clannad is a sad one, in which I mean you Will cry at some point while watching this, you might even cry for the happy bits. The story takes place in a small town somewhere in Japan and more precisely a school that is situated at the top of a hill in that town, where Tomoya, one of the main characters goes to school. On one morning where he is late for school he runs into Nagisa, our second main character. After this encounter, this is where the third and final main character Sunohara comes in, he's the best friend of Tomoya, and both of them seem to be more or less delinquents or the slackers at there school. Over time Tomoya and Nagisa bump into each other every now and again, with there friendship being cemented with each encounter. While the days go on Tomoya seems to have the same nightmare most nights, which plays into more of the story and is a big spoiler so we'll be leaving that out, After a period of time in the story has past, Tomoya and Sunohara are roped into helping Nagisa re-form the drama club and that for them means that they will have to become part of the club and start helping out.

Past this the story goes into spoiler territory and I think its better if you experience it for yourself rather than read a review about it, however I think that this story, although different from the source material a little bit, is still a story that is beautiful and well crafted, and is really made to play with your emotions. However if you like slice of life, romance and Moe anime, your sure to love this one as a great edition to the genre.

The animation and the art style of the movie, where good, the art style followed along with the visual novels art direction and the style does help you to watch is you have watched the anime before or are going too, with a lot of the characters looking the same and locations not differing too much from what they did look like, and if it wasn't for the fact that both the anime and the film adapted from the visual novel with the story being the same..ish, I could see that both the film and the anime could follow along with each other. I know what your saying 'well the style and animation would of course be the same cause its the same series' and yes I agree with that and im not saying they are exactly the same because the movie does look a little different to the series, but that is because both adaptations were produced by different companies, with the movie being produced by Kyoto Animation along with a few more studios that you can look at in the information section of the movies page.

The animation felt fluid and held to a good standard, I watched it at 720p but for some reason, this film looked like it had a pre – computer graphics filter on it, as the film looked like it could have been aired in the 90's with other anime like dragon ball, Naruto and one piece,.the look of the anime could have just been cause of the resolution I was watching the film at, or it could be that they wanted to go for a stylisation like that. Whatever it was though, the anime was nice to look at and at no point did I feel like the quality dropped “cough dragon ball super episode 5 cough cough”, so yes the anime was good and I liked it.

The voice actors from what I could tell, are the same as the actors for the series, I couldn't say the same for the dubbed version as I didn't watch the film dubbed. The voice actors will as good as always, as they are in most anime, and the music, while being similar if not sometimes the same as the music for the anime series, was great, with a lot of sad themed music to try and make you cry like a little child who just had his candy taken from him.

Overall I think this is a good movie, it pales in comparison to anime series however this did come out before and its a good way to get a small glimpse at the full clannad story. If you have seen the series I recommend to watch this to get a different perspective however its not vital to watch it.

So considering all of that I give this Anime a 7/10

So if anybody made it to then end of the review, I thank you for taking your time to read this, I know my review was probably a little disjointed but I hope that improves as time goes on, see you next time guys :)

The movie took a different turn than the original anime, but it's still worth watching. Sunohara, the main character's best friend, plays a bigger part in the movie, and pretty much makes up for the lack of all the female friends Nagisa and Tomoya shared in the series. The ending is more expected. All in all, great movie.

This movie combines Clannad and the Clannad After Story into a film. This movie has a fairly similar art style and some of the voice actors are different from the Anime version. I think this should be watched after you complete the main series. Even though this predates Clannad and Clannad After Story, they have a much better ending and go into way more detail and the plot is way better in my mind. This movie the plot is almost the same but different in that I only cried once. Sound odd when I say it but the Tv version of this show that ran ... for 46 episodes (again combined clannad and afterstory.) gives you more of a plot and more emotions. Once you finish the emotion train that is clannad then watch this movie. You will find this has some more elements that make it somewhat enjoyable like some comedy. Please if you have not watched clannad please do. But not this version first.