"We start to walk up...the long...long...uphill climb."
There are some anime that you watch that has some sort of impact when you watch it. It could be the animation was something that caught your eye. It could be the soundtrack that makes you feel nostalgic when you hear it again. It could be the characters that you come to love after seeing their highs and lows over the course of the series. Or maybe its the storytelling that might hit a little close to home to the point you realized you wanted a life like that or you wanted to see more of it because
...
you enjoyed the ride. If any of these interest you then consider Clannad: After Story for an experience that I hope make some sort of positive impact to you as it did to me.
Story: 10/10
Since this is a two part installment of the series, you have to watch the prequel that started it and because of that, I'm going to review the story as a whole rather then just After Story. Key, the creators of the Visual Novel had some sort of theme in their stories. The particular theme that Clannad had was "Family" and when you see all the arcs in both seasons, you can see how a definition of family differs from one person to another. The bonds, the character's incentives, and the tragic moments are all driven because of family whether its because they want to protect them, they want some sort of atonement, or that they don't want to deal with them at all.
The romance and slice-of-life in Clannad and Clannad: After Story are probably some of the biggest reasons people had an interest in watching it. How strong you see the romance in this anime is up to your own opinion and experiences with other anime. In a lot of romantic anime, once the two characters get together (if they even get together at all), we hardly see anything come after that once they hook up. Usually the story ends and we leave it to our imagination that they live "happily ever after". This is where After Story comes in and goes beyond the blooming romance and goes past the high school years and the characters actually start a family which many anime doesn't seem to do. Because of that, we see the conflicts now that they are together which tests how each of them are willing to sacrifice for the sake of their significant other. Tomoya and Nagisa definitely shown how much they cared for each other through every obstacle that they faced that I haven't seen in a long time. The romance keeps on going and we get to see another aspect of "Life" besides the typical high school years that again, I hardly see in many anime let alone how perfectly they executed it as well.
The drama portion of the story is one of the best I have ever seen in my history of anime. Unlike Key's other works like Air and Kanon that might hit you with one heavy emotional moment, Clannad literally didn't know when to stop pulling on your heartstrings. To many people in the anime community, Clannad was known as the "Saddest Anime I Ever Saw" or they compare it to one of the best "Emotional Rollercoaster" they have ever experienced in anime and with good reason. This is greatly thanks to the characters that we know and loved that might have carried the show.
Character: 10/10
Clannad had a good spread of different characters that you will eventually learn further more as the show progresses. All of them have their own strengths and flaws that you will either grow to like or hate with a passion. Then your opinion will change once you get to their specific arc. In fact, all of the characters (even the supporting cast) has sort of arc dedicated to them ensuring that their character development is shown. To me, I also feel that the characters stay true to what they were intended to be, they don't act out of character which gave the whole "realistic" feel. Most of them by all means are not one-dimensional characters and this is because we get to see them in the spotlight in their own arc. For example, initially I thought of Sunohara as simply a joke character that was only there for comedic moments but then my opinion of him changed once I got to see his story which you rarely see in other anime.
The main leads Tomoya and Nagisa has shown one of the better character developments I have seen in my recent memory as well as one of the best character matches for each other due to their polarizing strengths and weaknesses. Nagisa in her own way developed from a physically weak girl to a emotionally stronger and supportive female. Nagisa is the most fleshed out female in the series largely because of her having the most screen time where she shows up in all the arcs despite the fact that she is not in the spotlight. Because Tomoya is particularly the one resolving the issues of each character Nagisa is there with him throughout his journey lending an ear and even encouraging him to not give up hope which you see gradually more as the show progresses. Since you see Nagisa get a fair bit of character development in each arc, you as the viewer in some way might grow an attachment to her and the more attached you are to her, the worst it hurts when you experience those sad moments (you know which ones I'm talking about) involving her later on. While she was initially"weak" having people usually come to her aid, she tries in her own way to support the ones she love usually putting herself on the line making her synenergize very well with Tomoya.
Tomoya might look like a person with no flaws because he is the one "solving" the problems of each character but in actuality, he is one of the more emotionally weaker characters early on in the show. As we get to know a little of Tomoya's history, we know that he had a rough relationship with his dad molding him into a very independent person who won't rely on anyone as well as giving up hope on his future (the fallen-hero). Instinctively, Tomoya tries to be the person that people should rely on but as things get tough, Tomoya is usually the person to give up. It is thanks to Nagisa (and some of the other cast like her parents) who encouraged him to get back on his feet. Tomoya soon realizes that he can't do everything on his own all the time and that he needs to rely on others, his "Family", to fight the battles he can't fight on his own. Because the story revolves around him and we see his the most character development out of the rest and inevitably grow a huge attachment to him that like he is one of your closest friend (This maybe a stretch). When he is happy you are happy, when he is struggling, you actually feel bad for him and thats a few of the reasons he is one of my favorite anime characters.
I want to put a special mention to the Furukawa parents, Ako and Sanae who are best supporting characters I have ever seen. Throughout thick and thin, they are always there to help the main characters in some way no matter what the task may be from giving some life advice to taking Tomoya in as parents and even sacrificing their own future so their daughter can have one. They were also tackling a huge task while burdening a huge pain and grief for a few years (which I won't spoil).
Art: 9/10
Now the art of the series was done by Kyoto Animation which is a very well known company for their beautiful and breathtakingly realistic animation as well as their affinity with moe filled characters. For an anime produced in 2007-2008, it the animation is simply stunning for its time due to the close attention to details. They keep in mind the attention to real world physics in their animation where if a gust of wind would not only effect the characters but also the trees in the far background. Even the unimportant background characters have distinct facial features instead of a generic cut and paste look or no face at all. On the flip side, not all the character designs are up to par but this isn't particularly Kyoto Animation's fault but more of the original Visual Novel. We have some of the characters look extremely identical to each other (Tomoya and Yusuke), the Furukawa family has that signature antenna hair that may appear unnecessary to some viewers (let alone the fact that the parents don't seem to age), and there are three main female characters with the same hair color. Again this is not a big fault on Kyoto Animation but more on the the Light Novel and the animation studio definitely tried to make them as distinct as possible. A extra side note for the animation of Kyoto in this anime is the wonderful job they put the tone in every scene. The Illusionary World looked very beautiful setting it apart from the rest of the show and the Sakura Blossom Trees stapled the emotional settings that the story had from beginning to end.
Sound: 8/10
The soundtrack was composed and remastered from the Visual Novel lead by Jun Maeda who made other Key adaptation soundtracks like Angel Beats and Little Busters. Each soundtrack had its own appropriate tone that set the mood of each scene in Clannad. Hearing the soundtracks again simply is enough to recall the emotional memories of that scene that Clannad scarred me with which is a good thing for simply "background noise". The opening and ending themes were also very memorable to me and in particular "Dango Daikazoku" is a stable song to both me and other Clannad fans for being both happyand sad as well as having a huge impact to the show. The ending theme in Clannad: After Story is unfortunately not my favorite ending theme. This is because of its upbeat tone that while appropriate in good clean endings does not seem at all appropriate on cliff-hangers and sad endings which happens frequently in Clannad. I wouldn't even mind if they kept the same ending theme from the first season because it can mesh well with whatever theme the show ends with. Another crippling thing in the sound department is the English Dub for the series. Being the fan that I am, I had to listen to try listening to the dub and see if it is good to recommend to others whoa watch in English Dub solely. It is difficult to tolerate English voice actors trying to reenact a moe characters (save Fuko and Nagisa who were dubbed by "good" English Voice Actors). Even the other characters like Ako sounded very different to his original Japanese Dub counterpart. On top of that, the emotional moments will come off as weak if you don't even enjoy the sound of characters in said moment. Perhaps its the production chew who licensed the Dubbing rights to Clannad that is to blame as well as the fact (in my opinion) that dubbing is progressively getting better as of recently (thank you Funimation now dub Clannad). Overall, if you want to have the full enjoyment of watching this anime, you should watch it in its original Japanese Dub for maximum feels.
Enjoyment: 10/10
I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and it moved me. Personally, this is my favorite anime up to date because of how much it changed my perspective of life in general (cheesy I know). Me like many other people who finished this anime had that void that makes you want to find something as great or impact as this (and AnoHana was the one for me). The sad thing for me is that I have to resist myself from comparing it to other anime when I rate it because I personally standardized it as one of the best anime ever and while it is my personal opinion, it is obviously not other anime viewers favorite if at all it probably wasn't even decent to them. There are a handful of flaws I can find in this anime that I honestly didn't mind because I simply saw way more pros over its cons. It could be that it was over dramatic to some viewers that its sickening (and I respect that), maybe they didn't want to know about said character and believed that they just added an arc for fill the episode list (that makes me love the show even more), perhaps the overshadowing to a emotional moment was so obvious that it "ruined the moment" (to me, I was so concerned of the current situation of our characters that I didn't notice), maybe it was over-hyped that it ruined their expectations (hey, its #3 in top anime in this site for a reason but I found it on my own), or maybe that just wanted more (an After After Story lol). I can list many reasons why this is good and others can say many reasons why this is bad but it is their own personal enjoyment, preferences, and experiences of what they consider the "Best" and this anime to me is the "Best".
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Jul 24, 2014
Clannad: After Story
(Anime)
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"We start to walk up...the long...long...uphill climb."
There are some anime that you watch that has some sort of impact when you watch it. It could be the animation was something that caught your eye. It could be the soundtrack that makes you feel nostalgic when you hear it again. It could be the characters that you come to love after seeing their highs and lows over the course of the series. Or maybe its the storytelling that might hit a little close to home to the point you realized you wanted a life like that or you wanted to see more of it because ... |
