Reviews

"No matter how cold and distant people may become, on the inside something warm and precious always remains, something that never changes. To me, that’s what family is like."- Sakagami Tomoyo. Clannad is an anime about family, values and love. Like many other anime out there, Clannad starts off with a very happy mood, with jokes every so often in an episode and while this may seem as if this will just be another one of those school themed anime where ALL of the female characters happen to fall in love with the (practically) single male character in the entire school, it's not. What's unique about Clannad (+After Story) is the fact that the story doesn't only focus on the main protagonist and who he's around. Instead, Clannad takes an entirely different approach, by telling the story of the characters from their own perspective. This aspect of Clannad made it special for me, sometimes forcing me to laugh and other times, provide an excess of feelings for the characters to make me cry. You could read this entire review and continue to read my rambling, but for those who either don't have time or are too lazy, here is the bottom line: Watch Clannad because just like great literature works such as The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Clannad and Clannad: After Story is a classic, one that everyone should experience for themselves.

Now, onto the more in-depth review of Clannad

Story: 10/10
Clannad is unique in more ways than one, and the story it tells is truly original with a style of its own. Before I say anything else, I just want to make it clear that the style of the story telling is not as one would expect, with one protagonist, talking about things that happen around him. Instead, there are many different stories in Clannad and they are all pieced together at the end to form a complete story in one person's life. The story itself is centered around Tomoya, a regular delinquent who skips class often to sleep and Nagisa, a girl held back a grade due to a prolonged illness. The day these two meet is the beginning of the story. I do not want to spoil anything at all, so I'll just summarize what it was like for me in one sentence: Clannad was a roller coaster full of plot twists and emotional (both sad and happy) moments. I will explain what makes the story great a bit more in the character section, since the two are so closely related.

Art: 9/10
If there was one part of Clannad that I didn't absolutely love as much as the others, it'd be the art. Granted, this was made in 2006 and since then, computer generated art has gotten a lot better, I feel as if anime currently look much more beautiful and clear. Don't get me wrong, the art in Clannad is not bad at all, but if I had to choose one category that did not do as well as the others, I'd say it would be the art. I would call it the "stereotypical anime genre art style" if I had to give it a tag.

Sound: 10/10
WOW! Of all the anime I've watched, Clannad, by far, had the most captivating soundtrack. The music flowed with what went on in Clannad, whether it be sad or funny, it was there generating a mood like no other. From beginning to end, Clannad to After story, Jun Maeda (the composer) has put the standard for OSTs onto a whole different level. There are a lot of moments in the anime where you may be thinking "what the heck was this guy thinking? I don't hear anything" or "this sounds okay." Well, I'd like to back up my claim that this soundtrack is amazing, and sometimes may be unnoticeable partially due to the fact that it fits so well that the viewer may not even realize it, even if it were playing. It seeps into the viewer's subconscious and generates emotions that may have been kept away from deep inside of your heart, and it does this with exceptionally.

Character 10/10
Many people who have seen Clannad and After Story may know that it was originally written by Key Studios as a Visual Novel. If you don't know what a Visual Novel is, I'll briefly explain it: A Visual Novel is when an eBook crossbreeds with a slow-paced story based low quality video-game where there's not a lot of controlling by the player and a whole lot of story. A Visual Novel has different "routes" for different characters. Now, back to the review. Clannad focuses very heavily on character development with an episode or three for every single character. Now, keep in mind that there are close to 20 characters in Clannad, and practically every single one of them has a detailed background and how they fit in to the story; this is what gives Clannad the ability to make its viewer cry. Clannad establishes a connection for the viewer with the character deep enough to make the viewer feel sad when the character feels sad and overflow with joy when the character is happy. This series does a very good job of this.

Enjoyment 10/10
Overall 10/10
There comes a time in every man's life (or woman, if there are people who get mad about this sort of thing reading the review) that he has to make a major decision that will influence the rest of his life. Watching Clannad or not watching Clannad is one of those decisions. This anime was a life changer for me, and I am almost positive that it will give other viewers a different perspective on life as well.

I would compare this anime a classic, similar to classics in literature, art, music, etc... This is definitely worthwhile. For those who read this review, thank you for your time (I know it may have not been very good, but a while after watching this, I remembered how great this anime was and finally got enough motivation to get off my ass and motivate others to watch it as well).