The story of Clannad is standard fare for an adaptation of a visual novel. You have the protagonist, his goofy best friend, and his 5 female companions. And as with most adaptations of visual novels, one of the female heroines is chosen to be the primary heroine while the others are relegated to background duty. In terms of story arcs, the background heroines go first, exploring their individual backgrounds and problems. By the end of the season, as expected, all the background heroines have been taken care of and it is the turn of the primary heroine. This love story does not disappoint, but it does feel like one big introduction. The entirety of the first season introduces you to the town, all of the colorful characters that inhabit it, and their struggles. However, it does come to a nice close and can be considered standalone if you really wanted it to be.
The art style of Clannad is strikingly beautiful with very few average quality scenes. There is a lot of shine and polish to this series and Kyoto Animations trademark moe style is ever present throughout. the large eyes of the characters can at times be off putting, but you'll eventually get used to it, and as with most moe series, you will start to find the characters to be cute.
The sound design of the series is also very well done. There isn't much to say on the sound effects as those are standard anime fare. However, the soundtrack is well worth the praise. Most of the tracks are re-orchestrated versions of their visual novel incarnations with some original tracks. The soundtrack is just strikingly beautiful and not a day has gone by since I watched it that I haven't listened to at least one track from it. And while Sentai dubs are usually sub-par in terms of quality, Clannads dub is definitely watchable. The characters definitely do not seem emotionless, and the voice actors do their best to keep up with the moe way of speaking that honestly isn't easy to do in the English language.
Clannad features a very tight knit group of characters that blend quite well with one another. From the lazy protagonist Tomoya Okazaki and his dimwit best friend Youhei Sunohara, to the various female heroines of Nagisa Furukawa(And her awesome parents Akio and Sanai.), Tomoyo Sakagami, Kyou and Ryou Fujibayashi, Fuko Ibuki, and Kotome Ichinose. Each of their personalities differ from one another greatly and the interactions between them all can become quite hilarious at times.
Overall, I found this to be a very good series and is worth at least one rewatch. It also stands as a fairly decent Sentai dub, proving that not all of their dub work is excruciatingly bad. I highly recommend this series to anyone looking for a good romance story. However, by all means, stay away from the film version. It removes a lot of the good parts of the story, ruining the point of it all.
