Story: 4
Well, the problem of story stems from the fact that Clannad is a VN adaptation (VN adaptations can be done well, I have nothing against them, examples of them being done well are: Higurashi no naku koro ni, Fate/stay night UBW.)
Thus as it is an entire 23 episodes, it adapts various romantic plotlines in the show's runtime from the VN. There is no real overarching storyline and it just goes from one plot to another, and the romantic interest of the previous arc becomes the MC's 'friend.' This is annoying as it feels that the story resets several times and is going nowhere. The reason for this is because the story for Clannad is really just a set up for the latter half of afterstory, which is much better.
Art: 8
It is very 'moe', but the production quality cannot be denied, and the landscapes in Clannad are often really beautiful. The character art isn't horrible, but I personally don't like it, because the 'Key' eyes for all the girls look strange and makes their faces look slightly deformed and the design for the characters isn't noteworthy.
Sound: 5
The opening's first few seconds are quite good, but otherwise the only noteworthy voice actor is Okazaki Tomoya, and the only good music track is 'Ana'.
Character: 7
The characters aren't really half bad, Nagisa is an unsure girl who is given lots of backstory and is rather fleshed out. The MC Tomoya is a delinquent who is not bland or flat, the side characters are the main problems here.
Fuuko is annoying as can be, and is barely anything beyond "I like starfish!" and "I am a ghost who wants people to come to my sister's wedding!"
Kotomi is the stereotypical nerd who's painful backstory is just one of the many attempts to pull at our heartstrings(Fuuko is another).
Sunohara is the sad excuse for comic relief(although I liked the scenes where he gets tricked into getting beaten up by Tomoyo).
And other arcs get glossed over/or are not present at all(Hiragi Kappei, Tomoyo, Kyou, Ryou).Thus there is little character depth apart from stereotypes for other characters.
Enjoyment: 6
Some of it is enjoyable, but some of it is plain jarring. Fuuko's arc was terrible, Kotomi's arc was average, and the rest of it is just the typical highschool stuff that you would find in any anime. What makes clannad differ from other similar anime is how hard it tries to pull at your heartstrings. Sometimes it succeeds, but sometimes it fails so miserably
that you want to start laughing at how ridiculous it is.
Overall: 6
In conclusion, if you want to reach afterstory then for it to make any sense you have to suffer through this (or like it, it's just what I think about clannad). Though some parts may be genuinely quite enjoyable, like Tomoya's deadpan snarking, other parts are annoying and make you wonder why you're wasting your life.
