Don't worry, I'm gonna tell you which ones: episodes 1, 2, 3 and 18-23 of Clannad (and 18 is still optional) and episodes 1, 9-22 and 24 of After Story. From this point onward I'm going to refer to these episodes as the Necessary Episodes (NE).
And that's it. The rest of the show is filled with annoying characters, and boring and USELESS stories. You can just read a synopsis of each of the remaining episodes on wikipedia or whatever. But really, it is enough to know that Okazaki helps a bunch of people. I wish someone told me that before I started watching the show because most of the time when I watched the series instead of happiness or sadness I felt anger. I was really pissed that my time is being wasted but I hoped that it will pay off in the end. And it didn't. At least watching these filler episodes didn't because NE and After Story was good.
The characters are pretty standard as well: we have a comedic relief character, a girl that is unecessarily aggressive, a girl that is shy and completely irrelevant, a girl that is a genius retard and a girl that is just a simple retard. And really, the saddest thing about Clannad is the comedic relief character. He's stupid, unpopular, clumsy, useless, cowardly and he's not even a good enough person to compensate for all his flaws. This guy's life is really sad.
Fortunately, unlike a certain other show that I reviewed, this series has some well-written characters as well. The main character is relatable and extremely likeable. He also undergoes a lot of character development, which is great. I also liked Sanae and Akio. The main heroine... well... she wasn't bad. And she really grew on me during the course of the show.
When it comes to the art... well, let's face it. The way characters' eyes are drawn is ridiculous. Actually, the art was one of the reasons why it took me so long to watch this series. But I got accustomed to it surprisingly quickly, thankfully. The music was great. I liked the songs, especially during the sad moments. Voice acting was also top-notch. Nothing to complain about. And not too much fanservice (I can only recall two fanservice scenes) which is always great.
And that's it. There's not much to say about Clannad, it's only reason for existence is to give some backstory for After Story. Should you watch Clannad? Yes, but only the aforementioned NE. As you can probably tell, this review was really half-assed. That's because I just wanted to save you from my mistake of watching the whole season. If you want to watch Clannad because it's sad, the faster you move on to After Story, the better.
Well, actually, After Story isn't even that sad but that's a topic for a different review.
