In the beginning, this show had potential. Sure, the school setting may have seemed repetitive, but the characters looked pretty and quirky enough to be interesting and have actual backstories and personalities. Turns out I was wrong. And very much so.
Although the first couple of episodes reminded me of Angel Beats due to their combination of slice-of-life, supernatural, action, and school settings (as well as the occasional joke), this all quickly faded away into oblivion.
Characters that were initially introduced were never developed. They hardly did anything interesting, ever. The only character who actually seemed to "do things" was Tomoya, and these "things" usually consisted of meeting new girls and interacting with them.
Since Clannad is based on a dating sim game, I understand where this format is coming from and how it could work there. The player chooses a girl and then her story unravels in one way or another. However, since this is an anime and you can't really choose anyone (though even if you could I probably wouldn't bother), these girls just all randomly come into the picture and never seem to get out of it. They offer no funny jokes, unique personalities or clever dialogue. They're just... There. Weird smiling / blushing / frowning blobs that all "care" for the protagonist in some way or another even though most of them hardly know him. However, we don't really know him either, since, as I said before, he hardly ever does anything other than trying to talk to these purple-haired blobs who are always surprised and amazed by everything that comes out of his mouth.
Since the characters in this anime are practically non-existent (I mean they're there, but I wouldn't go as far as calling them characters) it's no surprise that so is the story. Sure, one of the girls wants to start a theater club, but by the time that becomes apparent, so many pointless interactions (and episodes!) have passed that you can hardly remember what it was we had all come here for.
The supernatural aspects of this show also hardly make any sense (ok, so they're revealed in the second season, but I honestly shouldn't have to wait 40 episodes to understand something so trivial), as do the totally lame pet boars and starfish obsessions.
As if the weird hair colors, pets, and "sneak peeks from the other world" weren't strange enough, the art itself is also pretty odd. While the girls are all apparently designed to fit the "moe" (aka bland, pointless cuteness) criteria, the guys just look weird most of the time. With huge eyes and unnatural haircuts as well as odd hair colors, it's really hard to take them seriously. (But then again why would you? It's not like they actually have a personality or anything worth discovering or learning about, so...)
It is perhaps for this total lack of motivation or personality that even the voices of the female characters sounded annoying. Seriously, all they do is go "Huh?" "What?" And "Tomoya-kun!" Consequently, I thought that Yuuichi Nakamura might be the saving grace of this mess since he's one of my favorite seiyuu, but even this kind of failed. Clearly, there's only so much you can do as a good voice actor if there's hardly anything for you to voice... I mean, with no personality and no story, what can you really talk about and act out?
Since another redeeming quality when it comes to anime is usually music, I was hoping that perhaps this might make things better, but even this ranged from completely mediocre (at best) to outright bad. Both the opening and ending themes were boring, bland and entirely unremarkable (just like everything else about Clannad) while the background music was just disastrous. The main theme sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie made in the 90s and was just as awkward to listen to as the fake moe voices or the strange pet boar noises.
My guess is that the music was taken from the game too, but honestly, an anime is NOT a game and I wish the creators had understood that. Trying to transfer a game directly to an anime format without making too many changes made this show pretty awful (at least for me) and extremely tedious to watch. For a show with no plot, no other interesting aspects and basically no redeeming qualities, it also lasted WAY too long and therefore gave me way too many excuses to just look at my phone or do something else.
While I would never recommend Clannad to anyone, I think that there might be two settings where watching this show might be remotely bearable:
1. If you've played the game before and enjoyed it, hence know and love the characters.
2. If you're playing a drinking game and have either already lost or will soon lose the ability to be rational as well as make good judgments.
If neither of these categories apply to you, then you're probably better off doing something else. Unless of course you're a masochist or simply don't care about the advise caring people have given you. In that case... Whatever floats your boat.
