Season one of Clannad sucks. Badly. There is no real way to dance around this. It falls into all the pitfalls that VN adaptions can (the awkward half-dance between doing all girl's routes and focusing on Nagisa's). It's pacing is atrocious, ESPECIALLY in the horrendous first episode. People who rate season one of Clannad highly, in my opinion, are either factoring in Afterstory into their rating or highly susceptible to emotional tragedy porn. They're still entitled to their opinions, however.
I want to push back on of the common criticisms of Clannad, however. Plenty of people think that Clannad sucks in part because the main heroine, Nagisa, is a "mary sue" type character who "is weak and mopes around".
Clannad would not be better if Nagisa had some odd quirk, upbeat personality or passionate hobby. Nagisa -- and Tomoya -- are not supposed to be driven characters who try their best to succeed at the start of the show. The story of Clannad is one where two directionless souls find meaning in each other, and then persevere through life's hardships with the help of each other, and their support networks.
Perhaps the concept of "finding life's meaning through a relationship" bothers some people, as maybe it should, but that doesn't mean Clannad is a better story if Nagisa has her shit together at the start of the show.
