Firstly, let me confess I've been trying my absolute best to like this show, mostly because I had heard a lot of good things about it. I have yet to finish watching it as I am pretty stubborn and I like to believe I watched all there was before making final statements.
But I just can't forgive Clannad for being this poor for more than half of first season. I will explain why.
COnsidering the tags and people's reviews, I was expecting a peaceful slice of life show, with a tiny bit of everything in it, enough to make it interesting. When I started watching it I was instantly bothered by a couple of things that didn't improve in any way later on.
Character design:
This show is all about cuteness when it comes to visuals, voice acting and music.The characters look very very little with those too big wet eyes supposedly to make a big emotional/expressive impact I suppose. Truth is that most of the time I am looking at their sharp bangs and praying they won't cut open their eyeballs. Apart from being cute, it becomes a real issue if absolutely all female characters have this problem, meaning that all of them look exactly the same. It's like the character designer didn't really put in any effort to add some personal touch to the characters.
It goes a lot further than this. Being introduced to Nagisa's house for the first time and knowing this show must have had some "fantasy" elements in it too, I was 100% sure that her house was some weird place where more Nagisas live in somwhat different dimensions or something. I know, I am a creep. But her entire family appeared one by one and they ALL looked like her so I was thinking "omg she just turned male!" (about her dad) then "omg this is her in 5 years from now" (her mom) and it took me a while to figure out that they were all actually real people, different people. The age is also not reflected at all. Her father looks like he's 17-19. There's a wedding somwhere and the groom looks 15 I had a very weird sense that someone was just being too much of a perv drawing that.
Characters and development:
As I said before, this show is about cute and moe characters. But I would expect everything to have a limit. Besides the intoxicating appearance, the actual characters, at least when it comes to female cast, are completely pathetic. Fo even mere students who go to school and are overall bad with study, it is beyond impossible to be that clumsy and unaware of yourself and the things around you. Sadly enough, I just had an acute feeling of shame while watching some of the scenes where the girls were proving how they don't know their own basic abilities, they don't hear while they are called by their name even though tehre's nobody else in the room, they don't know a wound actually hurts (even after the third try that proved an open cut does indeed hurt), they don't know how to communicate with anybody at all and somehow nobody finds that unusual and generally... they just don't know anything at all.
What is even worse is generally the way in which women are presented in this show. Even the ones who don't suffer from chronic autism and shyness, are simply the kind of "i want a simple life to please my husband and that's the greatest pleasure there is". I'm not a feminist or anything, but things that are too obvious like this are really hard not to notice. Of course I can explain this issue by pointing at the name of the show, which clearly makes a reference to the family. And being a Japanese show about family, of course you expect their traditional values to be projected into anime stereotypes. But even if this is an explanation, it is merely an excuse for not having strong female characters.
Nagisa, which is supposed to be the main female cast is merely a shadow, at least in the first half. I can't point out at any of her character details because there is none other that that she cries a lot and is physically fragile, so overall the personification of fragility.
Plot/story/arcs
I am still not sure what this show is about and my expectations out of anime are really quite low. As long as the show feeds me with stuff to think and interpret at my own will, I am happy. But this is not the case. There is just one thing probably highlighted again and again in a repetitive way: we are not alone and we can make friends everywhere.
I was expecting to see some conflicts because this was a drama show. I am in for tear jerking shows even if they are cheap in the end if you have a good time it's okay. Instead I just have the feeling that this show tries too much to make me cry therefore the word "pathetic" is a good choice. I can think of a dramatic emotional moment regarding Tomoya's hand. because it was a nice scenery and the dramatic detail came in time, taking the viewer by surprise, synchronizing with the weather, with the tension between the 2 characters... etc. It was good in that "good" way that Clannad is probably intended to be. But it was just that one, insignificant, after which I had to enjoy a neverending arc about a very absurd thing. Since I'm trying not to throw in with any spoils, I'll just say it was, again, pathetic. The idea behind it was great, but again the highlighted details that were going on for 5 episodes or so where just mere fillers I can't help but think anyone could have came up with something more valuable. The basic story was sad okay, but the way they just stretched it for those long huours I couldn't focus on the boring meaningless dialogues, I was sleepy, annoyed and bored. And I was really feeling like I was wasting precious time of my life.
Overall: Show tries too much to make you cry lol. And it's all too forced and too unnatural: cute crying helpless characters and wooden stars are not enough.
Will continue watching this and updating my review as I finish. The reason is also that I really want to get to the second season, heard that one is worth suffering :))
