Clannad Review

Before I get into this. I want to throw this note out there; this is ONLY for Season 1. After Story is going to be a completely separate review. There is a reason I'm doing this as well which I will get to when I get to it.

Key anime are usually something that I enjoy more than others. They have a unique style of storytelling, they are handled in a way that the one watching can't expect what would happen what with supernatural coming into play like time travel and magic. But like I mentioned, it's handled in a way that it's not ABOUT the supernatural... it just happens to be involved. Like for instance, a character could find a bracelet which is known for causing unusual things to happen. They find it and put it on and all of a sudden, they start hearing voices and altering stuff... but that's about it. It doesn't get involved much than that. Because the anime is more about the story of just them living their lives rather than the Supernatural occurring around them.

The way Key anime usually works is: Each character has an Arc. You'll have a few set of unique characters which are introduced in episode 1, sometimes episode 2. Each of these characters will be unique in some way and throughout the anime you'll be in suspense to figure out just what is up with these characters. They'll all act something different than usual from everyone else, give off small hints to their true nature, and in the end it all comes together. It's kind of Haruhi, where the three friends were an Esper, Alien, and Time Traveller.. You didn't find these out  until the end but it all eventually makes sense when it happens.

Now the reason I felt this one was particularly suited for a review was because this one was the odd-man out for the entire patterns these anime generally go on. And for me to figure out a way to explain what I mean might be a tad bit difficult since.... well, to be put it simply; I think Clannad was handled.... extremely poorly.
I hate to throw out my opinion of something so early in a review, kind of destroying interest of what the conclusion will ultimately be, but this is my review. Get over it.

Now when it comes to the characters, you got:

Nagisa: The female love interest to the main character. She's shy, weak, a crybaby, a very sweet girl. I like Nagisa a lot. She reminds me of the perfect girlfriend to have. She doesn't care about little things and just takes life on day by day. She's been held back a grade because she's been sick so long that she fell behind in school. All she wants to do is to have a Drama class and make plays.

Tomoya: The main character. Now let me say, Key's main characters are pretty much the same guy over and over. They're all confused, silly, amnesiac, and kind of self-centered. Tomoya takes no exception to this rule. I think of all the main characters throughout the series, Tomoya might be my 2nd favorite? It's kind of hard to put them all on a scale when they're all the same, pretty much. I like him though.

Kyou: She is kind of... Tomoya's best female friend. Pardon me if my information is wrong, but I think these two have been friends for quite a while and she kind of looks up to Tomoya. She's pretty rash and protective.  I think she's probably the second most interesting female character in the anime. If Nagisa wasn't Tomoya's obvious love-interest. I'd like her to be...

Tomoyo: Tomoyo kind of just... is there. I never understood the point of Tomoyo. She reminds me an awful lot of Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. But only because they're both very athletic, strong, and loves animals. About that loves animals part, she tends to show up dressed as a bear... this is kind of unexplained...  I really don't think she has much point to the anime outside of kicking Tomoya's friends ass for hitting on her and challenging her.

Ichinose: She's smart and can't play the violin.

That's about the extent of her.

Ibuki: I cannot stand this little girl. She likes starfish and thinks they're the most amazing thing ever. She uses them as invitations to her sisters wedding. She's so boring and stupid and serves no purpose. She's not really even a friend to anyone outside of them pitying her for trying so desperately to get people to come to this wedding.

You see, the first problem this anime has is the characters. To compare it to previous installments, the arcs "supernaturality" are almost non-existant. They're just small little stories which even have trouble holding their water in being called stories... because they're just so rushed and uninteresting that the entire anime would be unchanged without them. But this is something rather interesting because, like I said earlier about Ibuki and her starfish, she's the ONLY PERSON in the entire anime with a hint of Supernatural surrounding her, which is a shame because she's such an annoying character in the first place. I get this hunch that she was intended to be this adorable character which I'm suppose to empathize with... but she's just not. She's not interesting.

Aside from Ibuki though, the story centers almost TOO much on Nagisa, like normally the idea is to kind of give you a bunch of options for what the main character would like as an interest. As the roots of these anime are based off of dating simulators.... and they even attempt to make it a plot element; who he will end up with. But I kind of assumed it would be the girl who 80% of the anime is based off of. How surprised I was when I found out I was right.

The second problem the anime faces is the point of it all. What was the point of the anime? You see throughout the entire season(s), there's always this story going on about this little girl whose the last person in the world who is trying to build a robot because... well, she can. And this robot is the only thing  to keep her company in this world. At first this entire story was very interesting to me, and eventually turns into the play that Nagisa wants to put on. And as for the first season, this entire subplot is rendered pretty inane.



The overall feeling I got from this entire anime was that it couldn't take itself seriously. You see, Kanon and Air both had it's fair share of goofiness which helped tell the story and keep you interested, but Clannad kind of takes it to the next level where almost entire episodes are brought to this level of goofiness that it wastes time that could have been used to develop characters or even make boring characters ( Tomoyo, Ichinose ) even more interesting than they were. Ultimately, I had a VERY hard time watching this completely, and it was pretty much the the 2nd season that motivated me to continue on, which I will get onto next.