Clannad/Clannad After Story...

[pfarber]

Again 99% of the people ain't gonna care, but if anyone wants to know what a 44 year old thinks of this seminal Anime series keep going....

Yeah, watch both seasons. But the first 12-24 episodes are really throw away's. Initially this story was a Visual Novel, a game sort of. If anyone remembers those books that would branch off depending on what arc you wanted to take (if you think Billy fell out of the tree, turn to page 40, if you think Billy was saved by the fireman, turn to page 60... those kinds of books) that's what a Visual Novel (VN) is like.. gut they add a 'game' portion by rewarding you with trinkets if you picked the arc that results in earning one. And then the outcome is actually determined in the VN by how many 'points' you have... like if you have X amount of points 'magic happens' and its a happy ending.. if not, then the VN ends unhappily. Evidently this is a thing.

Shitty part is that unless you KNOW THAT GOING IN to Clannad/After Story the series makes no sense. You should watch the first 2-3 episodes, but they are not super critical to the end. Its the next 12-15 episodes are so heavily influenced by the VN that you simply have to trudge through them with no reason why you are... its just that these are the first few episodes. They actually sort of affect the ending... but not in a storytelling way.. but in a 'that's how the game did it' way. It really is a cop out to end the story on a happy note as if you watch the series is a huge mess with an ending that is only 20% believable. But once you read the 'spoilers/explanations' then yeah, it falls into place and makes sense... but then you still have had to sit through about 12 episodes that mean more to the VN than the Anime.

My advice is watch the last 6 episodes of Season 1 and all of Season 2/After Story then google the explanation. Episodes 17 and 18 go off on a tangent.. so you can skip them. The real story is in the last 2-3 episodes of Season 1 and all of AS.

SPOILERS

Once you watch Season 1 you'll realize that there has been little that has critically affected the main characters. There are some sad moments but the main characters are relatively unscathed. At worst (really) there was a play. Yeah... a play. That was Season 1. No one is dead and no bombshells.

THEN After Story starts.

I agree that AS is unique in that if actually follows the characters after high school. Since nothing significant has happened to the leads yet, you know as soon as Nagisa (a sickly girl from the beginning) gets pregnant that either she or the baby gonna die. I mean there is little else TO go wrong. All the other characters from season 1 are pretty much gone and all you have is Tomoya and Nagisa who gets pregnant. You can't see that coming? Like from 8 episodes away??? So yeah, mom dies and dad can't handle it... pretty standard stuff. Tomoya finally comes around (takes 5 years) to want to be with his daughter and then SHE dies. I again, 2 episodes left... someone gotta die to make the feels. That's when (I shit you not) the magic orbs (remember I mentioned the VN game mechanics) reset the timeline (actually quite a few dozen times in the VN) and what ends up happening is that the dead daughter (who has been in a parallel universe collecting magic orbs) sends her 'daddy' back in time to decide if he will actually talk to her mom at their very first meeting and set the timeline back in motion. He does, new timeline starts, mom is healthy and everyone lived happily ever after.

So yeah... magic orb bullshit ending.

The series itself is well drawn, and the music is good, the voice acting is good (I watched the English dub and sub-titled and found them both good) and After Story IS the meat of the drama.. but come on.. magic bullshit orbs? That's the ending? No. Just plain fucking no.

Clannad/AS is like Evangelion.. commonly sited as a very, very good Anime.... but as is all to common in Anime the endings just plain fucking suck. Magic balls for Clannad and a 'shroom trip for Evangelion (well the t.v. series just ended with a whimper and 3 of the 4 movies were shroom trips)??? Fuck them both with a rusty ratchet with a 6 inch extension and a deep well 5/8ths socket..

The really good episodes are the 'what ifs' with Tomoyo and the the twins, Kyou and Ryou (just remember TomoyA is the male lead, TomoyO is a hot, athletic former gang leader... yeah.. I know) . Nagisa is not really even part of these (S1E17-18) and 'Another World Kyou Arc' ' where the Fujibayashi sister get some screen time. Kyou really stands out in her love for her sister... even though Tomoya picks Kyou over Ryou, Kyou ends up basically turning herself into a Ryou clone (cutting her hair, changing her appearance), so I'm not really sure what was supposed to be accomplished by having the twin sisters fight for his affections... Ryou was never a serious contender.

So yeah, watch the two seasons. If you are strapped for time just do After Story, and remember that the reason why shit works out in the end is due to magic balls.

[pfarber]

Evidently there is a Clannad movie that was released in 2011.

It hit all the major plot points and strips out all of the VN (original Visual Novel story) 'game mechanics' and quite a few useless characters. About 6 characters (and their arcs) are removed to make the movie flow and rip out the VN influence (no multiple timelines or magic balls!). Character prominence was also altered... some alterations were necessary, but others were done for what appear to be no reason at all. Nagisa's parents are given a good bit of screen time, but one huge mistake (and I consider it a huge disservice to the importance they played to Tomoya and Nagisa story/development) is that in the end when they plan the trip (which was part of AS) it is Yusuke Yoshino, not Akio and Sanae that finally gets Tomoya and Ushio together as a family again. While Yusuke does mentor Tomoya, to take that away from Akio's character just seemed wrong. I guess they wanted to give Yusuke more screen time... but I do fault this one plot change.

The movie is fairly typical and there are no major surprises... the plot is fairly straightforward and like I said, all the important plot points are hit and the 'new ending' means that while the happy ending of Clannad/AS is not fully realized (ie the last Nagisa timeline where she has a healthy baby and they all live happily ever after does not happen) but Tomoya and his daughter do find happiness together without Nagisa (again, Nagisa dies and stays dead in the movie). The quality of the voice acting is still good and all of the major characters seems to have been voiced by the English dubbed voice actors. The animation does suffer a bit.. there are quite a few matte's used (much much more than the series.. to the point that it is noticeable to me) but it is still quite good. Much of the humor is also gone (mainly due to Akio's role being diminished) but when going from 20+ hours of episodic tv to a 90 minute movie many things gotta go. The play Nagisa does is completely new and well done.. and with her dream/play being not only a major catalyst and plot point it had to be well done. Although the dancing was a bit much. Overall well done.

So the movies final scene is Tomoya and Ushio, looking at Nagisa in her wedding dress under their shared dream's Tree of Promises and Tomoya is making peace with the fact that Nagisa is truly gone, but happy.

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Much feels for a bitter sweet ending.

[pfarber]

I have to admit, after going on a Clannad rampage for a week my favorite episode was "Another World Kyou Arc" especially the last 5-10 minutes where Kyou is 'picked' and Tomoya and Kyou show just a sliver of what their relationship would have been like. Maybe due to Nagisa's shyness and it being a plot point, but even though Nagisa and Tomoya actually did marry and have a kid, they really never had many 'expressive' moments that I remember. Sure they profess love for each other but usually as a result of needing to push the plot forward.. like you knew it was time to say 'I love you' at this point otherwise you could not check it off on the relationship Bingo card.

But in the single episode "Another World Kyou Arc" Not only does Ryou give a very heart retching monolog telling Tomoya not to apologize because she does not regret the he did not pick her "Please don't apologize, if you do I will have to forgive you and then it will be like nothing ever happened at all... I don't want that". Yeah... kinda 'Hallmark Moment-y' but with the right music and a young woman's voice it really shows the feelings Ryou had.

And the Kyou/Tamoya dialog in the rain... that really showed the self sacrifice Kyou was willing to make for Ryou... even if just to give her a chance at happiness.

"Please don't be nice to me. If you are nice to me I will get the wrong idea".

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If you look at the reflection in the puddle it looks like they are in an embrace... really they are not. Pretty good way to take what Kyou is saying but then visually represent it to show her true feelings... that she would want nothing more than to have Tomoya love her. This is one of the things that I am learning to like about Anime... the shit is deep. Like watch it 10 times to make sure you get all the meaning deep. Brilliant stuff.

Here's another detail that 99.999% of the people would miss. In the 'Kyou Arc' when Kyou and Tamoya are sitting on the bench in the park its bright and sunny as two people talk. Then the Kyou offers herself up as a 'practice kiss' because Ryou and Kyou are twins (that's a NEGATIVE GhostRider... making out with the twin sister of the girl you are dating is evidently not cool) but notice that as they move in to kiss the sky darkens:

Sunny before	Ominous clouds
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"Since we're twins its practically the same thing". Would have worked on my dumb ass.

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The moment Kyou realizes that shit is gonna get weird and waves off the fly by (sorry for all the Top Gun references).

While the never do kiss (Kyou realizes its wrong even after giving one hell of a sales pitch) but by that time the clouds are overhead and the sun is obscured... great visual reinforcement to back up that making out with Kyou is a bad idea. If I told you how many times I watched the episode before this I would definitely lose the man card. But from an artistic view point fucking-a that is great cinema.


So I guess I am on Team Kyou.... even if she only really had one OVA to wrap up her character.