Clannad
a review by princefusion
a review by princefusion
Although I do have to say I enjoyed her guest appearances in later parts of the show.
Another character that annoyed the hell out of me first vol/arc was Youhei Sunohara. I thought that his voice was so annoying and the scenes he was in were unenjoyable. This applies to most of vol 1. Overall, you could say I was just not a fan of vol 1. I will acknowledge that parts in vol 1 were important for events in vol 2 to happen, but I thought that it could've been a lot more enjoyable.
Another issue I had while watching this anime (as @awesomedk and @savagespencer1 know) was the eyes/overall face design of the characters. I did not like how big they made the eyes and how small they made the character's mouths. This is especially visible in Nagisa Frukawa. I mean almost every time I see her I visualize sid the sloth from Ice Age. Here is a visual comparison of the two to better prove my point.
The wide eyes just get me every time haha. Plus the two strains of hair coming from the top of her head annoyed me almost the entire anime. I'm sure many people don't share this opinion but it is one that I wanted to bring up in my review.
Now not all of Clannad was bad. I actually really enjoyed vol 2! It finally gave us the beginning of the relationship between Nagisa Frukawa and Tomoya Okazaki. I really enjoyed their relationship and I think the studio did a great job showing how youth treats love. Especially these two characters who are both more on the shy side when it comes to their personality. Vol. 2 also showed more insight into Tomoya Okazaki's family life which I thought was a pretty important story point. Unfortunately they still only continued to tease us with Tomoya's youth and never actually fully got around to explaining in full. visually at least.
Switching gears a bit, and this will be one of the last things I talk about in this review. Even though it didn't make too much sense story-wise, I thought the last episode was amazing! It was really cool to see an alternate version of events with these characters. I thought the relationship between Tomoyo Sakagami and Tomoya Okazaki's was a great little side story. One that I didn't even know I wanted to see. This story alone made me enjoy the characters a lot more. It was the perfect mix of comedy and slice of life I was expecting going into this anime.
In review, this anime was full of ups and downs for me. While I did not enjoy the first vol as much as I would've liked, and while I didn't like the animation/art style, I still liked parts of the story and some of the characters as well as their relationships with each other. If I were to spilt vol 1 and vol 2 into two separate reviews/seasons I would give vol 1 a 6.5/10 and vol 2 an 8/10. But in the end, they are both considered one season so my final rating for Clannad as a whole will be 7.6/10 the 0.6 being added due to the amazing last episode.
Is Clannad worth the watch? I mean I'd say if you have the time go for it, but be prepared to fight your way through most of vol. 1. It wasn't absolutely bad, I just wasn't a fan of the art style and I think that played a big part in why I disliked a lot of the anime. To me, the characters didn't seem realistic enough. they almost seemed like dolls. I wouldn't say don't watch this anime. there are some amazing parts to it. the romance builds on you and so do the characters.
Here is my rating for the show:
Story: 9
Characters: 8
Visuals: 6
Soundtrack: 8
Enjoyment: 7
Overall: 7.6/10
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