This review applies to both CLANNAD(even if minimally) and CLANNAD: After Story.
I spent a few days editing this review every time to try to make it better, I'm not 100% convinced that the result is what I wanted but I hope you appreciate it anyway. It was quite difficult to write, not only because it was the first time I'd tried to do something like this but also because I wanted it to have the least amount of spoilers, but there was a section that was impossible to not write about.
CLANNAD looks like a normal SoL that tells us about our protagonist Okazaki Tomoya's life as a third year high school student, thanks to an encounter that he will have right in the first episode of the series, his monotonous life as a "delinquent" and time waster will gradually begin to change since he will have to work to reopen the theater club by helping the main protagonist of the series: Furukawa Nagisa.
STORY
First of all it must be said that the CLANNAD anime is based on the homonymous visual novel, in the original game the player has the possibility of making various choices that will direct him towards an ending of one of the routes, all indispensable to then arrive at the true ending, which would be precisely what is represented as the ending of After story.
As mentioned, the story starts from a very simple base similar to many of its kind, but what immediately characterizes it is the fantasy element that is taken up in segments between one episode and another (the little girl and the robot they see right away in the “illusionary world”) and that will be a key element for the finale, also the fact that the anime does not stop at the everyday life of high school but continues as the name of the second series says with the after story.
CLANNAD
The first series obviously can be slow for some as it has many SoL parts and uses enough screen time for comedy scenes and to introduce us to the main cast, but even here there will be the first sad moments that will characterize the growth of the characters. The first series, adapting Nagisa's route, ends with her and Tomoya confessing to each other in the drama club room.
CLANNAD: After Story
For After Story, on the other hand, it will no longer be just about the SoL related to the school, here Tomoya will graduate and we will follow his story as a real member of society. He will have to work hard to find a job, a house and will also have to decide about his future with Nagisa. Unfortunately his life, like that of every person, is not all pink and flowers and therefore we will witness a lost, cold and withdrawn Tomoya who will have to undertake to give meaning to his life, which following the events of After Story had lost entirely. Now the only truly spoilery part that I want to talk about are the last few episodes of the series.
Spoiler, click to view
Finally Tomoya, after finding a stable job, a house to live with Nagisa, decides to marry her and shortly after it is also discovered that she is pregnant. Everything seems to go well until ep 16 "White Darkness" when Nagisa has to give birth prematurely at home due to a snowstorm, after numerous efforts she manages to give birth to Ushio but right here Tomoya sees in front of his eyes a now exhausted and powerless Nagisa slowly falling asleep for one last time; the execution of this scene is just perfect, from the detail of the characters faces to the of white and black that show us Tomoya’s feelings, the beautiful contrast between desaturated colors of Nagisa’s last moments and the colorful flashbacks that retrace their lives with new scenes that we didn’t see in the other episodes. From here on the next five years Tomoya entrusts Ushio to Akio and Sanae because now emotionally destroyed he can only work, eat and sleep, spending everything he earns on alcohol and slots. Thanks to Sanae who prepares the tickets for a trip Tomoya has an opportunity for the first time to spend time alone with Ushio that he had neglected all these years, during the journey Tomoya gives Ushio a toy robot before reaching the destination ending which turns out to be an immense expanse of sunflowers. Tomoya here meets his grandmother, his father's mother, who tells him how his father, despite having lost his wife, did what he could to raise Tomoya and that with the little money he earned, he tried to never make him want for anything, Tomoya finally realizes the mistake he was making and that what he is doing to Ushio is nothing else he had been through with his father in recent years, then there is a magnificent reconciliation scene where Ushio and Tomoya embrace each other in that huge field of sunflowers both with tears in their eyes. Tomoya then decides that from now on he will be the one to raise Ushio, managing to tell her about Nagisa as well. After this Tomoya finally helps his father, realizing that the pain they went through was the same, and telling him that he did really good raising an ungrateful son like him and can now finally rest at the house of his mother, this last good action will be the key together with the others that let the miracle happen in the end. Now we can see a few shots of the daily lives of Ushio and Tomoya and it seems that all is going good but shortly after Ushio collapses and we understand that she has caught the same illness as Nagisa's, Tomoya decides to stay home to take care of her. In case he had to leave home, he calls for both Akio and Sanae to take his place. Ushio asks Tomoya that she wants to go on a trip like last time, but he tells her that it will happen once she gets better. After several months, winter arrives and then Christmas. Ushio's fever still does not back down, and Tomoya seems to be getting sick as well and hallucinates the illusionary world. Ushio once again asks Tomoya to go on a trip, and he ultimately accepts thinking that he might not be able to fulfill another promised wish. After they leave the house and it starts snowing (remembering Nagisa's death), Ushio's fever worsens and dies calm and serene in Tomoya's arms right after telling her father that she loves him. Soon after, Tomoya collapses in grief and supposedly dies of shock, then something strange happens. This scene was pure tragic, Tomoya begin with nothing and then with his efforts is able to create his own family but in the end again he remains with nothing because life has taken away everything from him. Ep 22 “Small Palms” Now we are in the illusionary world. The girl can finally hear the robot and tells it that they once existed in another world. As she hums the tune of "Dango Daikazoku", the illusionary world starts to disappear. As the robot is swept away, the girl calls him "Daddy" and disappears with the world. On the school hill the day Tomoya first met Nagisa, he and the robot become one, this time Tomoya doesn't answer Nagisa and thinks maybe it would be better if they never met, but soon realizes that meeting Nagisa was the best thing that happened to him in his entire life and so he screams her name, runs towards her, tightly hugs her,and she is glad that he did so. Tomoya awakens to Ushio's birth, but this time, Nagisa miraculously survives. After Nagisa watches Tomoya give Ushio her first bath, she and Tomoya see countless orbs of light floating throughout the city outside the window. They both start to sing Ushio “Dango Daikazoku” and then we are shown various scenes where the years go by with Tomoya and Nagisa happily raising Ushio. Even if everything seems to be resolved thanks to something magical, all of this is rendered in an excellent way in my opinion, the scene in which Tomoya decides that knowing Nagisa was not a mistake and embraces her with all the love and strength that he has is breathtaking, even the small detail of accidentaly knocking her shoe off, you can really understand the deep affection felt by the characters and it's truly magnificent.CHARACTERS
Tomoya Okazaki & Nagisa Furukawa:
Tomoya is presented to us as a listless third-year student who always arrives late and skips classes accompanied by his best friend Yohei Sunohara, knowing Nagisa however he will have a goal that will lead him to make new encounters and gradually changing his cold and detached character. In CLANNAD:After Story, as mentioned, we are shown instead his first steps in society and his enormous growth; Nagisa is a student who, due to her illness which caused her to accumulate too many absences from school, had to repeat the third year, she is a very shy and a little ditzy girl who hardly manages to make friends, a girl who gets excited immediately and who cries easily, but in the moments that require it, she can also be very serious and reliable. Since her route is adapted, obviously Nagisa has a very important role in the anime.
Then we have the other "heroines", Kyou Fujibayashi, Ryou Fujibayashi, Tomoyo Sakagami, Kotomi Ichinose, Yukine Miyazawa: Since the anime adapts Nagisa's route, their role is more marginal than the original work where each has its own route, but they are still important characters that will help our protagonists throughout the story.
Kyou: is the Tsundere character who almost always resorts to violence but who knows how to be pretty when she wants and does everything to get her twin sister Ryou together with Tomoya.
Ryou: She's the classic shy character and she's the head of Tomoya's class, her role I think is the most marginal of all the “main characters” so I can't judge her correctly.
Tomoyo: she is a kouhai of Tomoya who always respects the rules and who wants to become the president of the student council to preserve the cherry trees around the school, she too often resorts to violence but unlike Kyou it is almost always justified.
Kotomi: she is the smartest girl in school, a moody character who lives in a world of her own, but recruited by Tomoya to be a member of the new theater club she will be able to open up to others and create new friendships, in the first series there will be also shown her past which will make us better understand her behavior.
Yukine: she spends her time during the lunch break in the reference room of the library, she is very kind and always ready to give advice to Tomoya and friends, in the first series she doesn't appear often but in the After story there is a mini arc dedicated to where she will then also explain the legend of the city of Hikarizaka to Tomoya (an element that will be fundamental for understanding the ending).
Youhei Sunohara: he is the comic character of the series, Tomoya's classmate and sidekick who accompanies him every time in his raids; and it is also thanks to meeting him that Tomoya has not given up on going to school.
Fuuko Ibuki: she's a bit silly and childish but in a cute way, she's that character in the series who manages to make you smile even in the saddest moments and I must say that this detachment was useful a couple of times during the viewing. With her then we move from the classic SoL of the first ep to a serious and sad first arc.
Akio and Sanae Furukawa: Nagisa's parents who also know how to alternate gags with moments of maximum seriousness and who during the series will give the best advice to our protagonists. They really embody the figure of the parent who works hard, even making some sacrifices, to make their children live better.
Naoyuki Okazaki: he is Tomoya's father and he is immediately presented to us as the exact opposite of Nagisa's parents, he neglects Tomoya and is always at home drinking and doing nothing, a character who does not seem to feel any emotion and who very often shows only empty smile. This is so because of his wife's death in a car accident when Tomoya was still just a child.
ANIMATION
As for drawings and animations, despite being an anime from 2007/2008, Kyoto animation is always a guarantee, it can be seen that it is still very accurate and the key scenes are truly rendered in an excellent way. One of the thing that I think I like the most are the backgrounds that are used, I found them really immersive. In my opinion the best is the scene before the end of the story in ep 22, the mix of direction, animations and soundtrack make you feel emotions that are truly undescribable.
Spoiler, click to view
▶ VideoSOUNDTRACK
Discussing the music used in the anime, there's not much to say except that it's really perfect and spot on for every scene. Most of the tracks stay with you and just hearing one note is enough to make you feel that mixed sense of nostalgia, sadness but also hope and a pinch of happiness. The lyrics of the opening of CLANNAD: After Story are truly touching once you finished the show.
Here is a list of those that I appreciated the most and that I consider truly unbeatable.
Spoiler, click to view
Toki wo Kizamu Uta
The Girls Fantasy
Town, Flow of Time, People
Nagisa
Roaring Tides
Shining in the Sky
The palm of a tiny hand
THEMES PORTRAYED
Help towards others is very present, during the series we very often see the characters commit themselves to helping people in difficulty in their own small way, transmitting the message that by genuinely doing good deeds, sooner or later something good will happen to you too.
In CLANNAD the passage of time is very important, Nagisa: “Fun things. happy things. They'll all eventually change someday, do you know? But can you still love this place?” or "You shouldn't stop like that. If you can move forward, then you should.” We need to accept the changes that will inevitably come in our lives and always move forward, not losing heart when thinking about what we could have done in the past but rather focusing on how to better live the present with the people you love the most.
Here we connect to what is ultimately the main theme that deals with CLANNAD, the family and the deep love within it, an important role in a family is that of parents who always do their best to raise their children in the best possible way, in a sentence by Akio: “We didn't give up on our dreams! We changed our dreams into your dream! That's what parents do! That's what a family does." CLANNAD shows us how life can be and how important the family is, because that’s what we all want, from the perspective of a child but also of a parent, to be with people that love us and we are able to love too.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion I can say that CLANNAD is a masterpiece of the SoL genre that goes from the funniest and most playful moments to scenes that manage to tear your heart apart, with a perfect ending in my opinion and in line with the series, it manages to make you reflect also on the more trivial and simple things, which maybe you don't notice in everyday life. I think it's a series that everyone should watch and from which everyone can learn something that will be useful in his life.
I'm not native English so probably there will be mistakes here and there even if I've checked it a lot of times.