DISCLAIMER: This is a review for both CLANNAD and CLANNAD: After Story. Additionally, there will be HUGE spoilers in this review. Read at your own risk.
To this day, CLANNAD is one of the very few anime that have touched me as much as it has, and hardly anything has come close to the impact this series has. If you think there's an anime better than CLANNAD, that's just fine, but here's why Clannad is my one and only.
Clannad stars off by introducing us to the two main characters. Tomoya Okazaki is a high school student, albeit not the best one, as he calls himself a delinquent, and is often late to classes. Despite this, he turns out to be a great friend, unless your name is Youhei Sunohara (in which case, you're better off moving to Malaysia and changing your name to Robert). Tomoya meets a girl at the hill. Her name is Nagisa Furukawa, a physically weak girl who’s rather sensitive and often prioritizes others over herself but is very sweet and caring. I love her character a lot, she's that one friend that you either are very thankful to have in your life, or that one friend that you seriously wish you had. Tomoya befriends Nagisa who appears to be alone, this being because she had to repeat her senior year due to an illness that remains largely unknown throughout the series. Tomoya’s poor relationship with his father is established, as Tomoya believes his father views him as a stranger ever since the passing of his wife in a car accident years ago when Tomoya was young. Nagisa wants to join the theater club, but after learning of its shutdown, her new goal is to re-establish it, and Tomoya agrees to help her. When you look at one way, CLANNAD's main plot seems rather basic, I mean, all we gotta do is restart an inactive club, and club-related anime are something I'm no stranger to, but CLANNAD's story is so beautiful and unique that I legitimately didn't realize how simple the premise was until over a year after watching the anime
The series' first arc revolves around Fuko Ibuki, a smaller girl who is the same age as Tomoya, who can be seen carving wooden starfish to give to classmates, in hopes they will attend her older sister's wedding that's coming up. Although a bit immature, she seems normal at first, but it turns out that she's not actually there. She's more of a ghost almost, although not dead. A couple years back, on the day of her high school entrance ceremony, Fuko was hit by a car and has been in a coma ever since. Her sister has doubts about the wedding as she doesn't want to chase her own happiness when Fuko isn't in a situation that can let her be happy. Nagisa and Tomoya are able to convince her to marry her beloved, as its what Fuko would want, after all, she's handing out the starfish (her sister can't see this, though, for what reason I don't know). The wedding is held at their school, and the sisters are able to share a special moment, where it seems briefly Kouko can either see Fuko, or can undoubtedly feel her presence, whether that means seeing her there or not. It's definitely one of the weaker arcs when pitting them all up in a battle of the ages, but its still a nice way to start the series, even if this event in particular drug on a bit long.
The second arc revolves around Kotomi Ichinose, a quieter girl who keeps to herself mostly in the school's library, often reading some really advanced books. She's very shy around people she's not familiar with, thinking that they'll bully her, although she's just fine talking to Tomoya, and that gets explained later on. Tomoya helps her venture out of her shell and make some new friends, but things turn dark after a bus accident happens elsewhere, and upon seeing the wreckage, Kotomi has a huge freakout, as it reminds her of what happened years ago when she was little. Her parents had to miss her birthday due to work matters, and Kotomi, being a little kid, and little kids being little kids, said she hated her parents. In a tragic manner, her parents would die in a plane crash, meaning Kotomi's presumed final words were her professions of hatred to her parents. An old man comes to her place some days later to deliver the tragic news, but to also retrieve important papers that were presumed to be in her father's study. Thinking that was the reason her parents were gone, she resorted to burning the papers in question. It also turns out that Kotomi knew Tomoya when they were younger, in fact they were pretty good friends. He tried to get his friends to join him in coming to Kotomi's birthday party, but ran very late, and by the time he finally went over to apologize for missing it, he had stumbled across the aforementioned events. Kotomi takes time off from school after the bus incident, and Tomoya dedicates his time to restoring her yard to its former glory from when they were younger, which he is able to do successfully. The arc ends with her godfather handing her a suitcase that apparently washed ashore from the plane which had crashed into the sea. Inside was a teddy bear, which Kotomi has asked for all those years ago. She didn't care about what it was, she just wanted to celebrate her birthday with her parents. This late present was really touching, and to imagine that everyone who came across the suitcase ensured that it would one day reach its rightful owner really gives you faith in humanity. There are people who wouldn't just take the suitcase for themselves. This was a touching arc, and in fact the first time an anime had brought me to tears.
The third arc shows us Tomoyo Sakagami, who is running for student council president, but she gets involved in a fight with some delinquents from elsewhere after Sunohara takes her through the area even though she didn't want to be there. Rumors of the fight begin to spread, but Tomoya helps clear them, knowing that if Tomoyo doesn't win the election, she may not be able to assist him in allowing the drama club to be officially re-established. You see, the club is open right now, but they need an advisor, and there's only one available teacher, which a different club was already reaching out to. Besides that, Tomoyo has her own reason for running, that being to save the sakura trees around the school, as there are currently propositions to cut them down. Why does she want the trees to stay so badly? Any kind of environmentalism aside, these were the trees that she and her family had come to see one day. Her family for a long time was very distant and cold, and her parents were planning to divorce, but Tomoyo's brother didn't want that. In fact, he would resort to jumping off a bridge. Thankfully, he was able to be taken to the hospital and survived, and this near tragedy brought the family closer than they had ever been. They made a promise to come see the sakura each year, and they obviously can't do that if they're cut down. The rumors are scrubbed thanks to Tomoya's efforts to get people to talk about her athleticism instead, Tomoyo wins the election, and she approves the drama club and choir club to share an advisor. We're in business!
To close off the final arc, we finally see some more focus on the club and the growth of Nagisa and Tomoya's relationship. Nagisa wants to perform a play, but doesn't know the title, only a description which resembles the "illusionary world" scenes that we see from time to time throughout this anime. Tomoya's relationship with his far-from-perfect father continues to weaken, and for his own good, he moves in with Nagisa and her family. While looking for stuff that she would need to perform the play at the upcoming school festival, she stumbles across old photos and journals belonging to her parents, whom hid these things from her. The photos and whatnot documented her parents following their dreams, her mother a teacher, her father an actor, although they had to set these dreams aside in order to raise Nagisa, after she nearly died due to her illness while waiting out in the freezing cold for her parents, who had to leave her alone for a few hours to attend to their jobs. The Furukawa Bakery that we know and love was created for this very reason. Her parents hid all of this knowing that Nagisa would blame herself, considering her prioritization of others over herself, since her parents were no longer chasing their old dreams. This puts her in a hard place emotionally, leading her to cry onstage the day of the performance, before her father arrives to save the day, getting through to her that they never abandoned their dreams, and that Nagisa's dreams were their dreams now, and if Nagisa couldn't achieve her dream of performing this play, their dream wouldn't be achieved either. Nagisa performs the play, and at the end of the season, Tomoya confesses his love for Nagisa. It feels incredibly authentic unlike a majority of anime, as these two have hung out and gone through a lot this season, and have had time to grow really close. In fact, it becomes pretty clear that Tomoya's feelings for Nagisa were more than just friends during Tomoyo's arc, when Nagisa falls ill and has to miss school for some time.
That's it for the first season. My thoughts? Firstly, the characters are amazing. Clannad does a great job at giving a lot of characters some background, which makes sense considering this is based on a visual novel. We get to learn a lot about them, and don’t worry, there’s even more character backstory in the following season. There isn’t really any character I dislike in Clannad, they’re all very well written, and while they may not always seem the greatest on the outside, it’s a different story once you break through that shell and really get to know them. The animation for Clannad, despite this show being over 15 years old now, is spectacular. The illusionary world looks amazing, the character designs are great, and the colors, lighting, and scenery in general really capture the right mood, whether it’s sad or happy. A complaint people have when it comes to Clannad is the eyes, which are unusually big, but I honestly really like this design. It’s strange, but you’ll get used to it in like three episodes, if that, and it suits some of the characters really well. Sure, there's the occasional angle or frame or whatnot where it's not as cute or appealing, but I'm not one to overanalyze or write a 60,000 word essay on why Clannad's eye design ruined the series and genre, or something silly like that.
After Story, the peak of all anime for me, kicks off with exploration into Sunohara's relationship with his little sister, Mei. Tomoya gets the idea to find him a fake girlfriend so his sister will worry less about him, as she plans on visiting soon to see how her brother is doing. Nagisa’s mom, Sanae, agrees to play the fake girlfriend role, Sunohara under the assumption that she was Nagisa’s sister, thanks to a joke that Tomoya made. The “couple” meets with Mei, who doesn’t really seem to be buying this, but rolls with it for the moment. During one of the fake dates, they stumble across a little kid being bullied. Sanae, having experience with children, wants to stop the situation, but Sunohara doesn’t care, a big contrast to how he used to be, as when they were little, he would come to Mei’s aid if anyone was messing with her. The next day, after Mei lied about meeting up with someone she liked, she spent the day with Tomoya, and when Sunohara saw them, Tomoya lied and claimed that they were dating. Expecting a defensive response, he’s chill with it, and walks away. Mei believes that if Sunohara got a chance to return to the soccer team, which he got kicked off of a long time ago due to a fight, he would feel like his old self again, but after numerous attempts to convince them, the team doesn’t budge, even at one point resorting to harassing Mei. Sunohara hears her cries for help, blasting in there and taking down everyone, with help from Tomoya. Tomoya calls Sunohara out for not looking out for his sister, but he drops a bomb and says that he thought it was fine if Mei dated Tomoya, because he trusted in him. The fight didn’t damage their friendship, and they even laughed at their injuries the next day. I’ll admit, seeing Sunohara pull this off, while usually being a wimp any other day, was awesome. In most cases he can't save his own ass, but his love for his sister transcends all else, and it doesn't matter what stands in the way. He WILL take them on face to face to keep Mei safe. Sunohara can be a dunce, but he's an amazing brother at heart. I wasn't sure how to feel about this arc to be honest, Mei's determination to help her brother is respectable, but she needs to understand that Sunohara returning to the soccer team would only cause more trouble, but she doesn't seem to get the memo, even at one point saying she herself doesn't know if it's the best idea.
Next up, CLANNAD continues to do what most other anime wouldn't, that being giving a nice level of depth and backstory for its side characters. This one revolves around Misae Sagara, who oversees the dormitory that Sunohara and other male athletes stay in. She was the student council president back in high school, and she owns a cat. This is important for later. Tomoya falls asleep while they’re hanging out with Misae, and he has a dream of her past. Misae met a boy named Katsuki who came to grant her a wish as a thank you for talking to him at the hospital some time ago while he was recovering. After a misunderstanding between them and Misae’s crush, they get off on the wrong foot, but she warms up to him, and Misae discovers her crush was already dating someone. Eventually Katsuki confesses his love to Misae, and at the autumn festival, she wishes that he will love her forever. Katsuki vanishes after that, and sometime later, a cat wanders into her life, and she starts taking care of it. As it turns out, he wasn’t even the real Katsuki. Katsuki was a cat from the beginning, and when his owner died, he asked the cat to grant Misae a wish, and so Katsuki took a human form to do just that. Tomoya woke up, another autumn festival took place, and Tomoya revealed everything he knew. It's a weird shift, but then again if you paid attention to the illusionary world scenes at all, you'd know there are supernatural elements to this show.
Our next arc, revolving around another side character, Yukine Miyazawa, begins to really separate Clannad from a typical romcom. Despite seeming completely innocent with her soft personality and motherly vibe, it turns out that Yukine is involved with a gang of delinquents in town. There are two groups in the city that fight each other, and both come to Yukine for aid, and so they both mutually respect her. A misunderstanding occurs thanks to Sunohara being an unfunny idiot, and they all think that Sunohara is Yukine’s brother, the leader of one of these groups. This word spreads to the opposing gang, too, and tensions rise, leading to a one-on-one fight between the leaders. Thing is, her brother is in the hospital, so they try to send Sunohara out there, but everyone eats Sanae’s bread, passing out, forcing Tomoya to fight. He stands his ground for quite a while, and Yukine’s brother shows up to stop the fight. Well, not exactly. After one big punch, the disguise falls off, yes, disguise, and lo and behold, it’s Yukine. The next day, its revealed that her brother had actually died, but their gang agreed to keep it a secret, worried the others would ambush them without their powerful leader. The two gangs share a moment of respect and are friendly to each other from then on. Tomoya sees an orb of light, and Yukine shares a city legend about the orbs, which appear when happiness is experienced, although their appearance is rare, and that the orbs could grant any one wish. This is really crucial later. Yukine's personality really shines here. Despite her being far from the likes of Mike Tyson (or Tomoyo LOL) she was more than willing to take a beating if need be to stop the groups from fighting. She wants them to be able to have peaceful relations, and thanks to this, that finally happens.
For the third time, Nagisa falls ill, this time her sickness being much worse. Her absence would require her to repeat her senior year once again. Tomoya doesn’t get a chance to graduate with his sweetheart, and he says he should’ve held himself back so he could graduate with her, but Nagisa gives him some strong words, that if he can move on, he should. Tomoya begins working for the Furukawa bakery, but after saving up some money, he finds his own apartment and finds a new, better paying job at an electrical company that Yusuke works at. Tomoya is finally adjusting himself to adulthood. Nagisa invites him to the Founders Festival, but after he finds out he made a mistake at work, he wishes to take responsibility, and unfortunately misses the festival. What I appreciate about this is two things. Firstly, Tomoya's growth since the start of the series. Back then, there's no way he would go out of his way to correct his own mistake, especially not when he needs to meet up with Nagisa. Secondly, Nagisa's reaction. In most anime, she would probably have a stupid negative reaction exaggerated for laughs, but her reaction here is realistic and genuine. Even if she is upset, Tomoya did something more important, and I'm sure Nagisa was proud of him for taking responsibility, even if it meant missing the festival. We miss opportunities a lot in life, and it sucks, but it's life. Despite there being tons of unrealistic elements, like light orbs, bread and jam that's so painfully awful it can knock an entire gang unconscious, the illusionary world, and Tomoyo's beatings that she gives Sunohara multiple times, this also somehow is one of the realest shows out there. The genuine moments are ones you can seriously appreciate. Tomoya’s boss recommends him to another office with higher pay, but the offer gets canceled after news breaks that Tomoya’s father was sent to jail, with Tomoya enraged that his father ruined a big opportunity for him. He storms out and punches a concrete wall, Nagisa trying her hardest to calm him down, and she somehow succeeds. Right then and there, he proposes to her, no fancy ring or dramatics. Just turning a low point in life into a happy moment. I've seen very few anime that take a high school romcom and let it soar to adulthood and explore the trials and tribulations of such times, let alone any anime that do it as well as CLANNAD does. I know there’s some people who miss the high school focus in the anime now that it’s tackling adulthood. because let's be real, it was bucketloads of fun having the characters interact there, going through funny stuff and serious stuff. In a way, I think it’s perfect, because there’s probably a lot of adults out there that miss their high school days, and it’s pretty likely that some of the characters themselves miss it, too. But as Nagisa told Tomoya, if you can move on, you should. Time doesn’t stop, and things will always change, and the same goes for this anime.
Nagisa’s mom is on board with the marriage, but her father is going to take a lot more convincing. He agrees to listen to and accept whatever Tomoya tells him if Tomoya beats him in a round of baseball, but he fails over and over and over again. Pops knows ball. After tons of practice and determination, though, he challenges Akio one final time, under pouring rain, and delivers a striking hit for the ages. He then asks Akio to give Nagisa to him, and he agrees. MARRIAGE. WE WENT FROM A ROMCOM TO FREAKING MARRIAGE, AND CLANNAD IS GOING TO BEAUTIFULLY EXPLORE THIS AS WELL. LET THEM COOK!
Nagisa gets sick yet again, but has the attendance to graduate this time around, although she won't be able to attend the graduation ceremony, unfortunately. Tomoya arranges a proper send-off for her, with Komura getting the school's permission to use the campus for a graduation ceremony just for Nagisa, with all of her friends there to cheer her on. She delivers an emotional speech, and officially graduates from school, and is ready to move on into society. The two make their marriage official soon after. Nagisa Furukawa is now Nagisa Okazaki. Their relationship continues to progress, and eventually, she becomes pregnant. Yeah, at this point, we’ve transcended far beyond most romance anime, at least based on what I’ve seen so far. Nagisa wants to have the baby at home, despite the risks of doing so, that way Tomoya can be the first to hold their child, as there’s no guarantee that he could at a hospital. WIth Nagisa being physically weak, there will be some danger with this. Akio tells more about the story of when Nagisa got sick. The next morning, with Nagisa not improving, he carried her out to a grass field and prayed for her health, and by a miracle, she opened her eyes under the morning soon. That same grass field is where today, ironically, a hospital is being built. The scene where the two are at the beach and decide to call their child Ushio is beautiful and gives off a deeply unsettling aura once you've already seen what's about to happen.
Nagisa decides to have the baby at a hospital, knowing it may be safer there, however, a blizzard comes and cripples the city, and Nagisa starts going into labor two weeks earlier than expected, with no choice but to deliver at home. The process is long and grueling, but eventually she finally gives birth, but the worst case scenario comes true, and Nagisa passes away shortly after. Immediately, Tomoya wonders if he should’ve ever met Nagisa, thinking she would still be alive if it weren’t for him. This was a heartbreaking episode, and absolutely tragic. I remember first watching Episode 16 where this goes down, and afterwards, for the entirety of Episode 17, and even the early part of 18, I was convincing myself that Tomoya was in some kind of panic-induced nightmare in his mind that Nagisa died, but that she would show up soon enough. I was so attached to Nagisa's character that I GASLIT myself. I inhaled so much copium from Nagisa's passing that I genuinely tried to grasp at strings in hopes she was OK. I eventually had to accept that she was gone, and well, I definitely took her death a lot better than Tomoya, as Tomoya was so affected by the loss that he couldn’t raise Ushio, and instead left her to Akio and Sanae. Tomoya became just like his father, falling to drinking and smoking to ease the pain of losing the one he loved the absolute most. Coming up is one of my all-time favorite parts of not just CLANNAD, and not just anime, but of ALL media as a whole.
Sanae invites him on a trip one day, but something "comes up", so now he has to look after Ushio while her and Akio are away. This was very likely done on purpose to try and strengthen the bond between him and Ushio, as one of these days Tomoya is going to need to accept what happened and raise Ushio on his own. The atmosphere is quiet and awkward at first, after all the two hardly see each other, but eventually he asks Ushio if she wants to go on a trip, and they do just that. Tomoya and Ushio take a trip to a big flower field, and he recognizes the place from a distant memory, and he wanders off for a moment, and just so happens to meet his grandmother, who tells him about his father’s past, about how he always worked as hard as he could for Tomoya’s sake, easing the pain from work by drinking. He wasn’t perfect, and his methods to get through it weren't exactly ethical, but all he wanted was to raise Tomoya to be a man, and by the time he had grown, he had lost everything. This hit hard, but what came next hit harder. This talk helped Tomoya realize further how horrible a parent he had been to Ushio all these years. Yes, Tomoya, you became the man that you hated so much all of these years. He returns to Ushio, and she’s upset that she lost the toy that he bought her earlier. Sure, there’s other duplicates in the store, but this SPECIFIC toy meant a lot to her, as it was the first thing her father had ever bought her. Dwelling upon the fact that it took five years for her to receive anything, no matter how meaningful or miniscule, Tomoya is brought to tears and apologizes to Ushio, and promises he’ll be a better parent to her from now on. Tomoya finally tells Ushio about Nagisa, which he had refused to do previously, which further moves him (and me) to tears to wrap everything up. Rather than crying because he lost the love of his life, he can finally cry tears of happiness and appreciate that he had Nagisa to begin with. With a newfound perception of his father, thanks to the conversation he had with his grandmother, he can finally face his dad and tell him that he's done enough, and that he can rest easy now. He wanted to raise Tomoya as a man, and now that Tomoya finally understood that his father wasn't the horrible man he always thought him to be, now that he's finally climbing out of the bottomless pit that he fell into when Nagisa died, righting his wrongs by finally raising Ushio like he should've been from the start, his father's goal was achieved, and he sends his father off with a much better attitude than how things used to be. This part perhaps hit even harder than Nagisa's death or him apologizing to Ushio to me, because in a way Tomoya's father was poorly misjudged all of this time. Sure, he's not the best and there were things he could've done better, but he never wanted to hurt Tomoya. He just wanted to raise him as a man, and for years, Tomoya hated his guts, but Tomoya has finally grown to realize what his dad was trying to do.
Ushio falls ill with the same mysterious sickness Nagisa suffered from. A month passes and she’s still sick. Tomoya has to quit his job in order to be with Ushio and make sure she’s safe. Ushio then insists on going on a trip NOW, ignoring Tomoya wanting to wait until Ushio is better, and ultimately he gives in. They probably both knew Ushio couldn’t keep fighting much longer, and maybe Tomoya wanted to give her some happiness one final time. They go out, but Ushio can hardly walk the whole way, collapsing eventually. Ushio passes away, and Tomoya has lost the last person dear to him. This music paired with snow is gonna haunt my dreams for a long time, man. We get another look at the illusionary world, which has actually been linked to the other world this entire time. In fact, the garbage doll is actually Tomoya, and before the illusionary world is destroyed by massive amounts of light, the illusionary girl calls the doll “papa,” revealing that she is Ushio. Tomoya is taken back to the moment he and Nagisa first met, with all the knowledge of what happened. While he initially doesn’t say anything, under that belief that their relationship led to his death, he ultimately chases after her and hugs her as tightly as he can, and Nagisa is aware too, happy that he stopped her. Suddenly, the scene changes to the moment that she gave birth to Ushio, although this time, she survives, and the three live a happy life together. Ushio created the illusionary world in order to collect enough lights to save her family from the horrible fate we know all too well, and eventually, it works out. Call it a cop-out to pull something like this, but I can't deny it's written so beautifully that I can't even be upset, and they actually bother to add some depth and build-up to Ushio's actions to even cause said cop-out to occur, unlike another anime I criticize for this cop-out gimmick, that being Charlotte. There's an explanation for that too, but unlike CLANNAD, it just feels like they throw it at you out of nowhere. I won't spoil that here, though. I'll probably review Charlotte on its own later on anyways.
This season was beautiful. I already stated this before but Clannad After Story transcends far beyond what first appeared to be your usual high school romance anime, and it excels in its most serious themes. Not many anime let you grow with the characters this long, and Clannad did a really amazing job at making you feel like you know them personally, part of why the most emotional scenes can hit so hard. The characters in this season are great. Nagisa is a lot more likable in After Story, for those who weren’t fond of her weakish sensitive personality in Season 1. The development with the characters in their arcs is amazing too, and perhaps one of the best was Tomoya finally realizing that his father was not the bad person he always thought he was, and repairing his relationship with him. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing too, and it really added to the moment at times. The OP for After Story is arguably better than the first, and really fits the tone of this season. You wanna know what doesn’t fit the tone? The freaking ED. You’ll be watching Clannad and be like “Noooooo!!! Nagisa is dead!” and then some upbeat freaking song plays after. I feel like a straightforward mood for the OPs and EDs is a must, and CLANNAD After Story does fail in that regard here with it's ED. If I’m gonna be honest, the first season's ending theme would’ve worked better in After Story. Not only is it more emotional, I observed much more references to the song in After Story than in Season 1. The ED we have really kills the mood. Other than that, amazing tracks as always. The visuals are beautiful throughout this entire series, and the soundtrack for the anime and visual novel is nothing short of perfect.
CLANNAD is one of the greatest shows of all time, and it does an amazing job at virtually everything it does. Despite having that one glaring problem in the Sunoharas' arc, this show is so downright amazing I absolutely CANNOT in good faith deduct even a hundredth of a point from my score. I am convinced that as a whole, I will never find an anime better than CLANNAD, and to be honest? That's just fine. CLANNAD is on its own tier of perfection, and it will forever be a series I'm passionate about, and I will always recommend it to anyone looking for something to watch. I do not think you can get much better than CLANNAD and CLANNAD: After Story.
