Until not long ago, I was finally able to finish Clannad, a recommendation from my favorite little raccoon Sekai (greetings!). So I wanted my first written review to be about this beautiful work that has made me live, through our protagonists, such wonderful moments.

I’ll do a detailed spoiler-free part and then a short, more specific section with spoilers where I want to emphasize just a couple of things I considered for this review.

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I’m aware and will take into account that, being an adaptation of the Visual Novel (one with more than one route), it doesn’t contain 100% of the original content. Even so, I will consider and evaluate the cohesion and development of the anime itself, trying to be as objective as possible.

The message of Clannad~

Defining or summarizing the message or content of Clannad is like trying to summarize the meaning of life in a single review — and trust me, I'm not wandering off topic. From the very first moment, the work already begins to show you, in a very subtle way, everyday scenes, contexts, and moments that have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen in front of all of us, from which, we all can learn important lessons, messages, and perspectives on life itself — sometimes beautifully, other times cruelly, but always with powerful contexts in which one must always remember that life itself is just as beautiful and cruel EVEN in early and innocent stages such as school life.

The characters~

I want to mention that, for me, the characters are the strongest pillars of this work. As I said earlier, Clannad is going to leave you with very strong, beautiful, and sometimes cruel messages about life itself, and therefore the characters are the ones who suffer, grow, overcome, and develop — but I must point out that in Clannad they do so in an exceptional way.

The characters are very charismatic, they are quite close to each other but not to the point of being completely in sync or thinking the same way; in fact, I don’t think even the couple(s) that are formed in Clannad have identical ways of thinking (maybe similar at best). Each character is different, lives in their own way, is a world unto themselves, each with their own problems (as indeed happens in any real school!), and above all, our protagonists are also excellent and truly good friends.

There’s a moment for everything~

I’ve already mentioned that in Clannad there will be beautiful, intense, raw, or cruel moments where of course you’re going to have to cry — and that’s just how it is — but in Clannad you don’t only cry from sadness: you cry from happiness, you cry from frustration, and you’ll also burst out laughing at certain specific moments because, of course, there’s a time for everything, and in Clannad these moments are very well separated, differentiated, and placed. There’s never a rush or an awkwardly misplaced moment, and the work handles these specific moments in a masterful way. (Yes, it will make you cry, but it will also give you doses of laughter and love so your heart can handle it.)

It’s true, it’s a work of fiction~

During the series we will encounter certain scenarios where impossible events occur precisely because, well, it is fiction. But don’t worry — they aren’t just impossible moments where someone gains an impossible ability or magically avoids every problem, nor do they make the experience feel unbalanced or cause the work to lose its meaning.

The fiction/the impossible in this anime is mainly used to introduce events and people for the development of a particular arc, employing additional miraculous resources that are explained within the series itself and that in no way alter the regular, ordinary flow of our protagonists’ lives.

Think of it as an exquisite resource used by Key to develop more arcs and bring out a mind full of so many ideas (from Key), where it doesn’t limit itself only to the real plane of the protagonists, but also plays with the transcendental and the power of good wishes — not selfish wishes, but wishes of hope and of helping others.

Because within the most important things, the most important thing still remains~

The music and the setting in this series are, in my opinion, another powerful and great pillar that gives much more weight to the messages Clannad gives us. As you progress through the episodes, both the opening, the ending, the background music in sad moments as well as in fun or happiest ones are very well used, and I think they even reach a transcendental level (and damn! I believe that even in 40 years the Dango family song will still be a cult classic! XD). So another very positive aspect of the anime worth mentioning.

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I’m going to mention a couple of specific scenes where I think they could have been executed better:

During the episode of the presentation, personally I felt that Nagisa’s “block” was more than predictable and by that point my heart had already survived a war, a bombing, and an atomic bomb in the previous episodes.

Maybe because I was hoping to be wrong, and in the end it was another scene where I ended up crying… but I was hoping the block wouldn’t happen and that Nagisa would have a moment where she showed she had grown, become strong, and shine brighter than ever with a spectacular performance (I mean, in the end it was still spectacular, but I think it would have been even better if Nagisa had done it perfectly).

But well, the episode also ends in a spectacular and very beautiful way, so I can’t really complain xD (Besides, I’m aware that this is already a personal perception, nothing to do with the work itself).

And the other thing I wanted to mention is that at some point you will have (just like I did) many doubts, hypotheses, or just vague ideas about what’s happening in the scenes of the wandering girl with the tin toy/robot that appear in numerous short interludes throughout the anime, because it’s not enough to just pay close attention to the anime itself — you really have to watch After Story (the second season).

But this is really more of a detail of the anime than a flaw or low point, since these fragments were taken exactly as they were placed in the original Visual Novel. Let’s remember that what we see in this anime is only a part of the Clannad VN, and the explanation and revelation of the background and story of this girl and her robot are explained in After Story — or rather, after continuing with Nagisa’s arc (what we see in the first season).
So it’s impossible to understand the context of the girl with the doll if you only watch this anime, and therefore you have to watch After Story or, alternatively, read the visual novel and experience the full content of the work (which would be the same but with much more content).

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Final thoughts~

Clannad is a work that, honestly, I believe everyone should watch at least once, or at least give it a chance. It’s a very enjoyable anime and — it might sound masochistic — but in retrospect, I don’t feel like it only made me cry from sadness, because I finished this anime with a smile, longing for and remembering so many life lessons.

Without exaggerating, I think it would be positive to promote and share Clannad content — even in fragments — in schools, in parent education programs, or even for children from a certain grade onward. I say this because I believe the values, sense of family, and love shown in this series are very warm and realistic, and they hit just as hard (though in different ways) for a 10-year-old child as for a 30-year-old adult.

I feel this work can truly be a life-changer for someone at the right moment. It’s deeply human and, given how well executed it is, it makes you think that Key thought a lot about psychological aspects when writing this work.