Clannad and Afterstory alike are both masterpieces by Visual Arts Key, an emotional Slice Of Life/Drama that goes from mostly comedy and minimal drama in the first season, to drying out tear ducts in the second season.
Im going to review both the original series and Afterstory In this review
Spoilers Of Course
Starting off with the Original Series, which is a mixture of mostly comedy and some drama nearing the end of the season.
Throughout the series, we follow Tomoya Okazaki and his daily school life, and his goal to help Nagisa complete her dream of of reviving the drama club.
Character Analysis
Starting off with a character analysis, Clannad has a wide variety of characters with various personas, the violent girls, the shy one, the silent bookworm, and of course the moe.
Starting off with Kyou, twin sister of Ryou, she is my personal second favourite, I enjoy her violent attitude towards Sunohara and Tomoya, such as throwing dictionaries at then, and of course the casual insults towards both, despite having a secret crush on Tomoya, she still throws casual remarks at him.
Next up is twin sister of Kyou, Ryou, she is the shy type, doesn't socialize much, I see her as a total opposite to Kyou, though we didn't get to see much of her, in neither the original or Afterstory, I can't say much about her, though I do enjoy her in the "Another World: Kyou Chapter" Episode, how she acts towards Tomoya in their relationship is quite heart warming.
Let's talk Nagisa now, our main character from the girls throughout the series, now I can't really decide on her personality to be honest, in a way, she is a tad bit dumb, but personally I give Fuko the moe personality (more on her later of course), I personally think she is a mixture of being shy, dumb, curious, and possibly a bit of dream chaser in there. All in all, I can't decide on what her personality is.
Personality aside, as a character I enjoy her, when Tomoya bullies someone, or mock someone, Nagisa will proceed to critique him one way or another, I'm also fond of her ahoge.
Now our favourite Starfish enthusiast, Fuko, aka Fu-chan, Im a big fan of characters with dumb personalities such as her. During her arc she is Tomoya's primary target when it comes to pranks, and she often does fall victim to them.
In return though, she manages to bully Sunohara, many times, such as making her fanclub come after him, great scene, and of course, hitting his face with a starfish many times. Her disappearing and everyone forgetting her eventually was pretty sad though, but that's only the beginning of Clannad's emotional story.
Onto our silent bookworm, Kotomi is an interesting character, when we first meet her, I thought of her as the weird girl, but as we get to know her, I grow pretty fond of her, she's quite cute, and her silent personality is something im fond of, despite usually not really paying attention to these types of personalities. Eventually we learn her past, which I found pretty surprising, I did not expect this girl, who is always seen as happy with her books, and being smart, to have had a traumatizing childhood, I did not get much of an emotional impact here, but it was nonetheless a blow to the heart, seeing this happy smart girl, with a traumatizing past.
Now my personal favourite girl, Tomoyo, she has many similarities with Kyou, she is also violent, but in a different way, Kyou attacks whenever she feels like she must, Tomoyo will only attack when either A; Threatened or B; Sunohara is being annoying. She also appears to be much more athletic than Kyou, though I can't know for sure. Her headband is one of my favourite parts of her, don't know why, but I'm quite fond of headbands, Her hair and handband is probably what win her over Kyou for me personally.
Let's move onto our favourite comedian, Sunohara, who is the bringer of most of the comedy in the original series, without him, the comedy would have been much different than it is, I love his fight scenes with Tomoyo, and the other times he gets beat up by either Fuko or Misae.
Tomoya also enjoys picking on him for pranks, and being the dumbass he is, he falls for them.
Character analysis over, let's go over Clannad's other strong points.
The Soundtrack
Clannad's Soundtracks is one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, unsurprising coming from Key, beautiful songs that hit you right in the feels after watching the anime, and nonetheless wonderful piano songs...
Roaring Tides
toki wo kizamu uta (op)
Roaring Tides II
Ushio
The Comedy
As mentioned in the character analysis, our characters produce lots of comedy, all of them, I can't help but laugh whenever Sunohara gets beat up, or when Fuko falls victim to one of Tomoya's prank, or Nagisa getting drunk, and plenty more.
The Character Arcs
The character arcs were personal favourites of mine, though I cannot be 100% credible since I have not read the visual novel ( I have it installed, but Im reading Little Busters! at the moment), whether or not they were adapted well is not my point here, but the arcs were surprising, especially Fukos and Kotomi's, as mentioned above again, Kotomi's took me surprise by having such a traumatizing childhood, despite looking happy as ever usually.
Ending of Original Series
We end off Clannad with Nagisa and Tomoya confessing to each other, and an extra episode showing what they do during their summer break, leaving off on a good note.
~Afterstory~
We start off Afterstory with our characters returning to school, and the anime carries on it's comedic part of itself, at least, for the next few episodes, nothing unusual compared to the original anime, a baseball game, Sunohara getting beat up, just the usual.
Nearing the end of the school year, and the end of school for the Seniors, except for Nagisa, who unfortunately, catches yet another fever, which leads her to miss many more days of school, which again, causes her to repeat her senior year once more.
Tomoya graduates, but he does not leave Nagisa behind, he ends up living with her for a bit longer at her home.
Up next comes an interesting part of the story, which Is personally, one of my favourite parts of Clannad, what some people call, "The Work Arc".
This is when Tomoya ends up getting a job and starts working with Yoshino as an electrician, this portion of the story is interesting to me because the anime begins to shift away from the "Slice of Life" part of it, It is no longer the usual going to school everyday.
This part of the story shows Tomoya growing into his adulthood, with a bad school record, bad terms with his father, and pretty much no money.
He manages to become an electrician with Yoshino, which ends up paying pretty decently, however Tomoya does not adapt easily to this new job, It's a complex job and becomes even harder with his damaged shoulder, in the end, he manages to get through with it, and adapt to his new environment.
Fast forwarding, Tomoya ends up buying his own decent sized apartment, he lives with himself for a few weeks, with Sanae and Nagisa visiting him on a daily basis to help him get used to the new apartment.
Many weeks later, Nagisa catches yet another cold nearing her graduation, luckily, it was not as early as the previous ones, so she manages to finally pass her senior year.
She graduates, though, unable to attend the ceremony due to her sickness.
Nagisa ends up moving in with Tomoya as they get married and all of the main cast ends up hosting a private graduation ceremony for Nagisa.
Major Spoilers Past This Point
For the next few episodes, the anime mostly stays comedic, mostly with gags between Akio and Tomoya, or simply the family all-together, 2 of my favourite moments was when Akio disguises himself as a rapper to go see Nagisa at work as a waitress, and of course Nagisa getting drunk, unforgettable moments.
Fast forwarding a few episodes, Nagisa is now pregnant with Ushio, and we start to lose comedy as the anime starts to shift over to a much more serious tone, of course, we get a gag here and there, but not as much as the episodes beforehand.
Things change up a bit, Tomoya cuts hours from his job to support Nagisa, things aren't looking great but nothing to worrisome either.
Nagisa ends up wanting to do an at home birth, although reluctantly, Tomoya accepts Nagisa's wish.
The Tragedy
It is the day of Ushio's birth, everyone is there, Tomoya, Sanae, Akio, and the midwife (Forgot her name).
Tomoya does everything he can to support Nagisa during birth, moments later, Ushio is born, yet, In a few seconds, while holding her hand, Nagisa, dies at the end of her birth.
Tomoya falls into depression, giving Ushio to Akio and Sanae for 5 years, and mostly staying away from Ushio for the most part.
Sanae and Akio end up managing to get Tomoya to spend time with Ushio, he does realize what they are doing but nonetheless he ends up doing so anyway.
Tomoya, enjoys his time with Ushio, managing to spend his time with Ushio properly, like a father and daughter should.
The Realization
this part is something I really enjoy, It sends a positive message to the audience.
Tomoya finds his grandmother, mother of his father, who Tomoya has been on bad terms with for several years.
His grandmother introduces herself and explains everything to Tomoya about his father, why he is how he is, how he used what little money he had to make Tomoya happy as a child, how he struggled after his wife's death, comparable to how Tomoya is with Ushio.
Tomoya realizes this, he realized how his father did everything he could to make Tomoya happy, but how he struggled due to his Wife's death, which hit him hard, and he understands why his father is in the position he is today.
He leaves with Ushio to go see his father, he ends up apologizing to him for all the flak he has given him, and helps him get out of the bad position he is in.
He gives him a decent amount of money and tells him to go live with his mother, helping him move out of his home which is in quite bad shape.
This short arc can be a message to a few viewers, who may have had these types of experiences in their life.
Past this, Tomoya ends up taking Ushio to live with him, finally out of his depression.
The next few episodes allows us to get attached with Ushio as Tomoya and her enjoy their time together since they both had little to no interactions in the past 5 years.
The Second tragedy
As winter approaches, it appears Ushio has the same disease that causes her a fever during winter, just as Nagisa did.
Ushios wants to go on a trip with Tomoya, just as they did when Sanae and Akio set them up to, but Tomoya declines due to her illness and the weather.
Ushio still wants to go on a trip, Tomoya, hesitantly, decides to allow it, and go out for a short walk in the snow, Ushio begins slowing down as they walk, which worries Tomoya, but she Insists that she is perfectly fine.
Few moments later, Tomoya holds Ushio in his arms, and with her last words, "I love you, daddy", She dies, In Tomoya's arms...
This is... one of the most depressing moments I've seen in any anime, the only thing I can see beating it is Yuiko Kurugaya's Route from the Little Busters! Visual Novel.
Ushio, we get attached to her throughout the last episodes, yet we lose her only a few episodes later, right in Tomoya's arms...
The Miracle
Shortly after Ushio's death, we are greeted with the illusionary world, It is revealed the girl from this world, Is indeed Ushio, and the garbage doll, is Tomoya.
As Ushio "dies" in the illusionary world, the garbage doll as well, Tomoya's wish of, Him, Nagisa, and Ushio living together, with neither dying, is granted, presumably by Ushio herself in the illusionary world.
A flashback of the first scene of Tomoya meeting Nagisa appears before us, a time reset presumably, Tomoya hesitates to wish to live with Nagisa once more, or to leave her alone and not get involved with her at all.
He chooses the former, he runs to her and hugs her, It appears both of them are silently aware of the time reset during the flashback, since Tomoya hesitates to meet her again, and Nagisa mentions that "I was worried you chose to not meet me".
We are then fast forwarded to Ushio's birth, the same events play out, except, Nagisa does not die, she lives past the birth, and Tomoya and her enjoy there life.
What plays out next is one of my favorite endings ever, the music really fits in with whats going on.
We see how Nagisa and Tomoya live out their new life with Ushio, a wonderful, tragic free life.
It is also nice to see how all other characters are doing, we see Kyou doing her teacher stuff, Ryou is a nurse, Sunohara is... failing his driving test? Im not exactly sure whats up with him.
Kotomi is currently studying in the States, Mei is now a highschooler, and we see Tomoyo on a beach, though, unsure what she's up to, and of course, Akio and Sanae doing their usual.
In conclusion, Clannad and Afterstory are Slice of Life/Drama masterpieces, tragic and heartbreaking, yet, in the end, enlightening and heartwarming.
100/100