~Note, this review is for “Clannad” first season only; no getting confused please.~

“Clannad” can easily count as a classic among the non-violent anime out there. An adaption of a multi-scenario VN (visual novel), it amazes with numerous sub stories well tied into each other and the “greater” plot, each tiny story conveying more emotion and a different take on life. Generally, “Clannad” is a high school slice of life with drama, comedy, and romance, and in all its rollercoaster-like emotionality probably highly relatable especially to any teen girls out there.

The plot in general is well thought-out and smooth despite the many sub stories. Just as a note: No action or violence (ignore the –censored‒ scene of Tomoyo beating up delinquents). The story in general is slow, with decent attention to detail and emotion, and manages to capture the complexity of mundane life well. Several twists and some general complexity included, as Key Animation once again plays on surreal themes throughout (mainly the idea of parallel worlds); like this, it’s not always totally realistic (personally, I’m a bit of a sucker for the surreal, but who knows). The end wraps the anime up decently, although not every question is answered; for that, you’ll have to watch the sequel “Clannad After Story”.

What could still use a bit more work are both the setting and characters. The setting is somewhat generic (a high school with the only boys ever seen moving around being the MC Tomoya and his pal), the characters… I’m torn about them. The cast is reasonably small for an anime of 22 eps, and the characters are likable and easy to empathise with (not least since there’s a lag between each chara’s introduction and back story), and characters’ odd antics and dynamics provide most of the comedy. However, on the other hand, most of the characters are somewhat generic; easy to distinguish among themselves, but… spoiler? Kotomi as the quiet, hyper-intelligent studious orphaned bookworm, Nagisa as the frail yet happy MC who falls ill too much for her own good; Ryou as the shy twin with her clumsy ‘moe’ personality; Fuuko as the highly cute yet way too naïve starfish-obsessed girl whose show-ups were repeated once or twice too often; Tomoya as the semi-orphan and mid-delinquent with a drunk as a father; Sunohara as his loud and crazy sidekick pal… Not wanting to bash the characters or anything, I did like them, but seriously more time could have been spent on them. As they are, they aren’t all that memorable despite their generic image. Even if it were only small oddities such as, let’s say, Ryou being obsessed with hardrock music. (Me and thinking up things out of the blue. *sighs*) Playing on the same note; most girls don’t seem to have much common sense, count out Kyou and Tomoyo. For me, being a feminist, that doesn’t do my memories of this anime much good… together with the overall (though in the end luckily resolved) harem feel, it seemed to set female emancipation back a few years and, admittedly, left me as a feminist a little squirming. No changing it though, I guess... *sweatdrops*

Character development again is an upside of this anime, and interaction, though a little unrealistic here or there, generally fits the characters and makes up a good part of the comedy. The dialogue is overall good, with a slightly philosophic touch to it - count out a few things repeated a bit too often, and the exaggerated-style humour surely isn’t for everyone as it often enough borders on being stupid (Sunohara, anata no ahou! DX). The seiyuu do a very good job overall.

The animation is beautiful, unique in its use of both colour and effects. The soundtrack adds a lot to both plot and atmosphere. Opening and ending songs are well selected as well. Also: No ecchi!~ :D

For entertainment, most of the comedy comes from character interaction see overdramatisation (is that even a word? O.O), and funniness, as long as it doesn’t come to border on silliness, is well interwoven. “Clannad” manages to combine drama, comedy, romance, psychological development, and a school slice of life-feel with somewhat of a bittersweet yet funny and certainly heartwarming tone. Characters are easy to empathise, although they do lack the small unexpected oddities that would make them memorable forever. Raw emotions and bonds depicted, though this season isn’t yet a tearjerker to me. Some moral values are well woven into all of this as well – cherish your life and what you have! :)

I’d recommend this season to those looking for a short, calm and relaxing, comedic yet emotional anime – or those who want to watch Clannad After Story but need the whole experience ;) Though the character cast was a slight letdown to me, this still is entertaining, although no comparison at all to its sequel.

For the confused: the last two eps are OVAs that haven’t been labeled as such. No surprise they don’t connect… ^_^" (show less)

Story: Clannad, based off a multi scenario game that was not a hentai game, has proven to be a very good anime. With 5 girls that have important roles, Clannad goes through each one with a decent amount of detail which definitely helps you feel very emotional for every girl that you go through. They spend enough time on each one, except for Tomoyo who kinda gets a back seat in the anime but is given her own extra episode (24) which made up for it. The story continues to do one tear jerker after another while balancing comedy during each one so you aren't crying all the time. The story smoothly goes around in a very generic school setting and acts just like the game, they focus on the girls and when you see a boy besides the main character and his best friend, it is an absolute miracle. Of course, this is to appeal to boys anyways so they have accomplished what they set off to do, however, it also can appeal to girls as well, myself included. The story gets a bit too emotional at some points and to the point where it gets a bit ridiculous at others. At some points I was just laughing because the drama was just a bit too ridiculous and the girls had this tragic past that would make you want to cry, they did at some points but not in all, once you watch it, if you haven't already, you'll see what I mean.

Also there was this thing, you'll see it at the beginning and you won't understand what relevance it has to do with the anime until the second season in afterstory so throughout the whole first season you'll be like, what's the point to this? It does have some importance as you will find out later but I pretty much thought it had no point to it at all until I watched afterstory.

Characters: The characters are all very unique from each other but all have generic personalities.

There is talk that Kyou and Ryou look like Kagami and Tsukasa from lucky star, this is somewhat true and yes it is a bit generic of animes to do this whole shy twin and tsundere twin, however, Clannad keeps this under control and the two characters mesh very well into the story despite being background characters. As much as I would have liked to see Kyou more in the episodes, she is actually the most balanced out of all the girls in the anime. She is my favorite because unlike the other girls, she has common sense, Tomoyo is probably next in line with common sense knowledge, the rest well... I'm still debating where they all fit. Ryou, who is the shy twin is not all too interesting, sure she has the shy clumsy "moe" personality but her role was pretty pointless in the anime, she is almost gone in afterstory. She is however, displayed the right amount of time and did not get too much attention in the anime with a few episode exceptions. After those episodes, she fades even further into the background along with Kyou.

The character that bothers me the most would be Fuko, despite being cute, she is really just obnoxious and unneeded after her story is over, she is still cute with her little appearances from time to time but seriously, it got old after the first few visits. Fuko is a small girl obsessed with starfish and her character look fits her personality but she really is too childish as they even point out in the anime, if someone actually behaved like that in high school, they would send her to the school of "special" people. How she actually got into that high school is still a great mystery that is never explained. There are a lot of Fuko fans so I'll probably get some angry looks after saying this.

Nagisa, how original is a weak(frail) character? Not very, she acts like a frail character, behaves like a frail character and has that damn smile that all frail characters have when they are trying to smile and look happy. She does have a pretty good personality beyond her generic traits and her love for Dangos can be questioned but accepted. She is a bit dumb and lacks common sense... then again many of the other girls do as well and sets the women's rights movement back a few years with her personality but that's just who she is. She is extremely emotional, a bit too much in some cases. However, she is still lovable and had a great story going throughout the anime. With a predictable outcome.

Tomoyo: Personally got a background role in the anime and really does not get much screen time except during her extra episode. She has common sense for the most part and acts the most mature out of all the girls. She acts a bit too old at some points but I can accept that, she also changes completely during the animation and very abruptly which through me off guard when it happened as there was really no explanation to why it happened. She has this whole Tom boy.. Tom.. oyo... never mind anyways, she has a tomboy personality at the beginning and she acts like a tomboy in many ways with a girly appearance in front of Tomoya (Still very weird how close their names are). When she wears glasses, it's like she just turned into a new character to fit her new appearance as well as her role in the school. She does get a few episodes during the anime but not enough as some other characters (The ones that have no common sense at all). What does this anime have against common sense girls?!

Kotomi: Can we say the most generic out of all the girls? Let's see, quiet, antisocial, in the library, smart, the only thing missing is that she isn't wearing glasses which if she was, I would have just skipped over her episodes. She is not unique to any other library nerd besides the glasses and really just is disappointing. Her personality gets old after a few episodes and despite being smart, she has 0 common sense.

Sunohara: As best friends go, he is exactly what you expect of a best friend in an anime, stupid, ignorant, funny and did I mention stupid because that was an important one. He also has that, I'm going to be really smart for like 2 seconds when the main character has something serious going on. Generic but I still liked him in the anime as he meshed with the main characters and other characters as well.

Tomoya: The main character who has a background that matches his personality making him generic. I know I have used generic a lot but that's just what it is. His background, his father, his whole personality fit a main character for a lot of Multi Scenario games that I have seen. However, he is a very good main character that is able to easily compliment all the characters in the anime without going out of character.

Now that you hate me for bagging on all the characters, Let's go to something better, the dialog. Everyone was speaking very well for their roles and they also kept the interest going as the spoke. Even though I dislike Fuko and Kotomi, they spoke much like they should except Kotomi just kept up this really annoying dialog that would make you want to strangle her. She becomes a background character, like most of the other girls after their story. However, because all their personalities wee unique from each other, it makes the dialog unique and fun to listen to. There are only a few exceptions where the dialog was bad and it was usually during a ridiculous part where the drama turned to melodrama and just made you laugh.

Overexaggeration:
Sunohara: Okazaki! What's up?
Tomoya: I have AIDs.
Sunohara: D:

Once again that was a complete exaggeration but that's how I felt when I watched some parts and listened to the dialog.

Music: If anything caused tears to come with the dialog, it was the music. That damn Dango song just made you want to cry when it was played. The person who made the music was a genius, the music helped carry the emotions of every story, this is why I cried, because the music with the dialog just caused you to tear up and want to cry. If there was a music category, it would be considered to be excellent.

Animation: Not much to say really, animation was good, you didn't see a time where the character was awkwardly standing there and just seeing their mouth move while everything else looked like a picture. It was very nicely drawn and flowed well keeping you actively interested in the constant change. They only reused some animations over, probably to save money which makes total sense.

Entertainment: Despite the story and sometimes silly dialog, the entertainment level was good, I loved the anime, I loved how everything played out and the fact that it made me cry and laugh just shows how well this anime did to actually accomplish what they wanted to do. If you do not watch this anime, you are probably going to miss out on a good one. I hope this helps. Bring tissues to wipe your eyes or you'll short circuit your computer. (show less)

A good anime but maybe not really my style.

The backgroundstories of the girls are really good, only Tomoyo was a bit disappointing. An other good element is that the background explanation of a girl can sometimes be many episodes apart from the introduction of that girl which gives you the time to first "get to know her" so you can fully sympathise with her.

The dialogue can be really good and funny but the comedy parts are too far apart for my taste.

Nothing special was done with the animation which is good because it would only ruïn it.

Even though it wasn't humorious enough to be my kind of series, I still enjoyed it. (show less)