Did I say that I finally finished watching Clannad all the way through? I’m not sure I did. Anyway, yeah; I finally finished watching Clannad all the way through. And what a fantastic series it was.

Its reputation as “the crying anime” is well-earned, particularly during the second “After Story” season. After Story is just made up of moving scene after moving scene, delivering frequent emotional gutpunches without a moment’s remorse, though the first season certainly wasn’t averse to all this.

I particularly enjoyed it because it didn’t feel the need to spell absolutely everything out. It was mostly realistic and down-to-earth, but there were occasional subtle suggestions that there was something peculiar or possibly supernatural going on. It never took over the story — and, in fact, it was never truly explained conclusively — but it was there. It gave the whole thing a very strange atmosphere throughout; as I’ve mentioned before, even during fairly happy, joyful scenes there was a strange undercurrent of melancholy about the whole thing.

It helps that the show is held up by a strong, interesting cast, each of whom have their own stories to tell. Stars of the show are, naturally, protagonist Tomoya and heroine Nagisa — Tomoya is relatable and empathetic without being bland, while Nagisa has a few moe appeal elements without taking things too far — but the supporting cast are worthwhile additions, too.

Tomoya’s friend Sunohara provides some often-needed comic relief while dealing with his own personal struggles. Twin sisters Kyou and Ryou make up the tsundere and “sweet, shy girl” part of the cast nicely, with the twist that both of them may or may not have their own interest in Tomoya. Tomoyo, who is disappointingly absent from the series after it moves on from the cast’s school life and into adulthood, is an ass-kicking student council president-type who doesn’t take any shit from anyone. Kotomi is a wonderfully flawed genius with an airheaded personality (and a total inability to play the violin) but a keen mind.

Even the characters who are seen even less frequently are well-defined and memorable. Particular highlights are Nagisa’s parents Akio and Sanae, who are polar opposites in almost every way, and Sunohara’s sister Mei, who is simply adorable, but who also cares for her brother without getting into the incestuous territory that many shows stray into.

In a way, the manner in which various characters drift in and out of the “main” cast of the show is reflective of real life. After all, how many people you knew at high school are you still in touch with? Relatively few, I’d guess, but you’d still have a good catch up with them if you happened to be in the same place, I imagine. The same is true of Clannad’s cast and unfolding story — it’s Tomoya and Nagisa’s tale primarily, but people come and go as their respective lives grow and change.

Interestingly, one of the most interesting things the series does is outside of the main story arc, and it betrays the show’s roots as a visual novel. At the end of both the first and second series, there’s a “bonus” episode in which we get to see a “what if?” scenario where Tomoya gets together with someone else — Tomoyo in the first series, and Kyou in the second. Kyou’s was a particularly good episode, and it actually made me want to see more of her; she was one of my favourite characters throughout the show, and should I ever get the opportunity to play the original visual novel in English — I’m not entirely sure if the fansub project was ever completed — I have a sneaking suspicion she’d be the route I went for first of all.

Anyway. It was a sometimes painful, emotional struggle to make it through the complete series, but it was excellent. Memorable characters, touching moments, beautiful artwork and a satisfying conclusion; it’s an anime well deserving of its “classic” status, and if you think you can deal with All the Feels, I’d recommend you check it out when you get a chance.

I’ve been continuing to watch Clannad, and I’m thoroughly enamoured with it. I haven’t yet finished it, though I am pretty sure how it’s going to end and I am also pretty sure that if it follows the path I think it’s going to follow it’s going to be very, very sad in the way I perversely enjoy so much.

Mild spoilers ahead?

One of the things that has struck me throughout is how quietly weird it is. For the most part, it’s your usual sort of slice-of-life story complete with all the clichés that usually involves — someone trying to resurrect a long-dead school club; a harem of female characters who each initially seem to encapsulate one main defining factor but later reveal themselves to have hidden depths and/or dark pasts; a protagonist who is down on his luck but inspired to become a better person by said group of girls.

But then it goes and throws a few curveballs along the way, the first of which is the character Fuko, whose physical presence and relationship with the other characters is seemingly impossible due to the fact that she’s really lying in hospital in a coma. After her particular story arc is finished, she disappears, not only from regularly appearing in episodes but from the characters’ memories, too — though every so often she shows up for a brief cameo in a future episode, usually in some botched attempt to make a difficult situation better. Since I haven’t finished watching the series as a whole yet, I don’t know if the deal with Fuko is truly and conclusively explained, or if it’s left somewhat open to interpretation. I’d be fine with either, actually, though at my current point 18 episodes deep into the complete run, I’m torn between a few theories.

Then there’s the character Kotomi, who initially appears to be the resident socially-inept “weird genius” character, but whom it transpires has some forgotten history with the protagonist. Not only that, but her parents were supposedly researching some sort of theory about when the universe was created, a tiny dimension was sealed away. I don’t know if that gets resolved, either.

And then there’s the occasional cuts to “the girl who lives alone in a world that has ended” with her mechanical companion. These sequences are almost Nier-like in their bleakness, and at present I have no idea how they fit into the narrative as a whole.

I’m absolutely and completely intrigued by what’s going on, though. Someone is clearly going to die at some point, or perhaps they’re already dead. There’s a feeling of “fever dream” about the whole thing, where it’s not quite all making sense yet, but I feel I’m getting closer to the truth.

In other words, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the whole thing plays out — and it’s pretty much a given that I’ll be checking out Clannad After Story once I’m done, too. Expect some more spoileriffic thoughts when I’ve made it through the whole lot.

Been a while since I talked anime (relatively speaking, anyway) so, well, here we go.

I finished watching the second season of Haiyore! Nyaruko-san recently and enjoyed it a great deal — perhaps not quite as much as I liked the first season, but certainly enough to regard it very fondly — and have now moved on to a series I’ve seen a lot of people mention in the past, but have never checked out myself: Clannad.

I know very little about Clannad save for the fact it was originally a visual novel (that, to my knowledge, never received an official English release, nor a complete fan-translation — do please correct me if I’m wrong) and that it was a show with a certain degree of notoriety for being emotional and moving. As those of you who have been following me a while will know, I have a real soft spot for emotionally engaging media, and take a perverse pleasure from works that are genuinely “harrowing” in some way. I liked Corpse Party so much, for example, because I found it genuinely horrifying, disturbing and upsetting — you might think that would make it unappealing, but in my mind it was just a sign that it was achieving exactly what it set out to do. I think fondly of To The Moon because it legitimately made me properly full-on cry at the ending, and I feel the same way about Kana Little Sister. You get the idea.

So I was always going to check out Clannad sooner rather than later, despite knowing next to nothing about it. And after four episodes, I still know next to nothing about it, but I do know enough to talk a little about my first impressions and what I like about it.

Clannad initially appears to be one of the many slice-of-life high school comedy dramas that make up so much of the modern anime landscape. I’m a big fan of this style of thing, so I have no problem with this, but I’m also conscious of the fact that some people don’t like it quite so much.

Where Clannad differs from your usual slice-of-life business is in its atmosphere. On the surface, it’s the usual sort of high-energy, high-intensity chaos that this type of show is known for, but there’s a very peculiar atmosphere overlaid on the top of it all. Specifically, despite the show’s initial impression of being colourful, vibrant and full of energy, there’s a very clear sense of melancholy about it, too; a feeling of loneliness.

This is partly personified by the character Nagisa, a lonely girl whom the protagonist comes to befriend. Exactly what Nagisa’s deal is hasn’t quite been revealed yet, but it’s clear that she’s a sickly girl — she missed a year of school and had to repeat, and in one early episode she just collapses in the rain without explanation. I have the distinct feeling that Things are going to Happen with Nagisa at some point in the series, though exactly what I don’t know just yet — and I’m avoiding spoilers like the plague for the moment.

Nagisa isn’t the only source of this loneliness, though; occasionally, the show cuts to a seemingly completely incongruous sequence where a young girl lives alone at the end of the world, and ends up building herself a mechanical friend out of junk. I have no idea of the relevance of all this, yet, whether it’s real, dream, metaphor or all three, but it’s certainly got my attention.

There’s not a lot more I can really say about the show as yet, save for the following opinions: 1) The art and animation is gorgeous. 2) Its visual novel roots are obvious, what with the protagonist’s recurring encounters with the female leads. 3) It has the most irritatingly catchy ending song ever. (Dango, dango, dango, dango, dango daikazoku!)

More to almost inevitably follow once I’ve watched a bit more.