Clannad

	Original run	2007-2008
	Episodes	23
	Watched	23/23, English subbed
	Director	Tatsuya Ishihara
	Studio	Kyoto Animation
	Based on	Key's visual novel
	Review date	May 4, 2012

Okay, brace yourselves for a Wrong Opinion. Clannad is a widely acclaimed anime, and since everyone keeps telling how good and sad it is I had to take a peek as well. Well, it didn't make me sad in the slightest, and no episode made me feel "this is awesome, I MUST watch the next episode right away". What I got instead was "umm when is the supposed ~quality~ going to start?". I would probably be more forgiving if I didn't have so high expectations, but as it is the feeling I got from the whole series was major disappointment. But I also hear that the sequel "After Story" is ~even better~, and I believe I'll give it a chance. If it wins at both "weighted average" and "bayesian estimate" categories on ANN it can't be a complete waste of time can it?

Okay so Clannad is about Tomoya Okazaki, a high school student, who ends up helping girls who have emotional problems because he's a pretty nice guy even if it totally doesn't look like at first. Because he's such a nice guy he starts getting attention from the girls as well. The female lead is his classmate Nagisa Furukawa, whose problems naturally aren't solved until the last arc.

What I hated from the beginning was how many of the females were stuffed into the "I'm so helpless moe moe love me uguu I need you to manage to do anything!" mold. I bet there are plenty of people who like high school girls who appear to be on the level of a grade schooler but I'm not one of them. The worst offender was Fuuko, it's been a while since I've disliked a fictional character that much. It didn't help that her baby face, kiddy speech and voice and body language, and childish behaviour were stuffed down my throat all the time either with the presumption that I'd find her cute and endearing and suddenly want to hug and help and love her. And then she just couldn't stay away... Kotomi was almost as bad with her whispering voice and social idiocy, but at least she didn't act like she was five years old.

As for the drrrama, by default I like wangsty sob stories, so I was pretty eager to watch Clannad. Unfortunately none of the stories moved me even a little bit; Fuuko's might have if it wasn't for... Fuuko herself. Nagisa's was almost ok (even if it wasn't for Akio), but just at the end they had to pull the drama llama meter up to eleven and the everything felt like unnecessary drama for drama's sake. Kotomi's backstory gave me the impression that the creators were standing next to me, saying "okay, this is the sad part, now you're supposed to cry". Clannad did not only use my not-so-favourite narration device 'childhood friend', they even went for the 'forgotten childhood friend'...

The best thing in the whole series was Akio. He was just oozing pure awesome. His (and his wife's) backstory and how it affects Nagisa were also pretty well done, I don't remember seeing the concept of dreams treated that way in any other anime. Nagisa's mom on the other hand fell in the "uguu I'm so moe moe love me" territory. Surprisingly I ended up liking the male lead quite a lot as well, he, like, had a personality and background outside the pathetic-average-nerd-self-insert stereotype. He was even a genuinely nice guy so it's undestandable that girls showed interest in him, even if the "lol every girl thinks it's serious business to have him eat HER food" harem scene was taking it too far. Against all odds I also liked Tomoya's idiot friend Sunohara.

Some of the episodes had a story about a girl and a robot at the beginning. I believe it was very philosophical, but I didn't like it. It was that robot; it was trying too hard to be a sad woobie I'd have to feel sorry for. And I didn't like its voice.

During the show I remember liking the background music, but now that I'm done I can't quite remember any of it. I didn't like the ending theme, but I love the beginning of the opening when the girl runs on the field around 0:30-0:40.

KyoAni has a good reputation of making visually good stuff. I can't really complain either, Clannad was pretty to look at. The character designs were something I didn't like though. Something about the face just rubs me the wrong way, and almost everyone has the same face.

The comedic über violence (mostly towards Sunohara) wasn't for me either, it never entertained me and I mostly just waited them to get over with it. The role play jokes went past me as well since I've never played a game like that. Also, what was the point with the pig mascot anyway? Will it get a super important role in the next season, or is it just there to fill space?

Even if I didn't exactly like Clannad I can believe that it's at the top of the harem genre (or "one high school guy + many girls", whatever). I might have a higher opinion of Clannad if I had more experience on the harem genre and knew how bad it could be, but it's not exactly a merit to anything if it needs to be compared to rubbish in order to look good.

Dress-up wise we're firmly in the "no motivation whatsover" category; the school uniforms are nice but I have no memory of what their casual clothes looked like. Shortening Fuuko's story or starting with something else or removing Fuuko altogether would probably have helped with giving me a better first impression.

	Best	Worst
Episode	Ummm 16?	Anything focusing on Fuuko
Character	Akio	Fuuko
Pairing	I'm fine with Tomoya/Nagisa	Was Tomoya/Fuuko a pairing? If not, Tomoya/Kotomi.
Outfit	School uniform was nice; no recollection of any other outfits.
Final judgement 1,5/3 Disappointment; the hype made me expect "mind blowingly amazing" but what I got was merely "okay I guess it wasn't horrible".