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Kanon (2006)
Watching over 40 episodes of Clannad should have taught that series like these are not for me, but I somehow still watch them. One ask why I watch high school romance visual novel adaptations if I dislike the whole idea behind them. One might also keep such thoughts to themselves. The main guy in Kanon is Yuuichi, a high school student who moves to a snowy town where he used to visit his cousin on school holidays in his childhood. Unfortunately he suffers from amnesia and can remember next to nothing of his visits. Suddenly plenty of girls flock around him and being a nice guy he ends up helping them with their problems. My favourite character was the Sunohara of this series. I can't remember his name this time, but the role was similar to the character in Clannad. I guess he turned out to be my favourite because he didn't take part in the ~drama~ and was instead used to cheer others up. And I was glad how in the end he got to be a responsible and useful guy as well instead of a non stop comedic buffoon. While I liked the main guy in Clannad surprisingly much I can't say the same of our hero this time. In Clannad the main guy had a backstory that didn't involve any of the harem girls, and he had a friend in Sunohara with whom he used to hang out with before the series began and their friendship got its own role in the story. In Kanon on the other hand everything about Yuuichi ties to the girls' stories. Right now I can't think of a single thing about him that didn't have something to do with the harem girls. All his flashbacks show him interacting with the girls, and all his actions in the present storyline are interacting with the girls or thinking about them and their problems. And I don't think he had much of a personality either, he was just a nice guy. His snarky sarcasm was pretty annoying to me too since it just felt like a way to show how much more intelligent he was compared to the clumsy, stupid, naive, klutzy or socially challenged girls. The girls didn't fare any better. Many were perfect dream girls who never got seriously angry and were always nice to the main guy. And of course all were dependant on him. All had childish quirks that I assume were supposed to be endearing but I still don't find a teenager acting like a five-year-old cute in any way even if the plot might justify it. Especially how Makoto was handled was particularly disturbing to me since I was under the impression that someone would find her somehow sexy towards the end of her arc. I had a bad feeling about what the original eroge the anime is based on might have had at the marriage scene, and tvTropes confirmed my suspicions. Just... why? 
And the ending... I really hate it when series at first go "ha! Know those series where everything ends up all happy-happy!? Well, I am not one of them, I have the guts to actually keep my sad stories sad- just kidding lol, everyone gets a perfectly happy ending after all!!! Isn't it cute <3 <3 ^_____^ !!!?!". So because of some magic three characters get out of hospital almost instantly, one turns out not to be dead and wakes up from her coma and a girl whose whole point was to deathly ill turns out to be just fine after all? At least Makoto only got a bittersweet ending at most... I believe my reaction should be "oh, I'm so happy that the characters I love got a happy ending after all~~~", but in a situation like this I just feel cheated. The character designs disturbed me a lot more than in Clannad. I can stomach the huge eyes, but the female characters' tiny mouths somehow disgust me to no end. Especially when attention was drawn to their mouths, like when they were eating or speaking. Also, the mouth is far too high for my liking as well. 
Other than the character designs the art was epicly good, they must have poured a lot of money on that. Nothing to complain about the music either. And special thanks to the winter setting; there's a lot of snow and cold in winter here where I live, so using snow as an important element in the story and showing stuff like snow ploughs and shoveling snow made me feel all homey and comfy. And for once "something sad or tragic happens ---> it starts to snow" didn't feel forced since it was snowing a lot at other times as well. 
Dress up wise there was a lot of material since the characters had many outfits. However, they were just normal everyday clothes, and those never manage to get me interested in a dress up unless I'm a fan of the series itself. Minitokyo seems to have fun scans of the girls in traditional clothing for different countries. Shame there's no full body pics.
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