I’d told myself that I wouldn’t watch visual novel adaptations based on some negative stereotype of them that I conjured up. Of course, after watching Byousoku 5 Centimeters, I was in the mood for some more sadface anime. Of course, where else would I get more sadface than some good old visual novel adaptations?

It’s a good thing that I knew where to find some quality ones. Up until this point, I’d dabbled in two. Chaos;HEAD turned out to feature a ridiculously unlikable main character, so I dropped it almost immediately. And I watched School Days out of curiosity, and it lives up to the rumours that it ruins lives. So, I decided to head over to the well of VN adaptations that people won’t shut up about, Kyoto Animation.

Based on the summaries, I decided to go with Clannad. I ended up watching the entire thing in three days. The most surprising thing about Clannad was that none of the characters filled me with rage or made me facepalm. As expected, every episode couldn’t finish without some sort of drama happening, and also expected was the injection of some supernatural happenings. But, I found the characters pretty likable.

This is a big deal, of course. If either the main character or the entire cast pisses me off, that show gets dropped. At the same time, there aren’t too many shows that don’t have at least one character that makes me hate them. I like to point at Honey and Clover as an example of this. H&C has been praised and suggested to me as a quality anime. By all standards, I should be hopping on it without hesitation. It’s a slice of life anime mixed in with a bit of romance and focuses on students at an art school. But I can’t bring myself to keep on watching it because I find every single character annoying.

Anyhow, Clannad has put me over the edge with respect to Kyoani’s visual novel adaptations. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed Kyoani’s work after Lucky Star finished. Clannad has also forced me to actually take a look at what Kyoani’s been doing. I had no idea that Haruhi was only the second thing they did, right after Air, or that Kanon came out right in between Haruhi and Lucky Star, or that Clannad came right after Lucky Star.

Anyhow, I am looking forward to the rest of Clannad After Story, which is actually currently airing. I have picked it up and caught up and I’m anticipating some major sadface moments. And finally, the dango daikazoku is awesome and anyone who disagrees is a terrible human being.