Clannad is about family. This is something that sort of gets beaten into you throughout the course of the show. This very important to understanding just what the hell goes on.

I understand why Clannad got split into two seasons, since following year-long shows is kind of tiring, but the two halves of After Story were jarringly different. It might have been better for flow to have kept it all together so that the school life stuff could be put together without it feeling like there were a few extra leftover arcs at the beginning of After Story. In fact, in my mind, I sort of lump the first half of After Story with the first season of Clannad and the actual After Story with After Story.

Visual novel adaptations are hard. Visual novels are not linear and when something like Clannad exploits that structure, serializing it is made even harder. Because my superpower is not caring about spoilers, I’ve read a lot of stuff about the visual novel and what the ending is supposed to mean. And the ending is one of those things that exploits the structure of the visual novel.

Outside of the context of the visual novel and paths and whatever, the ending is very deus ex machina. I mean, we get a’splosion, some talking, and then Tomoya “wakes up” at the critical moment but everything is bright and we get a happy ending. It’s sort of like the first time you go through Higurashi. You become disoriented and wonder what the hell just happened.

So two things are key to understanding the ending. The first is that Clannad is about family. The second is that Clannad is a visual novel.

What we got in the anime was the true end. So what was the bad end? The bad end was if there were no deus ex machina. So in a sense, we got to see both ends. But what’s the prerequisite for the true end? The anime almost makes it look like it was the decision to call out to Nagisa. In fact, what’s required is that you have enough light orbs.

The light orbs are explained as the happiness of others. They also happen to be a gameplay mechanic. Once you finish an arc, you get a light orb. This seems like it’s just a way to get you to play all of the paths. The function of the light orbs isn’t that obvious, since Yukine sort of explains it offhandedly and Ushio seeing the light orb enter Tomoya didn’t really spell anything out. Even after Ushio’s explanation in the imaginary world, it isn’t clear that Tomoya was collecting these things.

After all, why would Ushio’s and Nagisa’s fate be tied to these light orbs instead of meeting Nagisa? Why is it impossible to save Ushio and Nagisa without playing all the other arcs? Remember what Tomoya says and what he’s like when we’re first introduced to him. He hates the city he lives in. He has no understanding of what a family is. He continues to hate the city all the way until the end. Upon your first time reaching the end, in the imaginary world, Ushio sends you back to collect light orbs.

Through collecting the light orbs and finishing the various paths, which we see accumulating in the anime at the episode title screen, Tomoya learns what family is. Only after finishing all the other paths is he able to come around to the fact that the town that he hated, which also happens to be some town that grants peoples’ wishes, is a giant family. And only after he learns all of this is he able to save his family.

Obviously, this isn’t as easy to show in the anime. In the anime, our experience with the true end happens right after the bad end and is fairly abrupt. In the visual novel, Tomoya works his way to the bad end and realizes that there’s no way to avoid it except to collect the light orbs. He is then set on the arduous task of collecting these light orbs, while keeping in mind that he’s working to save Nagisa and Ushio, knowing what will happen if he fails.

All things considered, KyoAni did a pretty good job with the ending. The last episode played out almost exactly how I predicted they’d do it. Now that it’s over, I can see why Clannad is considered Key’s best work. I can safely say it’s the best Key anime adaptation.

I’d always considered myself a fan of anime for a long time. But it wasn’t until July that I realized that I hadn’t really watched that much. You see, following Naruto and Bleach for years gives one the illusion that they’ve watched a lot of anime. As it turns out, you’ve just watched a lot of Naruto and Bleach. Once I realized this and that there were tons of titles that people were talking about that I had no idea existed, I sought to remedy the situation.

I took advantage of the fact that I’d stopped raiding in WoW and didn’t need to block off four hours per night anymore and, later, that I’d be on a work term at home when all of my friends would be busy with school or outside the city and I went through almost everything of interest from the past few years. Anyhow, here are 2008’s (that is, aired during 2008) most influential anime for myself.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

I’ve always liked Gundam, even though I’ve still not familiarized myself with UC. But, you can count on me watching a Gundam show. As a result, even though it wasn’t entirely captivating to me like SEED was, I still made sure to catch 00. As the aforementioned WoW raiding picked up, 00 soon became the only show I was following. And while the first season of 00 didn’t win me over, the second season is quickly redeeming its predecessor.

Soul Eater

This is probably the anime that brought me into watching anime as it aired. I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon this. I do remember that it was the stunning OP and the amazing animation in the first episode that won me over. I’ve said constantly that while the premise is a bit typical, it’s the quality of the production that makes this series shine. It’s been about three-quarters of the way through and it still holds true.

Clannad

There are two reasons I picked this up. The first was that I’d just finished 5 Centimeters per Second and was in the mood for another sadface anime. The second was Clannad After Story’s OP. It was my introduction to the visual novel adaptation and harem anime. It wasn’t what I was expecting. It turns out Kanon, which I watched afterwards, was what I was expecting. Anyhow, Clannad and Clannad After Story remain as some of my favourites and it’s influential for opening me to the genre. This lead me to watch things like ef – a tale of memories, which I consider a good result.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

I’d mentioned this anime a week or two ago and why it was important. For me, it introduced the anime community on the Internet: a vast collection of various anime blogs and 4chan’s /a/. And it’s through this machinery that I gather information about other anime, empowering me to trudge through and find out what I’ve missed over the past few years.

Xam’d: Lost Memories

Xam’d is a very good reminder of why I hate Sony. It’s a shame that one of the best shows of the year ends up with pretty much the worst distribution model. Other than that, the show began with some definite Eureka Seven vibes, which I forgave, since it had a main character that wasn’t Renton Thurston at the beginning of E7. As it went on though, it really turned into its own thing (other than those wings) and it’s influential because it’s just damned good. If it’d already ended, I’d probably crown it the best anime of the year.

Today, you get two posts. One for Kanon, which I typed up about halfway before abandoning but planned to return to once I got this weekly thing rolling. And one for Air, which I actually watched this week. They get thrown together because they are both part of the powerful KeyAni triad. Keep in mind that I watched Kanon pretty much right after Clannad.

Kanon 2006, uguu~

Generally, I try not to write about the same sorts of things twice in a row, but I’m planning to make an excellent post one Tuesday night about that. So, you get treated to another KyoAni/Key anime post! This time, I blasted through Kanon (2006). I have to qualify that with the year because Kanon has two anime series. The first was a 13-episode series done in 2002 by Toei Animation. The one I watched was a 26-episode remake by Kyoto Animation, who at the time were known for Air, another Key VN, and Haruhi, that anime that you should have watched by now. But, this will probably turn out to be another opportunity to go on about how much I like Clannad.

Kanon was what I expected from a visual novel adaptation. That is, when I took my first steps into Clannad, I was expecting Kanon. I was glad in the case of Clannad, that it turned out differently. Having watched Clannad then, I was disappointed with how Kanon progressed until the ending. That’s not to say that Kanon isn’t any good, it’s just that Clannad changed my expectations for it.

Just about the only thing that I expected of Kanon that was true was that it turned out to be slightly less funny and slightly more dramatic than Clannad. Kanon is very well described as sad girls in snow. Otherwise, I enjoyed the plot, setting, and characters of Clannad far more than those of Kanon.

Clannad managed to keep the focus of the plot on the development of Tomoya’s and Nagisa’s relationship throughout the show. Kanon managed to tie all of the arcs together only at the very end. Even though Ayu ends up being the lead female, the bulk of her development shows up only during her arc, whereas Nagisa at least plays a part in other arcs. Even if she’s just standing around, it gives the sense of a common thread running throughout each arc rather than several compartmentalized arcs.

I also enjoyed Clannad’s characters a lot more than Kanon’s. I liked Tomoya’s interactions with the others a lot more than Yuuichi’s. It may have to do with Yuuichi basically being parachuted into the town at the beginning having to learn everything. On the other hand, Tomoya already has connections with people, so he spends less time just meeting people and learning about them. He’s also more interesting since he’s a delinquent.

The supporting characters in Clannad also seemed more interesting and lively than Kanon’s sad girls in snow. They’re also less annoying. I’m not a fan of uguu~ when she says it every other sentence, and I am definitely anti-Auu~.

Will all of this deter me from picking up Air in the future? No, even though it is the work that Kyoani did before Haruhi and Kanon, the fact that it’s only 13 episodes long certainly doesn’t hurt.

Air, GAO

So I managed to find Air. I begin wondering where it would fall on the KeyAni continuum. I doubted that it could top Clannad, but with the right pacing and story, it could beat Kanon. Quite frankly, there are a lot of flaws with Air. To be fair, I did watch it last, when it was the first of KyoAni’s Key works. But, unlike Kanon, even if I had watched it first, it probably wouldn’t have helped.

My main criticism of Kanon was that it felt really compartmentalized from the way it handled its arcs. The ending managed to save it by tying everything together. This doesn’t happen in Air. Each arc is definitely on its own and at the conclusion of one, the characters that were involved will drop off the face of the earth. The only real connection that each arc had was some vague sky motif.

Even worse was that the main arc was really weird. I probably wouldn’t have been able to follow it at all if I hadn’t spoiled it for myself beforehand by reading Wikipedia. Strange things happen to the characters, we’re introduced to something entirely out of left field, and the final arc took off in another direction. I’ll admit it looked pretty emotional, but it was really hard to empathize with because it was really hard to understand what was going on or the significance behind it all.

Ultimately, Air was decent, but fairly disappointing compared to the other KeyAni works. This makes sense, since comparing such an early work with the stuff that KyoAni was able to output later on shows how much they’ve improved, especially in the VN department. I did enjoy the GAO GAO STEGOSAURUS though.

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.