Anime Reviews: My thoughts on every anime I have completed thus far

Clannad

Clannad is one of the many animes that is created by Key, a fairly popular visual novel production company. Other productions they've made include Kanon, Air, and Angel Beats. Clannad, along with it's sequel, Clannad After Story, are very well known, Clannad's popularity reaching #20 on the popularity list, and Clannad After Story reaching #10 in the rankings. The anime tells the story of Tomoya Okazaki, a second-year in high school. Due to his relationship with his father, Tomoya has lost hope, and has been skipping class more than he should because of it. That is, until he meets Nagisa Furuwaka, a shy and sweet girl who had stayed behind for that year, due to a sickness she recived near the end of the year. The girl wanted to begin a drama club, and participate in the festival that takes place mid-semester. But, seeing that Nagisa has the student council against her, and not enough members to start a club, Tomoya decides to help her, and along with the friends they made, Nagisa successfully created the Drama Club, and participated in the Festival.

This sounds like a really cute and cheerful anime, right? Well, here's the thing; it's not. Key's productions have this theme to it. Everyone has a deeper story than what they seem. I originally found the series when Noble had one of his signature "Try not to Cry" challenges. And around that time, everyone was teasing him about him getting upset about the ending of the series Clannad After Story (which I have seen for myself as well.) But anyways, the reason why I started Clannad was because it must be one of those animes you get really attached to, and makes you bawl for hours about it. And at that point, I hadn't seen that many animes then, like maybe 5 at that point, (And now I'm at like 50 bajeezus). So, I basically gave the sub a try since my Anime-watching app couldn't play the dubs. And after the first episode, I went right to the next one. I watched the whole series one night when my sleeping schedule was all over the place. But anyways, let's get on with the review!

WARNING! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Story: 10/10

So, like I explained before, Clannad is basically like a very dramatic harem anime, though there are 2 guys in the group, unlike the usual one main male protaginist in the gang. The story revolves around the main couple in the series, Nagisa Furuwaka, and Tomoya Okazaki. One day, at the beginning of Tomoya's second year of high school, a young girl had broken the silence of the new year, saying the phrase: "AnPan," or a type of Japanese food. The guy turned towards her, suprised due to her sudden outburst. The girl, however, kept staring into the distance, only murmuring him the question: "Do you like this school?" This, was the beginning of Clannad, the beginning of our what seems to be a simple love story between a girl and a boy. Seems simple and shoujo enough, right? Haha.... For the people who haven't even seen the series, I have news for you. It's not. Clannad is full of heartbreak, and sadness, and everything that seems pessimistic. Though, my review on Clannad After Story will cover more as to why the series as a whole has such a depressing mood itself. In the meantime, I'd like to say that Clannad is definetley one of those animes that really tugs at your heart strings, and if you don't like crying, I'd suggest you watch out. For me, personally, I enjoy Clannad, as it had some of the most heart-wrenching moments, as well as the light and comical ones as well. But yes, I give the story a 10/10, deal with it. 

Art: 10/10

Key has a certain type of art style that I really enjoy. You'll notice it with a lot of Key's works, Clannad, Kanon, Angel Beats... You get the idea. I dunno why, but I've always loved the Key Studio's art style. Their big shiny eyes is probably the first thing you notice about the style, especially in the girl's designs. The men have more of a narrow eye shape than the most of the girls (Except for like Sunohara, but I believe that is to represent his immature and childish personality), but they still have a similar lighting in their eyes compared to the girls. Clannad's uniforms are unique to other Slice-of-Life Animes like that of Lucky Star, Nichijou. While their outfits set off a cutesy-and fun tone, while those of Clannad's, as well as the rest of Key's works, give off more of a formal tone, brinign out a more serious tone to the characters and show in general. Does that mean the whole serious is formal and serious? No, of course not. Clannad may be very heart-wrenching and dramatic, but it has its light moments as well. A couple of my favorites are "A Toilet Seat Cover," and "Nagisa's and Tomoya's first date." But anyways, art gets a 10/10, seeing that it's one of my favorite art styles. 

Sound: 8/10

The Soundtrack, as well as the OST to Clannad is fairly good, and it fit very well with the series. But, like I had said with Tales of Symphonia, there are some themes to the show, that if you listen to them you might get teary-eyed. Yes, I still enjoyed it and all, it's just it's not the kind of soundtrack you want to listen to on the bus in complete silence, becuase there are going to be some tears. The OP and ED, however, are very good, and they don't bring as many tears. In fact, I think Dango Daikazoku is one of my favorite anime endings, and its on one of my playlists I listen to all of the time. The opening is fairly good as well, though, I believe the OP to Clannad After Story a lot more. I mean, I like the OP to Clannad, but sadly, it did not quite make it to be downloaded onto my iPod, and put on one of my most-played playlists. But anyways, the soundtrack gets an 8/10, as it is very good, though its not one of my personal favorites like some animes' soundtracks are. 

Characters: 9/10

Now, a lot of people didn't  like the characters all that much, seeing that everybody has a terrible backstory, and we should all feel bad because the main character's sad for some stupid reason, like they have the cliche that that their parents died, or they really don't have a good childhood or some crap, and that's all the reason for you not to like the cast. We have a guy with a injured arm, another guy who's a kiss-up to every girl he meets and tries extremley hard to do his best, a fairly happy girl with a sickness thst hits her in the winter-time, a girl who lost her parents and plays violin, a girl who's the ghost of her unconsius body in a hospital who begs everyone to go to her sister's wedding, twin girls who don't really have backstories like the others do, but still fall in love with the guy, and a girl whose parents who didn't get along, and a brother who now no longer can go around without his wheelchair. Sounds pretty much like a bunch of  balaonga and drama to you at first glance, but to be honest, I really like some of these characters, a couple actually went on my personal favorites list. I noticed when I watch a series, the thing I really look at would be the characters, since that's who I'll be dealing with throughout the whole series. Since I enjoyed a few of the characters a lot, like Sunohara, Kotomi, Fuko and Nagisa, I enjoyed the series more than I would've without them. Sure, sometimes the fact that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has a sad and tragic backstory gets annoying, but I still like the characters fairly well. Yes, there were a few characters that I wasn't much on, like Kyou and Tomoya's Father, but it wasn't like I hated all of the characters because of that. But anyways, I'm giving the characters a 9/10

Enjoyment/General: 8/10

As I enjoyed Clannad, and comparing it to its sequel, this anime gets an 8/10 for enjoyment, as I did enjoy it very much, I seemed to enjoy  Clannad After Story a lot more. I feel like if you want a series  that's really good, you gotta have a lot of paitence to see it get really good. I mean, I did cry near the end of Clannad, but I think there's a lot more heart-wrenching stuff in the sequel. Can you skip the first part and go straight to After Story? Yeah, you could, but I don't reccomend it. I think the reason why the sequel is a lot sadder, is because if you saw the first part already, you get attached to the characters, and it affects you even more. Kind of like when you watch the ending to a really long series. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, you get more upset over an ending of a show of 150 episodes, rather than one that lasts only 12 episodes, this being because you get attached to the characters a lot more. Sure, there may be a few exclusions to this theory, but I'm just saying Clannad After Story may affect you more if you watch its prequel first, seeing that this series is kind of a hook to get you into the sequel. It doesn't quite reach the 10/10 rating like it's sequel, but I still think Clannad is a very good series, and I reccomend you watch it, if you haven't seen any Key animes. Also, if you like a little drama, slice-of-life and romance, I think you would also like this series as well. And I on't think you'll regret it when you get to the sequel. I loved the series myself, and it seemed that was what got me into Key's works. 

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Thats all for now! Hope you enjoyed, and see you next time!