Clannad

Clannad girls, but not all.

I rarely write topic about anime but this time is different. Last week is a week full of watching anime, including Keroro Gunsou, Clannad, and Ichigo Mashimaro (TV and OVA). And Clannad happened to be the anime that made me cry and not just once.

Key is known for their capability to create a great touching romance / drama story (visual novel) and Clannad is one of some masterpieces from Key. I watched Key's masterpiece like AIR and Kanon (2006), and i cried while watching both animes.

This is one reason why i like Clannad, the girls!

Let's start with some summary of the story and character intro:
The story starts with Okazaki Tomoya a delinquent lazy bum which often skips class and also has a delinquent friend, Sunohara Youhei. Some day in the way to school he met a cute brown haired girl, Furukawa Nagisa, talking to herself.
Tomoya once again met Nagisa in the school park and talked to her. He figured that Nagisa wanted to enter Drama club, but the club has already disbanded. Nagisa's dream didn't end there. She, with the help of Tomoya, planned to re-establish Drama club.

The story of Clannad revolves around Tomoya, Nagisa, and their journey to re-establish the drama club and perform a solo show in the school festival. In this journey, they met some beautiful and cute girls who have unique background stories and their own problems.

Need moar Clannad girls in maid costume.

That's it for the introduction, next will be full of spoilers. I'll talk about the characters and their story (and probably visual novel -VN for short- stories).

Furukawa Nagisa
She's the main heroine for this anime. Clannad stories itself will be focused to her path in visual novel. It's all about drama club. In this VN path, Tomoya and Nagisa isn't really dating, but they're always together going here and there.

First is introduction of Tomoya, Nagisa, and friends. Next is about getting minimum member for re-establishing club, Tomoya and Youhei are the victims. But actually they're not the only one. Apparently Kotomi, Kyou, and Ryou also "accidentally" joined this club. I don't know about the visual novel but in the anime version they all joined the club.

After getting enough member, the rest is up to Student council. But the student council at that time was too strict, so Nagisa still couldn't get the club re-established. And appears Sakagami Tomoyo, a candidate for next student council. Tomoya helped Tomoyo getting her elected to be student council, so he could ask Tomoyo to approve the establishment of drama club.

Next part is the climax. School festival is getting near and the club training hard every day. One day before the day, Nagisa discovered the harsh truth about their parents. They had to leave their dreams and open a bakery because Nagisa is too weak and they felt that they couldn't leave Nagisa alone. When the show began, Nagisa couldn't say anything and she ended up crying. Fortunately, her dad came and encouraged her together with her mom and Tomoya.

The show went well, and then Tomoya and Nagisa confessed each other, and they ended up dating.

Clannad itself ended in episode 22. Their life after the confession starts in episode 23, and in episode 24 is another story regarding Tomoyo's path in VN.

My (personal) opinion:
It's somewhat typical to have Nagisa path being the main story of this anime. Nagisa isn't really my favorite character, just like Tsukimiya Ayu. But they also had their VN path became the main story of their anime. Nagisa is cute, and she's somewhat funny in her story, i like when they were embarrassed because something "interesting" happened.
Nagisa's story was OK, but i guess i was somewhat bored with this kind of monopolization of main character and story.

I love Kyou and Tomoyo in yuri action.

Ichinose Kotomi
Kotomi is genius quiet girl. She doesn't have any friend, except Tomoya. She has some kind of relationship with Tomoya in the past. She always keep herself in the library, reading some difficult books. She has a difficulty with communicating with other people, and Tomoya helped her out for that problem.

In the anime version, Kotomi introduced to Nagisa, Kyou, and Ryou for her first friend. She also showed her interest to violin, even though her play is soooooo bad. Her friendship went well for the time being. Kyou even helped her to held a violin recital (concert).

An incident happened. It's a crash between bus and taxi. Although this accident didn't involve the characters directly, Kotomi was somewhat affected with this accident and she loudly, and then she fell unconscious. Then she decided to take some days off from school. Anyway, this incident happened near Kotomi's birthday.

Looking at her condition, Tomoya couldn't resist to remain silent and do nothing. He came to Kotomi's house everyday and he discovered the truth about Kotomi's parent and his own past with Kotomi.

To make up for his own mistake (about forgetting Kotomi), Tomoya started to repair Kotomi's house garden. With the help of his friends, they managed to finish right before Kotomi's birthday. And also in that day they, especially Kotomi, learned the truth about her parents.

My (personal) opinion:
Kotomi is one of my favorite girl in Clannad, especially because of her hair (and breast). In her storyline, Kotomi doesn't need to be Tomoya's girlfriend so KyoAni can insert her story in the anime. I know KyoAni can insert all Kanon's characters' stories, but they can't manage to insert all Clannad's characters' stories in the anime.
Anyway, Kotomi's story isn't that interesting, especially at the part when she cut school after the crash, she didn't make any appearance for some time.

Sakagami Tomoyo with apron and MEGANE!!! WAAANTTTTT!!!!

Sakagami Tomoyo
An energetic and strong girl, right a year below Tomoya. He met her because of her rumor of being strong and popular girl. Youhei, Tomoya's friend, started to challenge her a few times and resulted in complete loss for Youhei, and of course new friend for Tomoya. She actually a candidate for new student council head.

After meeting her for a while, Tomoyo started to do something outrageous. She came by to Tomoya's house every morning to wake him up and made him some food. Damn that Tomoya, he's a lucky bastard. You won't find any girl like that in the world, except your wife or girl from anime. Tomoya, once again with his personality, helped Tomoyo to get elected in student council election. And yeah, he DID help her to be the winner.

In the anime version, Tomoya helped Tomoyo because he wants Tomoyo to be the student council head and approves the drama club. But the VN version is totally different than that. You can see her real VN story in episode 24 of this anime, or the official title is Clannad Another Story : Tomoyo Chapter.

KyoAni really did a great move for this. I know that I'm not the only Tomoyo fans in the world, and this episode greatly pleased Tomoyo fans in the world including me. In this story, Tomoyo and Tomoya were dating, so it's impossible to insert this story in the middle of Clannad anime (Nagisa) story.

As i said above, Tomoyo and Tomoya were dating. The story starts from the point where Tomoyo and Tomoya waited for student council election results. I heard from my friend that in the VN version, while they were waiting there was a kissing scene between them. I don't know why KyoAni cut this part.

Tomoyo has so many things to do when she became student council head. And people believed that Tomoya was just a hindrance for Tomoyo, so he decided to break up with her. After a long wait and all, Tomoyo's dream came true (i won't discuss about her dream). And she decided to came back to Tomoya, with sacrificing all good things like enrolling to great university.

My (personal) opinion:
Tomoyo is once again my favorite character because her megane and her breast. I like her when she started to came to Tomoya's house every morning. I already said this but I'll say it again: KyoAni did a great job for Tomoyo. KyoAni gave people a chance to see animated version of Tomoyo's VN path. I guess KyoAni had a hard time to decide how they'll combine those VN stories together in 1 complete anime. It was a great move to create an extra episode like that.

Megane Fujibayashi Kyou, i... can't stan...d... thi...ss any...moooaaarr...

Fujibayashi Kyou
She's a third year student, same grade with Tomoya. She also has a twin sister, Fujibayashi Ryou. They reminded me of Kagami and Tsukasa, being twin and also long and short haired. As a twin Kyou and Ryou has the same job as class president, and also has the same interest with Tomoya. DAMN YOU CURSED TOMOYAAA!!!!

In the anime Kyou and Ryou only have a supporting role. But in the VN version, Kyou went into some sad and touching love story. Kyou and Ryou both loved Tomoya, with Kyou is a tsundere big breasted girl, and Ryou is a clumsy and cute girl. Very high similarity with the Hiiragi twins, except the love part.

I found out that the lunch together part and the locked in storage part are part of Kyou's path in the VN. I don't know much about her story in VN. The only thing i know is that Kyou loved Tomoya, but she has to hold her feeling because she wants her sister to be happy more than herself. So she decided to help Ryou to win Tomoya's feeling.

I heard from my friend that in the VN, Tomoya ended up dating with Ryou. But after some time Kyou couldn't hold her feeling and also ended up confessing with Tomoya. And in the end, Kyou became Tomoya's girlfriend, leaving Ryou dating another Nagisa.... sorry i mean another guy.

My (personal) opinion:
Kyou is my personal best favorite for recently watched anime. She has her long hair, beautiful face, tsundere personality, and sexy body. But life is unfair. KyoAni made Tomoyo Chapter but i think there will be no Kyou Chapter or something like that. So Kyou fans in the world will cry because there will be no animated version of her VN path. Kyou being a supporting role in this anime is the reason why i cried while watching this anime, especially at the part when Kyou said "we knew that, didn't we" and then cried together with Ryou.

Lyrical Magical Fujibayashi Kyou!

I also watched the movie version and it ended up just like AIR the movie, it's a bad way to do retelling for the story. I heard from my friend that the ending for this movie is somewhat made up. The part where Nagisa passed away and Ushio was born came from After Story, but the ending wasn't from After Story.

So Clannad After Story will be next, and i will look forward to this one. If you noticed, there isn't anything about Ibuki Fuko in this post. It's because i don't want to discuss about her, that's all. It's just i hate this character.

I hope you enjoy, and please tell me if there's anything wrong / mistakes, especially about the visual novel parts. Well that's it for this long rant.