

Why would a so-called delinquent suddenly take up this project of helping a random girl he's never met before? Why does he find her interesting? What is the point? ĮNJOYMENT: Obviously higher if you're a moe fan, but those who derive little enjoyment from watching cute girls doing cute things might find this series rather trying. We get no insight into his motivations at all. why he even bothered with/cared about Nagisa et al. It's also hard to understand Tomoya's motivations at the start of the series, i.e. Their childish and insecure natures (especially early in the series) make for unrealistic characters - and therefore compromise this show's unrelenting attempts at making us care about them. not to mention the fact that Fuuko, Kotomi and Nagisa, at least, sound at least half their age. Kyou's tsundere-ness, Fuuko's quirkiness, Nagisa's unending sweetness, etc. All of them (the female ones, anyway) exhibit some degree of fanboy-pandering. Few of the characters get much development. ĬHARACTER: This is probably the greatest problem I have with Clannad, and again, it's thanks to the source material. Unfortunately, all the female characters sound like babies.

SOUND: Evocative without being overdramatic, for the most part. If anything, this aspect of Clannad makes me despair, because I can think of a lot of better anime series that deserve to have this sort of budget. Squishy moe character designs may not be everyone's cup of tea (Sanae looks barely older than Nagisa), but again, that comes with the territory. ĪRT: High budget, great production values and art direction. A story about a girl with Mysterious Anime Disease who has the intellectual capacity of a child? Sorry, it's not working for me. I mean: a story about a girl who is shy and has trouble making friends? Yeah, cool, you can watch Kimi no Todoke or something. Still, the outlandish (one word: Fuuko) and emotionally manipulative plot elements (most of the backstories that were explored) weakened what might otherwise have been a sweet, unpretentious slice-of-life drama/romance. With, given that it was based on the original VN plot. STORY: To be fair, the anime didn't have much to work Is this too harsh? Let's look at the individual components that MAL expects us to rate anime by. It expects us to have genuine emotional reactions to the 'blossoming relationships' between our bland protagonist and these excuses for characters. It expects us to care about these infantile, one-dimensional characters. This show expects us to believe that teenage girls act like five-year-olds.

Unfortunately for this show, this means that it ends up being utterly contrived, unrealistic, and outright stupid. Here's the central problem with Clannad: it wants to tug your heartstrings, so it doesn't think about anything else. As he attempts to help each girl overcome her respective obstacle, he begins to realize life isn't as dull as he once thought. Claiming he has nothing better to do, he decides to help her achieve this goal along with the help of four other girls.Īs Tomoya spends more time with the girls, he learns more about them and their problems. Tomoya learns Nagisa has been held back a year due to a severe illness and that her dream is to revive the school's drama club. Eventually he concedes and befriends her. However, Tomoya finds he is noticing Nagisa more and more around school. Nagisa claims they are now friends, but Tomoya walks away passing the encounter off as nothing. He soon discovers the girl's name is Nagisa Furukawa and that she exclaims things she likes in order to motivate herself. Without warning she exclaims "Anpan!" (a popular Japanese food) which catches Tomoya's attention. One day while walking to school, Tomoya passes a young girl muttering quietly to herself. Along with his friend Youhei Sunohara, he skips school and plans to waste his high school days away. Tomoya Okazaki is a delinquent who finds life dull and believes he'll never amount to anything.
