Well I guess a "Key" based thread was due at some point or another. I wouldn't be surprised if a "Type-Moon" one popped up sometime soon in that case
. I'll be focusing mainly on the anime adaptations portion of Key, as my VN experience is only limited to Clannad (which I played 50+ hours of and STILL did not finish - goddamn VNs are a massive timesink).
To be fair, I'm not particularly a big fan of "Key" and by extension Jun Maeda as a writer, though they definitely have some wonderful high points which I will get to shortly. I do however, respect the franchise in that they were the ones that popularized (not invented) the whole "crying" story genre in VN format instead of the more harem/dating sim like VN games that were dominant at the time. In other words, gave more "oomph" and meaning to their stories rather than your typical "choose the girl you wanna bang" and go from there.
One of the major reasons why I say I'm not particularly a big fan of Key is that I tend to get severe mood whiplash from their stories. What I mean by that is that it's silly, goofball and slapstick one moment, and nagging at you to cry over some dinnerplate eye-shaped Key moe girl the next (ok that was an exaggeration :3). I don't mind silly, goofball, slapstick series (as long as it doesn't involve some over-violent tsundere or oblivious perverted male harem lead) series on its own. Heck,
Genshiken my favourite comedy anime (and manga) of all time was literally about a bunch of peeps celebrating otaku culture in a university club room, a bit like what
OreImo is doing minus the incest implications and the gtfo that is Ayase. Recent examples include
Daily Lives of High School Boys and the currently airing
Hataraku Maou-Sama. But constantly switch between goofball one moment and heavy melodrama the next... it makes it quite difficult to take it very seriously.
Which brings me to the next point of melodrama usage. Melodrama by itself is by no means bad. If timed well and used sparingly, it drastically enhances a series and gives it a great notable high point. However, most animes and in particular Key uses melodrama in a poorly timed manner or irrelevantly. Examples, the Makoto arc from
Kanon or the Fuko/Kotomi arcs from
Clannad S1. The "drama" in those seemed irrelevant or "not worthy" of being sad about. To make it worse, it was preceded and proceeded by silly slapstick antics as mentioned above. This lead to me caring less than I would for even your generic K-drama soap opera. If Key's melodrama timing were all Clannad After Story episode 18 (I think it can be almost universally agreed whether you're a Key fan or not, that this was one of the best well placed drama episodes in recent anime history), but unfortunately this is not the case. There's a reason why I've been leaning towards the more "reserved", "understated", "genuine" anime dramas like
Usagi Drop,
Wandering Son and
Tari Tari and that's because melodrama, 9 times out of 10 is simply not done well and either has me not caring or laughing at the wangst unintentionally e.g. Final episode of
Anohana.
The third point of criticism comes to endings. Key anime adaptations and properties had endings that were simply balls.
Air? Stupidly over-tragic.
Kanon? One of the dumbest romance endings in anime history.
Clannad? Rainbows shat out everywhere with how happy it was due to Deus Ex Machina bulls***.
Angel Beats? Wtf was the point of this series in the first place?
Anyways that's enough ranting
. Hopefully, there will be lots of fan/praise posts after my rather ugly blunt criticisms.
I might as well list what I thought were the best Key-anime properties, with the exception of
Little Busters which I haven't watched yet or the
Air/Clannad movies and TV series done by Toei since nobody cares about Toei like nobody cares about Studio Deen.
Clannad After Story (Despite the god awful ending)>>
Kanon >
Clannad S1 >
Air >>
Angel Beats (Rot in hell please :3)