Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristen
And well, Clannad has been my life the past year and a half. It is the reason why I'm still alive today, and will be alive in the future. It is the anpan that kept me moving forward, and the drama club that'll always keep me company when I'm feeling lonely. It's the starfish to hold on to in times of sadness, and the violin to play in times of happiness (At the expense of others, of course).
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I am glad you added the postscript in the bracket in the end. But
Etude Pour Les Petites Superchordes isn't that bad of a piece, though simple. If you did notice, the warbling noises Kotomi made with the violin are parts of the piece, sometimes a few notes, stretched and put together.
The first thing I would like to comment about Clannad are the themes involved, basically they are the 5 Fs
1. Family
2. Friendship
3. Fate
4. Feelings
5. Fantasy
basically these are 5 of the important things in life that people often forget in pursuit of their "happiness". I don't think I have to elaborate on them.
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The second thing I would like to talk about is the character buildups.
Nagisa
Firstly I would like to talk about Nagisa, being a high schooler who got retained, she is clearly lonely as all her friends have already left, plus she is so shy that she would make mistakes often. Tomoya was the one that supplemented her weak points and protected her flanks (done in a pretty accidental way), so it is eventual they would end up together. To put it simply, they are fated to be together.
The dirty pair
Tomoya and Sunohara are perfect opposites of each other, with Tomoya being the smarter one, making them somewhat like a
manzai pair. But despite being stupid and all, Sunohara has his own moral ground of protecting the ones close to him, like his sister, and Nagisa's attempt and remaking the drama club. Their existence in the story proves what Anne Frank wrote at the end of her diary true, "All people are good."
Kyou And Ryou
The Fujibayashi twins (my favourite characters) are something like initiators of comic relief, plus they are somewhat cute in their own personalities. Ryou is sweet and shy, and always require Kyou to come to her aid (often resulting in physical confrontations). But she has her own aggressive side, as shown in one of the later episodes when she mustered up enough courage to ask Tomoya to eat her bento. With Nagisa and Kotomi, they make up the three dense ones in the drama club. Kyou is a typical
tsundere, but she has her softer side as evidenced when she is locked up in the gym storage, and in the Clannad Afterstory Episode 23. But how she constantly pick fights with "that Sakagami girl" never fails to crack me up, like what Ascaloth once quoted a Chinese idiom at Riuva.....
There cannot be two tigers (tigresses)
in the same mountain.
Kotomi Ichinose
I have to to swear that her name is an
irony. If you separate her surname, Ichi-no (一ノ) means "the position of" and se(瀬) means "current". Most likely her name would mean "The position of the current influenced by the beautiful instrument". Yeah right, she might cause a major tsunami by just playing the violin. However, she is a sweet character, though extremely complex to being branded as dense. She has a pretty much smaller role to play in Afterstory, although her split second calculation and analysis of hitting the baseball back in Ep 1 is epic.
Anyway, she is cute. If I can't have a girlfriend like Kyou or Ryou, I would certainly want her.
Tomoyo Sakagami
I simply love how Kyou refers to her as "that Sakagami girl", and how she is always a competition for Kyou (although the fight is always seemingly initiated by Kyou). She is a very popular character to the extent that a miniature fighting game "Tomoyo Fighter ~It is an exciting life~" is made by fans for her (Kyou steals the limelight by being the other ridiculously powerful character ingame). I am not a fan of her, so I don't have much to comment other than her superb figure.
Yukine, Misae, Sanae
Not much to comment though, since their own arcs are pretty okay IMO. But Sanae is hilarious when she dresses up as Isogai Sanako, and considering how dangerous the bread are when baked by her (the one she serves Mei seems to have GLASS inside). Yukine's charms are creepy though. Misae is pretty tsundere at her age, and the Shima arc is just peppered full of whimsical jokes.
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Lastly I would like to comment about the music. The music is downright beautiful, and I am surprised that nobody has yet to put together a band to play the pieces in a concert. The pieces I really like are
1. Kochi (the common piece played on the wooden flute)
2. It Is Like The Wind (Kyou's Theme)
3. Etude Pour Les Petites (Kotomi's Theme)
4. Hurry, Starfish! (This is obvious.)
5. Two Shadows
6. Small Palms
Well IMO this anime has probably the best set of music I have ever heard since Macross Frontier. I love them.
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Shall I take you?
To the place in this city where wishes come true?
This is the world that has ended.
A world where no one but I exist.
In the room are a small wooden table and a chair.
Outside the window is a vast plain with nothing.
The building is old and there is no clue of when it was built.
I live here alone. I sometimes go out to pick necessities.
There is no one outside either.
Within the faint illumination are many small lights flying.
I picked up branches, nails and many other things.
It is to make a friend.
But will the one being born be happy?
With some doubt in mind......
This world indeed had ended.
No more lives will be born.
She's the only being with life.
Either in the distant past or the distant future, I was in a different place.
It is a very lively place.
But I can no longer return there,
I have this body that she made for me.
I have been trying to chart the entire story, with some changes in the grammar and sentence construction, I am sure it would make an excellent ballad. The two monologues are pretty emotional anyway.
Music : 10/10
Storyline : 9/10
Characters : 7/10 (could have elaborated more in After Story, especially Sunohara and the Fuji twins)
V.A : 7/10
Art : 8/10 (the part which scored points for the series is the fantasy world)
Adaptation : x/10 (I never played the game)
Overall : 8.2/10
The score isn't high, but the memorable effect it generates is huge. I have never watched such a show before that is enough to even impact on my outlook of life.
I think it pretty much sums up to the single word Kristen has : Dango.