[MeoTwister5]

Disclaimer: Yes, this post is huge.

I'll have to admit it now: the initial reason I watched Clannad was because I was a KyotoAni Fanman. It was a year after I saw Air, which up until that time was one only of only 2 shows to reduce me into a dehydrated pile of manflesh. I came off of Kanon 2006 and the Planetarian kinetic novel when I first saw the trailer for this. Searching around the net I found out that at the point of creation, Clannad was the longest piece of work made by Key, and that it did not contain any hentai scenes and the like. I was also told it was about love and family.

At first I didn't feel too interested. Air, Kanon and Planetarian had interesting premises that attracted me to them initially while Clannad did not. Information about the story actually felt so mundane and run of the mill. When the subs came out I didn't even download it as I did Kanon 2006, and watched on crunchyroll.

"Do you like this town? I do..."

I saw a young man. Dejected, empty, emotionless and simply drifting through the waves of life. In him, in the cynical manner he described his town, I saw a glimmer of goodness that could not manifest itself underneath his sadness. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

I saw a young woman. Frail and feeble, but full of the almost unshakable optimism unknown to even herself. In her I saw a strength hidden underneath a lonely and isolated exterior. With the words of Anpan she drew the courage to move forward.

3 minutes into the first episode, I paused the applet, thought about things a little, and later found myself ordering the game online even though I knew I couldn't read Japanese.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Animation - 9.5

This is Kyoto Animation. Anyone who has seen their work knows how freaking good they are. In this modern era we tend to see a hectic use of rich CG rendering and oversaturated colors that, at times, overpowers the viewer rather than immerse him. The ability of the studio to bring life into the scenery and to animate them with such life, vigor and motion is undeniable if not unsurpassed. The only times I've seen such a world come to life prior to this studio was with the Studio Ghibli classics, which still stand on a pedestal that Kyoto Animation is slowly reaching. If Makoto Shinkai would work with KA, I shudder to think of the wonders they can breath life into.

It is therefore troubling that the animation is inconsistent at times. Even though the worst parts are still amazing to look at, consistency is still key. I don't know if it's a change in art direction, but when you get used to the level of work this studio can do, you can't help but notice when it drops.

Voice Acting - 9

As the very same VA's from the visual novel reprised their roles, it's undeniable that they know their characters well. To me however, the cream of the crop is Tomoya himself, he who was the unvoiced protagonist in the PC version and given his voice in the anime. You could almost hear it in his voice, the slow growth and evolution of a man who has much to learn about life through his experiences with others. The snarky and cynical teenager becomes a father in a few short years.

This of course brings me to a few beefs. I'm still not too fond of Kotomi's and Ryou's voice but that's just me.

Script and Adaptation- 9

The script stands out to me because, quite frankly, it captures almost everything you'd expect from life in high school and beyond. The characters speak and act their age at the given moment in time and are fairly consistent with their mannerisms.

KA is of course famous for their faithfulness to the source material and it shows once again. While it is again understandable that a lot of things are still edited out, and at least one important character being left out completely, the fact that they managed to combine together so many diverging individual stories into 1 tale is a feat of its own.

Music - 10

Jun Maeda and his crew are farking geniuses. I listen to Clannad OST tracks when I study. Dango Daikazoku is one of the saddest happy songs I've ever heard. I plan to listen to Country Train while I'm actually on the train to Tibet this April. As for Chiisana Tenohira and Toki wo Kizamu Uta... well... I don't need to describe them, do I?

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Reviewer's Tilt: 9.5/10

Love is patient. Love is kind.
It does not envy. It does not boast.
It is not proud. It is not rude.

If there is one thing I knew when I started this series, it was that Tomoya never truly understood the human connection as a whole. With only Sunohara as his friend, he lived his days listlessly, floating from one gag and joke to another to fill his empty days. He kept his distance from his friends and father, he treated things with a degree of cynicism and detachment, as if an outsider not truly living in the world where he was present in.

And for all that he lacked, in a way he knew things much more than everyone else. He loner, but he was patient with people and treated them with some degree of kindness. He never sneered at people nor was he arrogant. He didn't look down on people, and even helped them to the best of his abilities.

Perhaps, even if he didn't admit it to himself, he understood what it meant to suffer emotionally, and took it upon himself to alleviate the burden of others.

It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered.
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil.
But rejoices in truth.
It always protects.
Always trusts. Always hopes.
Always perseveres.

The moment she uttered the words Anpan at the bottom of that hill, we knew that Nagisa carried a few crosses of her own. A loner as well, left behind to repeat her senior year once again due to illness, we knew she'd be a tad bit strange. She was frail, sickly, clumsy and socially inept. Yet, even then, despite the way people treated her, she always wanted to look at the brighter side of life, even if life often spat in her face.

I cannot remember when she would truly be angry. She was always working to help make others happy, and she never kept grudges when things didn't go her way. She always tried to do what she thought was right even if people ridiculed her. She was trusting of people to a fault, trusting and hoping to find success in her endeavors.

In the end, even if she was childish, somewhat cowardly and always worrying, she always made it a point to move forward in life. No matter what.

Love never fails.

Upon that chance meeting at the bottom of that hill, two lives would change forever. Polar opposites in personality and outlook, they were an odd couple as it was, so who would have ever known just how much of a match they'd make.

But a pair they did make. A wholly human relationship that steadily grew as a cynical young man somewhat grudgingly agrees to help an inept girl in starting a theater club no one was interested in. Perhaps it was not romance outright but, a budding one nonetheless, growing as this odd couple made it their mission to help friends in need.

Whether it be a ghost girl, a genius girl, a violent girl, a pair of twins, a brother and sister or some dorm mistress' magical cat, it was all part and parcel of a journey to understand the human relationship. What it was, what it meant, and what it could be. Beyond friendship, to become a family.

And so, it needed growth. These two had so much to learn from their friends and family but, most importantly, from each other. Teenagers they were, they still knew they were children with so much more ahead of them. If they were to carve a life for the two of them to find their joy, they knew they had to leave their childish ways behind.

When I was a child I talked like a child.
I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child.
When I became an adult
I put childish ways behind me.

It was almost amazing to see just how much Tomoya had changed upon meeting Nagisa. Once cynical and sarcastic, now more honest and accepting. Once a man who would rather run from his problems, he nows faces them head on. It is after high school now, and even though Nagisa would once again have to take her senior year a third time, he swore to become a man worthy of her. He finds a job, an apartment to live in, and finally support himself. He starts to make his own decsions and takes responsibility for his actions.

No longer a child, now a man. Love seems to have changed him.

But then, how does love and life survive tragedy? A tragedy beyond all feeling and understanding, beyond all expectations and realities. It shatters you heart and soul, the event you thought would bring new happiness into your lives. In the end, it leaves you with nothing.

Nothing. Once again, the color in Tomoya's life fades away.

Then, I saw but a poor reflection
As in a mirror
Now I see face to face
Then, I knew it only in part
Now, I know fully
And I am fully known

He sees himself as empty once again, a bitter and emotionless shell that has lost everything he had ever yearned and cared for. He feels nothing for his life, now bereft of anything worth living for. Or so he thinks.

Perhaps he saw too much of her in his daughter, a sad and bitter reminder of a love lost to tragedy. He gives her up to his in-laws, unable to bear the burden or face the truth of his life. He begins a life of vice, ironic mirroring of his own father's despair.

It took a train ride, a field of beautiful yellow flowers and and an aging grandmother to make him once again face himself. He sees a poor reflection of a desolate man who thinks he has lost everything and anything. Face to face with himself he finally comes to terms with what he has lost and, more importantly, what he still has.

A daughter.

A daughter he has long neglected because he could only run away from reality. Then and there he begins to remember just how important Nagisa is too him, and what she had taught him. He is a father, nothing will ever change that, and it was time he acted like one.

5 years is a long time, but in the spectrum of human relations, 5 years can often mean almost nothing as long as one is willing to bridge the gap. Nagisa taught him that.

And now these three remain:
Faith.
Hope.
Love.

At the end of a second tragedy that would even take the life of the most powerful of humans, we are left with only our emotions and out beliefs. Things we learned from those dearest to us, who have in one way or another taught us how to live our lives to their fullest.

To have faith in the goodness of others that, despite all our faults, we will be there to support each other in our times of need.

To have hope even in the impossible. To believe even in the absurd, to believe even in miracles.

But the greatest of these... it is Love.

To hold on to the love we have felt and we have shared. The love that changed our lives from one of sadness to that of joy. The love that had turned strangers into family. The love that had brought out miracles from thin air.

That is love. That is Clannad.

1 Corinthians: 1/13