Another anime pilot, another baffling series of tonal shifts. The opening to CLANNAD’s first episode plays like a commercial for Zoloft.  Desaturated color, sad people trudging in the rain, whispered narrations full of wistful reflections… I was seriously waiting for the hard sell on some anti-depressants.  Maybe they’d even be shaped like these characters, as Flintstones vitamins pulled off so slyly. Naturally, the show becomes a screwball comedy once we return from the opening theme. I was prepared to rag on this show - - to make snide jokes about how the title made me think it was about Irish New Age music group Clannad - - but, despite myself, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I dig this Tomoya kid’s style. He’s kind of like Japan’s bi-polar answer to Ferris Bueller. One scene, he’s a class act smartass, goofing on the rugby team and that blond spaz who’s following him around like a good toadie. The next scene, he shows us all his sensitive with introspective moments that border on bouts of manic depression. Saying that, I wish I could read Japanese so I could scour the credits and see if this really is a covert ad for Zoloft, kind of like those adver-tainment THE HIRE shorts put together by BMW. Given that the Dad with the baseball (who’s a riot, by the way) seems like he’s suffering from Terret’s syndrome, I think I might be on to something. Speaking of credits, I’m generally hard to shock, but this show’s credits elicited one of the few genuine “what the F@#$ did I just watch?!” moments of this column. Listen, I didn’t bat an eyelash when the gray-haired girl out of nowhere channels RIVAL SCHOOL JUSTICE and uses some video game moves to put the hurt on those biker punks.  So, could somebody please explain to me what dancing beans with squiggle faces have to do with this show? I can’t even hazard a good guess as to how those beans could even be metaphorically related to it. Do they serve beans at this private school’s cafeteria or something, and each bean corresponds to a character? Domo arigato, Outlaw_Spike, for the recommendation and the video link. What else should I watch, now? -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia.   Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.
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