So far, I have nothing negative to comment about this wonderful anime series which was animated by Kyoto-Animation. Clannad, adapted from a visual novel of the same name which was created by Key, the creators of the infamous Air and Kanon, is one of the most awaited anime series by Key fans. Accordingly, 'Clannad' has the meaning of 'family' in Irish, and therefore the main theme of the whole series is family.In the past, KyoAni had done a good job animating Air and Kanon, so fans has had high expectations on Clannad to have the quality as good as their previous releases. Sure without letting audiences down, KyoAni did a good job in the starting episodes. In fact, all I have in mind after watching the first two episodes are mostly positive comments. The storyline is normal so far and the introduction is smooth and straight-to-the-point without taking too much time to focus on a single girl. An exception is the main heroine, Nagisa, whom had most of the limelight.The story surrounds the life of the main male character, Tomoya, which for once, isn't the only male character in the series which is given some serious lines - there's Sunohara, Tomoya's male classmate (somewhat like Kitagawa from Kanon), Nagisa's father, Tomoya's father, etc, unlike in most harem-styled animes where the main hero is the only male character appearing the whole time. A delinquent from a broken family, Tomoya is often late to school for no reason at all and also has the tendency to skip school together with Sunohara whom he would usually hang out with. He hates going back home, just because to him there's no reason for him to - his mother had long died while his father is an alcoholic. The father and son once had a fight with each other where the father had slammed the son on the wall causing the son's shoulder to dislocate. From then onwards, the son was unable to play basketball, the sport which the son was enrolled in the school for, anymore. This has also caused Tomoya to not join any clubs in school as he is getting tired of it. This all changed when Nagisa invited him to reform the disbanded-due-to-lack-of-member Theater Club and he did his best to help Nagisa and even gave her much encouragement and advice. In return, Nagisa treated him well when he visited her house after school one day, just to get to know about her happy and caring family.A kind-hearted person he can be, it is undeniable that he is rather hot-tempered and would easily lose his temper, resulting in fights or arguments. Other than that, he is also straight in his speech and would not think of other's feelings or thoughts before making a harsh and sharp remark. Like I've said before, the name of the main heroine of this series is Nagisa. Everything seems smooth about her so far up to the second episode as it was only revealed that she has a happy family with her parents operating a bakery selling cakes and buns. She has a weird fetish towards anpans and dango kazoku (dango family) and would mutter names of food she would want to eat to encourage herself. Accordingly she should have already graduated but since she had been away from school due to an illness, she had to repeat her third year in high school. This makes her a year older than Tomoya. I don't like the sound of too much happiness. There's much more to come for Nagisa, I can predict. I've just read Wikipedia's article and in there, accordingly, Tomoya and Nagisa had a daughter and Nagisa died giving birth to her. I hope that won't happen in the anime.Putting Nagisa aside, I'm going to go into the other girls of the series, namely Kyou, Kotomi, Tomoyo and Fuko.Kyou... hmmm, I would describe her as a purple-haired Tsuruya without the fangs. Well, she is as hyperactive as Tsuruya, plus she has the ability to shoot books like missiles... she's not my type anyways. The fact that she illegally rides a scooter to school only makes things worse.As for Kotomi, nothing much is known about her other than she studies in the library most of the time, skipping classes for the fact that she is one of the top scorer in the national examinations. Worse, she tried to cut library school books which, to me as a school librarian in RL, is something unforgivable! She even eats in the library. orz</a>Tomoyo is the sort Mai fans would be happy to stumble upon. Despite being two years younger than Tomoya (Tomoyo? Tomoya? It's getting me confused!), she is much more mature-looking than all of the other Clannad girls. Her strength is comparable to that of a male, and won't mind kicking around in her short school skirts. Amazingly her pantsu managed to survived being seen despite her roughness, jumping up and down.</a>I don't have much knowlegde about this Fuko girl, and other than the fact that she has fetish towards stars, there's nothing else I know about this mysterious girl whom Tomoya got to know by barging into a classroom where she was carving a star out of a piece of wood.I'm more interested in Ryou, Kyou's sister (younger? or are they twins?) who is the class representative of Tomoya's class, to be truthful. It's a pity that she is only considered as a minor character.The OP theme is... not quite what I had in mind. I've always expected something like Air's OP. I'd give a 2/5 right now as I'm not really attracted or amused by it. As for the ED, it's so-so - something which I would not have expect at all. Who would have expected something so childish like Dango Daikazoku? My jaw dropped when I saw the word 'dango' being repeated, followed by some colourful bun-like beanie jumping around. Then there's this song sung by a bunch of singers with children-like voice, simply. Perhaps the intention of such a simple song is to bring up the 'family' feeling among viewers, eh?To put it overall, Clannad has a good start. Let's hope that it can continue like this to the end of the story.
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Series:
Clannad
