Thoughts on Clannad

[Gyoko]

Just finished watching Clannad (After Story included). Honestly, I think it's waaaay overrated. It's okay to watch it to kill time, but it's nothing really special. And I failed to realize it right until the end.

Tearjerker-type anime tends to be mediocre with some comic relief situations in the most of the episodes - this is understandable since first and foremost we need to connect to the characters so that it'll hurt more when we'll be ripped apart , what cannot be accomplished without bringing up usual stuff everybody encounters. This applies even to Angel Beats! - pinnacle of the feels - we meet the crew, some stuff happens and occasional fun that livens up the situation. In case of Clannad

Sunohara   and Akio 
are the ones who made things interesting when I was thinking "Oh well, guess I'll give it a rest". The real value of the tearjerkers's in the last episodes, that's why you can never tell whether the anime you're watching's worth it or not. Keeping all that in mind I had concrete resolve - I'd finish Clannad no matter how boring it would appear. I'll be honest - it wasn't that bad. There were few interesting arcs. Last episodes were sad, my hopes for the ending were sky high..... It turned out to be nothing special. I'd call it another Slice of Life anime.

[Asonn]

Play the VN, not to god awful anime. 

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

As a VN adaptation, I think it's relatively good. It does a good job of preserving the feeling of the original, even though that means butchering a lot of the routes and making the plot and the characters weaker. The Little busters anime did it the other way round, and was therefore more acclaimed by a lot of critics, yet nowhere near as popular

But whether or not you think it's the greatest anime ever like so many people do is entirely up to you, and how much it affects you and applies to your life thus far, and therefore saying it (or anything else) is 'overrated' is, in my opinion, utterly meaningless

 

[DarkZedge]

1 hour ago, Asonn said:

Play the VN, not to god awful anime. 

Well I've only watched part of the anime and dropped it because I just couldn't get into it. I've got the vn but have yet to start it, however I've heard it's waaay better than the anime itself.

[Gyoko]

7 minutes ago, john 'mr. customer' smith said:

But whether or not you think it's the greatest anime ever like so many people do is entirely up to you, and how much it affects you and applies to your life thus far, and therefore saying it (or anything else) is 'overrated' is, in my opinion, utterly meaningless

Not at all. Rating helps prioritize anime, detect trash without wasting time watching few episodes. It's far from meaningless. Maybe you misinterpreted my words, so let me rephrase - Clannad(at least anime version) got way more credit than it deserves. 

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

1 minute ago, Gyoko said:

Not at all. Rating helps prioritize anime, detect trash without wasting time watching few episodes. It's far from meaningless. Maybe you misinterpreted my words, so let me rephrase - Clannad(at least anime version) got way more credit than it deserves. 

An anime always 'deserves' the credit it gets, because the credit it gets is directly proportional to the amount it was enjoyed by it's audience. Clannad affected and even changed A LOT of people on a deep level, and for being able to do that, I think it deserves all the credit it gets. 

Calling it overrated might be somewhat accurate in terms of its critical value, but in this case, it's just not the whole picture

[Tyrael]

Akio and Sanae's comedy bits about her bread make my day every time I watch em

I also think this anime is pretty much perfect as far as VN adaptations go but to each his own, I guess.

[Soulless Watcher]

Wow I thought most people thought the anime was better, well color me better informed. To be honest I found most of VN to be pretty dull, sure the after story was excellent (till that fucking pissing in my cornflakes ending) and there were a handful of routes that I genuinely felt were good, but for the most part I felt that allot of it was there to pad out the play time or the content was just plain insipid. 

[Mugi]

In my opinion, it's probably the best VN anime adaptation that exists right now, so that alone gives it some credit. I think it's pretty good overall, and the animation helps the comedic scenes quite a bit (probably the most I have laughed at a series aside from Nichijou and Non Non Biyori). I suppose the ending could be better, but I don't like bad ends so whatever i'll take it.

[Soulless Watcher]

1 hour ago, Mugi said:

 I suppose the ending could be better, but I don't like bad ends so whatever i'll take it.

The ending wouldn't have to be bad to be good in this case though, the daughter could have still gotten sick threatening Tomoya to his emotional limit but than he works through this tough time with the help of his old friends. I was also kinda crossing my fingers that he would get in a romantic relationship with Kyou in the after-story. The message that life is tough and keeps trying to fuck you over, but you can survive it by facing it head on with the help of your friends and loved ones, is allot more stronger than a shallow fairy tale good ending (that kinda retcons the entire afterstory if you think about it).

[Tyrael]

2 hours ago, Mugi said:

In my opinion, it's probably the best VN anime adaptation that exists right now, so that alone gives it some credit. I think it's pretty good overall, and the animation helps the comedic scenes quite a bit (probably the most I have laughed at a series aside from Nichijou and Non Non Biyori). I suppose the ending could be better, but I don't like bad ends so whatever i'll take it.

White Album 2, Grisaia no Meikyuu and Grisaia no Rakuen (Kajitsu is pretty bad, sadly) are on the same level of quality imo

And school days, of course 

[Darklord Rooke]

5 hours ago, DarkZedge said:

Well I've only watched part of the anime and dropped it because I just couldn't get into it. I've got the vn but have yet to start it, however I've heard it's waaay better than the anime itself.

Despite what Key fans tell you, if you don't like the anime then most likely you won't like the VN. The anime is a fairly faithful adaption as far as it goes.

[Suzu Fanatic]

Agreed, it's very faithful to the VN, so I doubt you'd find it any better. I personally enjoyed it a fair amount (except for the cop-out b.s. ending), but it's one of those stories you have to be in the mood for, can empathize with the characters, and can invest yourself emotionally. If you find it hard to become attached to the characters, it will just come across as dull and/or melodramatic.

[DarkZedge]

29 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Despite what Key fans tell you, if you don't like the anime then most likely you won't like the VN. The anime is a fairly faithful adaption as far as it goes.

That so? it'd be a shame since I couldn't really get into the anime itself, most people have told me they were nothing alike and that the anime was just bad.

[Darklord Rooke]

27 minutes ago, DarkZedge said:

 most people have told me they were nothing alike 

Lol! Only in the sense that the VN is non-linear because of routes, and the anime is linear because no routes. 

The VN goes into more detail with plot and characters, that’s about all. Some say the VN is paced better and allows more buildup, others say the anime is better because it doesn’t have 100 hours of padding. Opinions seem to be split over which is more enjoyable.

[DarkZedge]

Just now, Rooke said:

Lol! Only in the sense that the VN is non-linear because of routes, and the anime is linear because no routes. 

The VN goes into more detail with plot and characters, that’s about all. Some say the VN is paced better and allows more buildup, others say the anime is better because it doesn’t have 100 hours of padding. Opinions seem to be split over which is more enjoyable.

What's your take on it? is one better than the other or they're just as good only different in some aspects?

[Guest]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Shame you didn't like it. Moving on.

[ittaku]

I hated Clannad in anime form. I gave up the TV series after an episode was dedicated to weeding. Then I found myself in the fansub group that subbed afterstory and hated it even more. What drivel.

EDIT: Actually I helped translate check one of the alternate universe OVAs too where he ends up with one of the other girls and actually liked that one episode standalone.

[solidbatman]

the anime does a better job of telling the story than the VN. VN drags shit out for far too long. 

[Fred the Barber]

The anime and the VN both suffer from bloat, but the VN is way worse on that front than the anime. I actually really like the anime, although even I admit that the first half of the After Story season drags really badly. I had no problems with the pacing in the first season (despite "The One Where Tomoya Spends A Whole Week Gardening"), but I'm probably carried through all of Kotomi's route on a high of lingering enjoyment from the lovely resolution of Fuko's arc. Kotomi's arc's final resolution is solid, too, even if the whole part leading up to it is either confusing or boring. The rest of season 1 until Nagisa's arc is kind of boring, but there's not really much you can do with the VN's material for Kyou and Tomoyo given the linearity requirement.

As I understand, the anime's bloat was kind of forced by Key, so I can't fault KyoAni for it. On the contrary, I give them credit for cutting so much out and making as tight a story as they did with the constraints they apparently had.

One key (heh) differentiator between the anime and the VN is the fact that KyoAni is excellent at drawing and animation, and Itaru Hinoue is not. The anime just looks vastly better than the VN, and the more physically active characters (who are, it turns out, mostly my favorite characters) really benefit from the animation - Akio, Sunohara, Kyou, and even Fuko are all a lot more interesting in the anime than in the VN because their animation does a lot to bring them to life. Tomoyo, oddly, not so much, at least for me, even though she seems like she should fit in that grouping; not sure why I feel that way. Anyway, the less physical characters, notably Nagisa and Kotomi, really don't benefit from that, and almost come off a little bit flat in the anime as a result.

Overall, IMO, while it's not as good as KyoAni's Kanon anime adaptation, I do think the Clannad anime adaptation is a pretty great show. Like @john 'mr. customer' smith said, it was quite literally life-changing for me (for better or worse...): I can say with extremely high confidence that I wouldn't be on Fuwa right now if I had never seen it. Admittedly that's really a confluence of factors, many outside of the show, including time, place, and experience, but the show being what it is was crucial; not much else would have sold me on anime and VNs the way Clannad: After Story did.

[ittaku]

5 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

Overall, IMO, while it's not as good as KyoAni's Kanon anime adaptation, I do think the Clannad anime adaptation is a pretty great show. Like @john 'mr. customer' smith said, it was quite literally life-changing for me (for better or worse...): I can say with extremely high confidence that I wouldn't be on Fuwa right now if I had never seen it. Admittedly that's really a confluence of factors, many outside of the show, including time, place, and experience, but the show being what it is was crucial; not much else would have sold me on anime and VNs the way Clannad: After Story did.

It's quite amazing how differently we viewed this show. I doubt our tastes are so vastly dissimilar that we came out with such different views. I suspect they more likely represent what state of mind we were in that time and place when we watched them and perhaps I'd have viewed it very differently if I was at a different stage of life. One thing we do agree on, Kanon2006 was much better - in my case infinitely better because I consider that one a masterpiece whereas I consider clannad hype laden yawnfest.

24.

Another World: Tomoyo Chapter was the OVA episode I liked btw

I looked it up.