Clannad ~After Story~

After Story is the continuation of the story of Clannad, practically right where it left off. It is not as long of a story as the bulk of Clannad, as that it focuses on the story between Furukawa Nagisa and Okazaki Tomoya. There is, in the game, two small paths that delve into the stories of Nagisa's parents, but the anime doesn't touch on those.

The game and the anime have only minor differences as to the presentation of the story, but the plot and the overall ending remain the same. It still, even throughout the other stories during the first few episodes, focuses on the growing relationship between Nagisa and Tomoya.



The differences, which will be briefly explained in a moment, are some character stories that were different paths in the first part of the game. Due to the length of the first half of Clannad, the stories were placed at the front of After Story before the real story could truly commence.

The first story is about Sunohara Youhei, Who is Tomoya's best friend. He takes a call as a prank for Youhei, and ends up forgetting to tell him that his sister Mei is coming to town to check up on him because she is worried about him. Tomoya and Nagisa don't want her to worry, so they want to have her believe that he is fine because he "has a girlfriend", which they hope will convince her that he actually devoted his life to something ever since he losthis place on the soccer team, which was due to him not wanting to deal with the demeaning authority figures in charge.

The only problem with their plan was that no girl really cared for Sunohara, and were repulsed at the idea of any sort of romantic relations with him. Tomoya and Nagisa asked some of their friends if they would pretend to be so until Mei went home, but met with no luck. They ended up with Nagisa's mother playing the role, and it unfortunately worked too well on Sunohara himself, who was unaware of who she was, and fell in love with her.

Mei doesn't leave right away, and tries to validate the relationship. Sunohara thrusts himself into the relationship, and ends up practically ignoring Mei, which ends up making her incredibly sad. She go to great lengths to try to get him to get back on a good path, one she feels a brother should be on, starting with claiming she has an "older boyfriend" (which Okazaki attempts to portray to help her out) to asking the Soccer team to take him back in. After the Soccer Team starts picking on her, Sunohara jumps in to rescue her, leading to a large brawl. Okazaki and Sunohara get into a fight afterwards, and it ends with things going back to normal, including finding out that Sunohara's "girlfriend" was in fact Nagisa's mother.

Sunohara Mei and Sagara Misae, as portrayed in the game.

The second story follows the history of Sagara Misae, the dorm mother of the men's dorm Sunohara lives in. One note that has been a focus for her is that she has an orange cat, whom is portrayed illicitly as the reincarnation of Misae's high school sweetheart, Shima Katsuki. The character is not around, not even in the past, but is in a similar situation to Michiru from the anime Air. Katsuki had passed away due to a childhood disease, but his projection lives on to find Misae so he can thank her for being so kind to him when he was in the hospital. He feels that he has to grant her a wish with the orb of light he had obtained from "a close friend", although the persons' name is never mentioned. She originally has eyes for someone else and refuses to accept the wish, but finds out the person she likes is seeing someone else, and gets depressed. She sees how kind and caring Katsuki is when he constantly tries to comfort her, and ends up doing activities with him and coming to love him.

Katsuki has, however been coming to realize that he is not as people think he is. Misae's friends also befriend Katsuki. One day while they are hanging out, it gets late and they tell Katsuki that they would be happy to walk him home. He then realizes that he doesn't remember where he lives, and after a search they find his home, only to see that he had actually passed away some time ago. the friends decide to keep the condition a secret.

The relationship between the two continue, and Katsuki had forgotten about the wish until the night of a school festival. But when he reaches for the pouch that he had the orb stored in and opens it, he finds that it is empty. He gets frustrated, and Misae tells him that she has a wish anyway and that the orb is not necessary. Right after she tells him the wish, he vanishes. He shows up again a short time later, but as a reincarnation of a cat.

After the main bulk of the story has ended, another one-episode alternate timeline - like after the first half of this anime - is shown, and it follows the story of Fujibayashi Kyou. The episode, being only 22 minutes long, covers the last half of her story. the first half is hinted at, but regrettably can only be truly grasped if one has played the game.

It starts off with Tomoya and Kyou's twin sister, Ryou, beginning their relationship as a couple. Ryou is of course very happy, but Tomoya feels that something is not quite right. As he thinks about it and talks with both of the twins, he realizes that he should have actually been with Kyou. Kyou obviously has a lot of romantic feeling for Tomoya, but wants her sister to be happy and tries repeatedly to push Tomoya away when he tries to talk about it. So he tries to break up with Ryou, who can tell what is going to happen, but tries hard to shrug it off. After a couple of attempts, he tells her to meet him in their classroom (in the game it is the school courtyard). He gets there and sees her, and Says that he cannot be with Ryou because he loves Kyou. Then it is revealed that the girl in the room with her is actually Kyou, who cut her hair to Ryou's length and came in her place so she could hear those words herself. It ends with them starting the relationship that was meant to be for that story.

The ending scene of Kyou's arc from the game.

The real story then takes place after the festival regarding Misae. Nagisa comes down with another case of what took her out of school the year before, which ended with her being held back a year. As time passes and Nagisa doesn't get any better, it becomes painfully evident that Nagisa will once again have to repeat the senior year of high school. Tomoya decides that he wants to fail purposely so he can be with Nagisa through the schoolyear repeat, but after a long conversation with her parents, he decides it is best that he graduate and get a job so he could support Nagisa when the time comes.

So Tomoya graduates, moves into a small apartment, and starts working as an electrician with Yoshino Yusuke, whom he had met at the beginning of the school year and helped out of a small problem. Nagisa had finally recovered and is repeating the third year. A difference of some note between the game and the anime for during this time is that in the game Nagisa had moved into the apartment with Tomoya, whereas in the anime she still lives at home with her parents.

As Tomoya progresses in the job and in the relationship he has with Nagisa, a much more grand management position becomes available to him through his current manager. right as it draws near for Tomoya to accept the job, though, his father gets arrested. The job offer falls through because of it, and Tomoya becomes infuriated. He visits his father in prison, and as he storms out frustrated, he tries to injure himself. Nagisa stops him, and Tomoya realizes that without Nagisa he would have given up on things long ago. He proposes, and she accepts.

Tomoya and Nagisa tell Nagisa's mother, Sanae, who is thrilled. The father, Akio, whom can obviously tell, does not listen. Tomoya tries several times to talk to him, and challenges him to a baseball match. The rules were simple. If Tomoya could hit one ball thrown at him, then Akio would listen and accept what Tomoya would say unconditionally. There were two problems with it: one, Tomoya has a bad right shoulder, and has a hard time swinging, much less doing anything requiring a shoulder; and two, Akio loves and is really good at baseball. Match after match Tomoya fails and Akio just laughs. Tomoya practices constantly to beat him, but to no avail. Eventually Akio becomes tired of this and forces a final round. Tomoya fails to hit it once again. Akio laughs and walks off, but then is convinced by his wife that he should have just one more go, to which Tomoya finally has a successful hit. He unconditionally accepts Tomoya's engagement to Nagisa.

As the school year progresses, Nagisa once again falls ill to the same condition that held her back the last two years. But unlike the last two years, the school has said that she has enough days in to graduate. so although she is still sick on graduation, she does indeed graduate, just at home. Shortly after she gets better, Tomoya invites all of the people she knew to the school and they all throw her a small graduation ceremony. After the ceremony, Tomoya and Nagisa finally get married.

Nagisa at her own little graduation ceremony.

Nagisa now lives at the apartment as well, and some of the stereotypical newlywed scenarios appear, but only briefly. As time goes on, Nagisa becomes pregnant. Friends from their school life show up for a party and how each of their lives had turned out after school is the primary topic.

The main focus for most of the story arc dealing with the pregnancy begins when Nagisa once again falls ill due to her weak body. A doctor comes and initially informs them all that as long as Nagisa is taken care of, the baby should still be able to be delivered fine.

But, Further complications occur when the condition worsens. Tensions build between Nagisa and Tomoya when the doctor initially recommends an abortion after the news comes that Nagisa may not make it out of the pregnancy alive; Nagisa wants to have the baby and Tomoya wants to make sure Nagisa does not die. Tomoya goes to live in Nagisa's old house and Sanae lives with Nagisa for a couple of days. Tomoya realizes over the time apart that he wants the baby just as much as Nagisa does, and the tension subsides between them, even though Tomoya considers keeping Nagisa alive as a top priority. As they discuss the baby, they decide on the name Ushio, for whether it is a boy or a girl.

The day finally comes, and the baby girl Ushio is about to be born. They were wanting to have the birth performed in a hospital, but the snow piled up incredibly fast in the city and the roads were dangerous to be on, so the baby was going to arrive in their apartment. Nagisa's condition also coincidentally worsens as the whole event is happening. Then Ushio finally arrives, and Nagisa and Tomoya joy over it. Then Nagisa passes away.

Five years pass, and Tomoya is at an all-time low. He feels he has no reason to live since Nagisa is gone, so he just works and blows most of the money on alcohol and gambling. After Ushio was born, Tomoya had Sanae and Akio take care of her. Sanae tries to visit often with Ushio during those five years, but Tomoya only barely acknowleges their existence. Sanae has had enough of that, and convinces Tomoya that he needs to take a couple of days off of work and come on a family trip with her, Akio, and Ushio. Tomoya reluctantly agrees. When he arrives at their house, however, the only person there is Ushio, with a note from Sanae saying that herself and Akio needed to go somewhere urgently and will be back as soon as they can.

Ushio, slightly scared of Tomoya after he seriously acknowledges her existence.

Tomoya is not thrilled that he has to be alone with Ushio, especially since not only does Ushio remind him of Nagisa, but that she also looks a lot like her, too. He spends time with her and does things with her as to what he feels he is required to. After an entire day passes and Akio and Sanae have not come back, Tomoya asks Ushio if she still wants to go on the trip that Sanae had planned. Ushio wants to, so they leave.

There were, conveniently, the tickets of where they were going to go immediately available, as well as where the destination was. Tomoya recognizes the destination only vaguely, but does not dwell on it. They get on the train, and Ushio keeps asking about Nagisa, to which Tomoya just shrugs it off saying that he will not talk about it and so she should just keep asking Sanae. As they sit there, there is a kid behind him that is making a lot of noise, to which Tomoya raises his voice to both the parent and the kid, asking them to keep it down. When he returns to his seat, he sees Ushio is not there. He goes looking for her, and finds her in the bathroom crying. He asks her if she was crying, to which she says that Sanae says she can only cry if she is in the bathroom. Calms her down and they return to their seats.

After a couple of stops they go to a store and Tomoya buys Ushio a present before they turn in to a hotel. When the morning comes they get back on the train and arrive at the destination that Sanae had set out for them, which is a large field of flowers, which Tomoya realizes as a place his father took him as a child. Ushio plays in the field until she comes back and says that the toy Tomoya bought for her is lost. Tomoya looks for it with her, but continues to have recollections of his past, to the point that he tells Ushio he will be gone for a moment, and leaves as Ushio continues to look for the toy.

He arrives at a coast, where an elderly woman is waiting. She is Tomoya's grandmother, and she tells Tomoya the story of his father, and how he vowed to raise Tomoya on his own with all of his heart when Tomoya's mother had died. She then also tells him what sacrifices the father made for Tomoya, and the depths of despair he went into to keep Tomoya happy. Tomoya has the startling revelation that he is no different than his father, and vows to raise and love Ushio similar to how his father raised him. He takes his grandmother to the field he left Ushio in, and sees her still looking for the toy. He goes out to her and says he can buy another, but Ushio says she wants to find the one she has been looking for, since it was the first thing Tomoya gave to her. When she realizes she can't find it anywhere, she asks if it is okay to cry, and she says that Sanae would only allow her to cry in the bathroom or in her father's arms. Tomoya, who is now deeply regretting how he had treated her for the last five years and how much he realizes he loves her, allows it. They both talk to Tomoya's grandmother one last time, and go home. Tomoya then asks Ushio if she would like to know more about Nagisa, and as he tells their story, he breaks down and cries, realizing all of the joys they had and all the joys he could have had with Ushio. He asks Ushio if she would like to live with him from now on, to which Ushio becomes very happy and agrees.

Ushio, smiling after she knows she will finally live with her father.

Upon arrival, they see Sanae and Akio, and Tomoya informs them that he will be taking care of Ushio from now on. Tomoya decides to grab all of the things that were once Nagisa's, and he and Ushio begin living together. Tomoya moves his work schedule around so he can take Ushio to school, and finds out that Fujibayashi Kyou is Ushio's teacher.

Time goes on, and their bonds develop. Tomoya runs into Yusuke's wife, Kouko, and sees Fuko. Fuko and Tomoya, although they do not remember each other due to the way their situation from the first part of the had worked out, end up going through the same teasing that had frequently gone on. But Fuko sees Ushio, and instantly falls in love with her and declares herself Ushio's sister. Ushio doesn't seem to really care, and befriends Fuko.

As a kindergarten parent's game arrives, Akio and Tomoya sign themselves up to participate, but Tomoya drops out when Ushio falls under the same weakening condition that befell Nagisa. A doctor merely says that it is the same as Nagisa's and only time will tell if she gets better. Tomoya feels that he has to take care of Ushio full-time, and so he quits work and lives off the money he has been saving since Ushio moved in, doing something quite similar to what Akio and Sanae did when Nagisa had initially came down with the same condition.

Ushio's condition deteriorates as the seasons change from summer to fall to winter. Ushio frequently asks if she and Tomoya can go on a trip like the one they had previously, and Tomoya keeps replying that they will most definitely go when she gets better. But Ushio does not get better, even to the point that she can no longer do basic things right. Finally, with the realization that she won't get better, Tomoya decides to take her on a trip when Ushio asks again.

As they walk down the snow-laden path, Tomoya keeps helping the rapidly deteriorating Ushio up and helps her walk. She finally just collapses, and asks if they are at their destination yet. Tomoya replies, and Ushio tells him she loves him. Tomoya returns the sentiment, and Ushio passes away in his arms. Tomoya yells out, and everything fades away.

The Hidden World's final story arc transitions in, and it shows the machine and the girl walking through the heavy snow. The girl collapses, and the machine tries with no luck to get her to keep moving. The girl informs the machine that she was having a dream, a dream of the two of them in the world that he has been trying to get them to. She tells him that he was the only thing that was connected to this world and the other world, and that although she cannot leave the world they are both in, he must go back to that world. She tells him that she wants him to be happy in the other world, ending with one simple phrase, "Goodbye, daddy." The Hidden World then vanishes.

Things return to Tomoya, who seems to be stuck in a nightmare. He has the recurring thought that he hates the city he is in, because it holds all of the memories he wants to forget. He feels that if he never met Nagisa, if he never gave her that push up the slope to the school, then he wouldn't have had to deal with the pain he went through over the past six years, and that Nagisa and Ushio would both not have had to go through what they went through. As the nightmare comes to the climax, he is arriving at the point where Nagisa and he first met. The thoughts of the pain still racing in his mind, he hears Nagisa say the same things she did that radiated the signs of lack of courage and emotional struggle. But instead of saying what he did to give her the courage, he remains silent, thinking to himself that it would be for the better.

Nagisa then turns around and begins walking back down the slope. Suddnenly, Tomoya then begins thinking of all the happy times he had with both Nagisa and Ushio alike, and realizes that they still greatly outweigh the sad times, and that they all became better stronger people because of it. He yells out her name and chases after her down the slope. He catches up to her and apologizes for doubting and trying to forget their memories. Nagisa replies that she is glad he stopped her from thinking all the sad thoughts, saying that without him she would not be as strong as she was while they were together. The nightmare Tomoya was experiencing then fades out.

Coming out of the nightmare, Tomoya is awoken by the sound of a crying baby. He realizes he is back to the time of Ushio's birth. He holds Ushio and shows her to Nagisa, exclaiming all of the things he and she will do with Ushio, and all the joy they will have. This time, Nagisa regains strength and lives through the ordeal. They spend their first few days with all of the family, and as the story ends, it shows Ushio growing up with both Tomoya and Nagisa present to see it all.

And the story ends, as the story's true ending.




~Koubo

The Clannad article List
Part one: Clannad
Part two: The Hidden World
Part three: Clannad ~After Story~

The Hidden World

The Hidden World is a sub-story that is shown throughout all of Clannad for small segments at a time. It is also referred to as the Illusionary World. It shows at least one segment during each of the main stories, and finished up alongside After Story.

The Hidden World is a sort-of world that Okazaki Tomoya has dreams about. It follows an interesting conciousness who narrates the scenes as they appear, explaining his views on the world, the situations, his emotions, and what he feels about the nameless girl whom he is fixated on.

The nameless girl is the only person living on the entire planet. She has a unique ability to fuse together junk to make objects. She is aware of the nameless conciousness, though she cannot see him; he is also aware of her, although they are unable to communicate. She decides fuses a body together for him out of junk, which looks like a small robot. She teaches him how to walk, and they become friends, making the girl happy that she is no longer alone.

The nameless girl from the Hidden World.

The conciousness, now in the world, spends his time with the girl. Although the robot cannot talk, he communicates through nods and jumps and other bodily expressions. They build various things to enjoy together, such as various playground objects.

The robot seems to have the perspective of a child, being curious about his surroundings. He comes to have the basic understanding of most things and how they work, except the stream of small orbs of light that are constantly floating around. A big deal is made of them; he tries to grab one, and it just passes through his hand. It makes no shadow, either. The girl asks if he is confused about it, and he nods yes; she then simply says that she finds it something she is familiar with.

The girl, the robot, and some sheep they found while wandering.

The world does experience seasons, just as earth does, and eventually winter starts approaching. The girl is becoming unable to move, and as winter slowly comes the amount of time she can move decreases. The robot has been recalling very vague memories of a better world, ones with more people, and wants the girl and him to go there, and to escape from this cold. During the times that the girl is able to move, she puts tries to put together a type of flying apparatus from the parts that the robot collects and brings to her.

The robot collecting materials for the flying machine.

Winter comes upon them in full force before the machine is completed, however, and the girl is now barely able to move at all. The desire from the robot to leave this lonely world and go to the better one he can barely remember is at this point at a peak, and he convinces the girl to muster up all of her strength so they can leave.

They stop several times before the girl collapses and becomes completely unable to move. At this point she becomes aware of the conciousness completely - even to the point of who he is. He wants her to keep moving, but she informs him that she cannot, since she is a keeper of sorts of the world.

She then proceeds to tell him about the lights, and how they are the hopes and dreams of people from the other world that the robot keeps wanting to go to. Then, to confuse the robot further, she tells him that unlike her he is connected through both worlds, but doesn't belong in this one. She wants him to return to his world, and wishes him goodbye, with the final word being, "father", and the world vanishes.

The girl, collapsed, and the robot next to her. At this happens, they are able to actually talk to each other.

The lights are a substory running throughout the main stories of Clannad and After Story, making only select appearances, a couple of which being seen by characters on certain occasion, and the story about what they are being told only once by a character in After Story.

During the game, however, the lights are much more prominent. After each gir's story was completed, a light appears. After a certain amount are collected, the option to play After Story appears. More lights can be obtained during After Story, and are required to see the true ending.

The orbs of light, as the explanation goes, are a manifestation of the hopes and dreams and/or happiness of the people of the town, and appear when a particularly happy moment in someone's life happens.

The story of the Hidden World makes little connection with the story of Clannad, and has little connection to most of After Story. It becomes apparent that the conciousness/robot is the manifestation of Tomoya.

the rest of the explanation for how it ties in will be explained in the article about After Story. That will be up soon.

~Koubo


The Clannad article list
Part one: Clannad
Part two: The Hidden World
Part three: Clannad ~After Story~

Clannad

Clannad is the title of the third game released by the company Key, and is arguably one of the most prominent visual novels for Visual Arts released in Japan, having repeatedly placed in top sales lists. Additionally, in a poll taken by japanese gamers as to "which game moved you to tears", Clannad placed second, above Final Fantasy VII and even the previous titles by Key.

As stated earlier, Clannad is also Key's second longest work. It is large enough that once the player unlocks all the alternate endings in the game, another game - titled After Story - unlocks, and continues on telling the story of the two main characters right where Clannad itself ends off. In addition, one of the paths in the game was so popular that a new game was made focusing on the continuation of that path, titled Tomoyo After: It's A Wonderful Life.

The anime is nowhere near small, either. Clannad was 49 episodes long, half covering the first part of the game, and the other half covering After Story, with two of the episodes giving alternate universes. The anime, with only a handful of exceptions, uses the same or remixed versions of the music used in the game.

This article will be about Clannad itself, and an article covering After Story will come at a later time. Clannad revolves around the high school life of each of the main characters.

Okazaki Tomoya, the main protagonist of the story.

The main focus of Clannad revolves around Okazaki Tomoya, who is in his third year of high school and has been labeled a delinquent by just about everyone who knows him, even the people who consider him a friend. He and his best friend, Sunohara Youhei, constantly ditch classes and/or show up late for classes, doing nothing but bum around Sunohara's dorm room.

Tomoya has a horrible relationship with his father, due to a fight they got in prior to him entering high school. The fight escalated to a point of grappling, and ended with Tomoya's shoulder becoming injured. It never healed properly, and resulted in Tomoya never being able to raise one of his arms above shoulder height again. Since their fight, his father has distanced himself, resulting in a separation of family connection; his father greets his own son now as if he were greeting an old aquaintance, and this impacts Tomoya obviously when the topic is touched upon.

However, although he occasionally dwells on this, it is not the center focus of his activities. It rarely even comes up in the game or anime itself, except at a small amount of critical moments.

At the very start, he is walking to school complaining about how he hates his life and the town he is in. As he arrives at the path to get to school, he stops and sees a girl standing there, Furukawa Nagisa, radiating obvious signs of lack of courage and emotional struggle. He hears her talking to herself about how she may never come to like school, due to at least one reason being, "nothing ever stays unchanged." Before she gets too far into depression, Tomoya stops her and tells her that although nothing remains unchanged, it is a good thing, and that she should find new things to be happy about. She took courage from that, and Tomoya took some strength from it too, and they walk up the path to school together.

Tomoya and Nagisa, at the bottom of the slope.

The focus of the entire series, both game and anime, ultimately ends up being on the relationship between Tomoya and Nagisa. Since the boost of courage, Nagisa begins changing from one without courage to someone who is capable of many things, despite a physical condition that makes her naturally and constantly weak. Throughout the story of Clannad she is trying to reestablish the theatre club, which was disbanded at the end of the previous year due to lack of members. She, like Tomoya, is also in her third year, although she has had to repeat it, thanks to her weakness ending up keeping her out of school for over nine months. Nagisa has not been alone, though; her parents are people who run a bakery from their home and make a living off of that to support their family. A recurring theme for Nagisa is the "Big Dango Family".

The focus does not, hovever, stay solely on them. There are four other main female characters, and each of these girls has a very intricate bacground. As usual for products made by Key, all of the characters are introduced within the first couple of episodes. Detailed information regarding their personalities and relationships with others is set pretty quickly, and it does not deviate.

One character, as is now expected, is experiencing a form of autoscopy. This situation is significantly different from the other two. The character's name is Ibuki Fuko. She is roughly the same age as Tomoya. During her first year, right after the entrance ceremony, she got into a horrible accident, and was hospitalized. Tomoya finds her carving a block of wood, which she claims is going to be a starfish. She intends to give one to each person of the student body as an invitation to her sister's wedding. Her autoscopic situation is different in that as time moves on people end up forgetting about her and that she even existed, this even eventually happening to Tomoya, who was the closest character to her.

The main females of the story. From left to right: Ibuki Fuko, Ichinose Kotomi, Fujibayashi Kyou, Furukawa Nagisa, and Sakagami Tomoyo.

The second girl who gets focused on is Ichinose Kotomi. She is a super genius, yet has a level of extreme social awkwarness. Tomoya finds her in the library reading some very advanced books about a Hidden World, which it turns out that her parents were studying the same topic in intense detail before they passed away. He originally asks her to help him and Nagisa, but then that plan changes into him trying to get her out of her shell and having lots of friends.

Sakagami Tomoyo is another story focus. She is trying for student council president. However, she has a past of being involved in gang and street fights, of which she has always easily and quickly won, and that becomes an obstacle for her goal more than once. Her first appearance is her ending up in a fight from some people who broke onto school grounds looking to make trouble. She gave that life up for family reasons, and has has made several personal focuses take its place.

Tomoyo is one of two girls that has an alternate universe revolve around her. The last episode in the set titled just "Clannad" is an episode focusing on her path in the game, and plays in the anime as a "what if" scenario. It covers the highlights of her story arc from the game, and although it rushes through her multi-hour story in a matter of 22 minutes, the point is crossed enough that one can understand what is going on.

After all these girls have their stories wrapped up, it focuses on the first major story of Nagisa and Tomoya. Nagisa has achieved at reinstating the theatre club, and is focusing on the play her and her friends intend to show at the founders festival. As the play completes and the festival is winding down, she and Tomoya, after all the pre-relationship awkwardness that typically fits in an anime like this wraps up, finally become a couple.

The only girl that didn't really have her story focused on in the bulk of either Clannad or After Story is Fujibayashi Kyou. It becomes obvious that she and her twin sister, Ryou, have quite strong romantic feelings for Tomoya, but that story regrettably does not get much light of day. Her story gets touched on at various times during the bulk of the series, but the only time it gets true focus is in the other alternate universe episode, which resides at the end, when After Story has finished. It focuses on Kyou specifically, and covers the end of her story arc in the game. Throughout the entire series, she is probably most noted for having a pet baby boar, whom she has lovingly named Botan.

Kyou's pet boar, Botan.

After Story is only obtainable in the game after completing every story arc in the main game. It will be introduced and explained in an article that will come later. The next article that will be posted is about the Hidden World, which is introduced in Clannad, but plays no part in the story until the main segment of After Story is in full force.

Clannad can stand as an anime by itself. It is a story that wraps up all of the parts it presents (except the story of the Hidden World). It is a very detailed and beautifully written story. The story completely wraps up in After Story, which is also where the reason for why it is considered to be one of the saddest stories out there resides.

The Big Dango Family, or Dango Daikazoku.

Enjoy the read. The next articles may end up being just as long.

~Koubo

The Clannad afticle list
Part one: Clannad
Part two: The Hidden World
Part three: Clannad ~After Story~

Air

Air is an anime based off of the visual novel Air. It is commonly referred to as Air TV. It ran for twelve episodes plus two OVA. Unlike both Kanon and Clannad, it does not completely follow the main male character. Additionally, unlike the other animes, it ends on a sad note and does not attempt to correct it. The game and series are made and owned by Key.

Although the game Air came out after the game Kanon, this anime was actually released before the second version of the Kanon anime.


It has two major stories, the first following Kamio Misuzu, who is the focus of the anime. It has two other girls, Tohno Minagi, and Kirishima Kano. While focus is directed towards Minagi and Kano during the telling of their particular stories, the major focus remains on Misuzu throughout.

The main male character, who is the primary person to have interaction for each of the girls, is Kunisaki Yukito. He is a traveling entertainer, who uses telekenesis to move his little doll around and entertain. He arrives in the town in hopes that he will make some money.

He is also looking for "A girl in the sky", who he claims to have wings. He is trying to find her because it is apparent that it is his family legacy, as that his mother was searching for this same girl, as well as his grandmother and great grandmother. The girl is distinguished by an illness, which causes her to have dreams that play in reverse sequential order, with the last part of the story being told first. Yukito comes to realize that the current incarnation of the girl is in fact Misuzu.

The girls of Air. Going clockwise from bottom left: Kamio Misuzu, Kirishima Kano, Tohno Minagi, and Michuru.

The first story to be focused on is Kano. She proclaims herself to be a member of "Planet Dilly-Dally", and meets Yukito after her friend, the towns' stray dog Potato steals Yukito's doll. She is distinguished easily by a yellow piece of cloth tied to her right wrist. She claims it is to keep her magic powers locked away until she is old enough to use them.

She does not actually have any powers; she is occasionally "posessed" by an unkown force, which is thanks to her touching a magical feather in the local shrine, which is later implicated to be a feather from "the girl in the sky". In an attempt to keep the posessing spirit away, Kano's older sister Hijiri tied the cloth around her sister's wrist and told her it was to keep the magic powers safe until she was of the right age, or she would lose them. This was told to Kano after she realized something was happening to her.

The second story follows Tohno Minagi. It is an important fact that she is an only child to have come from her biological parents. She was going to have a sister, but due to a miscarriage the baby was never born. The news crushed her mother so much that it led to the family falling apart, and the father moved away and has another family of his own.

This story includes the form of Autoscopy, although it is not in the same way as either Kanon or Clannad. The person who is in the state is Michiru, who is the unborn sister of Minagi. Minagi was also devistated by the miscarriage, and after time she created the autoscopic event herself, and Michiru was created. Both Michiru and Minagi know that Michiru is not real, and both know to some extent that Michiru is nothing but a "fragment of a dream".

Yukito is more of a bystander than anything else in this story. He realizes facts on his own, and tries to help bring Minagi and her mother closer together, which is something that was only partially achieved after the miscarriage; her mom calls her Michiru, and had completely forgotten about Minagi.

The third story follows Kamio Misuzu, who has had the majority of the focus throughout the entire series. She is the reincarnation of "the girl with wings", and has the reverse progressing dreams. She lives with her aunt, Haruko, which is due to her family forcing Misuzu on her when it was known that her parents themselves wouldn't take care of her after they split up. They have a mutual agreement to live their own lives and not dig too deeply into each others, even though they continue to live under the same roof. Yukito comes to live with them in the first episode, when Misuzu shows compassion to Yukito's lack of a living situation.

Thanks to Misuzu's dream progression, after each night she gets physically worse and worse, though only noticeable signs are presented when her story begins to take control of the series. Yukito feels connected to the situation, though he doesn't know how. He decides to leave after Misuzu has a very hard strike against her well-being, but comes back after he remembers his mother's words regarding how their family line is supposed to watch over those who are born with the curse Misuzu has, and that the doll he has is filled with the wishes and hopes of his predecessors, hoping that their wishes will be fulfilled and used when the "girl in the sky" is found. He arrives and tells Misuzu that he is not leaving again. He then adds his own wish to the doll, and vanishes.

Halfway through her story, it switches to an entirely different story, set one thousand years in the past, and follows the literal story of the girl with wings, who is named Kanna.

The characters in the past. From left to right: Ryuya, Kanna, and Uraha.

Kanna is a winged being, who are revered as messengers to the gods, and feared for the power they could potentially wield, and thus she is guarded. Unlike all the other winged beings referred to in the past, she is the only one who actually does not know how to fly.

The story begins with Ryuya being tackled by Kanna, who was trying to fly away. Ryuya is one of her guards, and is a center of focus for Kanna. Kanna and Ryuya become good friends shortly later.

Uraha is one of Kanna's servants. She and Ryuya love to joke and tease Kanna. Tension builds up fast for all three when they think that, for someone so revered to be a messenger to the gods, it is weird for the person to be locked away and restricted to small areas. Kanna has the desire to meet her mother, and Ryuya and Uraha want to get her away from the confinement, so with Ryuya's skills as a swordsman they are able to escape, and begin searching for Kanna's mother.

During the travels, they are blocked by monks, who are trying to rid the world of the winged beasts. Kanna tries to save Ryuya and Uraha by flying away (which after a moment of struggle she succeeds at), but is then bound and cursed into a cycle of reincarnation and suffering. Uraha and Ryuya decide to leave it to their decendants to find the reincarnations of Kanna, which leads to where the majority of the anime itself plays out between Yukito, who is a decendant of Ryuya, and Misuzu, who is the reincarnation of Kanna.

Upon the conclusion of their story, it returns to Misuzu's. The story does a quick recap of the events leading to the dissapearing of Yukito. There is one noticeable difference, in that a crow, who is a reincarnation of sorts of Yukito himself, is introduced and befriended by Misuzu. The focus of the remaining episodes is on Misuzu and Haruko.

Potato the dog, holding Yukito's doll in it's mouth.

The story of Ryuya, Kanna and Uraha is short in the initial anime. However, the two OVA's that followed the series's conclusion delve a little deeper into the story of the three. This littler side story has enough information and plot to have been made into an entire series in and of itself, but the four episodes given are well enough time to have covered what needed to be covered.

The story for the entire series leaves some things left to wonder, but those are not things that were vital to the story. It was a little rushed, but not enough for one to have to go back and watch the story over again to see why something was the way it was. It is a very worthwile story, and one that can fall into the collections of great animes in history.

~Koubo

Kanon

Kanon is an anime based off of a visual novel of the same name, developed by Key. The anime is of typical length, being 24 episodes, and unlike the original release of the game, it is meant for all ages. There are two versions of the anime; this article covers the second, and more widely-known version.

The story focuses on the main male character, Aizawa Yuichi. He moves to the town where his aunt and cousin live so he can go to school there. He last visited seven years prior to when the story begins, which that previous visit (and ones before it) is the central theme to almost every story conveyed in this anime.

The main girls of the story: Kawasumi Mai (top left), Misaka Shiori (top middle), Sawatari Makoto (middle), Minase Nayuki (right), Tsukimiya Ayu (bottom left).

Each of the five girls has a well thought-out story. The anime covers most very deeply. Regrettably, Nayuki's story is barely covered, and is tied in to Ayu's story and adds only to serve a point to it. Additionally, each girl's story involves Yuichi's past, with the exception of Shiori, who only met him for the first time on his first couple of days back in town, while wandering with Ayu.

Characteristics of characters is very unique and they all blend near-perfectly. Their personalities remain consistent throughout, and deviate only within reasonable means; for example, Yuichi is "friendly and outgoing... [and] constantly teases the main cast of girls throughout the story which varies in severity depending on the girl" (via Wikipedia). He consistently helps out the girls when they are in need, however, and this is shown throughout, side-by-side with the teasing, and is even shown very prominently in the clips of Yuichi's past.

A particular characteristic of a character, Ayu, who is the central female character, is shown at almost every scene she is in. Whenever she is sad, scared, mad, depressed, and other emotions along the lines of those, she says "Uguu". The word is the common catch-phrase of the anime, and is even used on the box set as a selling point (though only known to those who have actually seen the anime to catch why it would be a selling point).

Ayu saying her catch phrase "Uguu~" after being teased by Yuichi.

The transition between stories is very smooth. All the characters are introduced within the first two episodes, and the only time most do not show up in any episode is when a story involving a particular girl reaches its climax. Additionally, when the story resolves, it is not entirely forgotten; references are made periodically to each of the preceding stories.

The stories all have sad or disconsolate undertones. Each girl, though little known or not known at all at the beginning, has something that they are going through that is affecting them, regardless of whether they show it or not. The characters, however - unlike many, many other animes that share similar tones - do not show it until their story reaches its highpoint. They act happy and actually seem happy because they all feel there are more things worth living for that outweigh the sad things that are in their lives.

The story of Kanon revolves around several themes. First and formost, which is prominent for more than half of the anime, is varying forms of magic. Makoto, for example, is actually a fox that Yuichi had come to know and befriend when he visited seven years prior who magically turned human to see and be with him again when she saw he had returned.

In contrast to the sad undertones, a main theme is that of miracles. One character points out that "miracles are called so because they don't happen", but all of them believe that they exist on some level or another.

Memory is another central theme. Yuichi remembers nothing of his prior visits to the city at first. The girls who have a history with him have varying levels of memory of the events themselves, but they all remember that he was there and all want him to remember each of them as well. Most of the entire anime and the stories revolve around not being able to progress until certain things are remembered by Yuichi.

Yuichi and Ayu seven years prior.

Another main theme, though not fully portrayed until the latter half of the anime, is as stated in the earlier post about Key, in which one of the characters in this story is in a state of autoscopy. Ayu, due to an event in the past, has a projection of her concience in the present, with her body elsewhere. Her concience is looking for a particular object, and right from the beginning of the anime itself to the end (as that her story is the last one to be told) she is looking for the item in question. She doesn't know at first that the her that everyone sees is not really her entire self. She doesn't find the item on her own, as that due to the parts of her story unfolding slowly reveal to her the dire condition her actual self is in. as her story reaches the pinnacle and plateaus off, she realizes enough and vanishes.

Kanon may not be all that known, and even less actually seen, but it is a very interesting anime nonetheless. It is a adeptly handled story, with ties between main stories and transitions between everything that can be rivaled by only a few other stories in the genre. It may not contain action, but it will still keep you on your seat, making you want to see how each story ends.

~Koubo

Key

Key is a branch of the company Visual Arts, which is located in Japan. Formed in July of 1998, it makes visual novels, and has made some very prominent games of the past couple decades. Its first three visual novels, Kanon, Air, and Clannad (released in that order, starting in 1999), have even had anime adaptations, all of which have had very good success, and are arguably Key's most well-known titles.

Key also has its own sub-section, titled Key Sounds Label, which creates and produces the music used in all the titles they make.

There will be articles on all three of those (ony the anime adaptations only for Kanon and Air will be covered in the respective articles; Clannad's article will include the game as well as the anime), and it will be seperate from this article. In this post, I will talk about things that Key seems to put in all of their products, as well as some differences between them.

(A picture containing all of Key's current products as of May 20, 2009.)

The characters in each of the products are varied in personality and background, as is typical in any story. What is different from anything Key makes and anything else is that although some characters may have horrible or sad histories, the level of effect their past has on them is very little. They are not mopey. They have all moved on for the most part.

The past has different effects on stories between the titles, though. In both Kanon and Air, the past becomes an integral part of the story, where the characters are trying to remember so they can help their future. In Clannad, the only time the past is ever brought up is when an event from the past hinders a path in the near future. In Clannad, though, the hindering past is used only enough to wrap up reasons, then it is set aside so the story can move on.

A particularly unique occurence between titles released by Key is that they use advanced forms of autoscopy. It can be loosely described as an "out of body experience", although autoscopy is a specific case in that experience, being that they acutally projecting their concience into the physical world.

The advanced form that Key does in which I refer to is more of a specifically direct form. Each has a literal physical manifestation of themselves wandering around as they always would, and can interact with objects and people as if they themselves were present.

(The main girls of Kanon.)

There is only one character in each of the titles that experiences the phenomenon. Each has a specific task that they feel must be completed at any cost. As they come closer to completing the task, the realization of their actual medical condition slowly dawns on them in some form or another, and when the task is completed, they vanish.

Differences come down to something quite specific between each of the titles. And those specifics will be mentioned and discussed in the articles covering each title. However, I will mention that the level of knowledge of their predicament, the situation, and how long they are around for varies greatly between the three titles.

(The main girls of Air.)

One thing Key did for the first two titles (Kanon and Air) was that they had adult content; that is, there were some sex scenes in the games. The animes of each, as well as later release versions of the games, have no adult content. And additionally, Key minimalized the amount of said content so that the player would focus more heavily on the stories of each character than the gratuities that come with them.

Clannad was released at the very start as a visual novel for all ages; it was focused so heavily on story that it is currently Keys' second longest game, being only 4000 words shorter than its current longest. The anime, which is by far longer than the anime adaptations of the first two titles released, is also made for all ages.

(The main girls of Clannad.)

Key is currently creating an original anime, titled Angel Beats!, but no new news about that has been released since the announcement on May 27 of this year.

Key may be small, but they have produced titles that are very well known, even if they have not been seen or played. The titles (at least the anime adaptations) should seriously be checked out. They are so deep, so well written that anyone would be missing out on some of the best stories ever written otherwise.

~Koubo