As some of you may remember 1 of my first posts was a write up about the Visual Novel/game Clannad. Since then i’ve made a few other posts about random mechandise from the show, a new series has come out and have never really watched it again. That new series of course being the After Story which follows the tales of the same characters straight away after the end of Clannad, and continuing for rougly 10 years (at least in the game).  I’ve avoided the new series of After Story because like my original reason for not finishing the 1st series, I know how it ends and…

• I don’t want to watch anymore epic sad shows. Clannad is full of them, especialy the after story
• Having finished the VN, I don’t want the endings ruined by the show. 

Don’t get me wrong though, despite the arguably wierd character looks, Kyoto Animation are pretty damn true to the story and have done a phenominal job with the series. So after avoiding close to 22 episodes of content I heard that Episode 16 is the turning point in the show. Boy were they right. This episode was the reason I never played the After Story in the game. What is the big deal you may ask? Well if you’re a softie like me then it’s just very upsetting to see such a good character die. 

“Bwahaha, you wuss, whats the big deal? People die in anime all the time” That is true. Well done stating the obvious but that isn’t what I mean. Usualy in those shows she characters are not really likable, or they are murdered by someone; be it by fighting or what not. No. Nagisa dies a very rare death in anime, and that is a very emotional one due to her character always being rather weak and having an illness. Add that to her dying while giving birth and you have a maelstrom of of emotion and touching tv. Good thing I never followed the series more of I would of cried during this scene. Whats the bet it made many people do exactly that?

Sorry for the whiteness of the caps. That whole part of the episode is very light and the quality of the show itself isn’t exactly high def.

Kyoto Animation are just brilliant and displaying emotion in their characters

Little baby Ushio

Nagisa fading

Tomoya Notices Nagisa has died

R.I.P Nagisa

There are a lot of great moments in anime. These of course vary from person to person and 1 I never really hear or see all that much are sad moments. I don’t mean moments that you go “oh thats a shame”. No no no, that will hardly do at all. I’m talking about moments that bring you almost to tears or make you feel so depressed that you need to do something else to cheer yourself up. So why do a list about this then? Well because I can and these moments while indeed are sad, they are so wonderful in their own way that they deserve to be seen by all. These are in no particular order so lets get down to it shall we?

Clannad Episode 9 – Fuko’s Arc End

An incredible series converted from an equally incredible game that should be on everyone’s list to play. This episode was the most sad for me of the entire series. At least what I saw of the series. I stopped watching around episode 17 as I had just come off playing the Visual Novel, and refused to have the endings i’d played through, ruined for me by the show. Fuko is a girl who on the day of her opening ceremony at school, got into a car accident and was left in a coma. If my memory serves me correct, 3 years later, when the story takes place, her ghost shows up in school carving starfishes for everyone so they can celebrate her sister’s wedding. Long story short, at the very end there is a really tearful moment where she appears in front of her married sister, congradulates her and dissappears, making everyone forget all about her, with only deja vu type memories remaining. It’s such a sad yet touching scene where she finally gets her only wish granted, seeing her sister happyly married. 

At the very very end of the episode, we get a sweet moment where Tomoya is imaging Fuko coming up to him and offering him a starfish while she asks for him to be her friend. This is the happy ending for Fuko’s good ending. Now some of these story arcs have 2 endings. a Good, and True ending. Each different ending moments or tales that play out past certain intervals. Since the show is based on Tomoya eventualy choosing Nagisa as his girlfriend and future wife, the true ending could not be shown on tv. This is unfortunate as Fuko’s true ending is what stopped me from almost crying. Yes call me a wuss or whatever names you want, but ever since playing Kana: Little Sister i’ve almost, and have cried numerious times during anime. But that is another story all together. 

Fuko’s true ending goes like this; bearing in mind of course that it has been a long while since I played this, so details may be a tiny bit fuzzy or off, but are nearly spot on. Fuko and Tomoya go to the school at night (this is shown in the anime, but with Nagisa present) and they have a sort of celebration for her. Party hats and what not. Very cute. As the night goes on and both of them become tired, they decide to sleep at school. Tomoya sits down and fuko sits down beside him. They talk for a bit and after awhile Tomoya pulls Fuko onto his lap and hugs her. Here is where her endings split into 2 paths. You are given the option to kiss her, or stay hugging her. In the TV version you get the “keep hugging her” option. So Tomoya kisses her and finaly confesses he likes/loves her. They fall asleep together hugging. When Tomoya wakes up Fuko is gone and no one can remember her except for him. Of course he is sad but goes on with his life. I’m not sure how much longer, a girl runs into him in the halls at school. Fuko has woken up from her coma finaly (long story) and holds up a starfish for Tomoya and says “Will you go out with me?” And thus ends Fuko’s arc. Of course he would go out with her.

Since I can’t find a video of the ending i’m talking about, here is a short video of Fuko doing what she does best, Spacing out.

Oh and there is this AMV of Fuko’s whole story which should show you what she is like, and why she is my favorite Clannad character.

Kanon Episode 10 – Makoto Arc End

Another anime from the awesome story tellers Key, who are responsible for Clannad. In this episode, we see the close of an even sadder story than Fuko. Granted this is a little bit more supernatural than a ghost. Yuichi (the main character) found a little fox that was injured 10 years before the main stories of Kanon start. he rescued it and all summer long looked after it, nursing it back to health. When the summer break finished he released it back into the wild and said goodbye. 10 years later when the story starts. Runs into a girl called Makoto. She has no memories of anything but knows she hates Yuichi. Another long story short (key are very good at building romance, so just watch the series already) it turns out Makoto is the same fox that Yuichi took care of when he was a child and she has transformed into a human only for a brief period of time so she can be with him. 

Both Yuichi and Makoto fall in love together, and her time starts to run out in the world. She starts to revert back to her more fox like qualities like being unable to talk or remember things except for Yuichi. Seeing (and after being told what will happen by another person) what is happening, Yuichi decides to give Makoto what she wanted, which was to marry him and stay with him forever. They go to a hill where Yuichi has bought a wedding veil and puts it on her. He says the usual speech and they get “married”. As the sun starts to set Makoto starts to slowly fall asleep and before long, she disappears entirely from Yuichi’s arms leaving him all alone. I just cannot get over how much crap this guy goes through. This isn’t even the half of it. Of course due to the original material being a visual novel, he meets 3 or 4 other girls who all either dump him, or die on him. This guy has the worst luck in the anime dating world and he is THE single best male lead character in romance shows. Still, all the other girls pale in comparison to the epic tragedy that is Makoto.

Finding videos of the specific endings is kinda difficult so you’ll have to make do with this beautiful AMV that is about Yuichi and Makoto. The scenes of her finaly disappearing are in there shuffled amongst the build up between the 2. Enjoy

Elfen Lied Episode 8 and 9 – Lucy Finally Gives Up

This comes in 2 parts, and everyone who has seen this will know exactlly what I mean. This is deffinatly worthy of being on this list. But first a bit of backstory is required to get the full effect of this. Lucy is a Diclonius. Diclonius are humans with 2 small cat like ears on their heads and are able to controll what are called Vectors. Think of these as invisible (to humans) arms that can carry, block, cut or destroy nearly anything they come into contact with. Now since it has been awhile when I last watched this, I cannot remember if it is in a Diclonius’s nature to be destructive or just something that comes as a result of how they are treated. However  this flashback looks at Lucy starting off as a child that is picked on, made fun of and teased constantly about her horns. She is given horrible names like freak and animal. Even her own family aren’t very loving of her. Growing up this way is never easy, but since she is a diclonius it is a little different for her. She has this voice inside her head telling her to kill people, like a concious gone wrong. This could be her diclonius nature coming out but I do not remember exactly, but she is a nice person.

1 day she finds a little puppy out in the woods, or area she goes to be alone. She likes him and starts to look after him sort of. Feeding him and being friends with him. Meanwhile at school things are getting worse. The kids are beating her up trying to make her cry or get some reaction out of her and a girl steps in to stop them. She befriends Lucy and is shown the little puppy. A few days later the bullies at school corner Lucy after school I presume and pretty much tell her they intend to antagonize her again. But this time they have the puppy with them. Seems that “friend” (at least to me) was only nice to her in order to betray her. Lucy finaly starts to sees that humans will only hurt her. Lucy finaly fights back to try and save the puppy, the bullies take things too far and right in front of Lucy, kill the puppy by bashing it to death with a flower vase. This is a very disturbing, and sad scene where Lucy says 1 of the most memorable quotes in anime history.

“When you’re miserable, you need someone even more miserable than yourself”  

What happens next is a scene that everyone will remember. Lucy, for a brief moment snaps and in a shower of blood destorys everything in the room. Children, furnature you name it. After the carnage subsides the area looks like a slaughter house. 

Warning, this scene may be disturbing for some/most. The dog sound… aw man thats rough.

Understandably after this Lucy is upset and goes to her place to be alone. There she meets Kouta, the main character of the story as a boy. For the first time she meets someone who thinks she is great. He loves her horns and they become friends. They go to the zoo together and play all the time. She genuinely starts to like him… a lot. One day a festival happens and Lucy asks Kouta if he would go with her. Kouta has to turn her down however as he has already promised his cousin he would go with her. Lucy starts to worry and asks if his cousin is a boy or a girl. See where this is going? Kouta lies and says a boy and she is releaved. 

So she decides to go anyway, I suppose hoping to run into Kouta. Indeed she does only to find out Kouta’s cousin is a girl who is acting very close to him (Yuka loves him but that is another story). This finaly becomes to much to her and she has a breakdown right there in the street. She has a full conversation in her mind with her diclonius’s evil nature and finaly starts believing that humans only bring pain. She finaly snaps and decides to “change the world into her world”.

“No more. I can’t take it anymore. Friends or a place to stay… I don’t… have anything anymore”
“Kouta… Goodbye. I really liked you”

As in the last episode, there is a spray of blood and she clamly walks killing people that come to help her or are near her as she says 

“I’ll wipe you all out. Every damn last one of you”

With that, the good natured Lucy is gone, at least for now, and what follows is a lot of death involving her killing people as she goes from house to house slaughtering entire families just to take their house and food.

Again, finding actual scenes is kinda hard on youtube so you have this AMV that has all the scenes im talking about in it. Well at least the main ones. Also take note, this video has nudity, however brief it may be, and a bit of blood. If you’re not ok with that then don’t watch.

Well that is it for now at least. Its late so I should wrap this up. I may do another of these since these certainly weren’t the only moments I can come up with. Time will tell.

So for those who read my Clannad Visual Novel write up or just like Clannad in general, I thought I would post about some items that are currently out and about to come out. There are only 2 but they are pretty worthy of money I think. Since these measurements are in centimeters, you’ll have to work out inch conversion for yourself if your in the US.

First up we have a Clannad Tapestry which looks quite nice. It measures 120cm x 65cm so physicaly it’s quite large which is a good thing. I’ve ordered this one today so I can’t say much for the quality of it but judging from the price i’d bet it’ll be really nice. Speaking of price, this currently runs for 4,000 yen, which works out around $38 US. A bit more expensive than what you would find at other online shops selling Hellsing or Naruto (eucgh) equivalents, but I’m sure that this is made up for in quality. My only gripe? NO FUUKO! WHAT GIVES?! She is the best character in the entire game/series and they leave her out?.

Next up we have a plush Botan which just looks adorable. He is about 18.5CM long and looks pretty much exactly as you would expect him to look. This little guy also sells for $38 US so again he isn’t cheap, but cmon… look how adorable he is. Awwwww. The only thing that would make him better is if when you hugged him or applied pressure to him, he viborated. Not sure if that was shown in the anime version but he does it in the Visual Novel. Yeah dont ask.

I’ll be sure to pick 1 of these up for my birthday

As is the case with all reviews, the ideas and thoughts contained in the paragraphs are the from workings of the reviewer’s mind. They are all his or her opinion. So keep that in mind when I say that while i’m not a fan of most romantic animes out there, I just adore clannad. The story is great, the artwork is colourful and well done, the character voices (such as the case with my last review of Strawberry Marshmallow) are brilliantly suited to the characters and for me personaly, is just an extremely relaxing show to watch and enjoy. Mabye its due to my deeply growing affinity for slower paced, relaxing, romantic, comedy type animes but I digress.

Having no clue about this show other than having seen a few pictures, I honestly didn’t expect much from this show as at first, I thought the characters looked a bit deformed. The girls to be more exact. However after the first 2 episodes I had become really attached to the smooth style they seemed to have. There was nothing over-the-top about the art and it just really suited the general mood of the show. Wether it was Nagisa’s overly honest and pure nature or Sunohara’s antics, the show never stopped being interesting. Finaly a show that didn’t seem to drag itself out to fill episodes and had a point to itself. I’ll stick with this show until the last episode it’s just that good.

Then I played the Clannad Visual Novel…

Perhaps it’s just me being bias but with the exception of Kana: Little Sister (which I will now call K:LS), this is the single greatest anime style game I have ever played. Despite what you may think though, this is by no means a H-Game. No no, not by a long shot. This is a visual Novel. To be more exact think of it this way… this is a choose your own romantic adventure visual novel game. This game is about 1 man, and the many diffrent paths you can take in your school life. How is this fun though you may ask. Whats the point of playing a dating-sim if you dont get to screw the girl at the end? Well if thats what your expecting there is no shortage of games out there for you so stop reading.

While it may not be a very well known fact, some of the best written games and storylines have come from H-Games. I very much doubt there could be a better written romantic storyline than K:LS. That game alone has made more people cry (including myself) than perhaps any other single game. However the point of this whole paragraph was not to lavaish the many incredible praises onto K:LS that could very well be. The point i’m trying to get to is that while this IS a game by the technical sence, it is also a novel. As a novel it also has a brilliantly written story for the diffrent arcs you can take.

As logic would dictate, the storyline too has to be well set out and written as to keep the reader interested. This game reaches that point and just keeps going for a couple hundred feet. Nearly every story arc completed was amazing and took me to a point where I have no further desire to watch the anime series itself as I feel it would degrade the well layed out storylines i’ve encountered in the game. Now that I have those thoughts out of the way, I shall go onto the actual review of the game characters and features itself.

Features

Perhaps this was 1 of the first things I should have touched on in the eairly stages of my long winded writings, but this game is not in english. At least not in the typical sence that is. This is a japanese game and as such, needs a fan translation. While this fan patch is nearly finished (around 87% complete last I checked), there are parts of the game not in english and a few random sentences throughout the game that are still in japanese. However that by no means detracts from the game itself. While there are a few errors here and there, you are able to understand the game fully so this didn’t earn any negative points for me.

As is the case with h-games, Clannad comes with a CG mode, Music mode, Main Story and After Story feature. All the standards but what is an after story? Well this part of the game is a continuation to the Nagisa story arc and takes place 10 years after you graduate from school. Unfortunatly this portion of the game has yet to be translated so i’m unable to comment on anything further about the after story. Sorry. From what i’ve heard however it is especialy sad so until the fan patch is fully ready (I played with a beta release of the patch) we cant know for sure unless you are fluent in japanese.

Unfortunatly the biggest issue I had with this game was the window size it runs in (if you pick window that is). I run at 1440×900 on a widescreen so playing a window game at 640×480 is a little odd and small for me. I would of liked to be able to play at least 800×600 but that is apparantly being fixed with the re-release of Clannad shortly. Another issue some may have is that there is a lot of reading to be done. I mean a LOT. Being a visual novel there are apparantly over 66,000 lines of text to be read in this game so prepare yourself when you choose wether or not to play this.

Main Story Characters

This will be perhaps the biggest part of the review as there is just a ton of information to go here. I’m only going to list the main and Arc’able characters and a bit of their story line. I’ll try my best not to add any spoilers that may ruin the game.

Okazaki Tomoya – The Main character, and guy you play as. Often late for school and has a bit of a cold attitude toward people. He is labeled a delinquent due to his attitude and tendency to skip classes. When he does attend classes, he usualy sleeps during the lesson. He is best friends with Sunohara despite what he may say about it.

Furukawa Nagisa – I guess you could call her the main female character. She is repeating her last year in school due to her becoming sick and missing a very large portion of her previous years classes. She is 1 year older than Okazaki and most of the other characters due to this also. Her dream is to revive the drama club at school and enlists Okazaki to help her bring it back to life.

Fujibayashi Kyou – A pretty girl with long purple hair. She is the twin sister of Ryou, and has a secret crush on Okazaki. Known for her aggressiveness and bad mouth, she always seems to have a dictionary or heavy book somewhere on her incase she needs to inflict pain on someone. She is a pretty good cook and has a pet boar named Botan. After she helps her sister Ryou confess to Okazaki, she becomes depressed and avoids him as much as possible due to her feelings for Okazaki.

Fujibayashi Ryou – The twin sister of Kyou and is very shy and timid unlike her sister. She is also a bad cook and likes to perform fortune telling for people using playing cards. Unfortunatly most of these predictions while very specific, are often flat out wrong. After hearing her sister Kyou talk about Okazaki so often, she develops a crush on him but cant work up the courage to confess to him without her sister’s help.

Sakagami Tomoyo – A new transfer student that has a legacy behind her of beating up people who annoy others. She is rather sarcastic and a little rude when talking to Okazaki and some others despite being 1 year below him. Her goal is to become the student council president and save the line of sakura trees on the way to school. Sunohara gets enough beatings from Tomoyo to have permenant brain damage. Despite her being 1 of the most popular students in the school and Okazaki being 1 of the most infamous she falls for him.

Ibuki Fuko – My personal favorite character in the entire game. She is a super cute 1st year student who is trying desperately hard to get the entire school to celebrate her older sister’s coming wedding. She refers to herself in the 3rd person which just makes her that much cuter. She loves starfish and often spaces out when hugging them or thinking about them. Usualy this leads Okazaki to play some pretty mean pranks on her which are just downright funny. While most of the other characters like Okazaki from the start, she seems to be a little afraid of him and it isn’t until pretty late in the game where she tells him that she likes him more than a sea snail. This leads him to the conclusion that her rating system goes as such; Starfish > Okazaki > Sea Snail.

Ichinose Kotomi – A very quiet, strange girl who loves reading books more than anything. She is in the top 10 students in the entire country and as such is given special status to study at her own pace rather than attend classes. She loves to play the violin but is rather bad at it, often leading it to being refered to as a “Sonic Weapon”. She likes Okazaki not surprisingly. She is often found in the library cutting out pages and parts of books.

Sunohara Youhei – In the same class as Okazaki and is his best friend. He is the only worse student than Okazaki and as such is also a delinquent. He is often beaten up by Kyou, Tomoyo, Fuko, Okazaki or the Rugby team members. He is basicly there for comedic value as he does have some rather funny moments.

Sunohara Mei – Sunohara’s little sister. She is 13 and comes to visit to see how her big brother is doing with his life. She is very diffrent from her brother and is considered “normal” Okazaki. As expected, she has a bit of a crush on Okazaki and stays at his home when she comes to visit. She is the youngest girl in the main story and as such you cannot end up dating her.

Sagara Misae – She is an older woman (around 30) that runs the dorms where Sunohara lives. Not much is known about Misae but due to her past she is reluctant to like Okazaki and it is left a bit open as to what really happens between the 2 in the end. Hilarity ensues when Okazaki tells her to be more strict about the dorm rules when he vists. Poor Sunohara…

Miyazawa Yukine – Another strange girl who loves the refrence room in school. She seeminly has turned it into a sort of coffee shop where she often makes Okazaki and Sunohara drinks. She seems to enjoy casting “spells” from a book she has found in the refrence room. She is very upbeat and happy and often helps people. She slowly develops a liking to Okazaki and sometimes sleeps with her head on his lap. Like Misae though, it’s a bit open as to wether or not her and Okazaki actualy date but due to the ending of her story it seems they do.

That about does it for what I would consider the main characters. There are others I would think of as secondary but if I went to list them all, we would no doubt be here for another hour so i’ll spare you that.

Overview

With all that said how does this game fair in the end? Quite well I must say. Each story arc you play through is so well written and in depth. The Fuko route almost brought me to tears it was so sad. Luckly the “True” ending was very very happy or else I would of cried like when playing K:LS. There are moments where Okazaki is a bit of an idiot with the typical male love interest syndrome of “no girls like me so I wont notice any advances”. I guess that can’t be helped though. The music is wonderfully relaxing and very easy to listen to. While there is no offical voice acting in this game yet, there are patches that will add them for you but being illegal (and the fact it erases your saved games which I dont want) since it is ripped from the playstation 2 version I chose not to play with them. If you need voices then you can just wait another month or so for the re-release of this game officialy.

So how long will it take you to finish all the main story arcs then? Well this is when the game really shines. There is apparantly a guide called the “300 hour walkthrough” and While I seriously doubt there is 300 hours of gameplay here, the lesser “90 hour walkthrough” I think is right on the money. I played this game through twice on my own, and the rest of the times with a walkthrough and it still took me over 60 hours to finish right. Without the guide I used I could have eaisly spent another 30 hours replaying scenes and hoping to get the right endings.

If you can find this game, can get ahold of the translation patch and dont mind a lot of reading then I cannot recommend this enough. Actualy i’m quite annoyed I put playing this game off for so long since it is so good. If your in the mood for a relaxing, story revolving game then look no further than Clannad. I would rate this as a “Must Play” game myself.