Clannad

Review:

Recommended by Nate, also found on the Hulu anime section. 

Ok so after understanding the ending through much research, I can conclude that Clannad is better than the Quintuplets at the minimum. A great slice of life, sad moments, supernatural elements, mysterious aspects, AMAZING soundtrack, theme of family and many important emotional life lessons, and overall an entertaining story and set of characters. 

After Story is really what takes this from a slice of life to something reminiscent of bunny girl senpai. After Nagisa's death, my respect and interest went up a notch. It went up several notches, actually. The entire arc of tomoya fixing everything with his dad, becoming a good father for ushio, it was just so beautiful. then they killed ushio. at that point i was lost, because then they started confusing the fuck out of me with like, the most incomprehensable ending to an anime ive ever seen. this anime would be top 5 for me if it was shorter and had a more understandable ending. it just didn't make any sense, it was such a sharp turn of events, and i think that's because it was adapted from a video game (visual novel to be exact). the viewer was expected to piece together hundreds of puzzle pieces to understand a single fragment of what the hell is going on. from what i can tell, the visual novel did a better job at piecing it together for the player. it just wasn't fair, so the fact that i had to use the internet to even begin to understand the ending makes the ending a bit worse in my mind. now that I DO understand it, i'd like to explain my interpretation/point of view and my appreciation. But first, I wanna talk about how beautiful the story itself is.

 The entire theme of family, tragedy vs happiness, and the emotional moments made for a great show on its own. I cried more consecutive times at this fucking anime than I have at anything, literally. From fuko chan, to nagisa's death, to ushio hugging tomoya in the field, to tomoya remembering nagisa, to ushio dying, it was just an emotional ride. Throughout the entire show, there were just so many interesting plot points that took it from a slice of life to a drama. I cant put it above toradora because it's nearly twice the length, but the same quality of storytelling (which gives it less credit for being good in my eyes) and the ending is super confusing like i said, and toradora has a different charm on another level. However, clannad does come close to it because it really just overall impressed me. i mean after nagisa died it turned into a mini sweetness and lightning, except if sweetness and lightning had a full fledged backstory. It was just a wild ride watching this. It took me a while to watch, but that's only because I took a giant hiatus. Funnily enough, I stopped watching after story RIGHT before Nagisa died. like literally the episode right before it. 

Now, for the ending… the ending was really beautiful, the reveal of ushio being the girl in the illusionary world connected everything back: why do ONLY tomoya and nagisa remember the play? Well, their daughter is in the illusionary world and they can sense it because worlds have effects on others, just like the light orbs can. Kotomi even studied this, confirming that alternate worlds can leak into ours even if it isnt totally present. Why does Nagisa and Ushio have to die? well nagisa's near death experience as a child in the snow still carried with her life even after akkio wished for her to stay alive. This wish bound her soul to the town, which changed over time (diner, hospital, school building), worsening her illness. She even only gets sick when it snows because her illness was caused by snow. so, she dies when ushio is born because ushio also carries the same condition. This means that both people relied on one orb, one wish, one miracle, and the orb wasn’t powerful enough. Something that wasn’t made entirely clear in the show is that light orbs have power limits. Ushio eventually dies as well because of the lack of orb power and the town changing. then ushio takes the light orbs that tomoya obtained after every arc (13 of them i think in the game) and lets him come to the final decision… Do I stay with Nagisa or leave her forever? The scene on the hill is a representation of this decision, and is NOT him going back in time like many think. He picks to stay with her. This grants tomoya a miracle that requires many light orbs to make a new world where no one has to die. He needs so many light orbs because one light orb is only so powerful, it’s partially why Nagisa dies. so, to make a new timeline, save TWO lives, and overall change fate, it requires many light orbs. the end. (longest review yet lol)