CLANNAD Media: TV Anime Genre(s): Drama, Harem, Romance Director: Tatsuya Ishihara Studio: Kyoto Animation Number of Episodes: 23 Licensed? No

CLANNAD is an anime based off a visual novel by Key, and made by Kyoto Animation. It centers around a high-school student named Tomoya, a delinquent with a storied past (gasp!). He meets up with a girl named Nagisa, who is so sickly that she had to repeat a whole grade of high school. Nagisa wants to set up the defunct drama club at their high school, and Tomoya decides to help her out. From this point, we meet the other characters (Kyou, Ryou, Sunohara, Kotomi, and Fuko) who want to help out, but have their own problems. There is also an odd story that appears in sporadic moments about a girl and a mechanical doll that live in a world all alone, which seems to have little impact on the main story.

CLANNAD’s an anime that makes me feel bad for appreciating it. I consider myself manly, and anything that is an immediate threat to such manliness makes me want to stop it from existing on this earth. I’ve shied away from many an anime because I felt that a story about a chibi kitty beating up equally chibi vampires isn’t my cup of tea. But, seeing as CLANNAD is cutesy in some aspects, it definitely has something going for it.

Glub glub glub…

While the art is run of the mill, the animation is not. Kyoto Animation uses their commonly exceptional animation to create a very smooth looking anime. They have a knack for it, I’ll say, but not everything is all sunshine and lollipops here. KyoAni has failed in one aspect; they have made crying look very unattractive. I’ve seen companies with less respect than them who can do crying great, yet when KyoAni does it, it ends up looking like clear pancake syrup has begun to sprout from the character’s eyes. At least that explains what’s inside anime girls’ eyes.

Believe me, it's more painful for you
than it is for her.

Fuko spends her weekends hanging
out with some sexy starfish.

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