Stories of young love, friendship and more populates this beautiful series that resonates every time I see it.
What They Say:
Tortured by his past and pained by an uncertain future, Tomoya drifts through life with an almost overwhelming anger and emptiness. But when he meets the mysterious, beautiful, and shy Nagisa, his world seems to change. Drawn in by her gentle but lonely spirit, he begins to experience the joy life can bring. But as he discovers the reason for his newfound friend’s loneliness, Tomoya also finds that life can be frighteningly fragile.
Contains episodes 1-24.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is very strong as it contains both the Japanese and English language tracks in DTS-HD MA and in 5.1 at that. While the show is very much a dialogue driven one, it works very well in enhancing everything as it uses placement to good effect when there are multiple characters on screen talking to each other. There’s a lot of variation to the dialogue and plenty of emotions that come through on both tracks that are richly captured and come across warmly. The bigger scenes, with the frantic moments and silliness, stand out even more and there’s some good material thrown to the rear channels at times that draws you in with the overall sound design. The opening and closing sequences stand out the best here overall in terms of a really solid full presentation and it was great to just listen to each of them over the course of the whole series rather than skipping through them. We didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally airing in 2007 and 2008, Clannad is a twenty-three episode series with an additional OVA that’s presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. Like other Key/Visual Arts series from Kyoto Animation, the show has a wonderful look to it with plenty of soft and beautiful colors but also a very good layer of detail to it. It creates atmospheric scenes well but when it wants to put things completely into focus, it’s sharp. Because of the nature of the show, a large portion of it is pretty static as it’s focused on being dialogue driven with little to no real movement. The bitrate for a lot of it runs low, below ten mbps in fact, but it’s certainly not a detriment to the playback. When things pick up and there’s action, it goes much, much higher and handles it all very well. The visual design of the series does go in a few different directions and the opening episode in particular has a fair bit of grainy noise to it because of how parts of it operate, but the majority of it is very visually and aesthetically pleasing and it was great watching through it here.
Packaging:
The Blu-ray edition of this release is in a single sized standard Blu-ray case which features the core cast of women with Nagisa in the middle that is definitely one of the more well used pieces out there. It has the colors that have typified many of the releases with the pinks and purples as light comes through the cherry blossom trees and it’s definitely appealing as it hits all the right atmospheric elements that the show is known for. It makes the episode count and disc count clear along the top and that it’s the first season as well The back cover uses the same kinds of pinks to it with some Tomoyo character artwork along the left and a decent summary of what the show is about along the right. Shots from the show are decent and cute and the discs production credits rounds out a good section of the cover. The technical grid is very well laid out with some good design elements to it while being very clean and clear to read and to konw exactly what’s on the release. No show related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
The menu design keeps to what we’ve seen from the series in its various incarnations where the majority of it is a very soft white bare background that does set the mood even with the silence that comes with it as there’s no music associated with the menu. The lower right side features the character artwork which is very detailed, vibrant and appealing across each volume and that definitely sells it to the fans. The left side has the navigation which is a small, simple and elegant strip that features the episodes by number with hues of purple around it as well as any relevant submenu navigation, such as languages and extras. It’s a very clean looking menu, a bit too white in some ways, but when you look at it as a whole it’s definitely appropriate for the series.
Extras:
The only extras included in the release are the clean versions of the opening and closing sequences.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the Key/Visual Arts game series of the same name, Clannad is a twenty-four episode series that once again delves into the moody and atmospheric world of high school students in slightly strange situations. Teaming up once again with Kyoto Animation, the series fits in very well with what’s come before it with Air and Kanon. Unlike those two however, Clannad wasn’t based on an ero visual novel but it still has very much the same feel as those two anime adaptations. While the show does come across as the same in a lot of ways, it’s the kind of series where if you loved what they did in the other shows, you don’t mind coming back for more of the same with new characters and a different setting. Amusingly, after watching a fair bit of Key/Visual Arts shows over the last few years, repeatedly at that, they’re all starting to really blur for me, so rewatching them can be a discovery again since things or characters I think will be in it actually aren’t.
Clannad revolves around the mildly delinquent student Tomoya, a young man who has some troubles at home that has seeped into his everyday life. With his mother dead for several years, his father has taken to listlessness, drinking and sleeping a lot. With little work coming his way, he’s always around and Tomoya just resents him all the more for it. At school, he hangs out with Sunohara, another mild delinquent who doesn’t have all that much in the way of ambition or things going for him as it seems. First appearances are of course deceptive but Sunohara has that kind of feeling about him that he’s just killing time until something more interesting comes along. For the two of them, they spend a lot of time together out and about as well as at Sunohara’s dorm room where he lives with what seems to be the entire rugby team that likes picking on him.
Into Tomoya’s life a number of women must fall. Clannad looks to revolve around a group of about five women who go to the same school as him. Initially, he comes into contact with Nagisa, a girl who is a little sickly as she’s spent some time away since she gets weak easily. Tomoya and Nagisa become unlikely friends pretty quickly and before he knows it he’s actually at her house which is also her parents business as they run a local pastry shop. The family life is fairly amusing and they almost seem to take in Tomoya in a way and he’s unsure of it all since it’s so unlike his own home life. There’s hints of what he wanted out of life but there’s also an edge of something there where you wonder if he feels that he doesn’t deserve it.
Nagisa is easily a favorite as she’s quiet but has this desire to start up the drama club so she can put on a play that she’s interested in. That she’s the quiet type but has this desire to be in a play is amusing as is the way she seems to know almost nothing about the whole process itself. And that the drama club has been disbanded for awhile now and she’s having trouble starting it up only makes it more appealing. Tomoya also interacts with his class leader, a young woman named Ryou. She likes to tell fortunes with a regular deck of cards and is a generally sweet girl which is balanced by her sister Kyou. Kyou is far more outgoing and protective of her sister so she often shows up to smack others around, often Tomoya, in her efforts to make sure Ryou has a very positive high school experience.
There’s a similar set of parallels in the form of Tomoyo and Kotomi. Tomoyo is a very outgoing and aggressive girl who has a reputation in the area to begin with, enough so that during the festival she wears a bear costume so others don’t see her to cause problems. Tomoyo is often set to trouble by Sunohara which is very amusing since he’s initially convinced that she’s a guy with the way she beats up on him. Contrasting her is Kotomi, a genius girl who skips most of her classes and spends her time in the library reading books and learning. She’s the main focus of the second arc which starts towards the end of this set. Kotomi is a very introverted girl who doesn’t even register other people talking to her for the most part and Tomoya is one of the few that’s actually able to get through and connect with her. Both of these girls get very little development during the first half of the series but their stories are slowly woven into the overall picture in very enjoyable ways.
The first half of the series revolves around the character of Fuko. a very unique girl in her own way, though familiar from other Key properties. Fuko connects with Tomoya rather easily as even though he’s a delinquent of sorts, he’s still a decent guy. When he comes across her several times, he finds himself drawn to her and the way she’s always carving starfish out of leftover wood. Through his time with her, he learns of her accident and time in the hospital as well as her older sister that used to be a teacher at the school and is about to get married. He helps get Fuko to live with Nagisa for a littl while as they try to figure out how to help her with her problem all while discovering what the real mystery and secret of Fuko is. Admittedly, you can tell what Fuko’s deal is pretty early on if you’ve seen Kanon or Air so there isn’t a lot of surprise here, but it’s still a lot of fun watching the stories get told in the way that they’re designed. It’s about the atmosphere and mood.
Clannad works through only a few character stories overall for the second half with the finishing focus on Kotom. Kotomi’s been practically in hiding after all that’s happened to her and Tomoya is finding that he really feels compelled to do something for her. While she spends her time hidden away in her house, Tomoya’s begun weeding the garden and making general repairs in that area. With their pasts tied to each other in simple ways which we see through flashbacks, it’s an interesting if mild bonding that the two have overall, but one that provides for some beautiful visuals. Tomoya’s efforts have the other girls becoming involved as well which is good to see as the overall group bonding is growing quite nicely here.
Kotomi’s storyline with her past dealing with her parents is something that’s quite nicely played out here, though a bit too sugary sweet for my tastes when it comes to the end discovery. Her anger at herself with what happened to them has resonated for years and she’s still feeling very responsible for it in her own way. There’s some interesting moments about her past that we see, such as how she asks for a teddy bear for a present because that’s what she believes a girl her age would want. Her relationship with her parents is cool but loving in the way it’s expressed, where she feels safe and loved but the moment something goes different than what she expected or wanted, it ends up throwing her off balance completely. Kotomi’s story has a lot of good moments to it, but some of that momentum and interest was lessened by the far too sugary revelations made when the suitcase arrives.
The shift of focus moves on to Nagisa in a way as they group discovers a new way of trying to get the drama club organized and approved. Nagisa’s desire to do he drama side is still very much one of the core storylines of the series and this is another area where they utilize the cast well to bond everyone to making it happen. The idea this time is to get Tomoyo to make a lot of friends and impress people so she can have an easier time running for student council president, which in turn would make it a lot easier for the drama club to be approved with her on their side. Sunohara really gets into this and sets up all sorts of matches and competitions for Tomoyo (and Tomoya!) to get involved in which lets them circulate throughout the student body and interact with everyone to some extent. It’s generally a light piece, but there’s a lot of quieter personal moments such as the explanations as to why Sunohara is doing all of this and a small exploration of Tomoya’s problems with his arm and what led him down that path.
The final two main stories that involved the leads of Nagisa and Tomoya are really well done as they’re tied together in just the right way. Circumstances push Tomoya into living with Nagisa for awhile and he gets to experience a very upbeat, close and loving family that he hasn’t had in some time, if at all depending on how well his memory is. This is a very fun turn of events as Nagisa’s parents, Akio and Sanae, are just such a wonderful couple with how they interact with each other and those that come to visit. With Tomoya living with them for awhile, he gets plenty of grief from Akio, but some of it comes from the realization that his daughter really does like Tomoya. Even worse is that Nagisa is interested in a guy who is very much like her father, and the two men start to realize that slowly which makes their relationship all the more fun to watch.
Clannad has dealt with a little side story from the beginning about the girl who is all alone with her little robotic friend that she created. That story starts to become the focus as Nagisa is using it as the basis of the play she wants to put on in the drama club. When it starts to come out, it’s part of a bigger secret from her past that her father is trying to keep secret and he enlists Tomoya to help it stay that way. Having the side story finally come about and seeing the way that the two men get closer together as Akio hints at the reasons from the past and why he’s hiding things from Nagisa does very well in tying it all together. So much of shows like this, and from Key in particular, are all about the feelings and emotions that if they can’t make it work then it’ll feel weak and fake. Clannad doesn’t do that even with this kind of hook to the story. I’m not sure it really strengthens it terribly, but it doesn’t make it weak and it allows for the play to have added meaning for many.
Interestingly, Clannad does really end with its main storylines in episode twenty-two, which really surprised me. You do wonder where they’ll take you with the remaining two and both of them proved to be quite different ways of dealing with it. The first one is the true epilogue as it goes past the school festival and shows how things have changed between Nagisa and Tomoya since then. It’s a perfect epilogue because it shows the sweet side of things and the goodness of the characters after all they’ve been though. As much as I liked it, I really loved the last episode which is an OVA that takes the characters into an alternate timeline. The focus is much smaller and it has a much colder feel to it as it revolves around Tomoyo and Tomoya being in a relationship with each other. Nobody else is involved here outside of Sunohara and it’s a very intense if brief kind of relationship in the Key style. With the focus being so small and the core of the characters still the same, it’s really intriguing to see this interpretation. Enough so that I’d love to see even a twelve episode series about it expanded.
All of this atmosphere is ably aided by the beautiful animation. The settings are familiar to be sure, but there’s a very lived in and soothing feeling to all of it with how Kyoto Animation has done all of it. As much as I enjoyed Air for its visuals when I first saw it and Kanon later on, watching the progression of their style for the Key properties has been thoroughly engaging. Clannad certainly takes it up a notch, though there are obvious character design similarities, and it all comes together beautifully. The characters are all done in a really good consistent style and I like that they do manage to avoid outlandish colors outside of some of the light purples used for several of them. Sunohara is the main exception with his blonde hair but that just fits in with his delinquent status. Clannad is a beautifully animated series that captivates with its designs and animation.
In Summary:
It’s been really interesting watching the Key series in the last couple of years. Going from Air to Kanon and then to Clannad, you can see their progression both in storytelling complexity and the animation itself. The story side is something I’m hoping they continue to evolve on because there is certainly a good deal of familiarity here. That’s not a bad thing because what they do, well, they do it incredibly well. Rare is a high school romantic dramedy as enjoyable and compelling as this even if it has that air of familiarity from Kanon. I hope that they do start changing things up a little bit though as they continue on with new series. When it comes to the animation, I love that varying styles to the settings in each show and Clannad has a very solid one as it’s not quite the extremes we saw in other shows. It plays more to the center without being too warm or too cold. With great character designs, fun and interesting characters and a series of stories that keep you watching as the threads start coming together, Clannad is something every Key fan will likely enjoy while it could easily convert and bring in new fans as well.
Features:
Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Clean Opening, Clean Closing
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: November 8th, 2011
MSRP: $89.98
Running Time: 600 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.