Bonus Feature: Includes Series Impressions Thus Far!

- Sneak Preview: They’re not good!

Odd that my first post about Clannad here on ActiveCore would start on episode 15, but rest assured i’ve been quietly watching this since its started, following the ’story’ and characters as they’ve developed thus far. As we’re just over halfway through Kyoto Animations latest project, it seems now would be a good time to chat about the show and take stock of things so far.

But first episode 15 itself.

Gods…

Clannad is at its most boring when attempting the sort doe-eyed, soppy schoolgirl melodrama that anime seems to specialise in. Even worse is in this episode – blatant filler if i’m any judge – in which they attempt to create drama out of something thats less dramatic than my commute into work every morning.

So this week: Our hero Okazaki discovers that Generic Girl A is having trouble setting up the Theatre Club, despite now having acquired Generic Girl B, Generic Girl C and Generic Tsundere Girl D into its ranks. The problem? They need a teacher to supervise the club, and the only remaining teacher currently not looking after a club is desperately needed for the also-soon-to-be-revived Choir Club, led by Generic Girl E and Generic Evil Bitch F.

Christ.

It makes you wonder why you aren’t just sitting and watching season six of 24 like a regular adult.

The drama is of course boring as is possible without physically encasing the audience in ice. Despite KyoAni’s always admirable dramatic directing techniques, the characters generic, bland personalities slide off eachother to create a 20 minute non-event about nothing.

As ever, what saves this episode of Clannad is probably the comedy. The sequence in which Sunohara continually follows Okazaki around the school with a basketball is a laugh, as is yet another of Okazaki’s fuck-with-the-bland-cute-idiot-girls minds sequences in which he pretends to be somebody else over the phone, only to have the girl in question believe him.

Verdict for episode 15: “I’m sorry, but i’m not able to love men”

Which brings us neatly (or not) to my thoughts on Clannad as whole now we’ve all made it this far: it just doesn’t work. By way of comparison with the other Key game adaptions, i’d say it far superior to the muddled mess of Air TV, but just not in the same league as Kanon, which I enjoyed immensely.

Why? Well – lets get this straight first – I think Clannad, Kanon and Air all have atrocious storylines. Their stories are terrible bland caricatures of anime drama, filling the screen with pretty but horrifically dull schoolgirls who have one massively unexplored TOKEN EMOTIONAL PROBLEM which the hero then helps them with because he’s a cold, handsome loner with a heart of gold, and because the whole yarn is just a dreadful piece of otaku wish-fulfillment disguised as entertainment.

That out the way, what made Kanon work was just how totally beautiful it was. Yes, the world, characters and situations were all naff (or at least horribly melodramatic) but the show was animated with a kind of ethereal beauty that somehow looked *nicer* than reality. Even Air TV, bizarre schizo show that it was, had that almost surreal beauty generated from the blazing summer sun that baked down on everyone and everything.

Clannad has… nothing. It’s plain. Normal. Surprisingly for Kyoto Animation, whos works are usually so full of life and charm, the world of Clannad has been constructed with a degree of generic blandess and lack of detail thats just unentertaining. I don’t hate it, but without Kanon’s beauty, or even Air’s bat-shit insanity, Clannad just feels like nothing. For 26 episodes.

Just hurry up and make Haruhi season 2 already.