So this is going to be one I’m probably not going to do right. This is my third one on Clannad, and it’s probably going to be my last on it as well.
I made one on what I find is the best route order
And another where I called it the rambling because when you start the vn, I consider Tomoya to already be in NG+. And it’s one of the things that barely addressed in the anime from what I remember. Because right in the first run, Tomoya and Nagisa already know about the dream and the tale, when it hasn’t really happened yet. The tale gets repeated constantly throughout the plot and I’ll get to it eventually. And this isn’t something new, at least at this point, Maeda just likes doing this. It’s just that this is one of the more subtle ones, while Little Busters is extremely blunt. But I’m not going to go extremely in depth with it since it’d just be me repeating.
The topic on this one is mainly that the plot is about Tomoya. Sure, the others have varying levels of importance, but it’s about Tomoya. The other part is this guy expanded upon Dandelion girl, something that’s like 10 pages long into something that I believe is over 2000 pages. That’s some huge ass expansion. And I guess the last part will be about some of the characters alongside on what changed in the anime. So to me, Clannad is just about a few things; that change is inevitable and you shouldn’t be afraid of it, the importance of bonds even outside of the familial ones, all wrapped up into an expanded piece of Dandelion Girl. It’s just that it’s stupidly long. I can probably take out the twins and either Yukine or Sagara and everything I liked about Clannad stays intact. Hell, Kappei, Sunohara and Toshio could’ve been integrated into the main plot like Yoshino. And I guess you could put Sagara inside Tomoyo’s route.
So the problem is that there’s so many routes, and for the most part they’re all based on forming a relationship/bond. It’s understandable to think that, oh it’s about the girls, but that’s just a short payoff to keep you going. And depending on the route, I can see people saying it doesn’t do that good of a job, at least until you finish it all. Because it’s like any other long term goal where you set milestones for yourself. And some of them, like working out generally gives you the side benefit of having better mental health. It’s not what you were going for but you’re glad that it happened. And that’s Clannad, because yeah the goal is always to get to the end of the route, and that’s generally the happy ending. And that’s generally after resolving whatever issue that the female character is going through. But in Clannad, that’s the main character, he’s not an insert character, he has his own shit to go through. And until he’s content with himself, the ending can’t happen. Tomoya is best girl, after a lot of work.
So let’s go with parts of the anime. It actually did a good job and also fucked up a couple of things at the same time. Like Kotomi is really integrated in the anime, whilst in the vn she’s specifically just in her own route for the most part outside of maybe choosing some options where you meet her but then rarely hang out with her. And I think that it only makes it so she’s option for some of the events, not that she’ll be included with the rest of the cast for as many things that the anime did. On the other hand, the anime had to get rid of a lot of character routes in one go and it was laughable on how bad it was. I don’t think Kappei is shown at all, and he’s one of the better routes. Maybe the minor routes weren’t covered, or I might have forgotten about it.
It’s been pretty much over a decade over all, I’m surprised on how much I remember from it. A lot of what the anime did well was that it had a stronger emotional impact, and part of that is because Tomoya actually has voice lines this time around. Like Yukine hits harder in the anime, but then again that scenario was kind of changed anyway. It wasn’t really what it was trying to do in vn, it was meant to be a more somber experience while also comparing her brother’s circumstance with Tomoya. There’s a lot of resemblances, he’s the main character after all. Kappei’s legs and Tomoya’s shoulder, Yukine’s brother’s delinquency and him, Yoshino’s path of self destruction and what he’s going through. His father and him, the lack of parental guidance and what Furukawas and Toshio’s providing in the background. The main characters are kind of different but still hold a situation for Tomoya to develop and get out of his rut, either getting encouraged by Tomoyo or having a more inept character to the point that he has to step up instead.
But anyways, I went on the tangent for too long, back to the anime. The worst part of the anime is how they used the orbs. In the anime, it’s just a mcguffin, and it’s hard to make it work when you put Yukine and Sagara, the two that handle what it’s about, by the end. In the vn, it’s a gradual process, you get one for pretty much every route. Sure, you could mess up and not do those two until the end as well, but you still know you’re getting them from each ending, you just don’t know how and why. Now I forgot how the orbs are made, I think it was just making a hard to create happy moment. It doesn’t really matter here because I find Tomoya’s growth to be equally important. And like I said before, it can’t end until he’s also happy.
So I’m hitting the end, so it’s time to go into Dandelion Girl. It’s really short, and it’s used as a reference in Kotomi’s route, the story is probably named but I don’t remember. The general plot is that a lady with dandelion colored hair comes from the future and meets a guy on a hill. The guy feels like he met her before. They meet up a few times throughout the days, the guy is married but is kind of getting into this lady. She confesses and then promises to meet another day, but the time machine is breaking apart. He doesn’t see for the rest of his vacation, goes back home and while some of the feelings is awry, he still loves his wife and how she’s still lovely and charming in his eyes. Only to find out that his wife was the girl, she just travelled back when he was young. So he races off to the bus station to meet her and say everything is ok. There’s stuff that’s important that makes parts of the plot work, like how there’s time cops and that travelling back in time is illegal unless it’s part of your job, so the wife never gets photographed to avoid detection. Or that the guy sees her as somewhat of a child because of the age difference so that’s probably something to do with her going back when he was young to be around the same age. But it doesn’t really matter, outside of how he feels that while time has gone forward, he still sees elements of what he loved and after he realized it, he goes after where she is. And that’s the last section of the vn. It’s Tomoya finally getting out of his rut and knowing what he wants and how to do it. Sure the magic orbs did most of the work, but Nagisa wouldn’t come back if it wasn’t for Tomoya. They even give you a choice to say you’re not ready.
It’s just dandelion; the illusionary world is the time machine, the ending is Tomoya getting where she departs, about how they’ve finally accepted that things can’t be stopped. And I’m not counting this one since it’s pretty generic, but the first place they meet is on a hill, lol. But in the end, it expanded so much more of than that. When dandelion is a short piece of two main characters, Clannad is a whole family’s worth of people. And in some cases, the anime did it better, where most of the cast is hanging out after graduation. Where the vn in after story is mainly Nagisa family, Sunohara, the fuko family and Tomoya’s own family.
And that’s basically it; I think the vn put more emphasis on Tomoya and how through cementing his feelings to this town and the people he cares about, he accepted who he was and what he wants in life even if there could’ve been a better outcome for others. The anime also shit the bed with the last two episodes. Honestly, the two episodes should’ve been added after episode 20. It’d just be two episodes of hijinks between Ushio and returning characters.
And yeah, if you cared more on the girls, then I can see why you don’t like the vn all that much. There’s way better vns for that, this isn’t really for that. Honestly Key usually doesn’t do that part amazingly, it’s always the over encompassing plotline that they do well. Is it too long, does it have padding? Yeah it does. I wouldn’t call it a bad thing in this case, but it normally is. It’s just a huge payoff and it made it worth it.
Also, I forgot to mention that the anime did a great job of just ripping out the vn scenes about Tomoya with his dad Naoyuki, and just slapping it in here. I think most people remember episode 18 the most, the one where Tomoya and Ushio hug it out. Some remember Nagisa’s death the most in episode 16. But episode 19 just edges out to be my favorite episode. Where Tomoya gets his shit together and that the healing for the Nagisa family can finally start. But mostly it’s the last chunk that just emphasizes on Tomoya realizing how much his father cared about him. Yeah, he’s a total fuckup but it’s not like even had the opportunity to confide in others. From all that we know, he was pretty much alone with no business opportunities or friends. He did the best that he could.
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