Clannad

What if? Who has never wondered “what if I hadn’t done that” or “what if I hadn’t met that person”?

Name: Clannad

Year: 2007-2009

Format: TV, OVA

Status: Completa

Episodes: 47 + 2 OVA’s (2 Seasons)

Duration: 24 min

Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Supernatural, Drama, Romance

Synopsys

Tomoya is a rebellious boy and an undisciplined student that believes his life is boring and monotonous. Accompanied by his friend Youhei, they skip classes and plan the best way to waste their days. Everything changes when Tomoya, on his way to school, comes across Nagisa, who was muttering to herself “Anpan!” (1). Nagisa is a student that is repeating her senior year in highschool due to being ill and her dream is to bring back the Theater Club. In spite of the early indifference, Tomoya ends up befriending her and starts helping her, claiming he has nothing better to do.

Review

Clannad is one of the romantic animes that I deeply enjoyed watching. Although seemingly simple, it leads the spectator into a strong connection with the narrative, because one easily identifies oneself with the situations represented through the various characters.

It all starts with the introduction of the protagonist, Tomoya, a boy with no apparent quality, who has no dreams or desires and believes everything around him is boring.

His fate changes when he meets the co-protagonist, Nagisa. Despite the initial disinterest, as he passes by her in school, he unconsciously starts looking for her, and becomes intrigued by her presence. She will give him a purpose: start attending the classes and make her dream come true.

Nagisa is his opposite, although she needs to redo her senior year of highschool due to illness, she does not give up and keeps on fighting for her dream to put together once again the Theater Club. Even though she is fragile and insecure, she doesn’t give up and is a true fighter in her life.

From the introduction of the main plot, several other characters are introduced that, in spite of being secondary, will accompany the protagonists’ story and encourage their growth as human beings. Each character that comes across in this story ends up being aided by the protagonists, revealing the hidden king side of Tomoya, or helps Nagisa muster up more courage to fight for her dream.

As I have stated before, I believe that this story was built in a way that the spectator can relate easily with its characters and plot. Every situation portrayed could have happened when we were in highschool: O can recognize in my class two or three potential Tomoya, or a shier girl with her own dreams that didn’t have anyone to back her up.

I consider that this work has the perfect amount of comedy, romance and drama that makes us “glue” to the screen and think about what will happen in the next episode.

The finale was the most surprising episode of the anime, let's just say that it tied up the loose ends left throughout the show and that we all wondered what it would be.

Whisper of the Heart

This anime is filled with important themes which we have all encountered in our life, that are approached throughout the story through the unravelling of the plot and the type characters.

One of the main topics is family, that is represented in several ways: Nagisa’s family shine a light on what parents are willing to do or to give up for their children, creating very strong bonds between them; Tomoya’s single parent family (his mother passed away in a car accident when he was very young and he lived alone with his father) that shows how two relative can have a very dysfunctional relationship due to misunderstandings and the bitterness of life’s sour events; and lastly, the strong bond between the siblings Youhei and Mei, that in spite of the initial turmoil, with the help of Tomoya and Nagisa, end up working it out and relight faded bonds.

It is without a question that the family bonds, the friendship bonds and the love bonds conveyed are something essential and elevate this story to another level.

AS the characters portrayed are teenagers, we get to follow their inner struggles in order to grow up and become adults. Accompanying this process makes us reflect on ourselves and on our own growth process: the end of school and the doubt regarding the next step; the search for the first job to rejection; the differences that exist among us and those that surround us and that lead us inevitably to comparison; the uncertainty about the future and whether the actions we take today are the most correct...

To finalise, I would like to approach the subject of fate and parallel realities. During the anime, there is a character that likes everything related to the prediction of the future and there is something that she says that still gets me thinking. You can have a predefined future, but it’s your current actions that have an impact on that initial future and, in that way, help create a new one for you. The answer given by the show is “yes”. Which leaves us thinking. We have all wandered: “What if I hadn’t done that?” or “What if I hadn’t met that person?”, would we be where we are today? Would our life unfolded in the same way, followed the same path, or everything remained under the same circumstances, only with different people by our side? Is there another “me” living in a parallel world, but that “me” made a different decision at a crossroad in “our” life path?

There isn’t a right or wrong answer, nor a true or false, what I can say is that the choices I made have certainly brought me to where I am today.

I chose this anime for the Ecletic Heart 30 Post Challenge under the topic “anime with the saddest death”, but if I explain any further I will end up revealing too much of the plot, so, for that reason, watch it and you will understand eheheh.

Rating - 🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉🟉 (8)

Footnotes:

(1) Anpan is a japanese sweet with anko filling, a paste made out of red beans or azuki beans.