To Clannad (or Key) fans

[M12]

I thought of something last night, so I posted an entry:

http://tdomj.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/t ... ws-indeed/

It's just about the difference between the VN and anime's Nagisa (from Clannad). Also, are Key's works touching or just cliche? Check it out if you have a few minutes to spare. Thanks .

[GLACIER]

Kanon was mostly fun.

However, I dislike AIR and especially Clannad. With each iteration, the writers kept tacking on more unconvincing melodrama to force tears (often through something as inane as a curse, mysterious disease, or some other unexplainable phenomenon. They then have the characters shed tears to provoke the audience to sympathize on cue). To me, that kind of heavy-handedness is ridiculously ineffective, but it's obviously popular.

[Sylon]

My points are largely similar to GLACIER's- Kanon was fine, but as they progressed the stories started getting weak. Dramatic scenes are made dramatic by what leads up to them, not any amount of crying or fancy lines. In the same vein, a scene can be tragic even without characters crying or spouting fancy tragic lines. Unfortunately, most people tend not to realise this, and heap loads upon loads of crying on the audience. For example, Little Busters, or even games like Lost Odyssey.

[Raide]

It's just about the difference between the VN and anime's Nagisa (from Clannad). Also, are Key's works touching or just cliche? Check it out if you have a few minutes to spare. Thanks .

I like to think that it's just another interpretation of Nagisa's character. My Nagisa (my interpretation of Nagisa) might be different than yours, and therefore so too the reproduction to another format by each producers and seiyuu. If we played the nonvoiced version of Clannad VN first, maybe we'll think that the Nagisa voicing/seiyuu is not suitable because it's different from our mental image and so on.

Is it touching or cliche? Let's see..

My first experience with KEY is through the translation of Planetarian, and then Clannad. Their works have similar pattern to my most favorite anime/manga series Honey and Clover. As drama-comedy, they are rich with everyday life detail, comedic situation and characters that makes us 'enjoy the ride', and sudden transition to serious/melancholic/romantic setup. Hachikuro doesn't have KEY's ridiculously long play/readtime because of the limitation and advantage of both medium though.

They also have a common factor, which demands much of the reader's emotional involvement in order to enjoy the story. Readers are expected to maintain the suspension of disbelief through comedy and internal consistency. Clannad's VN presentation are considered a success for me, but Kanon's anime series failed. Why? Because in the marathon-watching I can't stop questioning the logic behind Kanon's characters.

For an example, let me compare my experience with Clannad to Kanon from my subjective, incomplete and misguided (haven't played Kanon VN yet) point of view. Using the [THE THREE QUESTIONS READERS ASK] section of Orson Scott Card - Characters and Viewpoint book (spoiler warning):

Clannad - Tomoyo path
Question 1: So What? It's a doomed relationship from the beginning. I wonder how this will resolve?
Question 2: Oh Yeah? Ah, so that's why Tomoyo did it. That's so unexpected, but really logical if you see it from her point of view. Awesome.
Question 3: Huh? LOL. The transition is smooth. The events are interesting. Sunohara isn't forgotten for romance convenience but keep appearing with his comedy. Each cool stuffs are distributed evenly to all scenes. The writers did a good job.

Kanon - Shiori path
Question 1: So What? She's cute. She and Yuuichi can banter equally. So what's her secret? - PASS
Question 2: Oh Yeah? WTF? So she has only a short amount of time to live? If it's that deadly of a sickness how come the complication is so light? I can't believe she's dying! What a convenient plot device.
Question 3: Huh? What happen? I can't make sense of it. How could Yuuichi accept the related fact so easily and not realize how unlogical it is? Why aren't there any skeptic attitude and questions like how Clannad's Tomoya to Fuuko's case or what they did excellently with Kyon's thought in Suzumiya Haruhi series?

I compare Tomoyo to Shiori because they both: a) have no past connection with the main character, b) doesn't necessarily need mystical element to become an excellent story, and c) passed the first question, therefore become character I care about. Too bad I consider Shiori's story execution a failure.

For me, to trust the characters and the story enough, instead of continuously doubting it, is the only way to enjoy any story. Stories that successfuly guide you to that stage will led you to overlook even the melodrama and cliche stuffs they used. Clannad's anime is a complete pleasure because I have trusted and touched by the VN translation. If I didn't read the VN first and jump straight to the anime, the case might be different. So too it applies other KEY's work: Kanon and Air.

PS: Between excellent retelling of an otherwise cliched material to a fresh, new, original, diverse, unique concept; KEY's work is focused heavily on the first one. A story doesn't need to be "wow, I never think about that!" element to be considered excellent.

[Raide]

CLANNAD ~AFTER STORY~ episode one has been out for those who didn't know and those who are avid Clannad fans. The series got twenty four episodes so Suzumiya Haruhi fans must be more patient to obtain season two. Dunno if this is a good place for discussion if anyone want to.

My opinion about After Story anime: AWESOME even when I'm already too biased as a Clannad fan.

[PyTom]

Seen it. Although frankly, I didn't really like this episode, as not much happened in it. There was also a similar sports episode in the first season, done better.

[Raide]

My opinion is the first episode has double function; as re-introductory for all characters by using the comedic baseball minigame part of the VN; second to set up the general mood for the overall season with hints of drama and remisnisce instead jump straight to stories. For KyoAni (Kyoto Animation) fans, doesn't it remind you to an episode of Suzumiya Haruhi? :3

I guess it won't turn out as per-girl-arc in season one, nor exact (rigid) retelling of After Story part of the game. Second semester of the school is completely skipped by the VN therefore the anime will use that timeline as a chance to retell other Clannad Spring season stories. It's a good solution~

Stories I'm looking forward to:
1. Miyazawa Yukine's path
2. Sagara Misae's path
3. Fujibayashi twins' path, and
4. Sunohara siblings' path which supposedly will begin in next episode, probably will be combined with Koumura-sensei's story

Number four is total tear-jerker, so I'm going to expect much for next episodes^^

[Jo'ogn]

I watched AIR and actually like it. I could accept the reference to Kanna being cursed and living in Misuzu. I also watched the Summer Specials with Kanna, so the whole thing kind of made dramaturgically sense.

I stopped watching Clannad right after Ep7. Everything seems rediculously exaggerated, to force the viewer feeling emotionally touched - call it "clichéed" if you want. Anime are all full of clichés and become repetive if you watch more than a dozen.

But Clannad became annoyingly predictable. This story seems like it wasn't written naturally - but was specifically "designed", by a bunch of commerically experienced producers and designers to hit every exploitable button possible. This isn't art, or creative, it felt commercial. Like e.g. The Cure v.s Stock, Aitken and Waterman

[Raide]

And that's the entire point of my previous post. Most anime adaption from Visual Novel are flawed since in most cases, the anime with its limited screentime loses the naturalness of VN with its -almost unlimited- amount of text available.

I assume that Clannad and other Kyoto Animation release are never meant to be stand alone anime, since _almost everyone in the market which is Japan_ are assumed must have played the popular original format. Just as Suzumiya Haruhi is designed for the light novel readers, probably Kanon, Lucky Star, AIR, Clannad, FMP! and others are designed that way too. It's almost the concept of "commercial" you're talking about; fanservice but maybe that's the point after all: to promote or advertise the original format instead of replacing or competing with it.

Only with the anime, I think Kanon is crap but most of people I know troll me because they think otherwise. However I do experienced that Clannad VN writing is way much better and natural than the anime, so Kanon VN will be something I'm looking forward to.

[Jo'ogn]

I don't know Kanon. Maybe it's like Uwe Boll who tries to turn all kinds of good video games into horrible movies. While a linear VN can be turned into an anime, a dynamic dating sim (which is a video game) hardly can - reasonably.

Some ppl still believe capitalism is a good thing. I believe, that we can consider ourselves lucky, that despite hardcore commerce there are still productions, that address the viewers interests, rather than ignoring them for the sake of money making.