Very cute story about a Fed up high school student who falls in love with a lonely girl, it definately gives you a lot of emotions and it is nice to watch! 8/10 I give it!

I didn't know what to expect when sitting down for the first time to watch Clannad. I heard quite a few good things about the show since it was released and so I finally decided to watch it.After the first episode I was hooked. This isn't your traditional anime. It is more like poetry. From the first episode I pretty much knew that I wouldn't regret spending my time with this show. Little did I know, it was much more then that.As the show progressed I realized that it wasn't simply a teenage drama, it delved into some really emotional themes, especially in the second season (After Story). Clannad pulls at your heart at every chance it gets and when you're down and you think you can't take any more it kicks you again.The animation style was beautiful as well, it gave a euphoric feel to the entire show. The character design was rather bland but being based off a graphic novel the character design was spot on. The thing that annoyed me most was that there were three characters all with purple hair and it took a while to learn who was who.Clannad has had a weird emotional impact, one that I can't really explain. All that I can say is that it was beautiful, emotional experience. It was poetry. It wasn't simply another good anime, it was in a league of its own.I highly recommend that you watch Clannad and Clannd After Story but be prepared to feel emotions you have never felt with any other anime or TV series before.

Note that anything I say only goes for the dubbed version: No major spoilersStory - Clannad follows Tomoya Okazaki a fairly average student who has a tendency to skip lessons a lot. One day on his way to school he meets a strange girl (Nagisa) saying strange things, he decides to walk to school with her. After a few meetings he learns she wants to revive the drama club so Tomoya decides to help her with the help from a large cast of other strange friends.Story Review - I went into not expecting much as Clannad isn't a series that I'd really watch but a lot of people liked it so I thought I'd check it out. I thought the story of the drama club was OK nothing bad about it but Clannad isn't a story heavy show it's a character heavy show. The backstories of all the major characters are the focus here and they are all varied and interesting and very well toldMain Characters - The characters are fantastic in this series. Personally I like it because it tries to avoid fanservice although it does creep up from time to time. Tomoya is a well thought out character not as boring as he first seems. Nagisa is a sweet and lovely character who is hard to fault and has great character development. Tsunahara, Tomoya's best friend is the comedy relief of the series and is always funny to watch. Fuko Ibuki has a very large story arch, which I found to be quite sad really although the character is also very funny. Kitomi Inchinose has a fairly large story arch too in which you find she knew Tomoya long ago and also has a sad backstory and I loved her character as she is completely bonkers. I also liked Nagisa's parents Akio and Tsunai they were so funny. The other characters I don't judge to be that important, so much so they got their own OVA's in an alternate reality. They aren't bad or anything I just don't think they were major enough.Animation - Right off the bat you see that this series looks phenomenal. Key did a great job here. I really liked the look of the girl and the robot scenes as the animation looked so fluid and real. Music - Clannad has one of my favourite OST'so good I rank it up with Joe Hisaishi's Ghibli films. It does re-use tracks a lot but they are all placed perfectly that it didn't bother me. The intro theme is very good and I like the Big Dango family song as it fits the series perfectly.Drawbacks - The only drawback I felt didn't bother me but it may bother other viewers. It can get very confusing. You will not understand the girl and the robot scene and if you think you do you are wrong I guarantee it. That's not to insult your intelligence at all it's just it is explained in the second series. Also I didn't like the idea for naming Tomoyo (Who is one of the girls I didn't mention) as it gets really confusing with the main guy Tomoya.Overall - Clannad easily deserves all it's praise and is a must see. The music and animation are great and the characters are all likable. I must say though if you watch this series and at the end wasn't impressed or thought it was lacking or feel that way mid-series push through to the end because the second series is a vast improvement in every way and I mean vast not a little bit.9.3/10

This is a review of both 'Clannad' and 'Clannad Afterstory', if your wondering.Story: Based on the visual novel of the same name, 'Clannad' tells the story of Tomoya Okazaki, a former basketball player who had been forced to quit his school team and all of basketball, and who's now going through life aimlessly. With him on this downward spiral is his 'friend' Sunohara, a former soccer player who had also been forced from his team, after he had attacked his coach; it's hard to tell what their relationship actually amounts to, though that'll be mentioned in a minute. Okazaki has to go up this hill to get to school; one day he meets this girl, who's standing along the path, who asks him if he'd go up it with her. This incident sparks a kind of chain-reaction. Okazaki develops a relationship with this mysteriously gentle Nagisa Furukawa, her family, others from his school and all of these girls who all, in normal harem fashion, fall in love with him. Simple enough. Of course, the visual novel this is based after was developed by 'Key', and in true 'Key' fashion, the story doesn't end too happily, or begin happily, as a matter of fact. After a while, what little which has been established is fully revealed to us, like why Okazaki isn't playing basketball anymore or why Nagisa talks with him. It's not depressing. Sad maybe? It's ending isn't depressing either; it may even make you smile, while your crying manly tears (or maybe that's just me). That's not to say the story isn't fun either, in fact there's more of an emphasis on comedy than on romance, and for a harem, the humor's pretty smart. There are laugh-out-loud worthy scenes to be had, if your interested, and when I say Tomoya's living life aimlessly, I'm not saying he's moping. He's sad and depressed of course, but he manifests it by playing pranks on others; he mentally tortures Sunohara, in particular, and all with this sarcastic smile. Getting past that and going back to the romance and this whole emphasis on 'family', the whole production has this warm, genuine heart to it. Unlike with most other harem shows, this develops it's heroines (if only just enough) to all be likable instead of just setting up some caricatures to drool over. Okazaki himself defies how a male lead in a harem should be by not being a completely unlikable failure, and then comes when you try to decide the story's genre; there's romance and comedy, but then there's fantasy and tragedy thrown in, and then there's the drama-club plot that's been developing this whole time. It accumulates back to this being a very comfortable/nice show (in tone and story and it's production-style) to watch, which ought to get you emotionally involved, if only a little.Production: The music score sounds like something from a visual novel (no shock there). The opening looks like something from one as well (maybe it's the same opening as the game's; I don't know). This was produced by Kyoto animation in between making 'Lucky Star' and 'K-ON!', and it shows; it tries looking like the visual novel and that works, and the actual animation is very fluent, like everything after Lucky Star, though not so much as K-ON!'s. Conclusion: A sometimes visually breath-taking show with simple but engaging intertwining stories and characters, who could've been forgettable but who are handled by obviously talented writers (I mean, it was written by Key, the people who did 'Air', would did you expect?).