The Blue Fox Alley » Clannad

Why Clannad the anime is bullshit

The Sojourner — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:52:45 +0000

You can either read this post or just be contented with this picture.

I do not profess to know much about criticism and it is an easy task to entertain me (I enjoy quite a lot of anime shows that are out there), but there is this incomprehensible tingle in me whenever I watch an episode of this anime. I had my reserves in sharing my thoughts as I thought it be best to wait until the broadcasting has completed before making some form of a conclusion.

So this is my interpretation of what CLANNAD’s gist is ( and if I am wrong, then this post is pointless): When empowered by strong emotions like love and friendship, a person’s thoughts are able to shape the future.

With that in mind, CLANNAD strives to present itself as a subtle and simple philosophical discourse on how we ought to live our lives, and it mainly preaches that happiness is obtainable through positive thinking. Think of the anime as a simplified version of William James’ Is Life Worth Living? complemented with visuals which gives the show an ephemeral aesthetic quality. Fine enough, but it is regretful that the entirety of the anime has been drowned in a stifling compilation of side-stories (suspiciously guilty of pandering to moetakus and the visual novel loyalist under the feeble disguise of promoting the heartwarming theme of FAMILY-NESS). As a result, the plot, which is the sequence of predicated events leading to Tomoya’s understanding of how he ought to live his life, does not successfully deliver its message with a strong impression.

Those who are guilty of stifling the main message of the anime are, sadly, the popular characters. Kotomi had the honour of drawing first blood by causing the anime to derail from the development of its plot into the narration of her side-story. Of course, moetakus some might argue that it was just a clever device to encourage Tomoya’s understanding of social bonds but that is only convincing if Kotomi’s arc had been centered around Tomoya and the narration of his interiority (his inner thoughts and stuff like that). In fact, if it had been centered around Tomoya, those Kotomi episodes would not have been considered as a Kotomi-arc! Kyou, Ryou and Tomoyo were the lesser of this evil that I speak of; but the tales of the Sunohara siblings, the dorm mistress and Miyazawa dealt the final blow and confirmed my disappointment in CLANNAD. The aforementioned are examples are what hindered CLANNAD from its true potential so is there an example of a minor character who has actually contributed to the development of the main plot? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. Surprisingly, Fuuko, in ID SOJOURNER’s words, despite being retarded person, is a brilliant contributor to Tomoya’s growth as a character and her “daughter-father” relationship with Tomoya foreshadows what is to come in the future. The first few episodes of the first season was about her, but it was not all about her too. It is praiseworthy that during the those “Fuuko episodes,” there was a balance between telling Fuuko’s tale and at the same time have Tomoya’s physical and psychological involvement going as well.

A jolly good fellow known as E.M. Forster (he is dead) wrote about the difference between plot and story in a novel. Of course, they did not have anime back in then but it does not mean the concept of plot and story is not applicable to anime (I refuse to explain why for the sake of keeping this post short ). The plot is a string of events that are bonded by causality. Something happens and it causes something else to happen next. A story simply refers to an event that captures our interest. In CLANNAD, the plot would be represented by the following sequence:

Cynical Tomoya meets Nagisa.
Nagisa asks Tomoya to be her friend.
Nagisa seeks to revive the drama club.
Tomoya, as her friend, offers to help her.
While engaged in Nagisa’s affairs, Tomoya is affected by Nagisa’s optimism.
Nagisa’s optimism compels Tomoya to rethink his disposition about life.
Tomoya eventually falls in love with Nagisa.
???
Fuuko end.

As for an example of story or stories, we can see it as follows:

Kotomi acts moe.
Kyou gets trapped in the storeroom with Tomoya and awkwardness ensues.
The dorm mistress realizes that her lover is actually a cat and she becomes interested in furries.
Sunohara Mei entraps moetakus the audience with her fetish-appealing antics while pretending to contribute to the main theme of FAMILY-ness (but she is voiced by the voice actress of Nanoha. DIVINEEEE BUSSTAAAA).
Miyazawa introduces us into the realistic world of gangsters. West side is da best. FAMILY-ness is “accentuated” at the same. Respeck.
Kotomi acts moe.

Suffice to say, the plot is the collective of events that have been intricately contrived through cause and effect. On the other hand, the story, in E.M. Forster’s context, is the vestige of neolithic or paleolithic days when Neanderthal man huddle together while one of them tells how he had managed to pwn a wild beast. What Forster is trying to say is that the story is not as intellectually engaging as the plot because it only requires curiosity to captivate readers of a novel, or the audience in the context of anime. Thousands of years have passed since humans were simply savages who hang out in caves and gawp over a crude tale of skull smashing, and currently, we have evolved into moetakus people who ogle over animated girls. Basically, nothing has changed. The story still captivates as it appeals to the primitive aspect of our nature, curiosity. We are still doing the same thing. Instead of being critical over what matters, we. the blinded audience, cast the importance of the plot aside and just succumb to the pandering done through relatively irrelevant stories of cute girls.

My message is simply to state how the various side-stories have, through their shameless interruption of the plot, impeded the emotional built up and the overall development of the anime’s plot. As a result, the side-stories make the main message of the anime unconvincing. Imagine yourself telling a really funny joke to a group of friends and you suddenly derail into talking about something else. Would the punchline be funny after the pause? Sorry CLANNAD, I am not buying it.

P.S.

The most prominent merit that I can see in CLANNAD is also its greatest lie. Its excellent visual art beguiles the audience into forgetting its errors.

MoeKotomiLuv2345: OMG. THE BACKGROUND IS SO CAPTIVATING!

Tomoyo_After: Deshou Deshou? I cry all the time when something emotionally gripping happens!

ID_SOJOURNER: Clannad is sh*t.

MoeKotomiLuv2345: You are just a bitter little kid who does not know how to appreciate the pristine elegance of Clannad!

ID_SOJOURNER: OSH*T. YOU ARE RIGHT! CLANNAD IS SO TOUCHING!

EDIT

Relentlessflame has notified me of a certain flaw in my post, and I have to agree. I should have indicated the connection between the recurring theme of the significance of family and the moral of the story. CLANNAD, the presence of a family, or social bonds to be specific, constitutes one’s ability to think positively. Tomoya’s experience, through the many tales in the anime, is suppose to make him understand that.

Lelangir-Lelangir has dazzled me with a frighteningly confusing commentary on his neat little commentary blog anitations (I am not a very smart person) but I am honoured that he has bothered to share his thoughts. I do not think my logic in saying “CLANNAD is bullshit disappointing” includes the original VN, because all faults lie in just the execution of the anime. Being faithful to the VN can be possible by preserving the “spritiual essence” of the VN and infusing it in the anime; faithfulness does not always equate to conformness to the original content. Of course, Kyoani has contrived to mould the content so as to make the anime as linear as possible but that is another story.

One of the main reasons why I am wrote this post, despite it being pretty obvious to Lelangir, is probably because this anime’s overwhelming popularity can obstruct members of the audience in seeing its flaws. I am just trying to stir the spirit of argumentation (and this post is not only opinion that I have about the anime adaptation).

I hate tautology. It gave me a headache last semester. I had to do logical translations to prove the tautological nature of statements that were given to me. lol

Fall Season 08 Impressions and other shows

The Sojourner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:51:59 +0000

Let us just go straight to the point. Shall we? Aye.

Toradora: I have never seen Zero No Tsukaima and I gave up on Shana after the first season; hence, I am not exactly sick of tsundere characters. The flow of the story is not stiff so it is decent to watch, Taiga is unrealistically violent but we enjoy to watch the protagonist being subjected to physical abuse. Also, I love that parrot bird whatever.

Oh and, it is nice to see that the side characters, like Minori, are reasonably integrated and active in the progression of the story; and that, is a plus point.

Gundam 00 Season 2: Feldt is legal now, right? So is Soma Peries. The first season was initially intriuging but it sort of degenerated into an emo fest upon reaching the end, however, it was still a fun watch. Now that we are familiar with the returning characters, I believe there is potential for the second season to surpass the first in telling a tale of war, love, death and all that serious business stuff. Or you could just watch it to bash Sunrise in a senseless way.

ef, a tale of melodies: The sequel of “a tale of melodies” has arrived and it is guaranteed that we will be treated to a display of ‘artistic’ animation. I was not bothered by the execution of the first show because it did offer what is the most fundamental aspect in a story, which is a story lol. If the story is not impressive to me, then I would be offended by the attempt to be ‘arty fartsy’.

Time for me to practice on my piano because classical music attracts chicks, especially white ones.

Chaos; Head: I friggin hate the male protagonist. lol.

Ga Rei Zero: Having seen the first three episodes. I have to say that this show has the potential to be visually AWESOME.

CLANNAD AFTER STORY: It’s back! Moetakus rejoice! Meh. I have a heart that is so cold that even Byousoku 5cm failed to make me cry, needless to say Clannad! So why am I still watching Clannad if I am not buying the theme of family love? As compared to many recent shows, Clannad is one of the better executed works so nothing pleases me more than to simply relax and watch a show with decent storytelling.

ID SOJOURNER: BUT THEN, THAT IS BECAUSE MOST SHOWS HAVE BEEN SHITTY, SO THAT MAKES CLANNAD LOOK GOOD!

Yeah. Yukarin’s voice acting has inducted Mei-chan into the Pantheon of Moe-ness after the third episode of After Story. Even someone who has high resistance to moe, like me, could not help but break out into cold sweat after finishing the third episode. But I still dislike moe.

DMC: Black humour at its best. If you do not like it, then you are a geisha. For his greatness, Krauser II deserves a place in the hallowed hall of Valhalla. R-r-r-rape!!!

Nodame Cantabile, Paris Hen: Episode 3 managed to appease a slight portion of my annoyance. But still, sad to say, the show is not as enjoyable as the others at the moment.

Tytania: As much as I would like to say that Tytania is going to be excellent, the show has just begun so there is a lot of space for screw-ups. The beginning suceeded in capturing my attention with an impressive blend of drama, and a haunting narration of background information. And now that the show has attained my attention, we shall now see how the characters are developed.

Personally, Tytania is the show that I look forward to the most. Maybe it is due to the thrill that I derive from watching the Tytania lords engage in the asphyxiating game of politics which comes along with the current story of people rebelling against Tytania.

Seeing how the Tytania lords behave and interact with each other, I could help but notice them role-playing a scene out of a classic Qing Dynasty film. I was forced to watch quite a few shows about Chinese politics while growing up, and while I did not give a hoot about it back then, the impression of those shows are lasting in my memory. The Chinese films and shows that I saw often depicted the Forbidden City as a treacherous domain plagued by cloak-and-dagger politics as the various princes of the Emperor would conspire and plot their strategy to win the favour of the Emperor so as to claim the throne. While Tytania is not as tense as the asphyxiating drama of those shows, for now that is, I noticed the similarity especially in the scene where the lords gathered to discuss about Aryabart’s defeat. By observing the opinions voiced by various lords, the Clan Lord is able to use their actions as a source of reference in his difficult decision in choosing the next leader of the Tytania clan. And Clan Lord Ajman’s act of consulting his attendant about the calibres of the four lords is a perceived parallel to the Qing emperors (yeah all of the emperors do that! it’s a cliche!) discussing about the strengths of his princes with his close aides and eunuchs. lol. Personally I find the scene where Ajman had his conversation with his attendant very much a soliloquy and a very effective one in bringing out Ajman’s thoughts.

At the rate the story is going, and if there are no screw-ups, you can be assured that Tytania will promise a riveting tale of war and politics. Yeah Srz Bzness.

Junjou Romantica 2: lol

Dennou Coil: I am slow. VERY SLOW. I should have picked up Dennou Coil a long time ago. And this show is wicked.

Eyecatch: Moving Onto The Fall 2008 Season

The Sojourner — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:20:11 +0000

Real life hits us hard. The demanding work of a second year medicine student has greatly affected the activeness of the P-Meister, and I am still in the midst of getting used to life as a college student. Not to forget, our guest writer misakichii is a salaryman so you will not expect him to frequently churn out posts. However this imposed break from blogging gives us a precious moment to sort out our priorities, reflect on our goals in blogging and analyse the styles that we exude from our writings. So I exceptionally enjoy writing ‘eyecatch’ posts like this one because they share my feelings [and those of the P-Meister and misakichii as well] with the readers.

For this eyecatch post, we are going to talk about how the summer season has been to us as we welcome the new season of anime shows plus some random thoughts.

The P-Meister

Gundam 00 is a must watch as i just finished my Throne Eins model and lost its gun while painting its legs. Stupid me. Now I will need to find a new model, obviously from the second season.

Clannad is something i might skip and take Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka. A show where sausages will gather in the tavern when i blog about it. If it is bad, I’ll always go to Clannad.

The DMC movie is a must watch too.

The only anime from prev seasons which i’ll be following will be Soul Eater. Hopefully after To Love Ru and Macross Frontier end, I might be able to find the time to pick another. I can’t wait to find out who Rito and Alto would end up with. The drama… *sigh*

Anyway, even if i were to pick up something, i was thinking of shifting to manga or divert a little into figurine collection/crafting and even RPGs. Other interesting activities are re-watching Slam Dunk again whilst figuring how to pass my second year exams. Dang! I’m spending most of my time studying at the moment.

misakichii

I can expect fall to be a great season for anime. Its the season for sequels! Gundam00, ef – a tale of melodies(EPIC WIN), shugo chara! 2, Clannad after story, Rosario Vampire and penguin musume heart. Not to forget the OVAs, Lucky Star and Seto no Hanayome.

There are the usual eroge to anime series (akane iro, chaos head), but whats special is the animefication of the popular “tales of” RPG series, Tales of Abyss. I had no idea it would be on TV when I started playing it 3 weeks ago. And boy, I’m at 40 hours of gameplay but I dont think I’m halfway through the game yet. Story is average, but the seiyuus that are made of pure win makes up for it. Yukana, Momoi, Takehito Koyasu and George Nakata. I started to have a liking for Yukana since i watched Oinari-sama.

Other new series include Tetsudo musume (I wonder what can they make up a plot with trains), Kemeko Deluxe and Toradora.

It was a pretty slow start for me for summer. Sekirei, Hidamari Sketch, ZnT and Nogizaka. They were ok, but they did not satisfy me much, especially Nogizaka, it was bad. But then came Strike Witches, which I started it while it was halfway through. It was the only anime moe enough for me.

And for my pick for weekly review? ef – a tale of melodies.

The Sojourner

I have to say that the shows that I have been following are mainly from the spring season with only Strike Witches and Nogizaka being the shows from the summer season that I am watching. It might be the case that I am just very picky but after seeing the AWESOMENESS of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Nanoha A’s, the shows of recent have been unable to excite me much. But Macross Frontier has been able to entertain me pretty well. It is epic but not EPIC and Ranka’s Ai Oboteimasuka was hauntingly beautiful but so inappropriate when it was sung. I have confidence that Kawamori and his team is able to pull off a decent ending for Frontier so I believe I am in for a treat when the conclusion arrives.

Moving on, I am fascinated by the ever changing online community as more blogs are born and new approaches in blogging are being discovered. I can guess that when anime blogging was new back then, the community was small and that made things very personal. But with more fans discovering the convenience of expressing their passion of the visual culture through the Internet, blogs and all sorts of sites have sprouted at a exponential rate (lol I am exaggerating)! Maybe it is right to say that the community is no longer the same but it appears to me that the anime loving community is simply branching into different ‘circles’ and it is the birth of such ‘circles’ that is creating new milieus for different means to express one’s unique love for Japanese culture. And it is the illusion of being overwhelmed by the evolution of the community that prompts an old-timer to think times have changed. The old path is still there, but there are new paths that have been paved that lie parallel to the old path.

And now I look towards the new season of anime. I am not really crazy about Clannad but having seen the first season of it, there is an obligation to follow the AFTER STORY arc. Apart from Clannad AFTER STORY, the second season of Gundam 00 is another show that I have to watch because I have seen the first season. So while Clannad and Gundam 00 are in my to-watch list because of self-imposed obligations, I express real interest in watching Nodame Cantabile 2. But wait! It is like a sequel as well!

You know what? I might just start episodic blogging for Nodame Cantabile.

—————————————————–

ID SOJOURNER

You want my opinion as well? Well I have one for Code Geass! The show is like the Wall Street financial crisis! Things are so messed up, and I do not know who to blame, but now the studio as a whole [like the government] is trying to sort things out to make a decent ending [through the purchase of those lousy bonds].

SO WHAT AM I GONNA WATCH FOR THE NEXT SEASON?

LEMME GIVE YOU A HINT!

REMEMBER THIS?

Biting the bullet while watching Clannad, The ~Tomoyooooo~ Episode

The Sojourner — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:34:27 +0000

It is not Engrish but it does sound like it when spoken by Tomoyo. lol

The first thing that crossed my mind about this attempt to pander to fanboys DVD exclusive episode is how did they even squeeze all that stuff in just 20 plus minutes?

Anyway I just felt that while this was not too bad, it certainly could have been done better. And because we are talking about one single episode, this is not meant to be some tear jerking drama but simply an ephemeral glimpse into a secret window of possibilities.

There were two main points that attributed to this special episode being unable to be as magical as the rest of Clannad. What most people have praised Kyoani of achieving is having the skillz of portraying human dynamics as subtle as possible through the anime medium, but I felt it was not demonstrated in this one. This observation is based mainly on how the story wanted to show the viewers that there are those who bear issues about Tomoya dating Tomoyo by just simply having people fail at whispering! Apart from that, the limit of a single episode prevented the story from having a proper built up to the ‘AWWW I WANNA CRY SO MUCH BECAUSE THIS IS SO TOUCHING’ climax. And having the the break up in the middle of the show meant there was very little space for a development.

The break up should have had happened prior to the start of this episode, and ought to focus more on the struggles of being seperated while reminiscing on those magical moments while they were dating so that the Kyoani fanboys will not be denied of seeing Tomoyo and Tomoya! Yes, those lovey dovey scenes should have been short flashbacks.

Please do not hate me just because I was not impressed this time. It is just me… srsly.

By the way, is it just me or was Tomoya simply useless this time? lol. I think Lelouch geassed him into being a pussy.

Take that Shin Asuka! Two can play that game!