Once upon a time Tomoya Okazaki had been depressed. The child of a single alcoholic parent and a delinquent at school there was nothing in the world for him to live for and he knew it. That was before he met Nagisa Furukawa a sweet docile anemic girl with a dream to live and no strength or will to see it through. With the help of a strange bevy of friends and romantic options Tomoya was able to guide the girl through the hard times that came her way pulling her over every obstacle and believing in her until that dream could be realized And once it was over she had practically no choice but to pay him back by becoming his girlfriend. In most anime thats where the story would end but here its not so simple Their relationship is only the beginning of a winding tale of fate that will affect the boundaries of reality itself. As they leave behind high school Along with their friends Tomoyas need to help people and the hearts of half a dozen other girls And embark on their journey into adulthood and the real world. This means taking a bold courageous leap into independence responsibility and consequences as they get jobs and learn to support each other. Theyre warned that theres going to be trouble along the way but nobody could possibly guess just how much heartbreak and tragedy is awaiting them Because surviving high school and becoming a couple may be the beginning even marital bliss is far from the ending. Like its predecessor Clannad Afterstory was produced by famed studio Kyoto Animation the crown kings of the moe art styleA1 is the queen And yet it doesnt look quite the same. The overall style of Kyoto Animation is well known to have changed drastically in the mid to late 2000s and a lot of people blame the financial success of KOn for this shift Their artwork used to be very solid and consistent even at its most active moments but following this change faster onscreen motion looks a lot cheaper as though they found a more affordable method of capturing motion without sacrificing speed or energy But its unfortunately highly noticeable and it doesnt look nearly as impressive as their work from the first half of the decade. Basically it started to look Gainaxy. Honestly though I dont really think Kon is to blame for this. Clannad Afterstory is their earliest work where I actually noticed this change although it looks more prototypical compared to Kon. I mentioned in my last review how the artists were able to create life in the eyes of their female characters and while their eyes dont look quite as dead as I implied a drop in the budget would make them they do still have their iffier moments. This can make faster fluid movements can appear choppy or cheap looking at times Its probably at its worst when Akio is moving his arms to rap But thankfully after the first eight episodes bigger actions are few and far between leaving a decent amount of money available for the rare CG effects and some of the better moments towards the end. The music really hasnt changed since my last review so there isnt a whole lot I can say about it. Instead Ill talk about the opening and ending both of which are apparently beloved. Despite the shows step down in animation quality the opening looks a LOT better in Afterstory despite their similarities. The song is Toki wo Kizamu Uta by Key veteran Lia it not only sounds but also looks far more interesting than the generic snooze worthy track that opened its predecessor. This opening begins rapturously showcasing the supernatural lights and shots of the town on a far more visually arresting note. One thing I found odd is that even though the series has left behind its haremy roots it still announces the games romantic options in the opening. They had the good sense to get rid of Fuko but that still leaves Kotomi Tomoyo and Kyou whove all been largely downgraded to supporting roles in whats supposed to be Tomoya and Nagisas story. The English dub has also greatly improved with Steven Foster taking less and less of a role in the show before moving on from it completely. Clint Bickham is a decent writer whos very good at transforming Japanese idioms and turn of phrase into something more accessible to Western viewers without bastardizing it. Janice Williams takes over directorial duties and while Foster was a producer on the dub it was shortlived. The acting is just as strong as it was in the previous show despite a few tweaks here and there. David Matranga is still carrying the series and Luci Christian is still sweet and supportive. She gets more opportunities at range but said opportunities are limited She alters her approach hilariously when Nagisa gets drunk and her vocal work during childbirthYeah Ill be spoiling that here are heartbreaking. She plays her won child which would be a great opportunity to show more of her abilities if her child wasnt as bland and artificial as pepperoni pizza. Illich Gaurdiola returns as Yusuke Yoshino who is now Tomoyas sempai at work and while I enjoy him during his weirder moments Take the glorious baseball game for example The rest of his performance just sounds like onenote mumbling. The pitch sounds right for the sort of character hes playing but he sounds like he doesnt want to be in the booth and is just getting his lines out as quickly as possible so he can go home. I didnt mention this in the last seasons reviewalthough it applies there too but Andrew Love and Kara Greenburg are the undisputed stars of the dub as Nagisas parents Akio and Sanae. Both characters are almost bipolar in nature showing vastly different attitudes whether theyre acting calm and quiet or crazy and overthetop but either way theyre a joy to listen to. It probably helps that theyre playing the best characters in the show. Now I should probably begin by saying that yes Clannad Afterstory is better than Clannad to the point where I wish theyd reversed the names and called the first one Clannad: Beforestory. Because lets be honest the first season didnt have much of a story It featured a collection of small stories that were as interchangeable as the girls Tomoya was helping. The whole thing climaxed with a love confession and while that may have been believable when you consider Tomoyas selfworth issues it doesnt put up much of an argument for compelling stakes. Afterstory on the other hand drops the disjointed nature of the series and decides instead to buckle down and tell a solid extensive story Nine episodes in. Yeah apparently there were still a few miniarcs to get through and Ill be honest theyre a chore. The first episode which revolves around the entire cast being reunited for a baseball game is awesome even if the plot may have been lifted from Haruhi Suzumiya. Theres some great comedy in this episode and it does an admirable job of reintroducing the last seasons characters to the audience as well as establishing where Tomoya and Nagisa are in their relationship. The next two episodes quickly go downhill as Mei comes back to town to check on Sunohara and these are some miserable damn episodes. Not only are they stupid and entirely pointless but they take the somewhat unlikeable Sunohara and turn him into what can only be described as a reprehensibly selfish creature. Ill spare you A LOT of the details but ultimately Tomoya pretends to be Meis boyfriend to try to piss Sunohara off. He doesnt and later on he reveals that even though they blatantly claimed to be sleeping together he didnt try to stop it Because it was you Okazaki Yeah if youre gonna trust a pedophile with your 12 year old sisters virginity it had better be Okazaki. The following arc isnt as bad per se but equally pointless and deeply unintentionally funny. The woman who runs the dorm Whom in any other show would be too unimportant to have a story arc but this is Clannad and filler is its art form And how a boy she fell in love with turned out to be a ghost but she made a wish to turn him into her immortal pet cat. Yeah just imagine the implications as she cleans out her one true loves litter box. Then we get an arc for the quiet girl in the library who occasionally helps them with their problems and while its probably the best of the three arcs its still entirely lacking in purpose. As I said before you could easily skip all of these episodes without losing anything in translation But whether you watch it or not that wont change the fact that immediately afterwards something amazing happens Clannad finally begins to feel like a real story. If youre counting the first season plus OVAs this is around episode 34 and the main character finally begins to develop. You heard me right. No longer does he just exist to surround himself with broken people help fix them and occasionally give us something to feel sorry for him about oh no He grows faces some real flaws and learns some actual lessons. He moves out and into his own apartment supports Nagisa while she repeats her final year of school and gets a job actually having to learn his new trade from the ground up. Hes living with Nagisa all the while pops the question to her and goes through one of my favorite episodes as he tries to get her fathers permission to make the engagement official. Its not perfect but its clearly the best kind of writing the series has to offer. Which is a shame because it all comes crashing down due to her pregnancy. Well lets back it up a bit. Tomoya would be a great character in an anime where the rest of the characters were even close to having as much depth as him. The way it is with Tomoya having this tragic past all of this emotional damage and an entire cast of other characters hanging on his every word constantly reminding himand us how great he is he honestly just feels MarySuish on an almost masturbatory level. He gets an idealized wife because thats all thats left of Nagisa after her play is over leaving her as a straight up anticharacter. Their marriage feels like a couple of kids playing house which might be because they sleep in different beds and NEVER KISS. The moment when she announces her pregnancyin the most infantile way possible is probably the most shocking moment in the whole series. She gives birth and their daughter is the perfectly idealized wellbehaved child who will stay home alone and not get any trouble while her sole caregiver goes through a fulltime workday. I mean sure she goes for walks on her own but thats never addressed as a horribly irresponsible thing for Tomoya to allow. And speaking of Ushio lets get to the one spoiler I have to talk aboutIts not the only one dont worry Ill avoid the others Nagisa dies during childbirth an act Im pretty sure she was written purely for. When this happens Tomoya spirals into depression and hands his daughter off to her grandparents Which we learn after a five year time skip. This is where my appreciation of Tomoya as a character comes crashing down like a plane with a teddy bear on it. Yes I know it hurts to lose someone but wallowing in self pity for five years? I once saw a movie where Kevin James failed to file some important financial paperwork for a year after his wifes death and I called bullshit on that too. If you have children you have a responsibility to those children and if you fail to even attempt to live up to that responsibility I have no sympathy for you. Which would be fine if he were portrayed in an unsympathetic light from then on. I dont mind horrible people in a story as long as theyre recognized as being horrible. But the very idea that after five years Akio never once stormed into Tomoyas apartment to kick the crap out of his selfish ass is completely out of character for him. Even his daughter after a bonding trip thats full of more coincidences than the movie Rat Race has no problem moving from her big house over the bakery into a smaller apartment to be with her strangerdaddy even after undoubtedly forming parental bonds with her doting grandparents. Everyone treats poor Tomoya with an Oh you must have had it tough slap on the back when he deserved a kick in the nuts which destroyed his very real chances of earning my sympathy. So what does this all lead up to? Well harkening back to my last review that depends. To half the viewers it leads to one of the most heartbreaking and then uplifting tragedies of the anime medium. To the other half it leads to emotionally manipulative tripe that barely deserves to lick their feet. I cant really speak to which of these opinions is right Oh wait yes I can because this is my review. The ending of Afterstory is terrible. We get a second tragedy which I wont spoil and while its perfectly set up by the internal logic of the series the punch is soon pulled by a sudden happy ending thats so cheap even people who explicitly understand the dream world logic call bullshit on it. Not only does it directly undermine the muchadored dark tragic tones that everyone likes to sell it on but it backtracks on some of the most important development that Tomoya went through in a way that can easily be compared to the Prince of Persia movie. Yeah try washing THAT analogy out of your mouth. Clannad Afterstory is available from Sentai Filmworks. Much like the first season its available in both DVD and Bluray formats for between the prices of fortyfive and sixty dollars. Each season comes with OVA episodes and there are three of them in this one A story that allegedly takes place right before the beginning of season 1 and two episodes dedicated to the Kyou and Ryou story arc. There are also undubbed DVDs that are somewhat cheaper. Several manga and live action spinoffs have been created but none of them are officially available in the States although theres a petition to translate and import the first visual novel. Earlier I said that Afterstory was better than the original Clannad a statement I still stand by. What I probably should have specified is that better does not equal good and in this case its more a drop in the bucket than a noticeable mark in quality. Really it was only able to pull itself above its predecessor by dropping the harem elements and developing its main character both of which it did way too late and not very well. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind while writing a tragedy is that you cant make the audience like a character just by having bad things happen to them. Rather write them to be interesting beforehand so that we get to like them before those things happen. The only character we get to know on an intimate level is Tomoya and we get to know everybody else through their relationships to him Thus when somebody dies we dont feel as though WEVE lost someone important but instead were expected to feel it through him. Nobody else gets a lover or an interesting job or anything else in the future just Tomoya and while hes a good character by Clannads low standards hes just not good enough to get THAT invested in. I give Clannad Afterstory a 4/10.