Ah, everyone, let’s sit down, it’s time for the weekly Theater Club meeting … ah … uh … everyone, we have to talk about the Clannad movie today … could you quiet …

Hold on Nagisa, let me handle this …

Kotomi, stop trying to burn today’s script!
Akio, stop running around screaming manly phrases!
Ryou, stop blushing so much, the visible steam is making too much noise!
Tomoyo, turn down the beatdown on Youhei for a bit!

I’m sorry, was I being too distracting? It’s his fault that he’s screaming in pain so much.

Mei, stop trying to use your loli charm on anything that moves!
…Uh…Sanae…I think those screams of the damned I keep hearing are coming from your cooking.

NO ONE EVEN USED MY IMAGE IN THE LAST TEAM CLANNAD POST! *runs out crying*

I LOVE YOU THEATER! Wait, no…I WILL ALWAYS STAND UPON SANAE! Damn it … hold on, I’ll be right back.

And Tomoya … Tomoya, Tomoya, Tomoya … I’ve got to deal with you personally, you naughty boy.

Hey, that’s not tsun or dere, that’s just being dirty!

S-stupid Tomoya, it’s not like I was trying to come on to you or anything!

FUUKO’S DETECTING AN OBVIOUS LIE!

Whoa, that’s cool, I didn’t know Fuuko had a lie detector built in.

…yes, I got a speaking role!

HERE, HAVE ONE OF FUUKO’S 37 SENSES!

Uh, guys? On topic? Clannad movie? Review? …OK, Nagisa, you’re with me, we’re on our own now.

Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Kotomi Ichinose, a senior in Class A. My hobby is warning people about spoilers (Huge spoilers, like spoiling After Story, i.e. the second season - I AM NOT KIDDING ABOUT THESE SPOILERS). I would be happy if you could continue to read this post.
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All right everyone, great play we put on their for the Theater Club, now let’s wrap this up with a final reflection on how it all went. Nagisa, you’re the lead character, you start … uh … where’s Nagisa?

Tomoya and her went to go take the trash out by the gym storage locker a long time ago … I wonder if they’re OK?

WHY THOSE~ Uh, Ryou, where did I put my chainsaw?

W-w-weren’t you stripped of your license to use one after the incident with the last thousand fanboys?

Mmm, stripped…

Ah, fine, I’ve got better weapons anyway. I’ll be back in a minute.

(THIS NOT OUT-OF-PLACE INTERJECTION AT ALL INDICATES KYOU IS WHERE NAGISA AND TOMOYA SHOULD BE)

Hmm…the door’s locked. That’s it, then! *clears throat*

S-s-stupid door, it’s not like I wanted to open you or anything!

(Door breaks cleanly in two. Kyou gets duct tape and patches it up cleanly before continuing.)
Ah, Kyou!

ALRIGHT YOU LITTLE HUSSY PUT YOUR PANTS BACK wait what? What’s this?

Look, look! We found this dango farm in the gym storage room and we’ve been entranced with it ever since! Isn’t it just adorable? Dango, dango, dango, dango…

Alright you guys, can we get serious here? We have to do a peer review and we have to get going now. We’re months behind.

Tomoyo? What are you doing here too? (Alright, I get a speaking line!)

Well … I figured … if Tomoya was going to be here so long with Kyou and Nagisa … that I …

FUUKO’S HERE!

No, Fuuko! Go away! You’re killing my deredere Tomoyo fantasies!

(Actual review-like content after the jump … sadly. Also, watch out for spoilers.)
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“Why the heck” I’m not in love with Kyou, maybe?

It must be “The Kyoto Touch” or something. It seems sometimes that everything Kyoto Animation lays their hands on turns to moe. Or gold.

Maybe both.

This magic seems to continue with Clannad, which has recieved pretty universal praise, more so than Kanon or maybe even Haruhi. Naturally, there are still naysayers both of the legitimate and the “it’s cool to hate” kind, but among fans of visual novel / harem anime, Clannad seems to be top-notch, and it’s even snared some of the lighter, slice-of-life fans with a surprising amount of humor for a show of this type.

It’s funny to see something like this happen, because to be honest, for all the praise about how Clannad is different, it’s surprisingly similar to the tried-and-true formula that we’ve seen from Key. I think what really ensnares people, and why I enjoy this show, is not how it really brings much incredibly new to the genre, but rather how it manages to mix together many solid concepts in a way that pushes the buttons of pretty much any viewer that comes within fifty miles of the target audience. It’s pretty much a jack of all trades to me - it’s not a masterpiece, but it spans enough character and plot archetypes that it’s an enjoyable and entertaining watch.

I should note two things here, one being that “pushing buttons” doesn’t always refer to physical turn-ons, and two, that I don’t mean to be saying anything wholly negative about Clannad. I think that the characters are incredibly entertaining and enjoyable, and the story is passable and not completely the “sad girl in stuff” fare that many dislike, but anyone who’s hailing this as the second coming of…the first thing you thought was incredibly godly, is overshooting the mark a bit. (more…)

Clannad is a visual-novel by the famous company Key, turned anime by the famous animators Kyoto Animation. It’s a mix of the same tear-jerking emotion typical of this company and genre, and a large amount of humor that rivals the best comedies, making Clannad a good combination of genres. In this story, we follow nice-guy delinquent Tomoya Okazaki as he becomes friends with Nagisa Furukawa, a soft-spoken but strong girl, and many other interesting characters in his school. These include Fuuko, a strange and small girl who always seems to be at school, Tomoyo, a strong fighter who just wants to be seen as a girl, Kotomi, a socially inept genius with a taste for the violin, and the ever-appealing twins Ryou and Kyou. What secrets do they all hide, starting with Tomoya himself…?

1/26/08: Episode 15
Show ▼

1/20/08: Episode 14
Show ▼

Click here for more information on Track Two.

-CCY

(I like Hisui, but the ol’ line about “So moe I might die” comes to mind)

Moe: is it in your anime, killing your enjoyment?

Recently I’ve been in a bit of despair over Clannad, the third installment in Key’s sad-girls-in-noun series that has been animated by high-quality animation studio Kyoto Animation. By all means, I like to consider myself a Key fanboy (I believe the official term for this is “kagikko”) like the best of them; look up at my banner (might need a couple refreshes, admittedly) or down at my posts, and you’ll see a whole lot of raving, ranting, and allusions to vanilla ice cream, among other catchfoods.

But with the advent of decidedly more real, down-to-earth visual-novel type stories in anime, for example, the highly lauded KimiKiss, it seems that some of Key’s works could almost be growing stagnant. Even other shows with what could be considered mildly moe characters, take a more realistic, balanced view, as the infamous quote in ef - a tale of memories goes: “If the girl is thought to be cute, it means she isn’t being described properly.”

There are a lot of instances of concentrated moe in anime nowadays, but Key works are generally among the genre-leaders in this regard. Just look at Kanon, and Yuuichi’s four childhood friends. Clannad is a bit more even-keeled in terms of characters, but Kotomi’s recent arc is what really tipped the scale for me, and led me to this post.

It made me wonder - is there a sort of divide between moe characters and strong characters? Is a moe character, by definition, one that has to be shallow? Or is this just a false dichotomy?
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Looking back…

And now for the Slowpoke news: we’re in the winter season.

I’m still stuck in the past, not because of any traumatic accidents which have permanently scarred me and/or my memory, but because the fall season is arguably a much more robust season than the winter ones, at least in terms of new shows.

Especially for a visual novel slash romance slash restricted rock-paper-scissors fan like me, there were a lot of shows that were very appealing; many of them, despite being in tried and tired genres, brought a lot of fresh concepts to the table.

And what’s interesting about this, is that unlike in the summer season, a lot of the most promising shows didn’t close out at twelve episodes. Those that did, were strong shows, no doubt, but many more than that have been promised at least 20-odd episodes, double the goodness if they can keep the pace up.

As such, the winter watchlist is turning out to be strangely familiar. There are plenty of carryover shows on the list, and those that are new shows to 2008 are mostly sequels in some way or form (Zoku SZS, Minami Okawari). Not to leave a bad impression of the winter season - but there aren’t any names of new shows that really stand out from it.

This doesn’t equate with ‘no good shows’, per se - some of my favorite fall shows have been ones that have been completely off the radar - but going off the blog reactions so far, there hasn’t been a standout show that absolutely blows people away, that came out of nowhere and delivered the awesome. Undoubtedly there probably will be, but for now I’m content with surviving off both fresh old shows, and some true classics that are burning a hole in my DVD collection. Today, I’ll take a look at what we have to expect from some of the shows coming into their second cour in 2008.
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I just want an excuse to use the word “threesome” in the ‘wrong’ way again.

In all seriousness though this season’s crop of anime is looking very promising for any harem/visual novel show lovers, with at least four shows out there that look to impress.

In the four corners we’ve got:
Clannad, the 500 Pound Moe Gorilla,
Da Capo II, the Never-Dying,
Myself;Youself, the Newcomer,
and ef, a.k.a. Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film (because it hasn’t been subbed yet).

Luckily the subs for the shows have been very speedy as well so I can offer first impressions on the first three of this batch, and if there’s one thing I can say about them it’s that, despite all technically being visual novel anime, they all feel like they have a different approach to the genre.

It’s not the world-upside-down approach to the harem genre like School Days, by any regards, but certainly each show has a different feel and creates different expectations. It looks like the next 3 months or so will have a lot of tense spamming-refresh-waiting-for-subs moments…

(No spoilers for anything past the first episodes ahead but I might hint vaguely at past anime of the same genre)
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