StrikerS was polarizing too, with the radicals dismissing it and saying it sucked while the fundies were going “it’s FINE WTF”, etc. I was in the latter camp, obviously. Same thing with SnS II right now. It seems like StrikerS in the sense that people pose expectations on it and declare that they never watched it for the harem dorama et al, but who are they kidding? While SnS has its epic fights, they’re not everything the show has to offer.

Funny how everyone tends to forget that while fights are indeed one of the draws of SnS, removing this current harem predicament means that they develop a total of zilch from the first season. Ditto StrikerS and their TRAINING HAPPENS. If I wanted to watch a fighting anime that had minimal character development I’d go read some Dragonball Z manga. The anime Anglosphere has never been one for much thought anyway, though… :|

I wasn’t really going anywhere with the dandelions because there’s just too little we know about to guess anything concrete at the moment. If I were to warrant a guess I’d say that, assuming the magical world isn’t an elaborate metaphor, that the town they live in has ties to the “other world” that crosses over occasionally, like with the dandelions, which serve as visual cues. I’m grasping at straws here, though.

It ties in perfectly with Kanon’s theme, in any case; the town wasn’t exactly normal or anything given the magical hill and stuff. Key isn’t showing any subtley with Ayu Mach II here, so why not recycle Kanon’s setting while you’re at it? At least that’s how I look at it, but I’ll be damned if it really turns out to be a figurative and not literal magical world — that’s far above and beyond what I thought Clannad could be, heh.

Tomoya’s father really does play a prominent part in the story, at least from what I can gather. I’ve seen what appears to be fanart of him together with (SPOILERS), although it’s not that big a deal since I figured he’d eventually be (SPOILERS). You get the idea. They’ll focus on him somewhere later in the series, probably around Nagisa’s arc is my best guess.

Oh, and about D.C. — maybe sometime in the future. I plan ahead, even for my backlogs! Present tense backlog currently standing at 35 hours, which is good since I’ve made quite some progress over the 50 odd hours last month. :D Speaking of which, I totally added Princess Tutu to that after reading bateszi’s review.

M;Y: Was tempted but somehow Shuri doesn’t give off ‘competitor’ vibes, and I can’t make a case for her like Aoi. I’d probably slot her around Hinako’s rank.

Although, sometimes I wonder why the ED features Nanaka, Asami, and Shuri. The three main competitors?

SnS II: I don’t know. It’s really taking some hard hits that it might not recover from, with a lot of people dropping it or at the least whining a lot. LS was more polarizing than Shana II (i.e. there were rabid fanatics and the haters), while Shana II seems to be turning off (or at least frustrating) a lotal of loyal fans.

Also note that I still haven’t seen StrikerS. :P

D.C.: Trying to not-spoiler this would be hopeless, which should give you an idea of the content. Incidentally, I’m surprised you want to remain unspoiled, since that would mean you would consider watching D.C. :P

Anyway, (implicit spoilers that you could probably already figure out from my wording and some logic)

It’d be a bad bet to root for any of the Shirakawa bloodline in the D.C. series.

(end implicit spoilers)

Clannad: Yeah, haven’t seen the trailer, guess it’s a good thing.

The problem with me guessing the dead character is that I’d probably get my own interests (character-wise) mixed up with the important characters. They could kill off anyone to me and it’d probably be MAX SADITUDE.

Regardless, I reserve rights to point fingers at characters for the next 15 episodes and shout “Dead (wo)man walking!”

Re Bad End 2: That’s awesome. XD If only KyoAni did alternate endings / outtakes (a la Shanatan).

So, the magical world wouldn’t be ‘real’ per se? Not sure where you’re going with the dandelions, but I might as well add that wasn’t there a shot of dandelions in Kotomi’s part of the OP? (also, Nagisa face-first in snow, some kid running, other person face-first in grass, random camera shaking, violin player Kotomi, Bear Tomoyo, bouncy Kyou, perfect health Sunohara, Nagisa in Shiori getup, a billion other side characters, and Phoenix Wright Fuuko. Man, I love how at the end of the series you can go back to the OP and it finally makes sense.)

M;Y: No odds for Shuri? ):

kimikiss: If those in charge decide to make it safe and frilly, you can bet that Mao x Kai and Kouichi x Yuumi will be the final couples. It would be great to have some Mao x Kouichi for some grand tension and DORAMA, but eh.

SnS II: The odds for people considering Shana II awesome at the end of the series should be somewhat lower, maybe a range between the odds of Lucky Star and Nanoha StrikerS.

D.C. II: I don’t get the Shirakawa reference. Any try-not-to-spoiler-as-much-as-possible help here?

Minami-ke: I think I laughed non-stop for most of the game scenes. Had slight chest pains later. Agreed on their deserving the Good End bit.

Clannad: Do not watch the movie trailer. If I haven’t told you already (I think I might have). I’ve basically forgotten most of it since I watched it before watching the TV series and months before at that, but on retrospective it’s a freaking spoiler, probably one of the Bad Ends that I looked up on the Clannad translation wiki.

If your Key knowledge is anything to go by, you should already have an inkling or guess of who they’re going to kill off for MAXIMISED SADNESS! Or maybe not. I’m not 100% sure that the spoiler I heard was a true spoiler, but if the Clannad Bad End 1 and movie trailer is anything to go by, well.. stay away from the damn trailer. And try not to think of MAXIMISED SADNESS. Fuuko doesn’t count, though, she was already dead. Well, coma, same difference. Hur hur.

Speaking of which, Bad End 2 in the game is indeed the Yaoi End, and it ends with Tomoya trying to kiss Sunohara after saying all manner of suggestive, over the top shit, mostly involving the lack of clothes. I was joking on IRC the other day that if KyoAni does that, it will be the mother of all epic endings. Needless to say, this will happen only if Hideaki Annoh or some likeminded nutjob took over, but yeah.

I have a theory that the magical world is really a metaphor for Nagisa bringing Tomoya out of his tough, cynical, beaten up shell. The dandelions have something to do with it, if it wasn’t evident already, but that’s all the guesswork I’m mustering for now. Still bloody paranoid of spoilers.