Clannad ~After Story~ (Anime) Review

Nagisa: "Do you like this school?"

Tomoya: "..."

Nagisa: "I really, really love it. But nothing can stay unchanged."

Tomoya (internal monologue): A girl I've never seen before. The words weren't directed at me. She must be talking to someone in her heart.

Nagisa: "Fun things... happy things... They can't all possibly stay unchanged. Even so, can you keep on loving this place?"

Tomoya: "Just find them."

(Nagisa, startled, turns to face Tomoya. They look at each other for the first time.)

Tomoya: "Just find new fun and happy things. C'mon, let's get going."

Tomoya (internal monologue): We start to walk up... the long... long... uphill climb.

If you have known me personally for quite some time, then you might have heard me gush over this show like no other. I’ve sung my praises time and time again, I’ve listed it as my favorite anime of all time, and most of all? I’ve labeled it as a masterpiece. I laughed, I cried, and this was the show that had genuinely changed my perspective on life. It’s not every day that you can come across an anime that can do all three.

However, it has been three years since I last watched the show (Except for maybe a few clips here and there on the internet), but my memories of this show never wavered. Then again, it has been three years already. After all this time and especially as my personal favorite anime show of all time, I felt like I had to rewatch the show to give it my most honest review. Now, does it still hold up?

Before you continue reading, ‘Clannad ~After Story~’ is a sequel to Kyoto Animation’s anime series ‘Clannad’ which first aired back in 2007. Knowledge of the first series is highly recommended to get the most out of this show and this review, but if you cannot wait or spare your time for the first then it is totally fine.

*For simplicity’s sake after this point, I’ll refer to ‘Clannad ~After Story~’ as ‘After Story’.

After Story’s… Er… story is arguably nothing new. But it’s one of the best parts of the show overall. It’s not that the story itself is unique, and it’s not that it’s revolutionary. But rather how it was done. By all means, if you dropped the first season because it was nothing but a harem show to you, then I strongly urge you to give After Story a chance.

After Story shows the story of a life of Tomoya Okazaki as he grows up into a man. A life of love, a life of laughs, a life of pain, and ultimately, a life of hope. It’s a slice of life. A slice of the life of a man who is having struggles with his own life and the people he wants to protect when everything goes awry.

KyoAni nailed the points of what makes life the way it is. The true meaning of “life goes on”, and that time always marches on. After Story takes some time after the point first season ended, and chooses to focus on the main character and the smaller group of people who are much more important and close to him. This is what a lot of stories rarely show or represent properly: the story after the story.

Are you looking for a happy and upbeat anime from start to finish? Then this anime is not for you. KyoAni did a lot of things with After Story that’ll evoke different emotions from you. It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you happy. It’ll make you cry. And oh boy, it’ll make you cry a lot. It’ll even make you smile and cry in the same scene. Despite the depressing tonal shift in the last third of the show, KyoAni still manages to make you laugh or smile through all the tears.

If there’s one thing I really love about After Story, then it’ll be the characters themselves. This is undeniably the strongest part of After Story. When the first season had a remarkably large cast of colorful and likable characters, After Story trims down the main list of characters down to Tomoya, his wife Nagisa, her parents Akio and Sanae, and arguably Tomoya’s best friend Sunohara (who is oddly enough absent during the last third of the show). The other heroines of the first season are still present however, but their amount of screen time has been drastically reduced to give way for the people I mentioned.

After Story has some of the best character development I've seen across all media. Tomoya begins the story similar to his state during the end of the first season. A delinquent who is unsure of what to do in his life. After Story breaks him down. He is destined to go through pain and suffering in his life, no matter what he does. A fatal hero, some might call him.

What also After Story did really well for me, was that it got me to like, if not love, characters that I used to dislike or were indifferent to in the first season. Major points go to Nagisa, the girl Tomoya ultimately chose to have a relationship with at the end of the first season. She has become a much more likable character this time around, and her parents are even better here. Remember how they were the plucky comic relief characters in the first season? Here, they're Tomoya and Nagisa's major source of support through their life together (Especially in the former's case in the latter half of the show).

The stories Tomoya made with the people he connected with got me to rethink of the situations of the people I knew from day to day. With these stories in mind, they can help the watcher come to respect him. I probably won’t last through the stuff he had to go through, but I genuinely respect the fact that he kept going. Through his pain, I learned more of myself. Through the struggles of the people around him, I grew to forgive and respect the people I had once hated. 

Every episode had me on the edge of my seat. Many episodes leaving me close to tearing up, if not outright bawling my eyes out. Not a lot of shows can do this to me, but I continued to watch it. Even when I knew that each episode from then on can have a ticking time bomb somewhere in it. I continued to enjoy the show, and I continued to cry and laugh with the characters as the episodes ran. While I have watched shows before that were tear jerkers for me, these shows always somehow seemed to force the viewer in to a position where they had to cry. For After Story however, this is real and you really feel it, emotions are not forced.

I feel like I have to note this however. The OST is amazing. However, there is one piece of music which stands out, for the wrong reasons. OP is one of the best at its time (And still is to this day), and while the ED is good, it's a major mood whiplash on some episodes. 'Torch' by Lia is an upbeat and generally happy song all around. This isn't a bad thing, but the thing is, it is used in every episode of the show barring the last. Some episodes can have you close to tearing up if not you're bawling your eyes out already, then this song pops up. It kills the mood and can ruin your experience of the show. They could have at least removed the ED during those episodes, or played the other ED song they had 'Chiisana Te no Hira', also by Lia. Many consider 'Torch' unnecessary, and sadly I agree.

People might think that having a story of a fictional character influence a person’s life is crazy and/or stupid. But the thing is, Tomoya’s story moved me. It had me rethink myself and my situation time and time again. It shows how even a simple story can make a big impact with the right direction. Clannad ~After Story~ is a masterpiece and I will continue to sing my praises for this show for as long as I live.