Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Clannad: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Sweet but slow.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 26, 2011

High school is never an easy time, as anyone with a long memory or teenage kids of their own will attest. Hormones are raging, cliques are omnipresent, social graces hard to come by, and an overall general awkwardness seems to accompany even the simplest tasks. The social strata of high school life have been a subject rife for exploitation in all manner of artistic endeavor, and anime is certainly no stranger to this propensity. Countless animes have documented high school life, sometimes whimsically, sometimes seriously, sometimes a combination of the two. Clannad (how odd that this franchise shares a name with one of the most iconic Celtic bands of all time, though truth be told the series is often transliterated with an apostrophe as Cl'annad) probably falls into the last category. Clannad started life in the early 2000s as a “visual novel,” a computer based program that allowed viewers-readers to work through various story arcs, kind of like those books (remember those?) of yore where you could choose which way the plot went at certain points and turned to the appropriate page to keep that particular storyline going, but could later return to that nexus and make another decision and experience a different “reality.” Clannad was an instant sensation in Japan despite its rather slim story. Key, the software company releasing the title, had actually made its fortune and reputation with more, ahem, “adult” titles which featured dating storylines which usually had a relatively hardcore hentai aspect, but Clannad was their first all ages offering (Key had re-released some of their adult fare in “cleaned up” versions, but Clannad was their first title designed as an all ages release from the get go). Much like the adult oriented fare, Clannad posited various characters who might or might not develop romantic relationships, but this being high school, and the title being an all ages affair, there was no down and dirty intimacy involved. Why this particular title became such a sensation is anyone’s guess, but it didn’t take a genius to realize there was multimedia moolah to be made from it, and it didn’t take long before the first computer based software was ported over to various game systems and from there a whole variety of enterprises appeared, including mangas, a full length animated feature film, and this anime series. While the television outing may not have been the overwhelming success that the original software release was, it attained a certain cult appeal that has spread over the globe, resulting in rather impressive sales for the DVD releases. Now Clannad makes its Blu-ray debut on this three disc set which includes the entire series as well as the “after story” OVA.

Anyone who has already completed their high school years will remember there were long hours spent staring at the second hand of the clock lurching around the clock face, as hopes for an end to that period or the school day diminished click by click. There’s something strangely similar in Clannad, as this is one slow series, one that pads its inherently slim storyline with lugubriously developing plot arcs, especially as we’re given back stories on several characters. The main character in the series is high school boy Tomoya Okazaki, a maladjusted kid who is in a perpetual state of the doldrums (much like any normal teenager), disappointed with the routine nature of his schooldays. Tomoya has few if any friends and is seen as a proto-delinquent in school. Clannad begins with Tomoya’s voice over narration lamenting his lot in life, but he soon meets Nagisa Furukawa, a soft spoken girl who it turns out has been quite ill for a lengthy spell and is thus repeating her senior year in high school. Nagisa is a sweet if overly shy girl seemingly utterly lacking in any self-confidence and she has an odd habit, depicted in the first scene of Clannad, of softly muttering the names of foods she likes, something perhaps based on the fact that her family owns and operates a bakery. The slowly developing relationship between Tomoya and Nagisa provides the focal point around which most of Clannad unfolds.

Nagisa’s main goal in school is to re-start the dormant Drama Club, something that may remind some anime fans of the somewhat similar plot contrivance in K-On!, where a group of girls is attempting to resurrect their school’s Light Music Club. Nagisa recruits Tomoya to help her, and soon Tomoya meets two other likely recruits, a super-smart girl named Kotomi Ichinose, a student who seems to do pretty much perfectly at everything she attempts, and Fuko Ibuki, a strange first year girl who seems to be the polar opposite of Kotomi and who it turns out has a bit of a secret in her past. Two more girls enter the fray in the personages of twins Ryou and Kyou. Kyou is a Type A personality with aggression to spare, while Ryou is more introspective and submissive. Throughout Clannad’s episodes, Tomoya interacts with all of these girls and tends to find out interesting facts about their backgrounds, usually including some problem or issue each one of them has, leading to Tomoya helping them achieve some sort of psychological breakthrough or closure (something that was part and parcel of the original Visual Novel undertaking, where Tomoya's success in helping any individual character led to the conclusion of that particular storyline).

The underlying sweetness of Clannad is firmly rooted on a very simple but powerful idea, namely that a support system can help even the most disparate characters find their way in life. While it’s true that Clannad has few if any really exciting elements about it, it’s very static approach tends to simply magnify Tomoya’s discontent with the “same old, same old” of life in general, and in its own subtle way, the series manages to eke out a redolent message about being okay with that routine—that it’s actually the relationships within that routine that are important. It should be noted that there are a couple of odd supernatural elements that do crop up in the series, especially in the patently odd series closer OVA, which posits a whole alternate universe where a couple of main characters have decidedly different arcs.

Clannad: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Clannad is presented on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks with a very appealing AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. (Some early broadcasts of Clannad cropped the show to 1.33:1, but this is its correct aspect ratio). This is one of the more beautiful animes in recent memory, with gorgeous colors, excellent character design and some real attention paid to backgrounds and environments, including some that are a very cool sort of painted photo-realism. All sorts of nice effects are utilized throughout the series, including lovely moments like cherry blossoms floating in the breeze or even CGI elements that are nicely blended into the hand animated elements. Colors are really vivid and run the gamut from softer pastels to bright primaries. Line detail is exceptional throughout this presentation and some of the lighting effects are incredibly evocative. The good news about all of this is even when the story in Clannad is less than invigorating (which, believe me, it is), there are a lot of really pretty visuals to at least keep the eye entertained.

Clannad: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aside from the differences in language, the Japanese and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless surround tracks are virtually identical in terms of mix, so the choice of which one to listen to should boil down mostly to whether you're an original language purist or if you don't mind or can't stand reading subtitles. Voice work on both of these tracks is very good to excellent, though the English voice cast sounds a bit older than does the Japanese one. This is not the most bombastic sound mix ever created, as befits Clannad's somewhat smaller scale ambitions, but fidelity is excellent and decent if not overwhelming surround activity crops up with fair regularity. The series has a beautiful opening theme and its first season has one of the most patently odd closing themes (with attendant weird animation) in recent memory, both of which sound great on both of the lossless audio options.

Clannad: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (HD; 1:32)
• Clean Closing Animation (HD; 1;32)

Clannad: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Clannad takes some patience, as it is a slow, deliberate and delicate anime that doesn't bash the viewer over the head with bombast or nonstop excitement. But if you settle into its more temperate rhythm, there's a lot to enjoy here. The drama is never too melodramatic and the humor is gentle and even goofy at times. The best thing about the series from a casual standpoint is its gorgeous visual presentation, which pops exquisitely on this new Blu-ray set. The series has a devoted fan base all over the world, and those people will be thrilled to add this to their collection. For others not that familiar with the Clannad franchise, the best advice is probably to take a deep breath and just relax, and then let the series unfold at its own pace. Recommended.