Clannad (computer game)

Clannad ( Japanese クラナド , Kuranado ) is a Ren'ai adventure gamecreatedby the game developer Key ,which inherited from successful titles such as Kanon and Air . The game, published in April 2004, was Key's first work to break with the long tradition of erotic content and was not conceivedas a game for adults ( eroge )from the start. It thus moved further away from the roots of the genre and put its focus even further on the actual narrative. The player slips into the role of the student Tomoya Okazaki and experiences a story with limited possibilities for interaction , which is based on predetermined scenarios. The real attraction of the game should be the five main female characters, with whom the player enters into a profound relationship.

In the course of the success of the PC implementation, the adventure was also ported to the PlayStation 2 , PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360 platforms. Clannad has also been adapted through a variety of other media. The game as well as the anime version posted high sales figures within Japan and reached number one on the Japanese sales charts several times.

Game mechanics

Typical appearance of Japanese adventure games

As is typical for Japanese adventure games , the game consists mainly of dialogues that the player reads. At irregular intervals the player who slips into the role of the student Tomoya Okazaki can choose from different answers or questions that steer the game or the conversation in a certain direction. Due to the very low level of interaction, it is debatable whether this type of adventure game should even be called a "game", since it is more like an interactive novel. In the first versions of the game, the characters were not set to music. This forced the player to read every text to be able to follow the plot. Only with the revised version for the PlayStation 2 was the voice output for all characters added. An exception to this was the role of the player and protagonist Tomoya, which is quite common for Japanese adventure games. So the player should feel more involved in the action.

The game is optically presented in predominantly light and warm colors. Lush green meadows and blooming cherry trees determine the appearance of the mostly static background images, which has been used again and again as an optical design element since works like Sailor Moon and is supposed to be an integral part of Japanese culture . During dramatic scenes or scenes with a hint of action, a different color palette and music were used to emphasize the corresponding impression. The focus is on the characters, whose drawings show the typical style elements of Manga and Anime . In addition, there is a drawing style typical of the artist Itaru Hinoue , in which the nose is a short distance from the mouth and the large, round eyes are very far apart. Like the backgrounds, the presentation of the characters is static and two-dimensional. Simple transition effects are used to switch between the individual scenes, which are limited to fading in and out of elements, scrolling and simple rotations. In conversations with several characters, these are faded in and out and their facial features are animated to a very limited extent.

Clannad is basically divided into two larger story stages - life in school and life after. So initially only the school section can be played until the player has completed it. The After Story section is then also available. For this to happen, the player has to collect eight ghost spots within the first act , which are comparable to glowing fireflies . School life focuses on the protagonist's senior year, who comes into contact with a variety of characters. The plot places particular emphasis on the portrayal of the five main female characters, of which Nagisa Furukawa plays the most important role. For the development of the game story, five essential paths are available, each of which is tailored to one of the students, but also branching out. In the second act Nagisa takes on the almost sole leading role, in which she and Tomoya form a pair of lovers who will be accompanied for the next ten years. In order to achieve a positive end to the game, the player must collect a total of 13 of the "ghost spots", otherwise the action ends with a "bad ending", as a result of which both Nagisa and, some time later, her child die due to congenital physical weakness. In contrast to many games of this type, it is not possible to unlock erotic content through certain combinations of answers, as Clannad was tailored from the beginning to an audience of all ages and no such scenes exist.

Altogether there are about thirteen story threads that the player can follow by playing several times. Reaching one of these "ends" requires an approximate playing time of 100 hours. With a total of 62,830 lines of text (excluding supporting roles), Clannad was, according to Yūto Tonokawa, the most extensive game by Key at the time, but it was from the successor Little Busters! Ecstasy was outbid by about 4,000 words.

action

Location and themes

Clannad takes place almost entirely within a fictional city in Japan. In the first story arc, a high school that is attended by the protagonist is the focus. In addition to the school, its premises, classrooms and hallways, the small bakery owned by Nagisa's parents and the dormitory in which Tomoya's friend Yōhei is staying serve as central locations. In the after-story section, the school is rarely the focus of events. In return, new places of action are added, such as the small, shared apartment of Tomoya and Nagisa or their workplaces. Parallel to this fictional but realistically depicted world there is another one that is repeatedly presented in short sections. Apart from a single girl, there is no other human life in it. So it is forced to build a robot from leftovers lying around, which comes to life. The player takes on the role of the mechanical figure, but cannot speak. In many of the previous games by Key and the developer Tactics, there are parallel worlds that usually connect when a person dies or in particularly tragic moments.

Thematically, Clannad attaches particular importance to the importance of a family. According to Jun Maeda , one of the main authors, the title of the series should mean “family” in Irish. However, he mistakenly held the name of the band Clannad for the Irish word for "family" or "clan", from which it is only derived. From the Irish as well as from the Welsh language further terms were adopted, which are mainly reflected in the music of the game and its parallel world. The opening title was named Mag Mell , the "plane (meaning realm) of joy", the earthen paradise of Irish mythology .

Of the six main characters, Tomoya, Nagisa and Kotomi have no siblings. As a result, they tend to focus more on their relationship with their parents, while the other characters focus on their relationship with their siblings. The only exception here is Tomoyo, where reference is made to the entire family. The Nagisa family, which, according to Maeda, was intended to be the “perfect family” and is presented accordingly, is of particular importance. During the events around Nagisa, the Dango Daikazoku ( だんご大家族 , dt. "Large family of Dangos ", a fictional mascot series for children ) appear again and again , with whom she is infatuated and accordingly can never get or collect enough of them. This fits in with the concept that Tomoya and Nagisa will accompany the characters on their “growing up” journey until the end of the story.

Characters

In the game, the player takes on the role of Tomoya Okazaki , a senior high school student. Tomoya is initially a rebellious student. He has little interest in school. He hates the city and his own life. His comments are very direct and he does not shy away from expressing his opinion, even if other people find this rude over and over again. Nevertheless, Tomoya is loyal to his friends and works almost unconditionally for their goals. In general, he has a very selfless personality that doesn't ask much from others in return. He thus fulfills the typical clichés of the protagonist in a Japanese adventure game .

“In Clannad, the protagonist is 17 year-old Tomoya Okazaki, a teen delinquent from a broken family; his mother died in a car accident when he was young, and a fight with his abusing father led to a serious injury, crashing his aspirations for a career in basketball. Such backgrounds are common for protagonists in many works. "

“The protagonist of Clannad is 17-year-old Tomoya Okazaki, a defiant youth from a broken family; His mother died in a car accident when he was young and he got into a fight with his abusive father that resulted in a serious injury that shattered his ambitions for a career in basketball. Such backgrounds are typical of the protagonist in many works. "

- Oren Ronen

Right at the beginning, Tomoya met the main female character Nagisa Furukawa by chance on the way to school . She is a reserved, shy girl with very low self-confidence who therefore always depends on the support of others. Often alone and ill for a long time due to her inherently weak physical condition, she took the habit of mumbling the names of her favorite foods before consuming them. At school Tomoya meets a number of girls he has known for a long time. They include the aggressive and mostly bad-intentioned Kyō Fujibayashi , who is well known among her friends as a good cook. Very easily angry and quick to use violence, she does not hesitate to toss at other people a dictionary that she seems to be carrying around for precisely this purpose. Despite this wild species, she also has a much quieter side, which she shows especially towards her younger sister Ryō Fujibayashi . Ryō is much more cautious than Kyō and believes that she can use maps to predict the future, even though these predictions never actually come true.

Tomoyo Sakagami as a motif on another Itasha at the 14th Fancy Frontier ACG Exhibition

In the school library he meets the intelligent, but also quite unworldly Kotomi Ichinose . She is said to be among the ten best students in the country and often visits the library purely out of interest, where she spends most of her time reading foreign-language books. However, her calm manner and unworldliness make it difficult to communicate with her, as she also seems to ignore everything around her when she is absorbed in a book. The fourth main character from Clannad is Tomoyo Sakagami . She changed schools at the beginning of the plot and is in her second year. Similar to Kyō, she can be extremely aggressive and is described as a strong fighter who used to be involved in gang fights. Even though Tomoya is a year older than her, she shows him no respect.

The last protagonist is the naive student Fūko Ibuki from the first year, who tries to distance herself from the other students as much as possible and, according to the plot, is actually a spirit that wanders between the two parallel worlds. Before Tomoya's attention is drawn to her, she spends most of the time carving starfish out of wood, which she gives away as an invitation to her older sister's wedding. In general, she is extremely fascinated by the shape of these stars and tends to lapse into a dream state in which she ignores all events around her.

Narrative sections

The senior year

Tomoya looks back on a number of formative events in his childhood. His mother Atsuko died shortly after he was born, so that his father Naoyuki had to raise him alone. Overwhelmed by this, he fell into alcohol and gambling addiction , which led to recurring arguments with his son. One day they both clashed so hard that Naoyuki threw Tomoya against the wall and injured his shoulder, which still restricts the mobility of his arm. Since that incident, his father thought about it, was much nicer, but also aloof, which makes both seem like unfamiliar roommates and not like family. In order to avoid running into his father's path as much as possible, Tomoya often stays away from home at night, thereby earning the reputation of a drifter. Due to his injury, he has to quit the basketball club, which further isolates him at school. Yōhei Sunohara, who was thrown from the football club after a dispute , suffered a similar fate in sporting and school terms . Because of their similarities, the two immediately become likeable and become close friends who spend most of their time together.

The actual plot begins on the fictional April 14, 2003, when Tomoya is on the way to school on the first day of the third grade. In doing so, he comes across Nagisa Furukawa, who is undecided by the roadside and whom he finds unusual but interesting. Clinging on his heels, Nagisa can bring herself to go to school. She is already a year older than him and has to repeat her last year of school because of a long-term illness. In addition to graduation, she has set herself the goal of participating in the theater club. However, she soon finds that the theater club has been dissolved or has no members after all of her old friends had graduated from school. Since Tomoya has nothing better to do anyway, he offers to help Nagisa to revive the theater club. During this time he meets the other students again and again, whom he gets to support Nagisa's endeavors. He gets to know these girls better and helps them solve their problems.

After story

In the second section, After Story , which follows seamlessly from the first part but spans a period of ten years, Tomoya and Nagisa live together as a family in their own apartment. Up until that day, both of them had to go through a hard time together, because shortly before graduation, Nagisa fell seriously ill again and was unable to graduate again. When her situation improved again, two years later she was able to graduate from school with Tomoyo. In the meantime Tomoya had moved from home and started an apprenticeship as an electrician . Despite his handicap , he is committed to his profession and makes himself very popular with the company management. When the two of them were already living together, he was offered a promotion, but he turned it down because he didn't want to leave the city he once hated.

The next big step in their relationship is having a child together. Despite initial concerns from Nagisa's parents and the doctors, they both decide they want to give birth to their daughter Ushio in their apartment. Ultimately, however, their parents persuade them to give birth to the child in the hospital because they are particularly concerned about the weak Nagisa. Unfortunately, the child arrives prematurely and a simultaneous snowstorm makes it impossible to reach the hospital. Nagisa only gives birth to Ushio with the support of Tomoya, her parents and a midwife. Still hearing her daughter's first screams, she dies from the hardships of childbirth. Tomoya is so upset by this that he falls back to the state he was before the first meeting with Nagisa and shows behavior analogous to that of his father. So he gives up his job and is unable to devote himself to Ushio. Meanwhile she grows up with Nagisa's parents Sanae and Akio. In order not to hurt her, Tomoya is introduced to her as a relative. When Ushio reached the age of about five, Nagisa's parents made an attempt to bring Tomoya together with his daughter. After initial difficulties, Tomoya finally recognizes Ushio as his child, whereupon he seems to be recovering. But even this luck does not last long, because Ushio inherited the same weak physical condition from Nagisa and dies after a long illness on a last desired excursion in his arms.

When Tomoya is no longer able to cope with this pressure, he falls into a kind of dream state and finds himself, as in his previous dreams, in the illusory world ( 幻想世界 , Gensō Sekai ). He takes on the part of the creature assembled from scraps, while the older Ushio takes on the role of the lonely girl. As a result, reborn in the parallel world, they try to escape the onset of cold together there. However, when they fail and the girl threatens to freeze to death, she tells him that he still has another chance to put things right. To do this, he should collect the ghost spots - symbols of joy that appear in particularly happy moments. If he has been able to collect enough of it in the prehistory and in the last section, Nagisa survives the hardships of her birth and they can continue to live with Ushio as a happy family.

Origin and publications

development

Shortly after the completion of Key 's second Adventure Air , which was marketed very successfully, Jun Maeda , the main author of both games, began to forge the first plans for another game title. According to his own admission, he was mainly driven by the thought that he would not have fully reached the audience with Air . Already during the first steps in the development of Clannad, this led to the fact that the authors tried to write a plot that could appeal to the widest possible audience. This time, the focus was on a deep relationship between people and the city around them, as well as the humanity of the actors.

In the background of the development, Takahiro Baba from Visual Art’s pulled the strings, whose company supported the developers with the necessary equipment, as with Kanon and Air , but took over the marketing in return. The plot was worked out by Keys Jun Maeda, Kai and Yūichi Suzumoto . They took over the main part and were additionally supported by Tōya Okano in the secondary scenarios. Itaru Hinoue took over the artistic direction , who also worked out the design of the characters and gave them a style typical of them. She was supported by Miracle Mikipon, Mochisuke, Na-Ga and Shinory, who made the computer graphics, while Torino took over the production of the background graphics. The music for the game was mainly created by composers Shinji Orito and Magome Togoshi , with Jun Maeda also contributing to some of the pieces and lyrics.

While production progressed quickly at first, the developers finally reached their limits when the plot had meanwhile doubled and grew to a level that Maeda had not foreseen. Suzumoto attributed this to the structure of the plot, which tended to get deeper and deeper, which encouraged increasingly complex side stories. However, this wasn't the only problem during the creation process. There was much more doubt that, despite the initial goal , Clannad would be too much like Air . In particular, the story part of Nagisa was felt to be too long, which reinforces the similarity to the overweight story of Misuzu Kamio . For this reason Maeda should have spoken out in favor of making the first part of the plot - school life - as comprehensive, interesting and moving as possible. Based on this, Clannad became the longest work by Key to date, containing more than 62,830 lines of text in Japanese script , with the exception of this number of texts by insignificant characters.

In contrast to its predecessors, Clannad should have an inventory for items, as is usual in a western adventure game. However, since this would have made both development and the game itself more difficult and would distract the player from the content, this function was dropped and replaced in a greatly simplified form by the ghost spots . The great development effort and the associated problems delayed the release of almost two years after the game was originally planned for 2002.

music

The game has four theme songs that are repeatedly themed. These are the opening credits Mag Mell ( メグメル , dt. "Level of joy"), the credits -Kage Futatsu- ( - 影二つ - , dt. "Two shadows"), the intermediate piece Ana and the credits of the second plot section Chiisana Tenohira ( 小さなてのひら , Eng. "Small palm"). The opening credits and both closing credits were interpreted by Riya from eufonius , the intermediate piece by Lia from I've Sound . In addition, there were their own background melodies for the five main female characters Nagisa, Kyō, Kotomi, Tomoyo and Fūko, as well as for Yukine Miyazawa . The pieces used were in accordance with this order Nagisa ( 渚 ) Sore wa Kaze no yo ni ( それは風のように , dt. "This is like the wind"), Étude pour les petites supercordes (dt. "Study of small superstrings " ), Kanojo no Honki ( 彼女の本気 , dt. "Your seriousness"), Hurry Starfish ( は～りぃすたーふぃしゅ , dt. "Hurry up starfish") and Shiryōshitsu no Ochakai ( 資料室のお茶会 , German "Tea party in the school library"). The pieces, which were later taken up again in numerous remixes, were composed by Shinji Orito , Magome Togoshi and partly by the writer of the song lyrics Jun Maeda .

synchronization

Only the later reprints had a full voice output, but the protagonist Tomoya remained silent. He was the only main character in the adaptations to be set to music by different speakers, while the other main characters retained their original speakers within the adaptations. Mention should be made here of Kentarō Itō , who spoke Tomoya on the DVD enclosed with the PlayStation 2 game within a radio play.

role	Japanese speaker ( seiyū )	role	Japanese speaker
Nagisa Furukawa	Mai Nakahara	Kyō Fujibayashi	Ryō Hirohashi
Kotomi Ichinose	Mamiko Noto	Tomoyo Sakagami	Hoko Kuwashima
Fūko Ibuki	Ai Nonaka	Ryō Fujibayashi	Akemi Kanda
Yukine Miyazawa	Atsuko Enomoto	Yōhei Sunohara	Daisuke Sakaguchi
Mei Sunohara	Yukari Tamura	Akio Furukawa	Ryotaro Okiayu
Sanae Furukawa	Kikuko Inoue

Publications

The game was first announced in 2001 with an unspecified release date in 2002. However, the release was delayed several times and so Clannad only appeared on April 28, 2004 in a limited edition for the PC on DVD-ROM . The regular version of the game was released two months later on August 6, 2004 for the same price. Both versions did not include speech output for the characters.

A first porting to the PlayStation 2 was carried out by Interchannel and offered for sale from February 23, 2006. Contrary to the PC versions, it contained, excluding the protagonist Tomoya, a full voice output of the characters. Soon afterwards, the game was also ported to mobile phones with the support of SoftBank 3G or FOMA . The porting was done by the company Prototype on behalf of Visual Art's Motto . It was released on January 16, 2008.

A new version of the game was released for the PC on February 29, 2008 with Clannad Full Voice . In addition to the voice output, which was adopted from the PlayStation version, it also contained revised and new graphics. In addition to porting the game to cell phones, Prototype also worked on porting it to the PlayStation Portable , which was released on May 29, 2008 and adopted the improvements made to the PC version. This was followed by another port by Prototype to the Xbox 360 . It was released on August 28, 2008 and also contained the same synchronization of characters as the PlayStation version. However, this version was expanded to include some aspects of Xbox Live , which made it possible, among other things, to obtain the radio play Official Another Story Clannad: On the Hillside Path that Light Watches Over . The versions for PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360 also appeared in a limited edition, which was accompanied by an additional CD with a radio play in the so-called "Digest Edition". The radio plays differed in the versions.

After enough copies of the game for the PlayStation 2 had sold, according to the opinion of the publisher, the game was offered in a so-called "Best Version" from July 30, 2009 in the course of the releases of the anime television series Sony added older games with above-average sales and resold them at a lower price. On the same day, two summaries by Clannad with the previous games Kanon and Air were released as Key 3-Part Work Premium Box and with a total of six games as Key 10th Memorial Box .

On November 11, 2014 Sekai Project opened in collaboration with Visual Art's a Kickstarter - crowdfunding project to create an official English translation, on Steam should be published and DVD. The estimated sum of $ 140,000 came together within a day and finally reached $ 541,161. The game was published in a revised version on November 23, 2015 on Steam in the original Japanese language with English subtitles.

Adaptations

Books and magazines

Before the game was even released, SoftBank Creative published a 39-page art book entitled pre-Clannad , which was intended to arouse interest in the game and give a first taste of it. Released on April 15, 2004, it contained images from the adventure game, brief explanations of the characters, and initial concept graphics and sketches. With Clannad Visual Fan Book , another art book appeared after the game was released, which was published by Enterbrain on October 12, 2004. On the 160 pages there were detailed explanations of the plot, computer graphics, the lyrics of the opening and closing credits and interviews with the creators. The book was rounded off by illustrations of the characters made by other well-known artists and three additional chapters from the short story series Official Another Story .

In the period from September 2004 to October 2005, fourteen illustrated short stories were published , which were based on the plot of the game and supplemented this, in the Japanese bishōjo magazine Dengeki G's Magazine , which was published by MediaWorks . They were written by the game's authors while GotoP made the illustrations. Thirteen of the stories were summarized in the magazine Clannad: Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de - Official Another Story (CLANNAD 光見守る坂道で - Official Another Story ) published, which also included an additional chapter. Building on this, a hardcover edition with the same title was published on November 25, 2005 , with two additional chapters added and comprising 103 pages. Some time later, since January 2008, Prototype has made the stories available for download via Visual Art's Motto for SoftBank 3G and FOMA cell phones. One of the chapters appeared weekly, with FOMA publications being three weeks ahead. In the middle of the year, the stories were also available for download from the Japanese mobile operator au .

The publisher Harvest published another anthology series of short stories with Clannad SSS . So far, three editions have been published that are named after the English names of gemstones. They were written by the authors Utatori, Hiro Akizuki , Tasuku Saika and Shin'ichirō Kodama. The illustrations were drawn by Sana Wakatsuki , Hakone Odawara , Arai Guma, Satoru Arikawa , Shō Ryūga , Kagetsu Chūjō, Kurejin Fukasaki, Shina no Yura and Sakana.

Opal (July 2009, ISBN 978-4-434-13197-4 )
Emerald (August 2009, ISBN 978-4-434-13198-1 )
Sapphire (September 2009, ISBN 978-4-434-13404-3 )

Manga

Building on the plot and characters from Clannad , five manga series were created that retold parts of the existing plot, supplemented or continued them. These are official adaptations, while a large number of unofficial works ( dōjinshi ) are not mentioned here.

The first adaptation drawn by Juri Misaki was entitled Clannad Official Comic ( CLANNAD オフィシャルコミック ) and was published from May 2005 to April 2009 within the Manga magazine Comic Rush . So far, eight bound issues have been published in Tankōbon format, which have been published since November 7, 2005 by the Jive publishing house under the label CR Comics , which is also the publisher of the magazine. Each of these books was about 170-180 pages long.

A second manga entitled Official Another Story Clannad - Hikari mimamoru Sakamichi de ( Official Another Story CLANNAD〜光見守る坂道で〜 ) was drawn by Rino Fujii . As the title suggests, the manga took up the plot of the previously published short stories and was published from June 21, 2007 to August 21, 2008 in Comi Digi + magazine, which is published by Flex Comix . The publisher Broccoli summarized the chapters and published them as two Tankōbon editions. Both editions were also published in a limited edition , which had a different design and were provided with additional extras. The books were published on February 21 and December 20, 2008 and were a little over 200 pages long.

Simply referred to as Clannad , another adaptation of the game appeared within the Japanese magazine Dengeki G's Magazine , which was published by ASCII Media Works . There the series drawn by Shaa ran from the August 2007 issue to the July 2009 issue. Since then, the not yet completed manga has been featured in the sister magazine Dengeki G's Festival! Comic continued. Like the first adaptation, this one is based on the storyline of the game. This series has been summarized as Tankōbon since February 27, 2008 under the Dengeki Comics label .

In the Shōnen manga magazine Dragon Age Pure , published by Fujimi Shobo , the manga Clannad - Tomoyo Dearest ( CLANNAD〜tomoyo dearest〜 ) was published from February 20 to August 20, 2008 . Artist Yukiko Sumiyoshi built this series on the Tomoyo story line and continued it as Tomoyo After - Dear Shining Memories . The manga was published in full on October 9, 2008 as a single Tankōbon edition.

With Clannad. ( くらなど. , Kuranado. ) A chibi- style offshoot appeared , which dealt with the peculiarities of the characters in a humorous way and was published by Harvest . It includes two publications that appeared in December 2008 and January 2009.

Overview of the manga publications

Clannad Official Comic

Vol. 1: ISBN 4-86176-249-9 , November 7, 2005
Vol. 2: ISBN 4-86176-308-8 , June 7, 2006
Vol. 3: ISBN 4-86176-361-4 , December 7, 2006
Vol. 4: ISBN 978-4-86176-440-0 , October 7, 2007
Vol. 5: ISBN 978-4-86176-466-0 , December 7, 2007
Vol. 6: ISBN 978-4-86176-496-7 , March 7, 2008
Vol. 7: ISBN 978-4-86176-572-8 , October 7, 2008
Vol. 8: ISBN 978-4-86176-642-8 , March 7, 2009

Clannad.

Vol. 1: ISBN 978-4-434-12419-8 , December 2008
Vol. 2: ISBN 978-4-434-12420-4 , January 2009

Official Another Story Clannad - Hikari mimamoru Sakamichi de

Vol. 1: ISBN 978-4-7973-4664-0 , February 21, 2008
Vol. 2: ISBN 978-4-7973-5212-2 , December 20, 2008

Clannad

Vol. 1: ISBN 978-4-8402-4216-5 , February 27, 2008
Vol. 2: ISBN 978-4-04-867712-7 , March 27, 2009

Clannad - Tomoyo Dearest

ISBN 978-4-04-712570-4 , October 9, 2008

Movie

As with the previous games cannon and Air , the animation studio set this time Toei Animation part of the action as Anime - Movie order. First announced at the Tōkyō Kokusai Anime Fair on March 23, 2006, the film was shown in Japanese cinemas on September 15, 2007. Directed by Osamu Dezaki based on a script by Makoto Nakamura . Both have worked on earlier film adaptations of Playing Keys . The film is a reinterpretation of the game's original plot and focuses almost entirely on the relationship between Tomoya and Nagisa. As already known from the game, this takes a tragic turn. The only bright spot in the end was their daughter Ushio.

Anime series

Advertisement for the anime on a train on the Chūō-Sōbu Line in Tokyo at Ochanomizu Station

Building on the game, the Kyōto Animation studio produced two anime television series. Both series were directed by Tatsuya Ishihara , who has worked on earlier adaptations of Key's games. The first series with the same title Clannad had 23 episodes and was first broadcast within Japan from October 4, 2007 to March 27, 2008 on the TBS channel. It reproduces many of the events of the school part of the game in a coherent storyline . An alternate ending to the first part was released as OVA entitled Tomoyo-hen . It is a direct transition to the events of the alternative sequel Tomoyo After - It's a Wonderful Life , which has not yet been animated. Starting from October 2, 2008 to March 26, 2009, the sequel Clannad After Story was shown on Japanese television for the first time . The series has a total of 24 episodes and tells the events from the second section, After Story , in which Tomoya starts a family with Nagisa. Starting in school, the OVA episode Clannad - After Story: Mō Hitotsu no Sekai Kyō-hen ( CLANNAD 〜AFTER STORY〜もうひとつのの世界杏編 ) tells the beginning of another alternative sequel in which the sisters Ryō and Kyō each other both fall in love with Tomoya. Kyō deliberately gives priority to her little sister, although Tomoya is actually only in love with Kyō. Ultimately, both sisters manage to find a way out of this situation by mutual agreement and Kyō confesses her love to Tomoya.

Radio plays

Two radio play series are also based on the game . The former was produced by Frontier Works under the title Clannad and consists of five CDs. Each of them paid special attention to one of the five main female characters Nagisa, Kotomi, Fūko, Kyō and Tomoyo. The first CD was released on April 25, 2007 in both a normal and a limited version, which was supplemented by an additional track. The other four followed at monthly intervals, so that the series was fully available on August 24, 2007. The second series was produced by Prototype and was based on the short story series of the same name Clannad: Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de - Official Another Story (CLANNAD 光見守る坂道で - Official Another Story). It comprised four CDs and was also released on a monthly basis from July 25, 2007. Like the stories, this series was illustrated by the artist GotoP, who designed the covers. Both series were voiced by the same seiyū as the PlayStation 2 release of the game. The only exception was the role of Tomoya which was voiced by Kenji Nojima .

Internet radio broadcasts

At the same time as the broadcast of the anime television series Clannad , an Internet radio broadcast called Nagisa to Sanae no Omae ni Rainbow ( 渚と早苗のおまえにレインボ ete ) started on October 5, 2007. Up to October 3, 2008, 52 episodes were broadcast. The show was produced by Onsen and Animate TV on behalf of Frontier Works. It was held by Mai Nakahara and Kikuko Inoue , who had spoken the roles of Nagisa and Sanae. The speakers of the other main characters also appeared as guests of the show. The recordings of the show were published from June 18, 2008 to February 18, 2009 on four double CDs, each containing 13 of the episodes. A second broadcast began parallel to the second anime Clannad After Story and was called Nagisa to Sanae to Akio no Omae ni Hyper Rainbow ( 渚と早苗と秋生のおまえにハイパーレインボー ). It ran from October 10, 2008 to April 10, 2009 and consisted of 26 episodes. Like the previous show, it was produced by Onsen and Animate TV and broadcast every Friday. The show was directed by the original presenters, to which Ryōtarō Okiayu was added , who had taken on the role of Nagisa's father Akio in the series. The cuts of the show were published on February 18, 2009 and May 29, 2009 on double CDs.

reception

Within the weekly, national, Japanese charts for Bishōjo games, the limited version for the PC reached first place twice at the beginning of its release. The sales figures then collapsed and it only reached 46th place in the third week. Within the first two weeks of June 2004, sales rose again and it reached 40th place. The regular release reached 26th place within the first week and dropped out of the top 50 after three weeks. The version of the game, which was set to music later , was also only able to place itself in the charts for three weeks and reached positions 7, 20 and 40. This means that the releases for the PC were not a very great success, based on the preliminary sales figures alone, although the game briefly dominated the charts.

The Famitsu rated the PlayStation 2 version in 2006 with 26 possible 40 points, which is a rather average rating. Nevertheless, Clannad is considered one of the popular Ren'ai adventure games of 2004. This was also confirmed in an August 2007 survey carried out by Dengeki G's Magazine . The paper asked readers about the fifty best Gal Games . From a total of 249 titles, Clannad took first place with 114 votes and was thus far ahead of the second-placed Fate / stay night with 78 votes, closely followed by ToHeart 2 (74 votes), Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na (72 votes) and Kanon (71 Be right).

The fact that Clannad no longer offered any erotic content caused criticism from fans. As a kind of compensation for this, a kind of sequel for adults was offered on November 25, 2005 with Tomoyo After - It's a Wonderful Life . In an alternative scenario, it expanded the plot section of the protagonist Tomoyo Sakagami and contained suggestive scenes.

Success of the adaptations

Like many of the previous anime adaptations by Kyōto Animation , the series Clannad and Clannad After Story were also successful and had consistently high sales figures as a limited edition . Of the eight DVDs released every month, six reached first place on the Japanese anime DVD charts in their first week of sales. According to Amazon Japan, the third DVD sold the most and reached sixth place in the annual ranking (December 2007 to November 2008) of anime publications. In order to estimate the sales, the information can be used that the DVD sales of anime in Japan accounted for about 24% of the number of units and 30% of the sales of the entire market. The second season of Clannad - After Story was similarly successful. Of the eight DVDs, around 14,000 to 20,000 copies sold within the first week of release. Several of them reached first place on the weekly charts again, with sales in particular picking up towards the end.

"And really, if you don't have at least a tolerance for moe content then this series, like the others, is absolutely not for you."

"And really, if you don't have a little tolerance for Moe content, this show, like the rest of the world, will be absolutely not for you."

- Theron Martin

Like most adaptations by Kyōto Animation , these two series also had a so-called "high Moe factor". The cuteness of the female characters and their certain peculiarities are particularly emphasized. In particular, this raised concerns among Western critics (compare Kawaii ) with regard to acceptance by an equally Western audience, as it would have been exaggerated here in some cases. But anyone who was not deterred by this would be offered a work comparable to canon , which was also convincing with its humor and appealing drawing quality, but was not exceptional in any discipline.

The filming of the game was rated very differently overall. Most of the critics agreed on one point: The animation by Toei Animation is far behind the quality of the television series implemented by Kyōto Animation , which is said to be mainly due to the different character design . The special effects, however, were quite successful and could almost keep up with the quality of Byosoku 5 centimeters . As regards content, it was criticized that many of the female characters only had supporting roles or were left out completely. The staging of the plot was also a point of contention. While some critics described the entire film as boring, others were of the opinion that the film needed the "boring two thirds" in order to be able to develop its effect with the dramatic end. By concentrating on the few main actors, however, they should have left a very sophisticated or even lovely impression.

Influence on other works

In addition to being referenced in other anime productions by Kyōto Animation, such as in K-On! , the game or the anime television series was also taken up in other productions. For example, Nagisa's parents' bakery appeared in the anime adaptation of Toradora! or a whole series of productions by Kyōto Animation was parodied in the OVA by Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei , where Clannad was titled as "Clanoad". Short allusions to the animation were also repeatedly found in other animes, whereby it often happens that various productions refer to each other.

The two mass multiplayer online community games ( MMOGs ) Hiten Online ( 飛天 online ) and HolyBeast ( ホーリービースト ) from Gamania Entertainment offered the characters' school uniforms in a cooperation with Clannad . Also in the period from March 26th to June 26th, 2008 there was the opportunity to adopt Kyō's pet Botan, a still young boar . At the same time there was a raffle for fictional and real fan articles in which players with characters over level 20 could take part. In the PlayStation 2 game Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Cosplay Hajimemashita ( 乃木坂春香の秘密こすぷれ、はじめまました ♥ ), based on the light novel series Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu , it was possible to create the characters of the game from five popular light novel series to ASCII Media Works or three characters from Clannad dress . Haruka Nogizaka was able to take on the design of Kotomi Ichinose, Mika Nogizaka from Nagisa Furukawa and Shiina Amamiya from Tomoyo Sakagami. When the characters of the game visited various locations within the game while cosplaying, additional graphics were visible which contained typical elements of the respective original, such as Nagisa's dangos. In addition, the voice of the characters changed to that of the original speakers. In the virtual world of Ai Sp @ ce , a massively multiplayer online social game by Headlock with a close connection to Nico Nico Douga , players can play with the characters from Clannad , Shuffle! and DCII - Da Capo II interact. In the game released in October 2008, the worlds of the franchises were recreated on their own islands, which are connected to the central Akihabara island .

literature

Clannad Visual Fan Book . Enterbrain, 2004, ISBN 978-4-7577-2025-1 .
pre-clannad . SoftBank Creative, 2004, ISBN 4-7973-2723-5 .
Dani Cavallaro: Anime and Memory: Aesthetic, Cultural and Thematic Perspectives . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-4112-9 .
Oren Ronen: Otaku Immersion - The Depiction of the Protagonist in Visual Novels. (PDF; 497 kB) Tel Aviv University , March 29, 2008, accessed on September 16, 2009 (English).

Web links

Commons : Clannad (visual novel) - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Official website for the game (Japanese)

Wikiversity: Nagisa Furukawa course materials

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Matsunoki.net: Otaku Immersion - The Depiction of the Protagonist in Visual Novels ( Memento from July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 497 KB)

^ Dani Cavallaro: Anime and Memory: Aesthetic, Cultural and Thematic Perspectives . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-4112-9 , pp. 26 .

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↑ ガマニア × CLANNAD コラボレーション企画，「飛天オンライン」「ホーリリービースト」に光坂高校の制服が登場 . In: 4Gamer.net. March 26, 2008, Retrieved September 28, 2009 (Japanese).

↑ 『乃木坂春香の秘密』に他作品の衣装が登場! ことみの衣装も着られるの . In: Dengeki Online. ASCII Media Works, September 2, 2009, accessed September 28, 2009 (Japanese).

↑ 【今週の 1 本】『乃木坂春香の秘密』 ── 『CLANNAD』コスプレまでの長い坂道 . In: Dengeki Online. ASCII Media Works, September 11, 2009, accessed September 28, 2009 (Japanese).

↑ 「CLANNAD は人生」を 3D で実現ギャルゲーキャラと暮らす仮想想空間、ドワンゴなど開発 . In: IT Media News. IT Media, April 8, 2008, accessed September 28, 2009 (Japanese).

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 21, 2009 .

[otaku-immersion-1] Matsunoki.net: Otaku Immersion - The Depiction of the Protagonist in Visual Novels ( Memento from July 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, 497 KB)

[anime-memory-2] Dani Cavallaro: Anime and Memory: Aesthetic, Cultural and Thematic Perspectives . McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-4112-9 , pp. 26 .

[aki-film-review-3] CLANNAD movie review. In: Akihabara Channel. September 23, 2007, accessed July 21, 2008 .

[fanbook-4] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Clannad Visual Fan Book . Enterbrain, 2004, ISBN 978-4-7577-2025-1 .