[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Clannad 2 and 3 and musings on adaptations
Clannad is an odd show. At least, it’s odd when you haven’t seen Kanon, Air or any of the Key productions and have no experience in playing computer games of that ilk. It’s shaping up to being an interesting series actually, but there are a few sticking points such as moments where the storyline appears to borrow devices and features from its source material. The central relationship, that of Tomoya and Nagisa, is the focus from a romance/drama standpoint but there seem to be other characters vying for the lad’s attention, which feels like a distraction when I’m trying to focus on the two central characters. It feels like I’m watching someone else playing a dating sim game, admittedly doing a decent job of concentrating on hanging out with one girl in particular and being entertaining into the bargain. I’m not going to dismiss this series because of the cutesiness or anything (Re: Lucky Star’s deceptive awesomeness) but since I’m on a roll in throwing preconceptions out of the proverbial window, I figured I’ll experiment a bit and stick with Clannad too since it’s even further from my own perceived tastes.
And so we’re introduced to the dango
It has enough potential to be a decent enough high school romance with some humorous moments courtesy of classmate Youhei, although the idea of being sent flying by an irate female got stale around the midpoint of Love Hina. Yeah, he deserved it (kinda) but it’s been done before. The hit counter’s a nice touch though. I’m quite interested in the whole Tomoya x Nagisa pairing, and although effort has clearly been made to flesh out their personalities and background, Nagisa’s still a bit of a stereotype. Tomoya’s a pretty cool and likable fellow, although I’ve yet to see the delinquent aspect to him that the ANN and Wiki pages for the show talk about.
Nagisa’s family is in stark contrast…
The main hook that’s kept me on Clannad is that of the family-related theme that gives the show its title. Nagisa’s eccentric parents are great to watch, and prove to be a stark contrast to Tomoya’s own home life, which is pretty tragic and rough on him. The real reason why he can’t play basketball is quite sad - when I imagine an injury that prevents me doing something I love (in my case, a hand injury that would prevent me using a computer keyboard or guitar) could I forgive the person who was responsible? What if it was a family member? In between the slapstick and moe/visual novel pandering, it offers quite a compelling tale. Sadly there’s no explanation for the alternative world segment at the beginning of each episode yet, but this is still early days.
…to Tomoya’s home life
Getting back to the issue of the dating sim adaptation issue for a bit, I thought long and hard before taking Clannad on. If it told a good story, I figured, the origins didn’t matter. As long as the series doesn’t consist of a guy trying to score with a stock variety of girls with little regard for their personalities, it should be okay. My optimism (which may or may not be well-founded) is based on a show that I reviewed for AUKN way back when: Lunar Legend Tsukihime. This was based on a visual novel - an eroge, no less - but the anime didn’t turn out like a dating sim at all. Any of its shortcomings (namely slow pace, trying to make out it was more ‘mysterious’ than it really was and so on) were those of a less-than-perfect TV show, not symptoms of basing a TV show off a computer game. Its characters were engaging, the storyline was intriguing and overall it was really quite good. If Clannad can do the same with a romance/fantasy premise, it will turn out to be good too.
When an adaptation is carried out, it can either reproduce the original scene-for-scene (Monster), expand on existing ideas (Akira) or diverge from the source and explore new avenues (Nausicaä). Those are rather obvious and manga-based examples I know, but hopefully you get the idea. Completely original works can be whatever they like without feeling tethered to what inspired them, such as Dennou Coil, which can lead to very good things indeed. With adaptations, especially those that stem from computer games from a niche such as eroges and so forth, there’s a great need to placate existing fans. Other bloggers following Clannad are constantly comparing it with Kanon and Air, which left me worried that I’d be able to appreciate this at all; it runs the risk of being incomprehensible to outsiders, as with the lacklustre adaptation of the Aquarian Age card game. Hands up who could have understood it without the inlay booklet ADV were kind enough to include in the DVD?
The fact that I enjoyed the Tsukihime anime without playing the game or reading the doujinshi makes me optimistic that I can enjoy Clannad the anime; if not, it will be because it fails at being a good romance, drama, fantasy or whatever, not because it’s a bad visual novel adaptation. Just because it’s based off a game instead of being a manga adaptation (or indeed an original work), that doesn’t mean it has to suck.
I still don’t know where this girl fits into the bigger picture
As a reward for reading to the end, here’s a link to a great post over at Anime Blog ga Arimasu. It features a vid in which some talented individual does his own cover of a Clannad tune, featuring a gorgeous performance on a guitar that is almost exactly like mine. Great stuff.
Posted on November 6th, 2007 @ 3:24 am
>> a show that I reviewed for AUKN way back when: Lunar Legend Tsukihime
There is no Tsukihime anime
(I hope html tags work in comments)
As for Clannad, I believe it will stick strictly to its source material, which was actually not all about scoring with random girls, from what I’ve heard the story of the game was quite involved. KyoAni has a history of not deviating much from Key’s stories when adapting their visual novels, although they are adding a lot of fluff comedy into Clannad. I suppose that’s just residual comedy from Lucky Star.
I wish I had your guitar ;_;
Posted on November 6th, 2007 @ 3:48 am
A game adaptation need not be bad in the least. In fact, Higurashi took advantage of the structure of a game and used it to very good effect, by showing different dimensions of different characters and revealing different clues in each game arc. That’s about as good as it gets, alas, and I still remain (perhaps overly) suspicious of when I learn an anime is based on a game. But it can be done. definitely. And Clannad is an unexpectedly excellent show so far, with some bits from the typical dating sim conventions I don’t like but far less annoying than most Key productions.
Posted on November 6th, 2007 @ 5:51 am
Don’t worry about all the comparisons to Air and Kanon. Those posts are (for me at any rate) a way of putting down on paper how Key has grown (or worsened) from one eroge to another — comparisons to characters are made like you’d compare an author’s characters from different books.
Speaking of which, I picked up Kafka on the Shore from a friend. Second Murakami book after The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Fun times. Whenever I read “Crow” in the book (up till chapter 12 so far) I keep on thinking “Karasu”, which makes me think of Noein… the mind is a funny thing.
Posted on November 6th, 2007 @ 6:11 am
Regarding Tomoya as a delinquent, the concept of a delinquent in Japan is very different from what it’s like in America and other Western countries. Over in Japan, where academics is so heavily emphasized, simply skipping class and not really concentrating on your schoolwork is already enough for you to be labeled a delinquent. You don’t have to be running around in a neighborhood gang bullying little kids to be called that.
And personally, I really think people are over-exaggerating the effects of a show being based on a visual novel or something. For example, I’m watching Clannad right now with my roommate, and he loves it. He doesn’t really watch much anime, and he still has no clue it’s based off of a dating sim, but he’s perfectly fine with it. Another friend I know absolutely loved Kanon. She watched the whole thing without knowing a thing about what it was based on. My experiences with these kinds of shows leads me to conclude that much of the time, it’s the viewer’s expectations that lead them to see things as “taken from a dating sim” or something, whereas a viewer without this expectation wouldn’t think anything of it. Admittedly, I personally dislike watching eroge conversions (which, technically, Clannad is not, lol), but I still think expectations play a deep role in your enjoyment of a series.
Posted on November 6th, 2007 @ 10:43 am
Finally, someone that liked the Tsukihime anime.
As for CLANNAD, I do believe that it’s very enjoyable even to those who aren’t familiar with Key’s works or any similar Visual Novels. Prior knowledge to it, though, allows one to enjoy it much more thoroughly.
Posted on November 7th, 2007 @ 12:51 am
@Shirukii: yep, the link tags work fine. Harsh words there! ;P
@Mike: I haven’t seen enough game adaptations yet to get a good grasp of why they so often fail, but an impression I often get is that the creators are so busy cashing in that the idea of the adaptation being able to stand on its own is unimportant. “…Clannad is an unexpectedly excellent show so far, with some bits from the typical dating sim conventions I don’t like…” Quoted for truth. Y’know, I can see myself enjoying this series!
@Owen S: Ah, Kafka. A great book and one of his best. Apparently Kafka means Crow…or something. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it - I really need to re-read it and get my own review for it posted up sometime.
@Mirrinus: I wonder how my impressions whould have differed had I been unaware that Clannad began life as a visual novel; at a guess I’d say they’d probably differ quite a lot so I think you’re dead-on about how expectations can affect appreciation. Cheers for clearing up the ‘delinqent’ definition too - sometimes the cultural details get lost in translation! It makes a lot more sense now - Tomoya just looks to me to be nothing more than apathetic!
@Zeroblade: Yeah, I quite enjoyed the Tsukihime anime. It was far from perfect but I dug the music and moody atmospherics. Plus cute female vampires==win.