Broken Anime

Hello again, young and old. First time readers or long time… readers. I’m back, and glad to be blogging on my otaku-ism once again. You may be asking, “Ryo, where did you disappear to for all this time, leaving me alone to cry myself to sleep instead of spending a few minutes reading your incessantly ranting blog entries?” Well, I don’t really have a great answer for that question except for the fact that I was working full time over the summer and was traveling across the country for the time I wasn’t working.

However, out of all the depressing line-up of fall 2008 anime to choose from, a couple of my most anticipated animes forced me to come back and blog once again. And as you may have guessed from the title, one of these fore mentioned animes is the “Clannad After Story”, the follow up to one of my favorites of all time. So without further ado…

Tomoya still feeling emo about his father: The unresolved Clannad issues incoming?

OP: “Toki wo Kizamu Uta” by Lia

The song and OP sequence fits Clannad very well… You can’t help but become entranced by the soft melody and vocal progression along with the super kawaii cast and crew that makes up Clannad. Just the right amount of nostalgic scenes are added in to flow seamlessly into this new season from the last episode of Clannad.

“I LIKE BASEBALL!”

Episode 01 “The Goodbye at the End of Summer” at a glance:

Tomoya is still living with Nagisa and co. as the 2nd semester of their senior year begins. Although Tomoya is already this far along in his education, he has yet to discover what he wants to do after highschool.

Nagisa’s father requests that Tomoya and Nagisa help to put together a baseball team to defend the town’s (Nagisa Bakery’s shopping district) pride. Gathering up all of the old cast, they show off the girls skills (*cough, Tomoyo) and defeat the rival team in a clutch win that Tomoya pulls off even through his injured shoulder. Even Nagisa is forced to play after her father gets injured by one of the other team’s batters.

Still the shy and awkward pair, even after living together.

Still the punching bag of comic relief.

Nagisa has a cute side to her, but Kotomi’s still my fav.

That’s what I wear when playing baseball.

This scene was pretty epic.

Kyou, the angriest character in Clannad.

Tomoya is so cool!

Welcome back little guy.

Review: Kotomi is still #1!

I wasn’t 100% sure how to feel about this first episode… Sure it was a comedic piece of filler, but it did everything I expected it to as far as plot goes.

It introduced all of the characters, explained the living situation and issues surrounding Tomoya and showed a little bit of each characters personality all in one go. For a first episode, not in any way “bad”, but it lacked the dramatic flare that Clannad usually has to accompany the slapstick and sarcastic comedy between the male characters.

Episode 02 “Search for Fake Love” at a glance:

The beginning of this episode starts out with more of Nagisa’s strange story with the robot and the girl living in their world all alone, looking for materials to help them keep living.

Episode 2 revolves around Youhei Sunohara and how his little sister Mei is worried about his future since he is also a senior in high school with little to no direction in life. In order to prove to her that he is a man with direction, Sunohara looks for a girl who will pretend to be his serious girlfriend who he has devoted his heart and efforts towards.

The search continues… fruitless… as all of the girls they know turn him down in their own little way. That is, until Nagisa’s mother, Sanae agrees to pretend to be his girlfriend… Here’s the catch, Youhei thinks that she is Nagisa’s sister and that romance has a possibility to go from pretend to reality. At the end of the episode, Mei finally meets with Sanae when Youhei is going to take her on a “date”.

I wonder where I can get myself one of these…

Mei-Chan, nothing like her brother.

Ryou cries when embarassed?

In Sunohara’s dreams…

In reality…

Kotomi is still #1! I’d let her play violin all she wants.

Introducing: new male character?

Nagisa looks completely different with her hair changed…

This scene was pretty hilarious.

Nervous much? I don’t understand how Sanae can look so cute/young.

Review: Sanae! Nagisa’s.. onee-chan!?

This situation with Sanae and Sunohara’s easy misunderstanding may turn out to be some form of drama/comedy/awesomeness. Whenever Sunohara is involved, you can just smell the epic fail coming from 2 or 3 episodes away.

Had to admit this episode was pretty hilarious, couldn’t help but laugh out loud at some of Sunohara’s crazy antics and fantasies.

Preview:

Looks like Sunohara is going to come to some realizations about Sanae… In this preview, he looks strangely depressed… a drastic change from his usual demeanor… Well I guess we’ll find out in episode 03, “Disagreeing Hearts“!

ED: “TORCH” by Lia

This second song by Lia is much more upbeat than the first, however it fits… You may be wondering, “Hey Ryo, Clannad is more of a drama, why have such an upbeat song with these little ball thingeys floating around?” Well, I guess it’s to follow suit of the first season.

I know I’m not the only one who was watching Clannad cliffhangers in season one… on the verge of tears when suddenly a Dango dai-kazoku (”big dango family”… dango is like a rice ball type of snack on a skewer for all you japanese noobs) would pop up and completely spoil my mood. I guess all we can do is laugh and learn to love Dango *munches some shoyu dango*…

However, that reason doesn’t explain the fact that the characters are moonwalking over dull backgrounds, making it a fairly boring ED overall.

Photodump:

Episode 01

Episode 02