Clannad After Story: Complete Collection Blu-ray Review
Still slow. Not quite as sweet.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, July 11, 2012
Most of us who survived high school the first time have little interest in reliving that era of our lives. That in and of itself
may be the most salient argument against
Clannad After Story, the follow up second season to
Clannad:
Complete Collection. However, taking that tack would deprive the viewer of one of the sweetest little animes of
the past several years, and it would also deprive the viewer of one extra added element that is especially enjoyable in
Clannad After Story, namely its extremely dry sense of humor, something that wasn't exploited quite as artfully
in the series' first season. To appear to deal with a couple of apparently unrelated items, let's look back to two iconic
television sitcoms of the late fifties and early sixties,
Leave it to Beaver and
Dennis the Menace. Both of
these shows were relatively gentle (at least compared to today's raucous outings) looks at family life, and they were
both notable in that they took the kids' eye view of things more often than not. But both of these series lasted long
enough that once adorable tots grew into gangly young adolescents or even young adults and suddenly cute hijinks of
children seemed a bit odd when they were being perpetrated by six foot tall mini-men whose voices had changed. The
aging of the kids put an end to both of these series at least a season or two before their actual ratings may have
spelled the same fate. There's a similar "aging" at hand in
Clannad After Story which may make this follow up
series less alluring to those who fell in love with the first season's evocation of the trials and tribulations of high school
life. While school life does still in fact play a major part in this second season, at least in the early going, there's more
of a look forward here into the nascent world of young adulthood which may prove a bit unsettling for those who want
the comfort of routine.
If the first season of
Clannad had many elements of a traditional
shōnen, the second season might be
thought as being trifurcated into distinct elements, with a
shōnen storyline taking up the first third or so of this
season's episodes. This section of the series continues to deal with Tomoya, the teenaged boy who was the central
character of the first season. The next semester of high school has started, and we find Tomoya interacting with his
friends in such pursuits as forming a baseball team. But many of these opening episodes actually deal as much with
Youhei, the kind of frantic "comedy relief" character, and his efforts to find a "fake girlfriend". The relationship between
Tomoya and Nagisa is also explored as the kids all get ready to move into their young adult lives.
The second section of
Clannad After Story deals with Tomoya's post-school life, both as he tries to establish
himself in a career and, more importantly, as he attempts to forge a life with Nagisa, who continues to have persistent
health problems. This middle arc becomes decidedly more dramatic, even tragic at times, and the tonal imbalance
between the opening set of episodes with its often over the top comedy and the flat out melodrama of this section may
confuse some viewers. There are still little comedy bits sprinkled into most episodes, but this is a decidedly more
"mature" feeling section, as is entirely appropriate.
The third section of
Clannad After Story is by far the oddest, an arc it may even be fair to call bizarre. The tragic
elements that helped define the second section only increase here, to almost unbearable proportions at times, but then
a rather strange science fiction element enters the fray which supposedly helps to explain the long running interstitials
featuring the character known as The Girl from the Illusionary World and her strangely lovable little "pet" Junk Robot.
There is some nice commingling of characters in the series' wrap up, but it's the kind of sleight of hand that doesn't
really stand up to real scrutiny. It may erase some of the sting of what's gone before, but it seems like a kind of cheap
trick that says to the audience, "Guess what? All that angst you just lived through was a big joke."
There are also some OVAs included as figurative codas to the main storyline here, and they exploit the original
Clannad visual novel conceit of being to enter alternative storylines.
Clannad After Story starts out
extremely strongly, but tends to get weighed down with all of the trauma and tragedy that begins unfolding once
Tomoya leaves high school. The ironic thing about all of this is, as bad as high school undoubtedly has been for many
people,
Clannad After Story seems to be saying, "Wait! It gets
worse! Much,
much worse!"
This also makes the series' odd science fiction wrap up all the stranger. Still, the basic story here is quite engaging, if
awfully sad at times, and the series continues the first season's really outstanding design aesthetic and nicely
delineated characters. But this is one "happily ever after" that leaves a bit of a bitter aftertaste and viewers should be
forewarned.
Clannad After Story: Complete Collection Blu-ray, Video Quality
Clannad After Story continues the excellent video quality seen in
Clannad: Complete Collection, once again presented courtesy of
Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1.
Clannad After Story offers exceptionally beautiful
backgrounds, with lovely floating cherry blossoms or, in one of the more supernatural elements, gorgeous floating orbs of
light. Character designs sport extremely strong and well defined line detail, and there's some very well done CGI woven
into the more traditional cel animation, including the wonderfully lovable Junk Robot, who looks kind of like a metal teddy
bear, but with some very appealing dimensionality. Colors are bright and very vividly robust. Whatever qualms you may
have about various story elements in
Clannad After Story, chances are you'll have little to nothing to complain about
with regard to this series' exceptional visuals which pop wonderfully on this Blu-ray.
Clannad After Story: Complete Collection Blu-ray, Audio Quality
My comments about
Clannad: Complete Collection hold largely true for
Clannad After Story as well. 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. As with
Clannad's first season, this is not the
most bombastic sound mix ever created, but fidelity is excellent and decent if not overwhelming surround activity crops up
with fair regularity. There are some exceptionally well done ambient environmental effects in
Clannad After Story
(listen to the beautifully immersive wind sounds in the series' final episode for a sterling example). The series continues the
first season's use of evocative and sometimes patently odd music and opening and closing themes, all of which sound great
on both of the lossless audio options.
Clannad After Story: Complete Collection Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
I personally loved the opening episodes of
Clannad After Story because they were often laugh out loud funny, much
more so than the bulk of the first season's outings. But then things got really,
really serious by the middle third of
episodes, and by the time we were in the endgame, things were so horrifyingly awful for Tomoya I couldn't help but wonder
why I was even watching the show at all. And then there was that "never mind" moment when the science fiction element
made it all better again, and, again, I had to wonder why I was watching the show. Taken as a whole, though,
Clannad
After Story has a lot to recommend it, not the least of which is its really beautiful animation style. If you don't mind a
lot of outright melodrama, you'll probably enjoy this second season of
Clannad, even if you may occasionally, like I
did, wonder why you're watching.
Recommended.
