Assalamu’alaikum and good day to all Muslims anime fans out there! Last time I reviewed Whistle! , so this time I’m gonna review the most emotional anime of all time… CLANNAD
Story
The story is good, the plot line was fine and it was really gives you a warm feelings. This anime did not have super powers or any miracles, but have a spirit known as Fuuko (I’ll tell about her later on). This type of anime can be considered as a "tragedy" anime due to either the hero or the heroin died in the end. But Clannad was a bit different from that. Clannad was a visual novel by Key and the story could turn out differently, just like when you’re playing a RPG game where you can choose an arc and play throughout the character that you choose. Here in the anime version, the story was equally distributed to all characters so all the characters had their own story to tell. Clannad may be an emotional anime, but believe me, it’s not that sad all the way.
Art/Animation
The art was superb, flawless and had a very high quality animations which gives all the details of the character and the environment. As expected from Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) , a company which were known to produced moe anime(s) like K-On!, Lucky Star and chibi version of Haruhi-chan and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi (most of Kyo Ani animes came from visual novels). Nonetheless, the art and animation was good, and suits the character’s personality and attributes.
Sound/Music
The sound, BGM and music was soothing and relaxing. The music change according to the mood but most of the time it has solemn music that could accompany you to tears while watching this anime. The OP an ED of this anime was sung by Eufonius entitled "Megumeru ~cuckool mix 2007~ (メグメル～cuckool mix 2007～", it was a really catchy songs that you can dance to it. And the ED was sung by Chata entitled "Dango Daikazoku (Big Dango Family)" and "Ana" at ep. 24 ED sung by Lia . Listening to Dango Daikazoku can be so warm and actually it was a theme for an anime in Clannad which the heroine, Nagisa, loves to watch.
Character
The characters in this anime are Tomoya Okazaki, the hero and the protagonist and Nagisa Furukawa, heroine and protagonist (actually there’s no antagonist in this anime, the antagonist is actually the story itself!). Together with the Fujibayashi twins (Kyou and Ryou); the smart, yet unique girl Ichinose Kotomi, the student leader Tomoyo Sakagami and a mysterious character, Ibuki Fuuko (actually she’s a spirit-like character that existed around Tomoya and Nagisa, and she’s actually in deep comma after an accident in front of the Hikarizaka School. Her sister is one of the teachers in that school). Nagisa suffered from an illnesses that made her repeated her last year of school, Tomoya had a problem with his father due to his mother run away. Other characters had their uniqueness and as for Fuuko, she’s actually a starfish lover and dedicated her life at school just to ask the students to attend her sister’s marriage, by giving each students a wooden-carved star, and she would disappear after that, or wake up from a deep comma. Overall, the characters interacted together that creates a good flow of communications and the story moves on along the way. Tomoya gradually had the motivation to live and so does Nagisa, to have a friend that can understand her feelings after all of her friends graduated earlier.
Enjoyment
As what I said previously, if you want to watch this anime, better equipped yourself with tissues so that you have something to wipe when you suddenly feels a drop of tears suddenly come out from your eyes. This story had a balanced of happy and sad as well as emotional moments, and Clannad somewhat ask you to be with them and to share the feelings together. As for someone as naive as me, watching Clannad is something that gives you a warm feeling and a good sense of understanding people. Surely you will feel a deep sense of down when you watch this, but believe me, after you watch it again and again, you will feel that you’re a better person yourself, of being yourself.
Islamic Factor
As for Islamic factors, Clannad had the sense of what we call as the attributes of mahmudah or the right attributes. Helpings others, encourage people, be kind to parents and understand them better (like Tomoya and his father), are some of the right attributes that can be exampled from Clannad. Here in this anime, there’s almost no ecchi scenes and fanservice such as pantyshots or bare-breast. The only fanservice available is Fuuko’s cute expressions and Nagisa’s crying tears. I remember one hadeeth about how Allah would change people if they want to changed themselves first. The development of the characters seems to be in-line with the said hadeeth , that is Tomoya gradually changing himself because he wants to change himself, since he saw Nagisa was so passionate into making a Drama Club and not give up on any circumstances.
Conclusion
I really recommend this anime to all fans who love slice-of-life and also something that can challenge your emotional states. For all Muslims out there, you can watch this anime with your little siblings if you may do so, without fearing the fanservice or nudity.
Clannad was previously fansubbed by Doki and Coalgirls fansub team. Both fansub were great and right to the Japanese context.
p/s: If you find some of my information was inaccurate or wrong, or you might want to adjust and give your own opinion, you might do so and all comments are welcome!
Originally published by Anime4Muslims on DeviantArt. Source: https://www.deviantart.com/anime4muslims/journal/CLANNAD-Fadzreeq-222467046. Original contributor: fadzreeq.