.anime phreak. – call me Ki様

Yes, yes, I didn’t die.

Finals, and games(mostly) on my mind. As always there is a surge of posts when the pendulum swings towards anime side and practically none when it swings towards the game side. And Mabinogi is doing a darn well job at keeping the pendulum on the game side.

Anyways… let’s start.

(クラナド)

(btw, this new system makes posting pictures a pain in the neck, wonder if I can revert back to the original)

Additional info:

This series is currently completed.
Genre: Drama, Romance, Harem, Fantasy
Demographic: Seinen
Animation Studio: Kyoto Animation
Game Developer: Key

Synopsis(ANN):

Tomoya Okazaki is a third year high school student resentful of his life. His mother passed away from a car accident when he was younger, causing his father to resort to alcohol and gambling. This results in fights between the two until Tomoya’s shoulder is injured in a fight. Since then, Tomoya has had distant relationships with his father, causing him to become a delinquent over time. While on a walk to school, he meets a strange girl named Nagisa Furukawa who is a year older, but is repeating due to illness. Due to this, she is often alone as most of her friends have moved on. The two begin hanging out and slowly, as time goes by, Tomoya finds his life shifting in a new direction.

Review:

Artwork and Animation: 9.5/10

It seems the animation style of Key games keep getting better (from the notorious blunder of Kanon’02 to a passable Air and then on to a nicely done Kanon’06) That paired with decent CG effects gives it a nice feel to the environments it tries to produced, along with some comedic scenes done in flash. Well, since it IS the anime’s strongest point, aside from the story (if you take out the story and the art from Visual Novels, what do you have left?).

Sound (Themes and Inserts): 7/10

Although the opening still has quite an impact, the OST in general seemed by be glossed over by the intesive plot movements. The ending… dango, dango, dango, dango… dango daikazoku? Indeed it draws quite a bit of curiosity in the beginning but quickly becomes an annoyance for me (sorry to anyone who I’ve offended, I can personally think of quite a few). All in all, the main thing it had going for it was Megumeru by eufonius, but when that pales in comparison too Tori no Uta from Air… well… it pales in comparison.

Plot (including character development): 8/10
Although I’d like to give it credit for doing a rare thing and trying combine ALL the arcs together, it too ended up in a general harem (following in the great footsteps of School Days, I see). They, however, do not even attempt to keep it coherent albeit there is the main and often underlying arc with Nagisa which seems to spontaneously appear and disappear, and at the grand finale it all spontaneously combust into a who gives a damn it’s a happy ending let’s all enjoy it kind of ending. Well, I don’t like it, do you?

Directing: 9/10

The directing is quite good with bits of general randomness that is totally avatar/signature/forum worthy. (For example the part where Sunohara gets owned by the Tomoyo/Tomoya 1000(?) hit combo.) I find myself waiting for these moments much more than paying attention to the plotline itself. Still disappointed with how the Kyou arc, or the lack of it, turned out T_T

Overall: 8/10

I know that is hyped up and all. Because we all love to see the anime of a children’s game that turned hentai. But unfortunately, as far as the directing carries it (which isn’t very far), this will fall into green section in my decent animes, but I wouldn’t impose this anime on others unless they’re really into that genre. As much as I whine about fanservice, not having it in a harem… just feels out of place. If they went out of their way to move it out of the slice of life (which it really should be) into more of a romance comedy, it should add some fanservice, don’t you think?