Unlike the prior metareviews, I am not going to copy and paste different excerpts of blog posts. Instead, I will gather portions of some summaries and reviews and paste them here to sum up the general consensus on Clannad 22 and perhaps some conflicting opinions as well.
From Anime Blog ga Arimasu…
“Where’s the implied sex, offspring, and bittersweet end?! You promised me a BAAWfest KyoAni, WHERE’S MY BAAWfest?!
“I’m not satisfied with how Clannad “ended” but I’m almost certain that we’ll see another season or an OVA covering Nagisa’s After Story, so I’ll reserve judgment for now and refrain from saying anything that will come back to bite me down the road.”
From Anime Princess…
“Back to my original comment about the ending, I liked it but it was too ordinary, I wanted more, it felt very rushed and I find that some of the other episodes I’ve seen were better. It was an ending for the sake of an ending, it had potential to be more, but wasn’t. Though, this series is so good that its plain ending is excusable. I also wish they didn’t play the opening or ending theme so they could have had more show time. They also had a preview for the next episode, which kind of ruined the mood, but I was still happy.”
From Subculture Anime Blog…
“Tomoya’s confession to Nagisa at the end was just as great, but it just seemed more like a beginning than an end. I’m sure that’s what they had in mind though. The rest of the episode was excellent, and it actually came off a bit different than expected after watching the movie. I loved the atmosphere the first part of the episode had, even though Nagisa’s depression seemed really overblown. I’m still amazed at how absorbed I can become while watching scenes that would usually seem really embarrassing and silly. It just proves what a great job Kyoani does as a studio, despite my usual claims that they are overrated. I was pretty happy to see more of the robot and girl too, since those are some of my favorite parts of this show.”
From Kurogane’s Anime Blog…
“Finally, for a change, a happy ending that I like in a KEY series . I can’t deny that the ending arc was rather weakly executed though.
“Anyways, it looks like there will be another omake episode to cap off this series. One can’t deny that the comedy aspect of CLANNAD was integrated the best amongst all the 3 KyoAni-KEY series up till now, so more hilarity is always good :).”
From Random Curiosity…
“Well this was about what I expected. That is to say, there weren’t any big plot twists or anything: Tomoya and Akio helped Nagisa get over her mental hurdle, the performance was problem-free (other than the beginning), and Tomoya finally confessed his feelings to Nagisa. Actually, that confession felt almost like an afterthought to me because it occurs so far after the climax and because we don’t really get to see the results of it. Speaking of the climax, the most emotional moment (and probably my favorite of the episode) goes to Akio when he bursts into the gymnasium to make his speech to Nagisa about her dream being their dream. That was probably the closest I came to feeling my heartstrings getting pulled, and even then it wasn’t as significant as some of the earlier parts of this series or when compared to some parts of Kanon.
“This doesn’t mean that I thought this was a bad episode - it was still pretty good. I just don’t think that the overall story with Nagisa has lived up to the emotional standards that Kyoto Animation has set for these kinds of arcs. The reason, of course, is because they haven’t told the entire CLANNAD story yet, and it’s still up in the air if there’s going to be a second series of some sort or not.”
From Xebek’s Blog…
“This episode was incredible. I may be a bit biased since I’m a huge fan of Clannad but I really did love this episode and finale. There were so many great parts to it; I was so drawn into the episode. When Nagisa was standing there on stage and not able to do anything I was so on edge, I kept pausing it, getting up from my chair and turning around, so on. It really had me drawn into it. The episode was great. Although some may criticize Nagisa for being so emotional, I thought it was completely understandable. To find out that your parents had a definite dream that they gave up on because of you would be rather hard to take, especially for someone as kind and caring as Nagisa. Still, the speech that her dad gave and then that Sanae and Tomoya chimed in on was great. It really gave a remarkable conclusion to the focus on “family” this show has. I never really made the connection but the way Nagisa was fulfilling her dream for Tomoya and Sunohara, since they no longer can, was great.”
From Anime Banzai…
“A very good episode and it was better than I expected. Mainly because of Akio. He is the highlight of the episode, desu ne?
“The ending of this episode looked more like a cliffhanger to me. A sign that there are more to the story than this (After Story). Clannad is not done yet, there is still an episode next week and hopefully there will be an announcement at the end of it.”
From Minimum Tempo…
My least favorite KeyAni ending, but still a good one nevertheless. Akio was definitely the highlight of the episode, as several of the other blogs have mentioned, and it was one of the only moments in Clannad that truly moved me. This is exactly what I expected from this episode: Nagisa being emo and Tomoya trying to cheer her up. The happy ending was without a doubt, and I’m glad there was somewhat closure to the girl and the robot. The lack of any Fuko (is she still comatose?) nagged me throughout the episode, but it was obvious she wouldn’t appear at any point except perhaps in a lame attempt to raise Nagisa’s spirits.
This post is tagged Anime & Manga, CLANNAD, Episode Review, Metareviews
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5 Comments
This was considerably more interesting than the prospect of bothering to watch the show. To really make it as meta- as it could be, you could actually review and rate the otakusphere’s own reaction - but perhaps that would devolve too easily into blog sniping.
I think reviewing the reaction to the show might be a little bit too much; how IcyStorm picks and chooses the snippets is probably enough of a implicit evaluation as it is, and just presenting a bunch of varied opinions without bias or commentary is interesting enough as is. But eh, don’t know till you try, I suppose. And this is your blog, not mine. XD
I’m still on the fence on Clannad 22; on a whole the show really does feel a lot different from Kanon and AIR based on how the drama is well-integrated with the comedy, so you never really have that “knee deep in sadness” feel to it. It still sort of bugs me how they kept pushing the confession back, back from the earlier episodes, back from episode 20, back all the way to the last scene, as I was hoping to see how the Nagisa / Tomoya dynamic changed when they were an official couple.
Then again, a part of me says that Clannad is actually much different from the standard Key formula we’ve seen in its past two incarnations, and that trying to impose standard harem-game rules on it would be doing it a disservice. Time to let this one percolate a bit…
I think reviewing reactions and such would be fine, as long as it’s done relatively objectively.
As bloggers we put our writing out there for public consumption, it should be understood that anything we say can and will be subject to evaluation. As long it doesn’t get too personal, meta-blogging is interesting. However, considering the shitstorms the anime blogging community has seen in the past…
I’m not good enough to make the metareview…..T_T
@ IKnight: Yeah, I don’t want offend anyone unless I’m actually outraged or maddened by something.
@ CCY: Clannad was a different show and KyoAni took the series much differently than AIR and Kanon. In a way I felt it was better to end with Tomoya asking Nagisa out rather than doing so earlier. Once a week or two passes, we’ll be able to look at it more clearly and formulate our opinions.
@ Shirukii: I don’t know which shitstorms you are referring to, since I’m relatively new to the anime blogging community.
@ Ascaloth: I did have Riuva in mind, but I couldn’t find a good paragraph or excerpt to take. So I simply left it out >_>
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