All of those who know me, and those of you who have been following Animated Meanderings for any length of time should be familiar with my extended love affair for those anime series derived from Key’s games. These are, of course, Kanon, Air, and more recently Clannad, of which I did a review in the not too distant past.

So, finally, I managed to get my paws on Clannad ~After Story~, and this managed to sit for my shelf for quite a length of time before I finally got around to watching it. You might find this odd, but I was actually scared to watch it. One of the reasons is that it would finally bring to a close a much loved series, and the other, more significant reason is the fact that I knew what was coming.

I’ve made mention in the past of how these series tend to be emotionally loaded, and I suspected, quite rightly, that After Story would turn me into a bawling baby again. Of course, something like this is, for me, a factor that can make any series stand out above the rest.

After Story picks up right where Clannad itself left off, and we get to see Tomoya, Nagisa and their friends as they enjoy their last year of school together. The first couple of episodes continue in a pretty similar vein to Clannad, but it takes a darker turn when Nagisa falls sick and, once again, is unable to graduate. Tomoya himself does graduate and dedicates himself to finding a place in society and supporting himself. However, a couple of speed-bumps await, not all of them dealt with too gracefully.

One thing I found myself disappointed with was that a great deal of the cast that were regulars in Clannad – the Fujibayashi sisters, Tomoyo, Kotomi and a number of other school friends – made little more than a token appearance in After Story, especially after the graduation ceremony. In this respect though, After Story did a very good job of reflecting real life, since its almost natural for school friends to have less contact with each other once they finish. I understood this in a logical sense, but I was still a little saddened by the fact that a cast I had grown fond of was absent.

As such, the series focuses mainly on Tomoya and Nagisa’s relationship, and later on the relationship between Tomoya and his young daughter, Ushio. It also spends some time on Tomoya’s handling of the events that transpire as the series progresses – and he faced some harsh lessons about the importance of family in one’s life. I’m trying my best to not give anything away here; to those who have already seen this series, you know what happens, and if you have any feelings at all it probably affected you in much the same way as it did myself.

The pace in After Story is much more hurried than in Clannad, with several months or even years passing between episodes. Kyoto Animation once again had charge of animation production, giving us the high level of animation quality I’ve been getting used to from them – one point of contention I have though is that, despite the fact that several years pass over the course of the series, none of the characters seemed to age at all. Lucky them.

There wasn’t much variation in terms of the sound-track; the producers had landed on a winning formula and didn’t seem particularly inclined to change it. Which is fine in my book, since beginning to watch After Story was very much like slipping on a well-worn, comfortable glove. Opening and closing credit music did change though – once again Lia did the honours, with Riya chiming in towards the end with the emotionally moving The Girl’s Fantasy.

User ratings are pretty telling; users on Anime News Network give it a score of 8.7/10, which puts it on an equal footing with Clannad – but what interested me was the fact that out of the 1679 votes at the time of writing this, 1,027 users gave it a rating of 10/10. The series consists of 24 episodes, with 22 episodes consisting of the main story, and 2 additional episodes, of which the second was a simple recap episode. An OVA, Clannad After Story – Another World: Kyou Chapter, was scheduled to be released in July 2009.

So, if you watched any of the other Key related anime, and enjoyed them, I would strongly urge you to watch Clannad ~After Story~. And if you haven’t, watch it anyway; my recommendation however, would be that you watch Clannad itself first; you will need the background. And if this series doesn’t get your eyes wet at least once, whatever you use for a heart has shriveled up and died, and you need to visit your local deity for a replacement.