Clannad

Overview

Clannad (クラナド, Kuranado) is a Japanese visual novel developed by Key released on April 28, 2004 playable on Windows PCs. While both of Key's first two previous works, Kanon and Air, had been released first as adult games and then censored for the younger market, Key's third work Clannad was released with a rating for all ages. Clannad was later ported to the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. The story follows the life of Tomoya Okazaki who meets many people in his last year of high school, including five girls at his school, and he helps resolve their individual problems.

The gameplay in Clannad follows a branching plot line which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the five female main characters by the player character. The game ranked as the best-selling PC game sold in Japan for the time of its release, and charted in the national top 50 several more times afterwards. Key went on to produce an adult spin-off titled Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life in November 2005, which expanded on the scenario of Tomoyo Sakagami, one of the five heroines from Clannad.

Clannad has made several transitions to other media. There have been four manga series: the first serialized in Comic Rush, the second in Comi Digi +, the third in Dengeki G's Magazine and Dengeki G's Festival! Comic, and the fourth in Dragon Age Pure. Comic anthologies, light novels and art books were also published, as were audio dramas and several albums of music. An animated film by Toei Animation was released on September 15, 2007, followed by two anime series including two original video animation (OVA) episodes by Kyoto Animation. Both anime series and their accompanying OVAs are licensed by Sentai Filmworks and are localized and distributed in English by Section23 Films. The two Clannad anime series were released in North America in 2009. The animated adaptations have received high sales figures in Japan as well as critical acclaim abroad.

Plot

Okazaki Tomoya student who is labeled as a delinquent by others because of his constant tardiness. He has only one friend in the whole school - a slacker like him, Sunohara Youhei. He doesn't care about these anyways. On one of his late comings, he meets Furukawa Nagisa, a shy girl who skipped her last year due to her sickness and has to repeat last year over again - with her friends all graduated. Although Tomoya doesn't care for this girl at first, he becomes unable to leave her alone. Thus, he starts helping Nagisa with her wish, on the revival of the Drama Club. As he gets himself more involved in this, he starts to meet other people - which he - again - doesn't care at all at first, but later start to open his heart to them as he gets to know them...

Soundtrack