Discussion for the Common Route of CLANNAD, including the Baseball and Joke Sunohara routes. Please tag references to any other routes or outside works with [spoiler] tags, providing adequate context for the spoiler in parenthesis. Feel free to also share any entry-level impressions of characters here.
This topic also hosted CLANNAD Bookclub discussion from this post onward, and was referenced in our Common Route Podcast.
What would you rate this route?
0 voters
I just wanted to ask this before the bookclub begins as this is the first ārouteā. What is covered by the āCommon Routeā? It says it includes at least the Baseball and Joke Sunohara routes. The Baseball route refers to the 3vs3 baseball game on the Nagisa route I guess? And what exactly is the Joke Sunohara route? xD
Yes there are members of kazamatsuri who will be playing (a part of) CLANNAD for the first time, so Iām not familiar with all the routes 
What youāre thinking of is the Basketball game, this is Baseball! Basically you round up a bunch of characters and, instead of going down their routes, you end up in a special ending where you play baseball with everyone. Akio is pretty central, of course. And if you follow our guide, youāll get to play Laser Tag beforehand as well!
The Sunohara joke ending is basicallyā¦ Yaoi shenanigans.
Both of them were presented in the anime in some form, with ep1 of After Story and ep23 of the first season.
So I was on the right track, thank you
Sorry, Iām a little confused. When do the podcasts start, and then they go each route a week, right? I know the order, just not the dates.
According to our admin the podcast dates are as follows.
28th November - Baseball
5th December - Misae
12th December - Tomoyo
19th December - Yukine
26th December - Kotomi
2nd January - Fujibayashi
9th January - Kappei
16th January - Sunohara
23rd January - Fuko
30th January - Koumura
6th February - Nagisa
13th February - After Story
Approx. 20th February - CLANNAD Bookclub Anthology!
If you have a copy of CLANNAD, youāre welcome to start reading now. Itād be best if everyone finished their reading as soon as they can~
Yeah, itās my opinion that 4 days is a bit too short to read up to the entirety of baseball route, but you can still finish a big chunk of common in that time
Bookclub discussion begins from this post onward!
If I may be the first to post as part of the āofficialā discussion, Iāll go ahead and share some of the observations from the opening scene alone.
They set the tone for Tomoya as a delinquent from the get go, but it also subtly foreshadowed his rough life as well. āThe expression on her faceā¦ Ah, yesā¦ I remember those days - what it felt like to be naive, simple. Thatās something weāve all experienced.ā When I read that, it just screamed some level of trauma to me: he had seen/gone through some shit that had stripped away the innocence, the veil of ignorance that had been over his eyes blinding him from the truth of the world. I know the way Iām saying this is making him seem like he had gone through very dark experiences (like Elfen Lied level dark if you understand my reference), which I actually know better since I went into this having already seen the anime, but itās something that I picked up on.
Then again, I may be over analyzing Tomoya. Maybe, this was intended to highlight Nagisaās innocence in contrast to Tomoyaās more serious demeanor.
Just noticed how when Tomoya and Nagisa introduce themselves to each other, Tomoyaās narration remarks that āThis was the fated day that we met.ā Slightly awkward since most of the narration is in present tense, or is this a āsecondā narration and this story is being told to us from a future perspective?
You could also see it as him foreseeing in that moment that their meeting is fatedā¦ though you donāt need to go onto Nagisaās route after their meeting, do you?
I read a bit of the game earlier today. Okazaki trolling is probably one of my most favourite things in this novel. I almost feel bad for Sunohara, but not really. They show amazingly quickly that Sunohara is such a heinous guy that Tomoya trolling him shouldnāt quite matter.
And the illusionary worldā¦ there are creative parallels with the main game? Because Tomoya is alone in the main game, and complaining that never changes. And the person in the illusionary world is also stuck in a never-ending world that is changed by the appearance of a girl, just like Tomoyaās own situation when he meets Nagisa. Iām sure thatās at least part of the relationship it has with the main story. Itās the kind of thematic writing Iād expect from a Japanese writer.
Is there a good guide with no spoilers to make sure you do the correct route for the bookclub each week?
Just be careful not to accidentally scroll far if the choices would be spoilers.
Thank you! 
So I started my first reading of Clannad. It feels pretty weird to follow a guide for the first reading of a Visual Novel, but I really enjoy it so far.
The thing that strikes me the most is the quality of the music. The songs are great and really help creating the mood. The music of this game is the kind of music I would listen for entertainment. Also, I really like the art and general quality of the images.
I donāt know much about the story yet (other than what I learned from the internet in the past), but I canāt wait to read more.
I already have a couple of theories about the illness of a certain girl we meet at the beginning but will keep them for myself for the moment. Iāll reveal what I think once I lean more about the story and world of Clannad.
One thing that has caught my attention so far is the alternate world, the world that has ended where nothing is born nor dies. I can tell that there is something deeper to it, but I canāt put my finger on it. And this is strange coming from me because I have actually seen the anime a handful of times and itās still a mystery to me.
If anyone has any kind of interpretation, that would be great. That is unless it deals with spoilers for later routes, even if it was adapted into the anime. In which case, Iāll do my best to figure it out on my own.
So I doubt Iāll have much of a chance to mention this on the podcast, so I just wanna say that the first scene in CLANNAD is just so different compared to other Key works. For most of the other Key works, when the game starts, it gets right into action. Like in AIR, where the first thing that happens is Yukito getting off a bus and looking for a Ramen Set. Or in Little Busters, where they go straight into a comedic battle between Masato and Kengo.
CLANNADās introduction begins with a heap load of introspection from Tomoya, which then flows through to the beautiful scene with Nagisa under the cherry blossoms. If anything, it gives a lot of feel for the kind of VN weāre about to start, and I really like that.
Hey now, thatās the second scene 
