I guess I could end up playing the whole Key Studios catalogue 
Could be I’m a sucker for nakige and I’ll be playing them until I’m as old as Koumura…
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Talking about funnies: last night I watched the anime episode in the After Story where the Furikawa family drink saké with Tomoya - oh boy, having read the VN I knew what was coming but they really nailed it in the anime and the animated scene was just fall down funny - I haven’t belly laughed so much in years 
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Clannad was the first Key Anime that I watched, and after watching Kanon, and in the middle of Air right now, Clannad is by far my favorite right now. The emotional high and low, and the attachment that you get with the characters is definitely beyond the attachment to any other anime series for me. I recently got the VN (man kickstarter physical editions are sooo expensive… yet worth it haha), and I am looking forward to diving in more.
For those who have watched both anime and VN, which VN route would you suggest for someone to start first? I’m very new to the VN genre, and I am interested in learning more about the story. Even after watching anime several times and using the Google, there are still many questions I am curious about.
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Hi, I think the “Baseball” route is often suggested as the first ( which I did after blind playing my way to the generic bad end first which turned out to be fairly short in my case) - and it’s good but it’s just the same as the anime albeit taking longer through the VN, I hadn’t seen the anime though before playing.
Since you have watched the anime though it’s not the same brand new experience for someone who hasn’t seen the anime to get a good introduction to all the characters, but it’s quite satisfying perhaps for someone new to VNs.
That said playing blind without walkthrough and just seeing how it turns out for your choices isn’t a bad idea, because going badly wrong is a good lesson! The golden rule is save often…
You should follow the CLANNAD Bookclub! https://kazamatsuri.org/clannad-bookclub/
There’s a recommended route guide, and a walkthrough. Plus, you can listen to the podcasts after each route.
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That is a fantastic idea! So I do the line and then listen to the podcast and here what other people say about it?
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Yeah, you should read the topics and post in them too, since not everything talked about in the podcast is from the forum.
If you read and hear the podcasts as you finish the routes, it would be a nice idea for you to make a post for each route talking about what you thought about it and agreeing or disagreeing with what they say. I’m sure everyone’s views on every route is at least slightly different.
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Even if I am late to the conversation by a year? Going to take me awhile to do the VN so I am going to take my time and enjoy it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re posting 5 years after the last post! A topic isn’t dead until we are.
Well more accurately, a topic isn’t dead until Kazamatsuri closes down, however many years from now that might be 
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I’ve had a pretty rotten last couple of weeks with various issues, so I decided to watch the Clannad anime again ( went through it first time just last December ). What a good choice - I’m about halfway through the first season and it’s hard to express how much it has given me such a great lift when I really needed something to cheer me up. The Fuko route had me laughing out loud often even though I’ve been thinking nothing could make me laugh at the moment ( well I have cried a bit too!).
The music is so inspirational too. Thank you Key!
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Sekai Project has released CLANNAD - 10th Anniversary Artbook and CLANNAD - Anthology Manga on Steam as CLANNAD DLCs!
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OH MY GOOOOOOD!!!
Clannad deleted all my endings! It turns out that it was not finished downloading, I had gone through 33 playthroughs and one After Story unfinished. Aww man! I had gotten nearly 100%, then boop, when I booted it up, WHAM! ALL DEAD ALL DEAD.
(The version I got was the fan translation from some time ago, not the official one… so sad. ;-; )
This actually happened to me in 2013 (I lost unfinished saves of Clannad, Rewrite and Kanon) and I was so angry I quit visual novels for a few years.
I see Clannad + AfterStory combined is being pushed as an English language Blu-ray release in December (for USA, Region A only?).I suppose they were only available separately before? How about a region B release please?!
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Just go with what you feel for the first playthrough and try to get a couple of routes yourself. Clannad does have one or two difficult-to-get-to routes. For those, you can always look at walkthroughs.
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“Yukine’s route… Again?” 
So I finally finished the entire Clannad VN, and it took me a long time but I enjoyed it greatly. Having watched the anime before I knew exactly what would happen in After Story, but I still thought it was a very worthwhile experience to read through the Visual Novel version too. I feel like I became a lot more familiar with Tomoya’s character when compared to just having watched the anime. You get to see his thought processes and inner workings a lot more than in the adaptation I think. He’s emotionally unstable which is highlighted in a few routes, and I thought he was a very interesting protagonist.
I also thought the handling of his grief ater losing Nagisa was realistic and it was painful to see how he had to go through that considering how she meant everything to him. Something that struck me as odd in the VN though was that they had Nagisa go through childbirth without any medical assistance despite the clear risks involved, I believe that the adaptation actually had them calling for a doctor but there he couldn’t arrive in time due to heavy snowfall. This wasn’t in the VN at all, and I just thought it was strange. And Tomoya taking Ushio outside for a walk instead of to a hospital after her fever had worsened seemed like a weird move too, but this was the same in the anime. I don’t want to criticize it too harshly for that though, and otherwise I had very few problems with the VN in general. It still remains one of my favourite stories ever.
Having gone through After Story made me realize again what great characters Akio and Sanae are. They are without a doubt my favourite supporting cast. As far as the other routes go I think Tomoyo’s is still my favourite, followed closely by Kyou’s and then Kotomi’s. I have Tomoyo After to read next, and I’m very tempted to read the Tomoyo route again to get the “feel” of it once more, despite remembering everything clearly. It’s just that going through all the other routes and After Story afterwards pulls you away from the feelings you had before if that makes sense. Speaking of which, after Tomoyo After I will probably read Kyou’s route again as well, just because she’s my favourite. I’m probably making this whole experience a lot longer than is strictly necessary, haha.
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Man, Akio and Sanae are just absolutely amazing 
Probably two of the few characters who, despite not being written as “perfect” could not, in my eyes, be any better than they already are.
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Good news! Clannad + AfterStory has been accorded “Shelf Worthy” in this latest review at the Anime News network of the combined blu-ray boxset. Good to know another male adult noob to Clannad was reduced to tears at points!
Pretty much spoiler free review:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/shelf-life/2018-01-22/.126717#clannad
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