How did you first discover Key?

[EisenKoubu]

Quite the interesting story you have there. I commend you for spreading the gospel of Key to your girlfriend.

[quote=“Pepe, post:41, topic:291”]
So I told myself “I will not watch Clannad until I read the VN first!”
[/quote] That is actually what I decided to do with AIR and Little Busters, because I wanted to see if reading the visual novel first would give me a different perspective of the anime adaptation.

[Aspirety]

So have you read Little Busters yet?

[EisenKoubu]

(checks the mailbox) Nope. It’s not here yet.

[dirk_beefhammer]

Saw a lets play of Katawa Shoujo, played it because"lol boobs," 100% it, tears came out of me and I was very confused.

Told friend about it, made fun of me. “YOU DONT KNOW SAD UNLESS YOU KNOW KEY!!!” He then threw Kanon at me.

Since then I’ve been trying to read all Key VNs in chronological order. I’m on Clannad now, but all my saves got “merked” right as I was finishing up my first run of After Story.
;_;

[Hirato]

Told friend about it, made fun of me. “YOU DONT KNOW SAD UNLESS YOU KNOW KEY!!!” He then threw Kanon at me.

Man gotta love that friend of yours. :proceed to throw more Key VNs:

[sillylittlemelody]

When I found out the ‘visual novel genre’ i tried searching for some visual novels to play. I got into Fuwanovel, then I found Rewrite. The first route I did was Lucia’s: I simply loved it. Then, I started searching about Key and found out LB!, that I’ve just finished recently. At this time, I was already a Key and Maeda’s fan.

[Takafumi]

The first route I did was Lucia’s: I simply loved it.

Wasn’t Lucia’s locked until you completed Shizuru’s? o.o

[LinkThinks]

Nah you start with Kotori, Chihaya, and Lucia by default.

[Kanon]

Told friend about it, made fun of me. “YOU DONT KNOW SAD UNLESS YOU KNOW KEY!!!” He then threw Kanon at me.

Yeah, that hurt.

[dirk_beefhammer]

XD

God dammit Kanon. Hurt me too. You made me cry. :’(

[rentarou99]

I discover key when i check my facebook group ‘home for anime and otakus malaysia’ and ‘clannad group’ . I see they always post many pictures about angel beats,clannad and give a high recommendation about this anime.They say if you like to cry watching anime then i suggest this.Thats where i start to know key

[therationalpi]

My story is pretty similar to @JDAM_Cid in that I was first exposed to Kanon and Air by Megatokyo back around 2001, and didn’t really pay it too much mind.

In 2005, after high school, I started getting really into anime again. I discovered shows like Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that were aimed at my current demographic (before that I was only familiar with shows like Dragonball Z that just didn’t interest me anymore). From there I sought out Air and Kanon 2006, because I had heard of the franchises (loved them both). I started watching the Clannad anime when it was first airing and instantly fell in love with that series.

That’s where my experience with the visual novels started. On Christmas of 2007, I bought myself a copy of Planetarian, and read the whole thing in one sitting. Then, in the summer of 2008 (between Clannad and After Story anime releases) I picked up a copy of Clannad Full Voice that I read through. Since then I’ve also read through all of Rewrite and a few branches of Little Busters.

So I think my answer to the original question of how did I discover Key is probably “Megatokyo and the anime adaptations of Air and Kanon '06”

[Misuzu]

My first experience with Key was back in early 2009 when I watched AIR
I was on the “List of Animes” alphabetical list on Wikipedia and I was watching opening themes trying to find shows I want to watch
And I found AIR’s and my life has been chagned for the better ever since

[Kotarou]

I got bored of Naruto and all that boring shonen stuff cause the plots seemed boring to me. Then on YouTube, I saw a suggestion and it was CLANNAD episode 1. I watched it and it caught my attention because it actually talked about real life situations, I also loved the animation, dem cherry blossom trees doe :3 After that, I thought CLANNAD ended since I finished the last episode, and then I saw the OVA for the Tomoyo chapter, which was part of season 1. I didn’t understand why she was with Tomoya so I did research on CLANNAD and it said there was a second season. I then watched it, and lost my soul ;; After I finished all the episodes for After story, I saw the top suggestion on YouTube, and it said “Kanon 2006” so I watched it and got hooked up with it. After I finished that too, I kinda got sad cause the recommendation box showed CLANNAD which I already watched. After that, I searched on the Internet “Anime’s like CLANNAD and Kanon” and I found out that there was an anime called “Air” which I couldn’t find cause when I typed it in, all these airplane videos would show -.- Until I realized I had to type “TV” in. Basically, after I finished Air, I then re-searched if there was any anime’s like CLANNAD, Kanon, and Air, and I read something saying it was from Key, and that I could watch Angel Beats, which, I enjoyed. Did some research and learned LB was an anime too. Watched the first episode hoping to get all excited and be happy, but I honestly didn’t like how it started. The animation and the first episode plot kinda threw me off. So did the boy to girl ratio since I liked the normal 1 boy to 6 girls. I gave up on it. Re watched it about a year later and yeah. Now here I am. Though I gotta say LB was disappointing for all those fights and stuff. Key is wonderful ^^

[sillylittlemelody]

So did the boy to girl ratio since I liked the normal 1 boy to 6 girls.

Doesn’t Angel Beats break this pattern too?

Though I gotta say LB was disappointing

Hey, @Takafumi, seems like you’ve found a partner in crime. (lol)

[LinkThinks]

Hey, I was his partner first! Also, going off of the anime alone there’s a higher chance of having a negative reaction, I’d say. It’s not like it’s a secret that it’s a rather meh adaptation, so he’s not alone in that regard.

[sillylittlemelody]

Hey, I was his partner first!

Great! Now you guys can create a gang!

[Kotarou]

Angel beats does, but I didn’t really get annoyed by it, since most of the guys didn’t have big roles, and Hinata was like the big brother to Yuzuru in a way.

[Kotarou]

Especially Rin’s route in the anime -.- She only had a 3 minute scene in the anime to explain her backstory ! And she’s the main heroine -_- But I do praise J.C. Staff for what music they put for which scenes. Though they seemed to interested in “Song for friends” since that played throughout half of refrain, just saying. Though there are some beautiful songs on the soundtrack that I don’t think they put in the anime, such as “Approaching light” which was beautiful. I don’t know if J.C. Staff did some Anime-original songs too, since there was a beautiful song playing in LB - EX episode 8 that I can’t find on the soundtrack (Btw, would appreciate it if you can tell me the title. It’s a piano song that plays when Haruka is talking to this one girl about Kanata’s you know what. )

[Takafumi]

Hey, @Takafumi, seems like you’ve found a partner in crime.

Nope. That’s totally different. Especially on the ratio thing - The guys carried Litbus HARD. The start of Litbus was great. There’s some action music, a big scary guy, a fight… it’s like "wait… this is Key?"
Then cats happen. There’s fighting and baseball and probably the best comedy seen in Key VNs.

I have no problem with the common route. The problem I have with Litbus is that the individual character routes were all weaker than the VNs that preceded them. Kanon and Clannad were good because they had a good cast, and they did justice to those characters in the routes. They weren’t always the most powerful stories, but they were worth investing in.
Then you go from that to… Oh, Rin1. Sudden ending. Oh, Kud route. It’s trying to be tragic? When does sad stuff happen? Oh, Komari route. Didn’t they do this before?

It was different to what Key did for years, and to me, it was an unwelcome change. Litbus is still a great VN, it’s definitely up there on my ratings, but only because of the common route and refrain.

… The first season of the anime was really boring though. Probably because it was just the heroine routes… I do think they did Kud’s route a better service than the VN ever did, which going into the VN was the route I was interested the most, so it was nice to see it being not terrible.

Angel beats does, but I didn’t really get annoyed by it, since most of the guys didn’t have big roles

Most of the characters overall didn’t have big roles. You have like… Otonashi, Yuri, and Kanade. The rest are quick plot devices or comedy punching bags.

Especially Rin’s route in the anime -.- She only had a 3 minute scene in the anime to explain her backstory ! And she’s the main heroine -_-

Well… Rin doesn’t really have a backstory. She’s a shy girl. She grew up. It’s basically the same as Riki’s but without anything eventful.

But I do praise J.C. Staff for what music they put for which scenes.

In the first season they cut tracks awkwardly, and apparently forgot that half of the soundtrack existed.