How did you first discover Key?

Key Discussion
#85

it was when I was watching Little Busters! anime two years ago (which attracted me was it’s soundtrack, not gonna lie), then because I really liked the story, I asked my friend who had Little Busters! Season 1 and Refrain videos which were in original Japanese dub and had english subtitles and watched them in 3 days straight! It really gave me a deep impression (and I also cried :’( ) and I thought I was going to search for the VN too because the anime also originated from there, but poor me the official english version of the VN is not released yet (wink to Sekai Project to make this their first next project list).

Well, I guess that summarized my first Key VN/Anime that I discovered.

#86

I had a lot of time back in highschool. I decided to watch an anime since most of my friends loves animes. I googled up “heartbreaking animes” and found Clannad among the list. I find the title to be a bit weird among all the titles, so I decided to watch it.

I am not dissapointed. The story was so beautifully made that I immediately turn into an otaku after watching it. It also made me start to play the piano again after 6 years of thinking piano is a boring musical instrument, all thanks to the beautiful soundtracks

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#87

When I was in the 8th grade in 2008/2009 my best friend, who is Japanese, tried to get me to watch Clannad. I was weirded out because this was my first exposure of anime and the characters were too cute and girly looking to me. So like any close minded kid I shot it down.

3 years later in the 11th grade of high school, I am going through depression from a breakup. It was pretty much a Tomoyo/Tomoya break up senario. Anyways, my best friend told me to watch it again and I gave it a shot since I had a lot of free time and was trying to get my mind off of the breakup. I finished Clannad and After Story in 2 days. I literally watched it non-stop with little sleep because of how hooked I was to it.

Clannad had cured my depression and made me appreciate life and the people around me. It changed my view of life forever. Eventually I was hooked to Key’s stories and began to watch all of the anime adaptions and now am currently reading their visual novels.

9 Likes
#88

As a kid my favourite show on Nickelodeon was Cardcaptors, and when I turned ten I started learning to browse the internet, one of the first things I did was seek out that show. Through that I discovered anime on youtube, back then you could get full episodes of almost any anime without a problem. I discovered Love Hina, somehow, and decided that I love ‘Harem’ anime most of all.

That led me to Kanon 2006, which was airing at the time. I’d never seen anything so tender and emotional in my life, I liked how the stories were about the characters’ feelings and not their actions. It was one of those “Why isn’t everybody talking about this? This is one of the best things ever made!” moments in youth when you discover something you love.

At the end of the last Kanon episode was a trailer for Clannad, I watched that as it aired and leap-frogged my obsession to the newer anime. I just couldn’t get enough of these touchy-feely storylines. I downloaded the VN and read the whole thing. I was about twelve, so it was eight years ago. Crazy to think that it’s been so long since I first watched Kanon. In a way Key has been a part of my childhood.

2 Likes
#89

“THE SECRETS OF THE CLOW” Cardcaptors?

#90

BUT WHEN THIS MIGHTY BOOK WAS OPENED
THE POWER WAS SET FREE

Yes. I watched the original Japanese anime with subs once I discovered the internet, but Sakura’s ill-fitting dub voice is still more nostalgic for me.

#91

CARDCAPTORS!
A MYSTIC ADVENTURE!

I’ve been meaning to watch the original for years now. I remember dropping the dub back when I first got internet because of how edited it was, but never picked up the sub ><
The design of the English video tape boxes were glorious though. I think that’s one thing they got really right.

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#92

my god I didn’t understand the internet properly until I was 14ish, and you’re only 2 years my senior so I should be more adapt than you going by how the rise in technological comprehension seems to be growing each year. By I am very jealous of you! I didn’t get, well, get’s not the right word. I didn’t know about anime until two years ago… all those years doing nothing on the holidays could have been filled with anime! (harems for the win!!)

I know how you feel, I love action anime or a good comedy harem anime but my favourite are the animes that do nothing but hit you right it the feels… over and over again :smiley: … wait does that make me a masochist… Does that make all key lovers masochist!?

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#93

Haha, when kids that young are on the internet all they do is annoy other people. But I have to say looking back I absolutely loved my early internet days. My terrible fanfiction, conversing with other tweens about silly topics. Nerdy kids like it because on the internet they’re free of their school status.

I don’t know how you escaped anime for that long though :michioh:

I think fiction is a good way to exercise our emotions without actually becoming involved in drama in real life. It’s euphoric! Key lovers are just pleasure seekers!

2 Likes
#94

I was really into SAO, so I asked @cjlim2007 to recommend me something very similar, along the lines of Log Horizon or Accel World, so logically he gave me Clannad. Then I watched everything else, but I didn’t get hooked on Key 'till Little Busters.

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#95

That just makes me sound like I think Clannad is an action shonen which it definitely is not…

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#96

I was on a forum, and one user had an Angel Beats! gif as her avatar. I thought it looked pretty, and I was just recently starting to get into anime (Literally all I’d seen at that point was Soul Eater, Hetalia, and FMA). So I decided to watch AB!, and tbh I liked it but it didn’t really affect me.
I came across Clannad a few months later but didn’t think the first few episodes were good enough to keep watching.
The next year in March, I was struggling with depression and stuff, and I felt prompted to rewatch AB!. I did, and it meant a lot more than it did the first time. I wanted to see more similar shows, so I decided to try watching Clannad again. I don’t know, it was amazing. And that’s what got me hooked on Key.

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#97

Final Hitode Tsukai: Fuko!

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#98

I wanted to cry. (Depressing reasons as to why I wanted to cry, but let’s glance over that)

I messaged my friend something along the lines of “I want to cry. Give me a show that will make me cry.”
He responded with one word: “Clannad”.

Well, I had only seen 5 episodes of any anime ever at the time, so I was hesitant to jump in at first.

I watched the opening of the first episode, and I immediately related to Tomoya, and I watched on into the night.

At 2 AM, once Fuko’s arc had ended, I can easily say I fell in love with Clannad. Although I did not cry at that time, my eyes were wet. I finished the series in about 2 days, including After Story.

I branched off to a couple other sad series, but when I found that Key was responsible for Clannad, and had other works, I quickly watched as many as I could.

As of February 16, 2016- I have now seen every Key anime, plus planetarian. I’m working on the Clannad VN right now.

So, basically, my friend showed me. :stuck_out_tongue:

15 Likes
#99

How did I get into Key?

So I first heard about Clannad from an FAQ section of an Anime Youtuber, I think the question was “What’s your favorite KyoAni anime?” So the only thing I remembered from this video was “This is a good show.” But I didn’t really search for it after that video. No, what started it, was actually a steam recommendation for Clannad. Guess the other games I played were similar enough that steam thought: “Hey, you might like this one.” So I read some of the reviews, also looked into the two negative reviews, and their only complaint could be boiled down to “If you watched the anime already, it’s not really necessary.” I didn’t, so I got myself the game when it was reduced in price. Through that, I then found this site’s walkthrough on steam, an logically through that again this site, informed myself about Key through this site, and decided, after reading only Clannad and based on this fandom more or less, “I’ll risk liking Key without even having read most of their work.” Since I’m waiting for the official english releases, I still couldn’t verify that for myself yet, but I am hopeful. Otherwise I wouldn’t have joined this community.
With other words, it’ll be your guys’ fault, if everything turns out to be bad :wink:
Thing is, you have already influenced me so much that I myself highly doubt that (you know, that everything else by Key is bad).

4 Likes
#100

I watched the Clannad anime, then I looked up the source material, then started playing the Visual Novels.

#101

I think the way I discovered Key is rather strange. In 2012, one of Hyouka’s English fan pages (could be official too, I’m not really sure) advertised Little Busters! They said that it’ll air next week. Since I never heard Little Busters before, I searched the web a bit. I came across a lot of images of LB! characters with cat ears, and I thought “Oh? So it’s gonna be another moe slice-of-life?” Even though I thought that, I still ended up watching the first episode as soon as it got released. I found the first episode funny, and the premise wasn’t bad. I started to watch a few episodes like that. Then, one day when I was exploring a visual novel website, I came across Little Busters!’ visual novel. I can’t tell you how excited I was! I immediately started playing it. I was literally immersed with it for a few weeks. In the end, I completed the visual novel before the anime was finished. I loved the story so much! A few months later, I found out Little Busters! EX too and suddenly, Saya became my favorite character. After this wonderful experience, I started to watch/play every Key anime/visual novel possible.

4 Likes
#102

Just saw this here, ha.

I was looking for new anime in 2001 and went looking based on images and found a pencil board site. I saw AIR and Kanon images and fell in love with the art style. When I tried searching for info nothing came up, except this manga here https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=468 . Which clearly wasn’t it.

I then discovered a site that would show all anime like a tv guide for each day. It had Kanon the 2002 anime listed. I was ecstatic that there would be an anime and then saw it and fell in love with the story and was so compelling (even if by today’s standards it now doesn’t hold up as well). From then on I found KEY’s Japanese site and fan sites after like KFC. I tried to find out more about AIR but only got images. Then in 2002 Clannad was announced and I was waiting and waiting. Then along came kyoani and made the beautiful anime AIR and then Clannad and so on :slight_smile:

Love has not wavered since!

5 Likes
#103

It’s funny to say that how I discovered Key was by playing various visual novels such as Kazoku Keikaku (Family Project) back then and I read the review after finishing it that it was similar to CLANNAD with the family as its theme. But before all of that, I didn’t know about visual novels and dare I say, even eroge, for that matter, when I watched an anime called Oreimo (Ore no Imouto Konna Wake ga Nai) which dealt with a girl who was interested in anime, games, and you guess it, eroge. It was from that time that I watched the CLANNAD anime which was my first Key title and I fell in love with the story, characters, drama, and the emotional impact that pulled my heartstrings that I had a hard time of how much CLANNAD meant to me. It was so good that I wanted to play the VN and although I finished the game last year, it was better than I expected that I had to know more about other titles as well.

Even before finishing CLANNAD, I decided to play Kanon and AIR which were also amazing VNs too that I also watched their corresponding anime that left me in tears for both of those shows. After that, Little Busters! was the next Key title that I was recommended by @Yerian when I first came here on Kazamatsuri that it should be played before watching the anime. I was so glad that I did and it was one of the best VNs that really made me excited for the endearing stories that Key is so well known for when it comes to emotional impact that will make you shed tears and care deeply for the characters’ backstories.

I wanted to play VNs that had stories that make you think and feel about how people’s lives change when things don’t seem to be as easy as it may start out and I think Key delivers those messages that drive home as how we can relate to these characters and what makes them special to us as we might not be that different in terms of personality and traits they inhabit. In a sense, we are put into their shoes, sort to speak, and learn from their perspectives on life’s hardest questions we face everyday that we are able to move forward. It’s just a thought that I observed while playing these life-changing stories and come to an appreciation that Key is not just known for sad and tragic stories, but can have a positive aspect on how we learn from their backgrounds and root for the characters we come to know and love from our hearts. :smile:

5 Likes
#104

I started watching anime in 2010. I was watching Toradora and a lot of people in the comments section recommended watching Clannad so I decided to try it out. I fell in love with After Story and it made me cry for the first time that I could remember. Right after watching Clannad, I saw Kanon. I had no idea they were both made by Key at the time. Later, I was watching Air when I found out that Key had made all three of them. Since then, I have watched all of Key’s anime adaptations and I recently started reading the visual novels.

1 Like