If it was a vote for saddest series I’d pick Air in a heartbeat, but LB! is just so hard to beat for overall enjoyment.
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I’m agree with you about the understanding characteristic of each Key work!
B…but… Clannad is my third least favorite on this list… ;~; I can’t lump them together!
I totally understand what you are saying. I feel EXACTLY the same and that is why I chose Clannad too.
Whenever someone asks me what my fav anime is Clannad always pops up in my head first.
Voted Planetarian.
I loved Planetarian the most because it had the most emotional impact (sobbing all over myself because I couldn’t tear myself away from the story to get a tissue) on me among Key’s other stories. It changed my ideals on innocence and war with its post-apocalyptic setting that I assumed before hand I knew inside and out from other video games and stories. Further details apart, it remains well held in my heart.
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I said Little busters, I just love the game, the story, characters; It is just super fun, yet still very touching and emotional. Really when I first started it, kyousuke really grabbed my attention very early, and kept it. I always liked rin too, she really changes after awhile but I liked her from the start, the whole shy cat lover, but she is more than that as you see later on. I always liked kud alot too, and recently komari has been growing on me even. I think when I saw the anime they really captured her very well. There really wasn’t any character I didn’t like at all.
I am however a little sad to see AIR have only 1 vote… That could be my number 2 hard to say. AIR has always kind of drawn me in, but really it wasn’t until recently when I read the vn it shot up a whole bunch. I think the AB! vn is going to be super awesome so you better watch out lol. I havn’t read kanon yet so who knows it could sneak in there as well.
I was so torn between Little Busters and Rewrite but I have to go with Little Busters. Everything about Little Busters had an impact on me from start to finish. I made the mistake of watching the first season of the anime before I read the VN so going through the characters stories lost a little impact but there was no way for them to have carried everything over. I have been on record as complaining about the Refrain anime but after thinking about it I know its because I am comparing a good production (Refrain anime) with something that is so much better (the VN). The anime was given the impossible task of trying to convert everything to Refrain did so well into a limited time frame. Of all the VN’s I’ve read Refrain has left more of an impression on me and made me think more than any I’ve played to date and for that I give the crown to Little Busters!
Ultimately though there isn’t really a wrong answer here if we are being completely honest.
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We are the few, the proud.
Anyways, I voted planetarian because, simply, out of Key’s stories that I’ve read/watched, it struck me as the best laid out and with by far the strongest impact in the shortest amount of time. Even though I enjoyed Rewrite more, and I’d say it impacted me more as a person (due to when I read it), planetarian is still my favorite if that makes any sense.
Aside from just being an awesome story, though, planetarian holds a lot of emotional value to me because of when I read it. I covered this on the podcast, and maybe somewhere else as well, but I’ll put it down again so I can convey how much planetarian means to me a bit more properly. This was back last August, by the way.
So, roughly a year prior to reading planetarian one of my cats needed to get some of her teeth pulled, since she has a certain condition where they become corroded. She was taken into the vet, anyways, and some hours later when I’m just hanging out in my room my mom comes in and tells me that she just got a call from the vet. My cat had an unnatural reaction to the anesthesia they used, and, although they were doing what they could, it was somewhat likely she wouldn’t make it.
In retrospect, I can’t remember exactly how I felt, all I know is that it was some mixture of terror, anxiety, and regret that I didn’t spend more time with my cat. It was just a disgusting torrent of emotion. Luckily, though, my cat ended up being alright and coming home safely, but they never were able to perform the operation to get those teeth pulled.
Well, fast forward a year and we’re at the point where those teeth seriously need to go out, it’s not really an option. The vet said that they’d be way more careful, go more slowly, and use a different anesthesia this time around, and, while I didn’t doubt them, I couldn’t shake those feelings that ended up coming over me again. For whatever reason, the day before she had to be admitted I decided to look and see if there were any decent visual novels I could play on my phone, and planetarian was the only one that really caught my eye, especially since it was Key, so I picked it up to read later.
That night I couldn’t fall asleep due to worrying, so I decided there wouldn’t really be a better time to read planetarian, seeing as there wasn’t anything else to do. Man, I couldn’t have been more correct. Everything about my mental state of feeling small and powerless to being alone in the dark served to set the tone of the visual novel perfectly, and it made the experience simply amazing. It went a long way towards helping take my mind off things.
Anyways, my cat ended up being totally fine and got her teeth pulled without a hitch. That was also the day I saw the post on Reddit about the Kazamatsuri planetarian bookclub podcast and ended up joining on a whim, so I also have that chain of events to thank for even being here in the first place.
Sorry for having that whole sob story text wall, but I truly believe that’s the most important piece of why planetarian means so much to me, why I enjoy it so much, and also why I’m even on Kaza to begin with. It created an imprint on me that won’t go away any time soon.
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I’m gonna pick Little Busters! because the friendship theme is very strong, and the characters… All of them feel like my own, real friends. The characters are what makes Little Busters! the best for me. Although the writing quality is a bit messy compared to CLANNAD, but I really picked LitBus! purely for the characters and their interaction.
In CLANNAD VN, the heroines just don’t go well together except for Kotomi’s route. Although the family theme is strong, but the characters interaction with each other just seems lacking of something. (Which is why the anime is better in that aspect)
And LitBus! has more balanced ratio of boys and girls (and yeah, all the male and female characters are very appealing in their own ways. Before LitBus! it’s really hard to imagine fangirls shipping two Key male characters in a… certain relationship like Riki and Kyousuke) Basically Key is more gender-neutral than other Key series beside Angel Beats!
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This was just a really tough choice for me…Rewrite or Little Busters! I ultimately had to pick Rewrite. I love them both equally but even though to me Little Busters! was the bigger one in the feels department and had a nice group of friends but I had to go with Rewite, this is mainly due to its whole overall feel. I came into Rewrite Kind of tired out having just read stories that were relatively the same to each other and they were all very bland But Rewrite felt new and told a story that I had rarely ever seen and I just had an absolute blast while playing, Just enough for it top top Little Busters on my favorites list.
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Sir, this is absolutely awesome. I can see you poured heart and soul into this. Something I yearn for, being able to convey my feelings into words about Planetarian.
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Little Busters ohhh my damn ohhh mmm. So good. It might just be how much time I’ve spent in that universe but it’s pretty much the only work of fiction in which I feel completely familiar with all of the characters, and then once it had got me to that point it threw ALL the feels at me. Owwwwwwwww. 10/10.
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That was a really great connection you were able to have with the story. I think that’s exactly what the authors intend to do with what they write. Sure, the story will make a handful of people cry, but when it serves as deep a personal connection as it has with you, that takes the story to a whole different dimension.
In that sense, that could be a reason why they change the theme every time around. People who have a strong connection to their family would be more attenuated towards Clannad, and people who have had a strong childhood with their friends would be more attenuated towards Little Busters. Just a few examples, as the themes of the other key works are a lot more arguable.
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Kanon is my favorite by a slim margin. Clannad is great, but I felt Kanon had a tighter, more personal story and more likable characters. It’s easier to read, too. :3
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The bonus effort from the NDT translators is great too. Clicking on words and finding out what they mean, or learning extra information about Kanon/Key.
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Charlotte represent!
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Little Busters takes first place!
With AIR and Clannad at a very close tie for second just barely behind Little Busters
Followed by Kanon
Then Planetarian
Then the absolute horridness that is Tomoyo After (sorry - unpopular opinion)
I have not yet played Rewrite or Kud Wafter so I can’t compare those yet
Little Busters is my ~aesthetic~. Every single character is lovable, and the minigames are super fun.
Planetarian deserves its own category though because it’s so different from the other Key games. The dark, oppressive atmosphere and worldbuilding really set it apart. You can’t really have “worldbuilding” in a cute high school story like Clannad or LB. It didn’t make me cry, but it did make me lie down and think about stuff 
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Still have to go with CLANNAD, with Little Busters! a close second.
It was really incredible how Little Busters was able to convey the friendship theme. Some of the things in Little Busters were outlandish. Of course we find out later there are reasons for that, but they nonetheless broke my suspension of disbelief for a moment. What was AMAZING however, was it effectively conveying genuine friendship between the cast.
But Clannad still takes more from my heart <3
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Voted for Rewrite.
My choice is based on the VN’s since rewrite doesn’t have an anime adaption (Still hoping for one).
The first Key VN i’ve played was clannad. Overall the VN is great but I have three things that bother me. Fuko & Youhei. And the first part of After Story. I skipped Fuko & Youhei’s route completly beacause I just disliked them in the VN. I don’t really remember the Reason. And i got bored with after story at some point. I quittet after story just before Nagisa died. But because of that it really had a strong impact on me when it happend in the Anime!
Next was Little Busters! I’ve played everything, except Kurugaya’s route and Refrain. I didn’t like Kurugaya in the VN (She was okay in the Anime). And I didn’t like Rin (Also okay in the Anime). So I just don’t wanted to start with Refrain.
I like Planetarian but it’s to short for me. I need VN’s where i can waste hours and hours of my life 
I haven’t played Kanon and Air yet.
Okay now about Rewrite.
First of all, I really like the setting. I didn’t expect that Rewrite is all about Summoner & Superhumans! And the whole save the earth thing.
Kotarou is my favorite protagonist because I think he’s the funnies of all. I love when he refers to videogames Also he has a different appearence in every Route. In Kotoris Route he just wants to be normal and life a normal life. But in Chihayas Route he wants to become strong to protect what he loves.
I don’t want to talk about every single person, I love them all and that should be enough explanation
Also I like the idea of collecting Friends, Quests and Monsters!
I’ve completet 100% in about a week i think. Maybe a few days more. And the longest session was on a Sunday for like 16 hours nonstop reading.
Long story short, Every Key VN is nice but rewrite is the best!
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