As much as I love all of Key’s works, CLANNAD has to take it for me.
As is the case with many other members, the anime was my first experience with anything Key, and was crucial in my being a Key fan.
Setting this aside however, I consider it an important moment in my life generally speaking, because I had never before been so intimately touched by a work of art. Not only was it overwhelmingly good from a critical point of view, but it was also something which conveyed something to me on a much deeper level, something that can’t be worded in any review or analysis.
In that sense, the first and only time I watched the show didn’t shape my love of it as much as the passing of time; the fact that I still think about it up to this day, and come to further appreciate how it inspired me are definitely the greatest tokens of how important watching CLANNAD was to me.
It brought me to Rewrite, Little Busters! and subsequently the other works by Key, and although I always deem LB! my favorite for many a reason, CLANNAD has to be the most inspirational for me, as it was the first time a work of fiction had such a profound lasting impact on me, something that I can claim to “carry” with me even today.
I’d like finish with a special mention for AIR though, as Misuzu is definitely the one most inspirational fictional character I have ever encountered.