I’ve been mulling over the possibility of working on a long-term project analyzing the animation works produced by Kyoto Animation throughout the past week. This is a test run to see if this would be well-received and if there would be interest in my performing something like this. The bonus OVA included on the 8th DVD volume of Clannad and on the BD-Box seemed like a good starting point as I had not viewed it in a while and could look at it more objectively. Let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more (though of full works, not each episode/OVA).

Clannad was KyoAni’s second production in HD. In contrast to director Tatsuya Ishihara’s motivation in AIR to focus on the extra space created by using widescreen layouts and Kanon’s use of high definition (both firsts for the studio), Clannad has a simpler approach that focuses on the content while applying lessons learned from those two works. Additionally, Ishihara focuses a lot on the use of colors in Clannad as with lighting and photography methods to replicate the game environment in anime form.

The Tomoyo Arc was designed for two reasons: 1. the content did not fit the singular narrative that was designed to center around Nagisa’s stories and 2. it provided a good impetus for people to buy the DVD as the episode would not be aired. Thus, unlike the main story, the Tomoyo arc is more reflective of the game, centering around Tomoya, Tomoyo, and Sunohara for most of the episode to excise distractions from this story.

As with the other episodes from the main story, the script for this episode was written by Fumihiko Shimo, who wrote most of the outside scripts for Haruhi, AIR, and Kanon (all Ishihara-directed works). This episode was storyboarded and directed by Noriko Takao, who left the studio in 2010 to move onto other projects in the Tokyo studios such as Idolm@ster and Saint Young Men. Finally, the animation director for the episode was Yukiko Horiguchi, who was in-between chief AD/character designer roles for Lucky Star and K-On!, the two shows around Clannad/After Story.

Shimo starts the episode with little hesitation to delve into the differences in this world. We’re instantly met with Tomoyo waking up Tomoya and hearing that the results of the student council election will be announced today, skipping most of the common scenes shown in the main story. He continues down the final route for Tomoyo in the game, hitting the highlights, but not feeling as though anything is left out. The only issue is the abrupt beginning; else this would be a perfect one-shot to show anyone unfamiliar with the series.

Takao leans on the “railroad crossing” metaphor quite heavily in this episode, constantly going back to it to show a lack of progression in the relationship between the leads. She excels at creating a great sense of time progression in the story in a short physical time-length while emphasizing the drawbacks of the two being together at that time. Her last big scene with the snow falling after graduation is very well directed to highlight a new beginning for the two, ending with the familiar crossing depicting a scene occurring afterwards. Outside of a couple of good cuts (one of a sign being lifted), she doesn’t go for huge animation scenes in this episode. It’s a very solid episode, though not as creative as some later KyoAni directors would pull off.

Horiguchi does a suitable job keeping characters on-model, though she begins to slump into some designs reminiscent of her future K-On! work. The character gestures/actions are well-animated and help show the emotional states throughout the episode. A good effort, but ADs should help keep things on-model, so the episode suffers from that respect.

Watching this via the 2010 Blu-ray box shows some of the issues IMAGICA have with their editing process. The final snowfall scene looks very good, but I saw heavy instance of banding near Tomoyo’s face, which detracts away from her expression. Elsewhere, the photography is average for the 2007 Kyoani productions. It’s definitely made in 720p with these techniques. It’s still way ahead of other productions at the time, but doesn’t hold up perfectly 8 years later. (Insert comment about eyes and Key character design at the time)

The 2010 BD-Box also had a re-mastering of the audio into 5.1 mixes. For most of the episode, I could barely notice the additional channels, but there were scenes that used it well to carry background chatter/noise. It’s a solid mix and Maeda’s music is very appropriately used throughout the episode with a touching ending song to the final climatic scene.

My first impression when watching this OVA for the first time was of amazement. This was something that justified the use of HD and helped encourage me to buy the BD-Box when it was newly released (though closer to the After Story one). It was one of my rare 9s on MAL and I’d still rank it as one of the better directed episodes I’ve seen. Shimo rushes the script a bit to lengthen the climatic scene near the end (and Ishihara put the credits earlier to not disturb it either), but the episode flows well and ends with a touching moment. I can’t say it reaches me as much as it did during my first viewing, but I was heavily entertained during this re-watch. All the staff do a wonderful job showing the story and help make it a great episode.