Clannad - Episode 24

I had completely forgotten about this, actually. It seems like an absolute age since Clannad “finished”, so this long-awaited twenty-forth episode kind of hit me from out of the blue. This episode focused around Tomoyo in what I’ve gathered is an alternate version of the Clannad universe, following her path from the original Clannad game. As such, the story mainly focused around the difficulties faced by the now dating delinquent-and-highschool-president couple as they sped on towards their graduation.

I wasn’t really sure what to make of Clannad episode twenty-four, to be honest. After watching the original series’ worth of character development between Nagisa and Tomoya, seeing him with Tomoyo felt, well, wrong. I thought that it was rather a strange decision on Kyoto Animation’s part to do away with the entire Clannad cast, bar Tomoya, Tomoyo and Mr. Comic Relief Sunohara. All the work that had gone crafting each character seemed like such a waste in light of this episode.

But that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. Clannad episode twenty-four was actually really good. The emotional development between Tomoyo and Tomoya was very well handled, culminating in that fantastic (in spite of that awful Engrish insert song) snow scene at the end. I even got really upset when Tomoya had to break up with Tomoya for her own good, around midway through the episode. As always, Kyoto Animation did a terrific job with the drama and timing, speeding up during the not-so-interesting plot parts of the episode, and then slowing right down at pivotal scenes.

As for the animation quality itself, it was watchable, but perhaps not quite so polished as it could have been. Considering that Kyoto Animation had a good few months to put Clannad episode twenty-four together, I was expecting ultra-OVA quality. However, luckily where it counted standards were kept high. Facial expressions in particular were wonderfully rendered, which really added to the emotion of the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I’m not entirely sure that it sits well with the other twenty-three preceding episodes, but it certainly worked well as a standalone what-if Tomoya had chosen Tomoyo episode. My biggest disappointment was easily Kyoto Animation’s negligence of the rest of the Clannad cast. But, maybe it’s just that I’m suffering from Fuko withdrawal syndrome.