The sequel continues the story begun by the first season of Clannad, adding a lot of depth to what started out as a fairly lightweight story. That does not mean that everyone who liked the first season will like the second. Some fans of the first season will really love it, and some may not.

As the characters leave high school behind and encounter the joys and sorrows of adult life, the tone of the story changes. The emotional highs of the second season are very high, and the emotional lows are very low. There is ultimately a happy ending but it is one that not everyone finds satisfactory, for reasons that I discuss in my spoiler notes.

• Title
  Clannad After Story
• Genres
  Fantasy, Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Demographic
  Seinen
• Contents
  25 Episodes on 4 DVDs (2 mini box sets.)
• Languages
  Japanese with subtitles
• Based on
  A video game by Key/Visual Art’s
• Director
  Tatsuya Ishihara
• Series Composition
  Fumihiko Shimo
• Screenplay
  Fumihiko Shimo
• Original Character Design
  Itaru Hinoue (game)
• Character Design
  Kazumi Ikeda
• Art Director
  Mutsuo Shinohara
• Chief Animation Director
  Kazumi Ikeda
• Animation Studio
  Kyoto Animation
• Broadcast
  2008-2009
• Region 1 Distributor
  Sentai Filmworks

The story is not all dark. Some episodes are quite funny. However the second season as a whole cannot be considered a comedy.

I am not going to include my usual “Premise and Characters” section in this review. The second season has mostly the same characters as the first, and it would be difficult to describe the few new ones without introducing spoilers.

Parental Advisory

The series contains some exaggerated cartoonish violence and some very mild sexual humor. The main concern is that it contains some intense emotional scenes that could be very upsetting to children. I can only recommend it for teenagers and adults.

Since the R1 DVDs do not include a dub, the issue of young children watching it might not seem to be a concern. However some children as young as seven can read subtitles, and this would not really be appropriate for them.

DVD Notes

The R1 DVDs include an alternate ending that was not part of the original TV broadcast but was released later as a separate OVA. This will please some fans and annoy others.

What I find annoying is that the alternate ending episode is inserted just before the final recap episode. This can only confuse anyone who is waiting for the recap episode for help in making sense of the main story’s ending.

Links

Wikipedia entry (spoilers!)

ANN Encyclopedia entry.

My own spoiler-filled notes on the series, including my interpretation of the ending.