Today, or yesterday depending on your timezone, was Clannad's 20th Anniversary. Incidentally I decided to reread the novel for the first time in almost a decade, its still my favorite key work and a pretty easy recommendation. Go read it if you havent and if you want an emotional coming of age story.
Is it better than the anime? Cuz the anime was ass.
Watched it (not the sequel though) like ten years ago and rated it 6/10. So, I don't think it was "ass" but "ok". Haven't played the game (only Kanon and Air), so I can't compare. IIRC, I remember reading about "Key magic" and them adding bs, so there can be happy endings. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of that and prefer it being more realistic.
I watched Kanon 2006 and found it alright. In fact the I loved the first 10 episodes. I read Air and it was ok, the middle chapter was by far the best, but otherwise it was quite average. The Clannad anime was very boring even by slice of life standards. After Story started bad with the gang war arc, then got a little bit better with the MILF hunter arc, and then of course come the best episodes in the latter third where we get a lot of character development from the MC, only to have it all thrown out the window in the last few episodes because SIKE! it was all a dream man or whatever. Peak garbage writing. Maeda is the most overrated writer in the medium. His musical scores are always good though. I think these Key anime are mostly carried by their production values. If you take away the stellar audio-visuals you are left with some very mediocre stories.
I watched Kanon (2002) and Air. Funnily enough, I rated Kanon higher and Air lower than Clannad. But I also watched them 15+ years ago.
As for the games, I own and played the original (limited edition) Kanon and I quite liked it, apart from two instances of what was later then apparently coined "Key magic". The very beginning is awesome and, having played it during winter, it adds quite a bit. The music is great too, as the game is intended to be played without voices, so they paid more attention to that. Air is....ok'ish. I'm not a fan of how the game is built/the structure. In Kanon you have one single narrative and the different routes all fit into that one. In Air, you have the three different routes, two of which strictly serve as background, then one separate piece and then another which ties in with the main (and really, only) heroine. Sure, it's all connected but it's also convoluted and goes out there. Basically, there is no strong direction...neither from the story, nor the setting, nor the main characters. In Kanon, the narrative is king and you, the player, can try to influence a heroine's story. And that may or may not work which is great. There is no such thing in Air.
Is it better than the anime? Cuz the anime was ass.
It's misery porn.
Some people like it, I don't.
Nothing wrong with misery every now and then. It's bs if it ends with "and they lived happily ever after" though. Something like that is perfectly fine for a fairytale but less so for a VN which is probably not aimed at children. Sure, a somewhat happy ending can be fine but "and then a miracle happened and then they were all happy" is awful. It should range from "and they all died" to "and they carved out their own little happiness in all these bad circumstances". It kinda reminds me of what I read, that Korean dramas always have someone getting cancer. It's some cheap plot bs. Having a miracle ending heavily cheapens the struggle and suffering in the story.
