Info
Finished: Yes
Number of episodes: 25
Publisher: Key
Year: 2009

Foreword
Basicly there are two things i would like to mention before you read this reviews.
One is to make sure to watch Clannad first, because if you don't the emotional bond with the characters will be a lot less.
This will limit your viewing pleasure tremendously.
Secondly this review contains major spoilers since it's near impossible to make a good review about this series without going into detail.

Story
Clanned ~After story~ takes off where Clanned left you. It's the school days of Tomoya and Nagisa and it's their senior year. Meaning that this year they will graduate and become 'members of society'. The first eight episodes are little side stories which focus on the friends around Tomoya and Nagisa and no so much about our main characters themself. In the first episode Akio asks Tomoya to form a baseball team so they can beat their rivaling shopping district in a match. This episode functions mostly as a reintroduction to most of the characters and nothing really exciting happens.

In the episode 2 till 4 Mei is back at the Furukawa's, but she's worried about her no good brother who doesn't really seem to care about her anymore. After a desperate attempt to make Mei think that Sanae is her brothers girlfriend Mei decides the only thing that's gonna bring her brother back is for him to join the soccer team again. As we all know the soccer team doesn't really like him so this all boils down in a huge fight. Then episode 5 and 6 is dedicated to Misae and her little love story followed by episode 7 and 8 which feature Yukine and the story around her brother. The city seems to be troubled by two rivaling gangs that fight each other at any occasion. Yukine's brother seems to be the leader off one of the gangs. They do their best to stop these two gangs before it all gets out of hand.

With episode 9 the story arc picks up again for our main hero and heroine. Everyone is in graduation, but Nagisa's illness plays up again making Tomoya wonder wether he should graduate or not. In the end he decides to graduate, but with no clue what he wants to do in the future. Life kinda drags on for the two from here on Nagisa couldn't graduate because of her illness and Tomoya starts working in the bakery. This goes on for a while until Tomoya makes the decision that he needs to be indepent. He rents an appartment and gets a job as an electrician at the company Yoshino works at.

This all goes well Tomoya works hard and learns this profession quickly. Nagisa comes visiting him every morning to wake him up and every evening to cook for him. After some time Tomoya gets an offer to go work for a bigger company and make more money. Right at the same time his father gets arrested for dealing drugs and the deal gets cancelled. Tomoya is enraged about this and while Nagisa tries to calm him down he proposes to her. She accepts this and right after her graduation they become married and start living togheter. Nagisa gets a job as a waitress at the local family restaurant to help Tomoya out with the income.



Working our way towards episode 14 now and you will have noticed that Nagisa has become pregnant. The pregnacy combined with her illness don't make a very good combination and giving birth us actually very riskfull for Nagisa. When winter starts Nagisa enters her final month off her pregnacy, but faith strikes and the baby is two weeks early. To make matters worse she is giving birth at home being snowed in while suffering from her illness. As an outcome to this she manages to give birth to their daughter Ushio, but at a very high price.

The serie picks up with episode 17 and a five year jump in time where we find Tomoya still heartbroken and alone. He's working overtime without any breaks and when he's off he wastes his time with gambling, drinking and cigarettes. Sanae manages to trick him into going on a family trip with her, Akio and Ushio. But when he arrives at their home there is only a small note from Sanae saying "sorry we had to go" and the little Ushio. They don't start out great and Ushio keeps going on about wanting to go on a trip which they end up going on.

While on the trip Tomoya buys a little toy robot for Ushio. When they arrive at the station they move towards a big flower field where Ushio plays around for a bit. Until she loses her robot and gets Tomoya to help her search for it. While doing this Tomoya remembers something form his past and start walking around to a hill. Here he meets his grandmother which tells him a story about his father. Tomoya gets to a point of realisation and overthinks his current position with Ushio. He finds it in his heart to think about his father as a good father for the first time in his life and decides to change his relation with Ushio. He goes back to the flower field where Ushio is still looking for the robot the first thing her father give to her. Tomoya tells her about his change and that he wants to spend the rest of his life raising Ushio. Ushio is really happy with this and Tomoya tells Ushio about her mother for the first time.

Tomoya and Ushio start to live togheter from the moment they get back from their trip. He brings Ushio to school and finds out that her teacher is his old schoolfriend Kyou. After finally being togheter with his daughter and leading the happy live he should have been living with her for so many years now fate strikes again and Ushio comes down with a fever. The doctor claims it to be the same disease Nagisa had and has no solution for the problem. Tomoya quits his job to be able to stay with Ushio who asks him if they could go on a trip again. Tomoya declines saying they will go on a trip as soon as she gets better.



As time goes by Ushio's illness gets worse every day and afraid of not being able to fullfill Ushio's wish Tomoya decides to go on a trip with her right away. While walking down the road to the station Ushio's fever gets even worse up to a point where she can't walk anymore. She dies in her fathers arms that moment saying her lasts words that she loves her father. In the last episode Tomoya find himself standing on the path to school where he met Nagisa all these years back (see Clannad ep1). He's doubtfull wether he should speak to her again thinking about what might happen, but at the last moment he yells out her name and they unite again.

Right after this moment Tomoya finds himself in a different setting again, but this time he's back in time exactly to the point where Nagisa is giving birth to Ushio. This time goes different then last time and Nagise survives giving birth to Ushio and a more happier part of the series start. In this last episode they tell the arc where Nagise survived the pregnacy and they both raise Ushio togheter.

Review
If you have a weak heart or cry easily due to emotional events happening to a series i'm sure you will cry your heart out on this one. Clannad ~After story~ pretty much makes up for all the lack of sadness in the Clannad series. In my opinion it's an art in itself if you can get people to become emotionally involved with your character(s). And Key manages to do this as no other and even bring it to a new level. If you have seen Clannad the emotional part will even be bigger, but good on to the review.

As said in the story the first 8 episodes give different little arcs of all the side persona's in the story which makes it feel like it doesn't fit in quite right. But even so the story picks up at episode 9 which brings us right into the part where Nagisa and Tomoya go on with their lives. This is in my opinion the best part of the whole series and it comes involved with some pretty heavy scenes in particulary the ones where Nagisa dies and Tomoya is left devastated and unable to get himself togheter.

Overall i rate this a 9 mainly beacuse of the first 8 episodes. In my opinion this is still one of the best anime's out there and it really is up for anime off the year 2009 in my books. For a harem type of anime this one does exceptionally well and it breaks down pretty much every stereotype.

Characters list
Tomoya Okazaki
Nagisa Furukawa
Kyou Fujibayashi
Ryou Fujibayashi
Kotomi Ichinose
Tomoyo Sakagami
Fuko Ibuki
Yukine Miyazawa
Misae Sagara
Kouko Ibuki
Youhei Sunohara
Mei Sunohara
Akio Furukawa
Sanae Furukawa
Toshio Koumura
Yusuke Yoshino
Kappei Hiiragi
Naoyuki Okazaki
Shino Okazaki
Ushio Okazaki
Girl from the Illusionary World
Garbage doll

Episode list
01 "The Goodbye at the End of Summer"
02 "Search for Fake Love"
03 "Disagreeing Hearts"
04 "With the Same Smile as That Day"
05 "The Season You Were In"
06 "Forever By Your Side"
07 "Her Whereabouts"
08 "Valiant Fight"
09 "En Route on the Sloped Road"
10 "Season of Beginnings"
11 "The Promised Founder's Festival"
12 "Sudden Events"
13 "Graduation"
14 "A New Family"
15 "In the Remains of Summer"
16 "White Darkness"
17 "Summertime"
18 "The Ends of the Earth"
19 "The Road Home"
20 "The Tidal Breeze's Mischief"
21 "The End of the World"
22 "Small Palms"
23 Extra "The Event from One Year Before"
24 Summary "Under the Green Tree"
25 OVA "Another World: Kyou Chapter"

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