Ah, visual novels. A genre that highly overlooked in the mainstream video game industry... in America. It's not known whether most gamers outside of the internet know about visual novels. Sure we have some already released in the form of Phoenix Wright and the underrated Time Hollow, but the majority of VNs don't see the light of American soil unless importing is involved and even then it can really be daunting to how difficult the game could be to acquire depending on which title, year, or console it was released on. Most of the time, game publishers don't even think about bringing VNs to the states. Maybe it's marketing, maybe they don't care. Who knows.
What does this have to do with that? Well some Visual Novels are turned into TV shows, or in some cases, anime. And in 2006, Kyoto Animation or KyoAni adapted or remade the visual novel Kanon into a 24 episode series. A rather bold move that introduced or at least I think it did the subgenre in anime known as moe. What is moe? Well, moe (moh-ay) is a type of character trait that is best explained as someone so cute you want to take them home and take care of them. Kinda like an cute orphan...if that orphan is hugably, f**kably cute. The problem with moe is that it causes people to develop what I call DSR or Diminished Sense of Reality. Once they spend too much time looking at something cute, no matter how fictional it is, they will lose their grasp on reality and soon sanity as they will see fictional characters as real. Whether it be on a computer screen that they lick to simulate frenching, or they like the taste of hot hot liquid crystal display, if it's cute, hot, and you want to be with it forever, people with DSR will consider it real and take it as it's own. It really can't be stopped.
So Kanon, yeah. Kanon is a harem anime. Where the main character has to gain the hearts of 5 or so girls by finding out what they like, what they are like and how to flourish the relationships of them.
Yuichi, our main hero just returned to his hometown after 7 years where his cousin and her mom live. It's also important to the plot because it's this town where he had 5 childhood friends: Nayuki, the cousin and her mom mistaken as her sister; Makoto, a baby fox who turned into a human; Mai, a quiet demon hunter and her 3rd person friend Sayuri; Shiori, a sickly girl who's neglectful sister ignores her presence; and Ayu, a mysterious girl who knows of Yuichi from long ago. Each of these girls has a tragic past that is somehow connected to Yuichi as a kid. As we move on with the story, they began to unravel terrible relationship killing memories that haunted Yuichi. One incident in particular has Yuichi barely hanging on to sanity's cold harsh reality only to find that everyone got better by some weird miracle even when he was on the brink of death.
What I like most about Kanon is not the moe factor, cause even some animators can make mother characters look hot enough to be sisters. Forget I said that. The reason why I like Kanon is the fact that not only will it make you cry, but it really well written. I am aware that there are 2 versions of Kanon and the other one looks like the animation company, Toei, had alot of growing up to do. It just looks pretty ugly. KyoAni or Kyoto Animation however made alot of effort to make it beautiful. Not just for scenery porn, but the characters look like their original counterparts. I guess it's in presentation or something that makes the show appealing.
With 1 series down and 2 to go, I'm looking forward to Air and Clannad so I can at least finish the Key Trio as I call it. It's weird, when I look at each of Key's works, they remind me of sybolism. Let me explain; Kanon for one has a snow theme to represent winter and it goes along winter invokes something that has to do with sadness, or snow means death which makes sense. As winter, or fuyu ends, spring comes and life is began once anew. Air, represents summer, however I haven't seen it yet, but I do know it has a summer theme. Clannad is spring, what with the cherry blossoms and all. It also represents family or a clan (hint hint) Nakama, a group of comrades or friends. That itself probably got in my mail already so I'll give that a shot. I don't consider Clannad After Story a seperate series as it is a continuation of the first one. With comedy hijnks in the first half and drama in the second half. From what I hear, episodes 16 through 20 are the heart wrenching parts and people praise it outstandingly well. If it's considered a new classic I'll consider that status for it.
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