Story

Story

Clannad's story revolves around Tomoya Okazaki, a third year high school student who dislikes his life. Tomoya's mother (Atsuko) died when Tomoya was young, leaving his father (Naoyuki) to raise him. After the accident, Tomoya's father turned to alcohol and gambling, and had frequent fights with his son. One day, Naoyuki, while arguing with his son, slammed Tomoya against the window, dislocating Tomoya's shoulder. This injury prevents Tomoya from playing on the basketball team, and causes him to distance himself from others. Ever since then, his father has treated Tomoya nicely, but distantly, as if Tomoya and he were strangers rather than a family. This hurts Tomoya more than his previous relationship with his father, and the awkwardness of returning home leads Tomoya constantly to stay out all night. Thus his delinquent life begins. Tomoya's good friend Youhei Sunohara, who was thrown out of the soccer club over a dispute with his seniors, is also a delinquent and often hangs out in his dorm room with Tomoya doing nothing much.

The story opens on Monday April 14, 2003 at the beginning of the school year,^[1] when Tomoya meets Nagisa Furukawa, a soft-spoken girl who is one year older than he is but is repeating her last year in high school due to being sick much of the previous year. Her goal is to join the drama club which she was unable to do due to her sickness, but they find that the drama club was disbanded after the few remaining members graduated. Since Tomoya has a lot of time to kill, he helps Nagisa in reforming the drama club. During this period, Tomoya meets and hangs out with several other girls whom he gets to know well and help with their individual problems.

After Story

In the second part of the story, which starts immediately after the end of the first part but extends into the next seven years, Tomoya and Nagisa start living together and get married. Tomoya has to endure several hardships that the family has been suffering from, mainly involving Nagisa's illness. Just after Nagisa gives birth to their daughter Ushio, she dies, shattering Tomoya's life and he falls into a deep depression and is barely able to function let alone look after an infant. As a result Nagisa's parents, Akio and Sanae, look after Ushio. Five years later, Tomoya meets with Shino Okazaki, his paternal grandmother. Shino tells Tomoya of his father's traumatic past, which is eerily similar to Tomoya's current situation. Afterwards, Tomoya resolves to raise Ushio and acknowledges Naoyuki as his father. Shortly after Tomoya regains his purpose for living, Ushio is struck with the same disease as Nagisa. Tomoya, Sanae and Akio struggle to save Ushio, with Tomoya retiring from his job, but all of their efforts are futile. In the coming winter, wanting to do anything for Ushio, Tomoya decides to take Ushio on a trip, but Ushio dies shortly after.

Tomoya's psychology is developed in his dreams of a bleak world, called the Illusionary World (幻想世界 Gensō Sekai^?), where small orbs of light float around. In the first few dreams, he sees a world devoid of all life except for one girl. Each time he dreams, he finds out more about the world. Tomoya discovers that the girl has a special ability to fuse junk together to create new things, which she uses to create a body for him. Over time, Tomoya comes to the conclusion that only the two of them are "alive". To pass time, Tomoya and the girl try to build another doll with more junk they find, but as it has no soul, it fails to come to life. Remembering the distant world where he came from, Tomoya convinces the girl to build a ship so that the two can escape the approaching winter and continue to live a happy life. Eventually, winter sets in, and the girl becomes cold to the point where she cannot move any more. The girl tells Tomoya that he has another chance to go back and make things right. To do so, he must collect certain "lights" (symbols of happiness) similar to those floating around in the Illusionary World. If all the "lights" are collected throughout both story parts, a chance to save Nagisa from dying will become available, and the true ending where Nagisa survives and lives with Tomoya and their daughter Ushio will also become available.