Differences between CLANNAD TV & CLANNAD Movie

The two studios again go for their own character designs.  They are pretty much drawn the same way as the AIR projects.  Kyoto is close to the original game designs once again while Toei looks different.  However, Toei's designs are now a bit closer to the game designs.  But Kyoto still has that edge.

With the exception of Tomoya Okazaki, all the character voices are done by the same seiyuus.  However, some of the performances done are different as the character roles are slightly different.

The characters seem to be different from one another between the two studios.  It's quite big for some characters.  Let's look at them one by one.

Tomoya seems to be a different person when you watch the two versions of CLANNAD.  In the movie version, he seems to be a very depressed person.  It's like he's an emo.  He doesn't really care for things.  One example is how he doesn't really pay much attention of what Nagisa Furukawa does around him such as following him to walk up the hill path.  Also, he seems to lack life & energy.  In the TV version, he's more lively as he pays pranks & is willing to help others.  Although he's still a depressed person due to the fact that both Tomoyas hate their fathers, TV version Tomoya is more cheerful.  This almost makes watching both versions of CLANNAD to be different as the main character has a somewhat different personality.

Nagisa & the Furukawa family is a bit different.  Nagisa doesn't have a big difference as her parents though.  Movie version Nagisa is very weak & is known to the viewers when she mentions about her condition at the start of the movie.  Also in the movie version, she has a strange "tee hee" chuckle that seems to be built into her character.  In the TV version, she doesn't have this.  Plus, the confidence level that she has is a bit different.  In the movie version, she seems to have a lot of confidence in herself as she is more determine to do things.  If she fails, she'll continue to go at it.  In the TV version, she seems lost.  When she does get lost, Tomoya & the others are there to support her back up.  In the movie version, there is very little of it.

For the Furukawa parents, personalities are a little bit different.  Sanae is more joyful in the movie version as she was an actress.  In the TV version, she was school teacher & is clumsy when making bread as they are "deadweights".  The personalities of the two is almost like two different people.  Akio is almost the same.  His background is still acting & he has the overprotective dad characteristic.  However, his jokes/action to Tomoya is a bit different.  In the movie, he uses physical comedy on him while the TV version is more words.

Kyou Fujibayashi plays a major different role from the two versions.  In the TV version, she tries to support her sister in hooking her up with Tomoya.  The movie version has her supporting Tomoyo Sakagami in her student council election.  This becomes a bit of a problem.  In the TV version, Kyou doesn't know Tomoyo personally whereas in the movie she does like if they knew each other for a long time.  Plus, her violent behaviour from the TV version isn't present in the movie.

Tomoyo gets a makeover as well.  In both versions, she aims in becoming student council president.  But her background isn't exposed in the movie whereas the TV version does.  In the TV version, Tomoyo's past is explained.  Her family problems & violent behaviour is all mentioned here.  But the movie version, you get nothing.  Plus, she seems more cheerful on the big screen whereas in the TV version she's a bit more calm.  Again two different people.  Plus her fights with Youhei Sunohara is not shown in the movie version.  I like those fight scenes personally.

Sunohara remains somewhat the same, but his character background is presented a bit different.  In the movie version, his background goes into detail.  In the TV version, you pretty much know very little about him.  In the TV version, viewers are shown that he was kicked out of the soccer team for his behaviour & gets into fights with others..  The movie version has all these traits, but expands them more.  It goes deeper in showing that he comes from a poor family & he actually finds a part-time job. In other words, you actually see him struggle.  I'm actually impressed by this & favour the movie version more.  Plus his role is bigger in the movie version than the TV one.  One thing about his behaviour in the movie version is that he can go berserk.  He actually goes up against a teacher named Koko Ibuki & talks back to Nagisa.

Koko Ibuki's role is much different from the two versions.  In the TV version, he's retired.  But in the movie version, she's still active & manages the drama club.  Plus, she manages to knock out Sunohara with ease.  In the TV version, she doesn't fight.  As for her personality, she's very calm in the TV version compared to her more direct approach to things in the movie.  But her love for Yusuke Yoshino is still there.

Yusuke continues to have his background of being a huge past musician & working for a small wiring company.  Differences between the two versions is how Yusuke knows about Tomoya.  In the movie, they work together.  In the TV version, Tomoya meets him on the streets & saves him from a guy complaining to him.  In the movie, Tomoya refers him as senpai.  Like Sunohara, Yusuke's role is pretty big in the movie.  He parts a big part in the ending.

Because of screen time, there are some characters missing in the movie version.  The TV version has all of the characters since it has more time to present these characters.  In this section, I will focus on the movie version as that's where the characters are missing.

Since the movie version is more focused on the CLANNAD arc, some characters from the series aren't needed.  The missing characters are Fuuko Ibuki & Ryou Fujibayashi.  Kotomi Ichinose actually gets screen time on the movie.  But her screen time is very small & doesn't have a voice.  Plus her character is a bit different.  In the TV version, she's a lonely bookworm staying in the library a lot.  In the movie, she conducts a choir club I believe.

The loss presence of Fuuko isn't big.  Since she's not a known student in the school due to the lost time she was in the hospital in a coma state.  Although she is Koko's younger sister, there is no mention of Fuuko in the movie.  Since Fuuko has her own arc, she isn't a big loss in the movie's storyline.  Although the TV version has her popping up at times in the other girl's arcs, she doesn't really play an effect on them.

Missing Ryou isn't a big loss as well.  She's actually a supporting character in the series.  The movie writers probably saw this & decided to leave Ryou out.  If she was put in, Kyou's character in the movie would be somewhat flawed unless they could use the two sisters as Tomoyo's campaign party & not have Ryou's one-sided love to Tomoya.  Overall, she's no big loss.

Another missing character from the movie is Botan.  Again, not a big loss character.  But it kind of loses the typical touch that KEY puts in some of their works such as Potato in AIR & that cat in Kanon.  In other words, no mascot for CLANNAD.

Although the TV version has multiple storylines due to the larger number of girls than the movie, both version share one storyline.  The CLANNAD arc.  The TV version leads to this arc slowly with bits of it thrown in the other girls' arcs.  As we know, the CLANNAD arc is the last storyline in the TV version.  The movie version goes more in depth in this area.  However, both versions have their own elements to make the CLANNAD plot.

The World of Nothing

In the TV version, the story about the world of nothing has a girl living there.  From a pile of junk, she creates a robot-like form & it's brought to life.  This robot has a soul & thinks about the girl & the world that has nothing.  The robot decides to make another robot to bring life to the world (that fails), but the girl thinks it's due to loneliness for the robot.  In the movie version, we see nothing but a invisible soul that travels around the empty world.  It enters a mannequin-like body of a clown.  The clown travels around the world looking to see if there is other life around.

The world of nothing comes in different styles.  The TV version has this story coming from a book/play.  The movie has it coming from a dream.  It comes as a form of a nightmare to Tomoya in the movie version.  In the TV version, it's just a normal story to him.  In both versions, he knows the story but doesn't know how it ends.

For Nagisa's case, it comes as a known story to her that she had since childhood.  However in the TV version, she doesn't know where the story comes from or knows the ending for it.  In the movie version, she does know the ending.  But the two versions have a strange conflict on this.  In the TV version, Nagisa has the script completed in time for the festival whereas in the movie version she doesn't have it completed & wings it at the festival.

The Drama Club

The forming of the drama club is a bit different as well.  Both versions have the student council getting in the way of forming it.  Both have the council writing over Nagisa's posters as a reject.  But the TV version goes a step further with the sharing of advisor bit with the choir club.  This makes the forming of the club look harder than the movie presented.

Tomoya & Nagisa

The relationship between Tomoya & Nagisa varies a bit from the two versions.  Both do involve the love element in it, but the way it's expressed is a bit different.  Both do share the part of where the two characters send a lot of time together.

In the TV version, the development is slow.  But you can see it forming as Tomoya starts to see Nagisa differently from the start of forming the club due to his helpful character.  It went from friendship to sort of lovers.  You can also see how Tomoya denies it is different as time passes.  A small part of it also from Nagisa as well.  She's more expressive & honest about her feelings in comparison to Tomoya.

In the movie version, the love build up is quite sudden.  Tomoya confesses to Nagisa when he see that his dream & her story overlap with each other.  I didn't feel any love between the two; especially from Tomoya.  Nagisa had very minimal signs of it really.

Both versions uses the Nagisa path for the After Story arc.  Unfortunately, I can only do the movie's approach of it as the TV version is stated to air in October as a different series.  So this section will be put on hold for the time being as comparisons can't be made yet.

Conclusion

At the moment, I can't give a final conclusion as I don't have Toei & Kyoto Animation's After Story arc to compare.  This is really where the big points come from. Until Kyoto releases their version of After Story, no conclusion will be made.  If you want one, I can only say that Kyoto's version is much closer to the original story as it has almost all the arcs & girl storylines from the game.