17th April 2011, 1:45 PM
It's not a minor plot point. It's the entire central focus of two episodes of the show. It makes a big deal about explaining the relationship, and then tearing down Tomoyo's mother's dislike for Sakura's father because of his incredible perfection, all while describing, with absolutely no negative tones ever used, how he hit on, married, and had a child with his own student. (They don't mention that last one, I will admit, you have to figure that out for yourself by subtraction, but saying that that relationship was a good and right one is the entire purpose of those two episodes, pretty much.)
As for the "far worse things" point, I think I addressed that by saying that if it was some late-night anime I would consider it more expected, but this is something for kids. There should be different standards... and even though in other ways they're often worse, certainly, on this specific point even those ones don't usually have open (everyone knows about it), entirely unpunished teacher-student marriages...
Clannad 01 - Hmm, is this main character a nice guy or kind of a jerk? He's not so nice to that male friend of his, but on the other hand that male friend is also sometimes an idiot, picking fights he always loses like that... Apart from that though, he's "generic harem nice guy main character #1". Apart from his deadbeat father, in ep. 1 he doesn't show much of an original personality, just generic "being kind to random girls for no apparent reason" harem protagonist stuff. Kanon and Air's protagonists did some of that, but both had more independent characters, the Air guy with his puppets and Yuuichi (Kanon) with how he kind of teases the girls sometimes, his dislike for the cold (in winter, in a snowy part of Japan), etc. And apart from that, generic wacky harem hyjinx. At least it was amusing. Few signs of the sadness and depression to come in ep. 1, though.
Also, there's way more action in this than in Air or Kanon. Those both have very little amounts of fighting, apart from specific sections of each series, but this had several generic anime fights right from the start. Trying to make this seem more like a normal harem show than Air or Kanon are or something, I guess, at the beginning? I don't think that's an improvement, quite the opposite. At least some of the characters are potentially interesting, as always with Key.
Clannad 02 - Yeah, the main character's pretty broken isn't he. His relationship with his father is really bad, the guy's usually a jobless drunk and even when he does sort of try his son just gets angry at him and flees the house.
During this episode this main character goes between broken, being a jerk, and being a generic harem protagonist. He covers all three at different points, it is a little odd. The generic harem comedy parts are decently done if generic, but that's most of the show so far, so I can't say much about the drama side.
As for the "far worse things" point, I think I addressed that by saying that if it was some late-night anime I would consider it more expected, but this is something for kids. There should be different standards... and even though in other ways they're often worse, certainly, on this specific point even those ones don't usually have open (everyone knows about it), entirely unpunished teacher-student marriages...
Clannad 01 - Hmm, is this main character a nice guy or kind of a jerk? He's not so nice to that male friend of his, but on the other hand that male friend is also sometimes an idiot, picking fights he always loses like that... Apart from that though, he's "generic harem nice guy main character #1". Apart from his deadbeat father, in ep. 1 he doesn't show much of an original personality, just generic "being kind to random girls for no apparent reason" harem protagonist stuff. Kanon and Air's protagonists did some of that, but both had more independent characters, the Air guy with his puppets and Yuuichi (Kanon) with how he kind of teases the girls sometimes, his dislike for the cold (in winter, in a snowy part of Japan), etc. And apart from that, generic wacky harem hyjinx. At least it was amusing. Few signs of the sadness and depression to come in ep. 1, though.
Also, there's way more action in this than in Air or Kanon. Those both have very little amounts of fighting, apart from specific sections of each series, but this had several generic anime fights right from the start. Trying to make this seem more like a normal harem show than Air or Kanon are or something, I guess, at the beginning? I don't think that's an improvement, quite the opposite. At least some of the characters are potentially interesting, as always with Key.
Clannad 02 - Yeah, the main character's pretty broken isn't he. His relationship with his father is really bad, the guy's usually a jobless drunk and even when he does sort of try his son just gets angry at him and flees the house.
During this episode this main character goes between broken, being a jerk, and being a generic harem protagonist. He covers all three at different points, it is a little odd. The generic harem comedy parts are decently done if generic, but that's most of the show so far, so I can't say much about the drama side.