Clannad ~After Story~ - Episode 11

Ahh, work versus love - One of those conflicts that you can never quite balance right, at least not unless you're some kind of self-employed multi-millionaire (and there aren't many of those about).

It's exactly this conflict that ails Tomoya in this episode of After Story, as he tries to balance his new career with spending time and paying due attention to Nagisa - A balance that he fails miserably at in all honesty, from not paying attention to what she's saying (which he probably should, as the clues are obvious that Nagisa is quite the loner at school once again having had to retake her final year again) through to standing her up in the name of fixing a mistake he made at work the night before.


Thankfully, it isn't all quite so sobering this episode, as we do get a brief segment featuring Tomoya hanging out with Akio which gives us some light relief involving toy light sabers and putting a lizard down Sanae's back, but aside from that its all very... well, real. Arguably not the kind of thing you want to watch after working long hours and worrying about money and making time for your girlfriend, but oh well.

All in all this is another somewhat slow-paced episode of After Story, which continues to carefully build itself up to the bigger items on its agenda, which I wager may well start next episode. On the one hand I have a fair bit of admiration for this relatively realistic portrayal of life, work and relationships, but on the other hand it doesn't make for the most gripping of anime, and personally I still miss the lighter, funnier side of Clannad, which has always been what drew me to the series the most. I get the feeling that I'm probably in the minority on that point though, so with that in mind I have to concede that After Story is trucking along just fine.