Clannad: Tomoyo After
Tomoyo After ~Dear Shining Memories~

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I must say this was very enjoyable read despite its short length.

Story: Simply outstanding story, as expected from KEY. An excellent story from start to finish, however I did find a few things confusing such as Tomoya's memory loss, like many of KEY's works, its a finely tuned story.

Art: I wouldn't say it is a masterpiece in artwork, but the drawing is well done nonetheless. A good mixture of fights, touching moments, and chibis here and there.

Character: A small cast of characters, but definitely one that I loved very much. However, from what I have seen in the Clannad anime, Tomoyo's personality has changed ... alot, for better or worse it depends on how much you liked her in Clannad. The cast is diverse and I enjoyed each's character's appearance and the impact they have when you read through each chapter, an element of becoming strong.

Enjoyment: Like I said, short, but awesome. It has become one of my favorite manga of all time and I hope that it will be made into an anime, as it could be very promising.

Overall: Despite not getting a perfect score, I absolutely loved this manga. I was pretty skeptical at first why Tomoyo would even have spin-off series for herself instead of continuing her arc in Clannad. But I see Tomoyo's character in a different light now, and become one of my favorite characters in this manga and in Clannad as well.

Tomoyo After is a spinoff of Clannad, based off of a visual novel. Instead of Nagisa being the winner of the harem, Tomoyo is, and this manga tells about the trials the pair faces. It's also as rushed as hell.

Tomoyo After is very episodic in nature. The chapters barely connect at all, and each chapter seems to have about five chapters worth of materiel in it. Like Clannad, Tomoyo After has the goal of making you cry. However, due to its rushed nature, you don't get that chance. I never felt any connection to any of the characters, and due to this the drama felt ... very force. Actually, the drama is forced, and all of the situations that appear are dumb and have no build-up. Two of the side characters also look exactly the same. The art itself is okay. Nothing special, but nothing really memorable either.

Tomoyo After is a very mediocre manga. Fans of the game might want to check it out, but if you've never played the game like I have, then there's really nothing special here.

I like Clannad, and I absolutely love Tomoyo. That's why I madly loved the Tomoyo Route OVA too, despite it being reaaaally short, then what went wrong with this Tomoyo After manga adaptation? In short, everything. I repeat, I love Tomoyo After with all my heart, nonetheless I really think this adaptation was a mistake.

Art: when I started reading it I thought it was a joke. A really bad joke. While Tomoyo is let's say acceptable, what the fuck is wrong with Tomoya?! I think the mangaka was on drugs when he drew him, because I don't think anybody would make it to draw ... a character so different from its real concept, not even if they tried. Same goes for the other characters, even though they are still not that bad.

Characters: Despite the short length of the manga, it still managed to
characterize Tomoyo and Tomoya quite a bit, STILL the other characters just look like a parody of themselves, and Takafumi wasn't even introduced! He appears in like 3 panels and his face isn't even entirely shown, but I think it's better off like this, at least he didn't ruin even his awesome character design.

Story: Tomoyo After strong point, despite it being a slice of life, is its story. It is brilliant, perfectly paced and it makes you cry like a baby even when you only think back about it. In this manga though the story is inexistent, it's literally just Tomoya punching 4 guys, an abandoned random little girl showing up just to get taken back to her sick mom that regretted abandoning her and Tomoya getting hit by a car and losing his memory to then die 3 years later after telling Tomoyo to be strong. Now, the story is obviously really different from the visual novel but it's normal, it's too long to get compressed in 160 pages. Though there's one part of the story, the ending, that is really similiar in both the novel and the manga. If it wasn't for it to be plain crap in the manga. What made the visual novel ending so good was the mood of it. Tomoya losing his memories isn't some simple accident, it's a tragedy. Tomoyo throws his life out of the window just to help Tomoya regain his memories even knowing it's impossible, because for her a life without him just isn't conceivable, that's why she is forced to get strong by herself in these 3 years and walk on. This is beautifully shown in the novel, but in the manga it just doesn't work. It just skips to 3 years later where Tomoya just tells her to get stronger and dies, with a simple as heck goodbye, while his goodbye in the novel is pure art. And even the flashbacks are terrible. When Tomoyo finds out Tomoya lost his memories she just gets angry and takes Tomoya for a walk to make him regain his memories, but for how it's shown it almost looks like it should be a comical scene, while there's nothing to laugh about. Tomoyo is deeper than that, when she finds out about Tomoya she is completely broken, while in the manga she almost takes it as a joke. It just looks stupid. Not to talk about the very end, where Kanako just doesn't give a fuck about Tomoya's death, which hurts me since she has a beautiful relationship with him and she even has a breakdown in the novel. Even the fact that Tomoyo just keeps on living his old life instead of completely changing it like in the novel since she found another reason to live is just stupid. This adaptation was a complete mess.

TL;DR: In comparison with the novel this adaptation is a little shit, but even taken alone it still pretty much sucks. As a big fan, I'm disappointed by this manga and I refuse to consider it part of the Clannad franchise, because it has nothing to do with it.