About “Clannad” in a few words:

Clannad is a popular anime series that follows the life of Tomoya Okazaki, a high school student who is struggling with family issues and feelings of apathy. Along the way, he meets and forms friendships with several other students, including the shy and kind Nagisa Furukawa. The series explores themes of family, friendship, and the struggles of adolescence, with a touch of magical realism thrown in. Clannad has gained a loyal following for its heartwarming and emotional story, as well as its memorable characters.

Meet the characters from Clannad

Tomoya Okazaki

Tomoya is that grumpy, sarcastic guy who somehow becomes the weird beating heart of everything — a delinquent with a surprising soft center, honestly. He’s constantly doing the deadpan commentary on life but will drop everything to help someone, which is equal parts annoying and endearing. Loves messing around with dumb jokes, hates school (except when he doesn’t), and has this lazy-champion energy like he naps to power up. Also, he’s suspiciously handy with household stuff? Like, he can fix a sink one minute and complain about feelings the next.

Nagisa Furukawa

Nagisa is cinnamon-roll fragile and quietly stubborn all at once — tiny, soft-voiced, and absolutely obsessed with the drama club (she will talk about plays forever, I swear). She stumbles through life with this gentle determination that makes people flip over their own problems like pancakes. She looks like she might faint at any moment but then organizes a whole school club and bakes bread? (She bakes things; or is it that she wants to bake things? Either way, it’s cute.) There’s this aching warmth to her presence that makes even the grumpiest characters take off their armor, slowly.

Kyou Fujibayashi

Kyou is the classic tsundere turned human hurricane — short temper, sharper tongue than necessary, and also the person who’s secretly knitting scarves while yelling at you. Protective to the bone, particularly about her sister, and she’ll punch anything that threatens someone she cares for (including you, if you look at them funny). Underneath the chaotic energy there’s a ridiculously loyal friend who hoards cute plushies or stationery or something tiny and perfect. She’ll argue you into submission and then sulk for three days while making you ramen.

Kotomi Ichinose

Kotomi is the silent genius who reads like a walking library and somehow also a tragic anime cliché in the best way — encyclopedic brain, awkward social timing, and pockets full of weird instruments or notes. She speaks in soft sentences, then drops science or music facts like bombs, and you realize she’s been living in her own head forever. She collects stuffed animals? No, wait, she collects memories (and maybe plush frogs; my memory is fuzzy), and there’s this fragile, childlike side that makes her both brilliant and heartbreakingly tender. She’s the one who’ll fix your math problem and then forget to eat for a day because she got lost in a book.

Tomoyo Sakagami

Tomoyo is the cool-as-ice badass with honor — strong, principled, fights things, runs for president or some heroic goal, and has this weirdly dramatic moral streak. She’s a total tomboy but also super thoughtful, like she writes manifesto-style speeches in her head while throwing punches. Somehow she’s both “let’s reorganize the school” and “I’ll quietly make you tea” depending on the mood, which is confusing but awesome. Also collects ridiculously nice stationery or maybe a single perfect notebook she treats like a talisman.

Fuko Ibuki

Fuko is delightfully strange and completely unforgettable — spacey, giggly, and obsessed with carving starfish-shaped wooden invitations because she will invite you to literally everything (wedding shrine vibes, please). She floats through scenes like a sugar-high ghost, leaving behind weird little clues and feeling simultaneously childlike and ancient. One minute she’s whispering about the universe, the next she’s carving more starfish with intense focus; she’s forgetful but also laser-focused on that one mission. You think she’s fragile but nope, she’s stubborn in the cutest way possible and will haunt you with hand-carved invitations forever.

Ushio Okazaki

Ushio is small-but-mighty in the most upsettingly adorable sense — Tomoya and Nagisa’s kid who brings both chaos and a weird kind of healing energy. She bounces between being an utterly ordinary kid who eats too many sweets and a strangely mature little anchor who stares people down like she’s seen centuries. There’s this mix of fierce loyalty, stubbornness, and sudden quiet where she’ll say something that zaps you with clarity, and then run off to dig in the garden. Also? She has the uncanny habit of showing up when you’ve given up, which is suspiciously convenient (and emotional).