I want to experience Clannad for all it's worth. Which VNs do I read and in which order? There's like 100 others in the relations tab on vndb.

i saw your thread on /jp/

>>2
did ya reply?

>>3
no

>>4
I made one there for quick shitpost replies and maybe one good reply and then one here for slow good replies. What i got was the opposite. Might as well take this website down.

never played clannad. so didn't want to shit up the thread with inanities.

to experience CLANNAD for ALL IT'S WORTH, first learn japanese, buy a pc 98. play every pc-98 game chronologically. watch every theatrical anime released since 1973 to 1999 in order. consume no other media. time warp your mind to the 80's and live through the 90's immersed only in pre2000's media. learn to draw. make a char anzabel costume. then and only then play the orignal CLANNAD release and no others.
you will then have experienced clannad for all it's worth. everything after the original release is ancillary garbage.

>>6
If I had the time and money to NEET then I would emulate PC-98, then follow the rest of that advice. The idea of time warping to a few decades before like that has been on my mind for a long time.

If what op wants is to achieve greater understanding of the continuum of works that influenced and brought about the conditions for the creation of Clannad then playing a large quantity of Japanese romance and bishoujo-focused computer and console games from the 90s and early 2000s isn't a bad idea. Playing a more general array of Japanese adventure and visual novel games from that era is advisable as well. One need not limit oneself in this case to PC-98 stuff. Windows-era games are fine too. Make sure to include yu-no (major narrative and ludic influence on Clannad) as well as Kanon/Air (previous key works). Leaf works are of course recommended, especially To Heart. It also wouldn't hurt to play Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, because it is the most important antecedent of the Japanese adventure genre with influence stretching to the mid 2000s and beyond, including at least one direct reference in Clannad (when Sunohara mimics Yasu). These are just a few examples out of the dozens if not hundreds of games one would want to play if this were indeed one's goal.

That said op, if you're looking for personal suggestions, my recommendation is to do exactly none of this. If you do, you're going to be spending exorbitant amounts of time playing countless mediocre 90s and early 2000s games all so that you might play a mediocre 2004 game with greater appreciation and understanding.

you're going to be spending exorbitant amounts of time playing countless mediocre 90s and early 2000s games all so that you might play a mediocre 2004 game with greater appreciation and understanding.

change a few words and this describes the vast majority of things that people do in 2025