A few notes:

• While the series started out in late 2006, I’m going to consider this a 2007 anime series since, well, it ended this year.
• Like the majority of these posts, it contains lots of spoilers for this series. You’ve been warned.
• In two months, this is only Kanon post I’ve written on my blog. As a taiyaki fanboy of this show, I should be ashamed.

Back when I started watching Air TV, I knew nothing about Key/KyoAni. I wanted to see a sad anime show, so someone recommended that series to me. In the end, I had enjoyed it so much that I began looking for something similar… and that’s when I found out about Kanon 2006.

Unlike Air, this series contains much more comedy, mostly due to the fact that the main character, Yuuichi Aizawa, is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, the same seiyyu who voiced Kyon in TMoHS, so a bit of his hilarious sarcastic attitude to be reflected on Yuuichi was expected. The humor actually helps the series in the sense that it works as another form to grow our affection towards the characters, so when the sad moments came, they’d result more depressing.

Another aspect that is usually praised is the high animation quality, but I don’t find it that special since all the KyoAni shows are known for having that as well. Still, I think this is the show where they’ve managed to take advantage of it better for all these beautiful scenes they managed to come up with.

The story and drama combination is where this adaptation truly shines, though. Here I’ll give my opinions on each arc from the anime.

Makoto. This story arc, which seemed like the longest one from the series, was slightly weird and in some sense disturbing because of the “Makoto slowly turning back into animal form” stuff. I’m not really sure what to think about the ending… I think I was about to cry during the whole “Makoto’s death” build up, but then she just sorta vanished and I was like “uh, that’s it?”. The best part of this arc for me was, probably, seeing Makoto’s original cute fox form. ^^

Mai. My second favorite arc and the one which was executed infinitely better than the other arcs. Mai’s story has a lot of nice stuff, ranging from the cool demon-fighting sequences to some pretty touching moments (am I the only one who cried during the snow bunny zoo scene?). Also, bonus points for having such a great supporting character, aka Sayuri.

Shiori. The weakest arc, in my opinion. I like neither Shiori nor her sister Kaori, so I never managed to feel sorry for them. Good thing it was just three episodes long.

Nayuki. It’s a shame this lovely cousin didn’t get more screen time: the few dramatic moments we got from her were superb. But at the same time I’m glad she didn’t end up with Yuuichi, haha.

Ayu. Yaaaay~! While the ending left me a bit disappointed, this is the arc I liked the most simply for having my favorite character: Taiyaki-hime! From her uguu~s to her sad childhood accident, Ayu has proven she’s the best heroine from the game, and I’m happy she got chosen for the official pairing.

Sure, Kanon 06 has its flaws, but it’s still clearly one of the best drama series out there, and a must-watch for the fans of eroge conversions.