One important attribute that makes KEY games so appealing is their music. It's not exagerating to say that, without their music, KEY would have not nearly as much fame as they have now.

Even without playing the games, just by listening to some of their theme songs can make people feel warm and fuzzy inside. Examples include Tori no Uta(鳥の詩, or A Bird's Song) from AIR, and Chiisa na te no hira(小さなてのひら, or The Palm of a Small Hand) from CLANNAD.

Much of the credit goes to Maeda Jun(麻枝准), a composer and writer from KEY. She is the writer of Kanon, AIR, and CLANND. She's also the composer and writer responsible for most of their theme songs and background music. It's just amazing how powerful(emotionally) some of her works are.

And this is the ending of Kanon(the game and the 2006 anime), Kaze no Tadoritsuku Basho(風の辿り着く場所, or Where the Wind Arrives at).

Those who play visual novels might know about this, there are two major cult followings for visual novels in Japan, Key and Leaf. Those who visit 2channel might refer this as ha-kagi(葉鍵), where ha means leaf, kagi means key. They are basically the two biggest visual novel production companies, Key is the maker of AIR, Kanon, and CLANNAD. Leaf is the maker of Comic Party, To Heart, and Utawarerumono. I consider myself to be a kagi person(though I'm starting to lean toward tsuki(月, for TYPE-MOON) now).

But when I heard there is gonna be a remake of Kanon, I was furious, for reason no other than, it's a damn REMAKE!! Why couldn't they spend their money more wisely?! Like making an animated version of CLANNAD or something!

However, after seeing the result just now, I must say I'm quite pleased. Not only it'll be a longer and more complete version of Kanon, it also follows the original story more closely. You can even recognize some of the scenes from the game.

This remake is animated by the same company that made AIR TV, Kyoto Animation. The graphic is just as refreshing as in AIR. I'm quite happy the male lead is drawn a lot better this time, he looked like a woman in the 2002 version.

The music is taken directly from the game, and the same team of seiyuus are used for the voices.

The magnificance of Kanon will finally be captured this time~

Before

After, and no, I didn't take this shot from the game.

Yuuichi(thank god, he doesn't look like a woman nor a pumpkin this time)

Ayu

"So your name is 'Ayu Ayu'."