Tomoya Okazaki (岡崎 朋也 Okazaki Tomoya?)Tomoya is the male protagonist of Clannad. Due to his habit of always arriving late to Hikarizaka high school, skipping classes during the day, and staying out all night, he has been labeled as adelinquent, or a young person who defies authority. Ever since his mother, Atsuko, died in a car accident when he was young, Tomoya has been living with his father, Naoyuki, with whom he argues constantly. Tomoya was injured during a fight with his father three years ago, leaving him unable to lift his right arm higher than his shoulder and unable to play the sport which he had loved and excelled in; Basketball. This incident was the start of Tomoya's delinquency. Since that day, their relationship has been very distant. While walking to school, Tomoya met Nagisa Furukawa; since then, his life changed. Nagisa describes him as someone who is seemingly mean and bad-mouthed, but actually kind-hearted.
Nagisa is the main heroine of Clannad. Although she is in her third year in high school, as is Tomoya, Nagisa is actually one year older since she had to repeat her third year after an illness that lasted nine months. On the first day of school, she meets Tomoya on a long hill path in front of the school. She has a strange habit of muttering the names of food that she plans to eat as a way to motivate herself, such as anpan and also has a liking of a group mascot known as "Dango Daikazoku" (だんご大家族?, lit. Big Dango Family). She wants to re-establish the once-disbanded drama club, but does not have much self-confidence so she often needs help in order to motivate herself through the day.
Kyou Fujibayashi (藤林 杏 Fujibayashi Kyō?) is a bad-mouthed and aggressive girl who is also well known as a good cook. She is the older of the Fujibayashi sisters. She was in Tomoya's class in their second year, and has maintained a steady friendship with Tomoya even though they are put in different classes on their third year. She is currently the class representative of class 3-E. She has a pet baby boar named Botan, who frequently visits the school without permission. She owns a scooter, which is known only to Tomoya, Nagisa, and her sister. She throws various types of dictionaries towards anyone she gets furious with, especially Youhei.In Kyou's story path, she tries to make Tomoya get intimately close with Ryou. However, when a rumor about Tomoya being two timer with Ryou and Kyou spread around the school, Kyou starts avoiding Tomoya, and Ryou becomes more bold. Youhei finds out that Kyou has a crush on Tomoya too, and advises Tomoya to settle things out before more misunderstanding happens. After much conflict of playing boyfriend and girlfriend with Ryou, Tomoya breaks up with Ryou and confesses his love to Kyou, who in return confesses her love to him and they become a couple.
Kotomi Ichinose (一ノ瀬 ことみ Ichinose Kotomi?)+ is another schoolmate of Tomoya's in the same year, but, like Kyou, is in a separate class from Tomoya. She is in the top ten for every subject throughout the whole country in standardized exam results—she always goes to the library to read extra materials, especially books in foreign languages. Kotomi is a very quiet girl and it is quite difficult to communicate with her. In her spare time, she plays the violin, although she is very poor at it to the point of causing pain to those who hear her play as a comedic effect.Tomoya meets her, but does not remember that they were once good friends, when he enters the library and finds Kotomi sitting on the floor barefoot, reading books with scissors in her hand, and acts oddly with Tomoya. After several meetings with Kotomi, Tomoya starts skipping the fourth period to spend time with Kotomi in the library. Kotomi soon decides to join the drama club.Just when Kotomi starts to open up to everyone, a bus accident causes her to break down in front of everyone and returns home. Tomoya visits her in her house and learns that he and Kotomi were childhood friends, but lost contact with each other after Kotomi's parents died in a plane crash. Not wanting to feel the pain of losing someone important anymore, she asks Tomoya to leave her alone. Wanting to bring Kotomi away from her past, Tomoya decides to renovate her garden, while the drama club members decide to gift her a violin, but was unfortunately destroyed. After renovating Kotomi's garden, Kotomi appears to Tomoya, and after some poignant conversation, Tomoya brings Kotomi out of her house to see the outside world inside her heart. Along the conversations, she confesses to Tomoya that she had been in love with him every since he has entered her life. The next day, her guardian presents Kotomi her parent's briefcase that has traveled all the way to Japan, and inside is a teddy bear and a testimony, asking Kotomi to live the way she wants and grow up to be an adult. Kotomi realizes she is still being loved by her parents even after their death and cries. After this, Kotomi becomes more mature, and the drama club members finally give Kotomi a violin.
Tomoyo Sakagami (坂上 智代 Sakagami Tomoyo?) Tomoyo transferred to Hikarizaka high school as a second year student during spring. Although Tomoya is older than she is, Tomoyo does not show him his due respect as a senior student. She has a younger brother named Takafumi (鷹文?).She is rumored to be violent and to have a misconduct record for fighting. These rumors are later confirmed, when she beats up several delinquents from her previous school at a day during school hours. Youhei challenges Tomoyo, unable to believe what he saw. After several meetings with Tomoyo, Tomoya learns from Tomoyo that she wants to be a student council president, and later, her reason for wanting to do so. Her reason is that she wants to get enough influence to start a movement to prevent a row of cherry trees from being cut down by development plans, as the cherry trees have a special meaning to her since they helped mend her broken family and turn her away from delinquency.In Tomoyo's path, she ends up secretly going out with Tomoya. News of her relationship with him spreads fast in school, and the school bodies try to separate the two in hopes that Tomoyo will concentrate more on her position as student council president. Tomoya, worrying about his delinquent status, reluctantly breaks up with her out of fear that his delinquent status will hold her back. After several months, Tomoyo meets up with Tomoya once again, telling him that she successfully saved the cherry blossom trees from being cut down but she lost something in return: her time with him. She then confesses to him that she wants only him and will follow him to the odd ends. Tomoya is touched by her words and they both decide to resume being lovers. After Tomoya graduates in spring, he sees both Takafumi and Tomoyo off to school, with both of them admiring the beauty of the cherry blossom. Tomoyo's story continues in Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life, Key's fifth game and spin-off sequel to Clannad, with her as the main heroine.
is a first year student at Hikarizaka high school. She is always alone, making wood carvings of starfish with a small knife to give to others as presents. This hobby completely drains her concentration and awareness of her surroundings. Tomoya meets Fuko in an empty classroom, carving a block of wood with a knife. Tomoya confiscates the knife after noticing she is hurting herself, but eventually returns the knife the next day. Some days later, Tomoya learns from Fuko that she is carving 700 starfish to be distributed to all the students in the school, wanting them to attend her sister Kouko's wedding. The main problem is that no one in the school knows about Kouko, who had stopped teaching at the school three years ago, except Nagisa.After learning about Fuko's accident and her unknown existence as an ikiryō, or astral projection, both Nagisa and Tomoya decide to assist Fuko to accomplish her dreams. Just when they thought everything goes well, Fuko starts to disappear from everyone's heart, due to her waning spiritual powers, as the real Fuko had stopped breathing in the hospital. Wanting Kouko's wedding to happen, Tomoya asks Koumura to organize the wedding ceremony at May 18. Through many struggles and hardships, Kouko's wedding turns into a success and everyone that was given a starfish carving came to the wedding. After the wedding, Fuko thanks Tomoya for everything he did, and congratulates her sister before disappearing. After the wedding, Kouko and Yusuke decide to thank Fuko in her hospital room.Fuko's personality is childish and naïve, causing most people who don't know her misunderstand that she is a grade student. She acts like a tsundere when she is around Tomoya; often calling him a weird guy but is secretly dependent on him. Due to her dependency on Tomoya, she has grown to love him and finally proves her feelings to Tomoya by kissing him on the cheek.
Ushio Okazaki (岡崎 汐 Okazaki Ushio?)Ushio is Tomoya and Nagisa's daughter. She only appears in the After Story portion of the game and anime, and in the movie. After giving birth to her, Nagisa dies. This deeply saddens Tomoya to the point he gave up raising Ushio and left her to the care of Akio and Sanae. Tomoya resorts to alcohol and cigarettes to ease depression.Five years later, Sanae arranges a trip for Tomoya and Ushio in hopes that they will be together again. During the trip, Tomoya meets his grandmother, Shino, and learns about his father's past and the sacrifices he made for Tomoya, which leads him to regret his actions, and decides to raise Ushio and acknowledge Naoyuki as his father. Shortly after Tomoya sets things right, Ushio is stricken with the same disease as Nagisa. Despite the efforts and sacrifices of Tomoya, Akio, and Sanae, Ushio's fever never subsides but worsens. In the coming winter, being filled with desperation of wanting to do anything for Ushio, Tomoya brings her for a trip, but she falls unconscious and dies shortly thereafter along with her father who succumbed to his grief. Ushio is then revealed to be the girl in the illusionary world of her parents dreams. If enough light orbs are gathered, Ushio instead lives a happy life with her parents, and as far as is known, does not suffer from her mother's sickness.In the movie, after seeing Tomoya so depressed, his father asks his friends to take him to a train station where he meets with Ushio. It's hinted that he will stay with her and not end up like his father.
Naoyuki Okazaki (岡崎 直幸 Okazaki Naoyuki?)Naoyuki is Tomoya's father. Tomoya's mother, Atsuko Okazaki, died when Tomoya was young, thus leaving only himself to raise Tomoya. After the accident, Naoyuki turned to alcohol and smoking, and had frequent fights with his son. One day while arguing with his son on trivial things, he slammed Tomoya against the wall, dislocating Tomoya's right shoulder. Immediately after that, Tomoya refused to come out of his room, and by the time he finally went to the hospital, it was declared to be untreatable. Ever since then, his father has treated Tomoya more kindly, but like a stranger rather than family. This only hurt Tomoya even more, so he becomes a delinquent, as he is unable to participate in basketball activities any longer, and he avoided returning to his home early enough to be confronted with his father. Tomoya has the intention of running away from his home, as revealed from Kotomi's path.As revealed from Shino's story about Naoyuki, even though his wife died and he had become depressed, Naoyuki sacrificed everything in his life just for Tomoya's sake, hoping Tomoya to grow up to be a proper man unlike him. After Tomoya comes to terms with his father, Naoyuki decides to return to his hometown to stay with his mother, claiming his role as a father has finally come to an end.In the movie, Naoyuki is shown to work a graveyard shift with hardly any time to come home, instead of staying home and becoming a drunk and gambling addict (though it's clear that he did still have a tendency to copiously drink while Tomoya was growing up, hence leading into their estranged relationship). He's also depicted as being more consciously aware of his actions and more actively trying to repair his relationship with Tomoya, going out of his way to have a talk with Tomoya and even contacting Tomoya's friends and family to orchestrate a trip for Tomoya so he can spend time with his daughter Ushio, in order prevent his son from becoming like him.
Shino Okazaki (岡崎 史乃 Okazaki Shino?)Shino is Tomoya's grandmother on his father's side. She only appears in the After Story portion of the plot. During Ushio's path, when Ushio is finding her toy she lost in the flower field, Tomoya meets Shino at the edge of the cape, who introduces herself to him and their meeting is planned by Sanae. Shino tells the story about Naoyuki's past and tragedy, which is similar to what Tomoya is facing after Nagisa's death, along with his sacrifices made for Tomoya just to see him grow up to be a proper man. After listening to Shino's recounting of his father's story, Tomoya feels deep remorse for having neglected his daughter, and for how he'd treated his father who he now realizes had loved him all along, and decides to mend his relationship between himself, Ushio and his father. Shino tells Tomoya to relay a message to Naoyuki that she wants him to return home so she can be with him, which Naoyuki agrees to after finally making amends with Tomoya.