This paper provides a brief overview of the radar-only, radar-lidar and radar-lidar-radiometer cloud and precipitation retrieval products from the JAXA Level 2 production model, with illustrations of key variables based on numerical forecast models and CloudSat/CALIPSO. The results in this paper are well-presented and summarises a long record of work with CloudSat/CALIPSO and other instruments in preparation for EarthCARE. While we appreciate concise papers, ultimately the paper does not provide enough of a detailed description of the algorithm(s), nor a consistent view of the data products in question. I recommend this paper for major revisions to address these issues. 

Major comments

1. The names of the products (i.e. C-CLP, AC-CLP, ACM-CLP) have typically been given in the paper titles within this special issue, and this would help the user to navigate through the special issue as well as the EarthCARE L2 data products.
2. There’s a fundamental ambiguity in the Abstract, which isn’t resolved within the paper. We read that, (L16-17) “these products provide a detailed view of [cloud properties] as well as vertical velocity information”, but then in the final sentence, (L20) “Level 2 velocity-related products will be described in a future paper.” Please make it very clear from the abstract onward that the vertical velocity products are not described in the present paper.
3. Table 1 is key to detailing the production model represented within this paper. The “standard” version of each L2 product are given, and also “research” versions of each product which contain vertical velocity information (i.e. retrieved precipitation mass flux, in-cloud vertical air velocity). This is ambiguous: are the existing products to be updated at a later date to include these additional variables, or are additional products to be released?
   
   
   
   Asked another way: it’s not clear from Table 1 or from the text of this paper whether the JAXA L2 production model as described in Eisinger et al. (2024) is accurate: in Figure 3 of Eisinger et al (2024) the C-CLP, AC-CLP and ACM-CLP products will provide the “standard” quantities relating to cloud mask, phase, shape and cloud microphysics, while additional “research” L2 data products with different names will provide complementary information: e.g. C-RAS for CPR retrievals of rain and snow properties, C-VVL for vertical velocity; ACM-ICE for ice cloud effective radius as described in Eisinger et al. (2024). In Table 1, the titles of the three last columns indicate that all of these variables fall under “C-CLP”, “AC-CLP” and “ACM-CLP”, and no other products are named. Please resolve this ambiguity, while citing the Eisinger et al. (2024) paper which was intended as a centralised resource for understanding the full range of products available.
4. The algorithm description section 2.3 of this paper is very dense and difficult to understand. 

• It begins by citing the ATBD, but a link to this document is not provided—and in any case, I would ask that the authors provide some recapitulation of the main detail provided in the ATBD within this paper, or in the citations within. As in other papers in this special issue, this should provide at least an overview of the algorithm, the key physical assumptions, etc.
• It would be helpful to break the description into paragraphs at least, but even more helpfully into sub-sections: cloud mask, phase discrimination, cloud microphysics. Here it would also be useful to provide a description of the intended use of Doppler measurements for vertical velocity products, even if they are to be more fully described in a later paper.

Minor comments

• L91: please provide a DOI for the ATBD
• L119: what are the two different size distributions?