Rewrite was the first Key VN that Iâve ever read. Before that, I only had watched the anime adaptations of Keyâs works (which were generally more than enough for me to like them). Thatâs kind of ironic, since I began reading Rewrite knowing full well that it was departure from their style and that Maeda was not writing anything.
So, Iâll try to keep it short (already wrote a full review for a Brazillian site that I participate): To me, Rewrite was good, but not a âmasterpieceâ by any means.
You see, my main problem with the story is itâs lack of consistency. Even though the multiple writers format does pay off during the experience (to me, one of the best aspects of Rewrite was not knowing what was coming up next, since the routes were so different), itâs also itâs biggest weakness. The routes are just so different and the story gets so convoluted that somethings were simply âout of their placeâ in my opinion.
While the protagonist changing his ways through varying circunstances in the differing routes is a given in most visual novels, here I just couldnât buy into all of Kotarouâs âmutationsâ, with the biggest drawback being Akaneâs route, where I felt he was simply going with the script without any actual resolve or much character development until the very end. While in Terra route Kotarou struggled to find strength in his power for an example, in Chiahayaâs route he pretty much becomes a super-hero fairly easily with all the shounen tropes and such.
Luciaâs route was one of the best to me, but itâs just waaaay too unrelated to the bigger picture. She does virtually nothing in the rest of the story and her backstory and struggle, which I found to be the most engaging, is simply not even mentioned as an issue in the rest of the VN.
The salvation thing was also quite confusing to me, as it happens differently in two routes (three, if you count Terra) for no real reason. We just have to kind of assume that the Key had some sort of power as to how the whole shebang would take place, and she decided to it differently from time to time.
Also, characters that served purpose only on their respective routes to never be seen again, mostly the villains. Midou, Tenjin, Tenma, Brenda, Takasago (though he still makes a brief appearance in Terra) and, the ones that actually got me kind of pissed, Gil and Pani. I just loved those two, and they only have any sort of role in two routes. Itâs like they donât exist on all the other routes, and the reason they are not summoned by Kotarou in Moon to at least support the fight was just like a âscrew you, theyâre not my charactersâ by Tanaka Romeo to me. I kept hoping they would somehow appear in Terra, but nope. Midouâs group is also not an issue outside of Chihayaâs scenario. I guess Gaia deals with them offscreen in some unmentioned way every other time, even though they are stated to possess three of the strongest familiars in the whole organization.
Also, while Moon got me really pumped, I donât think Terra offered a proper payoff to such a long visual novel. It had itâs fair share of really nice moments, but also a lot of scenes and arcs that I think dragged on for waaay too long (the middle east portion comes to mindâŚalso, I think this whole portion was just bizarre and came out of left field). Terra was like a roller-coaster of quality to me, and I still have mixed feelings about the ending. While I think it made sense with the overall message of the story and had a nice bittersweet feeling, it also left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
All of those things might make it sound like I dislike Rewrite, but thatâs far from the truth. I liked it overall, it was a very interesting read full of very good ideas and deep, emotional messages. Itâs just that for every outstanding moment (every route has at least one), there were scenes that dragged too long, spriteless characters, consistency issues and the like.
WowâŚthatâs one long postâŚhope somebody reads it, hahaha.
