Key OP/ED Mise-en-Scène

Key Discussion
#1

Mise-en-scène is a term in Film that essentially refers to how particular aspect of a scene (e.g. an object in the scene) conveys a meaning or a story. I might not be clear enough on this, but feel free to check out some of the “What’s in an OP” videos of Mother’s Basement on Youtube as a reference, because that’s the sort of discussion that I had in mind.

In anime, Opening Themes and sometimes Ending Themes are usually a way for storyboard writers to express the story and overall theme of the anime in artful ways. Here, let’s talk about the visual storytelling of the Opening and Ending Themes of Key anime and maybe VNs too. (just the OP and ED because the mise-en-scene of an episode can be discussed at their respective anime discussions)

tl;dr we’ll be overanalyzing scenes from title sequences and ending credits

Also, use spoiler tags when appropriate.

To start the discussion, the pre-chorus scene in Rewrite anime OP (00:53 - 00:59) particularly took my attention. It felt like it was conveying the gist of what happened to the story (in the VN) as the common route approached its end. Notice how the Occult Club members walked towards each other in front of the building where their clubroom is, then suddenly it zooms out and we see the ribbon girl covering the screen with her ribbons and dividing it by six, with each division showing one of the heroines.

What happened by the end of the common route in the VN is that while the paths taken by Kotarou and his girl friends converged in the Occult Club, they ended up separated from each other when the lore introduced itself and the heroines’ connections to this lore is revealed.

In hindsight, that scene was pretty poignant.

4 Likes
#2

I’ll just post this here as well then. There’s full Rewrite spoilers and awful sound; you have been warned.

There were some things I forgot to mention in the video. Lucia is shown picking up a can because she’s vehement about recycling and stuff. The clock that starts ticking at the very end is probably just to show the start of the story. About the Aurora in the beginning. It is mentioned how the Aurora was born in the compressed space before the Big Bang, so that must be what we’re seeing. After that, things started forming and triggered the expansion.

Things I’m not sure about still:

  • Why do they sit down at the table here?
  • Right after that, what’s with the cuts to the children?
6 Likes
#3

Just to segue a bit from the heated discussions on Rewrite Episode 4, I’d like to bring up the changes in the new opening theme~

Someone uploaded a subbed translation on Youtube using the new version, so I began noticing the changes. Apart from some corrections on the models, effects and lighting, there’s (1) the camera blurring a bit at the start when Kotarou and Kotori ran, (2) Kotarou blinking during the Yoshino part, and (3) Kagari zooming even further away during the camera part. This list is non-exhaustive btw.

I think the more important change here is that of the hand on the clock-like gear at the end. This time, it has moved a bit further than the last time. I don’t know if that change happened in Episode 3 or 4, but considering that Kotarou did his thing in Episode 3, it does confirm that the hand moves according to the extent of which Kotarou uses his powers, just like how it is in the VN.