Key Scenario Writers discussion

Key Discussion
#70

I loved Kotori’s route. It gave us a glimpse of reality, and yes, though it was info dump, I’m glad that it was given to us beforehand, so we could realize what we were dealing with in Rewrite’s story.

I also loved Terra. Though the fight scenes kinda bored me, the story was beautiful. Plus, in Terra, the Confession scene between Kotarou and Terra Kagari was OP IMO. Best Key confession scene ever. How he kisses her and she tells him to leave her, then Kotarou rejects, so then Kagari says how if he won’t leave her, then she will leave him. Then she walks through the forest and disappears from his sight

That was definitely my favorite part in Terra. Too bad there was no Nagai Sprite. I would have liked to seen her in there.

Though comparing Moon to Terra, Moon is a little bit more of an attention-grabber. Terra is pretty much slow.

1 Like
#71

Kotori’s route is quite controversial for its ending, but I personally loved the route. Made me love Kotori actually. I wasn’t really that greatly fond of Terra before, but after rereading it, I personally thought that it was a really good way of ending the series. So beautiful.

I like Tanaka personally. Humanity Has Declined was a blast. I haven’t watched Girls Beyond the Wasteland yet, but the first episode was pretty good.

1 Like
#72

Did anyone see this:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-03-01/clannad-charlotte-writer-jun-maeda-hospitalized/.99216

Hope he recovers soon…

#73

I wish well for him omg.

(those morbid jokes in the ANN forums tho D: )

#74

Well, it’s to be expected. Technically he eats and lives from hospitalizing characters.
But yes, I hope he recovers soon…

1 Like
#75

I love the character… Kotori is great. But the route is too short.
It’s a pity since it had so much potential. I think it could have been a Key “old-school-like” route.
With lots of emotions, like a mini modern AIR maybe (I’m talking about the mood, the topics).

A funny fact is… (Rewrite and AIR major spoilers) Now that I write about it I’ve just remembered the juice, the stegosaurus t-shirt and the “gao” shout in the woods…
Oh, and actually, she was left alone near the end… it’s a very sad scene.
I think Maeda would have been the best option for her route…

What do you think?

Rewrite - Kotori Kanbe Route & Character Discussion
#76

Finally we’ve been given some details on how Angel Beats! was handled. In the big interview in the perfect visual book, Maeda says that he wrote the later parts of the Yui route and Iwasawa’s route. Kai did the more light-hearted parts of Yui’s route. And Kashida Leo did Matsushita’s route and also helped with Iwasawa. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything else, but it’s at least something. So in the list would look like this:

Angel Beats! 1st beat

  • Yui: Kai (First Half) / Maeda (Second Half)
  • Iwasawa: Maeda
  • Matsushita: Kashida Leo

@Pepe, maybe put that in the OP, so people can actually find it.

5 Likes
#77

I feel like it would be really cool if we had some kind of post or page listing all of Key’s writers and what they’ve worked on. Helping people attach work to names would be really cool, I think. Too often everything Key gets slapped under Maeda’s name.

8 Likes
#78

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: The “Key Magic” Motif

The "Key Magic" Motif
#79

I’d like to revive this one to ask: just what the hell happened to Suzumoto? He left Key in 2005, wrote a light novel in 2006 (which i actually have, but can’t read cuz moonrunes) and then just kinda disappeared. I know he works for Aquaplus now, but I can’t find a single thing he’s written since then. His blog, which he stopped updating in 2013, doesn’t really mention anything about his work.
It’s a real shame, I think he had some incredible potential, and I know it’s not a popular opinion, but i consider him by far the best Key writer. as brilliant as Maeda may be at evoking emotion with his audience, He just doesn’t have the attention to detail or the ability to create unique yet effective settings that Suzumoto has.

2 Likes
#80

According to Wkkipedia, Suzumoto worked on parts of CLANNAD & AIR, and did Planetarian.

What routes did he do for CLANNAD and AIR ?

#81

For AIR, it was the medieval japan part, which was fun, but not brilliant. for Clannad, it was Kotomi’s route, which was, IMO, probably the best or at least best written part of Clannad.

1 Like
#82

It’s really not unpopular. All his stories are regarded as very good. He’s definitely my favorite.

@Totoro_Futaki, you know this topic is a list of all routes with corresponding writers.

#83

I absolutely love Suzunoto as well and, who knows, perhaps he will comeback in 2020 after 7 years of inactivity and suddenly write an anime original! Coughcoughcough

1 Like
#84

Jun Maeda is all my all-time favorite. However, I also enjoyed the work Naoki Hisaya did with Shiori and Nayuki. Both were charming and had good chemistry with Yuichi. It makes me wish he still worked with the company. Yuto Tonakawa also impressed me with Kurugaya, who I felt was unique for a Key heroine. You don’t often get the uber confident,grin-prone, flirty heroine in Key’s visual novels. Yuichi Suzimoto impressed me with both the way he portrayed Kotomi’s character growth in Clannad (even if the plot felt a bit contrived and out there), and Planetarian was EXTREMELY well-written.

The only Key writer I have a real sore spot for is Kai. I don’t like how he unceremoniously sidelined Kyou in Kappei’s route, and I REALLY don’t like how he did Kyou’s route. (Kyou route spoilers) I just can’t see Tomoya getting into a relationship with someone unless he really likes them. He doesn’t do anything like that in any of the other routes, and the implication is he takes romance pretty seriously. Kyou IS pressuring him, but he’s not usually this much of a doormat. And it leads to cringe-worthy scenes where he vents his stress by indulging in his romance with Ryou. This is Makoto Itou-level jerkishness, not Tomoya Okazaki. And what’s with Kyou pulling dumb stuff like kissing SUNOHARA to hide her feelings? OF COURSE no one’s going to believe that. And even though the route tried to make it balanced, Ryou felt like such a victim here. If people just talked about their feelings… haah…

Sorry about the random rant. I just needed to vent.

CLANNAD - Kyou Fujibayashi Route & Character Discussion
#85

Just go post that in the Kyou route topic and watch all the hate going towards you (me included). :relaxed:

That aside, I coincide that I liked how Naomi Hisaya writes those two Kanon routes, and that Maeda is my favorite writer, but I have mixed feelings about whether he’s all that good or not.

I feel like Maeda has great ideas and developments for the concept of a whole VN. An example would be CLANNAD, where he is given the task of writing After Story, so we could say that he almost have full control over the VN. However when having to write only one single route without having all the control he wants over the main character or the way the whole VN theme is going to develop, he doesn’t always nail it. An example of this would be Mai’s route in Kanon.

Finally Planetaria is amazingly written, as you said, but I think that also has to do with the fact that there are no choices and the entirety of the story was written by the same person, unlike route based VNs where having multiple writers is something common. I don’t want to say that Yuichi had it easier to achieve a better result though. He demonstrated that he is completely capable of various things in a single VN: beautiful writing, excellent use of metaphors, philosophical theming and emotional impact.

2 Likes
#86

Do you want to keep liking Hisaya? If not, there’s Sora no Method, an Anime written by him that has been discussed (a lot) and enjoyed (almost a little bit) by Kazamatsurians back when it aired.

Can we say that Key authors are kinda bad with writing anime?

2 Likes
#87

Haha, yeah. I’m not brave enough to do that… :sweat_smile:

I agree; when Jun Maeda tries to write a really big, really grand narrative, things start to fall apart. I agree that Mai’s just gets bizarre near the end, but a bigger example in my mind is Charlotte. That story was ALL over the place. I don’t think a single theme in that anime ended up fully-developed it was so cluttered.

@Naoki_Saten It’s funny. After finishing Charlotte, one of the first thoughts I had was “Maeda, stick to your VNs. If you keep writing stuff like this, I might lose respect for you as writer…” I skimmed reviews on ANN for Sora no Method. You didn’t think it was any good?

#88

Well, how do I put it? If you’ve got time to spare and you’re confident that your image of Hisaya won’t take a huge blow from watching this anime, no matter how little you’ll like it, then I guess there’s no reason not to watch it…

I think there were bits and pieces that I kinda liked, but as a whole, it was no good at all. 98% of my enjoyment of the series originated from the discussions I had about it on this forum. Also, one of its characters was my “worst girl” 2014.

On the other hand, I don’t remember anyone dropping it. Maybe you should ask around for more opinions.

EDIT: If you do end up watching it, by all means, make sure to read through our discussion topic as you go. It’ll be worth it ^^

1 Like
#89

RIP Ayu; I guess no one remembers her route.

1 Like