Aye aye sir.
This kind of the crowning moment of Rewrite for me, and easily one of the biggest themes of the story, so I’m ashamed you forgot it. At the very least, the anime hasn’t forgotten this theme.
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I’ve seen people both here and on other forums wondering how anime-only people reacted to the start with the route endings and all my sister asked about was why Kotori kept calling Kotarou a “monster”. She did ask why they were doing all the endings but at the start of Moon I don’t think VN readers would have known why all the ends were needed so I don’t think that’s the anime’s fault.
Alright. Now that I have rewatched the episode and gathered my thoughts, I’m ready to discuss it properly.
What I liked the most about this episode is the portrayal of the “true Kotarou”. A lonely boy who didn’t belong anywhere and was too scared of being left behind. A pathetic liar who hid all his worries and fears behind a cheerful mask and desperately sought for closeness. My favorite Kotarou.
His falsehood-filled attempts fail completely and put his patheticness on display. In the end, his facade comes crumbling down and he’s faced with his true self, his fears and weaknesses. Finally, he can be honest about himself. Only then does Kagari allow for something like a connection to begin and Kotarou becomes meek.
That process, that revelation is instrumental for understanding both moon and Terra, and it’s part of what makes Kotarou’s relationship with Kagari unique. It was executed marvelously. Props to the voice actor, as well. He does a great job at acting out all the different sides of Kotarou.
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This episode is like the reconciliation stage in an abusive relationship.
Things are fine right now, but I’ve been hurt too much in the past to let my guard down. If the anime can manage to keep up the quality of this episode then I may end up giving season 2 a 6/10. But based on how much they butchered season one I’m not counting on it, even though it would be impressive to be quite that bad.
Honestly Moon would be difficult to mess up. There isn’t much exposition that needs to be done so it can really be adapted directly without missing much. I’m not worried about the next couple of episodes but Terra was a bit of a mess even in the VN, so I wonder how bad it’ll be here.
I absolutely loved this episode, it was amazing and awoke the feelings I had when I played Moon back in the day :3 It was me warm and nostalgic, really Cute ^^
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Pretty good episode! Looking forward to what’s to come.
Though that reddit thread about it is kind of depressing.
I concur that the production values are much higher than Season 1. There’s a greater range of motion and expressions (though Kotarou’s suddenly in pain face looks too much like a comically shocked face to me), characters are more on-model, and the 3D dinosaur didn’t make me cringe as much as S1’s instances did. The music choices were also appropriate, with the vocal piece played near the end of the episode being a standout to me. I’m interested to see exactly how much this quality will hold up. The only obvious cost-cutting measure was reusing animation from the first episode a couple times and considering what the first-half of the episode was trying to do, that was an appropriate decision.
I’ll get through the first half of the episode quickly because I didn’t have much problem with it once the pieces finally clicked. If I’m understanding it correctly, Kotarou is in a dimensional limbo of sorts where memories from parallel realities where he made alternate choices in the story appear to him as dreams. In all this, however, he barely remembers Kagari (hopefully, the reason for this will be explained later). She seems to be messing with some kind of giant pool that represents parallel worlds with lines (in a manner that kind of resembles the way it’s depicted in, say, Steins;Gate), and she seems to be trying to fix the world by sifting through various throughlines. It’ll likely be explained later, so I won’t harp on this much. My only complaint were the awkward moments of levity inserted here, like forcing the wet dream right in between two more dramatic visions. The comedy otherwise, however, was pretty solid. The montage of Kotarou trying to reach Kagari worked because while the punchline was ultimately the same each time, the visual stylings and the way Kagari kills him changed every time. It was legitimately amusing.
But… I’m not gonna lie… I just don’t feel the emotional investment in the ending that everyone else does. I’m almost 100 percent sure that, had I read the VN, I’d think differently. But as far as this anime goes, I don’t feel a strong connection to any of these characters. I’ve liked elements of their personalities (Akane’s cool, confident, enigmatic demeanor was always fun, and Lucia taking up an affirmative position in deciding whether she and Shizuru would stay loyal to Guardian or not were interesting), but I was never convinced by the comradery all of these characters were supposed to share. I couldn’t tell you how these characters bond, or why they care about each other. Kotori and Chihaya bond because… they’re both nice moe girls? Lucia and Akane’s interactions are… Well… I can’t honestly remember if they even showed hostility to each other in the first few episodes, much less talk at all. I’m supposed to believe that these group of friends are close enough, they’re willing to make sacrifices to rally around each other halfway through the show, and I do NOT. The only connective tissue between them in my eyes is the fact they all take to Kotarou. This is explained to some extent with most of the girls, though I’m more than a little irritated the series had to outright tell us that Kotarou and Shizuru have hung out for a while. That’s the kind of thing a writer doesn’t really need to tell us (though, to be fair, it’s far from the first time Key has broken this rule).
My biggest problems, however, are with Kotarou himself. In this episode, as has already been stated, his internal conflict has been finding a place where he feels like he belongs: a place where he believes he can really connect with those around him. According to Kotori at the beginning of this episode, he’s awkward and unsociable. He has trouble connecting with your average person. However, the first couple episodes shoot this possibility in the foot. He goes out of his way to connect with Shizuru, Akane, and Lucia and has no trouble doing so. Perverted eccentricities aside, he very much plays the straight man like your average joe might to these people. A socially awkward, unsociable person would need to be reached by these people, not the other way around. Why do they make a point of noting Kotarou has no problem talking to regular people, like the goofy guy whose name I’ve forgotten, and Inoue, who aren’t supposed to be especially weird or harboring secrets like the rest. Aside from being a little quirky, they’re just average joes. If this had been taken out, it would have solved half the problem, but because he can talk to people with no trouble, it makes him come off like he’s just stubborn and impatient with average people. If they don’t cater to his needs to be wanted, then he doesn’t really appreciate their companionship that much. Was this just put in as a way to contrast with Kotori and Yoshino, who are both established to be totally isolated from other people? Is this just a way to ensure he is the only character that can play an active role in progressing the story, as many people who criticize Key VN protagonists say? Why did Shizuru really desire his companionship? She already had a good friend in Lucia. Why does it feel like Kotarou is more socially adjusted than Lucia (a Class Representative), even though he’s supposed to feel alone much of the time? Every single bit of it just rings hollow to me.
Him calling himself weak and helpless is a bit odd, too, especially considering the proactive maneuvers he made in the first several episodes in saving Lucia and dealing with the consistently growing conflict between Gaia and Guardian. I don’t see his weakness evidenced in the story at all. He cares deeply about those in his circle of friends and goes to great lengths to protect them. If he was grumpy, stubborn, and frequently irrational as someone like Shirou Emiya, this would work. But he’s not. These flaws don’t sound like something that were ever in the story, so his epiphany rings false. The story doesn’t support his claim at all.
I feel like one chance to show some of his awkwardness is in the moments where he started training with Sakuya. With everyone now more powerful and capable than him, he has to humble himself if he really wants to fit in with his peers and really stop the conflict. But instead, we don’t spend nearly enough time seeing his interactions with Sakuya, or his thoughts and feeling. Perhaps it would have been a drain on the budget to watch him train too much. Either way, his friends still end up standing by him, and he’s able to reach Kagari and have an emotional moment with her at the end. Where is this weakness he’s talking about?
Getting back to this episode, if Kotarou really is this weak person, why does he find the strength to go back and talk to her each time? Where’s the despair that most would feel when his attempts fail time after time? Wouldn’t he dread the pain of dying so many times? It takes a long, long time to get used to something like that. He’s a little more stoic by the end of it, but he suffers none of the emotional turmoil ones might expect. Steins;Gate and Re;Zero, in my mind, are both examples that handled this sort of thing better.
The emotional core of this episode, in the end, is Kagari and Kotarou bonding in a simple, straightforward, poignant manner. The execution is there, but all the pathos they’re relying on falls flat for me. Kagari and Kotarou shared some moments where they made lame jokes about feecoff and the internet, but did they really bond over much (aside from the broad “we’re all outcasts” thing)? How many meaningful conversations did they actually have? Him talking about the weight of the world being in their hands isn’t really something he exclusively talked to her about. A lot of the discussion about whether to keep her alive was made in his head. His decision is supposed to make sense because of the relationship they form, but honestly, I have a hard time understanding why Kotarou ultimately became interested in her. So, this touching moment where even after everything that’s happened, a simple act of kindness bridges the gap between the Kagari he once knew and the one now, fails to hit the mark because I never bought the relationship. I was never convinced these two were all that close. His reaction is fittingly genuine, and it does match well enough with how Kagari, being someone with little knowledge of the way humans communication, would understand a straightforward act better than impassioned words, but I simply don’t care enough about everything that built up to this for it to have an impact on me. It doesn’t help that Kotarou needlessly states how odd it is that drinking coffee with her was enough to help partially reforge their connection when an act like that needs to speak for itself.
I do believe the VN version is better. That picture @Aspirety posted is a beautiful piece of internal narration. I have a feeling this scene likely works better there because the earlier parts of the story effectively build up to it. But it doesn’t work well for me in this context. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here, but only because I’ve liked how unpredictable it is. I could care less about virtually all of these characters.
Rant over
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I’m not sure if the episode just made a storytelling lapse, but in any case, Kotori was definitely referring to the Kotarou she first knew. This refers to the Kotarou before the incident where Kagari attacked him close to death and Kotori used her powers and a piece of Kagari’s ribbon to keep him from dying. Kotori intended to say that his personality changed drastically from before to after this incident, and that was why she felt like he was just a “monster” she created. Plus, the manner she saved his life was quite akin to how summoners create monsters, hence, the talk about whether or not he is one.
Sorry to burst your bubble after you’ve gone out of your way to write so much, but you’re misunderstanding something.
The personality of Kotarou that Kotori is talking about here is a personality we have not seen yet. It’s closely connected to the issue of Kotarou being a Monster/Daemon/Mamono/Familiar.
As @BlackHayate02 has explained, it’s “the Kotarou I knew”, a Kotarou who’s definitely not a Monster/Daemon/Mamono/Familiar according to Kotori. But she assumes that the one she’s facing at that moment, the Kotarou we know from season 1, is her familiar, whose personality was supposedly twisted by her own desires.
The Kotarou we know is different. He’s super social, with a strong desire to connect to people. Said desire stems from his fear of being left alone because he’s so different from other people.
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Thanks to both for you for clearing that up. But that doesn’t really affect some of my big issues with the anime. It doesn’t change the fact that I still don’t understand why Kotarou is as socially isolated as Kotori, in spite of his more open nature. Is there really a reason he can’t connect with others? He didn’t even know most of the girls he met at the Occult Club were all that weird or different until later in the anime, so I really can’t see why he bonded to them specifically. It doesn’t really explain why someone who’s rather openly perverted is tolerated by characters who really shouldn’t let it fly (Lucia, for one, after some stuff he says in the clubroom). Why don’t any of the other girls seem to care?
It’s just… Because the series failed to effectively build up any of these important relationships in the first season, the ending of episode 14 fell flat to me. I still couldn’t really tell you why Kotarou and Kagari in episodes prior grew to love each other, so I can’t really care that much about them bonding again. It hurts what’s otherwise a solid scene. Maybe it’s just me, but, I had no trouble understanding the characters and their motivations in earlier Key works, be it Little Busters, Clannad, or Kanon, and those were anime I watched the adaptations of first. The series simply isn’t paced well enough to really get into the characters like it should. Maybe that’s why Kotarou’s personality just doesn’t add up to me. I still don’t see the weakness he’s talking about in his confession to Kagari. It just doesn’t work for me.
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Neither was I. And I don’t think the VN readers are supposed to be, either. One of the main points I remember was that the occult club was, when it all boiled down to it, a very shallow gathering of friends. This is supposed to be a big turning point when he realizes it in the VN, thus showing everything he tried to build up being nothing more than a failed attempt at finding purpose in life…
But the anime tries to push it in a more “sociable” direction with the first season, and I can see where the confusion comes from, in this case. Convenient coincidences cause the members, who really shouldn’t be working together, gather in one place and fight and fail. It makes you want to feel that they are a strongly bonded group of friends when, really, they aren’t. It really is missing the point, isn’t it?
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