(Lucia) Now I’m convinced that next week will revolve around the parfait. Here you can see the line used to promote Lucia’s character; she says this line right after finishing the giant parfait. It also wouldn’t make sense to go all the way to the church when they’re not doing Lucia’s route. Assuming that could even be done in one episode which I refuse to believe. Presumably they want to give tidbits of every girl’s story while preserving the status qou, so taking the story that far would just make it hard to do the other 3. The event where Chihaya gives flowers to the ill Lucia before the parfait eating also makes way for a Chihaya episode the week after.
lol what a fucking joke
EY IT’S EPISODE 4 LETS DO A BUNCH OF THIS ROUTE FOR THIS CHARACTER WHO’S BARELY HAD SCREENTIME WOOOO WOOOOOOO
OH SHIT BOYS IT’S EPISODE 4 TIME TO BREAK OUT LOVE LETTER.
ok now we’ve had our ‘emotional climax’(pffftahahahahahaha) lets just FUCKING CUT TO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ROUTE AND TONE FOR THE LAST TWO MINUTES.
AND DON’T FORGET THE ANIMATION ERRORS
OPPAI ROUTE CONFIRMED 10/10 BEST ADAPTATION
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The Grisaia comparison is unfair because Rakuen literally retconned Kajitsu to the point where nothing the anime did would’ve been acceptable because retcons.
Why was everything so fast?
As others have said, lot’s of stuff was really packed in here. My main problems were weird song placement/choice and people talking fast/weird timing for lines. Like when Shizuru forced Kotarou to forget her name, he remembered it before I could even realize what was happening (which made the scene lose a lot of impact for me).
For song placement, I just thought that some songs came up in weird places(I don’t remember specifically)
I’m half still watching Rewrite for the super cool OP/ED, but they took Sasayaka na Hajimari and (I guess) replaced with the awkward Lucia scene at the end. It was kinda spoilered for me that the episode would center around Shizuru, so I thought, at the very least, the would replace the ED with Koibumi. But no, they just outright took out the ED, tossed in Koibumi and Lucia at the end, and just cut it at that.
Please give me back Sasayaka na Hajimari, it’s better than a “preview for the next episode”
The only thing I liked about the episode was the Shizuru backstory coverage, I thought that went well.
The main problem is lack of build up due to the short time. Like it has already been said, shizuru didn’t even have much screen time and bam sad back story. But finding a solution for that would be tough, sure you can just slash all the material attached to them, and focus on the new route, but then you have all these non developed worthless characters lingering around for no reason… The problem is rewrite was written to be long, it has so much stuff woven together, that in this many episodes, you can only make a preview of sorts/rushed story.
I still love the anime, it is just that it is more of a ad to get you interested in the vn. I felt like Air’s anime was kind of the same way tbh. Obviously air had way better art, but I felt like the same problem of not having as much impact because it was sped up.
But back to the episode I feel like most of the problems with the episode, isn’t really problems with the episode, it is more the bigger picture, the not having the backing of other events. So I thought the episode was great (though they should of waited for the lucia scene.) That would of been way less awkward if they just put that in the next episode. It felt like a awkward next episode preview…
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Why do people have a problem with the Lucia scene at the end? I personally think that that scene was way better than the Shizuru telling her story scene.
that’s what all adaptations are though.[quote=“Kawaii-is-Justice, post:53, topic:2998”]
Why do people have a problem with the Lucia scene at the end?
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It was just tacked on to the end of an episode that clearly could have used more time (even the extra 60 seconds or whatever).
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It wasn’t the scene itself more of how it was placed after the credits… I didn’t care too much but it was a bit awkward. Well most anime have the complete story rather than just it smashed down like this, that what I mean by ad like.
Maybe they actually needed waaaaay more time for the next one. Shizuru’s episode needing more time? The episode was definitely rushed but Rewrite since episode one had a rushed pacing… If they had made it slower, it would get boring instead of feel-y. And giving an unimportant character like Shizuru an entire episode to tell her backstory is just some friggin’ fanservice, nothing more than that.
I do admit that it was pretty awkward but it wasn’t that bad, was it? At least, they made the anime only viewers interested to know what’s wrong with Lucia before dropping the anime after watching a trashy episode like this one. (I know that I’m harsh but I asked many many anime only viewers and they hold this very same opinion)
How many are still watching though? Out of the 3 anime only people I know that started Rewrite I only know one that hasn’t dropped yet and I’m pretty sure she’s watching more out of an obligation for liking Key but having no way of reading VNs. We’re past episode 3 so anyone doing the 3 episode test probably dropped it last episode or would sit through anyway even without that scene.
I don’t want to speak for all anime only people as 3 is a small pool but at this point I don’t think too many people would be convinced to stay by that scene if they weren’t going to stay anyway.
Edit: Just asked my sister and she confirmed if it wasn’t Key she would have dropped it by now and even though she likes Lucia she would have just looked up a plot summery of her route instead.
Most people I know don’t do a 3 episodes test but a 5 one since most animes get interesting around there. And the three first episodes weren’t that bad compared to this one…
This episode could have been better. They don’t even reveal Silver Fang’s name and the conversation from the VN during the trip in Touka’s car is cut off. I wished it was longer.
Pacing problem is still there~ Animation look better somehow…
I agree with everyone that the Lucia bit at the end of the episode is kinda out of place. But I am more disappointed on their decision to erase Kotarou’s part time work with Terra Magazine and the usage of Koibumi song.
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Well, I don’t know what I expected, but quite honestly this was pretty bad imo.
First things first, even as a VN reader I felt like the show was just suddenly whamming me with all this information about a character that I have no reason to be attached to. Suddenly dropping Shizuru’s backstory when her actual character hasn’t been fleshed out at all was an extremely poor choice (maybe a necessary one, if the anime is really only getting one cour), and it just feels forced and unnatural. Anybody who hasn’t read the VN has no reason to care about Shizuru, her past, or her relation to Guardian .
Second, this episode suffers from the same problem as all the others - the pacing is lightning fast and there’s no time for any one scene to sit and really be digested. It’s even worse here because this is supposed to be a pretty emotionally charged episode, but the show just continues to charge straight ahead and trip over itself all the while. The combination of the awful pacing and my extreme disinterest in any of the characters (specifically in the context of the anime) just completely slaughtered any sort of emotion this episode might have carried for me. As usual, there was no logical buildup - the episode starts all silly and then suddenly gets serious with little transition in between.
Third, pretty much everyone else has already said this, but what the actual hell was with the placement of the Lucia scene? This episode was in desperate need of more time - ANYWHERE - and they took a solid minute or so of runtime with an insanely out of place scene giving some foreshadowing for a character that no anime only viewer would care about. I can think of so many places that minute could have been better spent (for instance, making the scene where Kotarou remembers Shizuru’s name not jarringly fast and completely lacking in impact), but they spend it like that? Good grief…
I might actually drop this at this point. The only thing keeping me going is my adoration for Key in general, but I don’t see this getting better.
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What a great Episode! I love how they-
I’ll see myself out.
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Oh please do elaborate. Let’s see a bit more positivity in this topic!
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@Aspirety can we have a Rewrite Anime Bookclub just so we can hear @Kanon do the 30 second recap please? 
But otherwise… Episode was pretty unimpressive if I say so myself. Lightning fast pace, some of the most dramatic and memorable tracks from the OST that could have been used to good effect were just slapped in for Shizuru’s backstory, all of which felt horribly shoe-horned in for the sake of rinsing out emotions from the viewer… But… These things need build up. Something we didn’t get.
I don’t really know what else to say, other than it was nice to see Imamiya animated 
30 seconds cannot even begin to describe the issues with each and every Rewrite episode.
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I didn’t go into detail before since the overall reception seemed thoroughly positive at that point, but now I feel like I might as well explain further as to why I liked this episode.
More than anything I’m very content with how they handled Shizuru’s backstory in this new context. Shizuru is not the focal point of this anime. Her backstory is not overall important to the plot. But what it does do is it helps establish the setting. Rewrite’s setting has superpowers, organizations and a lot more that hasn’t been shown yet. And while that much could’ve been gathered without Shizuru’s backstory, what it does accomplish is it shows us how these setpieces affect our main characters directly. It’s one thing to just say there are superpowers in this setting, it’s another to actually show us how there being superpowers has an effect on the main cast as well as other inhabitants of Kazamatsuri - in other words it shows that there was actual thought put into the setting, and it makes it feel very much “alive”.
I’m glad that they used Shizuru’s backstory for this purpose. She’s a main heroine at this point and the audience cares about her to a degree. But not to the degree that this type of backstory is already a tearjerker. So it’s just about perfect for exposition. It’s not a particularly emotional moment, and some may have hoped differently. But I feel the way it went was pretty much perfect, it shows us that this sort of shit is commonplace here. THIS IS NOTHING SPECIAL, that’s exactly the point. And having the characters brought closer to us even when they’re not the focal point of the new plot developments is something I very much appreciate. I imagine they’ll be handling Lucia, maybe even Kotori, in a similar fashion.
Personally I didn’t feel like the directing was off for the majority of the episode. Probably the weirdest part was Kotarou sprinting to the clubroom after his encounter with Kagari (which was fucking glorious by the way) and Shizuru somehow catching up to him while walking. The talking felt perfectly natural to me, and Shizuru telling her backstory was actually pretty damn good.
Koibumi was mainly there because this is their only plausible opportunity to play it. Which is fine, I’d rather have it here than not at all. It’s the last time the anime will be focusing on Shizuru to this degree, if my speculations are correct.
Oh… and then we get to the post-credits Lucia scene. Horrendous directing everywhere, nonsensical conversational flow and reactions, and such a stupidly strange contrast to the Shizuru focus from before. And a literal non-ending (it just fades to black in the middle of a scene!). Yeah I got absolutely nothing, that part was terrible.
Still, apart from that ending, it was everything I wanted it to be. The first episode I’m giving a 5/5.
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I first heard your thoughts on this on discord and, to be honest, that’s something that I really did not consider myself. It pretty much blows all of my qualms out of the water, thus allowing me to see it’s purpose from a new light. I thank you for that.
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Damn, @Karifean coming through with that defense.
Complaining about us not having gotten enough Shizuru up to this point is odd not only because of this, but because we’ve seen her quite a bit up to this point. She’s been present for a lot of scenes and we got to see some of her always fantastic interaction with Kotarou. Considering she’ll be a supporting character at most this is fine. [quote=“Karifean, post:65, topic:2998”]
it’s another to actually show us how there being superpowers has an effect on the main cast
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Even having read the VN I’m getting excited seeing Kotarou interacting with supernatural things all the while trying to hide his own superpower. The anime is doing a phenomenal job at showing how normal Kotarou is despite his power and I’m looking forward to the drama this will inevitably cause later. It’s portraying the “normal slice of life” side of the story while simultaneously juggling it with the supernatural elements.
Rewatching the episode the talking is a bit fast at around 15:00, but I didn’t notice this the first time because I mostly focus on subs. The rest of the episode was fine though, all other talking was at about the pace of a normal conversation.
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