I can agree strongly on Terra, but I dunno about Moon. It’s so (vague description of the route) trippy and mind-screwy that I don’t know how they’re going to go about it on screen.
I’d really want a Season 2, just so they’ll be able to give proper closure to the anime. And an OVA full of common route gags just for the sake of fan service.
What you said made me think that Studio Shaft should adapt Moon (as OVA or movie maybe) because… they do fairly well with that kind of style.
I’d like to think I’ve been a voice of positivity for this anime, but now that the series is coming to a close, I feel it’s time for some critical reflection. Consider this Aspi’s review of Rewrite Season 1~! I might adjust it slightly after the final episode airs, but here it is. VN Spoilers for everything pre-moon and terra here.
I’ll admit. My opinion of the Rewrite anime has gone downhill since Episode 6. Despite common opinion, I thought the first five episodes were all great and I wouldn’t change much at all about them. But since then, the direction has gotten a bit hazy.
The pacing has been a bit of a rollercoaster from that point. We have some episodes which smash through plot threads rapidly, and others which just, don’t go anywhere. We have a good hour of screentime dedicated to Kagari being an idiot. Was this really necessary? I don’t hate this new Kagari, but adding in this new anime original content is just spreading the story more thin than it needs to be. Doesn’t help that majority of this time is spent on “ha ha kagari likes ffeeco” and “she’s naked owo”. BAD REWRITE, BAD. :chibiwot:
Episode 9 and onwards. But what really ticks me off is everything that happened once they got to the forest. I get that they’re trying to capture the essence of Chihaya and Kotori’s routes, but it’s kinda, not good. It’s like the plot comes to a grinding halt for the sake of some half-baked exposition amidst comedy and ecchi scenes. Sakuya training Kotarou was so boring and such a lame way to make Kotarou stronger for what I guess will be the final battle soon. Since they haven’t been utilising his Rewrite ability much at all (really anime? It’s kinda the name of the show), they should’ve just followed the Shizuru pattern of “Kotarou, don’t be a hero”. But no, he’s just a half-baked hero in this route. The pattern is most similar to Kotori’s route, but, I don’t feel any of the despair of that route. Everything is way too happy. You tried to tie in Kotori and Chihaya’s routes in at the end here, and it just, didn’t work. And it’s SO DAMN SLOW, I found myself yelling at the screen waiting for something to finally happen. They even had the gall to fake Lucia’s death FOR NO REASON. So when we FINALLY get to the big confrontation, it just feels way too rushed.
But look, for what it’s worth I do feel like it’s admirable how many plot threads they managed to incorporate into the anime. What may get entire hours of time in the VN may only get a small nod in the anime, but that’s fine. It’s there to please VN fans and entice newcomers to read the VN to find out more.
VN Spoilers Right now though, I’m still at a loss of how they’re going to tie up this route in the anime. There’s still so many unexplained plot threads. Stuff like Nishikujou, Imamiya and Esaka will probably get their spotlight in Terra. But what about giga-sakuya, Shizuru’s motorbike, Akane’s transcription, the after-effects of Salvation on the world, and most importantly, Kotarou being a fucking familiar? That’s a lot of ground to cover in one episode. It feels like there should be three episodes let, yet there’s only one to go. It’s so strange.
But all that aside, I am glad this anime exists, and it has been enjoyable to watch for the most part. I get that many people are displeased since it’s failed to match up to their lofty ideal of what the anime could’ve been. Yes, maybe in another world branch a different studio was hired to produce Rewrite. But they weren’t, so comparing it to a hypothetical scenario is unproductive. And between the alternatives of getting this anime or no anime at all, I’m happy it exists. Despite it’s flaws, I have found it quite enjoyable.
Also (Episode 12) Midou riding the Earth Dragon fighting the Bayern Knights was the hypest shit, even if it was ridiculous.
tl;dr just stop worrying and have fun~
ehehehe
ehehehehehe
but aspi that’s exactly what Kotori’s route is in the VN.
BEEN SAYING THAT FOR MOOOOOOOOONTHS
No, Kotori’s route is exposition amidst a curtain of hopeless nihilism and crushing despair. Rewrite anime has none of that, so it’s just boring exposition. I totally get that it’s not your cup of tea, but the Kotori route was very deliberately crafted and actually very interesting as a piece of fiction.
I’d like to join in with that :3 I feel the need to be honest about what I feel about the anime now.
Mine went downhill by around Episode 10. I found the mood swings fun during Episode 9, but not so much during Episode 10, as I felt that it was just dragging the pace. And Kagari, whom I instantly liked by Episode 8, started losing her charms to me. I still found this episode wholly enjoyable despite that.
Episode 11 was something I thought was fine at first, but when I could no longer find justifications to the criticisms it was getting (which I was still able to do during the first ten episodes), it started to legit bother me.
Episode 12 just had glaring flaws that I can’t shake off. It was clearly rushed, but they could have handled it better so it would at least come out better. They were able to do it in Episode 5 (which was pretty nice despite the rushing ahehe); why were they unable to do so here?
I don’t really hate the anime adaptation, but the glaring flaws last few episodes have is making it hard for me to fully appreciate it.
Now just give us a Season 2 or at least an OVA full of common route gags so I can feel better about the anime. XD
On another hand, I did thought that the reason for the mundane SoL during the anime-original route was to juxtapose it against the brewing conflict to make a point on what’s going on. Yeah, the way they went about it was rather haphazard, but I can buy that.
For me, it was too ridiculous to not like XD
I find it hillarious that every time after I watch a new ep of this anime I am literally being thrown in a rage mode… But then, a couple of days after I find a reason why this still has a right to be.
I liked 1st ep, 2nd and 3rd eps were rather ok. 4th ep was rushed… And I didn’t really liked 5th ep. It was still ok. Especially, considering that it wasn’t going on the Shizuru or Lucia’s routes. I thought that we will get a glimpse of Chihaya’s route next, but then we had a roughly compilated “Weekend mission” ep. I didn’t like the way they’ve just poured it all in a couple of minutes, but ok. It was tolerable.
It was still tolerable in ep 7… To heck, I thoght that the ep wasn’t all that bad. And then we’ve got dat Kagari opening in 8th ep… Like, come on? Seriously? Probably, 8th episode broke through the wall of my tolerance. Yes, some of the jokes worked. And, yes, that Kagari was “new” to some extent (but not really, as this Kagari has already been shown in both original Rewrite - oppai route - and in Harvest festa! - mostly Rewrite Quest).
Still, I had some sort of expectations for the anime. They’ve managed to make a total fool out of Imamiya in 9th ep… And that wasn’t nice. But they’ve somehow managed to integrate Kotarou’s conflict with Yoshino (from Kotori’s route) into it. And it was nice. Shizuru’s and Lucia’s “farewells” were good as well. They weren’t rushed, they were right there were they should have been. Then we’ve got another glimpse of Kotori’s route… and a quick nod to Chihaya’s route. But. That’s all. I didn’t like the way they’ve reintroduced Sakuya… Still, ok, Chihaya gave ok to this, so, fine… A quick scene with Lucia and Shizuru, where Lucia decided to go to check on their friends was nice. “Itsuwaranai Kimi he” as an ending song and the whole battle scene were ok as well. Though, I doubted Midou’s life force to stay alive for so long in the middle of that contamination… And let’s not forget about Tenjin and Tenma, whom were put in a cocktail of poisoned air and ravaging fire.
Yes, I didn’t want Lucia to die. And I was glad that she didn’t, but… That just completely killed all of the tension, which (finally!) was built up on 10th episode’s end. Non-impressive inside on Saints and rather lively Midou made it even worse.
Idiotic fanservice and unimpressive switch back of Kagari to the Key mode… Boring and strange fights of 12th episode and a ridiculous “death” of Kotori’s parents without any sort of emotional building… It was already said in this thread, but - darn! - there wasn’t enough despair. They were brought to the table as some sort of suicide-pawns, but were given a role of a chess’ Queen. Saitou Chiwa did her work, Kotori’s monologue on her parents real deaths was ok. But… It was only ok. It wasn’t emotional enough. No, probably, it was. I kind of felt it… Because I know what was inside of Kotori’s route. And it wasn’t as cheap there. And then, again, they just went over to a… variation? of Akane’s route.
Wow, we’ve got Suzaki on the screen for the 2nd time in this anime and he was lol-eaten by random mamono. Seriously? Where was Takasago, btw? He still should be alive by this point. They even showed him once back in 8th ep, iirc.
I still have some vague hopes for 13th ep, but… I doubt that I would like it. I doubt that there would be “Moon” and “Terra” anime. I double doubt it.
And I can only hope that some time later some other studio and Key will decide to make another Rewrite anime.
It would be nice if “White Fox” which made animation for 2nd Op of Rewrite-VN would do it. Such a BIIIIIIG DREEEEEEAAM, yeah.
Hope I didn’t spoil anything that I shouldn’t have. And sorry for bad English.
That was a deep analysis, @Aspirety. There’s not much for me to say that’s been already mentioned so I’ll keep this short and simple. I also have tried to remain positive about the series myself too and I want to think it was going in the right direction. I still enjoy watching the adaption nonetheless, but even I have started to feel some doubts where this will all end up too. The fanservice is overly blown which I didn’t like personally and some comedy gags were funny for a bit but felt overused a lot. I know for some instances that they’ve been meshing Kotori, Chihaya, and Akane routes together and it’s starting to look like a big mess. Unless Moon and Terra get adapted, I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the end when things go downhill from here.
I’m glad you found this enjoyable and I have as well since it first started airing. I’ve been keeping an honest opinion of the anime so far but I have to wait and see how it’ll turn out.
Rewrite episode 13 preview. Pretty much what I speculate, not that it’s difficult to guess though XD.
2nd season preview CM. Will upload the HD version when it’s out…
Oh, second season, usually I would be so very hyped, as I was before the anime started, but…
With this last episode… I feel rather cold and hollow, when usually Key is meant to make me feel emotional, I didn’t even feel pumped because action that is characteristic of Rewrite, I just… don’t feel anything specific, please… don’t ruin Moon and Terra… that’s all I ask for…
Average is all I ask for, no Masterpiece… just make something OK-ish, can they do it? (I have tried to stay positive so far…)
Hm. So it seems that we’ll get side stories on 4th, 8th, and 13th BDs.
Though, I wonder what sort of side stories it would be. On the 1st two volumes it stated, that they’re written by Ryuukishi07, but on the 3rd volume there is nothing.
I wonder if it would be centered around Lucia?..
Just something I found out: the screenplay for all of the episodes of the anime-original arc was written by Takashi Aoshima. Wow. For reference, he also wrote the episodes 1, 3, 6, and 7. While Tatsuya Takahashi is credited to be the screenplay writer along with Aoshima, he only wrote episodes 2 and 4. Episode 5 was written by Takayo Ikami instead.
Just in case anyone is interested, Ryouma Ebata was also among the two storyboard artists of the final episode. I wonder which part was his? I have a hunch that the post-credits scene was his.
So… as messy the overall writing of the anime admittedly was, I somehow noticed what the anime was trying to do with Rewrite’s themes. The anime hasn’t fully realized these themes yet, but it’s definitely something that was there, and something that they could solidify by Season 2.
Big spoilers on the thematic exploration of the VN, and the VN in general. And please flag this if this was brought up in Episode 13 discussions.
[spoiler]One of the running issues that the visual novel has tackled on is how humanity became so fixated on the present that they were no longer carving their future. Gaia became so jaded by human selfishness that they thought that humanity doesn’t deserve a future and must die. Guardian believes in the future of humanity, but they’re so fixated on stopping Gaia and killing the Key that they’re not really thinking of means to secure a future for humanity. Well, there’s the Next Generation Humanity Project, but… poor Lucia.
This is also reflected by the other visual novel routes. Kotori became so afraid of the truth on Kotarou’s circumstances that she preferred for Salvation to happen before the truth hits her. Akane, whose memories of the Holy Women twisted her to the point of initiating Salvation, was so afraid of repentance that she’d rather die along with Humanity. Shizuru was so afraid to lose her loved ones that she’d rather sacrifice herself. Lucia wanted a raison d’etre so badly that she didn’t mind following Brenda’s instructions of eradicating Kazamatsuri and dying along with it. Chihaya… I honestly don’t know. ^^;[/spoiler]
What about the anime-original arc?
[spoiler]While it caused the pacing of the anime-original arc to go freaking haywire, I figured that the reason why there were so much SoL content in it was because of Kotarou himself: he desired so hard to have a place to belong that he was unfortunate enough to find that exact place (shit why am I listening to Ana while writing this) from a meme-y and confused Kagari of all people. Because Kagari had no idea and didn’t give a rat’s ass over the Gaia-Guardian conflict, Kotarou reflected that thought too, so he wasn’t able to let go of his desire for a simple and mundane life, which he was able to when he chose Gaia or Guardian in some routes.
Likewise, the heroines started to want that simplicity and mundanity, too, and so they started gravitating towards him. Eventually, Kagari became the one who created the place for him to belong, and Kotarou also became emotionally invested to her. Because of that, once he got cornered by the looming Salvation, he could not bring himself to sacrifice that person whom he cared about, and who created that place, and likewise the place itself, even if it meant saving the world.[/spoiler]
And with that, Moon and Terra will tackle on how Kotarou will be able to let go of that place to carve a future and create possibilities. And I will look forward on how they will handle that. 
Also, this is a bit of a stretch, but there’s an interesting symbolism that I noticed in the anime:
We all know from the anime that Kagari is the avatar of the Earth, right? And we’d also know from the VN that people with Rewrite abilities are born when the Key is soon to be born, right? I’d like to think that Kagari represents the Earth (duh), while Kotarou represents the humanity, which I’m presuming for the strangest of reasons (I might talk about it fully somewhere else), unless I unwittingly stole this idea from somewhere else. But I digress.
(VN theme/late-anime spoiler) One of the topics of the VN is on the people who got so fixated on protecting the Mother Earth that they forgot why they were doing it in the first place (basically, to protect humanity’s future). With that presumption in mind, Kotarou and Kagari’s relationship felt like it kinda mirrored that, ahaha.
oh no this got long; I should do my assignments now.
Well, it’s time to explain my opinion on whole season of this anime. I have generally negative view on that.
I am going to express my feeling when I watched it first, then consider the pros and cons of this anime and why the anime was so bad.
When I saw the Episode 1, I was quite positive and optimistic on this anime, because the episode shows understanding of the moon route and their will to take a challenge to rewrite plot from VN to make it fit to anime. There were not a few scenes which have bad quality of animation (especially use of CG except for Krivoirog) and some people pointed out flaws in plot like the appearance of Krivoirog which might decrease the impact of Leaf Dragon on latter episode. However, at that point, I was satisfied with the work probably because I thought the Rewrite anime could be more worse.
I enjoyed Episode 2 and Episode 3 including the ED Sasayakanahajimari, though there were some dissatisfaction like the bad constructure of OP or some weird action scenes. I also had some anxiety in Midou, because there seemed not so much time in the whole 13 Episodes to push Midou’s episode.
And for the Episode 4 and Episode 5, each episode itself was not so bad, but these episode are too rushed and not in harmony with the whole season. Though I admit those episodes might be necessary to explain the character of Shizuru and Lucia, but I expected them to make these episode more brief to make time for latter episode, those episodes are after all in the route of individual character and some change might not affect terra and moon, which are most important part of Rewrite.
Then Episode 6 and Episode 7 came, the quality of animation was getting worse and worse, and the scenario and presentation were quite poor and raise no emotional impact on me. Especially, the motion of Leaf Dragon and Deinonychuses were awful.
I was nearly knocked out when I saw the name op Episode8,「我が名は篝ちゃん」.
Things get worse in Episode 8 to Episode 10, there are too useless joke in oppai and hi-ko-, though I felt some joy in Maeda’s End of the world. (I came to think the best part in the anime is this 2nd OP in the end.)
I had nearly no motivation to watch the rest of the episode and stopped watching it when it was broadcasted.
I was surprised by surviving of Lucia in Episode11 and the bath time scene in a negative way. It seems the staff of this anime have not so much thought about Lucia’s poison, which I think ruin the agony of Lucia in her route.
At the moment of Episode 12, I had no hope on this anime and found it right after watching it. The Earth Doragon, Midou, Kotori’s parents, everything was too shoddy.
Then the final episode was came, I somehow enjoyed it because it revealed the purpose of this route (it can be said failed terra route) and it present some respect on the terra route but it didn’t change my negative view on this anime.
There are so few good things in this anime, but I found four in the anime.
First, soundtracks was good and appropriate in any scene, including new music and arranged one, though it might be because I became fan of Rewrite music in VN.
Second, the structure start with moon and end with it is ideal way to adapt this VN.
Third is the good modelings of monsters(魔物), though their moves are not so great.
And finally, some respect for VN showed in some scenes was good like the monologue of Kotarou, some structual symmetry like okaken’s protecting of Kagari, battle of Kotarou and Esaka which are also in Terra, the end of the story Kotarou finally failed to kill kagari, which is the opposite way in Terra .
On the other hand, there are quite a lot defects in this anime, but if I choose some, they are represented in bad quality of animation, unsophiscated presentation, inappropriate jokes such as hi-ko- or oppai and that messy plot. There are so many example to show these flaws, so I want to focus on why things end up in this miserable quality.
The first reason is that they had so few time in anime but crammed too many things from VN. The anime was based on three of first part in Rewrite and have length of 17 paper book, but they have only anime for the length of 14 (the first episode has twice the length of other episode). For example, the anime of Re:zero have 9 books and the adaptation have 25 episodes. In addition to the shortness, the VN have 5 routes and end with very different result. In a route, almost all people in the town dies and in other the world ends and less than 100 people surrvive. So I think it is reasonable to make original route to mix up these five route, but the result was disaster. I think they should have more caferully chosen the episode and made more original episode to put necessary information for terra. The anime seems to quit with halfway between original and adaptation.
The second reason was the design of character. The line looks very thin and the touch looks fulffy. This makes character cute, but it make the battle scene a bit ridiculous and this unusual character design was hard to draw for 8-bit a bit immature animator. It also can be said Itaru’s fancy and a bit eccentric costume might cause the design.
And the most crucial reason is that they had awkward direction for this tough work. In the episode 13, there are unnatural gap in the story and chief director Tensho said the episode between 12 and 13 is going to be published in some way. It seems they failed to make the whole story into the limited time though there are many needless gag scenes in the episodes. Furthermore, while some important scene were too rushed to affect emotion or be understood, there are many avoidable event in the anime. It looks like many staff members took part in the scenario including Romeo Tanaka, Ryukishi07 and they each had things to put in but no one took responsibility for choosing what is necessary. I doubt they even took enough time for this hard challenge.
To sum up, the anime failed in totally disaster though there might be some hope (might be like Rewrite ending :chibiwot:). Though Rewrite have many difficulty in adaptation for anime in the plot and the design,they have too inadequate preparation for this. I even think they shouldn’t make anime if they can do it with such a terrible quality.
I hope they “次はもっとうまくやる” in 2nd season. I think terra is easier to adapt for anime.
I still don’t understand why they got Takashi Aoshima to write the anime-original arc. He had never played the VN beforehand and he was surprised himself when asked. Also his track record is only moe comedy and some comedy ecchi series. No wonder the anime-original route was so badly done and with unnecessary fanservice scenes (boob grab in episode 13, hot springs/bath scenes).
I was so excited for this before hand as I really loved the VN. But hopes were crushed. Really hope they get different staff members for season 2, especially scriptwriter and animators.
Was expecting it to look more like the 2nd OP of the VN that Tensho worked on, instead we got the opposite - characters moe’d up, off-model constantly with lifeless/lack of depth in the eyes, dull colouring, CG familiars, etc. Really hope they get their shit together for Moon and Terra.
I did already gave my overall opinion on the anime in the past, but I will rather keep this short and brief. While I don’t think in general basis the adaptation would be terrible (considering this counts my experience with reading mangas and few LN series, which in comparison its not on that level of bad), I do think Key standards adaptations (if we exclude originals since those are just not from an original source material, more so original works from the creators), I can simply understand that Rewrite adaption wise is more of the weakest in that sense. Mostly because the anime while it did made a clearer thing exposing one of the few themes from the VN which was supposed to be “easy to understand” (in fact some of those scenes from the themes were executed rather decently), the overall things or everything else from the theme exploration was not executed properly. Things really falls flat and very stale, if we actually count for the original route arc since that’s the one where most of the themes would be focused around, major focus on both factions and such ends, giving characterization towards the characters and giving some more established world building (because thats the point where the tones go and move to a different direction after the certain moment within the series).
This might be an unpopular opinion, maybe, but I do think it went a bit downhill after maybe around episode 10-11, mostly because I thought that the Common Route was handled pretty decently. More around the fact that yes they had to trim down the comedy and stuff in order to get there, which I didn’t really mind it. My problem was towards the moment after the certain day, which things would fall pretty weak by comparison. And again the reason why I said it went downhill from 10-11 is more because the anime didn’t handled stuff very well at that point onward, which is pretty sad in all honesty.
But I don’t think it was bad by any means personally. Like, overall bad for me? No. It just went down after a certain point because the execution fell rather flat, not giving time to explore much and because of that a lot of things are not executed quite well for the most part after reaching that point of the anime. This might not make sense in the end but I’m trying to say that the anime fell down due to the stuff they have missed after a few episodes of Kagari’s Route, which sadly was rather disappointing.
I do give it credit where its due though, the new arrangements are quite nice to hear (although pretty short sadly), some of the animation are good (though some are from mediocre to bad), the art isn’t all that great but in some cases in the anime it looked from pretty cute to quite emoticon type of material (Tensho has the tendency to give some pretty good storyboards and some pretty nice expressions like KinMoza), The OP while its not strong (for both ends) they were pretty good to listen to, the EDs are probably the highlight of the series, especially the 2nd ED song, storyboarded by Tensho and animated by NNK, giving some sight towards Kagari in the Visuals. The ED1 being animated by Ryoma Ebata which was probably amazing as usual from his end. Some of the VA are pretty solid, especially with Morita giving life to Kotarou.
All I can say its that the anime in the end wasn’t really horrible by any means in general, but it might be for Key standards adaption wise, but for me I don’t consider it really bad because I did liked some of the things the anime delivered, its just the execution felt flat after they reached to a certain point.
Today on twitter I saw a rather interesting interpretation of “Word of Dawn” song. And so I decided to TL it and bring here.
Along the lines I’ve made a lousy TL of song lyrics as well… But, well, I’m not really good at that so sorry xD
I’m going to put an entire translation in spoiler tag as it refers to original novel and especially to Terra with Moon.
Original tweet: https://twitter.com/route753885away/status/785331230329876480
[spoiler]懐かしさも消えた夢 (Natsukashisa mo kieta yume)
A dream that lost its nostalgia…
迷い子の手が寂しく風を撫でた (Mayoigo no te ga sabishiku kaze wo nadeta)
Lost child sorrowfuly strokes the wind.
言葉を知らないままならば (Kotoba wo shiranai mama naraba)
この瞳を閉じることも簡単だったのに (Kono hitomi wo tojiru koto mo kantan datta no ni)
If only I have never learned the words,
Then I could have been able to close my eyes so easy.
初めて 触れた温もり (Hajimete fureta nukumori)
The warmth I’ve touched for the first time;
小さく芽吹く鼓動に (Chiisaku mebuku kodou ni)
Its faint and steady beating
戸惑いを覚えた (Tomadoi wo oboeta)
Made me feel confusion…
あなたの声探して 夢幻の道を行く (Anata no koe sagashite mugen no michi wo yuku)
I’m walking on an endless road of dreams,
Searching for your voice.
theory as endless branches.星の始まりを識る ただそれだけ (Hoshi no hajimari wo shiru tada sore dake)
While I only know how it all began
口に残る苦味も 記憶の鍵になる (Kuchi ni nokoru nigami mo kioku no kagi ni naru)
Bitterness on my lips will turn into a key to my memories.
いつか出会うあなたへ 最後に微笑みを (Itsuka deau anata he saigo ni hohoemi wo)
To you whom I will meet someday I give my last smile.
I hope this TL was at least somewhat readable… And, well, I personally thought that it was worth enough to bring it here.
I just realized that I never posted my overall thoughts despite being active while the anime was airing, so here I go.
It’s shit. That is all.
Or I suppose I should go into at least a bit more detail as to why.
From the beginning the episodes were faster paced than I would have preferred and fairly disorganized. I hardly blamed them, like all most Key visual novels Rewrite has a lot of depth that would be difficult to smoothly adapt into an anime. Despite the problems the first few episodes had enough good parts to be mediocre, or dare I even suggest… good.
Through the first four episodes things were fine and I was very happy with the way the anime was going. I recognized the issues it had but I was never expecting this to be an amazing adaptation. Episode four was the first episode were the tone was becoming a major part of the anime so it began being really awkward and jarring whenever there was a major and out of place tonal shift. The Lucia episode was even worse with this. They rushed everything and tried to force a creepy mysterious vibe that completely fell flat then they topped it off with the dramatic chapel scene.
I have a big enough fan-erection for November 13th that it would have been almost impossible for them to completely disappoint me and overall I was satisfied with that day in the anime. And the leaf dragon is cool anytime we get a chance to see it.
And then episode 8 happened and everything went to shit for good. I already talked about tone earlier but there is no attempt at tonal consistency after this point. They keep throwing stupid feecof jokes. And then some echi jokes. And more feecof. And more echi. And more feecof. And more feecof. And its never funny.
Never
The Rewrite anime…yeah that was something else.
So what can I say about this adaptation that has been bashed and pretty much disliked by most if not all anime onlys and VN readers alike? Well I can first say that I don’t hate this adaptation. I’d be lying if I said I hated it, because there are things that I did enjoy about the Rewrite anime.
Firstly, I liked the fact that I got to see the characters I’ve known in the visual novel come to life in animated form. There was something very nostalgic and charming about it. The same thing could be said for most of the character interactions, specifically the ones between Kotarou and the main girls. Secondly, I like how they gave Kagari’s character a bit more spunk and attitude. Sure the feecof jokes were eh, but I do like that she has a spunky personality and can be funny at times. In some ways, I liked her character here more than I did in Terra. Thirdly, I liked how the adaptation placed a rather big focus on how important the occult club was for Kotarou and the girls. To me, it showed how strong the friendship between Kotarou and the girls was, and it was something that the original VN didn’t focus all that much. Sure, we see how much the occult club meant to Kotarou in the VN (common route spoiler) after the Leaf Dragon incident , but we don’t necessarily see how much it meant to the main girls and it kinda becomes forgotten after awhile. Fourth, the finale was actually pretty somber. (Episode 13 spoilers) Seeing everything getting destroyed, everyone dying, and Kotarou and Kagari turning to a tree really gave that feeling of sadness and despair. Sure the boob joke was awkward (seriously, why have that in that moment?), but it didn’t hide away the fact that you see everyone turning into light and the world ending. Fifth, some of the comedy was funny and I did find myself chuckling for some of the scenes, especially the Yoshino zipper bit during the transitions.
So yeah, I can’t say I hate the Rewrite anime. Do I think it’s great? No, not really. It does have its share of issues with some of the jokes being awkward and not funny; the awkward boob grabs; the animation at best being okay and at worst choppy and inconsistent (along with CG depending on how you feel about it); the dialogue sometimes going way too fast for its own good; the placement of some scenes like starting Lucia’s arc at the end of episode 4 or 5 immediately after doing Shizuru’s backstory in one episode; and just the overall not anime only friendly nature of it. However, I feel that underneath all of those issues the Rewrite anime has, there’s a rough gem hidden beneath it and it could have been a lot better, but maybe it could have been worse too. Regardless, I might not hate the Rewrite anime, but it’s definitely not something I’m going to say go watch immediately. If anything, I feel like you’re better off reading the visual novel for this one. Will I watch the Rewrite anime again? Probably not, ut I’m glad I saw it, and I’m going to see the Moon and Terra anime just to see how they adapt those story arcs.
Actually you said something that I had to agree on which was basically the anime did something that the Visual Novel didn’t really explored around, and as much as people really gave a lot of hate around and the amount of inconsistencies around the anime series, it did also do somethings right at the end of the day too for me.
In the anime they focused more on how much each one of the cast care about each other but not only that honestly, it also focused on one of the the big things for me as a reader, which was basically the faith aspect. You know when After the Leaf Dragon Incident, the characters go in their separate ways and they’re pretty much forced to go and fight against one another because that is their own faith placed around the stone, to say the least the anime also made that pretty clear in that regard, which made it easier to see rather than subtle, like connected with the amount of screentime it was given in the original route with the characters, I found that pretty decently done.
But I do give some credit as well for the anime for that honestly, as MUCH as people would give a lot of hate on it, I think the way they handled those things were pretty nice.
