Rewrite - Kagari Character Discussion

Character discussion for Kagari (Both Earth and Moon Kagari) from Rewrite. If you haven’t read the entirety of Rewrite, prepare to be spoiled. Feel free to discuss the entirety of Rewrite without spoiler tags, but use spoiler tags when referring to events from Rewrite Harvest festa!.

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Oh! This is a good topic. I like how Kagari really, at first, appears like a selfish person who doesn’t care if humanity is spared or not, but later you see another side of her. She has a lot of depth and learning about her and the whole concept of “the Key” was one of my favorite parts about Rewrite.

I’m honestly not a fan of Kagari’s personality, but I highly appreciate her part in the overall story.

although… Creamy Kagarin best Kagari

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Kagari’s a weird one.

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All I remember is nearly going deaf when Moon Kagari tried speaking to me. Headset too imba.

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I have a lot of thoughts here that I’m not able to present in any coherent structure, so I’m just gonna try and vomit them out.

Kagari is marketed as one of the faces of Rewrite, Key’s latest bishoujo-ge (?). She’s a cute girl with a bit of a kuudere thing going on. But you quickly find out that she’s not human, and that we’re not meant to relate to her as such.

I think Rewrite really plays with the reader’s feelings regarding the being known as Kagari. We’re told that she assumes an appearance that resembles innocence and purity as a defence mechanism against those wishing to do her harm. Her appearance is intended to manipulate the hearts of humans, much as it does it’s audience. Aww she’s so cute and innocent-looking, I want to empathise with her and like her! But the Kagari we meet in Kotori’s route is very much an emotionless machine, born for the purpose of destroying the world. She’s basically portrayed as a bomb in a dress, and it rightfully creeps Kotarou out in Kotori’s route. But later on as we enter Terra, Kotarou can’t deny that he begins to feel feelings of warmth, even love for Kagari, even though he knows he’s being manipulated. He accepts that he’s probably just a simple guy saving the world for the purpose of chasing a skirt, but he accepts that about himself. As the reader, it’s up to us to decide how we feel about Kagari, and if we’re willing to accept her as an object of our empathy and affection, or as a machine. At least, seeing Kagari gain some human emotions in Terra helps the reader empathise with her, but I personally never did find her personality that attractive. There was always that barrier preventing me from fully appreciating her, as all she cared about was saving the world, and she was content with manipulating Kotarou’s feelings to that end. Maybe, in this world of twisted morals, that can be seen as a form of love, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. But I can’t deny that they both gained something very special out of that relationship, being able to stand together as they sacrifice everything to save the world. The final scene where they turn into a tree together is very romantic in a way.

Let’s step back a bit and look at her twin sister, the Moon Kagari. Moon Kagari is treated as the older sister of Earth Kagari. She’s a being that has acquired inhuman superintelligence, while the Kagari on Earth is still an infant trying to reach the level of human intelligence. But Moon Kagari is so intelligent, that Kotarou can’t possibly hope to have a conversation with her without his head literally frying from the information contained in her language. She’s very much an alien existence. But somehow, I found their relationship to be the most, weirdly romantic in the entire story. When they first meet, Kotarou is lost in the empty garden of Kazamatsuri, and the only other living creature he can find is Kagari. Less determined to find out what’s going on and more to overcome his feelings of loneliness, he attempts to make contact with Kagari, but is killed each time he attempts to approach her. He tries all sorts of methods to try and establish contact with her, but none of them end up working. Ultimately, Kotarou breaks down before her and starts crying over his incompetence, and begins regretting the mistakes he made in his life that lead to this point. He drops all his masks and reveals his true feelings toward this stranger, frustrated at how shallow his lives were. And only then, is Kagari able to smile and comfort him. This might be my favourite scene in the whole visual novel, and cemented my opinion of the Kagari on the moon. In the end, they may be separated by billions of years of intellectual development, but somehow, once they drop all their masks, they are able to accept each other and share that intimate moment of understanding. They can’t speak each other’s language, but they become content standing by each other’s side in that lonely world. Kagari’s presence helps Kotarou realise some very personal truths about himself, and Kotarou is even able to help Kagari understand the warmth of another being. It’s such an alien relationship that spits in the face of traditional ideas of romance and relationships, but there’s something so simple yet enriching about it that doesn’t compare to any of the other relationships Kotarou had ever experienced in his lifetimes.

That’s why Moon Kagari is best girl. Don’t forget the girl on the moon, waiting all alone for her friend to return to her.

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All of the following spoilers are for the whole VN.

I liked (Moon Kagari) best. She was actually trying to solve problems. But (Terra Kagari) was just… meh.

Something I really liked was the reference in Moon to amicable numbers: Two values that are linked together and “complete” each other, without question. I also felt that there were a lot of insightful―as well as philosophically interesting―concepts and ideas explored there, which I wasn’t expecting given the rest of the VN. Although my memory is a little fuzzy now, so I might be holding it in a higher regard than I should.

^ That. … Well, second to:

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Something I really enjoyed about Kagari and Rewrite as a whole is how it constantly made you question your own opinions and what you think you know. Each route gave you a different impression of Kagari, the Key. Is it a good thing that needs to be controlled? Is it an evil entity threatening everything that needs to be killed? Or is it just a misunderstood being with a mission? Each reader is going to interpret Kagari’s behavior and character as a whole differently, which sparks debate and discussion like we have here. Its great!

I would have to say/agree that Moon Kagari was the better of the two. An everything-on-the-table coexistence between two beings in an empty world.

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You don’t need to spoiler tag NotKyon~ Only for harvest festa.

Also, I guess Creamy Kagarin constitutes a third Kagari? Something of a meta-kagari unbound by the internal logic of the story and breaking the fourth wall completely :stuck_out_tongue:

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And the first thing Kotarou does in the epilogue? Straight to the moon!

There’s a Kagari topic now? Oh, man. What can I say about her? :confused:

Kagari starts out as a character shrouded in mystery. Each character route gives its own separate interpretation of Kagari, from a seemingly-innocent doll with a hidden agenda to a representative of the planet and its wishes to a simple plot device used for ‘Salvation’. Either way, she doesn’t really show much character at all until we get to Moon.

In Moon, not only do we see what Kagari was trying to do this whole time, but we see Koutarou interact with her a bit more than in the character routes. Despite this, we still do not see much personality from her, and her actions only serve to further Koutarou’s development instead.

When Terra comes along, we see Earth Kagari, who now talks and shows more emotion than Moon Kagari, but we still do not see much development from her since she spends so much time isolated from the events of Terra. We do see her sorrow and hopelessness at the imminent destruction of the world, and we also see hints of her bond with Koutarou from Moon, but again, Koutarou is the main focus of Terra, and the only one who gets any sort of development whatsoever.

In short, Kagari isn’t much of a character to me, but that has no bearing on whether I like her or not. She’s sort of on the same level as Kanade at the moment. I do like her (in fact, I have almost no reason to hate her) even if she doesn’t have much of a character.

In HF you have Miracle Kagari as #4. There are many Kagaris.
Much has already been said about Moon Kagari, but what I liked the most is how she is an alien that feels alien. They don’t make her more human as the story goes. She is simply beyond us.

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I actually like Kagari’s personality. She is my second favorite girl from Rewrite, just behind Lucia.

And I also liked her romance with Kotarou in Moon, but not in Terra. Terra’s romance didn’t really feel as romance at all for me. And what enraged me the most is that she was constantly repeating : “Good memories must not be sad.” This made me really curious of what good memories were, and in the end it was sooo simple and uninteresting…

Never forget

The Moon route was really damn good, Moon was a really interesting character in that, Terra was a bit lacking, but that was to be expected I guess, with her being not as “advanced”

Also, little side note, have to say that the Kagari’s did remind me of the Type’s in the TM universe, and yet there’s a strange lack of crossovers, needs more Kagari/Arcueid or Kagari/Crimson Moon!

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Kagari, huh?
I’m really not sure if I’ll be able to write down everything right away, for once as I still have other stuff to do today as well as for the fact I probably forget a lot. But hey, I can edit.

So Kagari.
I dunno, for the main heroine routes it just seemed to me like she was a doll, somewhat of an empty shell. Seeing as that was what she kinda was, the whole judging humanity thingy and what not. But still. Somehow it seemed for me like she kinda really wanted humanity to live on, searching so desperately for happy memories.

Moon Kagari on the other hand seemed more like an antisocial princess, cut away from any influences of the world, to me. Maybe also something like a god, knowing nothing about interaction with other life (like when she killed Kotarou over and over in the beginning of Moon).
But Slowly but surely, she came to appreciate Kotarou’s presence. I dunno, I feel towards Moon Kagari as a lonely supernatural being, that I somehow share a bond with though I can’t really say how.

Finally, Terra Kagari.
To be completely honest, I remember next to nothing about her. Apart from her learning and dislearning (is that even a word) language and other stuff. And in the end, she acted somewhat like a mother being proud of her son. (which kinda is what this situation was? I dunno, lol)

Oh, one final thing guys:
It’s Creamy☆Kagarin.
All of you guys should really appreaciate the Moe-star more.

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I liked Kagari. I feel like Key went the opposite direction with Rewrite though, considering Itaru did the storyline. In this, love actually plays a big part in each heroines route, and at the end, the main heroine, there’s basically not a lot of love that developed during the other story lines. I found that as the most significant thing about Rewrite. I liked how it was formatted. Though I do wish that there was another route to show some KagarixKotarou love, going more in depth, but I understand it wouldn’t work well since she’s an emotionless creature. Isn’t Kagari, “Key’s” face ? Since she is “The key” ? Kagari being the end girl is something I don’t mind, but too bad all the characters thought of her as an evil creature. I’m just wondering something that can possibly go into the Terra forum but it has to do with Kagari too. Phew did Kotarou and Kagari fall in love ? I didn’t like the Terra route, since, it tells how Kotarou is a dozen years older than the rest of the heroine’s, but how’d they fall in love ? I just remembered reading the last bits of Terra.

Kagari’s HF route, maybe?

Yeah, since I saw CG’s with her in the uniform. Plus, she has a route in there. But harvest festa is a fan disc. I heard that only Chihaya’s route is canon.

This is Rewrite, everything and nothing outside of Terra is canon.

If you mean that it’s a continuation of her route in rewrite though, Chihaya isn’t the only route that does this. Kotori’s HF route continues on from her Rewrite route’s ending, and Lucia’s HF route continues on from the halfway point of her Rewrite route.

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I’m still waiting for a Creamy☆Kagarin spinoff.
If there will ever be a Rewrite anime, I really hope she will get her own OVA.

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