I’m pretty sure that Lucia’s birthday is the 23rd of Decemeber and not October 
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Then happy early birthday 
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I just recently finished Lucia’s route as well and I also loved the CG at the skyview. It was terrifying to think of the things that the Project had done to Lucia over the years dealing with the poison in her system and making it hard for her to find a reason to live. The whole Asahi Haruka story was something else because it made the story progress a lot longer but it was necessary for the readers to delve into the real reason why Lucia suffered so much in her past. I also liked the scene between Lucia and Chihaya eating the giant parfait together, although Chihaya was trying hard to eat it. The battle scene between her and Shizuru was awesome and it really felt like reading a shounen manga because it was that good.
I had the chance to directly ask Baba-sama about the collaboration Key had with Ryu07 on Lucia’s arc (Japan Expo’s dinner, again) and his answer was quite funny. In fact, Lucia’s arc was already planned (designed if you prefer) before Ryu07 takes part in the writing. But Baba-sama himself felt like Rewrite as a whole was lacking something. The game was ‘perfect’ by Key standards, the traditional Nakige thing. However, Baba-sama wanted a change somewhere and found that change with Ryu07. He litteraly said that Ryu07 added a ‘poisounous aspect’ to Rewrite and that was exactly what he wanted.
Personally, I don’t like Lucia as a character (a bad tsundere imo) but I love her arc… I wonder if it’s related to the fact that Umineko is my favorite VN 
Also, it’s in Lucia’s arc that my favorite soundtrack of Rewrite (Scene Shifts There) is used the most efficiently.
That scene tho
http://peachcake.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/FGLC06b.png
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Hmmm, I cant decide if Im impressed with Key’s ability to turn such an overused trope into something that makes sense, or somewhat disappointed that what seems like a well developed character is also just an overused trope…
I’ll have more to say when I finish the route, but Im almost there.
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What trope are we referring to? Lucia’s whole overreacting to everything schtick at the beginning of the novel?
Well, yeah I guess. The whole “TENOUJI KOTAROU TSUN TSUN TSUN PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH” suddenly “Well, I guess I dont hate you that much” suddenly “OMG IM SO CUTE I LOVE YOU LOOK AT ME AS I DO KAWAII THINGS AND ACT EMBARRASSED”
Dont get me wrong. Thinking about all the different things that affect her personality. She pretends to be all pissy to keep people from getting to close. She’s never been able to have real human contact for most of her life, so it makes sense for her to want to be so close to Kotarou. You know, to experience actually touching another human.
Its just Im wondering: are they using her backstory and the plot to try and make an excuse for having that type of character (i.e. pandering)? Or are they kinda deconstructing the trope, show that there are real reasons why someone might actually act like that? Either way I think they did it pretty well.
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I totally agree with your sentiments and have long heralded Lucia as the right way to write a tsundere. I guess I’ve never been able to put my feelings into words but them actually giving an explanation as to why one would act so tsun (that and kotarou is a legit asshat) definitely makes me appreciate her personality more.
Honestly, I think Key uses those trope characteristics as “hooks” to give the player something to latch onto with the characters. They make the character feel familiar, so you want to play their arc, and from there they can basically go any direction they want with the story.
As far as the “Which came first” question…I wonder what Key’s normal workflow is. Do they start with a story hook, then come up with a personality, and then build the character design? No matter what, though, I think it’s an iterative process. After you have the design, you go back and tweak the personality, then the new personality demands some story changes, but then after all that the design could use some changes. Odds are this goes on until everything is “finished.”
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[quote=“daysofsummer, post:59, topic:1977, full:true”]
Glad there is a topic about this.
Comfortably Rewrite’s best portion to me. I felt it struck the best balance between romance & other sorts of drama - unlike Akane’s route, which is great but in which the main girl appears too little in my opinion (and Akane has always been my favorite, she’s one my top waifus haha). Lucia’s route has that perfect mix of sweetness and heaviness, it makes her character much more touching and lovable. When I started Rewrite I didn’t like her so much, but playing her route I was charmed. It features some of the most memorable scenes of any Key game if you ask me, especially that scene one the rooftop!! I played that one over & over again because it was just so glorious and timeless.[/quote]
This, Lucia Route is my most favorite route in the game as well. I believe that you nailed it, the thing that makes Lucia Route the most facsinating is its balances. The romance aspect between Kotarou kun and Lucia is taken care of, Lucia’s tsundere lovey dovey and their romantic date and kiss, the action aspect is taken care of in the fights between Lucia and Shizuru, and Lucia and Kotarou, the interaction between the heroines aspect is taken care of between the eating parfait between Chihaya and Lucia and their fight,(which I believe is a very emotional scene) and Chihaya also appears here, and the Gaia Guardian aspect taken care off with the scenes about Guardian and its Catholic bent. Also, there is also that scene with Lucia being best meido ~. There’s also horror, and uh, lewdness (Not, not really).
I believe that Lucia Route is the most-written and the most balanced route in all of Rewrite, since it seems to not lack in anything and is well-balanced in all of its elements.
Regarding Lucia, she’s a classic tsundere, turning from the Iron Fist of Justice to kawaii moe character. It’s quite obvious in the Common Route that she’s like that, she shows her more cute and embarassing aspects from time to time, then goes to tsundere mode again. I notice it in Lucia Route in the scene with Kotarou in the bus and her meido scene that she’s like that.
Dunno, but whatever their workflow is, they sure ensure that all of their characters look cute and attractive. Key Visual Arts characters always have this distinct and unique personality, identity, artstyle and appearance to them, whoever the studio adapts the visual novel or whoever author wrote the visual novel in the 1st place, starting from Kanon, Air and Clannad to Rewrite, Angel Beats! and Charlotte. Maybe it’s because the same people designed them?
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I’m pretty sure they give the artist (Hinoue/Na-Ga) a description of what the character is like (a vague explanation), then they draw the character, then they tweak it if the writer wants them to look different (as in hair length or ornament and so on). I’m pretty sure the story is created while they’re drawing the characters and then they might change the characters after reading the whole script. I mean, look at Shizuru’s original concept. I’m pretty sure that they just told Hinoue “Shizuru is a girl in the public morals committee and is OP as heck!” So she drew that Misae San-looking girl for Shizuru’s original concept. Then of course, the route itself would not fit that look, so Hinoue changed it (most likely after reading part of it or the whole thing). Same thing with Shiina from Angel Beats! She has a tendency to say “This is all so stupid” and likes toy puppies. Her original concept was a boy. Most likely because of her background. I’m pretty sure they just told Na-Ga the background to the character and not the character’s personality.
But anyways. Lucia’s route was beautiful 
The ending was… Long… Everything else was great. Unlike the other Rewrite routes, this one kept you engaged in the mystery that was happening. By far, one of the best heroine routes of the game. (My favorite route is still Shizuru’s).
Lucia’s route was actually one of my least favorites in Rewrite, the main reason being that the unreliable narration is something that makes sense in Ryukishi’s other works (Higurashi and Umineko), but not here. IMO the mystery was immediately rendered uninteresting when the reveal happened because the entire thing was poorly built, with 0 plot threads behind the inaccurate narration.
This made me have a bit of distaste for the entire first half of Lucia’s route. And then towards the end Kotarou decides to pick up the idiot ball and roll with it for…quite a while. This was honestly one of the cringiest parts in the entirety of Rewrite, to the point where I felt like I wanted to stab my eyes out while reading it.
Couple that with the fact that Lucia is my second least favorite heroine in Rewrite (with my least favorite being Chihaya), and her route just didn’t do it for me.
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Not really. At least, this is not the way it should be. Character designers are advised: character first, design later. Just giving a basic notion would probably result in a pretty poor character design, thus a lot should be known about a character before designing it. Character design is meant to be informative about the character, it can convey lots of things from basic personal traits to even backstory to some degree. So the best choice is to have the character fully developed before designing it, so that the designers can have a full grasp on the concept of said character.
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I noticed that there are a lot of subtle hints dropped throughout the common route about Lucia’s past. Not big things, like the can scene, just small references here and there. Single lines that you would expect are there to fill space or provide humor is you didn’t know better.
When Kotarou tries to feed her the jalapeno and Kotori suggests trading, Lucia denies this saying “The seasoning is far from typical.” Makes sense for someone without a sense of taste. She also, at several points, tells Kotarou to die, fertilize plants, and reduce CO2. The entire game has clear environmental themes but this really makes sense coming from Lucia, who is even more environmentally conscious than most.
Also, Yoshino knew that Lucia had a troubled past that she was hiding, no? That really adds more meaning to these two lines from him when Kotarou is talking about revealing what is under her gloves:
“D-damn iiiiit… don’t you dare remember this… forget it. forgeeeeeeeet iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…”
“Stop it Tennouji, everyone has wounds that must never be reopened… leave her be…”
I’m sure there are plenty more hints I am missing about her too.
I liked Rewrite’s writing before, but this is really another level of detail and quality. It’s a really good incentive to pay attention to motifs and tiny character details in future routes, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of the VN.
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For the K.E.Y.:
It may not be my favorite route in Rewrite, but Lucia’s route is one of the first routes I think of when the topic arises. Lucia’s character and personal struggles are relatable to me in hindsight, particularly in terms of how rigid and strict she acts around others. Much of her anger stems from the fact that she can’t experience the joys of interacting with the world around her. Her route tackles this problem in an unconventional but respectable way, never once betraying her humanity in the process of making the route romance-focused.
I empathize with Lucia a lot in this route, particularly how she’s cursed with abilities she never wanted in the first place. It draws a nice parallel with how it’s difficult for me to express emotion with the same range as others. Okay, maybe it’s not as crippling a problem as I make it seem, but who in the world has the same kind of abilities Lucia has? I feel sorely misunderstood from how others interpret my feelings and actions externally, just as Lucia feels the same even though she tries to do what she feels is right. If anything, her route made me feel a lot more for her than any other character in the VN (yes, even Shizuru).
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Please, our detective blatantly hides information from us. The audience never gets to hear about the old couple having their windows broken, so we just have to sit around and wait for Kotarou to solve it.
It’s not the solving of the mystery I’m after, it’s the shocking factor of finding out it was Lucia all along that I am after
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I also like Lucia’s voice, like a girl just knew what love =))
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I need to reread this route later if I want to put my overall thoughts to this (all I can say is that this isn’t a favorite, but it’s definitely a darn good story), but what I noticed is that the popularity of this route has so much to do with how it fulfills the readers’ expectations so well. I think a lot of people went into this route expecting a lot of Lucia and a lot of romance, and no matter how wildly the narrative changed (from mystery-horror to full-blown romance to idk what to even call it), it never ever let go of Lucia and her relationship with Kotarou. More than the rest of the routes in Rewrite, Lucia route succeeded in being about its starring heroine.
Though I had a different set of expectations when I first read the VN, so I wasn’t really as disappointed as others regarding the romance in other routes.
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I really liked the route. It put Lucia on the number one spot for my favourite character. I liked how the story flows from the common route to her route as it was different from the other routes. I also really liked how the ending song fits the character so well and that date scene was probably the best thing ever.
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