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EP. REVIEW: Rewrite


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masat01



Joined: 05 Apr 2011
Posts: 33
PostPosted: Mon Jul 25, 2016 10:00 am Reply with quote
You're all missing the true reasons for everything being so messed up.

1) Rewrite is, by far, KEY's worst product.
So, if you put in garbage, you recieve garbage.

2) Like Lithe past few titles, this is not a Kyoto Animation production. Everything they did (KEY related) was fantastic. Angel Beats! was rushed, Little Busters was meh, Charlotte fucked itself, and Rewrite is garbage. KyoAni gave each series enough episodes to tell the story the way it was meant to be told.

-The only exception right now is Planetarian, but that can be explained as being perfectly paced and planned out. Enough episodes to tell the whole story without losing anything.
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Selipse



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 216
PostPosted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 12:45 pm Reply with quote
First of all: wow, I didn't know Sunbright had a vocal version! It's really good.
Too bad I found out by watching a terrible episode.

They completely glossed over Lucia's backstory during the main route. Then they rushed through the first part of her route. I should've seen this coming since they mentioned they're doing a certain scene in the interviews, but it seems like we're going to continue through a neutered Lucia route until the big events happen and the new 6th route starts.

The adaptation of what happened this episode was truly terrible. Shizuru's backstory itself at least got a bit of the attention it needed, even if it had no build up. However, Lucia not only got her build up completely cut out, but the anime just ran through the events very quickly as if it just wanted it to be over already.

I wonder when the new route will be added into the mix. The rest of the girls' backstories could happen after the general story starts shifting into that, so I think next episode will still be adapting stuff (including that scene I mentioned earlier), and then it'll transition into the new stuff.

That's still only 6 episodes to do the new route and add the remaining girls' backstories, though. I don't have high hopes for it being good. We seriously need the Moon and Terra adaptation in a second cour thing to be true.
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rizuchan
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Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:47 am Reply with quote
Yeah, you can't blame Lucia's episode on Key, other than the fact they are presumably somewhat involved with the anime production. Her route in the VN had few of these pacing issues, and the fact that Lucia is Haruka was not made so glaringly obvious from the get go. In fact, I find it amuzing that Theron chalks up the predictability to "typical Key", because Lucia's route was written by Ryukishi07. Laughing Which really explains a lot about Lucia's character in itself.

It's really too bad. I actually thought Shizuru's episode was really well done and thought "maybe they can kind of sum up the first half of each character's route in one episode", but this one was just a mess.
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Selipse



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 216
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:44 am Reply with quote
Yeah, as I said in my previous comment, this episode was actually Lucia's route.

The last part of the previous episode was setting up Lucia's "backstory" that takes place during the main route. I assumed they were going to do that, but they completely skipped it in order to start with Lucia's route proper.

What happens during the main route basically is that Lucia and Chihaya start fighting over how Lucia keeps saying things are "dirty". The fight escalates a bit too much, so Kotarou asks Shizuru what's up with Lucia. We then learn that Lucia thinks that everything she touches will die, due to a childhood trauma. Kotarou ends up "convincing" Lucia that that's not true, and Lucia and Chihaya make up through various hijinks Kotarou and Shizuru come up with.

Then Lucia's route suddenly starts when Kotarou finds out about Haruka. As rizuchan said, the fact that Haruka was Lucia wasn't obvious. Their tragedies were described differently (and Haruka's wasn't stated right at the start), and Lucia's powers were "established" to not be real. The only real clue would be the fact that the game does say you're in Lucia's route. Through the investigation, Lucia's connection to Haruka keeps getting clearer, and you find out that Lucia's powers are real, getting confirmed during that scene at Kotarou's house.

I think a big part of why it didn't work in the anime is what I've been saying since the beginning: they didn't build up to the supernatural happenings. In the game, we do know that Kotarou has his rewrite ability (though it takes a bit to get there) and a certain phenomenon keeps happening to him (which, strangely enough, we haven't really seen in the anime). Ghost girl's appearances are also more sparse. It's never taken too seriously until it starts to build up and the main route ends. But here, we have Kotarou encountering a giant crab monster and Pani and Gil (who haven't made an appearance since) right in the first episode.

As I also said, Lucia's route keeps going after this (what we've seen is only the beginning), and I think the anime will continue that way too, at least to a certain extent.
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SNaGem



Joined: 23 May 2016
Posts: 41
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:56 am Reply with quote
masat01 wrote:
You're all missing the true reasons for everything being so messed up.

1) Rewrite is, by far, KEY's worst product.
So, if you put in garbage, you recieve garbage.
.


I respectfully disagree there. While I till have not played Air or Kud Wafter (I highly doubt Rewrite was better than the latter, and it certainly was legions above Tomoyo After), Rewrite is a great VN; the problems aren't because of the source material.

Rewrite isn't short, and I think it's about as long as Clannad with regards to the amount of text. Let's recall: Clannad had four cours, Rewrite is having one.

Like with Grisaia, the team at Studio 8Bit is intent on shoving everything they can into one cour. I implore everyone to wait for Rewrite+ and play the game when it comes out in the West. Lucia's route is one of the best routes I've ever read, and to see it being given such a shoddy treatment here depresses me.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 1:44 pm Reply with quote
As I've pointed out a few times before, though, this series isn't meant to be a straight, fully detailed adaptation of the existing routes. It's meant to be setting up for an alternate route. Hence a lot of the content being skipped or shortened is to be expected.

I will be very curious to see if those who are down on it right now because it's not directly reproducing the VN will have a different opinion once they see the final, finished product.
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Selipse



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 216
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:13 pm Reply with quote
And as I've already said, it hasn't been doing anything like that at all.
So far it's only been destroying what's already in the game. Given that it's only going to have very few episodes to do its "own new route" thanks to the fact that the producers also want to have a "proper" adaptation in there too, I'm really skeptical, but I'd gladly change my opinion if they somehow pull it off by the end.
It still wouldn't change the fact that the first few episodes are only a hollow shell of the VN, though.
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HelloBucket



Joined: 07 Apr 2015
Posts: 477
Location: Upstate New York
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:53 pm Reply with quote
^
Yeah, even as someone who has no other exposure to Rewrite, this doesn't feel like a anime-specific route of any description but rather the typical projectile plot vomiting you'd expect from any other quick 'n dirty VN adaptation. Going into detail on each girl's trauma seems highly unlikely to be necessary, even if some connected elements (Guardian V Gaia) are. For a unique route you'd think they'd find a way to introduce these universal elements without going down the rabbit hole of telling every single backstory, and just leave hints to the details of that character's VN route.

I could be asking too much. Not having read the VN, I'm not sure to what extent it's possible to restructure things in a streamlined fashion like that without butchering the plot.
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Azure-Wind91



Joined: 31 Jul 2013
Posts: 198
Location: South Carolina
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:11 pm Reply with quote
Sadly episode 5 suffers heavily from compressed adaption. In the VN Kotarou was on much better terms with Lucia than he is at the beginning of episode 5. When her route starts, Lucia has seen Kotarou's better qualities and no longer treats him with hostility or suspicion. Kotarou spoiler[helped her and Chizuru make up after the baseball in the flowers incident], but that's missing in the anime so a large chunk of Lucia's interaction with Kotarou in the common route is removed. The only friendly interaction he had with her was the recycling scene and even that they screwed up. Here's a link if you want to read more on that: http://the-azure-wind.tumblr.com/post/147512042517/rewrite-episode-5-earth-rep-lucia-konohana-i

To do this right they would have needed at least two episodes at a minimum and even then it still probably would have been rushed. The ominous atmosphere that the VN crafted around the mystery is lost because the pacing is so fast.
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rizuchan
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Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:54 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
As I've pointed out a few times before, though, this series isn't meant to be a straight, fully detailed adaptation of the existing routes. It's meant to be setting up for an alternate route.


I was perfectly fine with an "alternate route" and that's what I went into this expecting. Considering the nature of Rewrite, it was probably the best solution, and I was really looking forward to it. But so far everything they've shown has been a hurried adaptation of various parts of the VN, which is exactly what everyone was afraid of when they said they were adapting a 50+ hour VN into 13 episodes. I'm still holding out that whatever original story they've cooked up for (presumably) the last few episodes will be worth it, but it would have to be pretty mind-blowingly good to change my opinion.

I think Zac and/or Jacob mentioned in the ANNCast about Clannad that he felt like the Clannad anime was constantly shoving tragedy into the viewers face while going "Isn't this sad? Aren't you crying now??" And while I strongly disagreed with that about Clannad, that sums up pretty much exactly how I feel about Rewrite so far. It's hard to cry over their tragic backstories when the show hasn't given us a reason to care about these girls yet.

And one more thing while I'm on a rant - I swear Kotarou wasn't such an over-the-top pervert in the VN. He was toward Lucia in her route (Which I blame entirely on Ryukishi07 because he seems to think that's a charming attribute for a protagonist), and in the "Oppai" route, because it was a joke, but overall I don't remember him being this bad.
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Azure-Wind91



Joined: 31 Jul 2013
Posts: 198
Location: South Carolina
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:33 pm Reply with quote
rizuchan wrote:
And one more thing while I'm on a rant - I swear Kotarou wasn't such an over-the-top pervert in the VN. He was toward Lucia in her route (Which I blame entirely on Ryukishi07 because he seems to think that's a charming attribute for a protagonist), and in the "Oppai" route, because it was a joke, but overall I don't remember him being this bad.


THIS.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:48 pm Reply with quote
I'm not going to dispute for a second that the episode has a rushed feel to it; hell, I said that myself in the episode review. However, I still think people may be looking at this the wrong way. The more I think about what the series is doing, and the more that I think about what the stated intent for the adaptation is, the more I'm convinced that the series is deliberately sampling just what is needed to set up the overall point that it wants to make and the storyline that it really wants to ultimately focus on.

None of what it is going over right now is meant to be major tearjerker material; it's just the foundation. For instance, establishing Lucia's link to Haruka Asahi is more important than the rest of her story, and apparently important to the overall intended theme. So is the supernatural aspect, hence the reason why it's getting emphasized so early. And I think it goes without saying that Ribbon Girl is intended to play a bigger part in this take on the story than she may have in the original routes.

Again, keep in mind that the people behind this series specifically want you to have to look at this story differently. They have outright said that players/readers of the VN didn't get out of it what they had intended, so now I think they're saying, "don't get bogged down in the details, but be sure to look at this and this and this." That's not going over well because it's not what people are expecting/wanting to see: the VN done straight-up in anime form.

Now, I'm not saying that the way they're doing it isn't flawed; it is, as wherever they're going with this is still based on some pretty banal, typical VN content. And they can definitely be faulted for not making what they're doing clear enough. However, for those who are intimately familiar with the VN, keep an eye out for any trend or consistency you see in what they're skipping over. Looking at what the series is doing that way might provide some alternate insight.
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MCAL



Joined: 11 Feb 2013
Posts: 182
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:27 pm Reply with quote
Azure-Wind91 wrote:
rizuchan wrote:
And one more thing while I'm on a rant - I swear Kotarou wasn't such an over-the-top pervert in the VN. He was toward Lucia in her route (Which I blame entirely on Ryukishi07 because he seems to think that's a charming attribute for a protagonist), and in the "Oppai" route, because it was a joke, but overall I don't remember him being this bad.


THIS.
Neither did I.

Considering Grisaia anime's obsession with badly placed panty shots I have to wonder if the director has some kind of fetish for this kind of shit.
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grooven



Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 1424
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 1:02 am Reply with quote
So yeah, not impressed with the pacing they are going with for this anime. Viewers can see why 13 episode isn't enough if you can feel it being rushed.

The whole not knowing Luchia is the girl is so obvious here because they've made so many heavy handed visual hints. They really glossed over her route and it had no emotional impact, unlike the game which works because of the other half of her story that (hasn't been/won't be shown?) really brings out her emotions.

I'm also really hating Kotarou's over the top boob fetish. I know it exists but it's really too much and wasn't this bad in the game.
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萌時代



Joined: 28 Sep 2012
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 4:51 am Reply with quote
Hello, long time lurker here and a big fan of these episodic review articles. I can't say how times now these have lead me to finding a new fantastic series. And even when I've found them, it amazes me just how much insight you authors can infer on a series from just a single 20minute episode(Minus credits).

I read the VN back in 2011 and am tempted to do so again as the anime seems to merely be sampling a few scenes from each route so far. The content in the anime has so far only barely gone beyond the trial version of the game and stops right at the meat of each of Shizuru and Lucia's routes, so it's quite disappointing. Even then so much is missing, it could be said the trial version is more satisfying. I guess not much can be done if the studio decided to only dedicate an episode to each characters route, the past two episodes can't really be called a portrayal of each character's route, that would be doing a disservice to the original authors. The past two episodes kind of feel more like an episode long homage to each of the heroines. With the single episode limit, not much could be expected. As such the show is working like a tease, perhaps the end goal is to pay much less in production costs when compared to a four or even two cour series while getting people to buy Rewrite+. Such a shame, as I hated the chuunibyou laden premise back when the game was being developed, but came to love the series when I actually read it. I still haven't read anything so immersive and heart pumping that I felt I was in the middle of the action taking and dishing out the blows, or a situation so despairing and overwhelming, that I couldn't help but feel a sense of terror and resignation in my own heart, that this piece of art made me feel. So much is missing from these routes, that you pretty much have to read the route, whether new or well acquainted with the series, in order to not feel like there's a big gaping hole.

IIRC Rewrite was definitely bigger than Clannad perhaps even by a magnitude.spoiler[ Since each route brought on the destruction of the world or near it,] in ways irreversible, it would have not have been possible to portray each route fully without going against convention and starting over for each route. And even if they did, and wanted to be faithful to the storyline, as much as Kyoani was to Clannad for example, I'm not sure they could even finish in four cours, especially since they seem to want to put in some of Harvest Festa. So much is missing from this adaptation that, I really feel any comparisons to the VN are injust, I think we should just enjoy the adaptation as it's own work, in my eyes 8bit is a competent studio capable of delivering at least a satisfying series.Perhaps the rest will even be amazing, here's hoping.
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