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EP. REVIEW: Rewrite


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SilentArchitect



Joined: 17 Sep 2016
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:37 pm Reply with quote
I'll preface this by saying that although Rewrite is one of my favorite Visual Novels of all time, I went into this with as much of an open mind as humanly possible. I REALLY wanted to like this adaptation since almost nobody I talk to is willing to sit through an 80 hour "choose your own adventure" video game, and this could have been the ticket to getting friends interested. Not to mention that I loved the Clannad and Kanon Adaptations, and Little Busters, while not perfect, was good enough.

But the three biggest issues I've had with this adaptation have been the pacing, the tone, and how the characters were adapted.

Get ready for the wall of text.

I'm coming from a film background here (work in Hollywood), but the pacing feels incredibly unnatural compared to other anime. Mind you, I'm not referring to the pacing of the story itself (which is pretty fast) but the pacing of ALL of dialogue.

Bad pacing kills immersion and it just feels like these characters are talking at each other, rather than actually having conversations. I can't really think of a single moment that stands out as an exception. The reactions to what is being said/revealed are so fast they don't even register, and they're almost always shown in a two-shot or a medium-wide shot, which makes the facial reactions even harder to see cause this is Anime and not Live Action. Refusing to cut to purposeful close ups will not allow you to build dramatic tension in most instances, and any sort of comedy in movies/tv/anime is built through the editing.

And has anybody else who's played through the VN noticed that the tone of Kagari's arc is drastically different from the tone of the other five girls' arcs? I don't think this counts as a spoiler but the overall tone and mood of the other arcs was fairly somber and pretty serious with a few moments of levity thrown in here and there. But this arc just feels way too optimistic in comparison to the others, like throwing a hot springs episode into the middle of a show like Psycho-Pass.

And the characters? For lack of a better way of putting it, they've been genericized: made as common/bland as possible. Kotori wasn't just the typical childhood best friend, Shizuru wasn't just the token "imouto"/moe blob, Lucia DEFINITELY wasn't just a typical tsundere, Chihaya wasn't just a lovable idiot, and Akane was much more than just a video game playing Senjougahara-rip off. Kotarou is not a creepy boob obsessed pervert.

And Kagari was the most different of all. spoiler[She was literally laughing as she saw Kotori's parents get torn to shreds by wolves...]

I think the biggest problem with the show is that the creators of this adaptation did not realize that there were any problems with what they were creating. Staff from Key may have given them the green light, but I don't think that you'd be able to pick up on a lot of these problems just from the script. It comes from Directorial choices, what to show and why because every shot should have meaning, and from the Scenario Adaptor's choices, what was really necessary for the plot and what could be hinted at and left for the audience to figure out on their own.

I didn't mean to rant, but I had to get it out somewhere. If I've forgotten anything, or misremembered, please let me know and I'll correct it.

People say that a bad adaptation doesn't ruin the quality of the original product, but what it does ruin is the public's perception of the franchise as a whole. First impressions count, and for the vast majority of the Anime audience: this will be what they judge Rewrite by. So many people will miss out on finding out how powerful Rewrite can be, and it will be solely the fault of this Anime Adaptation.

I'll still watch the final episode, given that my love for the source material carried me this far. But I'll say it now, this isn't an adaptation of Rewrite. It's just "Generic Magic High School Battle Harem Anime #672" that's wearing Rewrite's cast off skin like Buffalo Bill.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2016 9:22 am Reply with quote
Theron Martin wrote:
but right now I'm not seeing any evidence for a conclusion other than the Occult Club convincing Kagari that they've had enough good experiences together – and want to be together despite their opposing ideologies – to use it as an example that humanity deserves a passing grade.


This is really hard to talk about without spoilers, obviously, but I'll just say this... you remember that this is Key we're talking about, right?

That said, if they plan to wrap this story up after a mere 13 episodes that would probably be the way to go. I'm really interested if they have the guts to go with an ending similar to the VN.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2016 6:36 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Weak animation (especially in CGI integration) is at the core of the problem


Id' say that was too harsh as hte cg monsters look unreal like they should, so cg actually helps... but there was that runing dude that looked like a psx era 3d model who completely broke the tension so I can't but agree.
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Selipse



Joined: 04 Sep 2014
Posts: 216
PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 11:48 am Reply with quote
AHAHAHA HOLY SHIT

I've been saying all this time that the anime really likes to throw us shit without any set-up, but man was this bad. I actually laughed out loud when Sakuya's transformation appeared.

I was joking when I said they should have Mob Psycho levels of animation, but I was hoping for even a tiny bit of somewhat impressive animation. Sadly, there was none. Thankfully, the animation wasn't that bad.

In the end, there was no point in showing the butchered versions of Shizuru's or Lucia's route, there was no point to the City of Stone, Shimako was just there for fanservice, and the route itself wasn't even more of a Kagari route than Moon and Terra.

We never got any real insight into Chihaya and Akane, but they would've been butchered like Shizuru and Lucia, so, whatever.

Sadly, feecof didn't save the world, but Kotarou's boob-grabbing did save Kagari's consciousness (very fitting for the series, since they prioritized that part of Kotarou's character more than anything else).

The only thing I can appreciate about this show is that they had the balls to end the world and kill absolutely everyone.

Well, I'm going to pretend like this anime never happened. Very Bad / 10.

Also, Moon and Terra confirmed! I told you.
Now let's hope that the producers also pretend like this anime never happened and just adapt it straight as it is. Should be an amazing anime and redeem this disaster (though I'd still be pretending this one didn't happen).
I'm hoping for a double-episode premiere for Moon and the rest of the season for Terra, like Grisaia.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:33 am Reply with quote
Well, I just had to see the end having gotten this far out of what is really morbid curiosity. This is the first Key-based anime where I didn't cry at the end or anywhere else. Totally painless and devoid of any feeling or meaning. Everyone evaporates, why? The end. No feecof either Confused Someone saw Evangelion maybe? At least Kagari gets a parting boob-grab (she doesn't mind too much). I love how self-aware this is by showing a version of a VN route map for the last shot and one route ending (bad end?). If Moon and Terra occurs, it will be because of the VN's popularity but I'd never care to see any more of this story.
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Via_01



Joined: 24 Aug 2014
Posts: 551
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:26 pm Reply with quote
Well, here we are, it seems. I'm part of the big "fans of the original VN" camp that was utterly disappointed with this adaptation. Adapting a VN (specially a 50+ hours one) is a fool's errand, so I don't know what I was expecting, but even prepared for the worse it still stings a little to see a work you enjoyed being treated like this. Among several things that bothered me was the constant groping scenes (it was supposed to be a SINGLE joke in the VN, one that was extremely hard to reach, mind you), and, well, how rushed and butchered every single point of the story was.

I'm not looking forward to Terra/Moon, even though they were pretty linear routes (thus harder to screw up).
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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:33 pm Reply with quote
I watched the entire thing and honestly is felt like a rip off of Clamp's X toward the end and the whole last episode felt like a "Gainax Ending". Of course, this will probably all be retconned or tweaked with the upcoming series but it's hard to work up much emotion for any of the characters when some were given only one episode to flesh out their back story or a wordless flashback to their "tragic past".

In short for me, Rewrite felt like "emotional pornography" it was more interested in trying to manipulate a reaction out of me than actually make me honestly feel a real emotion because I cared what happened it just felt like sad things are sad so be sad was how it ended up leaving me feeling. Now again this could all be fixed in the upcoming second season but on it's own this was simply a mess of a series.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2858
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 9:22 pm Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
Well, I just had to see the end having gotten this far out of what is really morbid curiosity. This is the first Key-based anime where I didn't cry at the end or anywhere else.


this is probably the worse key anime, but then there is kyoani's air , which might not be as bad as this, I mean, some parts were really depressing and this show did not get to be that good... but then there are the toei adaptations, so I guess this one ranks here, but that's only based on hearsay as I ahve not watched the toei adaptations that are not the clannad movie (adn I found that one better than this)
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casualfan



Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 333
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:08 pm Reply with quote
I like the ending as it feels like a fresh take in this world-ending type of show in that the world actually ends. The second season is likely to be the other route where they get to save the world. This setup reminds me of Higurashi all over again with less of the gore element. I just hope they up the animation quality for the next season.
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