Why is Akane so perfect?
Impression
I hate how terrible the production values are. I hate how rushed and inconsistently paced everything is. I hate how only a select few of all the common route scenes are ever going to be animated. So why am I so hyped? Why did I thoroughly enjoy today’s episode? Why is Rewrite, of all things, quickly becoming the series I’m most looking forward to every week?
If we put aside my love and lust for Akane, I think the answer might have something to do with the OP. And the ED, with all its wonderful Terra references, but mostly the OP. I haven’t been this fucking excited over an OP in what seems like forever, it was fantastic. I can’t believe the entire first scene was dedicated to Kazamatsuri Bond facing off against Kagari, complete with a split-second frame featuring a hospital room and a certain small hand reaching out for Bond – I never thought I’d see that scene animated in my lifetime. And I loved the shots of all the characters, from Esaka to Imamiya to Inoue. Imamiya’s part would have been even more amazing if it’d been him, Kotarou and Nishikujou standing together. Even Mappie and the Rewrite dial from the game made an appearance!
I didn’t recognise the last key frame of the OP though – the one with Kotarou sitting in what seems to be a destroyed club room whilst reminiscing about his ‘good memories’ with the occult club members. I mean, it’s very possible that the club room and school both get destroyed during certain late-game events in many of the routes, but I don’t remember it ever being of particular note – not least of all because Kotarou usually had much bigger problems to deal with at the time. Alternatively, it could be something completely original from the upcoming Kagari route, which would make quite a lot of sense as it’s what this anime is supposed to be covering. If Bond is also featured in the OP, however, does that mean we’ll be having certain events in Terra playing a significant part in the Kagari route somehow? During the pilot episode Kotarou even had a painful ‘vision’ of that exact scene, where Kagari cuts his hand and lower arm off as she stands in front of a tree – they really seem to want to emphasise it for some reason. I do agree that it’s a really important encounter as far as their relationship goes, but it’s so bizarre at this point that it’s only going to make people more confused if they don’t understand exactly what they’re looking at.
The same issue applies to the breakneck pacing, although there’s reason to believe that things will slow down after this. If you’re an anime-only, the second half of the episode must have seemed like extremely poor writing. And it is – I’m a little incredulous that they managed to make Kotarou gather every single occult club member together within half an episode. A lot of the common route material in between each additional member joining was skipped over. But those who have finished the VN are not only in a position to understand why this has had to happen within the constraints of the adaptation – they’re also able to roughly fill in the blanks themselves as they’ll have run through the common route multiple times (and the most industrious of fans might even have repeated it from start to finish five times to pick up on new foreshadowing and completely reset their Kotarou before starting a new character route). And I thought the scenes that did make it into the anime were done brilliantly – everything from the parfait scene (ONNA NO TEKI, TENNOUJI KOTAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU) and the shikigami dreams (TOMOKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) to that one scene where Kotarou has Shizuru repeat his lines to Lucia over the phone. Like with the first episode, I couldn’t help but think the entire time how it was a real pity that the animation is such an utter pile of crap, because the banter and dynamic between the characters has turned out to be really, really good. It’s almost perfect, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking (although it has made me want to play through the common route again).
I say ‘almost’, because nothing’s perfect. Except Akane. Being this irresistibly sexy shouldn’t be allowed. If there happened to be a genocidal religious cult that worshipped her as a divine prophet, I would join in a heartbeat for her sake. I want to do lewd things to her. I want her to do lewd things to me. Even Kotarou wants to perform horrible reproductive acts together with her, and I suspect that someone at 8bit does too (given how much focus there was on her thighs and legs). I don’t usually care for H-scenes in visual novels, often because they’re not very good and can be jarring at the best of times, but Rewrite is an all-ages game and I really, really wanted some lewds of my snarky, FPS-loving NEET waifu. You don’t know how many times I clicked the ‘ravish her’ option when it came up as a choice during one scene, hoping that something would change if I went for it repeatedly. Sadly, I think Rewrite+ is all-ages too and so I’ll have to content myself with fan art and that one CG from Harvest Festa featuring Akane coming out of the shower. What a semen demon.
If you’re an anime-only viewer, what you have to understand (and you’re most likely already vaguely aware of this, depending on how much promo material you’ve seen) is that every member of the occult club is unlike what they appear to be at first blush, and that Kotarou remains unaware of this for now. Kotori is no exception, as hard as that may be to believe – she can indeed see Kagari standing outside the club room, for example. I won’t fault Kotarou for having spilled the beans to Akane about literally everything he experienced last episode, because at this point he doesn’t know any better, but he might come to regret it in the future. I don’t know what she thinks of the ‘ribbon-clad ghost’ he mentioned, but there is a very high likelihood that alarm bells went off in her head when Kotarou talked about encountering a massive monster in an odd dimension under the school. I’m confined to mere speculation because these events are all anime-original, but Akane probably knows about Krivoy Rog (or at least has a vague understanding of what’s being kept down there). As a result, she’s now been put on a higher level of alertness and suspicion than she’s ever been before at this point in the story, and it’ll be really interesting to see how that changes events in the common route and beyond, if at all.
I have seen many opinions for this episode from anime only viewers,most are okay, some are complaining about abrupt scene shift etc and what not. Of cos there are also those who dropped thinking this is ‘that’ type of show. For those that are interested this is just another episode that build on characters. I think its mostly us, the VN readers who feel how fast things are going cos we have read those scenes via hours of text scrolling and know how long those are. As the current pace the anime is going the common route probably will go up to 6 or 7 episodes which is very good if we remember this is only 13 episode.
Ah I am not the only one who fangirl over the OP lol. The scene at the end also give us what kind of ending this route may have Kagari is doomed that much we know for sure, Lucia is doomed too. So are the rest of the girls doomed too in this route? Is the Koutarou going to be the only one left in the end? I can see them connecting Moon and Terra from this point on if there is going to be s2 or another cour.
Yeah I can totally see alarm bells went off in Akane’s and Kotori’s head in this episode. I am a little disappointed that Koutarou doesn’t try to talk to kagari that night. I sort of remember that kagari presence instill fear (not sure of this) but koutarou is more afraid of her ribbons rather the ghost in this episode.
Don’t worry dude I am also hyped and in the same situation as you. So far I am enjoying this anime. Also Esaka, Sakuya and Imamiya? next episode by the director words!
I’m surprised there are even any anime-only viewers left! The common route is what it is – it’s supposed to be a cheerful slice-of-life with lots of banter, and it’s there to provide a contrast to all the future suffering. Which is the same formula that’s been prevalent in every single Key VN thus far. Complaints about the abruptness of scenes are all legitimate though – for many secondaries it’s probably the final straw on top of the terrible animation and the fact that nothing seems to make sense to them, which is completely understandable.
The OP made me remember Terra, that’s one reason why it was so fucking hype. If a Moon and Terra S2 really does end up happening, a REWRITE OF THE LIFE OP2 with proper Terra visuals would be amazing. Complete with Bond fighting dinosaurs in a kilt, using CBC reasoning and knitting on weekends.
Kagari is canonically always doomed, as is Lucia if Kotarou isn’t there for her. Shizuru will usually be fine, any fate has to be better than the post-salvation suffering awaiting her at the end of her route. I’m not so sure about Akane and Kotori, but they’re both fairly popular and so hopefully Romeo won’t do anything bad to them. Akane even survived during Unlimited Rewrite Works, and things were looking pretty bad for her then. During my playthrough, I do remember constantly worrying about how Kotori was doing in all the other character routes, in which she was hardly mentioned after she went into seclusion for her magical sage activities.
I think he’s scared of Creamy Kagarin. I’m not sure why (she hasn’t done much other than try to platonically sleep with him every night) but his fear might have increased after seeing her beat the crap out of Krivoy Rog. It’s rather ironic that he’s afraid of her ribbons, given that… well, you know.
Those three are turning up next episode? Holy shit! I’m really looking forward to how much foreshadowing their scenes will have. Esaka was always excellent at pretending he had no idea who Kotarou was, but Imamiya tended to be a bit nostalgic and let some things slip if I remember correctly. I’ve always wondered how him, Nishikujou and Kotori can even interact with Kotarou on a daily basis while keeping a straight face. Kotori especially.
There are surprisingly plenty of anime-only viewers left. From what I found the average anime-only viewers reaction is this anime confuse the hell out of them or leave them intrigued or a combinations of both. Of course there are some viewers who dropped this thinking haremy or generic or boring or confusing or other problems.
There are also a few who developed hate boner for their reasons (VN readers included) that they simply can’t never get good memories from this anime anymore. Certain forums become so bad that those that enjoy or are neutral can’t even start speculations.
Anyway I am only one person so I don’t know the exact numbers, but I certainly know that large number of anime-only viewers are still watching as of episode 2.
BTW on my nth re-watch of OP I found Tsukuno (Nagai) and A Kagari in the picture MC was looking.
It took me a while to find that Kagari – she’s in the reflection of the TV behind Akane, right? I had guessed that office secretary-like lady was Nagai though, especially with her UMA-hunting fishing pole. Pity there was no Shimako or Midou et al. in the OP.
I’ve been reading the MAL forums about this anime. Bad, bad idea. The VN readers are so annoying with how defensive they got, but to be fair, there were some annoying secondaries too, especially those calling the characters “one-dimensional” and there really is little discussion besides that.
I get the feeling it’s going to keep being like this for at least a month from now on.
Come on /a/non, you know better than that. MAL is an excellent database and record-keeping tool, but beyond that it’s less impressive. The forums there are at their worst with well-known VN adaptations. The last time I ventured in was when UBW (and before that, LB) had just started airing, and both times I felt the threads were pretty cancerous. I don’t know how it is these days, but I remember people repeatedly complaining or threatening to drop a show for whatever reason, and notwithstanding that fact they appear again the next week and continue to complain.
You’re probably better off participating in threads at ‘that’ place for Rewrite. Or for anything really, if MAL is the proposed alternative. There are hardly any secondaries (one or two pop up occasionally), the Bond copypasta still makes me smile, and the working assumption is that everyone has played the VN (which is what the anime assumes too, in all honesty) so there’s a greater chance to have actual discussion.
H-have I lost my sekrit club qualifications? I never found out why I could sometimes only see a panda when I clicked on links :^)
But yeah, I’m sure the vast majority of anons keep a MAL out of convenience. Either that or a Hummingbird, and people who opt for the latter often just like the aesthetics or are caught up in the MAL-hating circlejerk. I do think MAL’s gotten worse lately though, I was horrified the first time I got an email notification from them recommending something just because I’d added an entry in the past that was vaguely related to it.