I wasn’t ready for this.
Impression
Kagari a cute! A CUTE!
I’m worried. I’m really, really worried. Above all, I’m feeling conflicted – as wonderful as it is to hear Koibumi, and as bittersweet as the feels were when I remembered the ending to Shizuru’s route as it was played, this episode was everything I didn’t want this adaptation to be. I thought it was really weird when it started off with a saury scene, and the copious amounts of Shizuru in the first half only served to further arouse my suspicions. But even then, I just believed that they were trying to make up for the relative lack of interaction she’s had with Kotarou thus far as she’s in the year below him. I didn’t think much of her appearance when Kotarou visited Esaka, as it wasn’t too unusual for her to be visiting as well. Even after Shizuru told Kotarou about her past, I thought everything would work out somehow and that there was a perfectly good explanation for all of this – like how the Kagari route would be more Guardian-aligned and so they’d need to develop Shizuru because she’d play a big part in it. But when the credits finished rolling and it became obvious that we would be adapting some of the Lucia route, the expression of anxiety on my face turned into one of horror. In other words, I placed my trust in Tensho, because for all its faults, this Rewrite anime has kept me entertained. I was a fool.
It’s Grisaia all over again. I don’t think there’s any other way of putting it – the way things are progressing, we’ll be getting an episode that’s dedicated to each girl. I have two major problems with this. Firstly, I don’t see how this can be called a Kagari route any longer – when they said they were going for a Kagari route, I thought we’d get some common route scenes and then the anime would go off on a frolic of its own by focusing on Kagari. It even initially began with a scene from Moon, right? And everything about the Krivoy Rog battle seemed to indicate that Kagari would be playing an important role that we’ve never seen before, and that her increased involvement would prompt changes to the story in interesting ways – but nothing visible has happened due to Krivoy Rog’s death other than Kotarou having occasional flashbacks to it while wondering what it was. By presumably spending the next four episodes developing the four remaining heroines, we’ll have to sit through weeks of bastardised versions of each route, while at the same time not even touching upon some of the core issues or events that each route offers because we have to stick within the confines of the common route.
This brings me to the second problem I have – how exactly will this be done? Is it even possible to go into (let alone solve) Lucia’s problems without ending up on her route? A botched version of the Chihaya route is somewhat feasible, as they could spend half an episode on Sakuya and the other half with Midou and Fuego attacking the school while ignoring pretty much everything about Gaia. It’s also not impossible to do Kotori as her route is fairly standalone. But I really don’t see how the issues raised by learning about Lucia or Akane are something you can divorce from the plot as a whole, not least of all because Kotarou only does what he does in those routes because he loves them. Conversely, it’s now going to be really weird when all of the occult club members just randomly spill the beans to Kotarou despite not having any close relations with him, not to mention how they’re going to do so without even confirming his allegiances. Having Shizuru reveal she was a superhuman from Guardian just because Kotarou gave her an old music player he used when he was rebelling against his parents is in no way a rational course of action – in the VN, she did so because she deeply trusted Kotarou and had started having feelings for him. On top of that, he’d started showing indications (for example, through the questionnaire) that his world view aligned with that of Guardian.
None of that seems to be the case in the anime – if anything, Kotarou’s shown that he’s primarily being motivated by Akane’s lewd body. It’s also odd that Nishikujou and Guardian would even allow Shizuru to tell him everything about her – the idea in the game was that, if Kotarou is going to be spending the rest of his life with Shizuru, he needs to know who she actually is and what she does. The fact that Nishikujou knows he is a superhuman himself just makes the clearance issues slightly easier. But as things are now in the anime, Guardian should be trying its very best to keep him away from them. It’s really out of character. The anime is trying to do what the routes have never done – the routes leave things unexplained on purpose because the game is meant to be played as a whole. If Kotarou chooses a Gaia-oriented route, he necessarily sacrifices getting to know Lucia and Shizuru. Trying to cram every girl’s character development into what’s supposed to be a Kagari route is exactly what I hoped this adaptation wouldn’t do.
I did enjoy the first half of the episode though, it was really nice seeing Imamiya and finally putting a face to the name for Winter Fang (I think that’s supposed to be Winter Fang). All of the hindsight makes encounters like this really poignant – I kind of wanted them to animate the scene where Imamiya helps Kotarou out from being scammed due to their previous relationship. And in light of who they are, it’s pretty hilarious that Kotarou wanted to bring Akane and Chihaya right to Esaka’s doorstep. I also sometimes wonder whether all the age jokes are intentional or not, with Esaka welcoming visits from a ‘young’ customer to his antique shop and all that. This guy is younger than you? You don’t say, Kotarou. You don’t say.
They’re not really going to adapt any of the routes. They’re just going to give us each girl’s backstory. We’ll find out Akane, Lucia’s and etc’s past so that we learn who they are and what role they would play in the Kagari route. You know, if it’s a Kagari route, my mind tells me Kotarou is going to reject both organizations and go for her (and maybe Kotori) – at this point the other girls won’t simply stand by, they will all try to get their hands on Kagari – think a terra route but with the girls added to the conflict as well. We are introduced to them so that it does not all come out of nowhere when the time comes and they get involved in the Kagari chase – we’ll already know Lucia is a bio-weapon, Chihaya’s parents and her relationship with Sakuya and so forth. That’s all they’ll touch, they won’t actually go into the events of their routes, just like they did not go anywhere with Shizuru here. That’s what my optimism is telling me based on what I’ve seen so far anyway, I could be wrong. It’s not a perfect solution, but I’d say it’s not a bad direction for the anime to take. It also gives secondaries more reason to play the VN – want to see more of this girl than her past? Buy Rewrite+!
I know they won’t adapt the routes themselves, but giving us each girl’s backstory still feels clunky. I’ve figured out why it’s so unsettling to me – it feels like the anime is trying to spoonfeed secondaries. All of this should be stuff you’re not supposed to properly learn about the girls unless you’re on their route. Things might come out of nowhere if their backstories are not explained, but the whole point of separate routes is that we’re not supposed to get the full picture, and this has been advertised as a Kagari route. Like in the Kotori route, Shizuru appeared and shot Kagari and it was completely unexpected and confusing (especially if you played through Kotori first). Maybe I’m treating this too much as an extension of the game.
If I remember right, Shizuru revealed her past to Kotarou in the late common route (but only after he’d made the necessary choices to get onto her route) so I will accept that it isn’t completely heretical or anything for the anime to adapt this. But it’s still a disappointing course of action because I really did think they’d just do sections of the common route before going off and telling their own story featuring Kagari. Maybe even a Moon-type relationship between her and Kotarou.
As for not going into the events of the various routes, it’ll be particularly hard for Lucia next week. Will they just not do any of the Asahi Haruka stuff? I can’t see them revealing her walking bio-hazard status without it, since what Lucia ends up telling Chihaya and the others about her condition is basically a half-truth at best.
I get why you are worried but you are worrying too much. Well I am worried too but I will only get truly worried if they start adding elements of heroine routes to common route aka events after nov 13.
Here is what I think, if they dedicated an episode to each girl, touching upon the background and the core of their characterizations briefly with or without Koutarou in it, we will only have 5 episode left for nov 13, kagari’s development and the route. That will be very bad unless this 13 episode is for common route only, I think I will laugh like a lunatic if this season ended and on nov 13 and beginning of kagari route. If not that way then Lucia/Chihaya’s background will get hinted to Koutarou by Shizuru/Sakuya next episode. I think anime will only do Shizuru/lucia/chihaya backgrounds a bit because Kotori/Akane have more tied to the Terra so they have plenty of time to showcase their backgrounds.
I still think a bit of background would do a lot for their characters rather then no backstory at all from anime-only point of view. I mean one of the purpose of this anime is to create a story where people can easily see the core message of rewrite. Apparently some VN readers still think rewrite message have something to do with environmentalism to quote a reviewers of anime.
Rewrite anime is Rewrite for dummies lol.
I don’t think they are going to combine the heroine route though, there might be some events that end up similar because of the characters are the same and they might end up making the same decision even under different situations.
About Shizuru spilling the beans to Koutarou, anime make it very clear that she like him very much at least.
Somehow Shizuru’s a secret for a secret make me think she know about Koutarou. Also Guardian keeping him away, I actually think some parts of Guardian would be very eager to get koutarou for his not aging body. The only reason he doesn’t end up in a lab is probably because of Esaka-san. The current situation could be these sides taking advantages to get him rejoin back when shizuru ask for clearance.
One thing I was not clear in the VN is, was Koutarou amnesia natural? Or the head injury & coma thing a cover story for Guardian’s memory wipe?
I’ll have to agree with Vantage about Shizuru telling her secret. While I think I know what purpose this episode served and we’re still on a Kagari route, this really was rushed and I don’t think the anime made anything clear regarding their relationship. Sure, Shizuru reacts in a cute way to most things Kotarou does but that’s all we’ve seen so far. To an anime-only this would look like Shizuru being a bit dumb
I am not really disagreeing with him about Shizuru. I am only speculating whether or not Shizuru is also in the know about Koutarou or the possible way the clearance for this come. I only disagree with him about Guardian keeping koutarou away from them, it would be unnatural if no one from guardian wonder how he is not aging.
Do you think they’ll do Lucia and Chihaya together?! I’d actually really like that, spending the next four episodes on backstories would result in the actual Kagari route post November 13 being botched at best as you say. God knows how they’ll even go into Akane’s background. There’s absolutely no way she’ll reveal anything substantial to him unless he pledges allegiance to Gaia. It’s definitely been confirmed for being 13 episodes for inexplicable reason – you’d think that it’d sell no matter how the anime turned out given the extent of Key’s fanbase.
As for Guardian having an interest in him, I doubt they’d try to find some sort of explanation for his body – they’re an organisation of superhumans, there should be no end to the weird and strange phenomena they’ve come across in human bodies. I do agree that Esaka is probably making life easier for him behind the scenes, but even Nishikujou and Imamiya have shown no desire to bring him back to his previous lifestyle. As for the amnesia, I honestly can’t remember (which is slightly ironic). If I had to guess I’d say it was Guardian’s memory wipe, since he forgot absolutely everything about his time as Bond and that’s exactly what they want to cover up.
If they are going to adapt Terra and Moon, Kotori and Akane doesn’t need dedicated episodes, but they need to build up Lucia/Chihaya/Shizuru a bit as to prepare the viewers for Nov 13. The best way would be their back stories so the viewers would understand why their motivations and why they are the way they are. I mean as much as I want this anime to be for VN readers only and focus only on kagari, the staff pretty much said they will make this understandable to anime only viewers too. Heck this episode outright confirm superpowers, secret organizations, giant monsters, Esaka-san, Nishikujou , etc. This episode pretty much use Shizuru’s backstory for world building after all. The problem is how they will do show/explain things, I am confused as to how Shizuru got the clearance.
From what I get from Lucia route, Guardian’s scientists would be very interested in someone not aging at all while in a coma. There is no way they will dismiss this as not interesting after all this is a new level of weird even for superhumans, the only thing I can think why Guardian show no interest in 5 route is Esaka-san covered it up or scientists poke him a lot but can’t find any explanations for his body.
I am really hoping Rewrite isn’t just 13 episode.
Best to worst case scenario for me
– each girl got an episode but the next 5 episode is about nov 13 and its aftermath only.
– next episode is for Lucia/Chihaya fight with hints of their background, episode 6-7 is nov 13, 8-13 is kagari route.
– each girl got an episode but result in just 5 episode for what’s left.
I will serious lose hope in Key/Aniplex for giving Rewrite just 13 episode if the worst case scenario become true.