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Key has missed the mark. As a key fanatic, nothing disappoints me more than having to write that sentence. Despite much anticipation, Rewrite failed to deliver anything close to Key’s previous anime adaptations and this, at a high level, is why:

- The character build up was rushed. Key anime typically take 24 episodes to develop characters and ensure that the audience is emotionally invested in them. Rewrite dedicated no more than 6 episodes to developing the five heroines, so no one cares about them.

- The magic realism came too hard, too fast and was inappropriately timed. I felt like I was watching a less interesting version of ... a Fate franchise anime. (Fate is a great series, so if you’re going to compete with it you need to get it right.)

- The theme was too obviously pushed. Each Key VN has a theme. Clannad was family. LB! was friendship. Rewrite couldn’t have shoved the environmental theme any further down your throat. Beyond feeling patronising, this screen time came at the direct cost of plot development.

- There was no closure. Whilst this is ok if done to provoke an emotional response from the audience (ie Evangelion), I honestly didn’t feel attached enough to the characters to care about the ending. Honestly, I had no idea that the anime had ended at episode 13, and was still hoping that an episode 14 would start to add gravity to the storyline.

Basically, you can leave your tissues at home.

I should point out that I have yet to play the VN, so I don’t know if these issues were the result of a poor production studio or Key itself.

Whilst I am a fan of Tanaka (whose previous work includes VN Cross Channel), the anime felt the absence of Maeda as the main scenario writer. By comparison with Angel Beats and Charlotte (two of Maeda’s other 13 episode pieces), Rewrite demonstrated much more initial potential and delivered much less impact.

Given the amount of source material, Rewrite should have been capable of achieving the same scale as Little Busters, but the universe felt so much smaller.

The only conclusion that I can draw is that Key was too distracted by juggling the Rewrite anime adaptation and the Planetarian movie to pay detailed attention to either.

I really, really want to like Rewrite, so I’ll probably play the VN in an attempt to prove to myself that it wasn’t Key’s fault after all. That somehow, they had just been negligent this time, and the promise of a re-adaptation could well be on the cards (remember Kanon 2006?).

I can now see why Rewrite didn’t have a corporate presence at Comiket 90.