I’ll admit, I have not played the original visual novel. However, I won’t use that as an excuse to why I didn’t like it. There were other adaptations of works by Key that were fairly decent. Planetarian was one that was came out the same time and was much shorter, but at least that was more entertaining. Again, I know nothing of the original source, so I don’t know what is faithful or not. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t distinguish a good story from a bad one.
That brings me to the story. It’s so difficult to describe that I’m having trouble figuring out what to write in this section. The one thing that bothered me the most, when it comes to the story, is the lack of context. Rarely were things explained, and if so, it was in the vaguest way possible. What’s worse than a bad story is having horrible pacing added to it. I first noticed it in an early episode that focused on a certain character. We get their backstory, and it’s done so quickly that it gives us no time to appreciate (for a lack of better terms) this character’s history. The second half of the show goes so downhill and becomes mind-numbingly ludicrous that I didn’t even react. The overall mood was kind of a mix, as well. It seems serious at times, but isn’t afraid to put in a random fart joke (there’s only one, but it’s really off-putting).
While the story may be out there, I can’t say the same thing for the characters. Zero personalities, zero chemistry, zero everything. There is not a drop of redeeming quality to these people that we’re supposed to follow for twelve episodes. I have the strange suspicion that they were well written in the visual novel because we’ll have more time to know them better. For me, I wouldn’t care if the story was terrible, as long as the characters were interesting enough. That’s definitely not the case with this. I couldn’t care less what happens to anyone, and when things did happen to them, I didn’t bat an eye.
The only thing worse than a bad story and a bad set of characters is bad animation, and it really shows here. From episode one, right off the bat, the visuals were unpleasing, and it actually managed to get worse with each week. Not only do we get terrible-looking character designs and action sequences, we’re even presented with horrendously rendered CG creatures. When both of them are shown together, it is an eyesore. There was never a single moment where I was able to say that something “looked nice”.
For the most part, I can get behind the idea that not everyone has the same opinions on something. Yet, there are shows like Rewrite that makes me wonder why there are people who did enjoy it. Currently, it has close to a rating of 7 on the site, and that puzzles me. How can one look at a single episode of this and say “that was good”? I knew, from the beginning, this show’s fate was already chosen. I knew what I was getting myself into.
There is just one thing now I don’t understand: Why is it getting a second season?
