The end of the world approaches and a harem goes to war.

I tend to hate Key shows. Air, Kanon, Clannad, that recent one where they played baseball… Ugh. I can’t stand any of the girls, who all act the same and cry all the time. Why would anyone want to date one of them, much less all of them? And all the sob stories just annoy me more than anything else.

I have liked a few Key shows, which have more of a plot than cycling through a harem of sob stories, namely Angel Beats and Charlotte. And Rewrite is more along the lines of these two— focused on an overarching plot rather than multiple harem routes (although there clearly seem to be multiple harem routes here as well— maybe in the game, but the anime was structured around an overarching plot at least).

I’ll admit that Key shows tend to be quite skilled in two areas: eliciting an emotional impact and doing that while making you laugh. Even when I think the emotional impact is conniving and forced (a.k.a., most of the time) they’re still really good at eliciting this. And Key shows tend to have top notch humor as well (esp. Angel Beats and Charlotte).

Rewrite had an occasional good humorous moment too. But the problem is the emotional impact. They’ve clearly tried, but Rewrite just hasn’t been able to bring me to care. The conflict is all too abstract— I can’t bring myself to care about something as abstract as the end of the world. And all the sides fighting over it are stupid anyway. The conflict isn’t concrete enough. At times they tried to make it more concrete— the girl who can’t touch anything, the girl who gets possessed by the old woman, the girl whose parents were killed in a car accident— but even moreso than Air and Kanon and friends, it feels cheap and exploitative. Plus, due to the nature of the conflict, I don’t care what happens to these characters in the first place. These aren’t the pure and innocent girls of previous Key shows, they’re seasoned warriors. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Where’s the tragedy? And the attempts at humor just make the conflict seem even more ridiculous.

• Storytelling – D – Doesn’t make me care.
• Voice – B – It is a unique setting.
• Characters – D – Don’t care.
• Attention Grab – C – Definitely seen more boring things.
• Production – C – Looks ok.
• Overall – D

Recommendations – Angel Beats, Charlotte