Rewrite Episode #15 Anime Review

Honeymoon Over a Silent Ocean

What They Say:

Kazamatsuri, a modern, well-developed city renowned for its burgeoning greenery and rich Japanese culture, is home to Kotarou Tennouji, a high schooler least privy to the place's shared values. Content to fill his pockets with frivolity, the proud and nosy boy whiles away his time pestering the self-proclaimed delinquent Haruhiko and indulging in his amorous feelings toward the oddball Kotori.

Equipped with the superhuman ability to permanently rewrite any part of his body to multiply his strength or speed, Kotarou is naturally drawn to the supernatural. One special meeting with the lone member and president of the Occult Research Club, the "Witch" Akane Senri, leads to Kotarou reviving the Occult Club by recruiting Kotori and three other members: the clumsy transfer student Chihaya, the strict class representative Lucia, and the unassuming Shizuru. As Kotarou unveils hidden secrets of each member of the Occult Club through their shared adventures, he will inevitably encounter a fate that only he might be able to rewrite.

The Review:
Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)

Now that Kotarou isn't worried of being slaughtered by Kagari anymore, we can finally get the ball rolling in terms of this season's plot. And what better way to start that off than by overloading Kotarou's brain with literally every last bit of information pertaining to planet Earth conveniently piled up under one tree? That's right, folks. Kotarou now possesses more knowledge than any other human to ever walk the face of the Earth. In fact, he possesses so much knowledge that he can now rewrite the world itself instead of just his own physical capabilities. Or maybe he's been able to do that all along? I'm not really sure. That part wasn't exactly clear.

This is all fine and good -- I mean, what human being wouldn't seize the opportunity to obtain every secret the world has to offer? But Kotarou, caught up in the heat of the moment, winds up obtaining a little "too much" information, eventually going mad. Fortunately for him, Kagari shows up and is able to stop him from killing himself and the one other person (If you can even call her that) that exists in the current world. After all of this is said and done, we're left with the idea that all of those blue leyline things underneath the tree are actually branches (Or routes) that life could possibly take. Each branch that comes to an end is a universe in which human life could not be saved. And, unfortunately for everyone, it seems like every branch is coming to an end. Which then goes on to reveal Kagari's true purpose -- finding a route in which humanity does survive.

Kotarou, figuring this out at an incredibly opportune moment, decides right then and there that his mission is going to be protecting Kagari no matter what the cost. Little does he know, that was his mission for about half of the first damn season. Either way, he decides this right on time considering monsters have started appearing once again -- and all of them want Kagari's blood. But here's the kicker, all of those monsters were sent out by the spirit of Sakura Kashima (Who I guess still lingers around even after her body has passed). Kotarou, knowing full-well that he can't possibly combat all of these monsters, finally figures out that he can just respawn his friends to help him out. And while this seems like exactly what we've been waiting for since the start of this season, the manner in which his friends reappear completely misses the mark and does so without even an ounce of sentiment -- something incredibly rare for a KEY series. In fact, the reappearance of the Occult Club is so sudden that you barely have time to feel anything. Had the episode used even a minute of the ten that it spent on Kotarou's magical body floating through space on this scene instead, the episode may have actually meant something.

The good side to this is that all of our heroines are back. The bad side, however, is that I'm pretty sure they're all still dead. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things play out.

In Summary:

Despite a variety of impressive visuals and some of the strongest dialogue the series has seen, episode fifteen misses out on the sentiment so typically synonymous with KEY animation. The first half of the episode is overwhelmingly slow, which causes unavoidable pacing issues in the latter half. Even though some of our favorite characters are finally brought back into the picture, we're left with too many questions that Rewrite was not capable of answering despite all of this episode's time utilized on that alone. I'm sure the series will recover once again, but a slip-up at such an important moment in the season is too disheartening to overlook.

Grade: C

Streamed By: Crunchyroll