[Review] REWRITE Part 2

REWRITE Review Part 2

Kotarou Tennouji: "The Rewriter Who Transcends Time and Space"

"One day, I realized I had nothing.
I thought my pockets were filled with happiness but really they were empty.
It shouldn't have surprised me, since I'd never made an effort to fill them with anything.
But I wasnt even aware of it,
I'd been leading an aimless, meaningless life.
Then suddenly, one day, it felt as though I'd lost a lot of time.

I can talk to anyone. Absolutely anyone.
But I had no close friends. Not even one.
It was obvious what that meant.
My life couldn't have been more shallow."

These were parts of our protagonist's monologue. After finishing the game, I can now finally describe our protagonist accurately. Basically, just like any galge, the protagonist is a male named, Kotarou Tennouji, a 2nd year student of Kazamatsuri Academy. A person who wants to make his life meaningful. Someone who wants to mature. Someone who wants to give effort and to experience a youth that he will never forget. Someone who wants to make sure that he will never have any regrets in living. Just like any other person in the world, Kotarou is not an exception from this wish.

No one wants to be alone, no one is alone, being singled out is disliked by anybody no matter who it is. But this human instinct developed a kindness inside Kotarou which can be considered cruelty to others. The capacity of being good to others, the ability of being close to everyone, the confidence to talk to anyone, he first thought that it was great, but after pondering about it, he realized that he never had any bonds that he can call friendship. After being a 2nd year student only that he realized that he needed to change. He created a club and put more effort in creating deep bonds. If he was just as ordinary as a normal human and if only Kazamatsuri doesn't have mysteries that he have seen, everything might have gone well.

If you have played Key's Visual Novels in the past, it might be faster to say that Kotarou Tennouji is a combination of Tomoya's aggresiveness, Kyousuke's curiosity, Masato's cheerfulness, Riki's kindness and Yukito's uniqueness. Key have always mixed unnatural phenomena in their stories, such as time travel, psychokinesis and weird creatures but Rewrite is their first visual novel I've seen that gravely involved super powers, magic, battle and different creatures. Our protagonist is not an exception. He is categorized as a superhuman who have the ability to rewrite [or in Kotarou's term, to accelerate] his body. He can increase his power, reform his cells to counter poison and even change himself to something which is not human. The only problem, and considered as his greatest fear, is that his power have no breaks and no payment. He's scared to become something that is not human and he's afraid of what will he pay after he have used all of his power.

Another power of Kotarou is the "Aurora" or the ability to make different things using his life force. To describe it more accurately, he gives form to his life force and the most common form that he uses is a 3-bladed claw [just like Wolverine] or a big sword. Unlike his rewriting skills, this power came from his encounter with the Key in an accident in the past. Since the story usually tackles about the destruction of the Key, he also realized that the death of the Key will result to the removal of this power.

Rather than explaining his adventures, it would be more interesting to further dig the mysteries of our protagonist [his adventures are great and simple, so it would be more efficient to know more about him since this review is about Kotarou only, I'll just explain his adventures when I go to the Route review]. Actually, Kotarou have a blank part on his past, it's not that he don't remember, it's because he have nothing to remember about it.

The reason for him being someone who transcends time is that, first and foremost, [this is a major SPOILER] he is not of same age with the heroines, he is a decade older than the generation of the heroines, but his deep sleep kept his physique on same terms with the others. This is the result of his blank memory of the past, he actually encountered the Key in the past and was almost killed by it, but he was saved by the Key's power and by Kotori and this resulted to a coma. He was awaken then by Akane, when all the heroines were middle schooler, and only at this time that Kotarou thought that his time continued and what's more unfortunate is that part of his memories were rewritten. This was not really mentioned in the game, but all the clues about this blank past only led me to this conclusion and no other.

The reason for him being someone who transcends space is because after finishing the five routes and the moon route, he will be given another chance in a parallel world to rewrite his history, [this is in the Terra Route] to make the right decisions and to ensure that he can save everyone who is important to him. Personally, this was really sad because after the happiness he have attained in the five routes, the only ending waiting for him in order to save them all is to rewrite his own actions and to change his connections to the heroines. To ensure their happiness, he have taken this burden and promised that he will change the world. On the other hand, this really made him a very cool and mature character. The irony of saving everyone by carrying the burden alone created a very sad and light atmosphere. It made me feel sympathy for Kotarou [I think I really cried on that] and this again proved Key's ability to create heart-warming stories.

Just writing this review makes me feel warm. More of Kotarou will be mentioned in my review on Terra Route. Hoping that this will make you want to play Rewrite more. My next review will be regarding the Kotori Route. Expect a new type of mystery and deeper type of drama in this route. Mata ne~

Character Rating: 9.5/10