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From left to right: Kotori Kanbe, Chihaya Ohtori, Lucia Konohana, Kotarou Tennouji, Kagari, Shizuru Nakatsu, Akane Senri

"One day, I realised I had nothing."

Rewrite is the 8th visual novel from Key/Visual Arts, makers of Kanon, Air, CLANNAD, Angel Beats! and Little Busters!. The scenarios are written by Yuto Tonokawa, Ryukishi07 and Romeo Tanaka.

Kotarou Tennouji is a second-year high school student who lives a carefree lifestyle with his friend Kotori Kanbe. Deciding one day that he has been wasting his life and that he needs to seek out true friends and the meaning of existence he sets out to face everyday with such thoughts in mind. After experiencing some supernatural occurrences, he consults with the "school witch" Akane Senri who asks him to join the occult research society. He recruits some members, sets out on absurd quests, makes new friends in he process and generally works towards every day being fun. He goes on to discover some of the deepest secrets that Kazamatsuri city holds.

A Fan Disc Harvest Festa was also released with Alternate Universe or After story for each Heroine. One of the stories is a Dungeon Crawling RPG called Rewrite Quest.

A full translation was completed by Amaterasu translations. According to their website it has a whopping 3.6 MB (which is over 100,000 lines) of pure text.

In 2016, Key released an Updated Re-release called Rewrite+ that features various improvements and revisions to scenarios and adds new CG. It also includes the Harvest Festa. An English version of Rewrite+ was released by Sekai Project on December 17th 2021, albeit with Harvest Festa yet to be translated.

A 13-episode anime adaptation was produced by Studio 8Bit airing in Summer 2016. A second season aired in 2017, covering the Moon and Terra routes.

Don't read below if you don't want heavy spoilers.

Now has a character sheet; take character tropes over there, please.


Rewrite provides examples of:

  • Action Prologue: Terra route kicks off by putting Kotarou in the frontlines of a war zone in the middle of a desert, without any explanation whatsoever.
  • A-Cup Angst: Kagari in the joke "Oppai Ending."
  • Adaptation Distillation: The first season of the anime does not follow any single heroine route, and instead borrows elements from all of them, such as the earlier halves of Shizuru's and Lucia's routes, to create an original storyline. This also has a side effect of giving Kagari an Adaptation Relationship Overhaul with Kotarou by making them closer.
    • Subverted by the second season that adapts the more linear Moon and Terra routes.
  • Advanced Ancient Humans: Human society rose far more early than they believe, perhaps as long as two billion years ago. Every time they advance, they end up nearly killing off the planet and themselves and are reduced back to more manageable levels by the Key. Occasionally, small pockets of humanity survive or just a few special individuals. Sakuya is one and Shizuru's route utilizes a shelter built by a previous cycle. Terra and Moon route are based around ending this cycle.
  • Always Save the Girl: Lucia's route. Kotarou, Shizuru, Chihaya and Nishikujou are dead set in saving Lucia, despite her just having killed almost all of the people in Kazamatsuri with her poison.
  • Akashic Records: All Hunter powers pull from a kind of human Collective Unconscious. The Rewrite power is perhaps the ultimate expression of this — at one point, Kotarou displays an ability to pull a specific Hunter ability at will from this memory, suggesting that all uses of Rewrite work this way. On a greater level, the Omnipotent Power pulls previous archetypes and forms, such as previous types of life, from destroyed worlds after Salvation. Kotarou's Rewrite power is stated to be directly descended from Sakuya's in this way.
  • Alternate Continuity: It's a Plot Point during the Moon route. Moon!Kotarou is a convergence of all his past and future selfs.
  • Alternate History: The world of Rewrite follows a different history than our world, though it's still very similar. For example, the Key destroyed a Middle Eastern country in the 90s and the incident was blamed on some type of weapon of mass destruction.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: The organization Gaia is controlling familiars and is trying to destroy humanity to save the planet. The organization Guardian is trying to stop them by whatever means necessary.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Kotori's story in Harvest Festa includes a scene where Kotarou chases Kotori throughout Kazamatsuri because Kotori is too embarrassed to hear his confession.
  • Animal Eye Spy: There is a kind of surveillance bird that summoners can use.
  • Another Dimension: There is small dimension that closely resembles Kazamatsuri City except for having almost no human life in it.
  • Apocalypse How
    • Class two, societal collapse: Akane's route has around a hundred thousand refugees flee into a created dimension to escape the end of the world. Outside of it in the real world, humanity may have survived, but there is no chance that any governments did.
    • Class three, species extinction: Salvation will kill everyone if triggered. This has happened before with isolated survivors. This is also responsible to several mass extinction events of varying scale. Shizuru's route has a group of fifty refugees manage to escape into a shelter plus Kotarou on the outside rewriting himself to survive it.
    • Class four, total extinction: If Salvation is not triggered and life continues as it is, the Earth will die and become completely uninhabitable by anything. No complex life, no single cellular life, nothing. Lucia's body produces the same kind of toxin that will cause this. In her route, this scenario may be survivable.
    • Another class four: During Moon and Terra routes we learn that the world doesn't have enough life energy to start a new re-evolution after the Salvation is triggered again, so it will die out for real this time around if isn't stopped.
  • Arc Words
    • In Lucia's route, "filthy" and its synonyms.
    • Overall, "good memories" (or "fond memories", depending on the translation).
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Several familiars are huge but the largest is Sakuya's other form in Chihaya's and Moon route.
  • Attack of the Town Festival: The climax of most routes appears around the town Harvest Festa, although the year varies as the Akane and Terra routes take place over a number of years.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Chihaya's train of thought sometimes simply doesn't connect, leaving Kotarou to piece together the meaning.
  • Battle Couple
    • Kotarou tries to be one with Shizuru, but he’s told it’s a bad idea and gives up on it. Things don’t turn out well.
    • Kotarou and Chihaya makes a more proper battle couple.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: Sakuya does this to Kotarou's aurora sword in Chihaya's route. Complete with blood dripping from his hands but then Sakuya's ribbons offer some form of protection even from a sword made of aurora and supposed to be able to cut almost anything. Kotarou also does it near the end of Lucia's route, when she's about to kill him with her sword.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The many instances in myth of humans slaying (or being slayed by) monsters is revealed to be based on the conflicts between Guardian and Gaia (that is, the fights between superhumans and familiars).
  • Being Watched: At the start of the story, Kotarou has a feeling that someone is watching his every move, but ends up thinking its a ghost. He's not that far off the mark, since Kagari can't be seen by normal people.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Chihaya saves Kotarou from being smashed by a chandelier in the nick of time during Lucia's route.
    • Sakuya sacrificing every single version of him to help Kotarou during Moon.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: The show ends on an anime-exclusive scene of Kotarou and Kagami's kiss when they finally reunite on the moon.
  • Big Eater: Superhumans tend to eat more than normal people. Kotarou doesn't.
  • Big Fancy House: Chihaya's.
  • Big Fun: Sakuya's substitute, "Sakuya HB".
  • Bittersweet Ending
    • Kotori’s route ends with Kotori and Kotarou still alive, but the Key is dead and all of their friends are gone. With the Key dead, the world is likely doomed in a thousand years, possibly less, the figure 30 years is given during Akane's route, but there is no tell which, if any, of the figures is correct. Also, Kotarou’s super powers are gone, though he didn’t much like them anyway. This is one of the happiest endings.
    • Lucia’s route has her release a wide poison attack and decimate Kazamatsuri. She and Kotarou will have to spend years at the very least moving between various nuclear shelters to live in to both hide from enemies that pursue Lucia and isolate the world from the poison she creates. A new suppressant may never be found or stop working again. The Key is probably dead as is Akane if she was still in town. Passing comments in the epilogue hint at Kotori's survival. On the bright side, even if the world ends, humanity and life as we know it may survive due to experiments on Kotarou creating resistances to Lucia and the Earth's toxin.
  • Bizarrchitecture: The closed space city is an identical copy of Kazamatsuri, looking from afar. When examined from up close, several differences appear, such as doors not really being doors, pipes only designed as such, walls seeming to be carved out of a rock, etc.
  • Bland-Name Product
    • A sidequest involves catching and dueling with Sukumon. Apparently, they're familiars Gaia just left lying around.
    • At one point in Lucia's route, Kotarou visits an arcade and promptly starts playing Grazeblue.
    • One of the options should you choose to go out of school for lunch with Akane is *Saezuriya* Italian Cuisine.
  • Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Kotarou gave Lucia a spicy bentou and added an super strong pepper sauce into the jalapenos. Lucia ate it without any problems. Or rather, she didn't even really notice. There's also two parfaits, and one extremely tofu mapo.
  • Black Cloak: Mysterious people wearing black cloaks are seen in the "other" Kazamatsuri, accompanied by black dogs. They're summoners working for Gaia.
  • Bloody Hand Print: What Kotarou sees all over his room when he tries to confront the "spirit".
  • Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Esaka performs a one-man version of this. Most people believe it's just a strange fit he has. In Terra, we see that people occasionally think he's actually attacking because he's so 'energetic.'
  • Book Ends: The Non-Standard Game Over of the Terra route kicks off the events of the common route.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the Joke Ending, Kagari mentions that if she is popular enough, she might get a Magical Girl spinoff.
  • Bullet Time: The drugs Shizuru produces inside her body make her a terrifying combatant by allowing her to move quickly enough to dodge hundreds of bullets at once.
  • Burn the Witch!: The fate of the first Holy Woman and many of her successors was this sort of execution by an enraged and fearful populace.
  • But Thou Must!: In the Terra route, almost all important choices in true route only have one option. The one exception results in a Nonstandard Game Over. You do see several options on the screen, sometimes to ridiculous extents, but you can't choose any of them.
  • Call-Back: In Harvest Festa, Yoshino again challenges Kotarou to a duel. Yoshino then proceeds to beat Kotarou in a card game.
  • Came Back Wrong: Three examples, all having to do with Kotori Kanbe.
    • Kotori became a druid in order to revive her parents. However, they came back as nearly mindless servants that can’t handle anything more than simple conversations or fighting on her behalf. Just before going off to die for the final time, they hold a brief conversation with each other, though.
    • Later, she revived her dead dog Pero, but while he had far more personality than a familiar should, he was far nicer and friendlier. However, it turns out that Chibimoth really is Pero in a sense.
    • Finally, she suspects that Kotarou himself is nothing more than her familiar and that this trope is in play since his personality is so much different, but on this one she’s wrong. More or less.
  • Car Chase: More like a familiar vs bike chase, in Shizuru's route, but still fits.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Some abilities will shorten your lifespan. Familiars also eat into your life force.
  • Cerebus Retcon: Moon reveals that that even if Salvation is averted, the death of the Earth is almost imminent. Two routes don't do anything about this and are most likely doomed soon: Chihaya and Kotori's, which originally appeared to be the happiest endings. It's also inverted with the other endings, though. Shizuru and Akane's routes have humanity nearly wiped out, but the population has been reduced enough that the life force drain on the planet is all but gone, meaning the world can be rebuilt and won't end in a few decades. Lucia's route has Guardian prepared for the end of the world, so presumably not all of humanity will go with it.
  • Church Militant: It doesn't come up much outside of Lucia's route, but the Guardian organization is based in the Vatican and many of their policies are coached in religious terms.
  • Cliché Storm: Invoked. Yoshino’s lines are so cliché that Kotarou can’t help but laugh at him every time he speaks.
  • Convenient Coma:
    • Shizuru enters a coma in her route due to spending some of her life force to save Kotarou. She spends most of the battle thereafter unconscious, badly damaging Guardian's cause.
    • Kotarou had one before the story began.
  • Clark Kenting: During Terra, Kotarou comes back to Kazamatsuri after his training period with Guardian, and part of his disguise is using glasses and pretending to be a comedian.
  • Colon Cancer: Rewrite: 2nd Season: Moon Chapter & Terra Chapter.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Kotarou threatens the ultimate revenge against Yoshino: Spreading stories about the embarrassing things he did on the internet for everyone to see! Eeeeeevil.
  • Copy Protection: The game will only run on Japanese copies of Windows Vista and 7. The current English translation patch by Amaterasu includes a bypass for this, and the official English version is upcoming, which will be usable outside of Japan by default.
  • Cosmic Retcon
    • The focus of Moon is to retcon the world into the exact perfect arrangement so that humans can either survive the end of the world or stop it altogether.
    • In Terra, Lucia's backstory also gets retconned, though since she doesn't appear until the last few minutes you'd be forgiven for not noticing. Namely, the experiments on her began before Terra starts, but in the end she doesn't seem to have her former poison powers.
  • Crapsaccharine World: The world seems like the typical Key worlds at first with lots of pretty, mostly happy people, but then it turns out that the world is on the verge of several different kinds of apocalypse.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: In Terra Route, to protect her from invading forces, Kotarou shoots Kotori's "parents" in front of her to drive her away. He also kills a bunch of people to stop the world from ending.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Lucia in some CG's. More prominent when she's wearing the ''maid'' outfit.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: In Akane’s route Kotarou is assigned a subordinate. When asked about her abilities, he’s told that she’s ‘good at her job,’ punctual and has a driver’s license.
  • Dance of Romance: Kotarou takes Kagari to a rooftop dance on the Moon route to help take her mind off of work for a bit.
  • Darker and Edgier
    • Presumably due to the presence of the writers of Higurashi and Cross Channel, the plot of Rewrite is much darker than previous Key titles and with a great deal of combat.
    • Akane’s route is quite a bit darker than the route before it, as Kotarou instantly embraces killing in order to protect Akane, whereas he resisted it throughout Chihaya's route.
    • Terra route continues the trend set by Akane's route, though he has better direction now.
  • Date Peepers: Shizuru does this during the first time Lucia invites Kotarou over, and later Lucia says she's convinced that she's doing it again during their date, though she's just making that up out of embarrassment.
  • Deadly Hug: Kagari and Kotarou near the end of Terra.
  • Demonic Possession: A ghost possesses Lucia in her route. Or so she says; Lucia's just pretending.
  • Depending on the Writer: Character traits and plot points are not very consistent between routes due to having three different writers and little in the way of oversight to keep the details consistent. Not only are characters like Akane different depending on who is writing them, but there are even some plot holes thanks to it, though most can be explained with a little thinking.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Akane crosses that line during Chihaya's route, and Lucia comes too close to it on her own route.
  • Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The T-Rex familiar is called the "Earth Dragon".
  • Disability-Negating Superpower: In Shizuru's route, she spends much of the story deaf and mute after giving up much of her life force to save Kotarou, but because that linked their lives together, he can use Rewrite on her and does so to restore her ability to hear and speak.
  • Disappears into Light: The fate of humanity in Shizuru's ending is to disappear in the Song of Salvation.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: In Rewrite Quest, the party defeats the Earth Dragon, only to discover that it was Shimako controlling it and not Sakura Kashima.
  • Divided We Fall: Both Gaia and Guardian have issues with factionalism.
    • The Lucia route establishes that Guardian's low presence in Kazamatsuri is because the Guardian branches elsewhere in the world were tricked into thinking the Key was in their own country. It's a trick that won't fool people for long, but it'll fool them long enough. Terra route confirms that this is a major problem for them: More and more factions and infighting are appearing.
    • Gaia has been split into two groups that spend as much time fighting each other as they do fighting Guardian.
  • Door Stopper: The script of this visual novel is currently Key/Visual Arts' longest one ever, beating even CLANNAD and Little Busters!.
  • Double Agent: In Terra Route Kotarou flits between Guardian and the Gaia factions in an attempt to both keep them from Kagari and to eventually get them to stop fighting.
  • Downer Ending
    • Shizuru’s route ends with the Key successfully singing the Song of Salvation and dissolving the current world. Fifty-two people survive, including Shizuru. Three die before they can return to the surface and one baby is born. Kotarou was not one of those fifty odd people nor were any of the other people in the main cast or supporting cast apart from Imamiya. Kotarou is now a tree. However, judging by the precedent of Sakuya this is likely not permanent. Still, humanity was basically wiped out.
    • In Akane’s route, she triggers the apocalypse. Billions die and the Martel Corporation hastily evacuates a hundred thousand people into an alternate dimension. The survival of the rest of humanity is extremely shaky. Akane and Kotarou go into exile after Kotarou takes the fall for everything. Of the main and supporting cast, only Kotarou, Akane and Yoshino survive. The world within the alternate dimension will regress socially, politically and scientifically. Also, due to the small size, population control policies are in effect.
  • The Dragon: In Akane's route, Kotarou joins Gaia and unwittingly becomes this for Akane.
  • Dramatic Shattering: In Lucia's Route, windows and light-bulbs break to show the presence of the ghost. It is an effect that Lucia can create.
  • Duel Boss: In Rewrite Quest, Kotarou has the option to challenge Midou to a duel.
  • Dwindling Party: Moon Route has Kotarou and his friends all work together to protect Kagari from an endless army of monsters. They all die one by one.
  • Dying as Yourself: Near the end of Kotori's route, Chibimoth and her familiarized parents have a moment where they seem like their old selves again.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: A repeating theme throughout the routes. The happiness of any ending seems to directly correlate with how hard Kotarou's willing to work for it.
    • In Kotori's route, Kotarou is nearly powerless. Despite that, he works to help and protect Kotori, and as a result, the world is saved, both survive, and they're able to live happily together.
    • In Chihaya's route, Kotarou works as hard as he possibly can from start to finish, and as a result, humanity manages to so impress the Key that Salvation is averted, something not accomplished in any other route!
    • In Lucia's route, Kotarou stands by and does very little over the route. Disaster strikes as a direct consequence. At the end, however, he puts effort in, and gets a happy ending for Lucia and himself. The world survives.
    • In Shizuru's route, Kotarou's decision to abide by the decisions of others results in the most unequivocal disaster of the routes. He's a burden, and that burden results in the ultimate destruction of the world. However, he makes a decision at the end, allowing him and Shizuru to both survive the end.
    • In Akane's route, Kotarou does more, but he still doesn't allow himself to dig deeper into Akane's plans. As a result, the world ends. However, Kotarou's decision to intervene at the end saves a portion of humanity, and they're able to survive in the City of Stone. This version of humanity has access to familiar powers, and, while diminished, may survive much longer than the other heroine routes.
    • In the Moon route, Kotarou brings together the collective knowledge of all his lifetimes, and throws everything he has into helping Kagari. He gives up the Occult Club and Sakuya sacrifices all instances of himself, but he's able to make the Terra route possible. Kotarou also notes the version of himself in the retconned universe will be different (and thus this is the end for him) but he has already seen the new world succeed.
    • In the Terra route, Kotarou betrays almost everything and throws away every ally he has in the name of saving the world. Though he dies and has to kill Kagari, he succeeds, and as a result, he's given a second chance to be with and watch over his friends, while humanity in general is given a second chance and a new potential. The VN hints—and the anime confirms outright—that upon returning to the Moon, Kotarou is able to reunite with the Moon Kagari.
  • Eating Contest: Lucia and Chihaya enter one where they have to work together to eat a giant parfait within a time limit or else they pay the cost. Unknown to them, the parfait is spicy hot.
  • Eldritch Location: The closed space city is one giant inactive Familiar.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower:
    • At the end of all non-Lucia versions of the Common Route, Kotarou discovers the power of Aurora during a fight with a Hound familiar.
    • During Lucia's route, he discovers Aurora at the very end of the route.
    • During Chihaya's route, Kotarou inherits some of Midou's power over fire, allowing him to create flaming Aurora.
    • During Akane's route, Kotarou uses Aurora to simulate the power of evolution at breakneck pace with multiple branching generations, refining a weapon to perfectly counter his current enemy. The result is almost identical to the Key's Aurora ribbons.
    • During Terra, Kotarou does not have Aurora, due to never receiving the power of the Key's ribbons. However, when he is forced to fight the same enemy as above, he uses Rewrite to bring his blood manipulation ability to its absolute peak. Since Rewrite uses life energy, and Aurora is the primordial energy of life, this allows him to create the same Aurora ribbon weapon on his own power. Most impressively, he accomplishes this without the use of the evolutionary process he uses there.
  • Emotional Powers: Hinted at with a question early in the game. "Would you change the world or yourself?"
    • "Yourself": Superhumans get their powers when a person who wishes to change the world focuses on themselves first. They tend to be extroverts and have high personal responsibility. They're more likely to accept the status quo even when it is dangerous.
    • "The World": Summoners get their powers when they wish to change the world and brood on it. They are introverted and have difficulty making friends and many have mental disabilities or other reasons that society doesn't accept them. They often gloss over their own personal failings.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: The world is at risk of undergoing the process of Salvation and having humanity wiped out if the Key judges them poorly, and Gaia has the Song of Destruction that forces the Key to enact Salvation even if she does find good memories. It has happened before.
  • Endless Corridor: There is an alternate Kazamatsuri that appears like an inferior, massive copy. Kotarou gets trapped in it several times, Yoshino gets stuck with him once and several others have stumbled in and out of it as well.
  • Enemy Civil War: Gaia has several competing factions. During Akane's route, the one where we learn the most about them, we find out that Kotarou is actually in the eviler of the two. Suzaki is actually a fairly reasonable fellow.
  • Ethereal Choir: There is one song in the story that forces Kagari to bring ruin faster to the world.
  • Exact Words: On Akane's route, she's livid when several news articles come out presenting Kotarou as one of the Disciples who helped end the world when he had no part in it, though Kotarou points out that nothing in the articles is actually false, just presented in the worst possible light.
  • The Exile: Akane's ending has Kotarou and Akane forced to leave the only city left in the existence for their crimes.
  • Expy:
    • Due to having the same character designer (Itaru Hinoue), Chihaya resembles Makoto.
    • Lucia also looks like Mai. They both use a sword augmented by their own abilities (Lucia's constant state of vibrating, Mai's ability to make things real) and are responsible for the supernatural events in their own routes.
    • With her voice, appearance and personality, Kagari might just be Angel. Of course, they're not alone.
  • Falling Chandelier of Doom: Lucia drops one on Kotarou in her route. Thankfully, Chihaya was there to save him.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Every hero, villain or monster in any mythology can be classified as either a Superhuman, a Summoner or a Familiar.
  • Fauxshadowing: Inoue's dropped list of suspicious individuals has two other names apart from Kotarou and Akane: a "Tanuma Imako" and "Shinsaibashi Hitomi". Neither are ever seen or mentioned in the rest of the story afterwards.
  • Festival Episode: The setting for the Harvest Festa fan disc.
  • Fission Mailed: Occurs in Kotori's Route, where the player is given only one choice to select from. Selecting that choice gives the appearance of a bad end, but the game just continues on.
  • Flame War: Kotarou sets one off on the Occult Club’s page when he responds to a troll with a death threat.
  • Flower Motifs: All the heroine's theme songs are named after flowers.
    • Kotori- Soft Windflower
    • Chihaya- Morning Glory
    • Shizuru- Carnation
    • Akane- Anthurium
    • Lucia- Sunbright (Sunflower)
    • Kagari- Daisy
    • Sakuya also has a cherry blossom theme, which is only fitting since he rewrote himself into a nearly immortal sakura tree.
  • Forceful Kiss:
    • In Akane's route, Kotarou gives one to Akane when she threatens to bite her own tongue in order to avoid going back into society.
    • In Terra Route, to stop her from acting berserk, Kotarou kisses Kagari.
  • Foreshadowing
    • Some of the routes contain some pretty strong foreshadowing for Kotarou's true age and identity, especially Shizuru's and, to a lesser extent, Lucia and Kotori. In Akane's route, Kotarou also wishes that he'd been born earlier. This doesn't have any payoff until Terra.
    • Akane's questionnaire appears to be filled with rather bizarre questions, but in truth she was actually testing to see how much of an affinity for being a summoner he had. Questions about his dissatisfaction with life or feeling that he was sick are intended to figure out if he's unhappy or a hypochondriac, which are clear signs of summoner aptitude. When you've read Terra, it becomes clear that Kotarou's answers are highly ambiguous in this respect. The last question is the most blatant and the only one you get the chance to fill out yourself. It is one of the most important and obvious questions and is a necessary flag for Shizuru or Akane.
  • For the Evulz: Midou just likes to destroy things. Gaia is as good a way as any.
  • Fossil Revival:
    • Kilimanjaro was created with fossilized remains and beetles.
    • One of Gaia's strongest familiars is the Earth Dragon, made from a T-Rex skeleton. In fact, Kashima Sakura has a large collection of fossils and most of her familiars are dinosaurs, though she also uses Gaia's standard dogs and plant constructs.
  • Freudian Excuse: Midou is a war orphan.
  • From Bad to Worse: Salvation and Re-Evolution were already bad enough, but in Moon and Terra routes, it's revealed that the planet doesn't have enough life energy left to repeat the cycle one more time, so if Salvation kicks in this time, it is truly the end.
  • Gaia's Vengeance: The Key is here to see if mankind should be saved or not with implications that whether or not we pass its inspection depends on how well we've treated the Earth and whether it wants us to continue living on it or not. Subverted. The Earth is alive, but only in the sense that a tree or perhaps even a complex program is alive: It has no real awareness, only certain things that it does. The Key is far more intelligent, but it isn't actually that concerned over whether the planet lives or dies so much as whether mankind does. If mankind is going to kill the Earth, they'll kill themselves off in the process, and that's why it really wipes them out. Better to start from scratch and make a more sustainable system next time.
  • Game-Breaking Injury: Shizuru almost dies trying to save Kotarou when he's attacked during her route.
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Comedically used by Kotori. She usually punches Kotarou out of his aggressive "dark side". Her punches have healing power, apparently.
  • Ghibli Hills: The entire city of Kazamatsuri is surrounded by lush forest.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Shizuru. Chihaya sports the tsundere-tails variation of the trope.
  • The Glomp: Nishikujou's character is introduced when she's trying to invoke this on Shizuru.
  • A God Am I: Played for Laughs when Kotarou is conducting a simulation of Earth from creation to present times and gets the feeling of omnipotence. Kotori knocks him out of it.
  • Going Down with the Ship: Several of the minor characters indicate that, should Salvation begin, they intend to stay behind even if they could escape. Surprisingly, Suzaki appears to be one of them. It's even more surprising once you've read Terra.
  • Gotta Catch 'Em All: There are over 100 friends for you to find during the course of the novel. Some are mandatory, while others are very well hidden. (Kotarou's definition of 'friend' is quite broad.)
  • Graceful Loser
    • In Chihaya's route, Midou, though it doesn’t seem like it at the time. When his ideology has been beaten as well as his familiar, he assists Kotarou in defeating the rampaging Sakuya somehow.
    • In general and on a lighter note, the story occasionally admits that the other girls are interested in Kotarou as well, but they're always supportive of whichever girl's route it is rather than getting in the way. For example, Shizuru helps Kotarou get close to Lucia despite her own obvious crush and admits to Nishikujou that Lucia managed to get ahead of her. In Shizuru's route, Kotori supports that relationship.
  • Gratuitous English: Yoshino is fond of making these.
  • Green Aesop: Subverted. As far as the Key is concerned, it's perfectly natural for mankind to not worry about the environment when they first enter the modern era. They soon begin taking measures to rectify the situation but it's too late by then. In the end it's not environmental measures that will save the Earth but rather utilizing technology and techniques that Gaia and Guardian have been monopolizing after destroying both organizations to keep them from fighting and sucking up life energy even faster. Finally, the ultimate long term solution is to leave the Earth entirely and settle on a new planet.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: The people wanting to kill the Key (Shizuru and Lucia) have better reasons for what they’re doing than those who protect her like Kotori. However, if the Earth isn’t revitalized it will die and the planet will simply begin pumping out poison. Also, they always plan for end of the world scenarios… and occasionally try to FORCE them to occur.
  • Happy Ending
    • In contrast to the other more bittersweet or outright bad endings, Ohtori Chihaya’s ending is unambiguously happy with humanity saved, no large-scale casualties, all the heroines still alive, the occult club reforming and only one major character dead. Sakuya might not even be truly dead, either.
    • Terra route ends with the world saved more completely than in any other route. Humanity is expected to live on without destroying the Earth and dooming themselves. All the main heroines are alive and it gives Kotarou a chance to bond with them when they have normal lives and can all be proper friends together. On a somewhat negative note, Kagari is gone and the world has entered an ice age, but that was part of the plan all along. The ending implies that the version of Kagari from the moon is still around in some form, and the anime adaptation confirms it.
    • And thus, the world was saved through the love of boobies. Pay no attention to this clearly being a joke ending.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Shizuru during her route. In trying to save Kotarou, she almost dies.
    • Luis during Terra, who dies shooting down missiles so Kotarou can evacuate the children from the town.
    • Sakuya during Moon, using the power combined of all versions of himself in order to help Kotarou.
  • Hidden Eyes: Lucia, whenever she gets extremelly embarassed. Or pissed. With her, sometimes it's hard to distinguish one from the other.
  • Hope Spot: Used in Moon Route, when the situation looks grim but the real Sakuya finally joins the battle and Shizuru is defeating multiple familiars at once. Cue Shizuru along with Chihaya being caught off guard and dying in the fight. Sakuya then transforms to take down as many enemies as possible until he breaks apart, leaving Kotarou the last one standing.
  • Hope Sprouts Eternal:
    • Lucia's ending scene has a sunflower sprouting from the ground.
    • Terra Route's ending has one on the previously barren moon.
  • How We Got Here:
    • Shizuru’s route takes a time skip of a month at one point and then traces back to show how the situation got to this point.
    • Terra route starts shortly after Kotarou meets the Key and history diverges from the rest of Rewrite, then returns to when Kotarou was young and continues until it reaches the starting point.
    • In the anime, the second season begins with Kotarou dying to Kagari and respawning over and over, interspersed with all the timelines he's experienced between the first season (implied to the individual heroine routes from the VN) which appears as remembers them.
  • Humanity on Trial: The collection of sad memories inside Kagari and humanity's waste of energy are the main reasons why the "Key" activates. Kagari herself cannot stop it. Kotarou needs to prove humanity deserves to live.
  • Human Popsicle: Used in Lucia's route.
  • Humans Are Special: Or, more accurately, "Intelligent Life is Special." Moon route reveals that the planet only allows for one type of highly intelligent life, and that the progress of that species is closely monitored. If that species becomes unable to make any more progress or if the planet will die before that species can move on to a new planet, then the planet initiates Salvation and Re-evolution and tries again with a new species.
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: Starting in Moon, there's a minor recurring element that those who are more intelligent than others often end up alone. Kotarou rewrites his brain so much in Moon that he nearly turns himself into a god and might have done so for real if he kept it up. Kotori was also alone as a child because she was highly intelligent and didn't watch her mouth.
  • Irony: In Lucia's route, she repeatedly uses her friendship with Chihaya as an example of something she can never have, due to her poison. However, Chihaya can resist it because of Sakuya's power. May cross into Dramatic Irony, for players who have finished Chihaya's route and thus might suspect this is the case.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure: The climax of Shizuru and Akane's routes are a long progression of failures largely as a result of Kotarou screwing up majorly by either stalling Guardian and putting Shizuru out of commission at a crucial moment and thus causing Salvation or perhaps worse (once you've seen Moon and Terra) aiding Akane blindly without questioning what she's doing.
  • Item Get!: In some cases, the VN likes to poke fun at the player as they progress through, but some of the more amusing areas are when it suddenly turns into an JRPG.
    (while searching for Kotori in the forest) You obtained Wooden Bear!
    (some moments later) You obtained Wooden Giraffe!
    (even more moments later) You obtained Someone's Right Arm!
  • I Will Wait for You: Shizuru in her ending.
  • The Infiltration: In Terra Route, Kotarou enters Gaia organization to order to spy for Kagari.
  • Joshikousei: The five main heroines are in High School.
  • Killing in Self-Defense: Kotarou has to kill Takasago in Akane's route when he ambushes him. Not that it sticks.
  • Kill It with Fire: During the final battle sequence of Chihaya's route, Kotarou has to cut some vines that are blocking his path, but since they regenerate too fast for him to get through them with his blades, Midou, who's already dead at this point but has been haunting Kotarou, apparently lends his fire powers to him.
  • Knight Templar: Gaia believes in revitalizing the Earth even at the potential cost of destroying mankind. Guardian is a lot nicer and are trying to save the world, but they quickly resort to lethal force.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia
    • One of Shizuru's abilities is to tamper with memories.
    • Kotarou starts out the story with a fuzzy memory of how he spent the time around his coma.
  • Last Girl Wins: Kagari is the last heroine to appear in the opening and the game (she's not even named in the OP). Chronologically, though, she is the third girl Kotarou meets. The first two are Kotori and Akane.
  • Last Kiss: In Terra Route, Kotarou and Kagari.
  • Lethal Chef: Chihaya's Miso Soup From Hell that even manages to KO Sakuya.
  • A Lighter Shade of Gray: Even during the Gaia routes, Kotarou thinks of them as being more the bad guys than Guardian. However, during Terra, the trope is subverted: Guardian has a lot of complete jerks and knight templars in it and in the end is just about as bad as Gaia, who are largely a bunch of depressed misfits.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Everyone has at most three sets of different clothing (School/Casual/Combat) or rare, one time occasions that they wear something different.
  • Loners Are Freaks: Summoners tend to be reclusive and frequently twisted people while those with superpowers are more extroverted and friendly overall.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: In Harvest Festa, Kagari gives a benevolent example of this to Kotarou and friends so that they can enjoy the Harvest Festival before she brings salvation to the world.
  • Love Confession: Kotarou made one to Kotori before high school, but she rejected him.
  • Love Triangle: Chihaya's route has an odd one. The situation between Sakuya, Kotarou and Chihaya is clearly set up as one, but Sakuya and Chihaya make it clear from very early on that they have absolutely no interest in each other as lovers. Instead, Kotaru is competing to be Sakuya's equal and thus match up to Chihaya accordingly even though it's obvious even to him that she likes him already.
  • Luminescent Blush: All the girls blush as it is norm in this kind of game, but Lucia takes the cake easily.
  • MacGuffin: All organizations are searching for the "Key," which is Kagari.
  • Mad Scientist:
    • Brenda Mcfarden on the side of Guardian.
    • Gil mentions that Midou, Tenjin, and Tenma were the 'worst' researchers at the summoning research facility that he originated from.
  • Magic Contract Romance: Subverted: Kotori thinks that Kotarou loves her because of this and rejects his confession. She only agrees to be with him when he's proven beyond a doubt that he's not a mindless slave — and, for that matter, neither are her other familiars, not completely.
  • Magic Is a Monster Magnet: Kids that develop their superpowers early are closely monitored by Guardian. They have the option to join them or forget about it altogether (via memory manipulation). And when they aren't, they have the tendency to be more aware of the inconsistencies of the world, as exemplified by Kotarou chasing down UMAs during Terra route, because he stumbled upon them earlier in his life.
  • The Many Deaths of You: Kotarou dies several times at the beginning of the Moon route.
  • That Man Is Dead: What Lucia tells Kotarou: her name is simply a Code Name and she is actually Haruka.
  • Masochist's Meal: The Black Spice Alliance tried to challenge the spiciest foods in the city and was defeated by the cafeteria's mapo tofu. The super spicy parfait is another masochist's meal.
  • Megaton Punch: Lucia delivers this to Kotarou whenever he does something perverted like licking her plate.
  • Meido: Lucia wears a maid outfit in her route. Kotarou has an Imagine Spot of Shizuru wearing one in Shizuru's route.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: In Terra's Route, Kotarou kills Esaka Sougen in his effort to protect Kagari.
  • Memento MacGuffin: During Moon route, Kotarou finds several of them, one for each of the Occult Club members.
  • Mind Screw: The first half of the Kotori route. Kotarou has no idea what’s going on and neither does the reader. The Moon route also starts as one of these. Also applies to Lucia's route, but that should be no surprise considering who wrote it.
  • Mind Rape: The Key does this to Akane during Chihaya's route, showing the bad side of humanity.
  • Misapplied Phlebotinum: At the end of Terra, Kotarou subverts it. The five Occult Club members form a contract with him and give him form, at which point they request him to act as their butler and nothing else. He refuses and says that his abilities are so much greater than that that he should be put to better use. Considering that he states that his power is limited only by the number of people who feed him energy and that five people is enough to quickly jump to the moon, he kind of has a point.
  • Modesty Towel: Kotori uses one during the Outdoor bath peeping event on her route.
  • Mood Whiplash: There are a lot of cases like this such as a happy buzzer noise signaling Kotarou finding lots of small wooden animals. The same sound goes off when he picks up a severed arm before identifying it. The story itself changes towns quickly when November arrives.
  • Motifs: Two in particular: ribbons and trees.
  • Mugging the Monster: Deliberately invoked by Kotarou when he takes Kotori and Chibi-moth into the slums of the city. When anyone tries to approach and mug them, Kotori orders Chibi-moth to beat them down. Kotarou then proceeds to take the mugger's money, usually forcibly renaming them "lamesters".
  • Multiple Endings
    • There are endings for Kotori, Chihaya, Lucia, Shizuru, and Akane. If you fail to enter any of the five heroine's routes, you will get a Nonstandard Game Over where all the heroines transfer out of school and then the world ends.
    • After completing the five heroine routes, there is a Moon Route followed by the true ending Terra Route.
    • Finally, there is Joke Ending that occurs after getting all the other endings and fulfilling certain conditions. Just before entering Akane's Route, Kotarou uses the "love of boobs" to defeat Kagari and rewrites reality so that there is world peace with everyone saying the word "boobs" in their conversations. Akane and Kagari are not amused.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: It’s not playing cards, it’s training. Honest!
  • Mundane Utility: The odd areas Kotarou gets sent to unexpectedly during the story is actually a separate dimension. It technically functions as a city-sized familiar, capable of summoning and keeping familiars for special uses. Gaia uses it as a storage facility for their familiars, since the other way for keeping familiars in the regular world is to keep them in fridges because familiars are made from perishables, and the magic apparently leaks there from Kazamatsuri.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: In Lucia's route, she's extremely upset and talking about how she tries to keep Kotarou from being too nice to her while sad, dramatic music plays in the background and Kotarou suggests that this is why she gets mad when he licked her plate. The music instantly stops and she tells him that no, that was just really creepy of him. After this line, a different track starts playing.
  • Mutually Exclusive Magic: The mindset that gives birth to superpowers is usually incompatible with the mindset that gives birth to summoning abilities. The two groups can't even infiltrate each other because of the obviously differing mindsets. However, Kotarou is able to use both due to never really getting over being a loner, though he's a much stronger superhuman than summoner.
  • Naked People Are Funny: One scene had Kotarou and Yoshino running around school naked, while trying to hide their faces. Shortly afterwards, the same thing happens to Sakuya, which seems to be a lot more appreciated.
  • Narnia Time: The time on the closed spaces run differently from the outside. Sometimes a few minutes take hours outside, other times less than a few seconds.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It is revealed that one of the main reasons Kagari has bad memories is that the war between Gaia and Guardian consumes too many resources and fills the world with hate. While not a problem for Gaia, it is for Guardian, as by chasing after Kagari, they are contributing to the destruction of the world they are trying to save.
  • No Body Left Behind: Familiars turn into dust after being killed.
  • Not Quite Dead: Takasago during Akane's route, who turns himself into a familiar after Kotarou "kills" him in self-defence.
  • Not Worth Killing: The Earth Dragon claims it was just out on a stroll and doesn't feel like killing Imamiya, so it lets him go.
  • Nuke 'em: This how a branch of Guardian decides to wipe out Kagari and the power spot in Lucia's route (without the consent of its Kazamatsuri agents). It was disguised as a Nuclear Option to rid the air of Lucia's strategically-released poisonous miasma, which had killed almost everybody in the area anyway.
  • Oddly Visible Eyebrows: All characters have them.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In the Terra Route, when Kotarou attacks Gaia's headquarters at the end, he runs into, fights, and defeats the Earth Dragon. The battle itself, however, cuts off after his first attack, so we don't see exactly how Kotarou won. Presumably because it'd be a repeat of the Akane route's ending. We do get to see it in the anime, at least, since the other fight mentioned wasn't animated.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Midou is the most graphic one we get to see, but Kashima Sakura is just as bad during Moon. Takasago during Akane's route also wreaks some havoc.
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: The song "Finale" is used for the end of the world.
  • One-Man Army:
    • Shizuru, even by superhuman standards.
    • Sakuya, being the strongest familiar ever.
    • Kotarou qualifies as well in some routes.
  • One-Steve Limit: Kotarou quickly meets four people named Suzuki, one of whom is friends with a third-year Suzuki. Later, he uses the names an alias even if he hasn’t met these Suzukis. He then uses "Suzuki Bond" as his own alias in Terra.
  • One-Word Title: The title, "Rewrite", is the name of Kotaru's power.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: There are two tiny Winged Humanoid familiars that appear in Chihaya's and Shizuru's routes. They were created from the byproducts of an experiment.
  • Outdoor Bath Peeping: Unintentional case where Kotarou is searching for Kotori in the forest and finds her bathing.
  • Out of Focus:
    • Kotori does not appear in front of Kotarou in the other four main heroines' routes, though she's usually given a mention or implied to be there.
    • Lucia only appears in Shizuru's and her own route.
    • Chihaya, Shizuru, and Lucia become Out of Focus in Terra Route until the ending because Kotarou never actually met them before (besides Shizuru who appears in one scene).
  • Out of Time, Out of Mind: While not actually time travel, Kotarou in Moon Route has the memories of all his Alternate Universe selves in previous routes (and other ones not shown) but there is no difference in his personality.
  • Painting the Medium
    • When Kotarou stops to let the player think about whether they want to hang out with Shizuru or not, he lampshades the weight attached to really inconsequential seeming choices.
    Kotarou: Incidentally, I always seem to think hard about little choices like this. Is that normal?
    • Later, when Shizuru makes Kotarou forget her name her name turns to ?? for a few lines.
    • The Terra route also does this when it locks in your choices so that you must follow the only path to saving humanity. Choices pop up all the time, but only a single option is enabled.
    • When Kotarou first encounters Gil in Chihaya and Shizuru routes.
    Kotarou: I just discovered what is probably a UMA, but I feel no strong emotion at all. It's like the music in the background is comic instead of dramatic. (The background music is indeed the one used for comic moments.)
  • Parental Abandonment: Parents just don't seem to exist in this story for the most part, though Kotori and Kotarou's are referenced. At the end of Terra, Nishikujou adopts all the heroines since Guardian isn't needed anymore.
    • Kotarou talks about his family on occasion, but they’re never around and simply send him an allowance to live off of. They're actually part of Gaia and are presumably estranged from him due to his choices from before his accident.
    • Shizuru lives alone in a tiny house with nothing in it. She accidentally erased her parents' memories of her existence and refuses to spend money so that, if they remember her, she can buy their dream house for them.
    • Lucia grew up in an orphanage. Nishikujou functions as a Parental Substitute for her because her superiors felt that she needed a mother figure.
    • Akane also appears to be an orphan, though she was adopted some years back in order to become the holy woman. Perhaps it would have been better if Sakura Kashima had never found her, judging by her own route and Terra's ending.
    • Chihaya's parents have been dead for over a decade. She doesn't remember them well.
    • Kotori is an aversion, since Kotarou is on familiar enough terms with her parents, though they're a little distant. And also long dead: Kotori tried to revive them, but it didn't work out very well.
  • Le Parkour: Kotarou realizes that he and Yoshino are basically playing parkour while running about the school.
  • Place of Power: the power spots in Gaia's headquarters, Chihaya's village and Kotori's hiding spot in the forest.
  • Playing with Fire: Midou.
  • Poisonous Person: Two examples, one superhuman and one summoner.
    • Takasago becomes one of these in the Akane route.
    • Lucia is revealed to be one, as a result of experiments conducted on her body.
  • Poor Communication Kills: The story would be a lot simpler if Gaia and Guardian would bother to speak to each other. They don't, so they've been in perpetual conflict for centuries or longer. Especially after it is revealed that their war is a major cause behind Salvation.
  • Porn Stash: Mostly averted. Kotarou notes that most people don’t really keep porn in their houses anymore rather than use the internet, so porn stashes have largely stopped existing. Still, he does have a porn folder on his computer that he does not want people to find out about. Shizuru does know about it in her route, but she's been told by Nishikujou that it's normal and she doesn't need to worry about it.
  • Power at a Price: Contracts with familiars leech from the summoner's life. Abilities like Rewrite also appear to tap into life force, and Kotarou's power risks turning him into a familiar.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child:
    • Familiar contracts slowly drain the energy of the user. So, in some experiments, Gaia decides to force children into contracts to support larger familiars. This is the true purpose of Enishi House. Sakura does the same with her own cultists, which explains why she's so old when most summoners burn out and die young: it's not just her life force she's using up.
    • The plot to save the world discovered in Moon and initiated in Terra requires destroying Gaia and Guardian, releasing the secrets of superpowers and summoning to the world, creating a situation bad enough to force all humanity to band together and use their life energy on summoning, and creating a super-powerful familiar that can use life energy to carry humanity to a new planet. In the end, Kotarou is responsible for carrying out all of this, which requires him to give up the only time in life he was ever happy and betray or abandon everyone he knows and loves. It's a fate bad enough to make the stoic Moon Kagari cry for him when she realizes what needs to happen. However, in the end, it's more an extreme case of Earn Your Happy Ending.
  • Power Glows: In Kotarou’s delusion, he and Yoshino begin glowing while having a fist fight. He also glows when rewriting himself.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Kotarou to the crow-like familiar on Moon: "You made me, and that means War." *kills the familiar*
  • Pyrrhic Victory: In one bad ending, Kotarou manages to defeat his opponent by himself, but in the process, he had to turn himself into something completely inhuman and mindless.
  • Razor Floss: One of the secret agents in Kotori’s route tries (with no real success) to fight off a Tyrannosaurus familiar with a super power that involves string used to cut through things.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Kotori's "parents" and Chibi-Moth are familiars she made after her real parents and dog Pero died.
    • Kotori is afraid that Kotarou might be another familiar she made when he almost died long ago.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Chibi-Moth, not to mention Pani and Gil.
  • Running Gag
    • Lucia’s tolerance for spicy foods. She can’t taste spicy food, can’t smell, and the way she sees and hears the world is very muted due to the drugs she has to take.
    • Lucia has another running gag where, after Kotarou commands Chihaya to deploy the Chihaya Cannon, she plays along like it's a perfectly normal request.
  • School Newspaper News Hound: Inoue, whose obsessive tangents seem weird but usually actually do lead to the truth.
  • Sleep Cute: Kotori is introduced when she's asleep in the forest.
  • Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Kotarou is a master at this, smooth-talking almost anyone into doing what he wants.
  • Serious Business: Porn books. They are so rare nowadays that finding one is equivalent to find a treasure chest in RPGs.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The whole point of the Moon and Terra routes.
  • The Seven Mysteries: There is actually an eighth one. Finding it is one of the conditions for the Joke Ending.
  • Sheathe Your Sword: In Terra Route, if Kotarou tries to attack or capture Kagari in their first encounter, she will immediately retaliate and give the Nonstandard Game Over. Kotarou failed to do this trope in all the previous heroines' routes. The choice to not attack is slightly obvious since the game even highlights the correct answer.
  • Shoot the Bullet: In Terra Route, Luis tries to shoot down the incoming missiles with his javelins to create a path for Kotarou and the children. He himself dies from the blazes.
  • Shout-Out: Kagari calls humans "homo faber" among other things.
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: Lucia and Kotarou.
  • A Sinister Clue: In Terra Route, Kotarou makes up with Nishikujou and Imamiya using his left hand instead of the right with the excuse that it's injured. He doesn't want to have to betray them and can't make his heart hard enough to act all friendly to people he has been betraying.
  • Sinister Minister: There is one in Lucia's route.
  • Smug Super: Many superhumans tend towards being rather arrogant and ostracizing. As they grow older they seem to mellow out somewhat, which is why the early impression of them in the story is so positive.
  • Someone to Remember Him By: In the end of the world shelter in Shizuru’s route, a woman has had to leave behind her lover and discovers that she is pregnant.
  • Sound Effects Bleep: Moon!Kagari speech is presented as a bee buzz and rendered as "■".
  • Spell My Name With An S: Official sources use both "Sizuru" and "Shizuru," which come from two separate valid romanization styles. The same goes for Jasmine/Yasmin.
  • Square-Cube Law: Kotarou’s rewriting power does give him superhuman strength, but there’s a limit to how much you change the human body or a familiar before the size grows unnaturally large or starts significantly changing in form.
  • Summon Backup Dancers: In Moon Route, since he felt lonely dancing alone with Kagari, Kotarou summons up other dancers. They appear shadowy because he's not good with details.
  • Summon Magic: Summoners can do this with their familiars.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: Kotarou enters this state when trying to protect Chihaya from Shizuru and Touka. He uses his ability too much and rewrites his own sense of reason.
  • Sympathetic P.O.V.: The branches of the story all portray the situation differently with the viewpoints of the druid, Gaia, Guardian and the Key all being shown. Gaia, however, is not shown in a very positive light even with the sympathetic POV. In Terra route, Gaia is made more sympathetic and Guardian less so, achieving a balance between them where they're both wrong.
  • Sweat Drop: One of Kotori's sprites has a perpetual one it seems.
  • Take Our Word for It: Apparently, Kotarou sucks at singing, even at humming a song, but since we don't get to hear, we have to take the heroines' word for it.
  • Taking the Bullet: Kotarou sticks his arm to defend Kotori from a Leaf Dragon attack at the end of the common route.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Parodied.
    Kotarou: “After saying a line that takes over five seconds to finish, I slip away from the high-speed punch by rotating my body.”
  • Team Shot: During the second Opening.
  • That's No Moon: The moon Kotarou sees in the Moon Route is actually Earth. The place they were at was the real moon.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Kotarou's policy in life.
    • This becomes subverted in Akane's and Terra Route as he is unable to uphold his ideal with the path he choose.
  • Time Skip: Several short ones in different routes and in most of the epilogues.
    • Shizuru's route has a month time skip where Kotarou suffers from Laser-Guided Amnesia and can't remember what happens during that period.
    • Akane's route has a year time skip.
    • Terra route has a few, since from beginning to the end, it covers more than a decade of Kotarou's life.
  • Trauma Conga Line: In the Terra route, Kotarou's life is all about being built up and then being sent crashing down again. After joining Guardian, he goes into the battlefield and becomes one of the few surviving members of his group. Later, he tries helping Kagari in saving the world because he is sick of how Guardian works. This forces him to betray and kill his own comrades along with his mentor to protect her. He tries to prevent the ritual in Gaia's headquarters, but people still die in the process. Finally, after all his efforts, he is the one who personally delivers the fatal blow to his love Kagari because it is the only option left. It is no wonder that he mentally breaks down and asks if he is cursed.
  • Trash the Set: Kazamatsuri on a few routes gets run over by the forest.
  • Troll: The first person to respond to the Occult Club’s message board is someone who first asks them for magic to let him pass exams without studying and then begins insulting the club.
  • True Companions: Both Gaia and Guardian appear to be this from the outside. Inside is a different matter altogether. A more direct example would be the Occult Club during Moon.
  • Universal Poison: The poison Lucia produces and the Earth will one day produce isn’t some normal chemical. It’s basically pure death and works on anything.
  • The Unmasqued World: In Terra Route, Jasmine leaks out all the secret technology Kotarou gave to her through the internet so the world can survive.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Used in Konohana Lucia's route. Many scenes involving only Lucia and the ghost are either blatant lies or symbolic. For example, Lucia knowingly altered the printer paper herself and the 'don't wake me' scenes with her and the ghost are basically just panic attacks. Or more lies, but in this case ones told to the audience and not to Kotarou.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Neither Kotori nor Chihaya put any effort into hiding their powers, yet nobody ever questions it outside of their specific routes.
  • Urban Fantasy: The war between Gaia and Guardian.
  • Utsuge: It's a Key Visual Arts game so this is expected.
  • Vicious Cycle: Many mass extinction events were the result of the "Key", including the end of dinosaurs and the Great Flood in the bible. In the true route, it is the final cycle since the planet is running out of energy and rebirth cannot occur.
  • Wall of Text: Terra route sometimes takes several pages of nonspoken dialogue with just text without changing the background image.
  • War Is Hell
    • Midou and his group became twisted because of it.
    • In Terra Route, Kotarou experiences this himself.
  • Weirdness Censor: It's a wonder that Gaia and Guardian manage to keep their positions a secret from the rest of the world, considering how flashy things tend to get when they fight, as evidenced by the Midou-Kotarou fight in the school gym during Chihaya's route.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: The Sukumon Boy is actually a girl. She apparently has a crush on Kotarou, but he walks away before she finishes talking.
  • World Tree: Kotarou and Kagari transform into a giant tree in Terra Route's ending, as well as the first season's ending (which will most likely occur again in Kagari's expansion route).
  • Would Hurt a Child:
    • In Terra Route, Kotarou's commander in the battlefield killed wounded children just because they were considered enemies. This resulted in Kotarou's second defiance against Guardian.
    • Kagari was willing to kill young Akane after she noticed that Akane can see her. Kotarou stops her because he can't condone the killing of someone he knows.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Used by Akane's secretary in a prank against Kotarou. She steals Kotarou's money and takes a taxi to escape. When Kotarou catches up to her, she screams in front of the crowd and a policeman takes Kotarou into custody for sexual harassment.
  • You Are Too Late
    • In Shizuru’s route, Kotarou and the others don’t get to the Key until after she has begun to sing. When the full song has been started, even destroying the Key is no longer enough to stop it. Humanity is erased apart from fifty-two survivors.
    • In Akane’s route, Kotarou had a head start since Salvation took longer than in Shizuru's due to Kagari's vessel being dead, but he still turns up weeks late to stop Akane when he finally gets to her. Humanity has probably survived even outside their bubble dimension, but civilization was already completely destroyed.
    • In Terra route, Kotarou was too late in giving Kagari a good memory. So he had to kill her to stop salvation.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Kotarou in a few of the routes, more prominent in Terra after he joins Guardian. Not that he minds.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: If you receive sensory information telling you that something happened to you and believe it, your brain will reproduce the effects onto your body. This is how Lucia's fellow test subjects all died. Only Lucia was able to disbelieve what the VR was telling her brain.
  • You Will Be Spared: At the end of Kotori's route, Shizuru snipes the Key and then walks away without killing either Kotori or Kotarou, despite them clearly having protected it. Imamiya, on the other hand, was about to kill Kotarou.
  • Zerg Rush: Kashima Sakura uses hundreds of familiars to try and destroy Kagari during Moon.

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