Re:Creators starts off it’s second half of its series with a brand new opening credits from Sawano using the two same singers of gravityWall. Titled as shØut, it takes the same melody as AL:Lu and closely follows the first opening in its presentation. I thought it was about the same quality as the first one with a bit more action like having fighter jets coming out of Meteora’s Gate of Babylon and explosions everywhere. What information can be gleaned is that Selesia will eventually get back her prized Vogelchevalier and that two more creations, in addition to Charon, will be joining the show. The first is apparently is Yuuya’s rival in which his sister was killed by our sword wielding stand user. This is going to be turn out to be very explosive as these two are going to butt heads as one seeks vengeance for a murdered family member. The second character is so bizarrely out of place in her normality as she seems to be a character from one of those generic romantic visual or light novels. Other than her warm and kind heart, I don’t see any powers that could stand toe-to-toe with Altair’s dance of swords or every other creations wielding their massive abilities. Re:Creators has surprised me before and I’m sure they will surprise me with her.
Unfortunately, it’s been nearly a month since anything really awesome has happened and since then, it’s just been mostly just theorizing and coming up with an elaborate plan to engage Altair and defeat her. Episode fourteen is no different with briefings and characters standing around talking to each other. It does answers several questions like having Altair being deliberately written to be weaker and confronts a few loopholes that the audience might have thought to exploit. I didn’t really enjoy all the info dumping and for the rest of the episode, the creative process takes center stage in how each creators approach their craft from being on a salary working for a client with specific needs to being utterly devoted to maintaining the artistic purity of their work and totally independant. People like Kentaro Miura, of Berserk fame, comes to mind when it comes to telling a story that does not compromise in its quality, subject matter, or release schedule that sometimes takes years between the release of chapters. I was annoyed that they decided to omit the details of Sota’s little plot insertion as the episode was already so dry. At the very least, a date is given to us about when the grand event is to occur, which happens to exactly fall on when the sixteenth episode is aired. I expect it to be awesome because the last few episode certainly haven’t been given all the buildup that has been happening.
I think this episode had a very bad start. I think the exploration a bit of the creator dynamics was worthwhile, but the exposition at the start was simply too much this time. This was the first time I did not feel a need to rewatch the episode and was not harking for more. That said, on a second thought barring the Kuchikara exposition there were some good elements.
New characters: The fact that Charon does not show up in the OP or ED probably means he will be going the Mamika way.
I get the role of the girl, she is the Mamika stand-in. I just do not buy that it will work.
Man, Yuya is going to get a lot of development with his rival arriving. I am calling it: Rival: “How can I trust what you say about Altair! You killed my family you!”, Everyone else: tell him that that is all the creators fault! Yuya: No, not my stile. Dude, I did kill your family. And I am sorry for it. And you can hate me. But you gotta listen to me bro.”
Charon’s absence in the OP and ED really makes me uneasy. Even Shu, who hasn’t even appeared yet, get’s a spot in it. Which rules out an OP that evolves with plot development. What does it mean? Even Mamika, in spite of her early exit, got quite a lot of spotlight in the first OP.
About the new girl, I think HK called it. She represents the renai genre of anime. Powerless in battle, but maybe she has a shot at getting through to Altair in a different way.
Altair is definitely getting quite a lot of sympathetic light on her in the OP/ED but I wish it was reflected in the actual anime’s plot development. All the stuff presented can be distantly inferred but seems more like fanboy wishful thinking rather than something reflected in the plot. So maybe it’s way too early to be showing this side of her. The most emotional she ever got was when she was fighting Mamika and, while she got mad, she didn’t break down. Is it okay to show her this vulnerable in the OP when she has yet to go there on stage?
Interesting how Setsuna’s form seems to break down and get absorbed into Altair. ??? Did Setsuna and Altair merge or something?
@KT About Yuya, I agree with you. XD Although, did you notice what Shu is doing to Selesia in the ED? Also, I’m wondering whether what Yuya did to Shu’s sister has something to do with his Hangaku curse. Now that he’s no longer under that curse…
“Interesting how Setsuna’s form seems to break down and get absorbed into Altair. ??? Did Setsuna and Altair merge or something?”
I think that is just a metaphor for how Altair is the creative child or transubstantiation of Setsuna. Not so much that they merged.
“Is it okay to show her this vulnerable in the OP when she has yet to go there on stage?” my guess is they wanted to do some character development via the OP.
Haha on Shu. No Rui issues here. By the way I think Shu also has some kind of Hangaku servant. Will be interesting to learn more about the background.
The ED does indicate some dynamics which might play out. Definitely Blitz might be taking the lead for team Altair. Aliceteria seems perplexed and trying to figure things out. Magane is such a hedonist she might end up being a non-entity due to immense pleasure.