Author: HelghastKillzone

After over a month and a half of talking heads, recaps, scheming and theorization, Re:Creators is finally on the cusp of having every creation throwing themselves into a massive team deathmatch complete with live performances, streaming and a raving fandom packed into a stadium.

Thus far, Re:Creators has largely managed to avoid their creations be subjected to the pitfalls of fanservice within the anime but this episode goes all out on the nudity with everyone going to the hotsprings. If you ever wanted to see what the creators and creations looks like underneath all those costumes, then this is the episode for you where all the tired tropes of hot springs episodes comes to its full realizations. The rest of the episode was forgettable as it only has the government’s representative drunken dominatrix crazy rant as its punchline.

The real meat comes in last half of the episode as everyone gets into their positions that is six months in the making for the big battle. Vogelchevalier finally comes back to Seleica and it going to be a giant brawl with two mecha on the side of the government against Alrair’s forces. The question becomes on whether on the various upgrades that the creators have augmented into their own creations are enough to defeat the God-like powers of Altair and the unpredictableness batshit craziness of Magane. I’m surprised that Alice is still sticking with Altair, given her maneuvering with Magane and the release of her own creator. Given that Altair already has these God-like powers of predicting the future through her tarot cards, it wouldn’t be a stretch to already have Alice’s plans already unraveled.

With six episodes left to go, the events of the Elimination Chamber will certainly not be the climax of the series but it looks like the agonizing slow pace of the last couple of episodes will finally pay off in a grand arena where everything comes together in a delightful merger of light, explosions and meta anime goodness.

Note: Episode 17 is very likely delayed this week due to scheduling issues like its awkward 22 episode format.

This week’s episode didn’t have any action once again but there is a lot more movement on the main plot as each faction solidify their alliances and plan out their new moves.

As speculated last week, the latest creation has a snowball’s chance in hell in be competitive against every other creation as her only power is flashing her panties to seduce men. That doesn’t comes as a surprise since her source material is an X-Rated eroge ported over as an all-age version and with Mamika out of the picture, it’s up to Hikayu fill in her shoes with her  future magical powers via fan side release. I’m skeptical that there is enough time or compelling development to do that since it will just be a repeat of a naive kind-hearted girl coming to terms with the harsh reality of this world. Her creator doesn’t fare any better as his buck-tooth appearance and behavior towards creations leans heavily into the more unsavory end of the anime fandom. Out of all of the creators, he is truly a terrible human being.

As her creator speculates, Alice does something very out of character this episode and that is to seek out the help of Magane. For a creation that is pretty meat-headed and relies on brute to win the day, this is a radical departure from her ideology of honor and absolutes. Seeing the batshit insanity that is the money-bathing Magane trouncing around half-naked in a towel go along with her polar opposite is the sort of risk that Re:Creators needs to take if it wants a strong finish. With some incoming power-ups courtesy of her own creators and having Magane take part in  her ambiguous plans, this bores enough potential for a payoff that will definitely shake things ups as the series goes closer to its conclusion.

Blitz has always been an enigma with his backstory and reasons for staying on Altair’s side. His story has been now revealed to be a tragic and dark history with him killing his own daughter in order to prevent a catastrophe in a cyberpunk universe. It’s just that when the show try to link his backstory to Altair is when it gets a little creepy. As with Rui’s sudden transition from being a twat to a stewart defender of the real world, we miss all the nuisances and buildup to his confession to Altair and makes it seems rushed while coming out of the left field. It could have been a cool parallel story like something along the lines of Joel and Ellie’s twisted relationship in The Last of Us but Re:Creators really dropped the ball when it comes to those two.

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.

Seeing the previews for this week’s episode, it was obvious that the main narrative was going to be taking a break with a recap episode. The question is if this was worth watching at all. Thankfully, Re:Creators pulls off an above average clip show that actually has some new animation, is aware of the loathed nature of recaps, and pokes fun at itself.

As most recaps show are usually all recycled footage, I was surprised at the amount of new animation like seeing Altair get her ass completely shredded by an alternate sexualized version of Meteora. While that was very entertaining to see, I thought that her alternate personality could still use a bit more spark as her mannerism didn’t match with her new physical appearance. The nonlinear format of showcasing characters breaks up the tired template of reliving though the series in twenty minutes while Meteora trashes-talks them. There is actually some new backstory information like Yuuya’s past as he was part of a special unit before he murdered a whole bunch of people and became the antagonist of his own universe. Finally, the ending scene is completely meta as Meteora breaks the fourth wall to kindly explain the reasons for a recap episode and puts to rest any concerns about its quality. I don’t think this will turn into the shining example of being the best recap episode ever but it still worth a watch if you’re in Re:Creators as does a thing or two to keep things interesting.

Re:Creator’s greatest flaw flares up again as it spends yet another episode standing around in a room capping off Sota’s tale of guilt and formulating a plan to cage in Altair for a final showdown. This show is fascinating with its thought-provoking ideas and unique premise but I just wish it didn’t take so long in getting to the actiony bits. The conclusion to Setsuna’s story dragged on into its ugly conclusion and it could all been explained in the previous episode. His acceptance of responsibility could have started off the episode instead. It doesn’t help that the plan to defeat was just a bunch of talking heads in a room. I did like the fanmade Youtube videos of Altair and if they would have some more animated graphs and charts, it would have made it more easier and fun to understand.

The most interesting part of the episode was certainly Alice coming to the long overdue realization that Altair, not Meteora, was the one who killed off Mamaika. Those who were frustrated at her unrelenting zeal to save her own fantasy world got to finally see some substantial growth to her character. With Mamika out of the picture, having Alice taking on her role as the cliche archetypes turned into enlightened creation is the next logical narrative step. I’m glad to see that Sota’s words go further than being a delaying tactic by planting that doubt into her mind. The conversation between Alice and her creator was a really fitting end in that the hero the one who can make the decisions where the writer can only makes the ends meet. I don’t think that same argument is going to work for Blitz though. His motivation for following Altair might be that he is tired of living after the death of her daughter and finding out that his whole world is just someone’s fictional creation is enough to have him wish for the world’s destruction. With his creator being one of the main architects of this new plan to ensnare Altair, meeting her is going to explosive to say the least.

With Charon in the picture now, things are going to start to complicating very fast as this is the first time two creations have come from the same franchise. Selesia will have the benefit of an entire cour worth of character development along with her creator which could turn this into Prodigal Son situation where the father has to deal with two very different offsprings.

Not surprising that this was a more subdued episode since the events of last week landed two and a half creations in the hospital. Given their bed-ridden state, Re:Creators takes it time in developing some new deep and profound ideas about creating works and resolves the quagmire that Sōta finds himself in the last few weeks.

Selesia is really moving forth from her light novel template with her “thank you” line and I can really see that father/daughter relationship shine in their quiet moment together. This is what Re:Creators does so well in that it always has something important to say even in its slower episodes and that continues on into the Gigas Machina ride with Kyokua speech about creators being Gods is found in their free will despite not being super powerful beings who can fling out beam attacks or manipulate causality. What is perplexing is that we didn’t see the development of Kyokua change from being a Shinji-lite character to someone who is able to accept his role as a creation in his own stories. It was very much the same problem in episode six when he goes from being a whiny children to being adamantly supportive of fighting for the survival of this world. I’m not asking for a repeat of Evangelion but a few scenes here and there would have been more than enough.

For all of Sota’s moping around in his connection to Setsuna’s death, I find it a stretch to say that he himself “killed” his best friend. I would said It’s more akin to the biblical story of Saul where a mob decided to stone the shit out of a man name Stephan for his beliefs. While Saul never directly partake in the violence, he held the coats of the those who hurled stones and had a faint satisfaction at seeing Stephan being killed. Still, it’s a rather sad story about two lonely weeaboos sharing their passion for anime with each other before fame and jealousy tore that relationship apart.

Hiroe Rei said that this show is about ordinary human creators as much as the super powerful creations that spawn from them and Setsuna’s case is what happened when that artistic vision goes off the deep end in the ruthless and anonymous world of the internet. Just like how Takashi said to Selesia that “For me, writing your story is proof that I lived”, the creation of Altair was the final farewell to a cruel and malicious community. Something that was the complete opposite of her career-defining art of scenical backgrounds and cheery bright tones. Something that was cute, destructive and filled with her painful emotions of her final days. Whereas Setsuna’s last act was the conclusion to the  “I wish I could just disappear” attitude, Altair’s mantra is “I wish the world could just disappear”.

With Souta’s dirty little secret out in the open now and knowing the who and the circumstances leading up to Altair’s creation, there is a firm foundation for a plan to be dreamed up by Meteora to try and stop her from imploding the entire world. On the other hand, Alice still needs to stop going on wild goose chases to avenge her magical friend and realize the one who is going to betray them all in end is standing behind her all this time.

The laying of the foundation and development of all previous episodes culminates into an explosive episode that lives up to the hype of Re:Creators’ initial premise.

Following Magane long-winded trolling of last week, the amount of action on display this episode more than made up for her antics. Every creation (with the except of Mamika) gets in on the action and I love how the fight progressed like Fate/Zero as characters would switch opponents and abilities littered the battlefield. Even ordinary people like Sota manages not be a bitch and summons his courage long enough for a spirited argument of Alice. Old favorites like Meteroa’s missile attack makes a return to little effect against Alice and new abilities keep the twists coming. It turns out that the only thing that can go toe-to-toe against Rui’s ace in the hole Gigas Machina is another giant robot. That match was a little disappointing as I would have loved to see how a giant robot square off with squishier foes. The implications are now that Altair could very well summon copies of creations and have them fight against each other and that could be very exciting indeed. For many though, the highlight was definitely Selesia finally transforming into her alternate form and doing her best Excalibur impression along Sawano’s insert song. I didn’t really feel the the parent and child analogy between Takashi and Selesia earlier in the series, but his speech about her cliches line and throwing himself into the fight with the power of Twitter was heartwarming to say the least.

On more chaotic side of things, Magane just continues to get stronger and that doesn’t bode well for either side. At some point in the story, she is going to become borderline OP if she continues to gain stands and build up immunity to certain attacks. It would be simpler for everyone to shut their  mouth when confronting Magane and just focus on whacking the shit out of her. and Unfortunately for Yuuya, he finds out the hard way that having any conversation with her is always bound to fall victim to that trollish causality ability of her.In the aftermath of this brawl, Yuuya’s attack power gets halved, nothing really gets settled and there are only more questions like how new information brought into the social conscious affect creations as it looks like it was just a temporary power-up and Selesta is still wounded. The Re:Creators ride is not even halfway done and it’s looking like it going to be one hell of a wild second half.

Note: Re:Creators OST is out so go have a listen to Sawano’s epic soundtrack. Favorites include God of ink; 4GL4yu8RE:E, AL:Lu and Layers.

I starting to sense a pattern of Re:Creators where most of the runtime is dedicated to conversations which is then broken up by a segment of action towards the final few minutes. This week is no exception with Magane taking the spotlight away from Mamaika as she exits away from the stage.

It wouldn’t be a fitting end for Mamika if she simply got vaporized by her own magical splash flare so we get a final farewell scene. It’s a shame to see her die as she had the most compelling and greatest development for any creation in the entire series and I’m betting that Alice is next in line to receive some attention in that department. The thing that bothered me was Mamika’s final words to Alice as she had more than enough time and energy to convey her ultimate wish instead of repeating Alice’s name over and over again. However, she might come back into the story given that her body disappeared into the blue ether and they haven’t explored the mechanics behind bringing creations back from the dead. Someone else that probably didn’t share Mamika’s fate is Altair as the conversation heavily implied that she was able to survive the tactical nuke that was the magical splash flare although her condition is unknown at this point.

I love Magane as a character since she shares a uncanny semblance to Nui Harime (Kill la Kill) in trolling and completely subverting every faction for her own amusement. The way she twists and shades Mamika’s words into weaponizing Alice against our main heroes proves that words are just as deadly as superpower magical spells. Sadly, her second main scene in the episode Re:Creators’ weakness is that it revels in its own fiction a little too hard and rears its ugly head in Magane’s speech to Sota as it drags on for far too long in deconstructing his dirty little secret. The attempt to paint Meteroa as a traitor in league with Altair falls flat as it’s too far fetched and lacks any meaningful payoff when that ruse is immediately broken by Yuuya’s entrance. At least, Sota finally stops being a little bitch and comes clean at the cost of Magane getting a defence buff and dragging creations into another fight. A fight that has Alice’s unyielding rage directed at Meteora and Yuuya.

I predicted that Mamika would soon make her choice. I just didn’t expect a magical girl to turn herself into a tactical nuclear suicide bomber.

Starting from episode two, it was clear that this innocent and sheltered magical girl had the most room to grow and her final(?) actions shown how far she has come. The talk between her and Alice was faintly reminiscent of the yuri aspect between Madoka/Homura of Madoka Magica. It’s strange to think that given their backgrounds of a hardcore medieval fantasy and children magical girl show, it is Alice is the one who is obtuse while Mamika is the one who thinks things through. She probably knew that Altair wouldn’t listen to her heartfelt pleas and an epic fight carried the risk of failure. The fact that she didn’t hesitate to unleash the sheer power of that final magical splash flare was fully representative of Mamika’s conviction. The question now becomes whether or not Mamika survives her own magical splash flare. Given that the explosion engulfed the entire stadium and the surrounding area, there is a very good chance that she didn’t intent to get of that fight alive. Either they pull an asspull of an explanation of how Mamika survived that blast or have her come back using some unrevealed mechanic or Mamika is actually gone for good. In any case, Alice is going to feel even more disconcerted within this new world she finds herself in.

All the other parts of the episode leading up to its explosive ending went on with a comfortable pace with the briefings having some meaning in introducing two more creators and setting the tone between Yuuya and his maker. His beatdown something akin to Alice’s own treatment of her creator, just with less kidnapping and more punching. I don’t know about the Code Babylon female creator, but she looks to be fitting addition, if not peculiar, to the main cast. Also peculiar is the continual game of Souta’s little dirty secret only moves forth a tiny bit with his half-assed confession to Meteora. From their meandering conversation, my theory is that Souta asked Setsuna to create Altair and he did such a good job that he become resentful of her talent. As a result, he pushed her away and set on her on a suicidal path, which then set into motion the events of Re:Creators. Thankfully, it comes down to the crazy occult-powered maid of Makagami to confront him about him being a bitch and the scene had expertly done tension with Souta knowing the other side of the conversation is utterly ruthless and sees this world as nothing more than a toy to be played with just like the brochure that was systematically ripped up and thrown into the air. Unfortunately, for him, the mixing of his reluctance to tell the truth and going on a date with Makagami isn’t going to end well, especially when said creation has already racked up two kills in her body count.

Not an action-oriented episode but the bold progression in the plot makes the show only gets better and better.

The conclusion to the last week’s fight turns out to only eslcate in size with Yuuya and the giant robot joining the fray before ending off on a rather anticlimactic note. You have Mamaika remaining true to her character and trying to put out fires everywhere while everyone else pairing off in a grudge match. Every creation (excluding Altair) came together for the first time and we got to see some seriously hyped action with Yuuya’s Stand giving Alice a run for her money. It’s too bad that it all ends so abruptly when shows up and the BLANK doesn’t do much more than wave its arms around. The point of giant robots tends to be ripping and tearing at away at their enemies with their array of weapons, which Yuuya takes an enthusiastic interest in. I could see him and Rui fostering mirror image of the friendship that Meteora and Selestia currently share, albeit with more masculine outbursts of awesome.

The one thing that irks me is the constant regurgitation of information and the two briefings that doesn’t do itself any favors by going over information that is just icing in background or confirming what fans already know. At least the show doesn’t leave the true identity of Altair dangling around as it makes a nod towards the fan made and amateur side of the anime industry through during the unmasking of the main antagonist. It seems it’s up to Mamaika to be the one that drives the story with her ever expanding bold choices. With Alice and Blitz seemingly dead set in their ways, our magical girl is going to have to make some tough decisions on which side she belong. It is far pass the time where sitting on the fence and trying to play nice with everyone is a viable option especially with Makagami tailing Sota in that Ufotable Fate/stay night cafe. While it wasn’t as good as last week’s episode, Re:Creators is chugging along at a more tolerable pace with each side looking gearing up to make some big moves.