Author: HelghastKillzone

After a slew of exposition-filled episodes, Re:Creators is back to the vibe of the first two weeks where its creations were blowing each others apart with their powers. Out of all creations so far, Makagami is probably the most batshit crazy character in Re:Creators that is more in the vein of Rei Hiroe’s previous work of Black Lagoon. Her carefree demeanor and sadistic methods of murdering people who get into her way of fun reminds me of Nui Harime (Kill la Kill), whose trollish attitude always threw a wrench into balance of the show. Using some sort of occult powers that ties in “a lie about a lie” is just icing on the cake and puts her as an alternate contender for best girl title.

While most of this episode was mostly dialogue, it had that delicious tension that was sorely missing from the previous weeks. At times, it felt like Fate/zero as they slammed their ideological beliefs in a vain attempt to pursue each other before devolving in a brawl. Makagami may be an murderous bitch but she does have a point that Saber Alice’s idea of justice is deeply hypocritical. When it came to the final minutes, Re:Creators delivers on its promise of mishmash of powers being thrown around from your standard magical fantasy mega beam to gravity bombs being detonated. Blitz Talker has some very cool gadgets like his anti-grav device that allows him to fly and suggests that he comes from a sci-fi setting that has already mastered some serious tech. However, the best moment comes from Madoka’s Mamaika’s valiant defense of Meteora as it matches up so well with her character of trying to have everyone get along and owning up to her friends. I can’t for next week for the conclusion to this fight as this show finally finds its legs and starts running.

Sometimes, what might look good on paper doesn’t translate well when it comes to reality and this rings true for the latest addition to Team Sota. Sandwiched between the whiny get-in-the-fucking-robot Shinji and the bratty attitude of Asuka is Rui Kanoya, the teenage pilot of the Gigas Machina robot. Over the course of the episode, he goes from throwing tantrums to committing to defending the creator’s world at the drop of a hat which is jarring to say the least. Consistent from him would be nice but I’m not holding my breath since his description is locked in by his creator. At least the giant robot is on the good guys side for now seeing how it can just shrug off anti-tank missiles.

Considering the amount of collateral damage done and the impossible powers being flung around the city, I’m glad that the Japanese government finally decided to step in with a massive show of force by their special forces team, TOW missiles and Cobra gunships. Too often in anime, the government is far too passive or inept when crazy shit hits the fan like the Fate/stay Night franchise where the biggest response was two F-15 Strike Eagles against Caster’s summoning of Cthulhu. The conference doesn’t do much more than reaffirm previous concepts but it does provides interesting background tidbits like the initial shuffle between Yuuya and Blitz or Meteora doing her Homura (Madoka Magica) impression as she steals very expensive military-grade weapons from the JSDF. The highlight, of course, is Meteora sheepishly asking for exemptions and write-offs for her antics. Keep in mind that she still has a FN Minimi(or M249) machine gun in her procession as well as frag grenades and that will probably use them later on. The question is what role will the government play from now on since they aggressively inserted themselves into the plot. Will they give out orders to our heroes and subject them to regulations or will they attempt the classic plot twist of betraying our protagonists and wipe them out?

Almost the all the big players have been introduced and the ending scene is at the cusp of revealing the big mysterious connection between Sota, Military Uniform Princess, and the death-by-train-suicide girl. Hopefully, we can get to some action since it’s been lacking in the last few weeks and we’re already five episodes into this grand adventure of anime, games and light novels coming to life.

Another dialogue-heavy episode where Re:Creators takes its time in continuing to build up its foundation and finally have an inkling of stakes in the overarching story.

Meteora gets the short end of the creator stick with the news that her writer/producer is dead due to a fatal motorcycle accident but ends up opening up a different avenue into relationship of creation. Even though the two will never meet, the care and dedication poured into the making of Avalken of Reminisce is more than enough to cement their connection. I doubt that Selestia and Takashi sees each other in the same light but there is a chance for them grow into a parent/child relationship. That’s all fine and dandy but I just wished that Re:Creators didn’t frontload so much exposition in the first few episodes even though it was accomplished by slice-of-life montages. It would have probably been better if it spaced out its philosophic musings more instead of Meteora explaining everything in rapid succession.

On Gunpuku no Himegimi side, her own cast of characters are far more fractured in their overall goals and direction when compared to Souta’s growing harem. Either they are desperate and scared or mildly amused at the whole situation like the detective but they are certainly not following the military uniform princess’s desires to outright fundamentally changed the creator’s world. With Meteroa theory that the continual use of powers that is the means that world is to be destroyed, Re:Creators might go down the route where the real world must be sacrificed. Alicetelia’s disposition is certainly evidence of the kind of person that is willing to do anything to save her own fictional world. The way she aggressively forces her creator to rewrite her world is probably just the tip of her ideology of absolutes which makes her relationship with Mamika so interesting. Either we will see them soften up their ideals or have Mamika go down a dark path trailing behind Alicetelia.

This week wasn’t a particular exciting episode as it went further into how the mechanics between the Creator and Created might or might not work.

As speculated last week, Yuuya Mirokuji is a pretty fun character that takes his teleportation into the modern world in stride. His own fictional universe of the Tokyo underground isn’t all the different from the real world and it doesn’t come as a surprise that he sees this whole ordeal as a vacation with good food. It’s too bad that Alicetelia February entry into the show is only given a brief moment to extract Madoka Mamikia before Yuuya gets to steamroll her. Alicetelia’s description as a knight/lancer is within a fantasy setting is a little similar to Selesia’s own story but her noble upbringing is probably the difference that causes her to team up with the Military Uniform Princess.Hopefully, we’ll get to see more fights features multiple creations smashing each other’s faces at the same time.

The bulk of the episode is found in conducting the experiment on whether or not the creator could change their creation’s powers through their descriptions. Whereas most shows would have quickly covered this aspect in an scene or two, Re:Creators, with its extended runtime of twenty-two episodes, has the luxury of fleshing out its relationships and it does so with some humor. Finding out that Charon will eventually betrays Selesia and having her best friend die in the latest light novel is one way of achieving that while demonstrating the differences between the anime and light novel versions of herself. Perhaps the highlight of episode is when Selesia’s attempt at her new transformation that actually combine Sawano’s epic music for a comedic scene of hype and failure.

Resuming from the convenience store shopping and onwards on to the sightseeing trip into Tokyo, Re:Creators does a massive info dump and theory, courtesy of the gluttonous caster-type Meteora Österreich. I wasn’t all too invested in how these heroes came into Souta’s world but information splitting off and colliding with each other between all the various realities provides a reasonable explanation on the mechanics behind Gunpuku no Himegimi’s plans. The first meeting between the creator and creation was far more enticing than the first half as the ogling and awkward revelation devolves in an another explosive fight.

I really like Magical Slayer Mamaika style as she completely shift the modern color tone into a ultra cheery mode whenever she does her magical girl thing. Of course, the stereotypical mahou shoujo tropes of Mamaika doesn’t survive first contact with the real world as the petty and colorful attacks actually does harmful damage to everyone and everything. I sense a touch of Madoka Magica’s conflicting darkness as her idealistic world comes crashing down and she struggles to comes to terms with the dissonance between her fictional and creator’s world in front of Selestia. Mamaika can’t accept someone who refuses her ideals and the only way she know how solve such a problem is to blast them with the power of love, which cleanly resolves any issues in her world but ends up being destructive attack in the Souta’s world. I suspect the other new character ,Yuuya Mirokuji, who looks and acts like something out of Kekkai Sensen (Blood Battlefront Blockade), doesn’t have the same inner conflict as he seems like the kind of guy who enjoys a good fight.

Especially when it comes to putting stuck up magical girls in their pace.

Speaking about the spat between Selestia and Mamaika, the amount of collateral damage probably comes close to tens of millions of dollars done to the building and streets. Between epic highway chases and Meteora’s missile strikes, tons of people have seen these fights go down and the government could not just ignore this. If I don’t see them intervening, I’ll just chalk it up to anime being anime .

The opening credits are ok with its sliding panels of characters in their own original world and then alongside with their promotion material with each a short clip  showing off their power. It could have used more battle scenes with characters fighting against each other and I found it to be a bit dull overall. The ED is something you wouldn’t find out of place in the PIXIV website with its fun fanart-like slides of everyone having a good time shopping, forlicking on the beach and ironically posing with their cosplays imitations. Overall, Re:Creators continues with its strong performance with its ambitious setting despite its main character falling neatly into self-insert category. With nine other crazy characters to contend with, all descended from the imaginative minds of the Japanese entertainment industry, I’m perfectly fine with this as long as the conflicts between creators and creations keep rolling in.             

From the various PVs, I expected that Re:Creators would be a Fate/Stay Night + Fate/Zero rip-off done in in the style of A-1 Pictures and upon viewing the first episode, I was pleasantly surprised by the direction of which this new series seems to be going. With big names like Eoi Aoki (Fate/Zero), Rei Hiroe (Black Lagoon) and the fairly competent animation studio of TROYCA behind this production, there is a very good chance that this will be one of the top highlights of the Spring 2017 anime season alongside with smash hits like Attack on Titan and Boku no Hero Academia.

Unlike the underdog story against genocidal Martians of Aldnoah.Zero or the episodic murder-mystery of Sakurako’s Investigation, Re:Creators is light-hearted affair that inverts the tired trope of average person gets transported into strange world. By bringing fictional characters from sources like light novels, manga and anime into modern-day Tokyo, it creates a genre-mashing battle royale scenario that is not unsimilar to the Fate/Stay Night franchise. While Fate is steeped in conflicting ideologies and historical characters, Re:Creators is very much about the relationship between creators and their fictional creations as I’m sure they will go into depth and connect the dots about the ominous opening scene with the girl throwing herself into the oncoming train.

I’m really digging all the crazy combinations that could have come out someone’s sketchbook like Gunpuku no Himegimi rocking an oversized military uniform, spinning swords and a submachine gun while the caster type Meteora displays Gilgamesh’s Gates of Babylon-like power that comes packed with FIM-92 Stinger missiles. Out of the two heroes introduced so far seem, they both have adjusted fairly well to the strangeness that is the modern world and the humor that accompanies their exploits actually works like mistakenly activating the windshield wipers or going to the convenience store for snacks. I’m excited to being introduced to all the other fictional characters like Madoka-like magical girl, mecha pilot and detective and having them all duke it out in their quest to find their creators.

This is will be Studio TROYCA’s third anime production after animating Aldnaoh.Zero and Sakurako-san and for the most part, it looks pretty good with its fight scenes being exciting, fast and fluid. However, it does retain that generic A-1 Pictures character designs with Souta looking like an otaku version of Inaho (Aldnoah.Zero) and incorporating some cancerous 3D CGI that seems to plaguing the industry. Behind the visuals is the booming soundtrack that composed by the legendary Hiroyuki Sawano (of Kill la Kill, Attack on Titan and Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn fame) which sounds like a more upbeat version of Aldnoah.Zero’s soundtrack with its multiple insert songs and distinct orchestral/electronica/rock combo. I haven’t heard anything that would rival the likes of ətˈæk 0N tάɪtn (Attack on Titan), before my body is dry (Kill la Kill), or βios (Guilty Crown) but it’s still gets the viewers amped up and it will be worth a listen once the OST is released.

Re:Creators seems to be a celebration of the anime industry in all its various forms and pay homage to the those are into creative entertainment, whether as a business or hobby. With the announcement that this will be an twenty-two episodes series, there is plenty of time to flesh out the plot and all its reincarnated fictional characters. It does comes with the caveat that it could all be downhill from here when it comes to the story. Afterall, Aldnoah.Zero was given twenty-four episodes to tell its story and it still wasn’t enough time to cover all its bases nor have a satisfying conclusion. The opening episode is a good indication that the staff behind it is up to the task and ready to take us all on a wild ride.