Category: Re:Creators

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.

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.