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 main new development for me is finally getting some insight into Rui’s character. I hope Blitz and her Creator will also get colored in too. I notice Blitz’s creator seems to be present in a lot of scenes here but she remains pretty much a blank slate. She’s noticeably absent in the ending sequence. Is she strictly a background character or…? Blitz himself seems steadfast in his loyalty to Altair’s goals but is he aware of Altair’s true motives or is he in the dark like Alice? Is he a heroic or villainous character? Could Blitz’s Creator wind up going over to Blitz’s side or the other way around? I’m expecting surprises so I think anything is possible.
I don’t know if you would call Sota’s internal crisis resolved. It’s out in the open now but cuts off before we see everyone’s reactions. Are we to assume that everyone will react with acceptance like Meteora? I hope everyone will start thinking of ideas to getting Altair to back down or at least adjust her thinking. I’d like to hope Mamika’s final encounter with Altair had some effect on her mentality. Mamika definitely got under Altair’s skin but there’s no evidence that it had any effect.
I’m personally hoping that Mamika’s “final” wish gets fulfilled in the end. I feel a lot of sympathy for Altair and Setsuna, although there’s a lot of blanks to be filled yet. Love that online bullying is a theme explored here but I’m expecting more exploration into Setsuna and Altair’s development as well as the whole Creations-coming-to-life phenomenon. And I’m wondering if and when Mamika makes a return, at least some iteration of her. I know about the weird irl funeral thing but I’ll be really disappointed if it sticks. This is one of the really rare shows where every character, including villainous ones like Magane and Altair, have huge roles to play. At the very least, Mamika, as representative of the hugely venerated magical girl genre, would very likely have the largest fanbase. She’s the closest thing you have in this show to something like Pokemon, which kids of all ages would love. And she seems made for future development with Rui.
Even Magane, I have this deep hope that she might have some kind of redeeming quality, in spite of her wickedness. I’m expecting a lot of development between her and Yuya somehow. I wonder if having this famous seiyuu married couple on board on the same project is strictly coincidence.
Also, I’m really on the fence about what form the “Collapse” really means. I’m not sure if it’s a straightforward destruction of the world per se. In my mind, it’s more like an overlap or overwrite of all the various created worlds over this one, with all the associated chaos. IMHO, Altair has two goals. First, the destruction of the world that killed Setsuna. Second, the overlap of an alternate world where I suspect Setsuna lives. She’s trying to find the right conditions to make her version of the world stick.
Minor nitpick here..you might want to look up the definition of “weaboo”. It’s a derogatory label for a non-japanese who are so into the japanese anime otaku lifestyle that they start adopting those patterns in their own speech, writing and behavior, including japanese phrases from anime and stuff like that. It’s around the same level as being called a Narutard for gushing about Naruto, for example. I don’t think these two qualify, for the simple reason being that they’re both local and would be considered standard geeks in their own native habitat. I wonder if japanese geeks crazy about say The Avengers or Star Trek might be labeled “weaboos” too?