Re:CREATORS

Oh boy, Re:Creators. It’s a modern example of how a show that could have been a big hit of the year that ultimately translated into a messy series that self-destructed. It’s not just a flop but serves as a metaphor for how original series struggles to keep ideas effective. Don’t get me wrong. The series’ premise about story worlds clashing with sci-fi and fantasy elements sounds very intriguing. Yet somehow, it found many ways to ultimately make this look like an attempt at easy crash grab for the unexpected. At first glance, this series sounds really interesting. As an original anime, the creators seems to havedecided to take a risk and mix many genres together. Fantasy, sci-fi, magic, isekai, and even mecha are just a few among these. However, what really caught my attention for this series is the fictional worlds and their characters. Every world has its own unique story as well. Not to mention, these stories has its creators and the characters they created. While all this really sets up the show as a mesmerizing story, I can’t help but find this series to be a flop in the most disappointing ways possible. The first few episodes of the show wastes little time to introduce the main characters. That’s good news since the cast seems to feature a unique set with characters of all different types. Magical girl, mecha pilot, princely knight, supernatural NPCs, anti-heroes, you name it. The most normal character among them is a young man named Souta Mizushino. He is inspired to become a light novel author but somehow manages to get caught into fierce fight one day. Souta gets involved in the conflict with the clash of fictional worlds, creators, and the characters. From the start, I can honestly say that the show actually has a mystique that kept me interested. Many questions pop up and it makes me wonder how this anime plans to resolve them. The characters also brings the attention of their purpose and why they are there in the first place. Unfortunately, I can’t really say these characters are creatively presented. For instance, there’s Selestia Upitiria, the main protagonist of ‘Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier’ (light novel adaptation of the same name). She stands out more as generic sword fighter with skills to operate a mecha. We don’t find out much about her until later in the show but from the surface, she’s saturated with generic characteristics. Then, there’s Meteora, an intelligent NPC with a dry sense of humor. I honestly can’t remember the last time I ever laughed at her character just because of how diehard this show attempts to make her entertaining. On the other hand, the show has other characters such as anti-hero Yuuya, the noble knight Alicetaria, mecha pilot Rui Kanoya, magical girl Mamika, and former bounty hunter Blitz Talker. These characters all have their own stories although among them, Blitz is probably the only one that I found truly interesting. That’s because the motives of these characters really feel flat and uninspiring. I mean, a noble knight trying to get revenge for a fallen friend. I’m sure you’ve heard that somewhere before. Still, there are two characters that kept me interested throughout the show. Those are Magane Chikujouin and the Military Uniform Princess. Why do these two intrigues me the most? It’s because both of them make their own luck and destiny. Magane is a highly unpredictable character with a devious personality. She is very sarcastic with a dangerous ability. What sets her apart is that she is on her own side throughout the show and seems to play along the story like a game. Meanwhile, the Military Uniform Princess is by no shadow of a doubt the most mysterious character in the show. Her motives from the start is very unclear and most of her dialogues spoken in this show seems to have some sort of hidden message. She also seems to have some sort of connection with Souta but that remains a mystery throughout a decent amount of this show. So perhaps in many ways, these two characters create spectacles as viewers try to anticipate their role from the story. At its core, the creators and created play the main role although I can’t really say that I’m impressed by the character relationships. They just seem all over the place and almost none of them really feel special. The show attempts to make us feel something for the characters whether it’s their personalities or motives. Yet as I watched more and more of this show, I can’t really say that any of them are particularly memorable. At times, I thought this show was trying to make us sympathize with the characters. However, I really felt nothing for the characters. Even Selestia, one of the main female protagonists didn’t stand out as the show didn’t develop her enough as a character. She just seems to be there to play her role as a female fighter. The main male protagonist, Souta is far from interesting from any angle. The only time he ever drew my attention was during his interactions with Magane and it’s when she’s the one doing the talking. On the other hand, the story shows some promise as it ties together the characters and their roles. The background story of Souta is perhaps one of the more interesting and also most important part of this series. As a very talky show with heavy exposition, each episode does build more and more of the story together to avoid loose ends. When you mix so many genres together all at the same time, it can be quite difficult to tie everything together. Yet, somehow this show does manage to achieve such a feat when its storytelling manages to be convincing despite being predictable. That’s of course speaking from the first half of the show. From the latter half, I can’t really say the story is impressive. It bobbles down to exploring events from previous relationships and how that influences character motivations in the present. Certain new characters introduced in the latter half really feel out of place like as if they are just there to make the story flow more. However, it really felt unnecessary and just make the series longer than it should’ve been. You’re probably thinking: “Oh but you can enjoy this show if you don’t take everything so seriously and accept the story more openly!” That would be the case if the comedy of the show didn’t come out as so dry. The jokes in this show often feel forced and mixed with a dry sense of humor. Meteora is probably the guiltiest of this as her character personality demonstrates this throughout the show. There are also occasional adult humor-like jokes thrown in at random and otaku references that just comes out as flat. On the other hand, the action and choreography is well made. When making original anime, Troyca seems to pour a decent amount of effort to make their work look like an action flick. Well, I guess I’ll admit it. Re:Creators’ animation quality as a whole looks solid on multiple fronts. From the battle choreography to character designs, everything seems to fall in place in order. The characters from the fictional worlds look creatively unique that suits with their role. Even the mecha designs has its dynamic features that avoids CGI pitfalls. The most innovative design that had my eyes glued to the screen is no doubt the Military Uniform Princess. I’ve rarely seen a character with such a look and that really took my attention. Unfortunately, the other fictional worlds didn’t get too much spotlight as we only see glimpse of them. The majority of the show takes place on Earth and we all know how dull that is. Nonetheless, Re:Creators succeeds at crafting its visual elements through its character designs, action sequences, and world fiction. Unless you’ve been living under a rock in recent years, then it’s obvious that the soundtrack of the show is created by the modern talent of Sawano Hiroyuki. The OST is stellar with its dramatic choreography and precisely timed. The OP & ED theme songs are very catchy with hidden messages. Character voice mannerisms are also memorable in particular with Military Uniform Princess, Magane, and Meteora. In the end, Re:Creators is a mediocre a show that tried far too hard to make itself look cool. By mixing a variety of genres, I expected a show to capitalize on them. Instead, what I got is a show that relied far too much on its characters to do the storytelling. And that ended up being a risk taken with little reward. In many ways, this show can be recommendable to people if you’re looking for some fun action and typical fictional story. Just be aware that it’s also very talky with exposition. The comedy is very mixed depending on perspective. For me, Re:Creators wore itself out almost like a meme.

I believe I mentioned this before, but I find it consistently harder to write in praise of an anime than to bash it, to the point that the only manner in which I could be satisfied on doing so, would be to break down each episode while highlighting why I believe certain scenes or bits of dialogue are so great and important to the big picture. As you can imagine, the highest I value something, the harder it feels to explain, so let it be known right from the start: I do see Re:Creators in VERY high regard! Story and Characters To begin to understand why theshow works so well, the first good hint would be the original writer, Rei Hiroe, who wrote the story that led to the anime. For those unfortunate enough to not know who Hiroe is, he’s the author of the Black Lagoon manga and the responsible for the dynamic between Rock and Revy, two of the finest characters crafted in the media. In Black Lagoon, he demonstrated his strength at crafting witty and meaningful character studies, while in Re:C he displays, with some aid from Ei Aoki (director of Fate/Zero), his efficiency at developing cohesive, effective and strong plot. Some comparisons I’ve seen be made about the nature of Re:C in regards to other anime vary from a knock-off of Fate/Zero’s concept, for those who see the combination of colorful fighters of multiple origins as somehow related to F/Z and nothing else, to a shallow piece of propaganda fellating the Japanese government and military, in the same fashion as GATE, for people who are too obtuse to notice the obvious differences and like to make asinine comparisons (you know who you are!). The closest I’ve seen to actually hit the mark was to Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, since both works are commentaries on the media they’re a part of. This comparison doesn’t adequately prepare you to get into Re:C, but it is a better assessment of the nature of the show. While Haruhi is purely a dissection (or you might even say a “deconstruction”, if you can believe it) of the tropes that are to this day prevalent in anime, made brilliant by twisting the role of the protagonist and titular character, along with the ones that personify those tropes, Re:C is a commentary on our relationship with fiction, both from the perspective of the creators as well as the audience, and it's made brilliant by making what would be natural parts of that relation into integral, tangible elements of the plot. I’ll discuss the perspective a bit more when we get to the characters, but for now let’s talk about the strength of the narrative Besides characters, which I consider to be the most important thing in a story, something I also find of great importance when analyzing is how well structured is the narrative. That takes into consideration things like pacing, as in the rate in which the story progresses or new information is introduced, the role different characters play and how meaningful they are on that role and, specially, when things happen for a reason. Re:Creators shines in that regard, among other reasons, because it wastes almost no time. Every episode in this show is there for a reason (yes, even the hot-spring episode) and nearly EVERY scene has something to help bring out new information, develop the numerous figures of the cast or reinforce what is already known, character and narrative-wise, through a new method or situation. Want an example? The events of episodes 9 and 10, for once, might seem to have no effect in the rest of the plot, at first glance, but looking closely you might notice that they made for the perfect set-up for the main characters to confirm a plot point that would prove itself vital for their future plans, as well as kick into motion Aliceteria’s character-arc. Take this episode out of the equation and you’ll have that plan turn into a complete ass-pull and have Aliceteria’s change of heart be completely unwarranted. If you are reading this review, I’d assume you already know the premise of Re:C, so I’ll not waste much time explaining it. So, a feeble mind would predict the main villains of a story with such premise to be those who were already villains in their original stories, but this is one of the instances where this anime subverts expectations in the best way: the real villain of the story is a character that originally had no purpose, while the one who was originally a villain turns into a wild card. The series tackles motivations and work ethics of the different artists, ranging from those who do that simply to make a living to those who see on the act of crafting a story as their way of expressing themselves in the way that is the most fulfilling. That said, let’s talk about the characters, starting with the main antagonist Altair, or the Princess in Military Uniform, was an original character, created based on one of a preexisting fictional game called Eternal Wars Megalosphere and is noted from the beginning to be connected to Souta, one of the main characters, and Setsuna, a former friend of Souta who, and I don’t think I’m spoiling much about the first minute of the show, committed suicide a few months earlier. Do you want another example of how finelly crafted is the structure in this anime? Since not much is shown from Setsuna’s perspective prior to her suicide, some viewers might get frustrated at first, feeling that they missed on something important, but that turns out to be a necessary decision, given what we see from her on episode 21, in which her avatar plays a decisive role in the conclusion. This decision is a great factor into making the experience of this episode as meaningful and effective as it is, besides the excellent writing, of course. Altair was a character created without a set purpose, carrying only the emotions of her creator, to whom she feels a strong connection with. Therefore, she takes upon herself the task of avenging her creator, who she feels was wronged by the world. That lack of a reason to exist, coupled with the angst carried by the one she held the dearest led her to see the real world as a cruel story, and what better way to enact her revenge than by causing the world to implode on itself? Mizushino Souta, a highschool-age student, is part of the main cast, but regards himself and is treated by the narrative more as a narrator-type figure. He’s an aspiring illustrator who’s a bit shy about his art and holds a guilt complex in regards to Setsuna’s death, who he believes to have betrayed. He considers himself partially culpable for her suicide, for not coming to her aid when it was needed, and that feeling of guilt is what motivates him to take action during the second half of the story. The conclusion to his is arc is not one of overcoming the guilt, but of learning to shoulder the pain of his mistake and making something positive out of it, through his creations. Episode 21 (seriously, folks, it’s a very important episode) is where that is displayed at full force and he ultimately comes to peace with Setsuna. Souta also provides insight about the perspective of people who enjoy and avidly consume fiction, like on his argument with Aliceteria, where he tells her how characters like her are loved because they motivate people with an ideal, a model of how to act, to be honest and never let themselves be brought down by hardship. He also comments later how the passion for anime, manga and other media gives the viewer the opportunity to see the world through someone else’s perspective Starting the hoster of creations with the heroes, we have Selesia, a character from the light novel and anime series Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier, an Escaflowne looking, magitech inspired Mecha that I like imagining to be set in phantasy 1920s. In her world, she was the partner of the main male lead, Charon, fighting against the forces of the Avalon Brigade, which gave her a resolute, quick to action personality, but still calm when among friends. In an interaction with Souta, she advises him to take his time and not try to rush his artistic development, because that way he would be able to grow appropriately along with his work. That interaction reflects the experience she had fighting in her universe, experience that also makes for amusing banter between her and her creator, Takashi Matsubara. Initially, she complains to him about why he didn’t make her stronger, not understanding his perspective as the writer. Their relation eventually becomes mildly like father and daughter, and Matsubara comes to be protective of her, cherishing her as his creation. He comments, during a conversation, how writing is his way of telling the world that he has been there, of leaving a mark on other people. He comes off as an experienced writer, who understands what he can and cannot do in order to keep the audience invested on his work. Next in the roster is Meteora, also known as Best Girl, originally a NPC from the RPG game AVALKEN of Reminisce, where she takes the role of a powerful mage and the responsible for the library at the End of the World, right before the final boss. This is a very important detail about her, because it influences the way Meteora relates to the real world and other creations, as well as fiction. She states early on that her world is deeply detailed and fleshed out, having even fiction of its own, therefore she has better appreciation and understanding than other creations have about art, its mechanics and the influence it has over people. Interestingly, in one of the early episodes, she and Selesia contemplate a graffiti, and while Selesia has an amazed look on her face, Meteora displays a colder, more analytical expression, denoting the difference in impact for both of them. Lacking social interaction but being remarkably intelligent, she doesn’t have an easy time expressing her emotions properly, which she tries to mitigate by pulling off horrible puns. We see more of that restrained playful soul in episode 13, the greatest recap episode in the history of anime. A nice, detail about her character is how initially her speech is notoriously long-winded, but over time it’s possible to notice it becoming less prolix and more personable. Her knowledge of fiction allows her to read effectively into other characters and she quickly learns to understand what goes through the heart and mind of people from the real world, making her the one to give Souta the emotional support he needs to come clean about his mistakes and deal with the guilt that torments him. She is definitely the one the boy feels the most confortable to talk to, and their friendly chemistry persists throughout the series. Hell, I ship them! Since she becomes the brain of the group, fact amusingly displayed when nobody knows what to do and quickly turn to look at her, Meteora also develops a professional friendship with Kikuchihara, the government official responsible for dealing with the situation of the fictional characters. Both recognize and grow to respect each other as the one from both groups who knows best how to deal with the situation Mirokuji Yuuya is every anti-hero/rival voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto: impetuous, self-reliant, prideful, hedonistic and occasionally clever. Funny enough, his rival from his original story, Sho, is himself voiced by Okamoto, which might be the most amazingly subtle reference ever. Both come from Yatoji Ryou’s manga Lockout Ward Underground: Dark Night, with Yuuya being laid-back and uninterested in doing what others tell him, hanging out with the heroes simply for the fun of fighting the villains, while Sho is obsessed with killing Yuuya, whom he believes to be his sister and best friend’s killer. Perhaps mirroring Yuuya’s personality, Yatoji is arrogant and a bit difficult to deal with, but softens up fast due to their dire situation. He and Matsubara worked together in the past and don’t go very well with each other, but it’s hinted that Matsubara appreciates Yatoji’s work and still worries about him being able to continue, as shown when Yuuya decides to beat up his own creator. By now we had the light novel female warrior lead, the RPG kuudere, the adolescent power phantasy and fujoshi bait, it’s time for our Gundam boy. Yes, Kanoya is the “Gundam” representative; he went looking for some young poon-tang on his first week in the real world, so he cannot possibly be the Shinji look-alike. His author, Nakanogane-san, wrote him to be someone who gets easily defensive, but also quite heated-up in battle, but as soon as he comes to the real world, the kid decides he doesn’t want to fight anymore. What? Did you expect the Gundam kid to not have his “get in the robot” moment? Silly you! Kanoya’s small but charming character arc involves him realizing that the obligations he shoulders in his original world are not arbitrary, but something that only he as the protagonist can fulfill, which gives the kid newfound sense of responsibility. His conversation with Souta in episode 11, while superficially seeming like just a fine motivational moment, also highlights an important part of creating effective stories: that characters need to have a purpose to guide their development and actions, creating a sound narrative. Nakanogane-san doesn’t have trouble finding his place, though. The creators here don’t just sit around while their characters fight to save the world: they take initiative on putting together the pieces of Altair’s past and goals to find the best course of action. Lastly, there’s Hikayu, the visual novel heroin created by Nishio Ohnishi (har har!), who’s a pervert. A good-hearted one, don’t be too harsh on the guy, he means well. Since her game of origin was primarily an eroge, Hykayu is disheartened to learn how exposed she’s to the world, which makes for some of the best comedic moments on the show, like when she does her badass entry during the heat of the combat, shouts her passionate entry lines, while feverishly blushing in shame of her outfit. Surprisingly, or maybe not, her game is not exclusively made of fap material and contains emotional moments that she carries over to her experience in the real world. Could this be a tangential commentary about the tastes of the stereotypically perverted otaku, who can accept a story having blatant smut as well as heartstring-pulling narrative? Perhaps a jab at how we feel the need to justify liking questionable material with the argument that it has a serious and emotionally gripping story? Who knows, but it does add more substance and weight to the notion that the writers and staff do know the ins, outs and running trends of the media they are representing in the anime, instead of simply crafting half-assed references. Chikujouin Magane (creator not important) is the one creation to have been a villain in her story, but like Yuuya, prefers to act by herself and have fun with people’s suffering. She takes quite the liking or the real world and for Souta’s emotional struggle, taking him and the creations as her main source of enjoyment for the first half of the show. She doesn’t seem to like Meteora very much, though, since the girl doesn’t fall easily for Magane’s mind tricks. On Altair’s side, the first ones to appear are Aliceteria, the idealistic knight, and Mamika, the unlucky Magical Girl. Mamika comes from a show for kids, where the morality is black & white, villains are recognizable at first glance, good people who don’t immediately side with the heroin just need to be beaten into agreement and violence is bloodless, so for her it’s a shock to learn that in this new reality her powers might inflict serious harm on people. Kind-hearted and naïve, she doesn’t so much change her nature as the series goes on, but instead learns about the complexities of the new world and takes different methods to bring end to conflict. Aliceteria, in the other hand, comes from an equally black & white reality, but one severely more violent, bloody and harsh than that of Mamika. Aliceteria is stubbornly idealistic, to a point where the anime makes it clear she fooled herself into believing the real world is really a home of sadistic, cynical gods, who created her reality just to amuse themselves with the suffering of the people in it, so it’s her duty to force her god, Takarada-san, to fix her world and free it from evil. Takarada himself looks like a young, emergent author who still hasn’t mastered the creation of layered and complex characters, relying on the archetypical noble hero to focus his work on. It’s partially through Souta’s intervention and passionate speech about why figures like Aliceteria are beloved on his world that she begins to realize how disconnected she is from the true motivations of her fans. Mamika and Aliceteria form a strong bond in their short time together, despite the difference in mentality. For once, when going to recruit a new creation, Mamika hopes it’s a good person, while Alice hopes it’s someone trustworthy and strong (to their dismay it’s neither), and it’s the similarity in values, despite the difference in priority, coupled with the courage and backbone that warms the knight to the young magical girl. These two characters, among others, help put into perspective one of the brilliant ideas applied on Re:Creators: the anime purposefully built one-dimensional characters into the narrative because in context they come from stories that aren’t as well fleshed out or detailed. Selesia and Meteora, were created by authors who intricately crafted their personalities, worldviews or universe, so when they come to the real world they act more human, but also can better understand the morality of their creators, while Mamika and Alice were shallow characters, created to be good and righteous, but lacking understanding of complex notions of right and wrong, so they become easy prey for a villain who can spout ideas that sound good and presents easy solutions to their problem. That shallowness is not the final state for them either, but a jumping point from where they develop into layered and intelligent individuals capable of understanding the new reality and taking the best decisions based on their own morals. Lastly, because going further would be spoiler, there’s Blitz Talker, the hard-boiled supporting character from the manga Code-Babylon, written and drawn by Suruga Shunma. Blitz clearly knows of Altair’s true intentions from the beginning, but stays with her because of his desire to protect her, whom he sees as weaker than she lets transpire. Suruga is an intriguing character because she keeps a low profile most of the time, not showing much of her personality and mindset. Most of the time she comes off as an aloof workaholic, constantly drawing, barely taking her eyes off the paper, only to look woefully uninterested when she did, but in her confrontation with her Blitz, she delivers plenty of substance. She makes for a great parallel to Setsuna. The girl had a sudden boost in notoriety, but didn’t have the time to grow up and learn to deal with the hate that comes with the spotlight and that negativity was too much for her young mind to deal with. Suruga, on the other hand, had to struggle with competition and criticism, suffered with the negativity, finally reaching enough success to be able to sustain herself with her art. Many viewers might think her outlook on fiction or her creative process is cynical, but it’s better to describe it as pragmatic and she shows to genuinely love and take pride on her work. On episode 03 the anime introduces the concept around which the entire plot revolves: audience acceptance. They first note that the characters to appear in the real world tend to be those who had the largest impact among the public, so after Matsubara fails to alter the description of Selesia, it becomes obvious that the creators can’t simply change their characters as they go along. They soon began to theorize that what can really affect their status is if they manage to get enough of the general public to empathize with the changes made to them, idea that is solidly proven in the events of episode 10. It’s based on that concept that the heroes elaborate their plan to defeat Altair, by crafting a story that would be able to gather acceptance from the public to the point where they are able to bait and trap Altair on the Bird Cage, a scenario located within the real and fictional words, where they’d be able to defeat her for good, with the approval of the public. Fun fact: Bird Cage is a reference to Altair’s name coming from the Arab word for bird. Looking at the contextual level it’s not hard to see that the idea of acceptance is a method of commenting on the common fictional elements that have the most success with the public on our own universe, as well as the difficulties faced by writers of popular works, who need to keep constantly in mind what the audience wants from them. Fiction is manipulation by nature, it’s designed to engage the audience in an illusion where the artist pulls the necessary strings to make us feel or think a certain way in relation to what happens to the characters. Bad fiction happens when the illusion is not convincing enough or when the trick is so poorly conveyed that we can see the strings in the background, and no character in Re:C exposes that better than Altair herself in the last few episodes. Not only are her powers the ability to manipulate the fabric of fiction (reason why she can’t simply nuke the world into oblivion), but her speech is constantly centered on the idea of what exactly pleases the audience and gets their acceptance. Her originally neutral condition also contributes to that concept: Altair is a character without cannon beyond the original powers given to her by her creator, so there’s little restraint for other artists to invent new abilities for her, as those new powers can just as easily get approval from the wider audience, contributing to her continuous growth in power and number of tricks up her sleeve. Part of me wonders if this is not a paradoxical trick the writer crafts with the audience. As the viewer, we are conditioned to expect the main villain to not go down until the very last moment, and only against a worthy hero that can pull off the strongest emotional reaction from the audience, therefore, the writers are fooling us into expecting Altair to pull off something new to aid her in battle, knowing that the nature of her powers allows for that. Presentation Across the multitude of designs presented the anime displays excellence in keeping verisimilitude and coherence. In fact, that might be the most valuable quality of the work’s presentation, beyond the technical aspects, which are not shabby by any means: the directing is excellent, packed with clever transitions and enthralling shot composition (special shout out to that one camera movement in episode 06 that tells us with no effort that Magane just gets it). Every element of character design was conceived in a way that the experienced anime fan could safely note what they make reference to: Selesia and Charon dress in the angular and colorful style that has become a trend among light novel characters, clearly made to please cosplayers instead of having practical combat utility; Meteora sports the distinguishable attire of an RPG mage from works like the Tales franchise, cuz the design is clearly too confortable to be Final Fantasy; Kanoya uses the slick, futuristic uniform of robot pilots across the Mecha genre. All of this is important because it says something about the characters, not only from what kind of story they come from, but also their personalities. Even when in civilian outfits, the choice of clothing tells something about them: Meteora dresses with cute and childlike attire, because she’s a petit woman and is tired of constantly using a thick uniform, while Selesia’s adorably modest choices help flesh out her personality as reserved, possibly chaste. The same care extends to all the fictional websites, products that appear on the show as well as the different magic symbols used by the characters. The designers commented in interviews how there was an entire creative process behind the elaboration of the multiple logos, focused on creating an internally consistent scenario. There’s no “Gaagle” search engine or “PZP” console in this story, all the fictional products, social medias or websites presented here were designed to look and sound believable to the extent that one could easily think that Mauchly, Piclive or Songbird are a real thing, or that SONY might actually create a console called Play Portal, which I imagine would be a portable with meager first and third-party support. The sound department continues the effort in verisimilitude by featuring performances consistent with the universe and genre each character comes from. I’ve already mentioned Nobuhiko Okamoto previously, brilliantly cast as Sho, not just because of the irony but also because he’s can skillfully express Sho’s devoted and naïve mannerisms. Other clever choices are Suzumura Kenichi as Yuuya, fitting since this voice actor has experience with characters who speak in mischievous tone, and Minase Inoue, as Meteora, who previously worked as Rem in Re:Zero and is capable of pulling off a character who speaks stoically without falling into blandness. Now, voice actors are a fun subject and all, but that’s not even the most exciting aspect of how Re:Creators sounds. That would be Sawano Hiroyuki’s amazing soundtrack, tailor made for this anime. Permeated with intense electronic beat and bombastic energy, these songs are never misplaced; the same track can mark the intensity of action sequences but also play to great effect in comedic beats, adding more points to the directorial work. Just look at Selesia trying her new power or Hikayu doing her badass entry and you’ll know what I mean. The lyrics, off course, in songs like Here I Am (Mamika’s theme), God of ink, Layers, Brave the Ocean and World Etude are perfect mirrors for the characters inner thoughts and their goals. Personal Ramblings I first thought about talking about this in the story breakdown, but I decided to leave it for this section, as it is the main reason Meteora became my favorite character in the show and why I began to see this anime with higher appreciation. In episode 04, after learning about the passing of her creator, Meteora decides to play her game on its entirety. Later, she confesses her main grievance from when she came to the real world and talked about her experience with her own game: it was fun, and that’s all that matters, because all she needed was to known if her creator loved her world the same way she did. This moment was particularly relatable to me because it reminds me of a book I’ve read long ago, The Hour of the Star, where the narrator talks about the protagonist of his story, and about how he loved her. Later is that I came to realize that such love was not a traditional sentiment, but the love of the artist for his creation. Meteora’s confession displays the inverse route, from creation to the artist, but to me it emulates the sentiment of the audience, the feeling of experiencing a work that had love put into it, where the people involved were truly invested in created something that would resonate with the player, the reader or the viewer. Re:Creators is an anime I never knew I wanted, but now that I have it I wonder if there’ll ever be something else like it. The way multiple aspects of artistic creation are talked about and analyzed, the portrayal of the audience and Souta’s mindset as a passionate consumer were all relatable and the show frequently would surprise me by doing something I already expected, but in a way that I did not imagine. Rei Hiroe’s writing tends to do that. I sure hope there’s more originated from it, off course. The many works mentioned in the story might as well spawn new franchises in the future, now that they had the perfect introduction. I sure would love to see what they could make out of Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier, since those who saw Re:C already know of some spoilers for it, or how they could conceive Mamika’s anime; perhaps as something initially childish-looking that progressively gets more serious and multifaceted. I know Mecha is in life-support nowadays, but it would be nice to see Infinite Divine Machine Mono Magia get its own anime too. The possibilities are not endless, but they sure are plentiful and can be fruitful as long as those works continue to have comparable quality of writing, directing and care put into them as much as it was put in Re:Creators.

Re: Creators is an awful but in the same time a unique series in a sense that it directly tells the viewers the reasons for its existence: the fact that hundreds of thousands of people can spend their time on and, most importantly, breathlessly enjoy and pay money for an ugly badly-written constantly fourth-wall breaking horribly directed nobody-on-the-staff-list-ever-cared pissing-on-the-other-shows pack of completely unrelated action scenes. When making an anime from some source material (manga/light novel), writers usually have trouble packing all the events in a video format. This is one of the reasons why so much shows are filled with exposition, scenes of characters thinking andother "better off reading it" elements. But for these types of shows, this is mostly forgivable. However, if an anime-original content is also a bunch of "characters talking and narrating, doing essentially nothing for a few episodes straight" it should probably be noted that writers never even cared. The calamity of nothingness is especially noticeable in the beginning of the second part of the show; these episodes are just characters talking around without any emotion. But even such a show can be, at some level, enjoyable. Not the case with this one. The moment you realize the true depth of never-even-cared storywriting is somewhere at the end of the series. The interactions happening among the characters become to be much like this: "Your plan failed! Ahahaha!" or "I'll definitely bring you down!" or "You've been deceived. I am the good guy" - "Oh, ok". And the problem is not the content of the phrases. The problem is that the characters' interactions are narrowed down to this. And, as a result, the composition of the show essentially becomes an emotionless logbook of who did what. To be fair, the first half of the show looks a bit decent. Disregarding the fact that the first half of the second episode is already a pile of shameless exposition the things happening generally raise a certain level of emotion and tend to follow some logic. That is probably the reason why a certain someone declared this to be a "classic anime in the making". And I should probably mention that a lot of people like the music. I generally enjoyed it. However, in my opinion it is really generic to the point where I can swear I've heard ED 2 (especially 0:09-0:22) somewhere before. But I'm no expert in music so I'll leave it at that. It should be noted the show is not redeemed by these few good things I've just mentioned. To add to the point, this show also contains the usual trope that half of bad stuff wouldn't have happened if the characters just kept doing something very simple. Which they obviously don't do cause logic means no plot. Overall, Re: Creators is an overhyped quick cash grab made by people who never cared.

*Beware of massive spoilers* Creativity is something to be cherished, at least when it's not used for malicious intent. Creativity is part of the soul of all good stories, and even the most generic, lifeless trite has at least something creative to call its own, for better or worse. Creators of fiction create their own worlds, characters, situations, etc., and exploring what would happen when their creations transcend fiction and leap into the realm of reality is, well, one of the most creative premises ever conceived in fiction, inevitable puns aside. However, premise draws is to a show, but execution is what keeps us away orcoming back, happy, disappointed, excited, or enraged. Luckily, this show actually knows what it's talking about, giving a real reason to stay invested every time it slows down. It's a fascinating show, to say the least, and I love it, blunders and all, thanks to its wonderful intrigue, character interactions, fights, and designs. Is this the best show of the year, certainly not, but it's damn good. It's going to be rather hard to make my review as meticulous as this show is, given that this review is probably the hardest I’ll ever make, but I’m willing to try, thanks to the power of taking notes for this wonderful show. So as I reach my proverbial hand, I ask you two things: will you join me on this magical journey, and do you have any questions? Hopefully, you said yes to both of these, but I will certainly never know. Regardless, provided that your question is one that this review can answer, let’s find out, shall we? This series glorifies the audience, treating them as actual gods. After all, our reception of a show, on the whole, is what determines its success, and so do our wallets, especially our wallets. We determine a show’s success by watching it and decides to spend money on it. This series knows that so it assumes that we tend to only do that for quality shows. Hence, it makes sure that each of the fictional stories these characters are pulled from are from series that many people in-universe find to be of good quality. It expects that we only watch the good stuff or at least support what we consider good. This isn't entirely true for real life audiences, but it's nice to see a show treat us so kindly as a whole. It also pays special attention to detail with audiences. It doesn't just show perfectly accepting and cheering audiences like all other series that have fictional audiences do, it even shows some that are very perceptive, saying stuff like “that's our writer, classic him” or even “man, haha, this is so stupid” which many of us are definitely like, especially myself. The series also downplays the power of creators. We’d like to think that they can always have full control over their stories and change them up on a whim, and thus assign them all the credit or blame. That simply isn't true, and the show knows this. It shows they you can't just revise a product and expect that to fly with the audiences, you need to add something that will work instead of changing things to something already established. Sometimes there are many writers that have to come to some kind of agreement or end up dealing with what other writers wrote down before them. I know this show didn't the to show the executive meddling side of things but that happens too. Characters try to get their creators to make massive changes and that doesn't work for the reasons mentioned above. I love how there are certain story actions that only certain characters end up doing. Of course, Selesia ends up having a minute long dialogue about why she’s doing what she’s doing in her big combat scene in episode 19, she’s a character of a Light Novel adaptation. Of course, Rui with his mech has to be the one to kill someone he cares about who is in another mech. Have you seen Gundam? Of course, he gets a plastic model kit for his robot. Again, Gundam. There here is some great foreshadowing here at play too. We get great foreshadowing as to why Sota refuses to tell anyone about Altair’s creator when they need to know and he already knows, he feels horrible about what happened to her creator, Setsuna, since he wasn't there for her when she needed some semblance of emotional support. Setsuna being a character in episode 20 for the show they were doing to take down Altair? Sota pinned the idea a few episodes back and they thought it would be a crazy and controversial move (turns out it was but they made a cover story). Charon being an antagonist? Marie flat out told this to Selesia back in episode 3, unaware that this was the anime adaptation version and not the original novel version, where she was betrayed. The pacing in this anime is really slow, like, Ergo Proxy levels of slow, but that's ok. The dialogue in this show is almost always necessary because it's slowly but surely feeding us more important information about the world or exploring the themes via the characters interacting with each other and their stories in some way. Almost never is a scene remotely wasted, and in fact, they probably should've added a few scenes about the spinoffs leading into the big gargle so that some of the reveals don't come off as asspulls because of them needing to do something and saying “well, the characters told each other about this and you knew these were a thing so it's ok”. Maybe part of the spa scene in episode 16 could've been taken out for that but it's more than just the plot dragging its feet like what some may claim. Of course, I can't spoil the series without talking about how it all ends. Think back the whole Setsuna episode 20 deal. This was the perfect way to beat Altair, as well as a very creative one. Altair had always felt resentment over how Setsuna’s fate went thanks to the ridicule she received upon the creation of Altair. Using this to their advantage was a brilliant move by Sota. Of course, most OP end villains are defeated through the hero becoming insanely strong and then killing them or otherwise sealing them up completely, but here, she's convinced and consoled dialogue, dialogue between her and the one she cared about, as their last resort, and none of it came off as anti-climactic. After all, this was the end of Altair’s character arc, resentful of the world for what it did to Setsuna and now finally meeting her and then finally relenting in everything. With the remaining creation characters sans Magane and the characters that died (or basically allowed themselves to reside at the end of the story at the end of episode 21 meant to contain Altair), we see everyone give their final goodbyes and move forward. Barring Meteora (and the ones above), the rest of the creations say goodbye to their creators and head back to their worlds with the kind of banter you'd expect from them and their relationships with their writers, and everyone heads off to their old lives again, with new projects and anime adaptations in the works. Thus, we come back to Sota and Meteora, who submit their scripts and we see the title one last time, with every creation sans Altair just hanging out in a drawing. We now see the anime adaptation of the show Selesia was in end, in a way that seems like she’s giving encouragement to the audience, so by extension, Sota Nearly brought a tear to my eye with how great that ending was. Of course, this narrative isn't perfect. Even excluding some problems mentioned earlier, the series can really beat us over the head with the whole “creator” and “audience acceptance” bit and it can feel borderline pretentious towards the end at times. There are holes regarding Sota’s seemingly absent mom and the idea that he goes to school but we never see him go to school. We have no idea how Altair managed to become sentient let alone get into the real world, and despite teasing us the connection between Altair and Sota, they never interact even once, which is honestly mind-boggling. The dialogue in episode 11 in particular can get intrigue given that no one makes a move in that episode’s fight until after 20 seconds of someone talking. There are also a few minor missed opportunities as well but honestly the surprisingly rickety narrative is still pretty rich. A large chunk of what made this show great comes down to two things: character dynamics, and the “creations” themselves. They, along with certain things I’ll get to in a bit, make this cast so great, despite the fact that they probably shouldn’t be. I’ll tackle some of the creators first. Sota is...interesting. A lot of people complained that he was weak and unable to do much other than support until the end, but that's kinda the point. He’s an ordinary kid surrounded by ordinary yet fully grown adults and epic badasses with superpowers. I doubt you can say that he can get much done without it coming off as forced and stupid. Sure, a ton of things revolve around him in some way or another, but he only gets to do something epic in the end, that writing Setsuna into the story to be the one thing that stops Altair, all for the purpose of telling her something he wishes he could've told her while she was still alive. After all, he wasn't exactly a great guy before, finding some glee in her ridicule and not being there when she needed someone the most, all out of jealousy. It's this character arc that makes him so appealing, seeing him try to deal with what he had done, even if it meant hindering the group until someone broke the truth out of him, forcing him to accept it and bite the bullet for his team. Besides, while you can consider him the main character, don't. In episode 1, he actively states that above all else, he’s just the guy who gets to bring us into this world where he is one of many characters whose perspectives are largely shown. Regardless, he’s still a great character for what he is. The other creators don't get as of an ability to be memorable. I actively forget the names of most of them, though I do still like some of them, especially Suruga and to a lesser extent Matsubara, whose sort of snarky yet eventually caring father/daughter-esque relationship became really nice to see. I like seeing what happens to a creator emotionally when he sees his creation die, in that he feels like a family member of his died. The only creator I really can't stand is Nishio. He is the typical ultra perv character and to see him as a creator was disconcerting. Thankfully he gets the least actual plot significance because everything about this guy is insufferable. Back to what makes Suruga the best creator character: the scene with her and Blitz. This scene was epic, showing just how much she understands her characters and how she was eventually able to convince him to betray Altair. She even came prepared with a bullet-proof vest because she’s that awesome. There are now two non-creation characters to really talk about now: Marine and Setsuna. Marine draws some obvious Setsuna parallels in that she sometimes feels ridiculed and saddened by what she is passionate about yet proceeds to keep drawing, much like Setsuna did prior to suicide, and she almost always feels like when she tries to do something right, she ends up making things worse. That made it even better when she managed to give Selesia that fire sword attack in episode 10, which was already an epic moment. I've already touched on Setsuna’s suicide and how I feel like there should've been more seen on her end as to why she committed it but she was still an alright character, just a typical shy but mostly happy teen who became depressed at the harsh reality of what success can bring you. It's a shame we don't get to know much about her, but the scene with her and Altair was, again, incredible. Now, with that said, time to move on the real stars of the show: the creations themselves! The creations, the first 9 anyway, are what drive this section home. They are responsible for most of the best banter in the show and most of the exploration of these themes that to them, are very existential. Their personalities are also the ones that challenge and get challenged constantly, more so than any of the human characters sans Sota, though it's more of his past actions and hiding from them that get challenged rather than his personality and motivations. Some of them draw especially major parallels with certain characters from shows of our world, and I'll address major ones I see along the way. Welp, let’s dive right in. Selesia is easily my favorite of the bunch. From her character design to her overall immense beauty, to her expressions and overall character, I love her more than any other character in the show. She’s the first we see have to really be hit with the reality her she is a fictional character, and I find it really amusing that this is the anime adaptation of her exclusively, so she eldest know what happens later in the novels. She had one it the weaker personalities on the whole but that's where the banter and facial expressions come in. Her facial expressions, particularly those of the dialogue-heavy, yet casual situations, are always hilarious and I like how she ends up arguing with Matsubara a lot until the halfway mark, and how she reacts to some situations like the exact way Rui shot her down in episode 5 or how insufferable Nishio was being in episode 15. It's also funny to see that she refuses to read the novel of her or watch the anime because she feels it's awkward and embarrassing. It's a shame she had to die, but hey, what can you do? Meteora is an interesting one. I can understand her boring many viewers, as even in her game she was mainly exposition, and that carried over immensely, so that's an understandable trait of hers, but especially early on in the show, we see her being the one who drives the meta themes home, like about how she ended up really enjoying her game and shaking her view based on the passion put into her game by the now deceased creator, or how she still recognizes Sota as someone who played the game as the protagonist. The recap episode with her was uproarious though, seeing her find a way to diss anyone she can from this story and even come up with a crazy alternate scenario that results in her winning against Altair easily to end the story. Of course, it would be her bro hung up complaints from the studio itself and the fact that the recap episode was planned from the beginning. Of course, she’s the first one to really form a friendship with Kikuchihara given their similar personalities, and it's nice to see that at the end, she’s the only one that ends up staying to become a writer herself. Yuuya and Rui are the two of the 9 I have the least to say about to they get to share. Yuuya’s a fun jackass for most of the show and it's funny seeing him come up with a weird nickname for Meteora. The dude has no qualms about who he fights and probably more than most characters, Magane (who I'll really get to soon) repulses him greatly. As for Rui, he really draws a lot of parallels with Kamille Bidan from Zeta Gundam, especially at the beginning. Think about it: a whiny, angsty, blue-haired mecha pilot who grows into someone better over time. I wish I could've seen the development instead of knowing that he came back a changed man, but it was nice seeing him and Yuuya become bros and seeing him try to encourage Sota to be less scared and emotional. Hikayu’s easily the weakest of the bunch, both physically and as a character. She’s very timid and eventually gets superpowers, and she does a little bit of moralizing, but she doesn't really have a strong presence or dynamic, let alone anything she really brings to the table other than some flashy moves and more fanservice. Then again, both of the characters that get introduced after the ⅔ mark are kinda lame, and we’ll get to the other one later. A common trait you'll realize about these characters is how complex and informed they are. They're of stories that aren't hellholes or black and white morality shows, so they get to be very complex and actually willing to be as informed as possible about his world and the nature of creators, unlike the antagonists. Before we get to them though, we have one last character to talk about. Magane is a complete wildcard, and I'm probably not the only one who hated her for a while, for right and wrong reasons. She doesn't care about anything other than having fun, and she finds the struggle and suffering of others to be really, really fun, just like one of my favorite villains of all time, Terumi from Blazblue, especially when she manages to really bring Sota to despair by making him doubt his team and bring back his repressed guilt of not being there for Setsuna prior to her dear. She fucks with him especially hard, making it even more cathartic in episode 19 when he accepts that like her, he’s not exactly a good person (though he isn't as bad as she is). She challenged so many characters’ own morals and feelings, including the more black and white morality of characters such as Alice and Mamika. I initially grew to hate her mannerisms and eagerness to repeat a word multiple times before continuing her dialogue, but I grew to kinda enjoy her presence towards the end, especially when she helps out our heroes in episodes 19 and 20 with her reality-warping powers. With her out of the way, time to move onto the antagonists. Mamika is clearly the most sympathetic of the group since she’s a magical girl protagonist. This means that her morality is so black and white that she perceives those to some listen to her words of peace as bad guys. It's epic to see how the attacks that are usually fairly harmless and acceptable in her world cause massive hysteria and destruction in real life, causing her to panic and feel horrible. I especially like her relationship with Alice, as while they are from stories of polar opposite tones and moods, their ideologies on how they want to save the world and defeat evil are one and the same, and they bond over that in an almost sisterly fashion, making Alice want revenge for Mamika’s death. Then again, a magical girl with “Mami” in the name is pretty much destined to die, and both of these two characters die in their pursuit of heroism and saving the world, with Altair doing both of them in. This means I've basically described Alice as well, unfortunately, but that at least saves me some time. There is one thing about her to mention though, her Saber parallels. Blonde blade wielder from a sort of medieval-esque origin, her pose and background in the first OP being like that one set of Saber standing in a bloody battlefield of swords and armor, her almost naïve sense of justice. You see it too, don't you? Blitz is also interesting. Out of the people working under Altair, he’s the only one exclusively from a manga, at least the only one explosively stated as such from what I understand. He knows he isn't some big hero, so he isn't manipulated by Altair from that perspective. He’s just doing what he can to assist her because he feels resentment over his writer’s narrative in which he’s forced to kill his daughter, who looks kinda similar to Nunnally from Code Geass (it's like they know me). He feels like he’s a failure as a father and he, again, knows he’s not some grand hero, so he finds it odd to see his comrades behave the way they do, and his payoff in episode 18 after the already glorious confrontation between him and Suruga, as I already mentioned is great. Altair is easily the best of the antagonists though. She’s as bitter as she is pretentious. She can manipulate everyone with ease and her powers are beyond broken. Some people say that's automatically a bad thing, to have a villain sue character (a villain who is OP and constantly winning), but in this case, it really isn't, for reasons I'm about to mention. Despite the fact that she stands around too much, she’s always one step ahead for most part, especially in the second half when she uses the good guys’ main plan against them and slowly and sadistically picks them off one by one. Everything she does is for Setsuna, as she feels outraged by what the world did to her, which is an interesting motivation for a villain, as we can see her so vulnerable so many times and just have an epic emotional outburst that feels reasonable for everyone. And again, the way she is defeated was perfect. Chiron and Shou are also kinda weak and don't get much time to really be fleshed out, but I like the foreshadowing for Chirion being an antagonist all the way back in episode 3 as that he does all of this because he’s tired of the fighting and suffering. Shou just wants revenge for his family, which is a decent motivation too, and his powers are also cool as shit though, so both of these guys are at least better late characters than Hikayu. So, you can no doubt see two common traits with some of these guys here. Some of them feel absolute resentment involving their creators while others feel like this is their duty, but all of them sans Altair are woefully uninformed of the abilities of the creator, completely overestimating them. I also find it interesting that none of them are created as villain characters, just heroes and one character that adopted the role as the villain due to having no role and nothing but hate, when the only character created as a villain, Magane, is just a brutal wildcard. Again, it's not just the personalities that make most of these characters great, but far more so what they represent and their relationships with each other that make them stand out. Obviously, I didn't bother giving everyone, as not everyone is really worth mentioning, and some of these characters are still weak, so I wouldn't say it's an all-around fantastic cast, but even still, the better ones here are amazing enough to elevate everything to nearly reach that level anyway. They're about as good from a characterization and writing standpoint as they are from a visual standpoint on the whole, and speaking of which... TROYCA was the spearhead behind this ambitious show, and the characters look pretty good. The writers and other normal people look...exactly that, plain and ordinary. After all, they're mere mortals in this real world, nothing inherently special. The character designs of the true fictional characters are pretty good, and I am an especially big fan of the designs for Selesia and Altair. Selesia looks genuinely lovely no matter what outfit she's in (and she gets to be in a ton of casual outfits that look fantastic on her, so these guys either have great fashion sense or she’s generally just that good, but I love that they did that) and Alrair’s design is physically pretty complex and interesting, with the detailed suit and gauntlet and even the eyes with the red pupil and blue top of the iris and black bottom side of the iris, to the point where it's accepted in canon that she’s a pain for the team to animate (yet they never mess up, good on them). The character expressions (especially Selesia’s) can be real funny when they need to be and despite them all coming from different genres, their art styles all work perfectly here. The action is pretty fun as well, with no real fault in the choreography, though the camera is sometimes in the way. Still, these set pieces are really cool and fun and so are some of the powers, and there is a ton of flashy abilities on display here, and adds specific moments that look exceptional. The CGI can range from pretty decent such as Selesia’s mech which is a gigantic pain to name, to really bad, especially Shou’s CGI mecha knight-looking thing, though they're only used for the mechs and cars. Their designs can look decent though, like Selesia’s mech (again). There is an insane amount of dialogue so there are plenty of moments where there isn't a whole lot of animation happening, unfortunately, and the environments aren't interesting enough to hold our attention, so thankfully the character interactions and great Sawano OST for most part do that job just fine, especially in the first half. It is a commonly accepted belief that Hiroyuki Sawano is among the greatest anime music composers to date, with famously beloved OSTs for Guilty Crown, Attack on Titan, and Kill la Kill. This one is no exception and is one of the few actually good popular anime that he had the luxury of working on. There are a plethora of really good tracks for this show, including both versions of “Layers” and “Brave the Ocean” (though I much prefer the original over the MOD version for both). Many of these tracks are good enough to help bolster the enjoyment of the more dialogue-heavy scenes, especially for game-changing discoveries (such as the track “creator”) so you can imagine how well they work for the fight scenes. This Sawano OST isn't his best unfortunately, as while it's pretty good, it's highs aren't as epic as those of his AoT and Kabaneri OSTs, nor do they really match the Gundam Unicorn OST, which I feel is his best anime OST to date, even if tracks like "Re:Suspense" are up there and are still numerous. That should come off as less of a knock on the show and more of a testament to his musical prowess that great isn't one of the best. OP 1, "gravityWall" by SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:Tielle & Gemie is a very catchy and epic tune that really preps you up for this crazy ride you’re about to have, and one of the best OPs of the Spring 2017 season. OP2, "sh0ut" by SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:Tielle & Gemie, is even more epic and empowering, especially with the buildup before the now famous “Sawano drop” moment where after the epic build up, the song shifts into high gear. This is easily one of the best OPs of Summer 2017, and sometimes I struggle between choosing which of these two OPs is the better of the two, they’re both that good. ED1, "NEWLOOK" by Mashiro Ayano, while a decent song and ED in its own right, is a bit disappointing since many shows that Sawano did the music for bad both great OPs and great EDs, like Attack On Titan, Gundam Unicorn Re:0096, and last year’s Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. The episode 13 ED, "world Étude" by Aki Toyosaki, is a bit better and I like that it’s the trailer theme from Altair’s planned series that was discussed in this show, but it's still only ok. ED 2, "Rubikon (ルビコン)" by Sangatsu no Phantasia, really grew on me. At first, I kinda thought it was alright and that what they did with the visuals was way better by it fits really well with everything and is a really nice and happy song in and of itself. I especially enjoy what they did with the visuals and the mixing of the show’s animated elements and different art styles with real life stuff, making it a really pleasant cross between everything it talks about. You kinda need to see for yourself how great and inventive it is. Overall, Sawano did another really solid job, as he’s known for, even if this isn't his most epic work. I had a ton of fun with this show, and the way it handled its ingenious premise. The dialogue was usually riveting, if a bit nervously heavy-handed at times, the characters, especially the “creations” were great, the foreshadowing and attempts at causing suspicion were great (especially for the reveals of Altiar’s creator and the fact that Chirion, Selesia’s best friend, was an antagonist), the comedy was almost always spot on and uproarious, and the fights were fun as hell. Again, a lot of people are gonna feel bored with this one, especially thanks to its slow yet necessary pace and the fact that it is infinitely more dialogue-heavy than we were initially led to believe, but the dialogue is almost always interesting for aforementioned reasons, and barring maybe the first half of episode 16, every scene is necessary, nothing is wasted, so despite it feeling like it drags at times, it almost never truly stalls. I like how it basically glorifies the audience as like a wrathful god that only likes good entertainment (we wish), even if the show sometimes feels like it has to hammer the point of some things home (probably out of fear, even though this backfired for many people). Back when this show was still coming out, I heard the mixed to negative reception of this show from many of my friends. Needless to say, I was beyond worried, and I began pleading for this show to be good. I am so released to say that I'm not disappointed in the slightest. Re:Creators is anything but recycled garbage, it’s actually ambitious, interesting, and creative. Are there missed opportunities? Yeah. Is it heavy-handed and at times boring? Sure. Are there a few downright asinine aspects to this series. Certainly. That doesn’t stop how smart and epic this show is with its amazing premise or wonderful character interactions. This show kind of glorifies and expects a ton from you, which is charming in its own way. It’s in no way pretentious, but it’s more ambitious than most anime of this year, using so many kinds of tropes and characters from other genres perfectly and juxtaposing them with real life, as well as showing how a real setting that can allow for many more scenarios than a typical storyline for these characters can bring out so many different sides of them and incite some actual change from them. That makes it hilariously ironic given that this is a work of fiction though, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s aware of that or not. Even still, this is definitely one of the standout titles of the year, as it's a wonderful ode to creators and the work they put everything into. Now, as always, I bid you adieu.