Anime: Re:Creators

Re:Creators is a rather underestimated piece of work, although not without reason. While it becomes clear half way through that the anime is going to miss many of its overambitious marks such as themes and plot developments, it unexpectedly came closer than one would have anticipated.

The main problem and at the same time the strong point of this series are the themes. The themes and the premise of having fictional characters within the work of fiction that is the anime leads to plot problems. The premise itself is great; fictional characters coming into our world to oppose one another and face a character equating herself to an observer, like a reverse isekai. This is quite similar to the Fate series. There are a lot of themes there from how would these characters respond after being freed from the fate that is their written storyline to their interactions with the people that wrote them. There are also other themes like how different authors of different genres see each other and work together, which is interesting.
There is a lot of irony(sometimes intended) and meaning behind many encounters, dialogues, and battles in this anime. To put it bluntly, the premise is relatively simple and almost childish, but the authors have tried to show as many themes branching from the premise as possible and the end result is not half bad at all in that department. In fact these specific interactions between the "creations" and the "creators" are rather organic.

Most of the characters start off as not much more than generic copies of characters from various works of fiction representing different genres and segments of japanese pop culture. From a character I believe to be a copy of Shinji from Evangelion to a classic air headed girl from an eroge.
Over time, most of them do progress favourably and become rather memorable. That being said, they progress unevenly and most of the progress is relative to their prototypes rather than the characters themselves, although even then that is not the case for some of the "fictional" characters. For most of the "creations", there is depth, but not as much progress. Generally the only other notable problem with some of the characters is that many of them at different times seem too naive and gullible, especially at the start, also allowing other characters to manipulate them all too easily. Thankfully this is not done too often, but this is the basis of the plot that justifies many of the conflicts in the plot, which is a lackluster way to form said conflict. Unfortunately, this way to form conflict is way overused in seasonal anime despite it being a very cheap way to do so.

The main protagonist is shown to be at times either a right prick or just a guy who seriously represses emotions to the point of ignorance. However, since enough of the screen time is given from his point of view, the viewer is at least expected to sympathise with him, seemingly making the anime more immersive. Really from start to end, he is a character that at times becomes redundant and feels almost collateral. But towards the end, it did seem that his character has changed, although more or less spontaneously. Can't say his idea in the end is completely in good taste, but it does fill the character of someone who is trying to atone for his actions. This character is mostly there to progress the story for most of the time though.

In terms of character design, only the antagonist is really something outstanding. Quite a cool design that. While it is obvious that a lot of effort was put in all the other character designs, they still are very reminiscent of the genres that they represent (or parody at times). The main character and the "non-fictional" characters in the anime are also somewhat stereotypical of completely generic works. The anime relies entirely on the premise rather than looks to get the viewer to recognise them as different to their prototypes.

The plot is essentially whole. However, the ambition of the authors have played a nasty trick on them. At times, things happen and characters come to decisions with very little in the way of explanation how this has come about. That being said such occurrences only break continuity up to that point but not from there onwards. I can only assume that these sequences replaced larger ones, possibly for economical reasons as well as brevity. These breaks in continuity also lead to massive amounts of info dumping that is just unnecessary. This also leads to the plot being rather complicated, often for no real reason.

The authors also overdo at times with foreshadowing of certain events in the way of a person showing another their idea and the other goes "This could work" or something equally vague in order to keep it a surprise. This was also the case with the "anime" that was made in the anime, where the viewer did not see it but it was referred to constantly and it should have been important by the premise, but would have obviously be redundant and off topic. And while I, like the authors, realise the futility of going any further into the stories behind each character from their respective literature, the premise also deems this important, and yet it would not be good for the continuity of the plot. This is a general problem faced by the authors of this series; their ambitious concept would work better with more content that pertains to the characters' stories and the "anime" but then the anime would suffer in just about every other way. They could have dug a bit deeper though I feel. There are also some more normal plot holes, like why are, but they are relatively few and sparse.

The music in general is rather average for most part. A lot of the battle music is good but repetitive. Both OPs are great and the second ED is incredibly memorable. In the second half of the series they often have either a similar style soundtrack or off vocal segment of the ED at the end of the episode, so when the ED actually starts there is an almost seamless transition. It has been a while since I saw something like that being used. Feels nice, that's about it.

The animation would have looked good for 2017. There is an almost seamless transition between 3D elements and the quality of the animation more or less supports the ambition of the premise. The direction is just fine but not spectacular.

The two reviews on this site compare this anime unfavourably to Fate/Zero. I believe that the two plot lines and premises are distinct. A lot of the "philosophical" stuff in Re:Creators is devoted to the interaction and relationships between creations and their creators. This is obviously absent from Fate/Zero. If anything, the plot of this anime is closer to the contemporary Fate/Apocrypha, in that there are two factions of heroes with one of the factions going about to change the world in their favour.

Generally this is a very decent anime from a less troublesome time. My understanding is that watching this anime an episode per week is useless. There is simply too much information that the authors impart on the viewer and because of that the viewer would barely remember the themes discussed in one episode when watching another. It does not help that the plot has chronic plot holes. Most of these problems seem to stem from this anime being an ambitious piece, possibly intended to be larger, and the authors did not quite size it down right. Binging this anime seems to be the only way to go.

Review
Slowly, but steadily, shows about the very anime industry itself started growing and dominating the screens. Where there were only a few parodies about mangakas and animators in the past, ecchi comedies around novelists and erogames became the norm. Re:Creators is yet another way to explore the industry itself, mixing the battle royale formula boomed with Fate/Stay with the gaming and anime industry in general. It is not a simple slice-of-life about it too, neither a comical take with exaggerated plots. This tale has its own spice, an attempt to give the formula a new and interesting direction.

Re:Creators tackles one simple, yet always interesting, idea: what if your creations had a life of their own? What if an anime character and the world he inhabits were real in some dimension? What if we, as creators, were their gods? Interesting, right? Well, here it its then. In this modern Tokyo, a few anime, game, and novel characters started appearing out of nowhere, wielding their superpowers and trying to find their way in our world. Amidst this new advent, Mizushino Souta is brought into the fray, helping some of these former fictional characters find their creators and understand what is happening to them.

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1. God Programmer
   The idea of our creations having life of their own is not exactly new. It was tackled many times in the industry, but usually regarding computer intelligence and simulation. There were a few movies about this subject, such as The Thirtheenth Floor (1999), and also videogames, such as Star Ocean 3. This idea is not simply a fantasy though, it is considered a possibility by scientists, although it is hard to calculate when it can become feasible. Re:Creators, however, goes one step further and makes our mind creations become real entities, not computer simulations. It also has the added factor that the world they live also exists somewhere.
   
   It also has a bit of faith
   Those who have played table-top RPGs and those who have discussed ancient religions and gods can also find another interesting idea in Re:Creators. The fictional characters brought to life are not done so at random, there is a rule for it: approval. If people believe in them, if people care for them, they materialize. That's the same way to godhood in fantasy settings and some old myths.
   
   So this is f*ckn awesome, right?
   Hm... not exactly. Although Re:Creators manages to combo two absurdly interesting concepts, the execution is somewhat lacking. There are plenty of reasons, but the major one is certainly the type of characters popping out, which are all boring stereotypes of the industry with very little depth. These guys are not only one-liners such as the mahou shoujo, the loyal knight, the creepy schoolgirl, and so on, they mostly easily accept this new world (our world) and all have superpowers that are balanced among themselves, as if some unseen rule made certain they all had a chance to triumph in battle against each other before being called to our world. For such a variety of stereotypes, this MMO-like balance thing makes no sense, especially when not even Fate/Stay suffers from such issue while having much more ground and reason to do this kind of balance.
   
   Are they anime? Or are they real-life versions of anime?
   It also gets intriguing how this show also has zero difference with the artwork presented inside it. A character pops in real-life form, sometimes people speak "this guy making cosplay", yet when you put drawing and character side by side there's zero difference. It's like the real world is also two-dimensional within this setting, or perhaps every artist manages to be so amazingly skilled their drawings are like the real thing. Anyway, it's a minor issue, yet it's there and is quite intriguing.
   
   Government also sucks
   Re:Creator nets another hit when it doesn't leave the fate of the world in the hands of Kirito. The government is there and the adults will attempt to rationalize things and fix this chaos sprouting from mahou-shoujos and crazy schoolgirls with vodoo magic becoming real. Sadly though, the government body is so boring it ends up becoming a hassle. Instead of involving politics, raising the interesting questions about this super-powerful people, or doing anything else a real government would do, here all that happens is a few useless soldiers popping in and an executive woman gathering a group of writers, artists, and a useless teenager to "protect" them.
   
   Speaking of teenagers...
   Souta is, once again, a protagonist that brings down the experience to below-mediocre levels. The super-powerful fictional characters can be shallow, but they still have charisma, something Souta is so severely lacking with his irritatingly boring protagonist template. It becomes even worse when he hides sensible information for childish reasons and slowly becomes the center of things. It is Guilty Crown all over again, a hero that is f*ckn annoying, a mindless bastard with a boring behavior who never learns a thing, yet the fate of the world is in his shoulders and everyone cheers for him. Damn.
   
   It has surprises though
   If the cast department is somewhat lacking, it manages to shake things up with surprises, in other words: unexpected character deaths. This modern trend is smartly used here to promote a sense of danger, even if the consequences of them also rely on every character being dumb planks who cannot make basic logical conclusions.
   
   Troyca
   Studio Troyca does an interesting job here. The character templates are overly generic, yes, but there's a decent atmosphere created by the show with its beautiful backgrounds and smart use of colors. The sound direction also gives a nice boost to Re:Creators, making it an outstanding production overall. There's a lot of similarity with the general production of this show and Aldnoah.Zero, in which Troyca had a hand, and that's definitely a good thing.
   

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Comments
Re:Creators could have been awesome. The concept is amazing, merging the idea of a programmer god with the approval of fantasy worship towards godhood. The selective part of the fictional characters also make it end up as something quite similar to Fate/Zero, providing a window of opportunity to many different tales and narratives. Finally, it moves towards putting government in charge of things instead of just a group of lousy teenagers, which alone is quite a remarkable deed this day and age.

Yet there are a plenty of lacking areas here. The heroes are shallow, one-dimensional beings whose interactions are not as great as they could've been. Perhaps they tried too hard to make things emotional, forgetting that we are matching a mahou shoujo japanese child with an european medieval warrior born in the middle of warfare and death. The setting, by the way, only works as a battleground for the heroes, hardly making them question their new reality besides clashing against each other and hanging around our dick of a protagonist.

Yes, him. Once again the protagonist is a guy that shouldn't be there at all. He is not the only turn down this time, but he's always there, doing stupid choices, being a dick, and surprisingly getting everyone's attention and becoming the hope of the world. Nah, it would be much better without him, that's for sure.

Re:creators used to be the highest rated and most hyped series of the season it aired in, after the obvious three 99% of viewers were watching (Attack on Titan s2, My Hero Academia s2, Dragon Ball Super). Gradually, the interest in the series kept dropping to the point more people were talking about garbage tier light novel adaptations (Akashic Records, Eromanga Sensei) which were nowhere near the catchy premise of Re:creators.

This is extra strange when said premise is basically Fate/Stay Night all over again. No, seriously, they are the exact same story.
A bunch of famous personalities, each one using superpowers, are brought into modern Japan, where they are having a battle royale, with the winner getting a reality warping wish. Most of the plot is short skirmishes, followed by ridiculously long monologues where they are infodumping rules, discuss philosophies, and have cockteasing moments regarding a bland self insert lead being surrounded by pretty chicks.

On paper, Re:creators should have been regarded as a thought provoking masterpiece, just like that porn game adaptation. And yet it wasn’t. In fact, it was being mocked for being exactly that. What happened? The answer is, Re:creators was not tapping into as many layers of pandering as Fate/Stay Night did. It followed the same formula, but didn’t have the same ingredients. And by ingredients, I mean:

1) The pretty colors
Studio Troyca was nowhere near the level of Ufotable. Without jaw dropping animation, the sakuga audience didn’t care about it, and thus found reasons not to like it. Meaning, Re:creators didn’t have the illusion of making itself seem way better than what it actually was.

2) The source material
It didn’t have one. Unlike Type Moon which had a huge fanbase of porn gamers overhyping its bullshit for over a decade, Re:creators was an original work. Nobody was blowing out of proportion what it was all about, it had no fanatic fanbase attacking anyone who dares to speak against it, and thus it was open to all forms of criticism. As it should be the case for any title.

3) The archetypes
The fighters of Re:creators were essentially representations of typical heroes and villains from well known genres. This made them monolithic, dry, predictable, and one dimensional. The heroic spirits of Fate/Stay Night were based on historical figures, which were giving off the illusion of being multilayered and with a rich backdrop story, even if we didn’t see it and it was all implied. Meaning, the fan fiction nerds didn’t care about the cast of Re:creators, because they were just bland archetypes. In Fate/Stay Night, when they were hearing characters talking about ideologies and philosophy, their imagination was having an orgasm by seeing people across history coming together to have a fight with cool superpowers. In Re:creators, when characters talked about ideologies and philosophy, they just saw a typical magical girl talking to a typical medieval knight.

4) The competition
It came out at the worst possible moment, since the other 3 shows 99% of anime fans were watching, already had everything Re:creators failed to tap into. Pretty colors, a fanbase from the source material, and characters who did not feel like bland archetypes, because of how they were fleshed out from previous seasons.

5) The pacing and the infodumps
The above reasons explain why Re:creators fell from grace, in comparison to other shows of that time. They don’t explain why as a stand-alone show it was still not a very good watch despite sounding really amazing at first; so lets clarify that as well. Most of the duration was comprised of really long and boring monologues about the concept of the show, instead of its execution. The audience was constantly being told what was going on instead of being allowed to see it. The characters were mostly sitting on a table and talking about what they will do, instead of doing something about it. It was a really big chore to get through the constant talking, and the pacing was snail-slow.

The final episodes were filled with the battle royale action we were promised, but even then it came down to everyone versus one, instead of an actual “all for themselves” type of deal. It was hollow and insignificant, since nobody was actually dying but was rather returning to his fictional world. There was nothing really at stake and all the blame was thrown at the person who initiated the whole fuss. Nothing was grey or thought-provoking as it seemed to be at first, since it demonized an individual and deified everybody else, thus losing the grey morality it was going for.

So yeah, it’s not nearly as good as it sounds and it makes sense why it was quickly dropped by most. Its concept was interesting, but the execution came down to a dull line of endless monologues and tensionless battles.