Re:Creators Anime Review
So I’ve been inactive for more than two weeks due to real life obligations. I’m a med student while working on other part time jobs. I decided to write my first anime review. The show left me some mixed thoughts about how I viewed stories in general. Giving you a heads up that this contains some spoilers and it will be a long read. No image used in this post belongs to me.
Re:Creators is a good show that I recommend if you want something a bit different from the current mainstream anime. It had less fan service and tried its best to build solid characters. Compared to previous fantasy anime shows I’ve watched (SAO, Log Horizon, Konosuba and etc) this one presented a different perspective to world building.
Summary of the Post:
The Plot
The Characters
The Real World: Setting
The Pitfalls
The Saving Grace
Conclusion
Image References
Footer
The Plot:
The protagonist, Sota Mizushino was temporarily transported inside the world of one of his favorite anime. He was caught up in a battle between Selesia (the protagonist of that fiction world) and Altair, the main antagonist with unknown origins. They were later transported back to the real world. If being transported to another world made from fiction is already awesome, coming back with the protagonist of that fiction is another level.
That’s where the conflict starts from this show. The creations (characters from various anime, light novels, manga, and games) come into the real world carrying with them their sets of identities and superhuman abilities because of Altair’s doing. The complications arise when creations start to adapt to the real world. How would they react to a reality that their existence is made purely for other people's entertainment?
The World: Setting
The real world is referred by creations as the land of gods. Yeah, it’s supposed to be where we all live and humans here are considered gods for their capacity to create worlds (fiction). The laws of physics in the real world played a crucial part of the conflict in the story. In our world, magic and superhuman abilities do not exist and it constantly corrects itself to maintain the reality we are familiar with.
The existence of creations in our world along with their superhuman abilities is a violation to the laws of physics. The show demonstrations the world’s power by limiting the manifestation of Altairs “unlimited powers”. If she uses them often, the world will boot her out. But if she is able to shake the world natural order by her existence and the powers of the creations she gathered, the world’s self correction system will collapse forcing everything in existence to reset.
Also known as the destruction of everything and genesis all over again. The setting played a role in the future of any creation that decides to stay longer in the realm. As creations continue to exist in the realm even without using their powers, their abilities slowly decay as part of the world’s correction system to make their existence suit our reality.
Our world also gave creations new experiences such as multiple sensory feedback so foreign from their world. If their creator did not write anything about it, it did not exist. This means something as trivial as children’s stories or coffee would be a novel experience for characters.
Creations are able to have power boosts when their creators alter their story and abilities. But this can only be done if the audience approved of the alterations. The fans must accept the changes and keep on sympathizing with the character for changes to happen. Another unique mechanic to the conflict. This is why Altair became invincible in the story. If her fans could not accept her defeat, she will never die.
The Characters:
There are a lot to mention in this show that makes it both its strength and its weakness. You have a mix of characters from different genres that adds variety to the show. Unfortunately, this also creates more competition for screen time and character building. There’s too many characters to keep track and most just end up being too shallow to remember. Note that the show mentions the creations that were selected to come to the real world were personas that had memorable impacts to the people entertained by their stories.
No character in the show was able to make me feel engaged with who they were on a deeper level. It might be due to the stereotype roles and archetypes they played in the show. But if I had to choose characters that had some substantial character building done on them, these are my picks:
Altair:
Looking past the military uniform, overpowered abilities that approach god level, voice, and attitude, this character played a symbolic role humans could learn from on a spiritual level. She hated the world because of how the world treated her creator, Setzuna. Her creator never got the chance to create stories about Altair and this made her existence an incomplete and open ended for everyone to contribute.
She gained her unlimited abilities because Setzuna introduced her to the public online and people accepted her concept art even without a story. Altair is was infused with the hopes and hate of her creator. Before Setzuna died, Altair was the last creation she made. We could liken Altair’s longing for her creator as a child that grew up longing for a parent that was cut off from her by tragic circumstances. She wanted to avenge her creator for the torments the world Setzuna received.
Alicetaria February
Another symbolic figure I could empathize with to some degree. She is your standard knight in shining armor out to do the right thing. In a dark work setting with no happy ending in sight, Alicetaria’s fortitude kept her going even in hopeless situations. Her sense of purpose was tested when she received a reality shock of our world. Imagine waking up to the realization that every struggle you have encountered and your existence were only a form of entertainment for someone else.
What if man suddenly wakes up to find that their real purpose was nothing more than entertainment from unseen forces? No honor or glory and this makes all the bloodshed she went through meaningless. Naturally, she felt great hate for our world and her creator, Gai. I liked how the way she reacted to the realization because it wasn’t a shallow reaction at all. It was human to question purpose.
In the end, she still kept her sense of justice and found new meaning from the experience. Like a hero earning a valuable lesson after a heroic journey, she accepted her role as the protagonist for a grim world because she was the only one capable of saving it. A really heavy responsibility.
Mamika Kirameki
If you’re familiar with the magical girl genre, then you would know her world would be the total opposite of Alicetaria’s world. Conflicts were shallow and violence were minimal. When she came to our world, she realized just how vast the difference in how violence is portrayed in her world and the real world. Our world’s sense of morality created heavy cognitive dissonance in her unicorns and rainbows existence. She showed a lot of character growth in the show through adapting with her environment. She showed admirable integrity by still sticking to her beliefs of doing the right thing.
Yuya Mirokuji
He got my attention when he said mentioned this a line that resonated well with me. “God is fate with a personality.” He understood his existence was meant for entertainment and was fine with it. For a delinquent personality, he showed character depth by such words and acceptance of his circumstances. He could have blamed his creator for creating circumstances that made his life crap or significant others killed because of his creator’s whim. But he didn’t.
He told Sho, his rival in their world, that the creator was not to blame but the antagonist in their story for killing Sho’s significant others. The creator was just someone writing a story but the real culprits were the ones who did the actual killings. At least, that’s how I understood what he meant. He had my praises for this sense of justice and understanding. It was completely out of his character description.
Magane Chikukoin
If Batman’s Joker needs a disciple, she would be a great candidate. This Chaotic Evil personality showed she was the most intelligent character in the show. She was able to adjust with the world in the shortest amount of time, killed her creator so that her creator would not alter her story, and her ability is game changing to any side she joins. She took the back seat role and preferred to watch the chaos of the world unfold.
Her ability is Infinite Deception of Words. She makes a lie and manipulates you to reject that lie. The lie becomes a reality after you reject it. You can see how god-like this ability is when used for evil and good. She is a serial killer and only out to do things for her pleasure.
The Pitfalls
The show had all the elements present to make a revolutionary story. Each character presented a unique contribution to the plot because they were their own protagonists in their respective worlds. Unfortunately, there were too many of them and less screen time. The actions became up and down and the show dedicated a lot of scenes of boring talks just to explain how the world works.
Character deaths held little consequences to the plot. The plot continued to move even if a “significant” character dies. It seemed like the characters were only their to make the antagonist look good. The supposed main character of the show felt like his impact was only significant because the plot required him to be for the sake of the antagonist’s background story.
22 episodes were not enough to give the story room to grow when it has so much potential. The Deus ex machina was a major letdown to the show’s early efforts. Not going to spoil you on the end. I felt the show cheated on the pacing because each character had a lot of potential for growth and make the story more meaningful. The lack of screen time prevented me to connect with other characters I guess.
The Saving Grace:
If the show’s execution of the whole story line did not end in a Deus ex machina style, it would have been a hit anime for the year. It had a great start, all elements for a hit story were there, and the concept is relatively new for the genre. Instead of the main character get transported to the other world, why not do the opposite?
It’s worth noting that the writers of the show took careful considerations on the normal human psyche when reacting to reality shocks. How would someone react when they were told their world was a lie? How would someone react to a world where new sensations taken for granted in world of origin were more pronounced? Taste and smell had more depth in our 3D world compared to their 2D existence. These were subtle ideas introduced in the show that no anime of the same genre never tackled in depth before.
The Conclusion:
The show is still something I would recommend anime fans to watch. I used to take for granted story details and other mechanics that makes a good story. But after studying how to write fiction on my spare time, my critical thinking skills were sharpened by analyzing my favorite stories. It had its draw backs of me being disillusioned of my old time favorite stories.
This one is a 3/5 overall. I’d probably come back watching this show again and see what new perspective I could get from the story. I hope I gave justice to the show with this review.
art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
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