Back to Skielark's Profile Skielark's Profile

"That's it. That's exactly who you are. And that's the reason you are there. To bring change to the world through those differences. Stir it up Drifters. There is no 'correct' way to shape this world. Turn the world upside down Drifters".

Incredibly underrated show. I originally rated this an 8 but had to bump it up to a 9 upon rewatching it.

Drifters seamlessly blends elements of fantasy, history, action and even comedy in what I would term as a 'mature' isekai. From the creative mastermind of Hellsing (Hirano Kouta), Drifters features a cast of colourful, memorable and gloriously unhinged characters who are summoned ... to a strange world and thrust into a war that will decide the fate of humankind. However these are not your average boring teen isekai protagonists but rather famous historical figures who bring their unique specialties, technologies, skills, and worldviews to the battlefield. This anime has some of the best displays of battle strategy and psychological warfare I've seen. The visuals are great, the soundtrack is great (the OP and ED are straight up bangers), the characters are amazing.

Drifters is dark and violent but it would be unjust to brush it off as a mindless action anime - it has an incredible amount of depth and nuance and upon rewatching it, I noticed many small details and references that I had missed the first time. For example, one of the most interesting dynamics of Drifters is the conflict between Murasaki and Easy, two enigmatic god-like figures who are responsible for selecting and summoning humans to the isekai world to fight on their behalf.

-------------------POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD------------------------------

Murasaki and Easy are generally depicted as embodying Good vs Evil, but it may be more accurate to view their conflict as Humanity vs Supernatural. Murasaki appears as a calm, relatively ordinary middle-aged office worker. The people Murasaki summons are known as 'Drifters' and their biggest strengths lie in their ingenuity and diversity. Although their reasons and goals differ, they reluctantly find themselves banding together as saviours of the strange new world.

In contrast, Easy is an eccentric, cocky and brash young woman. The people she summons harbour a deep hatred for humanity based on the circumstances of their death - they become known as 'Ends' and gain supernatural powers to usher in the destruction of humankind.

Both Murasaki and Easy appear to be omnipotent and omniscient to a degree, treating the events of the isekai world almost like a game of chess as they try to counter the other's moves and gain the upper hand. Note that Murasaki views updates on the world through his newspaper whilst Easy views them through her laptop. Even their names embody the dichotomy between them as 'Murasaki' is traditional Japanese whilst 'Easy' is 'foreign' English. Easy is shown directly controlling and influencing the actions of her Ends whilst Murasaki opts to let his Drifters act with their own free will. Their dynamic and role in the story adds an additional layer of intrigue and the symbolism of their characterisation reaffirms Hirano Kouta as a genius writer and storyteller.

"We ain't some helpless pawns of that man in the corridor. We're humans. We'll live by our own principles".

Drifters contains many interesting themes worth further analysis but honestly… the show is just extremely entertaining and hype as fuck. When you have titans like Oda Nobunaga, Toyohisa Shimazu, Hannibal, Scipio, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fighting against Joan of Arc, Rasputin, Anastasia Romanov and fucking Dark Lord Jesus - you know shit is going down. I cannot wait for Season 2.

An anime as dull and flat as its colour palette.

Well.. This was the most overhyped piece of trash anime I've seen in my life. Calling it a disappointment would be an understatement. I regret spending all those hours drudging through this dreary, pretentious show. Maybe I'm being overly critical and it's just a matter of it not aging well. After all, a lot of amazing sci-fi has been released since this anime first aired. Movies like Interstellar, Inception, and Edge of Tomorrow, hell even Looper (a movie nobody probably even remembers) all come to mind as having similar elements but being superior in ... every way - from plot to character development to the underlying mechanics of time travel they choose to adopt.

Steins gate is a badly disguised harem anime that tries to be whimsical and 'deep', but just comes across as cringey and shallow. The delusional grandiose ramblings of the MC somehow attracts a one dimensional tsundere with daddy issues, an intellectually disabled trumpet, a scantily clothed NEET, a trap shrine maiden, and a neko maid that ends every sentence with "nyan". Does anything else even need to be said?

May as well right? It still can't be as exhausting as watching literally three quarters of this show where..nothing happens. The pacing is horrendous. I wanted to drop it so many times but the cult status and high ratings convinced me that it would be worth it if I stuck it out. No.. No it wasn't. The animation is boring and lacklustre, the sound is.. Wait there was sound? The overarching plot has potential but it's bogged down by its slow pace and unlikeable characters.

The main character is truly an apt description for this show - an eighteen year old boy masquerading as a mad scientist trying to be more than what he is. As someone who loves the sci-fi genre, I strongly advise you to stay away from this show if you're looking for a cohesive plot, believable time travel mechanics, or characters that don't pander to a virgin weeb's wet dream.

“You go crazy over something that’s make-believe. Like you think it’s actually real. You can’t stop yourselves from feeling happy.”

At first glance, RE:CREATORS’ main appeal is its sheer insanity – an anime combining gundams, magical girls, knights, magicians, gunslingers, and other well-known and well-loved archetypes in one. What I initially thought was just going to be an entertaining but incohesive action anime turned out to be so much more than that. Its unique, exciting, emotional, intelligent, self-aware…. but at its core, RE:CREATORS is a love letter to anime and storytelling itself. In a world invaded by powerful fictional heroes and villains, it manages to ... explore the limitless capability of human imagination and creativity to its fullest potential (a contradiction but a fitting one). I think for many of us, anime has long evolved past something to simply pass the time with, it has come to mean something to us. RE:CREATORS shows what it means to write a story…to draw a story…to publish a story…to sustain a story…and most importantly, what it means to love a story – whether that be through the lens of the viewer, the creator, or the creation.

Whilst the elaborate meta plot could easily have tipped the show into feeling too bizarre, its masterful execution keeps it feeling playful and relatable. The diverse cast of fictional and ‘real’ characters are wonderfully fleshed out with their own individual motives and quirks. Though the show incorporates many stereotypical anime archetypes, it doesn’t hesitate to blur the boundaries between good and evil – which in my mind is essential to a compelling story. The animation and sound complement the amazing screenwriting and made it a pleasure to watch.

Some viewers may find the exposition to be too much which is a fair critique. I thought it helped to establish a clear outline of what could have been a very convoluted and nonsensical storyline but sometimes the pacing felt a little slow with the narrator’s traditional way of speaking and the large chunks of information. Another critique I have is that the ‘main character’ was quite infuriating during the first half of the show but this got better later on. An annoying protagonist is just bad writing in my opinion but luckily the show did not really focus that much on him anyway.

RE:CREATORS is a lot of things. Primarily it’s an action show with explosive energy and gripping moments, but you don’t have to dig that deep to realise it’s also a poignant piece of storytelling that reflects us. It depicts our very real insecurities, our struggles of not being good enough, our senseless cruelty towards others. But it also reveals our infinite potential for creativity, our ability to work together to achieve a whole greater than the sum of its parts, and our will to persevere – even if it is just inspired by a bunch of fictional characters.

A masterpiece doesn’t have to be perfect. Perhaps it can’t be perfect because it’s made by us. RE:CREATORS may not be as technically impressive as other shows or as intricate as other worlds, but it made up for that by being a spectacularly unique and thoroughly enjoyable story. That’s why I’d call it a masterpiece.