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 or coming 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.
