First Impressions – Re:Creators

Whoa its the first episode! Don’t kill yourself over it…

Time for my most hyped and anticipated anime of the season! Does it live up to my excitement? We shall see!

 

Production staff

Death number two! Tablet-chan! RIP

Looking back on our spring preview a lot of people saw TROYCA was doing RE:Creators and instantly got scared off because of their involvement with Aldnoah.Zero and they were afraid that this series might head down a similar road? Sure the staff is about same with Aoki Ei as the director who worked on Aldonah even Sawano Hiroyuki jumped in providing the music for this series, but the writers are different? This is coming to us from Hiroe Rei aka the creator of Black Lagoon and I hope unlike Urobuchi Gen I don’t think Hiroe will drop out after the first three episodes which still to this day confuses me! I think it had something to do with his involvement on Thunderbolt Fantasy? Yeah I know the diehard fans of his work will shut me down by saying “he was a co-producer” which is fine, but I did find it a little funny that Urobuchi was on the staff for the Black Lagoon manga? That said he isn’t on the staff list for RE:Creators so it doesn’t really matter all that much. Aside from the manga side of things I have seen a handful of episodes of Black Lagoon and I remember it being super heavy on the wacky over the action scenes so we should expect the same with RE:Creators? Hell the first episode had that mage Meteora Ouml sterreich summoning modern day weapons to fight Gunpuku.

The world of creation

Gunpuku shows us how to really use guns.

RE:Creators appears to be super close to the current real world at least in Japan? Anime, manga and Light novels are huge at the moment with people talking about them on forums, blogs and twitter about their favorite series much like we do today making it sorta realistic in a few ways. Aside from setting up the “world” I was a bit shocked that the first few moments of the episode gave us a scene of a girl committing suicide by train? It was also revealed on the local news that suicides have been on the rise as of late and nobody really knows why? I have a theory the rise in suicides is due to the fictional characters coming to life and is somehow related to what Gunpuku no Himegimi said about meeting their creators? I mean we don’t know what really goes down when you meet your original creation? Do you freak out and kill yourself because the idea of your creation being a living being is too much for you to handle? Do you become a fate/stay night like master and control your creation like a servant? Do you become best friends forever? It’s certainly an interesting question! If anything i’m sure it will depend on the various creator/creation relationships and how they interact? To use Fate/Stay and Fate/Zero pairings as a reference they had a few characters that worked great together like the case with Ryuunosuke and Caster? Both of them seemed to be best buddies or you get opposite not so great team up with Saber and Kiritsugu who didn’t get along at all! Hopefully we learn all about that soon.

Magical girls are the best

Ah yes the classic yo i’m a damn magical girl pose.

The one character I was super curious about was Mamika Kouki aka the magical girl and how was she going to fit in the setting of RE:Creators because for the most part all of the other characters look like they would have no problem kicking ass or killing other creations if they had to, but at the same time I kinda wrote her off and figured she would have been the hyper girl that everyone was annoyed by. It is a bit early to say that of course; however I was happy she appeared in the second episode and I think she is the first recruit that joined Gunpuku’s team? If you go by the poster you can already guess who else joins her side by everyone on her right side. We also got a kind of reveal as to what Gunpuku’s end game is? I think she wants to merge our worlds together or she plans on bringing her world to ours which I assume would destroy our world and leaving hers alone? Meteora did say something about Gunpuku wanting to meet her creator to change a few things about her world and Celestia also agreed she would love to change a few things bout her own story. It’s still a bit unknown to us what her real goal is, but i’m sure she will tell us everything we want to know after giving her master plan speech to the world, but does anyone else think Souta Mizushino is the creator of Gunpuku? I certainly hope not! Because that would be too easy; however he didn’t remember her so maybe not? He does draw so I wouldn’t be shocked if he drew her and maybe forgot?

Just don’t get on Mamika’s bad side or she will vaporize you with her cute magic.

Anyway back to Mamika! With her introduction she practically screams OMG MADOKA clone down to her clip in the opening being ripped right out of Madoka, but I hope she isn’t a copy of that character! I did like her “breakdown” after realizing that her magic was capable of killing and hurting people in the real world after she saw Celestia bleeding instead of her world? I kind of assume her series is more like Precure in which nobody dies, the damage to any buildings or injuries are cured by the power of magic and there isn’t any blood? I kind of figured that would happen with her character after seeing her pop up in the PV for the series! I was like “hmmm I wonder if she will flip out after seeing her magic kill some innocent person or another creation?” I got my wish! Now with that out of the way let’s talk about that mother trucking JOJO character Yuuya Mirokuji who comes with his own STAND! WOOOOOOO! That was an awesome moment with him randomly appearing and I kinda want to see him own Mamika before she runs away.

Emotions are crazy

Why hello again Lelei la Lalena err I mean Meteora.

Now if we looked back at the synopsis for this series it mentions something about emotions being what causes us to create things which got me to thinking what if all the creations were based off emotions? Sorta like how we view the various seven deadly sins as different characters in anime? I did find a basic set of emotions or theories based on emotions like Robert Plutchik’s theory which says there are eight starting with fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, trust and anticipation? That one probably wouldn’t work since there will be at least nine creations running around soon. The one emotion theory that could work for this series would be Book Two of Aristotle’s “Rhetoric” theory which says there are nine emotions starting off with anger, friendship, fear, shame, kindness, pity, Indignation, envy and love. So let’s run with that theory I figured it might be fun to assign each of these emotions to the characters in the series just to see how close I can get.

Anger = Makagami Chikujouin
Friendship = Mamika Kouki
Fear = Blitz Tokar
Shame = Alicetelia February
Kindness = Meteora Österreich
Pity = Gunpuku no Himegimi
Indignation = Rui Kanoya
Envy = Yuuya Mirokuji
Love = Celestia Yupitilia

Some of those probably don’t match up all that well like Blitz being “fear” and Alicetelia with “Shame” and you could easily place Mamika the token magical girl as “Friendship” or “love” which I feel also works for Celestia as well? Who knows! Maybe i’m completely crazy for taking the emotion part of the original synopsis too far?

Extra Creations

I died laughing when I saw her poses matched the covers of her novels!

This is the great when you discover your life is fiction pose.

Gunpuku is so damn cool! Love that whirlwind of swords.

Meteora-“Tell us more about this thing called rule 34.”

Just like Precure no pantsu shots ever.

OMG ITS A REAL JOJO REFERENCE!

End Thoughts

Damn now that was a amazing first episode, it was an odd mix of the ever so popular trope of x character traveling to another world, The Last Action Hero with fictional movie characters coming to life, Fate/Stay Night and video games? I think Meteora and Yuuya are from games? I can’t forget to mention the AMAZING OST thanks to Sawano Hiroyuki! I can’t stop listening to the RE:Creators opening and I’m still listening his soundtracks for a few of his past series like Guilty Crown, Aldnoah.Zero, Kill la Kill and Ao no Exorcist. So are you going to continue watching? I know I will because I’m really curious to see how all the various creators and creations meet and act and to find out why they all end up fighting each other.

About

Is huge anime fan from Florida! who loves to watch anime and also enjoys drawing and collecting pictures, my favorite genre of anime has to be Mecha, there is just something awesome about giant robots beating the crap out of each other! Other than that type of show, I love a good comedy or action series :D
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23 Responses to “First Impressions – Re:Creators”

  1. HannoX says:

    The first two episodes were intriguing and well done so unless it jumps the tracks soon I’m in.

    I don’t think Souta is the creator of Gunpuku. I don’t think a creator would forget he created such a memorable character. Now, maybe if he only did a sketch or two of her and only came up with a vague idea of her character, but she seems too well developed for that.

    That last brings up an interesting matter. Just how well developed does a character have to be to appear in our world? If one is not fully fleshed out but only a vague concept in his/her creator’s mind can they appear? And what happens with them if they do? Are they more zombie like, rather than a person? Or can they undergo further character development as they interact with our world?

    However, I suspect we won’t get the answers to those questions. I think the characters that appear in our world will be fully formed for the most part. But will they just like real people undergo further development of their personalities as they interact with the world around them? I would think yes and that that will form part of series’ story. Celestia and Meteora already seem to be changing and I would think Mamika will now that she’s learned that unlike in her world here her actions can hurt people and destroy property.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Yeah like if they do the whole transfer student thing and Meteora and Celestia pop in up in Souta’s school then id definitely flip a table or quit watching.

      True he might not be Gunpuku’s original creator because for sure he would instant know who she was, but I’m still confused as to why he didn’t want Celestia or Meteora seeing his notebook of drawings other than being embarrassed by his terrible artwork? That or it was just added for Meteora to give him inspiration to create his own story? That or like you said did a random drawing of her and tossed it aside, but she talks about having a world and what not so yeah that theory has a few holes in it.

      That is a interesting question! I assume that creation would be easy to manipulate into doing whatever their “master” that found them makes them do? Or picking up things on their own like you said by interacting with people around them or even something dumb as watching anime? I could imagine anyone with powers being like what do I do with these powers? They could research things and find out.

      Yeah I think we’re just going to have to turn our brains off when it comes to how these characters are jumping from fictional worlds into ours for now! I think it’s probably gonna be related to the whole emotion side? Like whatever their creator is feeling at the time and poof it happens or some dumbass magical artifact that is causing this I know in the Last Action Hero movie it’s a golden movie ticket that makes it possible to visit movie worlds. If so its obvious that Gunpuku has that item due to the fact she was in Celestia’s world and then jumped right into ours that fast.

  2. skylion says:

    It really does have that Last Action Hero vibe to it, but it takes it a few steps further, being an ensemble cast anime and all. If there is any trace of the Urobutcher here, then it’s probably the basic idea and it’s resultant structure. That being, since we treat these fiction characters like they’re really alive, let’s just bridge the gap and bring their whole reality to ours.

    So for Mamika, the fact that her show is pitched to kids, the cartoon violence never translated to real destruction.

    For LN cover girl, it’s how earnest the writing is; and those writers always write themselves into corners so of course she can drive a car without even blinking, cause that’s how a LN writer thinks? And since LNs have less art than manga or anime, she has limited poses.

    But then there is Meteora, and she knows everything, and now she’s in a place with more to learn; Heaven for a JRPG game info broker.

    But Gunpuku, or whatever? Total chuuni fanfic character. I mean, guns and swords, and that costume which shows “more more more details” and no sense of restraint? Of course she’s overpowered!

    But for me the set pieces are secondary, I want to find out how the glue gets made and how it sticks all of the together.

    • zztop says:

      Hiroe Rei said he was influenced by Last Action Hero when he conceptualized Re Creators.

      On a side note, he’ll be releasing a new chapter of Black Lagoon this coming May.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Oh for sure! It does have that vibe! I like the alternative to having the “fantasy” or other worldly characters coming to our world instead of the normal RE:Zero’s and Konosuba’s of late.

      Yeah I love how each character comes from a different genre of game, anime or novel series! I can’t wait to see the mecha pilot and the old dude with a gun? I assume hes from a crime detective series.

      LOL Gunpuku has a bit of that going on I can agree and whoever her creator is I guess they are a bit odd as well?

  3. BlackBriar says:

    Impressive and continues to do so. Should it stay its course, I can see Re:Creators and Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul competing for the top spot of my seasonal list. 22 episodes long, no less. So this is shaping up to be a good long ride.

    I remembered TROYCA because it was brought up they were involved in Aldnoah.Zero’s existence but I fail to see the big deal since it’s simply in charge of the animation. I mean, Re:Creators and Aldnoah also share Hiroyuki Sawano as the music composer. Is his involvement also going to repel people, too? I doubt that a lot.

    As for the premise, a welcomed reversal to the trending “sent to another world” theme. It may like a nice idea at first but having insanely overpowered fictional characters entering reality is all kinds of messed up. Imagine Goku, Naruto or any one of their enemies making it into our world. “Screwed” wouldn’t begin to describe the situation we’d be in.

    I’m liking the characters already and they’re adapting to the new surroundings faster than expected which I take as a sign that the narrative has a lot of things in store for them.

    Souta passes as the protagonist for me because he’s showing to be the type that grows from personal experience. And thankfully, since he accepted Celestia and Meteora as fast as he did despite the high odds against their very existence, he’s not the type annoying shackled and ruled by logic and reason. I’m going to pity him, though. He aspires to be a Creator himself but that’s likely to be a tall order with the ensuing chaos that’s to come.

    The military clad girl’s name is a mystery but she already gets my vote as intelligent, playfully sadistic female antagonists are within my strike zone.

    I do see where Mamika’s coming from. Were we in her place, we certainly wouldn’t take kindly to the idea of our unpleasant reality being a creation solely for an outsider’s entertainment while we’re kept in the dark.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Yeah with RE:Creators and more Bahamut it’s going to be interesting to see how both series do! I’m enjoying both of them so far.

      The problem is the story of Aldnoah.Zero didn’t go the way the fans wanted? I think a lot of fans had issues with how Slaine and Inaho were treated? Not to mention them having the ability to survive the impossible at every corner? Sure Inaho is a MC along with Slain but come on the dude got shot IN THE HEAD and still was fine! He even got a OP ass power boost with that stupid AI eyeball? What? Personally I liked Aldnoah.Zero for the visual style I didn’t care about the story b/c of characters like Inaho who was BORING and Slaine wasn’t really any better.

      LOL yeah I saw a few on the MAL forums like why doesn’t Gunpuku summon a goku like character and corrupt him and instant win.

      Souta is alright so far he is a bit on the dull side, but ill make due with him and besides i’m fairly sure he survives this whole mess since he was the narrator of the first episode he talked in 3rd person so maybe this whole series is the novel he would create in the future?

      Ohhhhh so military boss types are your thing? Sorta like Tanya the evil or is that TOO crazy?

      SAME! I think we all would have a few choice words for our creator haha

  4. Smiley says:

    This show knows exactly how to pander to its audience, and it does so with great success. I’m on board.

    • BlackBriar says:

      It’s pretty much announced itself as a contender for best anime of the season.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Hahah yeah it’s gonna be tough to beat RE:Creators in terms of WOW factor! A close second for me might be Shingeki no Bahamut: VIRGIN SOUL and GRANBLUE FANTASY The Animation when it comes to “great looking animation” but like everything entertainment everyone has their own tastes of what they call “good”

  5. Highway says:

    I like the idea of making a show about Pan-theistic Multiple Personality Solipsism, but I’m a great deal less interested if the whole point is “Let’s get everyone together, and now you and her fight!” While on one level, it is an interesting meta-critique of the writing of stories and games, that they take so many shortcuts in narrative and end up just blasting away at each other anyway, if that’s all that this show does with it I’ll think it’s a huge missed opportunity.

    • skylion says:

      Yeah, finding out the things they have in common would be far more interesting, but….let’s have them blast away for a bit longer, as I like seeing the styles clash.

      So, anyone have a favorite character from somewhere they’d like to see get in? Rocket Racoon? Cohen the Barbarian? CLIPPY!?

      • HannoX says:

        Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. A really interesting one would be Harold Shea since in his stories he was a character to traveled into other mythic and literary worlds. So what happens when he finds himself in the world of his creators? (Both sadly dead now.)

      • HannoX says:

        Spammy, go back into whatever hell of a world your creator dreamed up.

      • Foshizzel says:

        So basically you would summon all the 70-80’s cartoons and other types of characters as your team? Sounds good! I dunno who id pick if I had to stay away from anime characters? Probably 90’s characters and video games? The original Power Rangers, Xmen, Spiderman, Solid Snake from Metal Gear, zombies from Resident Evil? Sorry I was a derp kid who didn’t read books back then so I got no fictional book characters!

        • skylion says:

          Yeah, those would work. Heck, so would Heffalumps and Woozles!LOL. No, they totally wouldn’t…

    • Foshizzel says:

      Yeah well I’m not totally sold on the idea of them fighting each other because they have to, but then things would become monogatari with huge blocks of the episode dedicated to two or more characters talking about things.

      I’m curious how each characters set of rules apply to the real world like Meteora doesn’t want to fly around because it could effect the world around them? Then again not all of them are going to think like her just like Mamika who transformed and went right into fighting mode not thinking about hurting other people around her.

  6. zztop says:

    How do you think the scene of the spectacled girl killing herself in Ep 1’s opening ties in to all this? She appears in the OP briefly, so I think she’ll have a role to play in all this.

    • skylion says:

      …yeah, we kinda forgot about her, didn’t we. It’s not like the opening episode of Lain where we were reminded of the suicide ever five minutes.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Well like I said in the post we don’t really know how she is connected or if she might have been Gunpuku’s creator? Also who knows if one of the other creations has some kind of power to control people like Lelouch of code Geass for example? He can get you to do anything he wants so I wouldn’t be shocked if that happened to the glasses girl at the start.

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