#funny isekai where the isekai-less part of it was immensely better

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Finished my rewatch of No Game No Life and first watch of the movie and wow. Series is like 6/10 (I enjoy it but there's a flavor of things that I dislike), but the movie was like maybe a 9/10 for me.

Going to start with dislikes of the series. Most of my dislike is just like, the main characters are TOO good for my taste, they are determined to win to a childish extent and the story just lets them and explains it afterwards while making them look cool. Can make the whole story feel like an unearned victory lap. Just not the type of story I like.

They're too mean to Steph. I like Steph, she's a good girl. They should stop being repeatedly surprised when she's insightful. The only reason they don't respect her is she has bad intuition with games. You could argue that it's a key point to showing that they're assholes but also :c Stop being so mean to her and do more with her.

Third is stop being so irresponsible. Your bets have no weight if you just bet your life and everything you own all the time and suffer no drawbacks; it just makes you look irresponsible over and over. This one kinda ties into the first because, like, the first basically justifies how they can bet everything: the story is already set on making them never lose or suffer any drawbacks so they can just bet everything all the time. This one also becomes an issue for me when they try comforting and war beast child they beat at a game for part of her nation. This child character is having a panic attack because she is suddenly feeling the weight of all the lives of her own nation she just ruined by being negligent during the game and their first response is like ,"Don't worry about it, you were just having fun :)". It's making light of such a like, real emotion that it kinda annoyed me.

That's it for bad stuff. In general, I still overall like the series because it's fun :D. I really like the games! I am big enthusiast of card games, board games, and video games (was president of my college's card & board games club). This anime makes pretty excellent use of all three, AND it's consistently good at making both interesting games and coming up with interesting plays for our star players to make in them. That Shiritori game was so cool. I take issue with how they're able to make those plays constantly and make it look easy, but the plays themselves are plenty enjoyable.

It has a very fun, flawed world. I like how the rules for this world were clearly made to stop people from suffering, but they clearly failed. It's really fucked up that you can become the ruler for your whole race just by like, winning some games. It's fucked up that you can bet not only your lives, but also your entire races lives. This is not a just world even when physical violence is impossible. It reveals the other types of violence there can be.

The characters are fun. The main two are quirky assholes, Steph is a sweetheart, Jibril is horny, etc. I don't always like how the main two are assholes, but they're still overall enjoyable and the rest of the cast is all lovely. I like how committed they are at being the pinnacles of a siscon and brocon without really feeling romantic.

I also like the concept of people with less ability being able to overcome others with superior ability. Games are very much a thing where strategy is key. Yes, it is not fair that all the other peoples of the world have magic and one people does not. Yes, that means in a theoretical sense, a non-magical person could win more games if they had magic. However, strategy and game intuition is definitely that can be developed from your perspective in a way where having a super power to rely on can be a detriment. This unfortunately a little undercut by our two main heroes being god gamers, and no other humans really showing off this strength from adversity but the idea is still theoretically brought up!

Anyways, onto the movie!

First off, wow this movie is a fucking weird choice. It completely skips away from the main story to instead do a lore movie using the faces of the main cast with just the small justification that it's the god of the current isekai world telling it (Tet is such a cutie, I'd fuck him). It's this very serious movie about war, love, and faith that ends in a bittersweet way with our heroes saving the world from constant war but at the cost of their lives and all the ties they had to cut to survive to get there. There are drawbacks to this. The movie has a tough time at the start; really feels like it's having to double-time plot and world building since it's an almost fresh slate of story and characters. It is such a tone shift from the core series, but I think that actually works a lot in it's favor.

For one, it makes the fun, flawed world of the tv series feel so much real. Like even if the game world is still problematic and hierarchical, it's so bright and shiny compared to the previous one. It makes me go "Oh of course the rules of the game world would think banning physical violence would solve things, the previous world was entirely defined by a constant war." This is such an upgrade that I can forgive the flaws that are more obvious now that there's been time outside of constant war.

This movie has an odd religious presence I did not expect. I guess I should have expected it seeing as this world building is based around gods AND even has an in-universe god telling it. Reminds me, I might be too Monogatari poisoned, but part of me also wonders how much to trust Tet as a narrator. He tells us not to trust all the details at the end, but it was something I was thinking about throughout and that kinda made me wanna trust him more. Whether or not we should believe anything he says, the themes and the subtext feel like they apply v nicely, so I'm willing to say those are valid either way. Anyways, with the ending of the story, the MC gets the holy grail all the violent gods were constant warring over, but he can't grasp it, despairs, and, in desperation, prays for the first time. He begs for the god he's always been paranoid of being beside him to make meaning of his awful life and that exact god shows up. Perfect timing of faith gratification.

It's interesting in a couple ways. For one, it has some fun subtext of people being the ones who create gods. Like before this, Tet was invisible, a non-presence in the story except for Riku's conceptualization of him. Tet only appears when Riku prays for him, which gives an idea of cause and affect. I don't think it's a farfetched read to think Tet was brought into existence by Riku unknowingly using the holy grail thing. Lord, again it's fuckin cheeky that Tet is the one telling this story. Like, literally ending the story with "The hero was at his lowest point and wished for his ideal god, and I showed up and saved the day :D". Second, since there are in fact other gods in the story (not on screen but still), this kind of sends of a message saying to choose your god(s). Reject the gods that oppress you. Only accept the god that loves you, will respect for you, will put in the work for you, and will give your life meaning. In that way, it's kind of sweet. I'm not a huge fan of organized religion, most queers aren't, but that doesn't mean I'm not spiritual. I find this kind of one-on-one relationship with a god interesting.

Before I forget, I also really liked Riku and Schwi. It was like seeing versions of Sora and Shiro, but better. Versions of them where their flaws have actual weight. Where they don't win at no cost. Where they clash, have real conflict with each other, and grow from it. The contrast felt jarring in the perfect way. This movie was a genuinely sweet and tragic love story. It was short, but very impactful. I didn't end up crying, but I felt tears welling up at a few points. It doesn't get rid of my issues with the tv series, but it alleviates them. It's the exact thing you want when you step away from the main story: a breath of fresh air without baggage. Oh, I can't forget to bring something up. Remember how I said Shiro and Sora doesn't feel like incest earlier. Tet is kind of implying (even through his "can't trust what I say") that Sora and Shiro are the reincarnations of Riku and Schwi. With it being such a deep and compelling romance, this really feels like the hardest I've seen a work go for incest subtextually. Like holy fuck, they soulmated so hard that they came back as inseparable step-siblings. Their romance is just so unquestionable. Riku's sister immediately assumes they're in love and ready to fuck. He asks Schwi to marry him and as a robot she asserts that she doesn't understand because marriage is for mating which is impossible between them, and he asserts that that doesn't matter. Until tragedy starts hitting, they're always by each other's side. And it's so funny because those vibes were not there before because of the mood of the tv series, but because the movie goes so hard and literally gives them Sora's and Shiro's faces + voices + implied reincarnation, it feels like the movie is begging me to want the main story siblings to shack up. Amazing.

Lastly, because this is getting kinda long, although this feels like a completely different story, I really like how it connects to the main one. Like, this world feels perfect for Sora and Shiro because Tet designed it for them. Even though they still feel a little too good, their ease in this world feels slightly justified because someone designed it to be easy to specifically them.

I hope all that explains why the movie is such a jump in score for me. It doesn't solve the issues of it's predecessor, but it avoids them itself and is able to alleviate them slightly in the small ways they connect. It's very satisfying.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Anime Hot Take: Goblin Slayer is more offensive than Redo of Healer

I totally understand why the anime community is collectively freaking about Redo of Healer not getting cancelled by normies like Shield Hero, Ishuzoku Reviewers, and Uzaki-chan. A lot of anime content creators are saying because anime [social] cancellation is based on clout chasing and it’s because Redo of Healer is a bad anime, and I disagree completely because Uzaki-chan is also a bad anime. As excessively raunchy Redo of Healer is, its offensiveness has more narrative backing than Goblin Slayer does for its world-building.

Elephant in the room: depictions of rape are poor artistic choices when the physical act is shown instead of heavily implied for the narrative. Both Goblin Slayer and Redo of Healer depict rape onscreen to get more attention for being edgy and raunchy, needlessly. People finding Shield Hero more offensive for involving a false rape allegation are missing the forest for the trees and there is no rape in Ishuzoku Reviewers. Goblin Slayer uses its rape scenes to objectify people we’re supposed to see from the perspective of, very clearly. Meaning, Goblin Slayer is asking for a self-objectification in order for you to be invested in the main casts’ goals. The effect of this is Goblin Slayer is really only showing these gratuitous rape scene(s) for shock value. Goblin Slayer is a Fantasy, not specifically an Isekai Revenge Fantasy like Redo of Healer is. Redo of Healer uses its rape scenes to subjectify people we’re supposed to see from the perspective of, making it fundamentally different and more aligned with Game of Thrones depictions of rape than Redo of Healer. In episode 1 of Redo of Healer, the main character is subjectified, not objectified. In episode 1 of Goblin Slayer, the rape scene objectifies the woman. The only other conclusion hyperfeminism could have to this incongruity is media that portrays sexual violence is more acceptable when male sexual violence is on the forefront, which is fucked. In episode 2 of Redo of Healer, the first antagonist is a female and the rape scene itself is sick and cruel, but not gratuitous in the way Goblin Slayer handles its rape scenes. Again, the character is subjectified and not objectified, which makes a lot of difference if media makes the morally abhorrent but logical choice to depict rape for views because it works. Redo of Healer already starts on better footing than Goblin Slayer because a central theme in Goblin Slayer is the objectification of life and experience while Redo of Healer works in that same theme with the subjectification of people’s lives and experiences.

Redo of Healer is ultimately a power fantasy like most other Isekai are, Goblin Slayer is intended to make you feel powerless. There is some subtlety in the way the author puts forward the narrative of “power makes people bad” in Redo of Healer, while the narrative choices in Goblin Slayer directly portray the message of “no matter how much power you have, you cannot affect the world”. Both are a criticism of power fantasy, but Redo of Healer is actually within its genre doing so, not looking from the outside-in and acting above the genre itself when it has taken over the anime industry. The plot structure in Goblin Slayer reads as if it’s better than the Isekai trend, making itself pretentious and thereby worse than the trend because it’s just mocking something popular because it’s popular. Redo of Healer actually looks into why this popularity exists and if it’s legitimately warranted or just feeding the vanity of its readers. In the first two episodes, the narrative has all this suffering going on written in a way so the reader actively disconnects from the normally self-insert protagonist in an Isekai. Goblin Slayer literally does the opposite with Priestess. The self-insert scenes in Redo of Healer are actually the opposite because they structure themselves in that way but do the opposite, you don’t want to be in any of those situations. When you weigh moral wrongs and aren’t afraid of playing the oppression Olympics for the sake of philosophical conjecture, Keyaru is enacting retribution in a manner reciprocally efficient or less compared to what he endured. You can see that via his intended final act of retribution of Flare being to make her his consensual sex object rather than everyone’s nonconsensual sex object as he originally was. The finger-breaking was his exchange for the deception, involuntary servitude, and general lack of empathy; regrettably, the sexual assault with bodily harmful object was for the forced drug addiction via symbolism analysis. He ends up healing all this anyway and not being overwhelmed by it, meaning everything he did was a small fraction of what had been done to him. It’s still revenge, but it’s nothing nearly as crazy as what was done to him and actually didn’t drag out as much as people say compared to goblin rape scenes in Goblin Slayer (some of them which didn’t need to exist narratively and were only there because author is insulting your intelligence, assuming you forgot it’s a thing because it assumes you’re an Isekai reader). Fair warning about Blade and Bullet though is they represent very real tropes on the social spectrum, Blade representing hyperfeminist ideologies to the point of outright misandry and Bullet representing men who degrade themselves just for being men, so a lot more people will have something to be butthurt about when that narrative realization comes to pass. Part of the way Redo of Healer compartmentalizes its characters into said tropes speaks to a larger picture of what the show intends to do, criticize the Isekai genre and its tropes instead of just mocking them like Goblin Slayer does.

The narrative structure of Redo of Healer reads like a hate letter to Isekai power fantasy writing, the narrative structure of Goblin Slayer reads like a roast to Isekai power fantasy writing. Hate letters are generally more honest and genuine than roasts, which sacrifice truth for the sake of being comedic. Goblin Slayer itself wasn’t even that funny though, it had moments but its humor was so self-contained, it only existed if you already were self-involved enough in the tropes, in which you were the one being roasted. Effectively, Goblin Slayer seeks to roast you with no audience, making the roast itself kind of pointless and belittling. Redo of Healer though criticizes Isekai writing on two fronts: the morality of the world (which Shield Hero already did pretty masterfully) and the reasonable scope of a self-insert protagonist. Living in a morally dark Isekai world that’s full of hell and suffering is something Rising of the Shield Hero did so well, it would be difficult to see it done better, but Redo of Healer follows the exact narrative thread Shield Hero does only in a far more sinister way. The difference is Redo of Healer takes the grinding element from Cautious Hero and totally removes the opportunity for it to be had and the end result is said self-insert Isekai protagonist being abused in the party instead of valued, it actually makes sense on a power scaling level if you place it in a world where the characterization of all humanity is made out to be shitty from the start (slave trading demi-humans, raping other people for mana, rulers with no actual empathy or morality, etc.). Redo of Healer’s setting emulates humanity from Chapter Black in Yu Yu Hakusho. In simpler terms, if any of these dudes popularizing Isekai self-inserts into Keyaru, they’re not overpowered for no reason like in other Isekais, they’re overpowered because they were already humbled to the extent where nothing could ever feel like redemption. Most of these people self-inserting probably aren’t as great as they think they are, but especially on the moral scale. Keyaru represents a broken version of that self-insert: a human that is fallible, can feel real negative emotions and act abhorrently on them, and isn’t overly resilient for plot convenience’s sake. Keyaru’s immensely busted skill comes at a heavy toll, meaning it was balanced but he broke it (like Maple did in Bofuri) because he was driven to madness. If you break the “overpowered for no reason” trope in both harem and Isekai, you ARE a criticism of both. Are there good anime that use this trope well? Slime is an example. But Kadokawa specifically has been tending to favor titles that are criticisms of Isekai rather than straight-up Isekais themselves, making this something they were willing to push to the forefront even though it borrows a little too much from hentai plots. If anything, Redo of Healer shows how frustrated the industry, from writer to publisher, has been with the Japanese otaku community when poorly written, power fantasy, self-insert shows like Sword Art Online become the face of otaku culture and starts a predatory profit-seeking trend of everything has to be Isekai for it to make money. Redo of Healer reaches for a larger criticism of why anime storytelling has gotten less substantive in the past decade and plunges its hands into the depths of the filth and degeneracy that’s being promoted. It’s a meta-criticism to make what you’re putting out there so horrific it becomes nearly impossible to connect with.

Do I like Redo of Healer? No, absolutely not. Do I think it sends a loud and clear message to viewers who know how to analyze a piece of fiction with good depth and nuance? Yes. Goblin Slayer does not do that, Goblin Slayer itself is just an amusement park ride you’re supposed to enjoy, but they jolt you with shock value to get you invested, making its plot threads and themes gimmicky at best. Redo of Healer actually does what Goblin Slayer was going for in shock value and makes you so numb to it you actually realize how devolved Isekai storytelling is, adding its attention grabbing mechanism as short hentai clips like Ishuzoku Reviewers did. As for why Shield Hero was mentioned so much, it’s because the characterization of Blade specifically goes after those who were trying to get Shield Hero cancelled for its narrative thread. Blade is the worst representation of that, worship and veneration of femininity in a patriarchal context which ultimately results in the worship of power and existing power structures which promote said power to the point where queerness (in love of femininity) somehow excuses deplorability since postmodern queerness never actively promotes masculinity as something that can function as socially just. Flare, Blade, and Bullet all show more toxic masculinity individually in the first 3 chapters/episodes than Keyaru, and that was a deliberate writing choice. The reason why Redo of Healer isn’t actively being socially cancelled is because its biggest statement is “people are shit” and that’s an okay statement for normies.

Normies are coming after Nagatoro because it normalizes and almost makes light of real bullying. I think us weeaboos need to understand that bullying is a higher impact problem than rape being depicted in media if we’re fighting on the hill of “violent video games don’t encourage violence”. I find Nagatoro more difficult to understand the narrative intent of than Redo of Healer, the fact the weeaboo community is disconnected from that means we’re only looking at things on the surface level and are too within ourselves to know what real world problems actually have ripple effects on human behavior. The reason why we accept Nagatoro is because we know the two main characters eventually become involved and Hachioji could handle it to the point he consented to it. In pretty much all scenarios you have a mean girl bullying someone, regardless of gender, that’s not what happens: the person is left scarred, changed, and with significant platonic trust issues into adulthood. Rape is an issue that’s handled with so little care because of patriarchy and power struggles, people are generally far more numb to it than seeing actual mental and verbal abuse just being glossed over because “he’s a guy, he’s less of one if he can’t handle it”. Anime generally is going the way of Scum’s Wish where there’s more morally abhorrent characterizations of humanity than morally neutral ones, and all of these anime that stir controversy is a reflection of said fact. Having said that, Redo of Healer is willing to go way farther down into the abyss instead of just looking at it from the edge of the hole like Goblin Slayer does, then seeing scenes for shock value when you use telescope to look. For the reason Goblin Slayer thinks it’s above an Isekai while commodifying abhorrence to draw attention, I actually find Redo of Healer to be less offensive.

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!

You know what was a surprisingly nice discovery? Crunchyroll has the english dub of the first… season? Cour? First ten episodes of KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! (also known and henceforth referred to as KonoSuba) with the english dub. How magnanimous of the Dub-unfriendly service.

Konosuba was a pleasant follow-up to Kill la Kill (the review of which I’d been struggling with as I write this essay, so we’ll see if anything from that materializes). The network of Youtube Anime Reviewers had decided this was real good and funny and is worth the time. And, hey, I did have that free month courtesy of Twitch Prime, I might as well![1]

I thought it was fine! But the massive hype might’ve dragged it down. Comedy’s difficult. A lot relies on the unexpected, so if you prime viewers with “It’s really funny,” you raise critical expectations, which can undercut the weaker material.

Or maybe I’m too much of a comedic writer to get the full effect. Learned to read set-ups and such.

But I can recommend it if you have access and are interested. You won’t be disappointed.

Possibly another hurdle to my enjoyment is I went in intending to mine ideas for my own works. Spoofing RPGs and such is something I’ve long been wanting to set my skills towards, and it’s not always clear the best way to interpret mechanics.

Anyways, Konosuba has decided to parody the increasingly popular isekai[3] genre.

First ingredient: an average loser everyman for the viewer to project on. Filling the role is Kazuma Sato.[5] He goes out to buy a video game, decides to save a girl’s life from a perceived threat, and dies.

So, he needs to be reincarnated. As part of the typical Isekai set-up, he’s allowed to ask for whatever he needs to make himself massively overpowered.

So he takes Aqua, the sassy goddess offering him the choice.

This is the point where the typical formula breaks down. Kazuma has no notable advantages, and Aqua isn’t actually competent. Thus, we spend the 10 episodes stuck in the starting town of the pseudo-video game world.

So, when you throw someone into a video game or (less commonly) TRPG world, there’s the question of how to depict the actual GUI and game mechanics.

There’s the Sword Art Online and Log Horizon method, where the mechanics and their relationship with the world is unchanged, including the “players” being able to pull up a system menu to do… system menu things.

On the other end, we have Overlord, where the menu and other visuals vanish, and the tasks they accomplished must either be intuited by those translated into the world, or become part of their innate knowledge.

KonoSuba has everyone talk about the mechanics and such freely (in a tutorial NPC sort of way), but the menu has been replaced by an Adventurers ID, which shows stats and allows the adventurers to swipe and learn skills. Functional and easy for the viewer to accept.[6]

From this starting point, we have Aqua as the healer, and Kazuma as… an unclear role. He learns a Steal skill early, but he then starts learning magic, so he’s a bit of a Jack-of-all-Trades. The show’s not shy about the Master of None side of that, because the only decent stat our protagonist has is Luck, which counts just enough for him not to die and get the crucial things to fall in his lap.

Such crucial things include a Mage (who refuses to cast any spell except an excessive explosion spell) named Megumin, and a Tank-Fighter (who is… rather excited to take damage) named Darkness. Not the ideal companions, but functional.

But that also means we don’t have a straight Rouge, so I’m required to be salty about that.

Kazuma attempts to build a sustainable and fulfilling life, but the quests available are either above his capabilities or menial labor. Because life is more funny whenever things don’t go well for the hero.

The first three episodes are dedicated to establishing the setting and the characters, and aren’t actually that funny. Yes, there are things I can identify as attempts at comedy, but they’re modest attempts that don’t really build to a satisfying laugh. Kazuma’s attempt at straight-manning the shenanigans of his allies is restricted to complaining and feeling put upon, which flattens the funny moment by drawing attention to how wacky it’s meant to be.

Episode four, however, finally introduces a desperately needed element: a victim. In the form of a Dullahan who is up to his nonexistent neck with annoyance at Megumin casting a daily explosion spell on his castle.

His attempts at intimidation fall flat due to the apathy of our main party, and then Darkness steps in with her masochism, which bewilders him. He casts a death curse on Darkness, to her delight, and rides off to await Megumin to fight him in his castle.

Aqua then casually removes the curse, and our party forgets about the encounter.

A character desperately trying to do his job in spite of the ideocentricies of the main cast is much funnier than a character that just complains.

Comedy works better when it builds off what is established in narrative than over-relying on meta-knowledge and lampshade hanging. Those things have their place, but they work better as augmenting jokes or to speed up delivery, not as whole jokes themselves.

The next episode does a better job in that respect by introducing another guy with the same deal as Kazuma, except he’s a more traditional Isekai protagonist, and thus kind of a loser NEET. He also chose a massively overpowered sword instead of Aqua, and is doing better because of it.

Kazuma easily outwits him, steals the sword, and fences it. This sets a stronger character base for Kazuma: a genre savvy jerk willing to exploit the world around him for a quick buck. It turns him from a put-upon everyman into a jerk able to cause the same sort of chaos as the rest of his party.

Unfortunately, such moments are few and far between, as the rest of the season has Kazuma back to being a useless whiner. We do get closure with the Dullahan, which showcases Kazuma is actually pretty good at analytical thinking and tactics, but lacks the personal capabilities to actually fight.

The show then introduces an important character (a lich named Wiz) in a manner that clearly cut segments from the source material that, if shown in full, probably would’ve strengthened the rest of the story.

Instead, that time is used for an episode where Kazuma patronizes a succubus business that offers customized dreams. We watch an extended Q&A segment that raises uneasy implications about Kazuma’s predilections, then an uncomfortable encounter between him and Darkness which I don’t know how to fairly judge, since Kazuma is forcing Darkness into foreplay and intends to go further, but he thinks it’s a dream while Darkness doesn’t know that and thinks he’s being forceful, but she also could very easily overpower him and the show’s established…

Look, episode 9 should’ve been cut and I don’t wish to dwell on it any further.[7]

Anyways, the fall-out of that adventure is suddenly ignored as Howl’s Moving Castle (Dark Edition) lurches towards the town. Deary dear.

It belongs to the Dark Lord, though the exact nature of it and it’s controller is rather ambiguous. But it’s scary, powerful, and has immense defense. What will the town do?

Fortunately, Kazuma’s surprisingly powerful party and his tactical scheming allows them to stop it. However, in true villain lair fashion, the moving fortress starts a self destruct sequence. So now that needs to be addressed.

While searching the place to figure out how to deactivate it, Kazuma finds the corpse of the builder/driver with his diary.

Turns out, the guy was hired to build it, but thought the requirements were excessive and he didn’t really want to do the job. So he told his employers he needed a rare relic to power it, thinking it’d never get supplied.

The relic gets supplied.

So he builds the fortress, turns it on, and immediately loses control. The fortress goes on an unstoppable rampage as the builder is stuck inside. Oops. So he just kind of kept bluffing his way along.

Which tells us something crucial about this world: it runs on a narrativium fueled by malicious luck. Kazuma’s form of luck is not unique, wherein he is only fortunate enough for the next inconvenience to come along. He gets a rent-free manor not because he particularly deserves it, but because fate demands he be able to survive the winter. His companions are just competent enough to excuse their quirks. Even a second isekai protagonist finds success for only long enough to become a punchline.

It is a universe with a cruel sense of humor, and the greatest success goes to those who stumble uphill while trying to avoid detection.

It’s a world that rewards not the Aragorns, but the Rincewinds. So that’s fun.

This is best exemplified when Kazuma’s rousing success in saving the town results in him being arrested for at least property damage if not regicide.[8] And that is where the first 10 episodes end.

Now to wait for the season 2 and OVA dubs…

It’s a fine anime, but I think it’s been oversold. The premise is strong, the characters are fun, but the storytelling felt more like an attempt to hit the Greatest Hits beats. It might be worth the effort to read the Light Novel, as I suspect that might be the superior version in this case.[9]

Still, there are strong ideas, and a few things I’d aim to emulate. Especially the distinct leads. I do struggle with making a cast of diverse personalities.

If you enjoyed reading this review, please consider paying me. I have a patreon, a Ko-fi, and a burning desire to branch out into other projects but require investment to make it worth it.

We can’t all reincarnate into a fantasy world. Some of us need support to create them for ourselves.

Kataal kataal.

---

[1] My brother, meanwhile, has been binging Deltora Quest for… some reason… I know the books were pretty good for elementary school Canvas, while the succeeding series made less of an impression.[2] [2] Which is to say, bother Vulpin if you think it deserves a review. [3] Isekai (Japanese: 異世界, transl. "different world") is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy light novels, manga, anime, and video games revolving around a normal person from Earth being transported to, reborn, or trapped in a parallel universe. (Wikipedia)[4] [4] Yes, I actually used a footnote to cite a source and provide further information. Don’t get used to it. [5] I desperately want to make a Yakuza joke, but I got nothing. [6] The solution I devised for Penn & Pauper puts the Stats read-out on smartphones, with everything else being as it is in the normal world. IE, you have to manually equip weapons and armor and such. [7] Not just because my Mom is my only patreon patron. [8] They don’t specify if anyone was in the manor that got exploded. [9] Not that the Light Novels I’ve read thus far have been particularly strong. The writing of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Spice & Wolf felt very stiff on the other end of the translation process. Log Horizon, meanwhile, has meandering Light Novels with a poor sense of rhythm for page breaks.[10] [10] Also, the Mighty Santa Clara Library System refused to accept my Spice & Wolf books, so now I don’t know what to do with them.

[kitsunesbooks]

Re:Creators: My Favorite Anime of Spring 2017

As a writer who happens to dabble in the realms of philosophy, often do questions arise that entertain me for hours on end. I’ve sometimes found myself asking what it would be like to see my characters face to face. I’ve wondered what they would think of me, would we get along or would they all hate me for pitting them against such harsh environments and situations? It’s funny to think about things like this because I’m sure everyday people wonder what they would do if they met their god. It’s just that in this instance, I represent the god, as prideful and cocky as that sounds. Nevertheless, it’s been my belief for awhile now that an artist is the closest thing that humanity has come to becoming gods. Through art, and especially story telling, entire worlds can come into existence. This is the kind of subject material that Re: Creators tackles.

Re: Creators is for all intents and purposes, an isekai story. Isekai being that very prevalent anime trope/sub genre of story where the main character gets trapped in a fantasy world. However, to keep things somewhat fresh, the fantasy world comes into our world, or at least a version of our world. Within Re:Creators, characters from anime, manga, and videogames somehow make their way out into the real world and engage in kickass battles and debates on metaphysics. So if you know anything about me from the articles I’ve written, then you’ve figured out that I am 100% in on this show. The action and meat of the plot is great and all but it's all the metaphysics and mechanics of this universe that keep me thoroughly entertained. The conversations that occur between “creations” and “creators” are in depth and thought provoking. In a way, this anime is some bizarre form of wish fulfillment because I am actually getting theoretical answers to my questions.

The beauty of Re:Creators is how it takes characters who, for all intents and purposes, fit into strict archetypes and then slowly bends them to conform to our world’s rules. While using archetypes as a basis for character development is nothing new to storytelling, Re:Creators more or less bends the archetypes themselves through the small tidbits of character development shown throughout the series. One of the best characters in the entire show thus far is Magical Slayer Mamika. Mamika is a magical girl from what essentially is knock off Sailor Moon. As an added bonus, her design is heavily reminiscent of Madoka from Madoka Magica, which sort of helps to further cement her development and almost poke fun at a certain trope. Mamika basically tears apart the idea that injecting some “realism” into a magical girl story is in someway nuanced. While Madoka gets credit for making it work, it has opened the floodgates for a ton of really bad, edgy magical girl stories that are honestly hot garbage. Mamika however is more based in actual reality as opposed to realism. The first instance we see of Mamika is her fight with another “creation,” Selesia. Mamika recklessly goes all out and unleashes some devastating magic on her opponent with complete disregard to her surroundings. If this were any other character in any other show, she would be written off as just an asshole or a generic “sadist” character. However, when Mamika realizes that rules of our world conflict with her own, it shocks her. She came from a children’s magical girl show. Basically a Saturday morning cartoon. There isn’t any blood in her world and morality is all black and white for the most part. It is a simplistic world with little thought put into it and Mamika’s first interaction in our world is incredibly evident of that.

That first battle Mamika experiences is what sets her character arc into motion and has pretty much made her one of the best characters in the series thus far. Her eventual turnaround was very well paced and written and I hope we get to see just as much inventive and clever writing for all of our cast members. Mamika goes through a rampant sequence of development during the more recent episodes. We see that she still clings to her sense of morals but also shows that she is even willing to go against her own friends when they are doing something wrong. Mamika wants nothing more than peace, which makes sense given her source material. However, instead of Mamika’s judgement being simple minded as it would be in any magical girl show, or the plot focusing on how depressing her situation is, we see her learn and adapt. Her sense of justice doesn’t waver and instead adapts to the morals of our own world as she fights to protect both sides. All she wants is for the fighting to stop and for no one to be killed, and when she finally makes up her mind on what side to take, her actions have that much more weight behind them. Being the type of character she is, she shows everyone kindness, even the villains of this story, especially given they don’t match the archetypes of villains in a typical kid’s show. To Mamika, the villains of Re:Creators aren’t villains at all, they are just people who want to do bad things with good intentions. I could go on and on about Mamika’s character arc, but you are more than likely better off checking out the video Mother’s Basement put out on Re:Creators. Geoff does a, MUCH, better job at analyzing these characters than I do. Nevertheless, Mamika gives you just a taste of the kind of meta story Re:Creators is and honestly it is a hot contender for anime of the season if it hits the right notes.

One thing I can talk about that hasn’t been mentioned before is yet another intriguing character. With our Military Uniform Princess taking the role of main villain it was hard to think that the show would introduce an even greater threat, but it did. Magane Chikujoin is a villain character from a series in Re:Creators world called Yoru Mado Kiroku. Judging by how she acts and behaves as well as her abilities I pegged her as coming from a straight up horror series or maybe even a battle seinen with darker and more mature themes than your typical shonen series. She has a very clever ability that protects her almost indefinitely and she is a complete liar, so much so that she get’s a kick out of it. Lying is her weapon and she uses it to devastating effect. Magane is honestly a terrifying character due to her incredible ability as well as her contrasting schoool girl attitude. She is definitely much more of a villain than the Military Uniform Princess and there some big reasons why. Her knack for telling lies has gotten her involved with every major character in the series. She has a variety of strings she can pull, and while we saw her latest machination get foiled by the heroes’ raw determination and will, it is clear that Magane is willing to say ANYTHING to get what she wants. Compared to Mamika who has undergone a dramatic shift in her archetype, Magane’s archetype has only grown more rotten. She now finds herself in a world where she can do anything she wants without having her fellow characters get in the way. Bringing her to the real world was essentially the equivalent of unchaining a feral beast. Magane is shaping up to be the series’ true villain and it shows. The events of the latest episode proved her to be much more powerful than we anticipated, and with her acknowledgement of zero restraints she becomes that much more dangerous. Magane isn’t just a simple sadistic villain, she is a self-aware villain. She is aware of the existence of her world and ours. Not only that, but the way she behaves makes the viewer think that she might be aware of the world outside the screen, because Re: Creators is still an anime. It doesn’t exist in our world outside of that medium, yet there are several moments where Magane is talking directly to the camera and it seems more like she is talking to us, the viewer. There is one scene in Episode 9 that really hammers this home where she begins talking to herself, yet she is staring straight at us. Not only that, but the things she says are inquisitive and it’s almost like she is trying to convince us, the viewers, that she told the truth, when in reality she bent it. It is that one thing that adds so much more gravity to a character like this and it is incredibly intense.

I could probably talk about this show forever, but I want to leave some of these characters as a surprise for those of you who intend to give the series a shot. This is an anime that is clearly aimed at artists. Whether you draw, animate, or just write, this series was made to be watched by you. The questions and conversations posed by Re:Creators can easily be applied to your own work, and through that it provides perspective. It makes us question the content we create. It makes us wonder just exactly how our characters would truly feel in the situations we put them in. It also makes us question the level of detail we give our worlds. There are so many minor and major details across this series that resonate with me immensely. Because of that, it has become one of favorites of this season, if not this entire year. If you are an artist, I urge you to watch this show. You will not be disappointed, and I’m sure you’ll come away from it with a renewed view on your work. Hope you enjoyed the article.