Re:CREATORS

Episode 15

The thing that I have probably loved the most about Re:CREATORS is how excellent a job writer Rei Hiroe and director Ei Aoki have done covering their bases and anticipating audience expectations, a strength that is firmly on display in this episode.

Although we first saw her last episode, Hikayu Hoshikawa formally gets introduced to begin this episode, where we discover that she's not exactly a transplant from a romcom, as many suspected. Instead, she's from a dating sim that's apparently a cleaned-up version of an ero game. While seeing her show off crazy romcom-girl strength would have been amusing, this is a far juicier outcome that was probably even more in need of being added to the mix. Granted, she doesn't boost the power of our hero team at all (unless you count Masaaki's great line about how her power is “showing her panties and seducing men”), but the suggestion that she might be able to acquire abilities via fan disc is an interesting one. For those not familiar with such things, fan discs are common add-ons for game titles that feature bonus content that fall short of a sequel but can expand on the setting or even include alternate-world or crossover adventures. They function for games similar to what omake or OVA episodes can do for anime, and since you can do pretty much anything with them, it wouldn't at all be a stretch to cast Hikayu as a magical girl or something enough to gain widespread acceptance. I'm now really curious to see where the series goes with that. Hikayu's introduction also raises the question again about the common binding theme between all of the titles whose characters are coming to life. If, as some believe, they're all interests of Setsuna, then what does putting a dating sim into this mean about her?

But Hoshikawa's introduction is only a fraction of what's going on this week. We also get introduced to Nishio Ohnishi, the buck-toothed guy first seen in the new opener last week, who is one of Hikayu's Creators. As instantly-disagreeable as he is, the series wouldn't have felt complete without introducing someone like him: the hardcore otaku obsessed with creating his own waifus. His presence allows for the episode's funniest sequence and best visuals, in the scene where both Hikayu and Selesia put heels to his face. On the bad guy side, we get confirmation that the segmented staff-wielder is Sho Hakua, the rival of Yuya from his source material who also has his own “Astra Double.” That should make for some dicey encounters in the future.

This is also the episode where we finally get some more insight into Blitz and a far better sense of why he's chosen to side with Altair. Between the flashback to his series, which explains all we really need to know about his daughter, and his interactions with both Sho and Altair, he's a much more relatable character by the end of the episode. And was that last scene Altair actually showing some genuine affection for the old dog? She was obviously manipulating Alicetaria, so it's possible she's doing that in an entirely different way for Blitz, but I'm not so sure.

Other characters are also in play. Magane reappears for the first time in a few episodes to give the series its most intense dose of fanservice to date and show off more of the body language that makes her such a fun character to watch. Alicetaria coming to encourage her to stir up trouble was a bit unexpected, but her demeanor further supports the position that Sota's words back in episode 10 may have had an impact on her. Alicetaria's creator coming onto the good guys' team and commenting that he still wants to help Alicetaria turn around is also promising for future developments. So is Meteora's neat new spell, which will be able to give them a running gauge of how successful efforts to create the conditions they want will be, so they can accurately fine-tune them; this is a concept that I hadn't even considered. So is Altair's new ability, which suggests that she's not entirely ignorant of what Meteora is trying to do. On top of all of this, the new opener is starting to grow on me, even though I still prefer the first one. The new closer is also rapidly becoming my favorite of the year so far.

In other words, there's an awful lot going on in an episode whose action element entirely consists of a couple feet-to-face incidents. This episode offers a lot of meat for fans to sink their teeth into, and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Special Note: All this meat this week is a good thing since I have seen indications that next week will be a special. If that proves to be the case, then there might not be an episode review next week, unless Amazon also carries the special.

Rating: A

Re:CREATORS is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.