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Woody__alien wrote:

Basically in the end the whole show was about a powerful character with no backstory or personality, who appears one day out of nowhere, has all the powers in the world, can defeat anybody, is super smug and condescending, and in the end gets exactly the happy end it wanted and nobody else's actions even mattered in the long time. How is that any different from any number of bad fanfictions that you can find in every corner of the internet? And the fact it is self-aware doesn't make it any better.

Nice way to overlook everything that happened in the story.

So what if she gets a happy ending if she's permanently no longer a threat to the world? The threat was still defeated, so mission accomplished.

And the actions of a lot of characters did matter here. Sota was the one who conceived and pushed forward with the idea of bringing Setsuna into the picture, which is ultimately what stopped her original plan. Magane's power helped make it happen, the Creators designed the story and venue where it could happen, Kikuchihara used her authority and connections to make it practical, and Meteora's powers made it reality. Various characters also contributed less directly by influencing Sota and encouraging him to create. A few others didn't seem to really contribute to Altair's defeat, but hers was hardly the only storyline here.

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And don't tell me that the show explored in detail the creative process, because the Creator character are exactly as shallow and one-dimensional as the fictional characters, and the only thing I got out of them was "creators of pornographic material are all pervy creeps, so it's fine to belittle and humiliate them".

Even if I accept that the Creators were shallow and one-dimensional (which I don't), that doesn't prevent the detailing and commentary on the creative process. Think you're missing the forest for the trees here.

Woody__alien wrote:

Basically in the end the whole show was about a powerful character with no backstory or personality, who appears one day out of nowhere, has all the powers in the world, can defeat anybody, is super smug and condescending, and in the end gets exactly the happy end it wanted and nobody else's actions even mattered in the long time.

Actually, I've been thinking about that since last week's episode which concluded the actual final fight despite really enjoying the series. It was primarily coming from this odd dissatisfaction that I had about Selesia's death even though I loved her death scene. She never really contributed anything. Her one sort of contribution to the story was self destructing to take out Charon... but that was also her fault in the first place.

Then I realized it wasn't just Selesia. I just noticed her more because she had more screen time and actually died. I'm not just talking about fights either, but really moving things forward. Kanoya didn't really do anything. You could maybe say he got Sota to come forward about Setsuna, but Sota was incredibly close to doing that already and probably would have folded once they all got in a room together. Alice could have just died at the end of the first half and it would have made absolutely no difference. Blitz could have easily been removed as neither him or his betrayal actually move anything forward. Sho serves no real point since we new Mirakuji was actually a good person through his actions. It seems like Altair, Meteora, Magane, and maybe Mamika are the only important creations which the rest being just fluff.

I was hoping that the creations and their plot threads would all come into play somehow, but they didn't. Even though I thought most of them were pretty interesting characters, it just feels disappointing to see them all be pretty much irrelevant towards the resolution of the story.

Key wrote:

And the actions of a lot of characters did matter here. Sota was the one who conceived and pushed forward with the idea of bringing Setsuna into the picture, which is ultimately what stopped her original plan. Magane's power helped make it happen, the Creators designed the story and venue where it could happen, Kikuchihara used her authority and connections to make it practical, and Meteora's powers made it reality. Various characters also contributed less directly by influencing Sota and encouraging him to create. A few others didn't seem to really contribute to Altair's defeat, but hers was hardly the only storyline here.

I think the fact that the only creations you put in there were Meteora and Magane supports my point about the creations in general.

On the creator side, I feel like the story did much, much better. Several of them hardly even got much screen time but managed to come off very strongly.

So, sense this episode aired I've been really split on it. It not that I think the episode is bad. I think the episode is good and everything done in it makes sense, but something felt missing and I think I just figured out what that was. For weeks I thought Setsuna was going to be the reason that the conflict would be resolved and the way it should be resolved, but when she showed up in episode 20 that felt all but conformed at that point. Then we get to this week and she is the key. I was kind of bummed that I was right. The reason for this I think is, because I had one week to think about how it would end and I think if episode 20 just ended with Magane's double lie line and not showing what it did I would not be thinking "okay this is how it will probably happen" but instead "okay what will happen next" this way leaving just a little mystery into how this conflict will come to an end.

The meeting between Altair and Setsuna was very well done. The conversation flowed naturally and was true to the characters. I sometimes worried this show was going to end on a tragedy so I was pleasantly surprised that it ended with a miracle, a conversation, and the creation of a new universe.

Kougeru wrote:

Reading all these reviews, I can't comprehend how people are finding this anime anything above average.

Well either a show speaks to you on an emotional level or it doesn't and this is very much a show that depends on that. On a technical level I would say the show is good but the character development for most of the creations was limited and the pacing was sometimes uneven. It was also a story that spent a lot of time on the creative process so that is a major factor in this show.

Woody__alien wrote:

And don't tell me that the show explored in detail the creative process, because the Creator character are exactly as shallow and one-dimensional as the fictional characters, and the only thing I got out of them was "creators of pornographic material are all pervy creeps, so it's fine to belittle and humiliate them".

Ohnishi was mainly played for comedy but in terms of the Creators I think that Sota, Setsuna, Matsubara, Marine, Sugura, and Nakanogane were complex characters. The show also spent a lot of time on the creative process and the feelings that are involved with it.

Man, that was a beautiful episode. Overall, I really liked this series- it got a little rocky at times, but in the end the trip was worthwhile to get to this ending.

The very first episode Sota tells the viewers he is only the narrator and not the MC,that he is telling us "her" story.

Well after much conjecture turns out it was Altair's story(sigh I chased after a few squirrels,damn Sota's sister and double damn Sota's cat girl drawing).

And at this point still going to guess those creations that "died" will return in the end.
Also would enjoy if Magane is trolls us viewers once again the in the final,sigh.Magane the new Levy.

^^
Oh, I'll be very disappointed if Magane doesn't show up in the last episode. Surprised, too, as they all know that she's the big remaining loose end.

I am quite interested to see how the last episode will be handled. Presumably all the remaining Creations (with the possible exception of Magane) will be repatriated, but what else will they delve into?

Key wrote:

Presumably all the remaining Creations (with the possible exception of Magane) will be repatriated, but what else will they delve into?

I don't see Meteora being repatriated. Her creator has died, and her game has ended. I can't see her going back to waiting for heroes to give them some special weapon or whatever it was. I'd be disappointed if Magane gets to stay and Meteora is somehow sent back to her game world. Maybe there will be some special disposition for the characters whose creators are no longer alive, including Altair of course.

Having seen the latest episode, I feel confused

Full disclosure before talking: I have a condition that makes it harder for me to comprehend emotions so both my understanding of how i felt about the big scene and how i felt the scene executed the emotions will be different from others

with that out of the way, I feel tepid for some odd reason. I like the idea of giving Altair resolution of her emotional baggage but I feel like they could have talked about it a bit more before this episode. I might have missed it during the Mamika confrontation but I still feel like Altair's feelings could have been explored more beforehand.

As for the dialogue itself, it served it purpose and i found no real hard issues and the one grievance i had, the "king of the weak" dialogue, has been given clarity thanks to Mr. Martin's review.

The final shot, where Setsuna and Altair create a new world, to be honest, i felt like I should have seen it coming given the show's comments on the nature of creation but it still feels like a small cop out. I would have wanted to see Altair come to terms with Setusna's death and move on to be a hero despite the death, not have the death negated but from an emotional perspective, the choice made is most immediately strong for both Altair and Sota.

My main issue was how the scene was set up, Magane's power. I feel like that Magane, in terms of the story was more a character made to facilitate this scene than an organic character that happened to make a scene. Perhaps I am discounting a lot of the other scenes but it still felt odd to me.

As for the other conversations that have emerged due in part to my comment, I feel like the creators are developed as representations of different modes of creation: the independents, the light novelist, the perverted, and the serious studio minded one. Whether they are developed as characters is a bit more debatable as I think Matsubara and Nakanogane are fine as characters but Ohnishi is a bit one note. Suruga is interesting as she seems to comment on the Urobuchi mindset but itself seems underdeveloped as a person.

The creations to me is a big contention as i found a good chunk of them to be superfluous. Hakayu felt pointless in the grand narrative, Selesia and Rui felt underused. To me, Mamika and Meteora are the ones that felt most important to the plot though i would be lying if i didn't find Yuya interesting

Izanagi009 wrote:

with that out of the way, I feel tepid for some odd reason. I like the idea of giving Altair resolution of her emotional baggage but I feel like they could have talked about it a bit more before this episode. I might have missed it during the Mamika confrontation but I still feel like Altair's feelings could have been explored more beforehand.

It was sometimes brief but hints of how Altair felt started with the first episode (how she referred to her Creator vs how she referred to the other Creators) and became more direct with episode 3 when she was talking to the night sky. There was even a hint in the recap episode when Meteora mentioned the need to reform Altair's character though that was jokingly about the need to get her to reform into easier to animate clothing. In retrospect the situation with Blitz and his daughter Erina was foreshadowing for how things would be resolved with Altair. After all Blitz had similar motivations as Altair though his anger was aimed at a specific person. I think more time with Altair would have helped but currently I would rate this episode one of the top three episodes of anime that I have seen this year.

yuna49 wrote:

Key wrote:

Presumably all the remaining Creations (with the possible exception of Magane) will be repatriated, but what else will they delve into?

I don't see Meteora being repatriated. Her creator has died, and her game has ended. I can't see her going back to waiting for heroes to give them some special weapon or whatever it was. I'd be disappointed if Magane gets to stay and Meteora is somehow sent back to her game world. Maybe there will be some special disposition for the characters whose creators are no longer alive, including Altair of course.

Yeah based on my understanding of her character, I think she will choose to stay. She's much too inquisitive and intelligent to want to go to a simpler kind of universe, and I think she might want to create something herself (we saw a bit of that in the Sexy Meteora segments).

while this ending was great I can't help but feel a bit cheated out of an epic reversal.
Altair was just so over powered that they had to talk her into surrendering and while I have no issues with that by itself I personally wanted some sort of spectacular action sequence to take her down, not unlike the one they had before Sirius was unveiled.

I also wanted Altair herself to be an unwitting puppet of some other grand plan like a god complex creator who figures out that a person that dies and harbors a strong enough emotion can give birth to a curse(like the grudge) aka Altair and then uses her to reshape the gods world in his image or something else villainous.
Of course, i had to abandon that possibility quite early in the series but it made for an interesting what if scenario.
Perhaps in my own free time, I'll write a fanfiction with that in mind.

That said they really need to do something about magane I mean NOW she doesn't seem as evil as she was before but she did KILL several people, maybe even more offscreen.
Also HOW did the protagonist of her story deal with or nullified her lies?!?
That little detail is gonna bother me to no end.
Is it like the red truth blue truth in the Umineko games where the protag can argue against her lies with his own until --err true truth is revealed?
Man logic battles are confusing.

I agree that Magane is a loose end and it will be interesting seeing what they do with her. It could potentially be very interesting, though I doubt they'll go in that direction.

One of the major themes of the series is the relationship between constraints and free will; despite sometimes massive constraints on them, the characters still have free will and can choose their actions. Almost every episode deals with this in some form - even the recap episode shows the free will of Meteora!

We've got the obvious constraints on the Creations by the Creators; the constraints on the Creators by the Creations that the series spends so much time developing; the constraints on the characters by themselves (the main plot-line of Sota dealing with the constraints he's put on himself); and the overwhelming constraints of society and the real world on (almost) everyone and everything.

Even Altair is strongly affected by the constraints of society. She's over-powered since she has escaped some of the constraints, but her entire being is driven by the idea of getting rid of the society whose constraints drove Setsuna to suicide.

The one exception is Magane. She has such an appallingly attractive amoral character, ignoring so many of the conventions and constraints of society. That gives her a power that can ignore and even negate the real world, with different constraints and (as far as I can remember) unknown boundaries. Dealing with her could be simple (long-range sharpshooter has been suggested), complex, or ... she could be the major force behind wrapping everything up smoothly! Who knows? With Magane, it's difficult to predict!

Maybe Magane will do some kind of limited re-set that puts everything safely away, except for her. I hope not, but that's the kind of thing she might do.

Kougeru wrote:

Reading all these reviews, I can't comprehend how people are finding this anime anything above average. Nothing was really surprising or awesome. Nothing was meaningful or educational. I don't want to assume Aniplex is sponsoring reviews but I just can't understand how you're acting like this is the best anime of the year.

Opinions differ. I, for one, think you're downplaying their credibility and exaggerating how much they really like it, via assumption.

Personally, I found Re-CREATORS really good, although things sort of dragged on sometimes. But certainly, I don't state "nothing is x" in a absolute/literal way. Maybe you'd like to predict the next unsurprising episode?

Definitely not the best anime of the year (so far), but in my Top 10. Basically, I agree with the premise of your statement, but not how you worded it.

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