Re:CREATORS

Episode 14

Officially or not, episode 14 marks the beginning of the series' second half, with both a new opener and a new closer debuting to commemorate that shift. Both of these showcase a couple new Creations, with one appearing in the final scene of this episode. The opener is a solid number that only falls a little shy of the original opener, while the closer takes a more inventive approach, primarily featuring the good guys in chibi form as they examine various stages of the creation process. Given the series' content, it's a cool and appropriate choice.

Although the new Creation (seen in the screenshot) is not introduced by name in this episode, other sources reveal her name as Hikayu Hoshikawa. Her nature beyond that is unknown; the only clues we have about her are that she's kissing a boy against a starry background in the opener and her positioning in the closer suggests that she's going to join the good guys. The other Creation, who doesn't appear at all in the episode, is shown in a tragic situation in the opener, wielding a three-part staff, so presumably he's a modern-day martial artist. His tragic circumstances in the opener suggest that he's more likely to align with Altair.

That will doubtless be dealt with in the next couple of episodes. This one is mostly about setting up the execution of the grand plan that was established back in episode 12. To that end, Kikuchihara and the Creators get the limelight this week. Kikuchihara shows off as she explains the particulars of the grand cross-media plan to ensnare Altair to a roomful of creative personnel. The plan involves a pretty impressive amount of design and planning; I'd love to see something this involved actually done in real life, though it probably would take a real-life crisis like the one they're facing to make it possible. Afterward, the Creators argue amongst themselves over how to make the story in such a way that fans will buy into it. I presume the intent is to show that interactions between creative types can get messy, even argumentative, yet still work out in the end, and in that regard, these scenes are a success. It just feels like this struggle could have been done in a more compact or dynamic fashion.

Aside from the introduction of new Creations, the biggest development is that Sota is stepping up to get involved in the creative process too. His exact intentions are not revealed here, but Matsuraba and the Blitz Talker's artist both find the idea amusing. I must admit, that's got me curious. Magane and Altair's current plans also have me curious, since I have to think that someone on the bad guy side will eventually get an inkling about what the good guys are attempting to do.

The disappointment of this episode was the artistic quality. There were definitely some consistency issues and in general the episode didn't look as sharp as usual. Hopefully that's not an indicator of future trends.

Rating: B

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