Re:CREATORS

Episode 6

NOTE: Next week's episode review could be delayed or absent due to my attendance at Anime Central. If that's the case, episode 7 may be reviewed together with episode 8 the following week.

So the mystery has now shifted from Military Uniform Princess' identity to why Sota doesn't choose to reveal his discovery to Selesia when she stops by for a nighttime visit. What is it about the history behind her creation that makes him so reticent?

But that's just a small part of what's going on in this episode, as the old guy gets formally introduced as Blitz Talker (promo material spelled his last name as Tokar, but that's what Amazon's subs are using) and the Black Magic Girl makes her intro. Although her name and source material don't come up in the episode, promotional material names her Magane Chikujoin, a character from Record of the Night Window Demon. As both her actions and Meteora's call-out indicate, she's clearly the villain from that series; if her mouth of sharp teeth and occult-themed outfit didn't give that away, her bloody slaughter of a bookkeeper who tried to stop her from stealing some books confirms it. If Military Uniform Princess's transport of Creations to this world isn't totally random, then picking a character like Magane makes total sense. She doesn't need to be duped into helping foment the destruction of the world; she'll create chaos all on her own. Alicetaria immediately can't stand her, but that's hardly surprising, since Alicetaria only seems to have a soft spot for Mamika. (I get the impression that Alicetaria likes Mamika because she stands comfortingly in contrast to the ugly world she knows.)

But Magane is going to be difficult for anyone to deal with. I didn't expect such a breezy attitude from her or such an ordinary-sounding voice, but her personality is warped by her need to plant “lies within lies” in order to get her peculiar kind of black magic to work. Her philosophical debate with Alicetaria over the reasons for killing sounds like typical villain equivocation, which is doubtless what it was intended to sound like. At least it does lead to the first real barrage of action sequences that we've seen since episode 2.

The action is welcome, because this episode once again threatens to get bogged down in being too talky, and this time it's not just Meteora's fault. Despite the efforts of a musical score that lays on the heavy drama too thick, the tension of the scene between Alicetaria and Magane almost bleeds out from running on too long. Alicetaria going on the offensive and then Silesia breaking in is a welcome respite, but then Alicetaria and Mamika talk with Meteora for four more minutes. Once the action finally kicks in for real, the episode gets a substantial thrill boost. As interesting as the series' underlying concepts are, the last few minutes of the episode, where all the Creations are in direct conflict, is where the series works best. The action scenes are well-staged to a solid insert song, but the greatest fun comes from seeing the cross-genre conflicts. There's something utterly weird but also completely exciting about seeing the lovey-dovey powers of a magical girl stand off against a sci fi character who can use his watch to fly (gravity manipulation tech?) and fire Gravity Bomb bullets.

That brings us to the big plot twist of the episode: Mamika defending Meteora from Blitz, even though Mamika and Blitz are supposed to be on the same team. This reversal didn't surprise me too much, since the series has been laying the groundwork for Mamika to accept that her team's approach to things isn't right since she joined them. Just as foes not acquiescing to her pleas or her magic actually being destructive were initially unfathomable to her, so too is shooting to kill an already-defeated opponent. As trite as her explanation for stopping Blitz from killing Meteora might be – “I couldn't look my friends in the eye if I allowed this” – it's perfect for staying true to her character type.

The episode does serve up one brief bit of humor in a scene where Rui is shown hitting on schoolgirls, but more importantly, it's primed for a continuing battle scene next episode. It will be interesting to see if Blitz is going to tolerate Mamika's defiance, if Mamika is just siding against him in this moment, of if she's permanently flipped sides, and how Alicetaria will react to that. And while Sota was sidelined after the first couple minutes, how is he acting on what he knows while all of this is happening? There's lots of questions for next episode, but that's exactly what we want, isn't it?

Rating: B+

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