Some sellout shill I'm subscribed on Youtube to made a video about how great Re:Creators is. Is it actually any good? Not watching any anime this season so far.
Re:CREATORS strikes me as a show that marketed itself as one thing but has ended up being something very different, and I can't help but feel that the direction they took was not one suited to the talents of those involved.
Rei Hiroe is fantastic at making likeable, relatable characters with a modicum of text (the characters of Black Lagoon are what I've always heard the most about from fans I've spoken to), and he continues that here. The cast is great, and for as large as it is, I already feel I know a significant amount of them pretty well. But if there's one thing Re:CREATORS has proved thus far, it's that Rei Hiroe cannot write exposition in an interesting fashion to save his life.
It's not there's so much talking in Re:CREATORS. Hell, the problem isn't even with it being mostly exposition. Gen Urobochi has made a living off of crafting stories that can mostly be boiled down to masterfully written expository diologue, but it's not a skill everyone possesses. The biggest issue I have with the exposition thus far is it's pacing and the choice of delivery.
Exposition has to be broken up with moments of action and character growth not related to the central plot in order to lend the show a sense of pace. Stick to the same thing too long, and a sense of monotony sets in, which slows the pace of the show and makes it a slog as we wait for a different narrative beat. In addition, Re:CREATORS seems to have made the decision that the vast majority of exposition should be delivered by the two characters with the least personality for the sake of clarity.
In actuality, what that has lead to is entire episodes where a group of characters is lectured by one individual for minutes at a time, which only makes it more frustrating when that individual makes a "startling revelation" about their situation only for no one to really question it, which makes the show feel more simple than it intends to be. There's not really enough debate to get the most out of premise because the rules of the universe are really only postulated by a couple individuals and everyone just agrees with them because... well, because.
This is to say nothing of the action, where I have another major complaint about the show: everyone's powers overlap too much. Say what you will about Fate, but battles in that franchise always feel like they matter because the Servants' fighting styles are usually drastically different from one another and they each have one or two aces up their sleeves, leading to tension since you don't quite know how these fights will play out. In Re:CREATORS, over two-thirds of the cast can fly (over half have unrestricted use of flight), and many only have a single weapon they fight with, usually a melee or ranged weapon (save for the girl who summons demons and the pilot who is martial artist outside his mech). And so far, none of them appear to have any extra abilities, and the promise of such was even quashed early on during one of the first few episodes.
This has unfortunately robbed much of the interesting aspects of these fights since everyone has fought exactly the same way every time they've been in a battle. The location might be different, the objective might be different, the sides people take might be different, but in the end, there's no surprises in any of these fights because no one has anything new to bring to the table. There's no underlying threat of something like a Noble Phantasm to keep the tension, so despite looking great, the fights fail to maintain any interest.
That said, I'll give credit where it's due. The show is gorgeous, and they've clearly invested a lot of work into making an original show that can compete with the best studios' work. Sawano continues to produce great music here, with the show's OP being a particular highlight and probably the best song of the season. But fantastic art, kickass music, and well-written characters can't save the dull presentation of the plot or the emotionally vapid battle sequences. It's a damn shame and I don't feel like it's capable of turning things around this far in.
