Wait, but wasn’t there an episode 13? Weeeeelll, technically there was but it was a recap. Meteora revamped herself to appear more stereotypically “sexy” and broke the fourth wall to speak directly to the viewer about the events which had occurred so far. And you know what? It was actually pretty funny. I dislike recap episodes but when they’re done with a new spin like Re:CREATORS’ was, then they’re actually enjoyable to watch. Plus Meteora is my favourite character in the show, so getting to watch her recap the series was a bonus for me.
Author’s Note: I must apologize for disappearing for a few weeks. I moved at the end of June/early July, so my computer was disassembled for the move and hasn’t been hooked back up yet. Shortly after moving I started a brand new day job where I work 10 hour day shifts, but I’ve still kept my night shift job a few nights a week…. And then if all of that craziness wasn’t enough, my younger cat got critically sick last week and every spare break between jobs was spent at the vet’s office. I was barely sleeping, let alone having enough time to write. Now I feel like things are under control enough to the point where I can resume my reviews. I’m on a borrowed laptop and not using my regular writing program, so please excuse any typos and the like. I’m still working on unpacking and I hope to have my computer back up and running in the next couple of weeks. Thank you all for your patience with me. ^^;;;
~
Episode 14
This series keeps knocking it out of the park when it comes to theme songs because we have a new opening (“sh0ut” by SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]:Tielle & Gemie again), and I love it just as much as the last one.
The first third of this episode focused on Kikuchihara holding a meeting with the different creators in the media industries to tell them about the upcoming event the government was putting together. As expected the creators initially resist the “Elimination Chamber Festival”, telling Kikuchihara that it’d be impossible to do all the work she’s asking for on top of their regular workload. Without flinching, Kikuchihara tells them that she’s asking them “to die.” XD Cold as ice eh? Fuck yeah Kikuchihara getting things done like a boss. 8D
A question is raised by one of the creators: instead of going to the trouble of making this massive event for the public, why not simply write a story where Altair loses a battle? Wouldn’t that make her less powerful? Kikuchihara explains that making such a story is unlikely to gain “acceptance” from the viewers, and if that happens then the story wouldn’t affect Altair’s powers or abilities. Altair must lose through a story that is believable, and most importantly, one which is accepted by the viewing public. That’s a pretty crappy qualifier eh?
Another creator suggests making Meteora, Selesia and the other creations more powerful than Altair, and again Kikuchihara explains that that idea is unlikely to gain their audience’s acceptance. At least not if the creators make the power-ups on their own; the creators must be careful in how they grant any character improvements when they’re writing their alternate world stories. All characters and story settings must not oppose any “worldviews.”
The first story to be released in preparation for the festival is a short story for “Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier”, so Marine and Takashi are hard at work. Later they are in a group meeting with Masaaki, two other creators and Souta. Masaaki feels that the reasons for Rui to leave his world are too weak, but he can’t think of a solution. Yuuya’s creator, Ryou Yatouji, rubs Masaaki and Takashi the wrong way by saying that the worldview in their story is too simple. Then Shunma Suruga, Blitz’ creator, adds fuel to the fire by expressing a rather closed-minded opinion about their situation, which Masaaki agrees with. All the creators in the room are at each other’s throats, except for Marine who has run out due to becoming upset for an unknown reason. Ryou leaves the room temporarily too.
Souta also leaves to find Marine, who explains why she became so emotional. It turns out that she is doubtful of her own abilities as an animator, and
she is jealous of creators like Shunma who can churn out cool-looking drawings very easily. For Marine, creating such art takes her longer. But she resolves to keep trying so that she can one day truly feel that she has skill. Souta points out that having that mindset means Marine will never be free of it – she’ll always be pushing herself and trying too hard in order to fix her self-esteem. Marine counters that at least it’s fun to draw, and that even when she’s upset and feels like crying, drawing still has an allure for her.
Everyone returns to the meeting room, and Ryou counters an earlier idea of Takashi’s with one of his own. It seems to be a blend of Takashi’s idea and his. Masaaki gives it his stamp of approval.
Later Souta begs Takashi to let him draw Altair for the short story. Takashi refuses, saying that this project isn’t a game and that they’re not “playing around”, but Shunma says that Takashi should at least hear Souta out. Souta tells Takashi his idea, and both Takashi and Shunma laugh at Souta’s bad idea. Takashi compromises by saying that Souta should start by creating a character of his own, but cautions Souta that he’s not sure how much he can involve Souta’s creation.
The end of the episode touches on Meteora, Selesia, Yuuya and Rui as they look for two potential new creations. However they have been unable to find any. Meteora reports to Selesia that an eyewitness reported seeing a giant robot, so she theorizes the creation is from a robot or sci-fi series. However we already know that Charon has been transported to the human world, and “Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier” has mecha in it… ;D
Suddenly a pink-haired girl who looks similar to Mamika approaches Selesia and Rui; she is holding the hand of a crying child. The girl asks the duo where the closest police station is, as she doesn’t know where she is.
Episode 15
The pink-haired young lady is Hikayu Hoshikawa, and she’s from the X-rated dating sim game “The Milky Way of a Starry Sky”. She’s also the first creation to not have weapons or be a warrior-type creation, like all the others who have come before her. Her appearance in the human world also means that only creations from “popular” or mainstream works are being transported to the human world. This means other non-fighter creations like Hikayu could make an appearance in the real world as well.
As it dawns on her that the people around her all know who she is and which game she’s from, Hikayu becomes incredibly embarrassed and starts crying. Masaaki says that Hikayu’s “special ability” is flashing her panties and using them to seduce men, but Hikayu becomes even more upset as she denies this, and Selesia smacks Masaaki’s head in retaliation.
An official comes into the room to notify Kikuchihara that Aliceteria’s creator has been located alive, and is in police custody. He’s reading a Code Babylon manga, and we see an animated version of the scene Gai (Aliceteria’s creator) is reading.
In the present Blitz meets one of the newly transported creations, Shou Hakua. Blitz recognizes Shou as being from Yuuya’s world and says 
that Yuuya hates him, which Shou says makes Blitz his ally. Similar to how Yuuya used to be able to summon Hangaku, Shou can summon an “astral double” named Bayard. Shou swears revenge on Yuuya and says everything else will come afterwards.
Elsewhere in the city a nearly-naked Magane is relaxing in an expensive-looking high-rise apartment. Then from behind her Aliceteria appears, and she’s come to ask for Magane’s help. Aliceteria tells the psychopath that she knows of a girl who has the same powers Magane has, but without constraints. She asks Magane that in order to make things “more fun”, what would she do? As Aliceteria leaves, Magane breaks the fourth wall to tell the viewer that she will do what Aliceteria asks because the noble warrior was “really fun.”
Back at the convention centre, Meteora casts a spell for Kikuchihara and the other officials that will gauge the audience’s acceptance levels as they watch the new stories. Then Meteora and the creators can make any revisions as necessary as the story unfolds. Kikuchikara and Meteora walk off by themselves and Kikuchihara notifies Meteora that Souta will be participating in the festival. Kikuchihara repeats Souta’s suggested storyline idea to Meteora, the one that Takashi laughed at, but Meteora says it can’t be used because it has a fatal contradiction in its structure and thus probably wouldn’t gain acceptance from the audience. Which is a shame because it sounds like Takashi actually liked it more than he originally let on to Souta. Ah well.
Over at headquarters, Souta is working hard alongside Marine, Takashi and the other creators. Kikuchihara shows up with Gai, who says that their group should make some last-minute changes to the story and include some new powers for Aliceteria. Otherwise if the knight moves to revolt against Altair but isn’t any stronger compared to Selesia and the others, she might not make it through the fight.
Then Hikayu’s creator, Nishio Ohnishi (ha ha), shows up and things take a turn towards creepy. He looks like a stereotypical nerd, complete with a goofy smile and big buck teeth. He’s friends with Masaaki, and is a bit of an idiot as we soon see. He meets his creation, Hikayu, and has to be literally pried off of her by Kikuchihara and Masaaki. Selesia hits him and tells him to be more respectful of her because he’s like her parent. When everyone finally calms down and sits down for a meeting on how to give Hikayu some powers like the other creations, Nishio comes up with the idea of using a “fan disk”, whatever that is.
In another place, dark and dingy like usual, Blitz approaches Altair. She asks him why he’s following her, and he says it’s because she’s very fragile; he wants to protect her. Blitz says that she was designed to be weak from the beginning because that’s how her creator wrote her to be, but says that despite that Altair is still able to give strength to the weak, even if only for a moment. That, ironically, makes Altair strong. But he says she won’t be able to save anyone in the end, which is ok because Altair doesn’t really want to save anyone anyways.
Altair turns the conversation back on Blitz and says she knows that he protects her because she resembles his dead daughter. Because of this, Altair feels that Blitz should not participate in the final battle. Altair shows off one of her new powers to Blitz, which allows her to see what Meteora’s new spell can do and by proxy reveal part of the festival plan. Altair is going to wait and see what Meteora, Kikuchihara and the others are up to, so they “have a chance.” She’s not too worried – she gets new powers every day thanks to the viewers who are writing stories and drawing art of her, so as far as she’s concerned she’s going to live for forever and be able to do all kinds of neat shit.
Blitz pulls out his gun and asks Altair if he will be able to see her once the final battle is over. Altair says that if everything goes as planned, they probably won’t see each other ever again. Altair hugs Blitz, saying she’ll pray to his dead daughter instead of to the gods.
My thoughts: I think I’ll be happier once we move past this whole festival event-planning section of the plot and start seeing some action again. I understand its necessity but at the same time it’s kind of boring. I think it’s neat we get to see the new creations, but I know my crappy memory makes it hard for me to keep track of larger casts sometimes, so I just hope I can keep everything straight in my head. >>; I’m eagerly waiting to see the reunion of Selesia and Charon.
Nishio is… ick. As soon as I saw him I had a feeling he’d be a little strange, and I was right. 😕 I wonder how his fandisk idea will help regarding giving Hikayu powers, or if she’s even going to get powers at all by the sound of things.
There is several months to go until the start of the Elimination Chamber Festival, so I’m curious to see if there will be a timeskip at all or if the show will cover events leading right up to the beginning of the big event.
Also, why was Magane up in the apartment? Did she have to kill someone to get up there? I’m guessing so, even if it wasn’t shown. Sure must be nice to swim in a bath of money, I could use some of the green stuff these days. 😜
Other than that not too much to say. It looks like Re:CREATORS took another week off, so hopefully they’ll be back this upcoming Saturday with another episode for me to cover. ^_^v
Fan disks are basically side stories for visual novels, eroges, and so on that feature the characters in more lighthearted stories outside of the confines of the main game. A lot of times they have an entirely different genre, like how Nanoha went from the little sister of an eroge MC to a magical girl god of destructio- err, friendship.
So making a fan disk would be an easy way of turning Hikayu into a magical girl or RPG hero or something. She’ll probably end up hard-countering Magane.
Thanks for the explanation! 🙂
A fandisk’s a game expansion, usually for dating sims. Most of them are usually expanded romance routes, but sometimes they’re written as “what-if” spinoffs that reimagine the love interests as superheroes, ninjas, etc. Most dating sim gamers are more accepting of these alternate spinoffs as non-infringing on the parent game.
As such, if Onishi releases a fandisk where Hikayu is, say a magical girl, then she’ll become a magical girl and can join the fight.
The setup’s understandably sloggy for some, however Hiroe Rei says it’s vital to his vision for the show, to highlight the stories of not just the Creations, but of Creators and their audience. (Likely meta-commentary on creative vision, output, and its impact on its consumers).
He also says the creators are loosely based on people he’s seen in the animanga industry, but they’re not modeled after any specific persons.
PS. Onishi’s VA also voices Kazuma from Konosuba.
Notice that in Alice’s meeting with Magane, Alice has wisened up to Magane’s verbal tricks. She’s making sure she’s in control of the conversation, only saying things as needed so Magane can’t take advantage.
Yeah, like I said I get the need for the slower episodes. 🙂 I do appreciate the meta-commentary, and I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve been enjoying Re:Creators as a whole. This series is definitely something special.
And yes I did notice the change in Aliceteria when she was talking to Magane this time around; sorry for not noting it in my review. That was some nice character development for Aliceteria. She’s starting to wisen up a little, gain some street smarts