Military Uniform Princess referring to the Creators as "Gods of Pleasure" caused some viewers to think she was taking revenge on much lewder people (Ecchi, Hentai and Rule 34 authors, to name a few) messing with her world than one would think. Carries itself into Hilarious in Hindsight as she does eventually consider one such author her enemy, but she doesn't target him specifically.
Setsuna's "I'm more comfortable with simple things" in the 11th episode, it seems, cause Sota too much joy.
Yatouji is very much embarrassed and goes to "write his work" after the characters have a long and emotional discussion on the "erotic" nature of Hikayu.
Episode 16 begins with Selesia saying "I love the feeling of making something move." while driving a car.
The fight between Mamika and Selesia in the second episode provoked a great deal of debate. Is Mamika a lunatic kid that had to be put down, or was Selesia egging her on after she made it clear she didn't want to fight anymore? Was Selesia attacking Mamika when she held her hand out to her a justified move, or proof she had no good intentions?
The friendship between Aliceteria and Mamika. Was it a sign of the romantic feelings arising between them? Or was it just the proximity between a strong and warlike woman, and the young innocent girl she was trying to protect? Although their "couple" wore so many elements of Tomboy and Girly Girl, the show leaves the true nature of their relationship unclear.
Mamika's confession in Episode 8 sends this question to overdrive. Is the confession is a platonic love between comrade, or a romantic one? Then we have Alice declaring a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Mamika's killer. If Mamika was being romantically serious, are her feelings not as one sided as previously thought?
If Hikayu Hoshikawa's original world is an H-Game, does this mean that she's a Covert Pervert or even a Loveable Sex Maniac, since most of the heroines in Hentai have a very low threshold of consent? Nevertheless, with this in mind, she should be a more sexually mature girl than Celestia, Meteora or Alisteria, since their works obviously aren't exactly open to showing to sexual relations due to age ratings and censorship.
Judging from her reactions, it appears more likely that she's from the censored version of the game, which would focus more on love and romance rather than the x-rated aspects. In those kinds of games, the player has to go through pure hell in order to win her heart in the end and really earn that happy ending. In other words, she might be purer than even Mamika in terms of love.
When Altair offers some comfort to Blitz when he remembers the time he was forced to kill his own daughter, did she do it out of genuine sympathy or was she trying to manipulate him the same way she did to Aliceteria?
Rather than trying to destroy the real world, was Altair's true plan all along to bring Setsuna Back from the Dead? And if so, then did she manipulate the Creators into organizing the Elimination Chamber Festival just so that either she would have enough power to do it herself, or create the exact circumstances so that one of the Creators could?
Setsuna, who revived as a creation: is it just a copy of the original girl who copied her personality? Is she merely an Empty Shell serving as Sota's avatar, given her wearing Sota's glasses rather than her original ones? Or was she literally resurrected from a human being to the creation of Sota?
What is the exact nature of the relationship between Setsuna and Altair? Is it of a Creation being religiously devoted to her Creator, a child's attempt to protect her parent, or is all this romantic love between two girls? Or might it be all of these things at once?
Americans Hate Tingle: While Sota took third place in Newtype magazine's July ranking of male characters, among Western countries he was a universally unloved character due to accusations of irritability and futility.
The development of the confrontation between Syo and Yuya gets a lot of accusations in this, since despite the fact that all their original work is built on this conflict and Syo even comes to our world to take revenge on his former friend, during only one scene it turns out that Yuya is not guilty and they become friends. It seems that all this was necessary only for them to fight in two episodes, and Yuya was purely formally considered a villain (even the Final Boss), surprising the audience by this. Admittedly, with two of the viewers commenting "This is so stupid" and "That sounds just like something Yatoji would write.", this was likely an Intended Audience Reaction.
Invoked in the last arc, when Altair begins to demonstrate a new power in every new episode, because being a dojinshi character, she literally has "thousands of authors".
Played straight with the audience In-Universe when Sirius suddenly appears out of nowhere to defeat Altair. Along with the fact that Sirius had no personality to make up her own identity, how could a character that was never seen before or heard of up until that point defeat a villain that gathered a huge fanbase for being so popular and made the more well-known characters struggle?
The idea that the in-universe fans were so fond of Altair over everyone else that she's capable of inventing any new ability on the spot is pretty far fetched. If this page is any indication, Altair isn't that universally loved.
It took six episodes for the action to finally start beginning, and even more than that for anything to be revealed about Setsuna, Altair's motivations, and Sota's connections to both.
The Elimination Chamber Festival arc began to get accusations of this, after each episode of it was reduced to a monotonous and repetitive formula. If you're wondering, every episode of the arc has one of the Creations attempting to fight Altair, only to suddenly get either killed or incapacitated by her thanks to the sudden appearance of a brand-new ability that she never had before this point. Rinse and repeat until Episode 21.
"AL:Lu", which plays during Celesia and MUP's first fight in the real world, is classic Sawano Orchestral Bombing with powerful female vocals by Tielle, reflecting the chorus portion of the second opening song, "Sh0ut" (also performed by Tielle in conjunction with Gemie).
"Brave The Ocean", a beautiful, energetic song about breaking the chains of hate and revenge, serves as an excellent backdrop to both Celesia and Mamika's fight and Celesia's Emergency Transformation.
Here I Am" is a sparkling, sunny work of hope that fits Mamika and her Magical Girl principles to a T.
"Layers", which serves as Military Uniform Princess's Leitmotif, is basically condensed epicness in the form of a song. Whenever MUP makes an appearance, the song helps make her presence known, and it also conveys her feelings regarding Setsuna's death and her resentment against the creators.
"God of Ink", Sota's Leitmotif. Being a writer has never sounded so badass. Bonus points for fluent English and a chorus that cleverly foreshadows the important details of Sota's connection to Setsuna.
Sota. You either see him as a complex character with his personal problems, experiences and a look at pop culture, or a very slow-witted coward, whose indecision is causing the people close to him to suffer and die. Still, this reception of him is much better than how he was originally received by viewers during the first few episodes before the The Reveal about his backstory, as a large portion of the fanbase saw him as either bland or useless (or both) for almost always being relegated to the background despite being billed as the main character and for being surrounded by way more interesting characters around him (both Creators and Creations). He also drew a lot of flak from the fans when he decided to withhold vital information on Altair from Celesia and Meteora before eventually being confronted about it when he got fleshed out more when his backstory was revealed.
Hikayu quickly became this for several viewers. While some viewers see it as a cheap attempt to make the show a reason for vulgar and ambiguous humor, others consider her appearance as a rather witty move that helps expand the show's appeal to various aspects of Japanese pop culture. See Replacement Scrappy on this page for more details.
While Meteora is generally liked, there are still some viewers who aren't totally won over by her, due to her exposition heavy dialog that goes practically unchallenged and her growing amount of power. She does manage to shake off some critics after the first six episodes, and moments like Episode 13 helped endear her to audiences.
Half of the fanbase loves Altair for her stylish outfit, her motive, and overall her cool factor. This ends up being a meta-plot point as Altair is powered by her fans, something she illustrates through a montage of actual fan-art drawn of her. The other half can't say the same when she murders Mamika in a rage and later kills Alicetaria after rubbing the act in her face. This isn't helped with how her story ends, with her fanbase power enabling her to be an overpowered Reality Warper, forcing the heroes to give her what she wants, which has naturally led to her being called an outright Villain Sue.
Although the show is largely based on the deconstruction of many cliches of Japanese pop culture with the help of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, some of the audience found the intentional Cliché Storm in the characters' personalities as a trap in which the authors drove themselves. In their opinion, the fact that each of Created is a collective image of the protagonist of their genre, already makes their motivation and actions extremely predictable. Although after episode 7, the realization that the creations are changing like actual people throws this out the window, showing off Magane and Mamika's Character Development. Most of the arguments are because of the large amount of exposition and slow pacing of the series in episodes 2 through 6. From that point on, however, some characters' developments and certain twists cause a faction to argue that their developments are based on standard subversions of their genres, which leads to a whole different kettle of cliches in and of itself.
The opinions of the fans were divided after many of the central characters of the series were included in the list of the best Newtype characters for July-August. While some believe that this is proof of the quality of the show and the people's love for it, while others consider it an unreasonable hype and a very strange event. Especially concerning Sota, who was recognized as the third most popular male character in that issue compared to his Base-Breaking Character status among Western audiences.
The later half of the show gets hit hard with this. Either it's an interesting look into original characters, fandom, and what can be considered "canon" for blank slate characters like Altair, or it's a weak justification to give her New Powers as the Plot Demands because her fans love her regardless of her actions. Some feel that Altair essentially devolved into a Generic Doomsday Villain even as she snarks about her contenders being walking cliches.
Cliché Storm: Justified, since each of the Created is a collective image of the character of their genre, in particular, Tsundere and Big Eater character traits Celesia and Rui refer to the popular personality types of protagonists of light novel and shounen manga series. The fact that their transformation into real people causes them to develop outside of the restrictions of their genre and story is a major plot point.
Creepy Awesome: Magane. Her power is as interesting yet terrifying as her mannerism is unsettling yet entertaining to watch. She has also talked her way out of confrontations against the show's heaviest hitters, even nearly killing Alice in the process.
Critical Dissonance: Despite the show's ending being met with mixed to positive reviews, some people were dissatisfied with Altair being a massive Karma Houdini, accusing the authors of the fact that she was Creator's Pet and the show actually ended on The Bad Guy Wins.
Crosses the Line Twice: Magane chirpily returning back in to the store she just unleashed a hell upon to grab a shopping bag for the books she had stolen. All while the poor storekeeper was being ripped to pieces by the Hound of Tidalos! Most of Magane's behavior classifies as this.
Rule 34 artists made a few of Hikayu's Hentai fanmade CGs, giving us a peek of her H-Game.
Draco in Leather Pants: A sizable portion of the fanbase loves Altair, especially after the reveal of her motive, thanks to a pretty stylish suit, Cold Ham personality, and just doing pretty cool things despite the fact that she attacked the main characters, wants to destroy the world, and cruelly kills Mamika and later Alicetaria. Her Undying Loyalty and Les Yay with Setsuna also helps.
Marine is popular with many people both because of her obvious nature Otaku Surrogate, and because of the psychological help she gives Souta and the girls.
Matsubara also begins to get a lot of praise after the tenth episode, when he literally saves Celesia from an apparent death and their connection practically goes to the level of the parent and child.
Shunma Suruga received a lot of fan love after the 17th episode due to her courage, cunning and deep understanding of Blitz's psychology as her creations.
Epileptic Trees: The amount of Info Dump and hypothesis by Meteora (which sometimes reaching Bat Deduction level) got the fans jokingly theorize that she is secretly a schemer with malicious intent, playing Souta, Selesia, and the others like a fiddle. This gets a hilarious Fandom Nod in episode 13 and a Cerebus Retcon nod in Episode 9.
Esoteric Happy Ending: The world is saved, but the general public is almost certainly unaware of it, having thought that the whole battle was merely a Crisis Crossover production. Altair received a happy ending by being reunited with Setsuna, and does not have to face any consequences for her actions during the series, despite being culpable in nearly bringing the world to annihilation. Nearly all the Creations who survived the Elimination Chamber Festival would go back to their home worlds, losing their status as independent existences and once more becoming aspects of fiction that their Creators can freely manipulate. Not to mention, Matsubara and Takarada are clearly deeply traumatized from having watched their beloved Creations die, and Magane, a psychopathic serial killer is still unaccounted for and according to Word of God, will likely continue doing what she has been doing throughout the series. For these reasons, the ending was downright hated by many viewers.
Evil Is Cool: The Military Uniform Princess and Magane are unrepentant villains, yet with their interesting designs, personalities, and awesome powers, they both have plenty of fans (though the former has just as many haters and detractors, especially after the controversial finale).
Fanfic Fuel: The very premise invites this, with countless franchises and characters to choose from for each and everyone's preferences. It helps that the show also provides a playground where the implications of their existence in the real world, or potentially others, can simply be explained using the show's own logic.
To nobody's surprise, many viewers like to wonder what would happen if the creations read fiction about themselves. More specifically, what would their reactions be to see themselves in lewd fan-works? What about meeting their actors, or reading/watching other stories? Nevertheless, by the example of Hikayu, who begins to cry when she sees sexual content with her and her boyfriend on the Internet, this may not be very positive.
Many fans are very interested in reading the stories of the Creations. Each one has interesting backgrounds and would like to see what they were before the anime occurred.
Charon was implied to be a major player in the second half of the series, and Altair vaguely hints that he is carrying out activities to further her goals, none of which are seen onscreen. What exactly was he up to in the episodes leading to the Elimination Chamber Festival, especially since he is motivated by both saving his world with the power of the Creators and locating Selesia in the real world?
Darker variant—after the finale, the Military Uniform Princess has become a huge target for Revenge Fics by fans.
Fan Nickname: The official names are a bit of a mouthful, so it was inevitable the fandom would come up with some shorter names.
Mamika: Meguca, given her design similarities to Madoka.
And after the recap episode, "Maryora" and "Sexy Meteora" started popping up for the non-canon Self-Fanservice alter ego of her which she considers herself to be, much to the amusement of the fandom.
Blitz Talker: Big Boss, thanks to his grizzled and worn look.
Military Uniform Princess: Chuuni Hime, from her design being compared to Chuunibyou tendencies. Discount Suigintou also counts in some circles thanks to their similar looks. After her origins are explained, Donut Steel started becoming prominent.
Alicetelia February: Lancer, given her choice of weapon and the grim outlook of her original work. She also gets "Female Guts" thanks to the latter reasoning.
Yuuya Mirokuji: Travis in the early series, due to some passing similarity with NMH's protagonist. Persona jokes also come about.
Sota: Narrator-kun, thanks to his opening spiel in the first episode. "Soda" also comes up from time to time.
Hikayu Hoshikawa: "Hentayu", based on her source material, which both got the fandom to cringe and laugh the moment it was revealed, despite the fact that she's from the censored version of it.
From the detractors, two derogatory nicknames for the show itself: Re:Tweets (for the narmy scene where Twitter is used to give an 11th-Hour Superpower to one character) and Re:Tards (for the supposed high amount of Idiot Ball among the "good" characters).
Fan-Preferred Couple: Sota/Selesia, due to being marketed as the main protagonists and the fact that they first met while being attacked by the Princess. Depending on your view, it may have been destroyed after Selesia dies alongside Charon. As for Gay Option, fans also like to pair Aliciteria with Mamika or Meteora with Celesia.
Genius Bonus: Meteora Österreich's last name means "Austria", the birthplace of Sigmund Freud (now located in the Czech republic, but it was Austria when he was born). Meteora was the main responsible for helping Sota overcome his trauma.
Growing the Beard: After several episodes of mostly speculative Info Dump at the beginning, the pace of the plot picks up after episode 6 with Magane's introduction and fallout from her actions, growing the beard further with Mamika's explosive death in episode 8.
Harsher in Hindsight: All those jokes about Mamika being a discount Meguca start looking at bit prophetic when she kicks the bucket while she was just trying to calm a teammate down. "Being Meguca is suffering", indeed.
Rei Hiroe, the writer of this anime, is best known for the adrenalinic all-action shootfest Black Lagoon. Here, all the characters are far more powerful than Revy and the others will ever be, but they spend 90% of their on-screen time talking and eating.
We again see Inori Minase and Rie Murakawa as the opposite of the blue-haired and pink-haired girls ... And Rie again saves Inori from death in an unequal fight, only now she does this with the sweet hearts in the role of a magical girl. This also works on Harsher in Hindsight in the future, when Mamika as well as Rem gets critical damage in a battle with the villain.
The many comparisons noted between Aliceteria and Saber become amusingly ironic after episode 10 when she gets to be on the receiving end of a nearly identical version of the Excali-Blast from Celesia.
Episode 15 showcases what would probably happen had Kazuma from Konosuba lived on in Japan and became a creator.
Fictional characters from multiple different forms of media draw on movesets from both canon and non-canon works featuring them that fans accept in order to fight their new opponent to a standstill. Now, is this about the Elimination Chamber Festival plan, or DEATH BATTLE!?
In a darkly humorous turn, a real spike in Sirius fanart and headcanons happened in the days following her death and fusion with Altair.Looks like the group was right about the audience being willing to accept Sirius after all; she just had to die to do it.
The old theory that Sota was one of Setsuna's Creations starts looking funny when the concept got inverted in-show: rather than Setsuna create Sota as a means of letting him have a place he can live without his ailments, Sota creates a version of Setsuna to live in the Elimination Chamber Festival universe as a last resort to stop Altair.
The scene in episode 11 where Sota retrieves a cell phone from Rui's back pocket. Not only it looks like Sota is grabbing his butt, Rui also squeals because his pilot suit is tight and probably chafes his, uh, nether regions.
Yuuya and Syo. Syo seems pretty singlemindedly focused on Yuuya as is, while Yuuya expressed some sadness in not being able to fight with him while he was in the real world and Syo not summoned at the moment. Their banter in Episode 18 didn't help matters.
When Hikayu was first seen in the second opening kissing a boy, some fans joked that she was the heroine of an H-Game or Romantic Comedy because she looked like an ordinary schoolgirl from a Harem Genre work... and the first (to some extent) turned out to be true in the next episode.
Setsuna coming back in some way or form during the climax was also heavily theorized, and eventually happening in Episode 20. Another thing about this point that came true for the viewers was the popular theory that Sota's mystery Creation would turn out to be some incarnation of Setsuna.
Jerkass Dissonance: Because of Altair's experiences with losing her Creator and her resulting anger at the world, she easily garnered this reputation among a good chunk of the fanbase, who viewed her in a sympathetic light despite her actions and lack of remorse for them. Said fans even expressed happiness at the ending Altair received, despite the fact that it came at a heavy cost to many other characters.
Jerkass Woobie: The Military Uniform Princess was so dedicated to her dead Creator, which unfortunately leads her down a path of vengeance and self-destruction that causes to lash out to people who genuinely want to help her.
Just Here for Godzilla: Some of the flak the show gets seems to come from disappointed action fans who only wanted to see cool fight scenes. Others were more into the clash of ideals the Created had towards each other and didn't care much about their Creators.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Yuuya, dear lord. Just about everyone he comes into contact with has at least one shipping picture with him. Syo, Rui, Meteora, Hikayu, even Mamika at some points get a lot of love with the guy.
The scene in the fourth episode, when Aliceteria and Mamika are having dinner together, becomes a little ambiguous because of the gentle atmosphere and the constantly blushing Aliceteria. This looks even more significant when Mamika behaves much more restrained while drinking coffee with Sota. Their next dinner together takes things further with Aliceteria not complaining when Mamika decides to call her 'Alice', and later during their meeting with Magane, Aliceteria seems especially protective of Mamika. The conversation between the two of them in episode 8 resembles a love confession, with Mamika talking about how happy she is to have met Aliceteria, focus on the two of them Holding Hands rather intimately and even what appears to be an Almost Kiss.
In the ending despite both of them having been killed by Altair, we see that their worlds are being connected by a crossover; advertised with a beautiful image of Mamika offering Aliceteria a bouquet of flowers in a serene forest.
In addition, Meteora and Celesia seem to spend too much time together, contacting each other even more than with Sota, not to mention that they almost share Spaghetti Kiss together or how many veiled compliments Meteora is doing to her. Eventually, the battle of both of them against Aliceteria in the 10th episode begins to resemble the clarification of the relationship between the two pairs.
The whole 21st episode is, in fact, one prolonged confession of love from Altair to Setsuna. In one scene they are even lying on the ground, looking into each other's eyes at an intimate distance.
Love to Hate: Magane is an evil, psychotic bitch, but many fans of the show like her above everyone for her smug hamminess, interesting visual design, cool "lie within a lie" power, expressive animation and Maaya Sakamoto's voice. On the other hand, though, detractors accuse her of being always in the right place at the right time, shows superhuman athletic prowess seemingly out of nowhere and has other characters always fall for her tricks even if they logically should know how her power works.
Memetic Badass: Not to mention her powerful blows in the battle with Celesia, in episode 8, Aliceteria, with one lightning bolt, kills a huge dragon who, a few minutes before, destroyed an entire army of knights. Her words also imply that he was not alone.
"Shut up, I will throw Lettuce at you" Explanation A translation of one of the posts on pseudo-2chan in the aftermath of the first episode, apparently based on a local meme, quickly exploited by the fandom for its weirdness.
"Explosions are relatively harmless to humans"Explanation In the early aftermath of episode two, there were many arguments on /a/ on who was in the wrong of the Mamika/Celesia fight. One Anon apparently decided that Mamika didn't do anything bad when she blew up multiple buildings because explosions don't really harm people that much. The rest of the board took the statement and ran with it.Harsher in Hindsight after Mamika blows herself up in episode 8 trying to take down Altair, though she was already almost dead from being impaled, but swerves right back into Hilarious in Hindsight when one realizes the ensuing explosion barely made a blip on the news as if it never happened.
"Meteora makes a pun so bad it warrants arrest" Explanation Japanese government becomes involved (via JSDF) in episode 5. It starts with a group of SWAT Team raiding Kanoya's creator's house right after Meteora makes another pun
Commit Setsuna Explanation A rather Black Comedy snowclone of the popular "Commit Sudoku" meme on /a/.
Moe: Some of the Creations, such as Mamika, Kanoya, and Hikayu. Even Meteora has her moments. This makes Mamika’s sudden death all the more sadder.
It Was His Sled: The fact of Mamika's death is so well known to everyone that the authors even release T-shirts with jokes about this scene, or hold Real Life events dedicated to this.And by the time the second half kicks in, the background and the real name of the Princess is slowly shaping up to be this among fans.
The military just take fictional characters dropping into the real world at face value.
The Heroic Second Wind that saves Celesia in episode 10 comes as a result of...Twitter. The sight of a tweet getting hundreds of thousands of upvotes in seconds is sure to draw a chuckle from anyone who's familiar with the platform.
Being pierced through with a huge spear and having a huge through wound, Celesia manages to withstand a long dramatic scene, and then survives after receiving medical help. Granted, she is a fictional character from a fantasy series but still...
The 12th episode turns writing crossover work into an incredibly Serious Business, depicting the preparation for the creation of a common spin-off as a very serious and epic work of a team of professionals to save the world.
Setsuna and Altair make deep and long emotional confessions to each other while they fall before the traveling train. They even state that all this is happening in the span of 0.5 seconds.
Meteora saying that she wants to send her debut novel to a Dengeki Bunko writing contest can be quite amusing, given that at the time this publishing house was famous for Little Sister Heroine and Harem Genre stories with Escapist Characters. The point of the story is that people can find enjoyment in any type of entertainment, sure, but saving an emotional monologue and renewed sense of purpose for writing light novels is kinda silly.
Mamika shooting her pink saccharine heart beams of destruction to the edgy hardass Blitz Talker in episode 6 can earn a few chuckles. On the other hand, she is a Magical Girl hailing from a kids' show, so there was no other way that scene could have gone. Averted for her last attack as she's dying. It is still a much darker pink, but loses the heart shapes and resembles a nuclear blast.
Magane is the flipside of the above. Some say that she's too cartoonishly evil to be taken seriously, but that's exactly the point of her character, being as hammy as possible while murdering and framing people and Creations alike.
Many see the very concept of Hikayu like this, given how awkward the discovery of the fact that you are a character of an infamous Porn with Plot can be. Only the age rating of the show does not make it even more amusing and funny.
Although Hikayu gets nunchucks and turns into a Dragon Lady during Elimination Chamber Festival, she looks more like a cosplayer that barely understands how she managed to get in the middle of a real battle, basically because that's precisely what she is; not being a character designed for fighting, she hilariously has no clue what she's doing.
One-Scene Wonder: It's hard not to like "Sexy Meteora" from the recap-episode, despite how ridiculous she looks.
Only the Author Can Save Them Now: The ending both manages to invoke this and be a straight example. Altair's invocation of invincibility made it so the only way she could actually be defeated is through the Creators pulling off an even bigger Deus ex Machina. Still, the way Sota used Magane's powers to bypass audience acceptance completely and resurrect Setsuna as a Creation drew flak from viewers who thought a similar result could have been achieved without breaking the series's internal logic to do so.
Replacement Scrappy: Bearing similarities in appearance and base personality traits to Mamika, Hikayu is seen as this by some viewers, who considered her a step down from the former. To wit, said viewers disliked the fact that Hikayu was considerably wimpier than Mamika from the get-go, along with finding her frequent bouts of crying and high-pitched voice annoying. Considering that Mamika's Character Development was largely applauded, it left a sour taste in the mouths of some viewers for that to fall by the wayside in order to facilitate Hikayu's inclusion in the plot. They also perceived her as "useless" compared to Mamika, given that she had no powers or combat experience to speak of, in contrast to Mamika being established as a powerful Creation. Hikayu's presence leading to the inclusion of Nishio Ōnishi also did not endear her to several viewers, who were disgusted by his exploitative and perverted behavior. This drew comparisons to the lack of appearance by Mamika's Creator, which many viewers felt was a glaring Plot Hole. Said viewers believed that this individual could have been included in the plot to further along Mamika's already considerable development, had she not been killed off early on. Some were also uncomfortable with Hikayu originating from a H-Game, viewing it as a trashy and unnecessarily controversial detail from the writers, and felt that having her simply originate from a T-rated Slice of Life romance would have sufficed, in contrast to Mamika's more innocent Magical Girl origins.
Meteora risked getting into it after the first two or three episodes because of her endless and tedious exposition, which was due to her origin as a character. However, as the plot increasingly revealed her as a person, Meteora even won praise from the audience.
Mamika won the fans big time in Episode 6 when she protected Meteora from Blitz's finishing blow like a true Magical Girl. Previously, viewers are split about her for her naivety and (unintentional) destructive acts.
Rooting for the Empire: Averted. Although Magane and Altair are clearly the brightest, most discussed and popular characters in the series, most viewers are not on their side.
This is played straight in the anime proper though, as Episode 20 makes it clear that Altair firmly has the acceptance of the audience watching the Elimination Chamber Festival, which is why she was able to consistently get the upper hand against all the other Creations. She even gets away with all the crap she has pulled!
Episode 6 looks much more serious than previous episodes due to the brutal murder of the seller in the bookshop and the subsequent battle between the two groups of the Creations.
Episode 7 ramps it up even higher when Yuuya correctly predicts that creations change by being removed from their story, and that Magane has found a new purpose. Specifically, she now wants to be an Evil Overlord and killed her creator when he couldn't give her the infinite power she wanted.This is followed by her running into Sota and Mamika, stalking them while Sota finally reveals his relation to Altair. Then the shows token naive character finds her resolve to not only fight for her ideals but kill for them if necessary; letting her set off a Fantastic Nuke.
Every episode starting with Episode 17, when the Elimination Chamber Festival begins and all the stops are pulled out to defeat Altair and the Creations allied with her. And Episode 19 raises it to a new level, demonstrating the death of Alicetaria and the tragic death of Selesia along with her Love Interest Charon in a suicidal attack, with all the concomitant reactions of their creators. Everything finally reaches its climax in Episode 21 when Altair fights fate itself to prevent Setsuna from dying again, and creates a new universe solely to be a world where the two of them can live happily together; essentially, becoming a Creator herself.
"An anime-original project from director Ei Aoki (Fate/Zero, Aldnoah.Zero), this fantasy action show is just anime as hell. Obviously there’s the fact that it’s an anime about anime characters coming to life to meet an anime fan, but then there’s also the fact that the first episode features a girl who uses a sword to play an enormous gun like a violin."
Mamika's death in episode 8. Topped off with a Fantastic Nuke.
Slow-Paced Beginning: The most common complaint for the series is that the first six episodes are very heavy on exposition, establishing the fairly large main cast and Contemplating Our Navels. Once the series gets through all that, things pick up considerably.
So Okay, It's Average: The general ratings and consensus, combined with the ho-hum sales of merchandise after the series finished airing, all points towards a middling reception at best. Despite the genuinely interesting premise of people's fictional creations coming to life and the interactions that would ensue, some consider far too much of the runtime to be focused on characters conversing and at least one too many an Exposition Dump, while the battles generally never quite have the impact the show thinks they have. Few try to proclaim it as "bad", but Re:CREATORS ultimately had none of the impact that people thought it would have despite the numerous big names working on it, never mind the sheer missed opportunities the mere premise had presented.
To Alan Wake of all things. Both stories involve authors which have their stories alter reality and come to life due to circumstances beyond their understanding, and people who are trying to stop the changes before they reach a point of no return.
To meta-fiction focused narratives that many Western comics use like Grant Morrison'sAnimal Man which popularized metafiction in comics. Like that Animal Man run, the Creations are brought out of their fictional worlds and go into the "real world" in order to talk with their creators. Both series also provide commentary on the nature of creating good narratives as well as criticisms of the genres and mediums they are working with.
To Satoshi Kon's Opus, since both stories have Creators that meet their creations, all of which have different reactions to the fact that they are fictional. Both heroes and villains of the stories alike are none too pleased by the fact that they are fictional, and the villain character itself plans to use this information in order to take over and/or destroy reality itself.
With the premise of fictional characters living in the real world it is the anime equivalent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (or rather, an origin story of).
Mamika's blood splashing down on Magane's corn dog. Worst yet, she's shown to finish eating it, when she finds Mamika's body
Nishio Ōnishi's perverted behavior towards the female Creations, especially Hikayu, who is for all intents and purposes, his daughter, also qualifies as this to several viewers.
Several fans generally agree that Charon applies for this trope. He was foreshadowed and hyped up as an important player in the latter half of the show, especially with how he was kept in the dark for much of the second half of the series. It was also hinted in the very first episode no less, that he was Selesia's Implied Love Interest. However, his only physical appearances in the series are brief cameos at the end of Episode 12, 16, and 18, before receiving a full appearance in Episode 19. That episode is the only time the audience gets to learn about who Charon is, what his powers are, and his thoughts and feelings about being pulled out of his world. In light of this, some viewers certainly found the approach taken with his character, and his ensuing conflict with Selesia for being on the opposite side, to be rushed and unsubstantial. Considering that Charon was built up as having an important connection to Selesia, he was generally seen as a very underutilized character overall, as many viewers felt that he did not appear early or often enough to flesh him out into a belivable or relatable antagonist. Such viewers preferred that he appeared and met Selesia in the real world much earlier in order to build up and develop their conflict. Had Charon met and fought Selesia before the Elimination Chamber Festival, such viewers believed that this would've brough much needed development to both of their characters. Selesia's feelings on her Love Interest being an antagonist was also something they felt would have added more emotional stakes to the conflict as well as developed her character, as she would now have to find the resolve to fight someone she admired and loved romantically. Prior to his Episode 19 appearance, Altair also vaguely hinted that Charon was carrying out his own activities on her behalf to further her plans. However, those actions are not documented by the series and viewers never learn what it was he was actually doing before the Elimination Chamber Festival. As it stands, apart from a few scarce mentions, Charon is hardly brought up by any of the other characters on both sides, and wound up seeming like an easy way for the writers to throw a Conflict Ball Selesia's way.
One would think that Shirotsumekusa, being the character the Military Uniform Princess was based upon, and a healer character from an in-universe famous video game, would have had some impact on the plot sooner or later. Instead, after that revelation, she pretty much disappears from the story.
Mamika can also apply to some fans, given how her limited appearances ultimately amounted to a season's worth of character in about 8 episodes before she's ultimately killed off. The noticeable lack of her Creator compared to the others also counts, as it means she is deprived of meeting them and possibly understanding how she came to be. Even Magane, who barely interacted with her creator, got to talk to him at least once before she killed him.
The setting and story provides a ton of interesting annotations on the relationship between fictional and real world, that however are quickly brushed aside or never touched upon for the sake of the main plot. For example, the early scenes with Mamika buying merchandise with her likeness on it, or the Popularity Polynomial of magical girls (among her fans there are both children and men in their thirties). Or the scenes in the first ending with our heroes meeting cosplayers of themselves, or the fact that some of them never change clothes, or the fact they need real money to live in the real world... Luckily, the spin-off Re:CREATORS One More handles the fan interaction side of things.
You'd think Sota would have some sort of confrontation with Altair, given their connection to Setsuna and both their roles in her suicide. Nope. They never share any dialogue.
The Japanese government knows perfectly well what the hell is going on and are willing to lampshade and defy their standard position in a plot like this of being an indiscriminately antagonistic party. Aside from providing some of their information to the heroes they do absolutely nothing else to (even try to) help and we never even see any scenes providing their point of view regarding the series' situation or what they are doing to try to keep it from causing mass hysteria.
Magane manages to steal the Hangaku entity from Yuuya thanks to her powers, and then proceeds to... do absolutely nothing with it. This ties in with her unpredictable behavior a la The Joker, but still, it feels like another missed opportunity.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The series suffers from an overly cynical and depressing tone being passed off as more "realistic" regarding the fictional characters being brought to the real world. The "good" characters are depicted as ineffective and/or clueless and most of them die without accomplishing anything. The Audience Surrogate has no real personality outside of being angsty and depressed. The Obviously Evil character and the morally ambiguous one, meanwhile, adapt with no effort to the real world and get what they wanted. And the Big Bad? Well, she was over-powered from the start and the only way to deal with her was to cave in to her demands, meaning that the whole series was a "Shaggy Dog" Story where nothing of real note had been accomplished.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The plot continuously tries to paint Altair as someone who is unguided in her attempt at getting retribution over her Creator's suicide because of grief, but as a lot of the audience reaction points on this very page can testify, not only is she hard to like because of how strong her Kick the Dog moments are, but the final developments of the series (which essentially are her forcefully invoking "Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending" In-Universe under pain of unstoppable planetary annihilation and walking away a Karma Houdini) have made people loathe her because she turned the finale into something flat-out disappointing.
Values Dissonance: While characters such as Hikayu are a dime a dozen in Japan and a mainstay of the country's output of fiction, in some western countries the sexualization of such characters is seen as Squicky and exploitative. It probably explains why the series' inclusion of such a character, while seen in Japan as a way to reference a common facet of the country's entertainment media, perturbed several foreign viewers.
Sota seems to exist mainly to provide a normal person's perspective to the idea of fictional characters suddenly coming to life. It's the Created who provide the true heart of the series. In addition, it is strongly implied that he must perform an original role Audience Surrogate, so that the viewer can feel himself in Sota's place. This becomes subverted later, when the audience gets to learn more about hisDark and Troubled Past and incredibly unstable mental state.
Most of the Creators, save for Sota, fall under this. Since the focus is on the characters they created rather than them in the first place, the writers generally end up with little traits save for that they write manga/VNs/games and care about their Creation.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Rui Kanoya. With his androgynous design and voice by a female, many people believed that he's just a really masculine tomboy.
Visual Effects of Awesome: This is another anime from the studio TROYCA, so that the animation and elements of computer graphics as always at a fairly high level.
Unpopular Popular Character: While in the show itself, Sota is considered an entirely ordinary guy with no special talents or attention to him, he took third place in the rating of the male characters of the magazine Newtype for July.
Sota had a falling out with his friend Setsuna and it's implied this was a factor in her suicide and hasn't been able to connect with anyone since, keeping a low profile and mostly going along with what everyone else says.
Mamika is a sweet and kind-hearted girl that just wants everyone to get along. Unfortunately, the characters come from realities very different from her own, so her pleas ultimately fall on deaf ears. And then Altair horribly kills her when she tries to steer away from her path of vengeance. Poor girl.
It's hard not to pity Hikayu when she finds out about her nature of being the heroine of an H-Game and that many people in the real world know even the smallest details of her romantic relationship with her boyfriend, including sex scenes (Given the realities of Visual Novels and the depraved nature of her author, we can only imagine how frank or vulgar these scenes were) and fanservice content. Even the thought of it makes her cry.
Out of all Creators, Takarada is the most miserable one. First he gets locked away for who-knows-how-long, then his own creation interrogates him in a brutal way (although it quickly turns heartwarming), and then the aforementioned creation dies.
, which plays during Celesia and MUP's first fight in the real world, is classic Sawano Orchestral Bombing with powerful female vocals by Tielle, reflecting the chorus portion of the second opening song, "Sh0ut"
