Re:Creators

If Guts was in this series, he'd rampaging after Kentaro Miura about his suffering and constantly extending it via delays all the time.

edited 17th Apr '17 11:51:46 AM by Demongodofchaos2

Maybe everyone sees everything in their native art-style?

Also, I liked how they actually addressed the other point, saying that they might well be in someone else story. Nice bit of meta humor.

That's the thing Himegimi is talking about, isn't it? All the suffering in their world exists because Creators made it so.

Meteora's hypothesis for other-world genesis was interesting; it would fit right in your typical sci fi flick.

The clash of reality and fiction and the genres in between is also turning out well, with plenty of amusing moments like Celessia's exasperation with her Creator, or Mamika freaking out about the blood. Then you have meatier quandaries which I hope they chew on a bit more. Seriously, how would you feel if you realized you were God, playing with the lives of millions for entertainment? And of course the existential crisis that comes from learning you're just a character in a story— and hell, how true is that, now that you're in the real world?

Also excited for that knightly girl who seems to live in a crappy dark fantasy world (guessing she'll be siding with Gunpuku. Gunpaku? Whatsherface) and the noir thriller old guy.

Imagine finding out that your God is just some dude.

Alternately, imagine finding the hot chick who's entire existence you dreamed up standing in front of you.

The differing art-styles thing is easily explained by art-imitating-life: nobody expects one-for-one correspondence. There's also the fact that everybody's initial reaction is that the characters are simply very good cosplay.

It occurs to me that the fictional universes might not actually be fictional: rather, they're simply parts of a multiverse. Un-created universes already exist, they simply haven't been "discovered" yet and are "looking for their creator", with the real world acting as a kind of universe hub.

All speculation aside, I'm not terribly optimistic about the show. I blame Sawano's soundtrack and the high-budget style, both of which I've now associated with well-promoted mediocrity.

edited 17th Apr '17 9:21:13 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

That's the common counter-theory— that the Creators are somehow getting glimpses of these other worlds, which they then write into stories. I believe that was the plot of a manga whose name I cannot recall at the moment.

Also, I doubt many of us are expecting this to be anything close to a literary masterpiece. It's at least above mediocre as of now, which is still a lot better than I was expecting.

Man, things are gonna get weird when the fanfiction scene for this get off the ground. The inclusion of licensed fictional characters in crossover stories will inevitably lead to the depiction of the authors of those works, but making fics about real people is a big no-no in some writting communities.

Some things that got my attention in ep. 2:

• It looks like the author for Celesia's story is dealing with writter's block at the moment. It could be a coincidence, or it could be related to how the MC was also in a funk before this whole mess started.
  • Tangentially related to the above, I'm going to laugh so hard if it turn out Soviet Twin Tails is hiding cat ears under that hat.

• While powers and physical abilities carry over between worlds, stuff that's dependent on factors the character is not in control of do not (like narrative conventions). This might be why Meteora's cleaning spell didn't work (she might have tried to summon something to do the cleaning for her or something) and why Mamika only now have to deal with stuff like collateral damage and nasty battle wounds.

• The lighthearted bickering about who had the best internet service was pretty funny, all things considered.

• There's something impressive about how the author could tell Celesia couldn't take on Mamika just from a glance. That speaks for a good sense of what the characters he made are capable of and how that compare to other fictional characters that many stories lack these days (I'm looking at you, mainstream comics). Either that or Mamika is just that OP, she is a magical girl after all.

On a side note, during the transformation sequence I expected to see a shot from someone looking from outside the light show. Like:

"Are you seeing that?"

"I'm filming that."

Let's hope that's the case, because the consequences of the main theory reach Cosmic Horror level of terrifying.

Also, I've read a theory that Himegimi is a character that MC drawn in his doodle notepad and forgot about. That's why she knows him and why she's so pissed of at the Creators. Her own world is left unfinished.

I also think like that actually. + someone added this theory to the wmg page, so we're not alone

I doubt we're going with the 'stories are just windows into other worlds' explanation; that's significantly less interesting and more important means that the bad guy's plan is fundamentally incapable of working.

Also it would require author to not have any actual control over the stories they write, which I really don't think is where we're going.

My guess is that it'll have a system similar or near to Inkheart. Basically, an author (or in this case Creator) create worlds by making use of different media (like creating manga, writing a light novel, etc.) which bring the characters to life and can now be imported to MC's world. However, even when they're already in the MC's world, they can still be manipulated by their Creator. How? The Creator can make changes in the source material where the characters came from and that will affect the character in question. For example, Selesia's Creator can write that Selesia will have a big-ass machine gun for an arm in a chapter of her LN, and that will actually happen to her.

Perhaps not only characters can be imported, but also objects. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

edited 19th Apr '17 2:05:30 AM by Jamiester

Ep 3 is out.

Cute character designer lady is cute. I wanna pinch her cheeks like I'm an old grandma.

Himegimi's monologue at the end of the episode made me once again think that she was created by our muggle protagonist, what's-his-name again.

The result of revision was as I expected. After all The story would break down completely if he could just give Selesia New Powers as the Plot Demands.

The current hypothesis our characters are working with would suggest otherwise, since the requirement for a Created to come into being would be some level of depth to the characters and for a good number of people to like or at least be aware of them. We don't know how detailed Souta's world or characters were before he stopped working on it, but I think it's safe to say it's existed wasn't known to anyone but himself.

Hmm. The OP handles Himegimi in a way that's very starkly different from the the other fictionland escapees. The other eight are always shown in the same order, and in shots that are are doing very similar things thematically. Himegimi is theoretically the ninth in the order, but her shots are completely different thematically, and are interspersed with imagery unrelated to the whole 'character shots in specific order' schtick- and sometimes she's just skipped entirely, most conspicuously in the end, where she's missing from the group shot.

Which leads me to believe she's something fundamentally different from the rest of them- why else she be so cleanly separated from even her allies?

But I haven't puzzled out what her deal is yet. Though I doubt it's that she's Sota's OC- her monologue at the end is 'huh, what a twist of fate that he would end up involved again'; if he was her creator, it would be more 'huh, that was sure a stroke of luck that'll make my plan easier to pull off.' Although that's making the assumption that her stated motivation isn't bullshit.

Working theory is that Sota was collaborating with the girl who committed suicide in the very beginning; he likely stopped drawing because it's painful for him now. Mystery girl is a character they created together, or perhaps one that was thought up by the girl but never shown to him, or something like that. She exists because magic, ie: we don't know the rules well enough to speculate on that at this point. Her motivation sounds more like she wants to continue her creator's legacy and playing god is just the way she recruits others. It was very much a "talking to a dead person" monologue.

Also, everyone in the story is kind of dumb for not realizing that the fact that she's from the anime and not the novel (doesn't know upcoming plot twists, etc), makes all their experimentation 100% meaningless.

edited 24th Apr '17 1:50:45 AM by Clarste

It's possible that the plot and "character settings" are handled separately - it's not uncommon for a Non-Serial Movie, Compilation Movie or Alternate Universe to introduce new abilities that remain canon and show up in merchandise, even if the story itself is ignored.

I.e. "Selessia goes on a quest and gets a Flaming Sword" wouldn't do anything since the anime hasn't reached that point yet, but "Selessia has always had a Flaming Sword and it just never came up" would be Word of God / Word of Saint Paul that becomes true for the anime retroactively.

Still doesn't make a lot of sense though.

edited 24th Apr '17 3:40:36 PM by Prime32

(Double post)

edited 24th Apr '17 3:32:41 PM by Prime32

It's possible, but their experimentation still wouldn't have proven anything one way or the other. For all they know, the writer and character designer of the anime would be able to change things in exactly the way they tested.

edited 24th Apr '17 4:24:14 PM by Clarste

Eh, they were working with the people on hand. I'm just glad they're actually tackling these questions.

Definitely think that the X factor is prominence in mindshare. The rules are still unknown so there's plenty of room to fudge the details, though.

Kinda disappointed with Celestia's somewhat dull reaction to hearing spoilers about her story. I'd have expected her to be a lot more drained.

One cool tidbit about the episode is Celestia saying she had a better sense of smell in the "real" world. Which seems to imply that her author didn't pour much detail into defining wafts and odors in her story (which is perfectly understandable, if I may add), but now that she's been defictionalized her body is adapting to real-world physicality. Pretty interesting.

They'd already said the same thing about tastes and whatnot all throughout the episode. Hamburgers, cigarettes, etc. Meteora specifically said that the data density of this world is far higher than others. In her own world, objects can even be summed by a single number (because she's from a video game).

The distinction is in the phrasing; i.e Celestia says her sense of smell has gotten stronger rather than saying the smells in this world are stronger, which could point to her body becoming "real" as opposed to simply being exposed to more data.

I didn't get that impression at all from the dialog. It was more that the smells themselves are stronger. How would she even know if her sense of smell was changing, with nothing to compare it to?

Hmm, either the subs I watched phrased it differently or I'm remembering it wrong.