Anime / Re:CREATORS

The Creations ^note from front to back: Meteora Österreich, Selesia Upitiria, Yuuya Mirokuji, Rui Kanoya, Mamika Kirameki, Aliceteria February, Blitz Talker, Magane Chikujoin, and Rui's Gigas Machina

Sota Mizushino's life is changed forever when he meets Selesia Upitilia, the protagonist of his favorite anime. She saves him from the mysterious Military Uniform Princess and he tells her that she is actually a fictional character who has come to life in the real world. Now, Sota and Selesia must gather the other characters that have arrived into the real world and save their worlds from total destruction.

Re:CREATORS is an original anime by Studio TROYCA, written by Rei Hiroe, creator of Black Lagoon, and directed by Ei Aoki (who also co-wrote the script along with Hiroe) of Fate/Zero and Aldnoah.Zero fame. The anime aired from April 8 to September 16, 2017, for 22 episodes.

The anime created three spin-off series of its own — Re:CREATORS Naked, which showcases Aoki's original draft, Re:CREATORS One More, which follows a relatively normal otaku girl and her friends living through the events of the series, and Chikujouin-san is Too Merry, which gives Magane A Day in the Limelight.

No relation to Re:Zero.

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This work contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Any girl from a fictional world (with the exception of Magane and Hikayu) qualifies. Although Magane's not too shabby herself.
• A God Am I: Blitz Talker's Creator Shunma Suruga is the only one who embraces the Created labeling them gods. If Blitz had expected any remorse or sympathy from her for killing his daughter, he was mistaken. In fact, she goes to great length to drive home the point: She is the god, she'll cause as much suffering as she likes.
• Alternate Self: According to Meteora, the Creations that died in the real world are merely alternate versions of the original characters who still reside in their respective stories. Although those characters are still alive elsewhere in the multiverse, they have no memories or recollection about what happened in the real world, which means that, emotionally and psychologically, they are not the same characters we have come to know across the series. Though one would also assume that their Creators, if still alive (which Meteora's is not), will have been influenced, or indeed scarred, by what happened to their Real Life counterparts and write that into their future stories, allowing them to live on that way and indeed influence the plots of their original stories going forward:
  • Selesia: May see the Relationship Upgrade with Charon she so desires, and the introduction of new characters loosely based on Takashi, Marine and Meteora (perhaps as an outright collaboration) to allow what she experienced with them to make it onto paper as part of her Character Development.
  • Mamika: We already know she's getting a crossover with Alice, but even in her home series, perhaps towards the end of the story's run, she faces the same questions as the Created version did, and get an 11th-Hour Superpower, but with less fatal consequences.
  • Alice: Her death and "Reason You Suck" Speech to Gai leads to him giving her some meaningful victories that stick at long last and a slow improvement in her Crapsack World as a form of Throw the Dog a Bone.
• Another Dimension: The show implies that when a person creates a fictional world, it immediately becomes a parallel world. Thus, our reality is some kind of land of gods, where the "creators" of other dimensions live. However, it is not known what would happen if someone tries to come up with a fictional work in a world that already is someone's creation. Meteora implies that our reality is incredibly information-dense whereas derivative worlds are subject to Conservation of Detail, so any cases of Show Within a Show can't go onwards forever. While her own reality could create fiction, Meteora theorizes that the story worlds don't have enough information density to create split universes from those works.
• Anticlimax: In the third episode, after a great deal of effort on the part of Selesia's writer and illustrator, she prepares to test her new powers, the Sawano sound track soars, she strikes a dramatic pose... and nothing happens. Reversed for the finale of the first cour as the writer posts the story snippet and image to Twitter. Starting up a media frenzy and giving Selesia a short term god mode.
• Anyone Can Die: Even before the finale of the show, at least half of the main cast will die.

• Ascended Fanon: Weaponized by Altair, who is capable of using powers fans thought up over the years for her due to having no strict canon since her author died before she could write one. Altair's appearance in Elimination Chamber Festival has her use this fact to its fullest, making it a case of this trope to the in-universe audience.
• As Himself: Voice actresses Mikako Komatsu (Selesia) and Sora Amamiya (Rui) appear on stage as themselves in Episode 16 and act as the hosts of the Elimination Chamber Festival throughout the final act. Komatsu being cast as Selesia and Amamiya as Rui somewhat a reversal of their common typecastings; Komatsu has voiced a significant number of characters who are young boys like Rui.
• Audience Surrogate: The series sets up Sota as an Unlucky Everyman being thrust into the reality warping events of the series so that the audience can feel in his shoes. He is first presented as someone with a bland appearance, relatable personality, seemingly no outstanding qualities, is a Ordinary High-School Student, and has some confidence issues as an aspiring artist. The truth is a lot more complicated.
• Apocalypse How: Meteora believes that a Class X-5 or Class Z will occur if they cannot contain the spread of characters that break the rules of Earth's logic. Everything will reset to the beginning, destroying every world.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Altair defeats the good guys and uses the world's acceptance of her story to become more powerful. The only reason the series even has a happy ending is that her Creator convinces her to give up her plan to destroy the world and instead moves on to another dimension where they can be together for all eternity.
• Being Good Sucks: Seems to be one of the show's themes, at least for what concerns the Creations. In the end the unambiguously good guys either die or are incapacitated, the morally gray Blitz survives the ordeal without a scratch and gets back his daughter, while the Big Bad and the Obviously Evil character not only never get any punishment but also get exactly what they wanted and were pretty much unopposed from the start. No wonder that the show gets sometimes accused of being too dark for its own good.
• Bland-Name Product: Piclive (Pixiv), Mauchy (Google), NiwaVideo (Nico Nico Douga), YouMotion (Youtube/Dailymotion), and YcDonalds (McDonald's.)
• Big Bad: Yūya Mirokuji was this to the fighting manga he originates from. Magane was also this to the protagonists of her horror manga.
• Big Bad Ensemble: As of episode 8, both the Military Uniform Princess and Magane become separate threats to the protagonists.
• Bittersweet Ending: The world is saved from destruction, and Setsuna is resurrected by Sota and Magane to reunite with Altair in their new, happy life in a separate world. However, this was achieved by the deaths of Mamika, Aliceteria, Selesia and Charon, which also traumatized their authors.
• Bounty Hunter: The current career of Blitz Talker, the cyberpunk ex-cop slash mercenary.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • While the show doesn't shy away from Leaning on the Fourth Wall from time to time, Episode 13 straight up obliterates it to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang levels, complete with Lemony Narrator and Self-Deprecation humors.
  • Episode 20 utterly decimates the fourth wall when it features an in-universe fanart montage of Altair, and all the pictures are real fanart from Pixiv, such as this image which was very prominently featured in the episode. The piece, which was originally uploaded on May 19, 2017, received a deluge of new comments on September 3, 2017, the date the episode aired (you must be logged in to Pixiv to read them). A more complete list can be found here.
• Character Development: The fact that the creations can change as people after being removed from their story becomes a very important discovery. This is most apparent in Mamika and Magane, who are said to be becoming quite different from their source material after only a third of the way through the series.
• Central Theme:
  • Psychological study of the process of creating a fictional story and their perception by the audience.
  • On the Creators' side: coping with jealousy.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Multiple times by the creations and some of the human characters. A big theme of the show is how a fictional character would face the reality of their existence. This also makes the cast raise questions about the real world as well.
• Connected All Along: Sota and Meteora remember that they already met in her MMO game when she gave him an exposition before he went to the boss.
• Conveniently Empty Building: Averted in episode 2, but played straight every other time the Creations fight each other, since there never seems to be anybody around during their fights, even if the setting is a bustling Japanese megalopolis. Exaggerated when Mamika blows herself up, since a giant explosion in the middle of a city is never even brought up again.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Meteora's current theory on how creators can influence their creations is a Played With variant of this. It isn't enough to for the creator to just rewrite an element of their character, they must show it to the public and allow it to influence people's hearts. Selesia's creators can't just write down she can use the Fire Chant, they must show their idea to the fanbase and have them accept it. In a more direct example, Mamika's(and all the other Magical Slayers) powers are said to run off of this in her own universe.
• Crapsack World: Aliceteria comes from a world of terrible war and strife. In her words "There are corpses piled as high as mountains, and rivers of fresh blood flowing far and wide with no end in sight." So, when she learns that all that pain and suffering were created for someone else's entertainment, she doesn't take it well.
  • Selesia's world seemly appears as one too, given her battle-happy attitude and the speech she made against Mamika in #3.
• Creator Cameo: In-universe. Setsuna gets a posthumous cameo in Elimination Chamber Festival to talk with Altair. Invoked by Sota as a last-ditch effort to stop Altair's rampage.
• Creator Provincialism:
  • Invoked: all the Creations are based on archetypes of Japanese popular culture because they are brought to life by the MUP who, in turn, was the creation of Setsuna, a young Japanese woman, who based her on a pre-existing video game character. It makes sense that all the characters ultimately connected to Setsuna come from the cultural products she's most familiar with.
  • Also played straight, however, since a potentially planet-shattering situation is handled exclusively by the Japanese government, while the rest of the world doesn't seem to care (or even know) about what's going on.
• Crisis Crossover: Not this show. Elimination Chamber Festival is one of these in-universe, where Meteora's ultimate plan to fight Altair is to make a non-canon animated special where the Creations face off with her. Invoked between Avalken of Reminisce and Gate • Babylon so it could be possible to bring Erina Talker back to life.
• Cyberpunk: Blitz Talker comes from a cyberpunk manga series. He's armed with a few gadgets that make him a Gravity Master on top of his marksmanship.
• Dead Serious: Despite its focus on action and drama, the series was still willing to treat the idea of fictional characters coming to the real world with some degree of levity. Mamika's death in episode 8 swiftly puts an end to that.
• Deconstruction:
  • A lot of this, especially when fictional characters are confronted with the real world. In particular, Mamika is shocked that her magic heart attacks cause real damage to surrounding buildings and almost kill several people, and Meteora always explains her thoughts in a measured tone without pausing, as she was a reference NPC in her game.
  • The characters' natural heroism is also deconstructed. But unlike other franchises that deconstruct the morals behind heroism, Re:CREATORS instead asks the question of what is means to be a hero, especially coming from characters with different origins, ideals and powers. Do they attempt to save their own world at the expense of others (Aliceteria) or do they attempt to work together and save all worlds (Selesia and Meteora)?
  • Even the very idea of Karmic Death, or even that a villain must face punishment at all. Sota's solution to stopping Altair isn't to overpower or defeat her, but to simply give her what she really wants (Setsuna, her Creator), thereby taking away Altair's reason for destroying the world.
• Decoy Protagonist: After fulfilling one of the lead roles of this anime as a Creation protagonist to Sota's Creator protagonist, Selesia then dies just three episodes away from the Grand Finale, making Meteora the true Creation protagonist, having stood by Sota's side from the beginning to the end and even collaborated with him to write a new story after deciding to stay in the real world in the last episode.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Discussed & subverted. Mamika thinks this is how it works because of the nature of her show, but Selesia rather brutally Lampshades it to her, explaining that beating the crap out of people makes them less likely to agree with you.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Downplayed. Yuuya suggests that this might be why the creations are changing in personality, and why Magane won't be as predictable as her story suggests.
• Disappears into Light: When a Created dies on the real world, their body disappears in a cluster of blue pixels. Mamika, Alicetaria, Selesia, and Charon have all died like this.
• Disposable Love Interest: It is understood that Selesia in her world has a love interest, which is Charon, the main character of her light novel and anime. At the same time, after she gets into the real world, she mentions him only a few times, although works of this type usually mean One True Love between the protagonists. Possibly because Selesia is from the anime version and comes too early in her own story to have strong enough feelings for him yet. Averted in the later half, since Charon does appear in the second arc of the story with the goal of bringing her back to their world.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Some of the interactions between the Creators and Creations resemble Real Life parent-child relationships to a degree that's unnerving.
  • Selesia being embarrassed by the kind but nerdy Takashi until she gets chastised by Yuuya, who wishes his Creator was that caring and thinks she should appreciate him more.
  • Yuuya and Sho taking Ryo on a motorcycle ride looks a lot like an estranged/divorced dad attempting to bond with two sons who have been running wild in his absence.
  • Meteora discovering that her Creator had died mirrors an unfortunate occurrence that adopted children often experience when they attempt to find their birth parents.
  • Masaaki's sad realization that he's responsible for Rui's bratty personality, and his comment that he wouldn't have created such an immature character had he known that the two would meet someday.
  • Magane's relationship with her Creator, Hikayu's initial meeting with her creator and Altair and Setsuna's reunion.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The special ending song for the Recap Episode, "World Etude," is sung by Aki Toyosaki, Altair's voice actress.
• Drives Like Crazy: Selesia enjoys driving a stranger's car a bit too much. Explained because the controls seem simple to her compared to Vogelchevalier, whereas she has no clue about rules of traffic.
• The Earth-Prime Theory: According to Meteora, the real world gives birth to the worlds of fiction. If it were destroyed, all worlds connected to it will be destroyed as well.
• invokedEstrogen Brigade: Conversed in Episode 17, where the series shows several times that Yuya and Syo are so attractive that it attracts a bunch of girls to their manga and makes it almost "girlish" in the eyes of others. A background character reading the announcement for the Elimination Chamber Festival even refers to Yuya as "some character from a girls' manga."
• Earn Your Happy Ending: For Sota and Meteora, who are working on their debut novels and enduring a traumatic but rewarding experience from the series, as well as Altair, who gets to live with a copy of her creator and gave up on destroying the world. Everyone else... not so much.
• invokedEnsemble Dark Horse: Discussed. Characters mention that popularity is a factor in who gets transported to the real world. Several of the Creations are side-characters or even antagonists in their original stories, with Meteora being an NPC from the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in an open world game.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In-Universe, apparently Selesia will be betrayed by one of her best friends later on in her Light Novel series.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: How the villains tend to work. Magane represents evil, wanting to take over the world For the Evulz whereas Altair merely wants all the worlds to be destroyed. Magane mentions that Altair is on her hit list.
• Expy: In-Universe, Altair was created by developing a more flat heroine from the popular MMO. Meteora and Marine are also Lampshaded that initially secondary work can become new and original if the author instead of blind copying provides it with a new background, appearance and especially a new personality. Thus, work based on another, can become a completely separate world, if it is sufficiently original and elaborated.
• Failure Hero: Despite their intelligence and familiarity with stories, the Creators and the good-aligned Creations constantly come up short in everything they do and when they do succeed at something, it's often at a great sacrifice. Mamika, Aliceteria and Sirius fail to kill Altair, Selesia only stops Charon at the cost of her life and the whole Elimination Chamber Festival ends up being hijacked by Altair to increase her power. Ultimately, they lack the means to defeat Altair and the closest thing they get to stop her is by reuniting her with her Creator, convincing her to give up her plan to destroy the world.

• Finale Title Drop: At the end of the final episode, Re:CREATORS is revealed to be the title of the novel that Meteora is currently writing.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Mamika Kirameki is rarely if ever mentioned by the others after making a Heroic Sacrifice. There is eventually a very brief nod in the epilogue, with a shot of an ad for the new series featuring her and Aliceteria.
• Gratuitous English: Evident in the first opening, and even the composer, Sawano, admits that he doesn't really care about how much sense the lyrics make as long as they sound cool to him.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Evident in some of the characters' names, items and special abilities, such as Meteora Österreich, Aliceteria February, Vogelchevalier and so on. Justified in that the Japanese are actually fond of using random foreign words in their works to make them sound cooler.
• Gut Punch: Mamika's death in episode 8 marks the show's permanent loss of innocence.
• Hard Truth Aesop:
  • If you have strong envy for a more successful person, then you should recognize their destructive feelings and use this as a motivation and starting point to become better and achieve your goals. Otherwise, negative emotions will simply be buried deeper into the subconscious and will give negative results. Becomes more family friendly since it also says you need to admit those painful feelings so you don't lash out at those important to you, like Sota did.
  • Sometimes, diplomacy, reasoning, or any sort of compromise just isn't going to work on people. Just give them what they want, and maybe they'll work it out themselves.
• Henshin: The brief transformation of Selesia in the tenth episode works in this way, because the reaction of the audience to the redesign allows for the temporary gaining superpowers. Mamika herself also plays directly this trope during her first on-screen transformation because of her nature as a magical girl.
• Hero Antagonist: A literal application. All of the characters working for the Military Princess are the Heroes of their respective stories (though it's very likely that Blitz Talker is somewhere on the Anti-Hero spectrum).
• Hidden Depths: Invoked by Yuuya, who explains that without the story and the plot to bind him, other aspects of his personality have been released and allowed him to change as a person. It's also implied he took the time to read up on the other characters due to also noticing the Rui he's hanging out with is different from the Rui in Gigas Makina's source material. He theorizes that the same goes for the other creations, when asked about his opinion regarding Magane's potential next move, pointing out that the girl they're chasing might not be the same girl that her original world portrayed her as anymore and therefore, not as predictable.
• Hidden Villain: Played with. The creator of Aliceteria is not a literal villain, however from her point of view it is technically he who is to blame for the multiple deaths and suffering that destroy her world. And formally all this is done for the entertainment of other people... No wonder she was furious when she first learned about it.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Elimination Chamber Festival turns out to be this for the Creators and the Creations, as it was conceived as an event to power up the Creations so they can defeat Altair. Instead, all attempts by the Creations to stop Altair failed, she turned it into her own personal story, and managed to gain the support of the audience, thus acquiring the increased power she sought.
• Holding Hands: Frequently between multiple characters. Most often this method is used to comfort and persuade Sota into being more forward about the truth with his friends to a disappointing amount of success.
• Hope Spot: Episode 20: Where the heroes summon Sirius, the first character to ever be able to fight Altair on equal ground. It initially looks like they have a chance. However, just when they thought they managed to defeat her, she returns, having merged with Sirius. To make matters worse, all of the Creations save for Blitz have either died or are incapacitated.
• Hot Springs Episode: The first half of Episode 16 features the main characters taking a break at a hot springs inn before they prepare for the final battle.
• Humongous Mecha: Both Selesia Upitiria and Rui Kanoya have one, but apparently, only Rui got to bring his "Gigas Makina" with him, while Selesia Vogelchevalier got left behind.
• Hypocrite: In episode 19, just before depowering Hikayu, the MUP mocks her, saying basically that Hikayu's new attacks don't work on her because they feel tacked on and the audience won't accept them. Remember, this is being said by the in-universe Villain Sue who pulls exceedingly broken abilities out of nowhere every minute. Including, of course, the power to cancel someone's development and "plot twists".
• Info Dump: Utilized extensively, usually through Meteora.
• Innocently Insensitive: Marine is so amazed to meet Selesia she doesn't think she might not want to know the graphic details of her friends betraying her and dying later on in her series. Sota also displays this when he is in shock in episode 1 when he nervously starts rattling on about Selesia's anime until she stops him. She didn't care or understand such things because she was in the middle of a mental breakdown.
• Interface Spoiler: The official character chart for the first half (warning; minor spoilers) showcases the relationships between the Creators and their creations...except for Mamika. Given that the series thrives on the relationships between the two and how they interact, there's little surprise that the creation that lasts the shortest time in reality is the only one without a Creator the cast can meet.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Creating one of these as a Crisis Crossover becomes the protagonists' method of empowering their Creations against the Military Uniform Princess. The tricky part is making it believable and acceptable to the public so the power-ups will stick.
• It's All My Fault: Notable in that this is the source of Sota's issues and the driving force of the first part of the series. A lot of the dangers that everyone runs into in the first half of the show could've been avoided if he wasn't so terrified to talk about it.
• Karma Houdini: Altair herself walks away into the sunset with her resurrected Creator in an Alternate Universe all for their own, completely unrepentant of the death and destruction she has done and getting no comeuppance (not that it was possible for her to receive any kind of comeuppance, with the overpowering that she had obtained). As well, while all other Creations (that survived) went back to their shows, Magane remains in the Real World, and the last we see of her is her getting in a plane where (Word of God says) she will continue to terrorize people around the world, though losing her powers much like Meteora.
• Killed Off for Real: Meteora says to Matsubara in the 22nd episode that all the dead in our world Created are really dead, but their original versions are still alive in their original stories.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: A major theme is knowing to trust your friends. Sota gets put through the Trauma Conga Line because he refuses to do this.
• Leitmotif: Most of the main characters have one. Some of them have vocal versions that sing about the character themselves.
  • "Layers" for the Military Uniform Princess
  • "BRAVE THE OCEAN" for Selesia
  • "Infinite God Machine" for Rui
  • "Here I Am" for Mamika
  • "God of Ink" for Sota
• Loser Protagonist: Sota's negative qualities end up causing many more problems for the heroes than he solves for most of the series.
• Lost in Translation: The Princess' character-defining statement of "warewa ga sekai ni henkaku, kamigami no chi wo seisai wo". Amazon translates this as: "Revolution to your world, punishment to the land of the gods." This leaves out the dual meaning of seisai, which can be written as 制裁 (sanction) or 聖祭 (holy festival). A more accurate translation would thus be "We will transform this world, exacting punishment upon the land of the gods." The translation of Mamika and Sota's conversation in episode 7 is also misleading. The way Sota words it in Japanese makes it sound like Altair hates him in particular, not just the world.
• Mage in Manhattan: The premise in general.
• Magical Girl: Mamika Kirameki. She's the classic kind made for young girls, which causes problems when she's in a universe that is MUCH Darker and Edgier.
• Masquerade: Averted, subverted, inverted, played with and a couple of other things: MUP wants nothing more than to show everyone and everything the cool, impossible stuff fictional characters can do, which behooves her plan, and she does more than her fair share of work in order to break the masquerade into tiny little blue cubes; the government can't really cover up stuff on such a scale and doesn't have the power to control the media (what with Japan being a democracy and all) beyond simply lying to it. The media, however, doesn't report the weird stuff because the truth is too absurd. Presumably, any videos caught are seen by others as special effects or something...
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: an In-Universe one. All the shows are fictional composites of real genre shows, but it's still a massive crossover pile up within that universe.
• Maybe Ever After: Although the show did not give any answer about the feelings of Meteora and Sota towards each other after all the Ship Tease that was between them, the epilogue shows us that they have become close friends and support each other in career endeavors.
• Motion-Capture Mecha: Rui's Gigas Machina has this control scheme. Selesia's Vogelchevalier has a more traditional cockpit.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: For power-ups to work on the heroes' side, the authors need to write them first then get audiences to accept them so they'll be able to use them permanently. Since Altair has no solid canon, she can use as many writer canons as she wants permanently to fight her opponents, then augment that power even further by having audiences accept it.
• Negated Moment of Awesome:
  • Poor Aliceteria gets hit with this in episode 19. She attempts to destroy Altair but the latter uses her Holopsicon so that any damage she suffers will be felt by the attacker instead. Next thing we know, Aliceteria gets killed by her own attacks.
  • Episode 20 ramps it up when the Creators introduce Sirius, a completely new character with powers comparable to Altair. She quickly destroys Altair and for a moment it appears the fight is over. But then, Altair uses Sirius' lack of personality to reconstruct herself.
• Not What It Looks Like: At one point in the ninth episode, Sota finds himself in a rather ambiguous pose with Magane, as if he was going to have oral sex with her. But Yuuya instantly understands what's what, as his social skills allow you to quickly assess the situation and the course of thoughts of both.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Magane becoming the owner of a penthouse. She must have framed and/or murdered several people in order to get there, but we don't get to see any of it. (Also, it's really referenced just in that one episode.)
• Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Altair is the only character to walk out of this whole mess completely and unambiguously happy, untraumatized, alive and with everything she wanted. This is a pretty weird example because it was pretty much enforced In-Universe—she was so damn unstoppable because she weaponized Popularity Power to turn the Elimination Chamber Festival into her story that the only way to prevent her from destroying the world was giving her what she wanted and hope that she didn't felt like finishing the job afterwards.
• Orcus on His Throne: Or better, MUP On Her Sofa. Despite being supposedly omnipotent thanks to the vaguely-explained Holopsicon, she's mostly content to stay in her lair sitting on her sofa and talking with her subordinates. The few times she takes the matter in her own hands, she stops right before causing major damage, citing some unexplained unfulfilled conditions.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Sōta Mizushino, the viewpoint character.
• Out-Gambitted: The Elimination Chamber Festival was specially designed to contain Altair. However, Altair knew that all along and played along with the expectations of the protagonists, simply so she can take advantage of audience acceptance of the festival's events to augment her own already considerable powers. Later Inverted with how Altair is ultimately stopped. Rather than out-thinking Altair through a complicated plan like everyone else has been trying, Sota simply offers her what she's really wanted from the beginning: To be reunited with her Creator.
• Pandering to the Base: An interesting In-Universe example. In the show the main source of "power" of a creation is not a only well-written story, but a positive response from the audience. Moreover, in episode 10 Matsubara saves Selesia's life and gives her a temporary power-up due to the positive reaction of her new character design on Twitter. It gets weaponized by the villain in episode 20, where Altair notes she can use every possible power a fan has depicted her with, due to the fact that her personal canon is every fanon.
• Pen Pals: Souta and Altair's creator Setsuna were this. They met online after both became impressed with each other's art. They became close friends by exchanging text messages, but they apparently met in person only once.
• Popularity Power: While not a concrete theory, Yūya believes the characters that enter the real world are the ones that had the strongest impression with their audiences. That eventually gets weaponized.
• Postmodernism: This show is all about fictional characters based on popular character types and deconstructing them by putting them in real life, plus their designs evoke familiar shows.
• Purple Is Powerful: A recurring theme to symbolize "power" among the Creations with the shadeof it as a measurement for how much power it contains, may it be Blitz's gravity bullets, Aliceteria's "Gotz von Berlichingen" or Mamika's final "Magical Splash Flare"". Purple also, when braided into the character designs, also foreshadow the potential power of the ones wearing it, such as the dark purple-haired Magane or the bright-purple haired Yuuya.
• Rage Against the Heavens: This seems to be the motive of Military Uniform Princess. It's implied a lot of this is directed at Sota.
• Rage Against the Author: In-Universe: The Series. Every bad guy has a near-murderous beef with their Creator (and the MUP trumps them all big time...), and the good guys still get at least one scene where they freak out once everything clicks together. Aliceteria's and Yuya's first on-screen interactions with their Creators are calling them out for writing stories full of suffering and trauma as entertainment, Blitz nearly kills his creator when he meets her as revenge for killing off his daughter, and Magane straight up murders her Creator, though being a villain from a horror series, she did it because she felt the story he wrote wasn't traumatic enough.
• "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: The show depicts fictional stories as full-fledged worlds with interesting ongoing events that, on the one hand, show the creative potential of their Creators. On the other hand, they make people happy, helping them escape from problems, inventing or reading stories.
• Reality Warper: Out of all the Creations, only Military Uniform Princess and Magane Chikujoin can change reality consciously through their abilities. The others simply have reality contort and tear itself around them in order to justify itself with their existence.
• Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: What the Military Uniform Princess aims for with her scheme and in #4, Meteora expresses her concern that the sudden appearance of so many people who should not exist in the real world, and their ability to violate the laws of physics with their powers, could cause damage to the very fabric of reality if they stay too long. Also works against Altair. Her more powerful Reality Warper abilities are conflicting with more of the world's laws than the other Creations, meaning that using them too much could result in her being forcefully returned into her own story.
• Real-World Episode: The Series.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Kikuchihara and her emergency government task force. Instead of locking the Created up in a bunker somewhere, they decide to offer them help and support in their efforts to figure out what's going on, and return the characters to their worlds before the situation gets any worse.
• Recap Episode: Episode 13 serves as a massive parody of one, with Meteora providing a recap of the story and characters, heavily warped by her perceptions and Alternate Character Interpretation of everyone around her.
• Refugee from TV Land: Characters from different works of fiction somehow enter the real world.
• Rule of Symbolism: Throughout the series, Altair's Holopsicon abilities rely on using a saber and a PPSh-41 submachine gun like a violin. In Episode 21, Altair creates a new universe for herself and Setsuna by using an actual violin and bow, signifying her ascendance from Creation to Creator and no longer using her power for destruction.
• Samus Is a Girl: The author of Code:Babylon, a hard-boiled Cyberpunk manga starring Blitz Talker, is actually a woman who writes under a masculine pen name, to her fellow creators' surprise.
• Say My Name: Sōta to Selesia as Mamika unleashes her ultimate attack on her, in suitably dramatic Big Word Shout fashion. Lampshaded by Yuuya shortly after.
• Sense Freak: The Creations mention several times how much tastier the food from the real world is, compared to the one from their worlds, and they are often seen happily gorging on it. One of the more extreme examples is witnessed in episode 7 when Magane has a Beergasm after drinking from a milk carton. Meteora theorizes this is due to Creators not putting much thought into the details of the food in their stories, making food in the story worlds taste fairly bland and one-note compared to the food in the world of the Creators.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Mamika blew herself up to generate a Fantastic Nuke after Altair almost killed her, and later on Aliceteria blows herself up with her own ultimate attack trying to land a hit on Altair and Selesia sacrifices herself to stop Charon and give her friends some advantage. All fail to stop Altair even for a second.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The show pretty much ends as this. Altair is ultimately stopped short from destroying reality by a literal case of Only the Author Can Save Them Now, with none of the heroes involved, effectively rendering their accomplishments pointless.
• Ship Tease: The show does not have romantic accent, however Aliceteria/Mamika, Sota/Meteora, Magane/Sota and Meteora/Selesia occasionally have rather ambiguous scenes, like when Sota is holding an injured Meteora´s hands or when Mamika confesses to Aliceteria that she likes her before heading off for her Final Battle. Played right in the 19th episode, when Selesia confesses her love for Charon and they die together as Star-Crossed Lovers.
• Shout-Out: So many that they have their own page.
• Slasher Smile: Psycho schoolgirl Magane Chikujōin sports one, all the time.
• Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: Very character-driven. While not lacking in the action department, the series mostly explores how the characters come to terms with the fact their lives are actually fictional stories and how they evolve since they are no longer constrained by the limits of their stories of origin.
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: Serious, and increasingly so as the series goes on. At first, Re:CREATORS was willing to treat the idea of fictional characters coming to the real world with some degree of levity, then Mamika dies and it all goes to hell afterwards. Really, did anyone expect anything else from the creator of Black Lagoon and the director of Aldnoah.Zero?
• Small Reference Pools: Becomes a plot point. At one point, Matsubara notes that, given the enormous amount of fiction that humanity has created, it's odd that the Military Uniform Princess has only been manifesting characters from Japanese anime and video games. Hearing this, Nakanogane realizes that the Princess's focus likely reflects the interests of her Creator, and uses this as the first step to figuring out the Princess's identity.
• Smoking Is Cool: Blitz, his creator, and Yuuya enjoy cigarettes, and the show takes the trouble to make them look cool while doing it.
• Speak in Unison: Near the end of Episode 20, Sota and Magane utter the latter's catchphrase simultaneously when the heroes try to summon Setsuna Shimazaki.
• Spoiler Opening: The second opening ends with frames where Altair raises the flower in the place where she will transfer the resurrected Setsuna in the 21st episode.
• Spoiler Title: The third episode turns the name of the show into an obvious hint that in the future the Creators will learn to change the abilities of their characters by rewriting their worlds.
• Starts with a Suicide: The opening scene is a young woman throwing herself into a train. She is Setsuna Shimazaki, a friend of Sota's and Altair's Creator.
• Stealth Parody: This is not a comedy work, but at the same time, the authors clearly ironically portray the interaction of fictional characters with the real world, especially when it comes to genre psychology like the exposition of JRPG's NPC Meteora or idealism of the light novel's heroine Selesia.
• Stellar Theme Naming: Several of the Creations have names relating to astronomy: Meteora, Selesia (from "celestial", meaning "pertaining to the sky/the universe"), Altair (the brightest star in the constellation Aquila), Hoshikawa (from "hoshi", Japanese for "star"), Charon (Pluto's moon), Sirius (the brightest star in the sky).
• The Stinger:
  • The first episode ends with Sōta, Selesia and Meteora buying groceries in a store. The girls are staying with him because they have nowhere else to go.
  • Episode 12 reveals that MUP has brought yet another character into the real world: Charon, Selesia's friend.
• Storm of Blades: Military Uniform Princess is able to conjure dozens of swords from thin air and throw them at people.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: What seems to be Altair's final goal, with a side of Disproportionate Retribution towards Sota while she's at it.
• Supporting Protagonist: Sōta claims in his monologue at the beginning of the first episode that he is not the main character, despite the story being told from his point of view.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The whole plot. Some specific examples:
  • Most of the people who meet the Created assume they are simply cosplayers at first, at least until they start doing otherworldly things like flying or casting spells.
  • Getting a person suffering from psychological trauma and a guilty conscience to talk about their problems and secrets is nigh impossible. Even to those they care about and have close relationships or even if lives are at stake because of them withholding knowledge. That person might attempt to say something, but lose their nerve or leave out important (or what they view as incriminating) details even if they do say anything.
  • Mamika gets hit with this hard when she realizes that her blasts actually caused Selesia pain as well as massive amounts of collateral damage. Turns out her story shied away from the devastating consequences her powers should have had in reality.
  • Character quirks like Mamika's tendency to misspell someone's name or Rui Kanoya's childish bouts get annoying very quickly to the people around them when they become real.
  • Meteora explains that when a fictional character appears in the real world, their traits and abilities are subjected to the real world's natural laws, because the world is trying to make sense of characters whose powers and abilities can defy logic and reality. If so many fictional characters appear at once, all sense of stability and normality will be lost, causing the end of every world.
  • The government was aware of the presence of the Created as well and has accepted their existence since none of them were making any attempt to hide their presence, and everybody has a cellphone and can either take a video, picture, or call the authorities. All the government could manage to do was change some reports and rely on reporters' already existing belief that nobody in their right mind would believe that fictional characters are appearing in the real world.
  • Aliceteria's creator went to the police for protection, but they refused to believe that an anime character was threatening him until she broke into the police station in full armor on flying horseback and grabbed him. After that, the authorities started taking the situation a lot more seriously.
  • After Aliceteria's kidnapping of her Creator from police custody, the government believed that other Creators must be brought in for protection. They instantly decide to find Yuuya's creator and bring him in as a precaution, should Yuuya come looking for him with the intent to do harm.
  • Due to the nature of Japan's constitution, the government had to create an entirely new crisis management committee to even begin addressing the Created and the crisis they present. And they only use the JSDF because of the appearance of Gigas Makina and the potential danger it holds.
  • And that committee immediately charges Meteora for all the material she stole from the JSDF warehouses^note As Meteora has no offensive magic and has to retaliate somehow, she chose to just grab some ATGMs from the nearby JSDF unit — and these things are expensive. to fight the Military Uniform Princess in #1, in addition to the damages they've caused.
  • The government ends up getting involved, but they end up siding with the heroes as opposed to doing the usual "treat them like the enemy" thing and even bring up that if they tried to cover up the incidents as a conspiracy that people would find out and they'd lose trust in them.
  • Getting creators from various different mediums and genres to work together is a lot more difficult than it is on paper. This is made especially obvious when Matsumara and Masaaki argue with Yuuya's creator, because they feel obligated to not let the people who hired them down. Meanwhile Yuuya's creator points out that mangaka like him don't work for a salary and thus his and Chika's creative process is completely different since their main priority is to not disappoint their fans rather than some boss.
  • Creating a character whole-cloth that can easily defeat established canon characters isn't going to sit well with the audience. Altair's fans couldn't accept Sirius suddenly being able to go toe-to-toe with her, and she died as a result. Sota had to invoke Magane to get the fans to accept Creation Setsuna.
• Take Our Word for It: Outside of the first opening sequence, and some very brief glimpses such as episode 1's beginning, we see very little if anything of the worlds the Creations come from. The government agents are stated to do their research on these subjects, but the actual audience (not the in-universe one) is kept in the dark about these supposedly famous fictional works.
• Take Over the World: What Magane wants after losing the constraints of her original plot and learning that she could potentially get infinite power from her Creator.
• Team Hand-Stack: The main characters do this in Episode 16 as they prepare for the final battle.
• Title Drop:
  • The subtitle for each episode is also a line spoken by one of the characters in the same episode.
  • In-universe, Mamika says a couple of times she's "Magical Slayer Mamika", the name of the show she comes from.
• The Chosen One: Each of Created is one, since their purpose is to save the world as the main characters of their stories.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Selesia sees a picture of herself in the internet and tells Souta: "How would you like it if you were on display 24/7 and unaware of it?"
• Trapped in Another World: The characters have no idea how to get back into their own worlds. Only Military Uniform Princess seems able to travel back and forth between fiction and reality, and she doesn't want them to go back.
• Trapped in TV Land: In the first episode, Sōta is inexplicably transported into the episode of Elemental Symphony of Vogelchevalier he was watching on his tablet. Fortunately, he's returned home after a few minutes, but Selesia is pulled back with him. Nakanogane also went to Kanoya's show temporarily before he's summoned.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Invoked by Meteora in Episode 16, regarding the plan to trap Altair in a special cage to reduce her powers. A secret weapon has been created and will only be revealed in the plan's final stages to prevent Altair and the audience from spoiling it. Their plan, Sirius, ultimately fails to stop her.Played straight with their backup plan, which hadn't been revealed until the very episode it appeared in; with some help from Magane, using Creation Setsuna on Altair manages to work.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had they known what would have almost happened to their world, the people flinging accusations of plagerism to Setsuna might have thought twice... This is doubly true for Souta who regretted his actions the most given how closely related he was to Setsuna and how he saw firsthand the consequences of their actions.
• Video Game Tutorial: This was Meteora Österreich's original purpose in her MMO before she came to the real world.
• Villain Sue: Altair/the Military Uniform Princess winds up invoking this during most of the final act, In-Universe: people wish her to "win" the Elimination Festival so badly (without understanding that Your Mind Makes It Real and that she has Omnicidal Maniac plans for the world) and have imagined so many powers for her to solve whatever the hell comes her way through the use of the Bigger Stick, that the whole cast eventually hits the Despair Event Horizon because nothing they do seems to be doing more than amuse her. Even when the Creators eventually devise a way to make her stop, it is by giving her exactly what she wants and she also doesn't face any consequences for her actions and receives a happy ending with Setsuna.
• A Wizard Did It: The explanation for how Erina is brought back to life in the Elimination Chamber spinoff.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 5 does two things. First, it shows that the government has gotten involved and unlike most other shows with government involvement, they're more than willing to work with the heroes. The second reveals the truth behind Military Uniform Princess. Her real name is Altaïr and she is the last Creation of Setsuna Shimazaki before her mysterious suicide in the first episode. Altair knows Sota because her Creator was his friend.
  • Episode 6 introduces Magane, a new villain who brutally kills an absolutely innocent person for the sake of a silly reason, which in combination with the subsequent battle makes the event noticeably more serious.
  • Episode 8 has the group all learning of Altaïr's origins and who her creator is, but no one has any idea that Sota's actually connected to them. Magane, however, overhears his talk with Mamika, pieces things together, and proceeds to blackmail him. Meanwhile, Mamika decides to confront Altaïr over her plans and, while attempting to dissuade her from the warpath, gets impaled for her efforts. She lives just long enough to set off a Magical Splash Flare that utterly destroys Altair's base and everything around it.
  • Episode 10 has Altair reveals her Reality Warper abilities, Selesia (temporarily) unlocking her Mid-Season Upgrade that was teased from #3, and Magane stealing Yuuya's Hangaku, among other.
  • All this is beaten by Episode 19, where Alicetaria is killed a futile attack on Altair, followed by Selesia dying with Charon in a suicide attack.
• Wham Shot: The moment a flash bang entered the house in Episode 5, the stakes definitely heightened.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Sota's mother is only there at the very beginning of the show, to set up a gag of Sota having to hide Selesia who just materialized in his room. Then she vanishes for the rest of the story.
  • The Hound of Tindalos summoned by Magane is never referenced again after it has killed a shopkeeper, even though the effects of Magane's powers are said to last until she dies.
  • Magane is absent from the final episode. She was last seen boarding a plane for somewhere, without a hint on whether she's still in the real world or not.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The 22nd episode is essentially one, showing what happened to the characters after the final battle and how they come to terms with their experience.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The creators have admitted on Twitter that they wanted to do an anime version of Last Action Hero.
• Wiper Start: Variant. Selesia is figuring out the controls of a car in comparison to her Humongous Mecha. While she does fairly well, when reaching for what she assumes is the weapon she starts the windscreen wipers instead.
• You Bastard!:
  • Discussed by the Creations when they find out their ordeals, adventures and battles are seen as entertainment by the people of the real world. Some, like Aliceteria, do not take this well and become aggressive; others, like Meteora, are simply glad to be alive and thank the Creators for allowing them to exist in the first place.
  • Invoked by Altair and Lampshaded by Hikayu in episode 20. For all the heroes efforts to stop her, Altair comes off no worse for wear and Hikayu can only lament that Altair is beating them because the audience wants her to win.