Anime

Re:CREATORS Episode 15: A Mighty Newcomer and a New Side of Chikujouin

Quick Summary of Re:CREATORS Episode 15

In Re:Creators episode 15, “This is perfect! She couldn’t have been any more perfect!“, Hikawa Hikaru joins Selesia UpitiriaRui KanoyaMeteora Österreich, and Yuuya Mirokuji as part of Team Aki Kikuchihara, but her powers seem to be a bit… underwhelming. Alicetelia February attempts a perilous task: to make a deal with Magane Chikujouin and walk away with her life. A new Created joins Altair’s forces, and he has a bone to pick with Mirokuji. Finally, we get to meet Hikaru’s creator — and Hikaru is not a fan.

Note: This post may include spoilers, so be cautious!

What’s In This Post

Quick Episode Summary
What I Liked in this Episode
Thoughts about the Episode
Related Posts

What I Liked about Re:CREATORS Episode 15

The Mightly Hikaru Arrives

I had to feel sorry for Hikaru. I mean, finding out your whole life was “just” a video game is bad enough. But to find out it was an erotic video game? That can’t be comfortable… Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

At the very start of the episode (around 0:10), I thought the awkward atmosphere around Hikaru was hilarious. Aki Kikuchihara fought to keep herself upbeat and polite; Takashi Matsubara makes reference to Hikaru being from a dating simulator; and Masaaki Nakanogane comes out and says it used to be an X-rated game! I felt sorry for poor Hikaru. She looked so miserable!

And in previous episodes, Selesia said that she felt like her personal life had been too exposed! That’s nothing compared to Hikaru! Meteora even feels compelled to offer her sympathies (0:57).

Of course, Nakanogane doesn’t learn from his previous mistake and blurts out that her special power is “showing her panties and seducing men” (1:34). Selesia actually smacks him on top of the head for that comment.

Blitz Talker’s story forced him to do the unthinkable. And now he’s trying to live with the consequence. Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

We get a chilling glimpse into Blitz Talker’s story (starting around 4:49). He and his partner tracked the villain to his lair, where he held Blitz’s daughter Erina. Well, at least part of her: what what I could see (5:20), only her upper shoulders, neck, and head were left, and they were connected to a huge doomsday machine. It looks like he had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. Based on his expression as he remembered the scene (6:08), he actually went through with it.

Chikujouin, Very Comfortable in Her Own Skin

Starting around 8:20, we get to see a new side of Chikujouin. Actually, we get to see most sides of Chikujouin, as she’s strutting around a fancy apartment wearing only black panties (of course they’re black!) and a towel draped around her neck. She’s still enjoying fresh milk, and she had just taken a bath in money. Her lament was perfectly in character: “…it’s not as good as I thought it’d be. I guess it’s only fun if you do it in front of poor people.” She was picking damp bills off her ankles as she said that. She’s an evil character, she’s murdered an entire student body apparently for fun, and I should hate her thoroughly, yet she lights up the screen every time.

Chikujouin took a bath in money just to see what it was like. She’s actually picking bills off her ankle! Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

As she laughed at the news of Middle East wars (8:50), I had to wonder who she killed to get the apartment…

Much to Chikujouin’s annoyance, Alicetelia shows up to make a proposal (9:17). What I thought was interesting about this scene: Alicetelia’s restraint. She didn’t respond to any of Chikujouin’s questions. She kept her statements simple and to the point. It seemed like her character had developed, which put me in mind of her friend Mamika Kirameki back in the eighth episode.

I enjoy dramatic ambiguity when it’s intentional. By the end of that scene (11:55), I wasn’t sure if Alicetelia was trying to help our heroes, trying to help Altair, or acting more like Chikujouin by forging her own path. I supposed I could try to piece together the foreshadowing and character interactions to predict what’s going to happen, but you know what? I’m enjoying myself too much to try to spoil my own fun!

Meteora’s New Power

Because of Matsubara’s writing, Meteora has a new spell to gauge audience acceptance of new plot points. Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

Meteora gains the power to gauge audience acceptance (11:59), which means that she’s officially a part of Selesia’s story. And that means that Matsubara can act as her Creator! I’m glad it’s Matsubara because he cares about his characters. The sound effects in this scene were understated and effective. It was only on the second viewing that I even thought about them, which means that during the first viewing, I just accepted them as the sounds Meteora’s new spell would make.

This episode’s “Contrast of the Week” goes to the differences between Alicetelia’s creator Kaiji Takarada (who joins the team at 14:30) and Nishio Ohnishi (introduced at 15:31), Hikaru’s Creator. Takarada dives right in, helping with plotting and saying that he wants to help Alicetelia plan an uprising against Altair. Ohnishi? He just wants to grope Hikaru. Well, that’s not fair. He doesn’t try to grope just Hikaru. Selesia’s in his sights, too.

Even Hikaru and Kikuchihara together couldn’t restrain Ohnishi. Nakanogane and Selesia both had to intervene. Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

When he first meets his creation (16:33), he lunges at her and proposes on the spot. She tries to push him away, and Kikuchihara wades in and tries to pull him off of the poor girl. Nakanogane tries to help until Selesia punches Ohnishi and tells him that he should be more considerate because he’s like her parent (17:00). Not content to lust after his own creation, he lunges at Selesia, who plants her heel on his chin. But even that doesn’t stop him. It takes Kikuchihara slamming her palm on the table (17:28) and explaining the situation in very small sentences to the over-excited Creator to restore order. I don’t know whether to be impressed by his dedication to an idea or appalled at his lack of tact! On second thought, that’s a false dilemma…

Blitz Wants to Protect Altair

There was a lot of emotion in the closing scene between Altair and Blitz (starting around 18:07). Blitz senses a fragility in Altair, and it reminds him of the daughter he had to kill in the back-story scene. It compels him to protect Altair. Then she turns the scene on its head and said that because of that, she doesn’t want him in the last battle. His protective instincts would get in the way. The scene showcased just how much Altair is in control of the situation. She even made it sound like our heroes were playing right into her plan!

There was no much going on in that last scene that I’m sure I didn’t catch it all. I’m left wondering: what’s Blitz’s secret wish? Suicide? Rampage through our world? Protecting Altair? Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

Thoughts about Re:CREATORS Episode 15

Kazuma Gets Around! At Least, Jun Fukushima Does!

Does Ohnishi’s voice sound familiar to you? If you’ve watched Konosuba, it should: the voice actor is Jun Fukushima, and among his many roles, he played Kazuma Satō. It’s almost like they’re the same character, only Ohnishi has some talent! The resemblance really struck me when Ohnishi was saying “hai” to every point Kikuchihara made (ending at 17:42).

Instead of trying to make myself look good by judging Ohnishi and calling him lewd or lecherous*, I remembered that he created an X-Rated dating simulation game. How else would I expect him to act? Re:Creators get points for being true to its characters — again.

What’s this about Hikaru being EMPRESS? Altair’s magic display listed Selesia as a pilot and the others in predictable roles; but Empress for the dating sim character? Credit to the Reddit threat that pointed this out. Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

There is still so much we still don’t know about the phenomenon that brought the Created characters into our world. How did Altair come to be? What “decides” which characters to bring into this world? We suspect it’s based on popularity, but we still don’t understand the mechanism. It seems like Altair has a better understanding than our heroes do. It’s dangerous to rely on technology or process you don’t understand. I hope Kikuchihara’s team accounts for this risk in their planning.

Playing into Altair’s Hands?

I think what concerns me the most is what we learned near the end of episode 10: Power expenditures at a certain concentration destabilizes our world, and the perpetrator gets rejected. Does that mean a massive cage fight plays into Altair’s hand? Even if Team Kikuchihara succeeds in making the audience think that Altair lost, if our heroes are ejected from the world and Altair’s still here, can’t she just rebuild her audience using the power she described to Blitz in this episode’s last scene?

Kikuchihara tells Meteora about Mizushino’s plan. The plan’s flaws worry Meteora, but I wonder if those flaws will be important to Altair’s downfall — if she falls? Capture from the Amazon Strike stream.

Unless Souta Mizushino’s idea is some kind of mitigation against that risk? I’m dying to know what it is!

What do you think of Team Kikuchihara’s plan? Or who kicked Ohnishi more effectively: Hikaru or Selesia?** Let me know in the comments!

* Though now I supposed I’m trying to make myself look good by looking at the big picture and not being judgmental. Hmmm…

** My vote goes to Selesia, though Hikaru’s was more desparate!

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