Review of ReLIFE

Contains spoilers for both parts ReLife starts with a really good premise and a strong first few episodes where we get to meet the cast of characters. These episodes are pretty funny and the main character makes some friends in a pretty natural and humorous way. The main couple are both likeable and its pretty enjoyable when they interact. However, those were basically the only enjoyable parts of the anime for me. -Kairu. Kairu got basically 2.5 arcs in the course of the 13 episode season. This would be fine if these arcs developed her character significantly, but they do not. The first arc where she growsjealous and hostile to Chizuru was interesting and worked well, I believe if she was left there it would be fine. Unfortunately the exact same thing happens a few episode later when she grows jealous and hostile to her volleyball friend, completely negating her previous character growth by literally making the exact same mistake again. Because of this I found it impossible to invest myself in this arc at all, it just felt like a rehash of the first few episodes. After both these arcs, she finally ends up as just a tsundere side character in the last arc with the cultural festival, so what was the point of all those episodes centered around her?

-ReLife gets in the way of the story. Like I said before, the premise of having someone older relive high school days is pretty interesting and worked well. However, the entire plot of the main 2 eventually going to forget each other only served as an artificial block for the romance. It's pretty frustrating to watch them continue to complain about how they can't tell each other they like each other at the end of this anime and the four episode sequel over and over just because of this plot contrivance. There is not really much of a point or message to blocking their relationship either. They just complain and cry about how they will forget each other until the very end, not ever accepting the fact (as seen with Chizuru writing on her hand at the end). Maybe this could have been a bittersweet ending, but then they end up meeting each other again at the end of the last episode anyway, which I felt negated the point of what we just watched.

I wish they had just chosen whether to have them be able to have their romance in high school without the plot stopping them or have their romance be cut short. The former would have been a better romance and what we really wanted from this show, and the latter would give us a more powerful message on the preciousness of the present moment. Instead we got this wishy washy relationship where they couldn't really communicate their feelings for most of the show, and ended up not mattering because they met each other after anyway.

ReLife is has a great premise and has an enjoyable and funny first few episodes. However, as it goes on it unfortunately doesn't work as either a drama or romance.