Review of ReLIFE

Regrets... We all have regrets we had 10 years ago, wanting things to be different if it was possible enough to change ourselves for the better but our past selves was too dumb or too naive to think it could be better...LA can relate ALOT to ReLIFE. ReLIFE tells a rather simple but complicated story of a de-aging ReLife Research Institute by enlisting in Arata Kaizaki voiced by Kensho Ono, a 27 year old down and out loser almost becoming a NEET to under take an experimental pill to age him back 10 years and must attend high school for a full year. For the most part "simple"is the right word for ReLIFE for plot structures and everything, from character interactions in the classroom, to romantic subtexts and friendship problems here and there, typical of a school anime like this. However the "complicated" part comes in if you read between the lines of many of the characters to which ALOT of plot twists (though mild) do add up by the end of it making this "simple" cliche plotline into a rather interesting take on the "de-aging plots" we've seen time and again in media.

Character-wise like LA said, the devil is in the details and this is mostly the case to the characters as a character-driven anime this is. Arata obviously gains more confidence to his re-adjustment back into high school, but from that and his soon to be made friends, it does show even from that. There are romantic subtexts shown alot and for the beta couple of Rena Kariu voiced by Haruka Tomatsu the typical tsundere and the always genki yet dense Kazuomi Oga voiced by Yuuma Uchida but isn't dealt with until the final episodes of the anime. From that Rena gets development quite alot, from opening herself up in conjunction to Chizuru Hishiro to friendship friction to her best friend Honoka Tamarai voiced by Himika Akaneya. Chizuru gets some subtle ones through Arata and Rena as a result from her unintentional creepiness and social problems she has and although LA REALLY doesn't like the shy character plotline, let alone if it's together with "I want to be more assertive", Chizuru by all means blew that out of the water, no not as in Chizuru's development swayed away from this plotline, more like her development did this typically cliche plotline rather a unique and interesting way, mainly because of Chizuru's personality helped immensely in LA liking her further down the line to the point she was LA's favourite character in ReLIFE that and LA was oddly suspicious of her as well.

The character development does bleed a bit to a bit of "world building" in a ways to the observer of Arata, Ryou Yoake voiced by Ryouhei Kimura by showing us some detail to the ReLIFE facility in some ways and this at least does give us insight not to the facility but more to how Ryou ticks and wanting to help Arata.

ReLIFE's interesting themes of conformity, naive youth and regrets. Conformity comes in Arata's previous job before his near NEET transition and how his company dealt with it with as little tact as possible making Arata lash out on his company, showing that and this is just LA stretching but showing how heartless the hierarchy of the Japanese workplace cares more about the money than any empathy and care for the workers. This theme does drip into school as well and might as well be considering it's nearly the same system just without pay........and your depressed. LA says this as RENA also falls into this due to her jealously towards Chizuru taking the best mark in the school which caused the friction between them in the first place. The naive youth theme is pretty obvious due to one of the characters was an adult before turning back into a teen, showing us that our youths ARE extremely limited with the time they got, so use them as best you can and if romance is involved...well *ahem* same thing...moving on.

In terms of animation by TMS Entertainment, the character designs are striking and bold and even though the majority of the characters are in school uniforms LA at least could distinguish them very easily. The backgrounding was also decent enough and along with the chibified comedic moments, LA will say that at the very least the animation was decent overall.

The voice acting, well LA does have alot to say here and least. First would be Haruka Tomatsu and Reina Ueda doing their usual scthick (light hearted tsundere and genki trickster respectively). LA did enjoy many of the male seiyuu's Yuuma Uchida and Ryouhei Kimura as well as Kensho Ono to their respective roles but LA especially enjoyed Ai Kayano as Chizuru (LA KNOWS, favourite character and all but) however like Chizuru herself, Ai does her usual kuudere scthick that LA knows her doing (see Inori Yuzuriha from Guilty Crown and Irori from Unbreakable Machine Doll) however LA could see Ai utterly shine as Chizuru if only because of Chizuru expresses lots of emotions outside of her kuudere range (from sincere dramatic to deadpan comedic), almost like Ai honed in how to perfect her kuudere range to perfection. Yes Ai Kayano even got LA's favourite seiyuu as a result of this.

LA thought if there was any flaws in ReLIFE, like the coincidences or teem drama shown but even that isn't a flaw, as the coincidences are more or less mainly coming from Ryou and helping Arata and the teen drama all things considered, though it happens it's not by misunderstandings (cept Chizuru and Rena) but even that is dealt with by talking it out in a serious and mature way stopping the misunderstandings in the first place and characters moving on from that, so yeah the "typical teen drama" and "coincidences" as flaws for LA are moot as flaws...though if there was one little flaw it would go towards...

The ending brought up what LA mentioned about the romance spouting up however the only problem (besides the beta couple) comes in with the ReLIFE situation. The ending also finally gave LA's suspicions to rest. The ending was decent enough but kept things rather open-ended, now LA could have been angry about this however with ReLIFE announcing not long ago it's getting a finale Graduation arc LA will definitely watch it if only to see ReLIFE's conclusion and those few plot threads the ending teased at us get a well meaning payoff.

Ohh and LA didn't binge watch ReLIFE, considering how it was released, LA was more or less taken a back by how it was released as LA usually doesn't binge watch anime (yeah...weird right?. Seriously the last anime LA binge watched was Maria Holic's first season, last LA remembers). LA just doesn't do it anymore but nonetheless how you watch anime or ReLIFE is none of LA's business.

ReLIFE is a sincere look at facing regrets right at our faces, something alot of people have to do, looking back at our naive youths and how we could have changed it for the better. Surface-level, ReLIFE is but a simple yet complicated plot involving de-aging and the regrets that shows from our past. ReLIFE's themes are strong and firm, characters are realized and aren't at all cliche (some even surprising!) and how it dealt with teen drama/romance was even dealt with in a mature way and LA praises how ReLIFE for this.

LA will be waiting til Graduation to see if ReLIFE the anime will have a great ending to round things off.