Review of ReLIFE

Being able to redo a life full of mistakes would be a dream for anybody. A lot of people have regrets about their early life down the line and spend many nights wishing they could take something back or undo some mistake; however, they must come to terms with such things, as in life there is no such thing as a redo. But what if there was? ReLife is the story of an unemployed man who is offered a chance to return to being a high school student for an experiment on fixing people's lives by allowing them another chance at things. They pay hisliving expenses for a year while in school and even promise a job offer when it is all done. Kaizaki Arata, the main character, drunkenly accepts the offer and takes a pill that reverts his appearance to that of a teenager and he starts as a third year (In Japan high school only lasts three years instead of four). Everything is up to him at this point.

Beginning:

So this show starts out fairly well with interesting ideas and some comical and entertaining points that show the main troubles of a grown 27 year-old man returning to his teenage years. I found myself chuckling at some points and was genuinely interested to see where his struggles would lead him.

Although, some of my interest was lost after he quickly made friends with those sitting around him. His struggles became a bit less relatable at that point, because he quickly and smoothly adapts to his surroundings and starts fitting in rather perfectly. This bothered me a bit, considering he is joining this class in their third year. By this year, friend groups are already established and everybody has people they talk to and hang out with. ReLife shows very little of this and instead Kaizaki starts a new friend group almost immediately even after being openly embarrassed in front of the class and getting terrible grades in his tests. The connections he made with the other characters were fairly forced in my mind as it seemed that the author wanted to quickly get into other people's problems instead of taking his/her time to write out a more tangible relationship with these characters and let the character connections occur naturally.

As a result, Kaizaki's first day was terrible for him and full of struggles, but the second day on everything goes great for him and he makes a tight knit group of friends and all my sympathy and reliability with this character go out the window. But I still held some interest so I kept watching.

Main contents:

So from this point on, a major problem arises with this show that causes it to go from good to alright to average to mediocre. Kaizaki has one big problem that he struggles with; a trauma that caused him to fall into his pathetic unemployed self that lead to the main events of ReLife. The mental trauma that he suffers from this specific event shows through here and there, but other than that Kaizaki seems to have almost zero problems or struggles he has to face (or at least struggles he himself has to face). The majority of this show consists of the problems of other people while Kaizaki just kind of watches and then thinks, "I should do something to fix this" and then everything ends with tears and hugs and everyone's friends with each other. All of the personal struggles build other characters and leave Kaizaki in the dust as he becomes an outlying variable in the lives of other people who get more screen time than he does. The center of the story ends up being everyone else while Kaizaki just observes.

The story kind of reconciles with this by allowing Kaizaki to observe the problems of others and he bounces his own experience off of theirs and uses that to solve these problems. But, unfortunately the only part of his backstory that is actually important is that one event that caused him trauma and everything else is irrelevant. *I mean, its not like he has 27 years of experience he could reflect upon and use to apply to the problems he faces now and give meaning to the idea of ReLife*; that was sarcasm. Kaizaki seems flat as a character because he doesn't come through as a 27 year-old man with plenty of experience to share with these younger characters who are struggling through their youth. The event that defines his trauma is supposed to give the impression that the real world is cruel and sometimes you have to sit down and take it instead of standing up for yourself. It was supposed to show that not all problems can be solved. As fitting as that is for a show such as this, it doesn't come through with the amount of impact or authority that it should without properly displaying Kaizaki's full 27 years of experience. We don't need to know every day of his life to understand his story and his character or the message that is trying to be conveyed through his experience, but multiple events that show that he did have a childhood and he did go to school and he did experience the things that the high school characters now are going through. There simply isn't enough for me to feel something for Kaizaki or find the events in this show relatable.

Conclusion:

The anime ended with everything going well and everybody's problems are practically fixed and a thing of the past (save for Kaizaki and one other character). The ending didn't surprise me, was predictable, and was almost frictionless as there was almost zero conflict, save for a plot twist at the very end that sparked enough interest in me to watch a second season, but this didn't warrant forgiveness for the lack of conflict. All the conflicts until that point were interesting and had good ideas and even made me interested and maybe I felt something for these characters (except Kaizaki). But each conflict ended in an episode or two and had a very anti-climactic and boring ending and felt repetitive and basically almost all of it revolved around one side character who got more development than the main character or the main heroine.

In conclusion, it seems to me that this show doesn't know where to focus its efforts and rushed the beginning with minimal back story and very few ideas on what to do with these characters. The show had promise and despite the lazy ending there was a plot twist at the very end which was interesting enough to make me watch a second season. However, I don't see a second season for this show coming anytime soon.

I give ReLife a 5/10 for having interesting ideas but going about them in the wrong way and forcing itself into the main conflict without background or natural development. If you want to check out this anime and decide for yourself if it's what you like than I won't deter you, because I think it is worth a watch at least once, but it isn't nearly worth a rewatch.