Review of ReLIFE

A high school slice of life comedy with no fanservice? Onoya to the rescue! Story: Who hasn't dreamed about going back and relive your life, but this time not making the stupid mistakes you did before? Arata gets this second chance (sort of) and tries to improve himself as good as he can. I haven't seen many similar works, which is kinda surprising, as this is a fantasy everbody can relate to. Maybe it's easier if you are past the age of going to school, but even high schoolers have regrets about the past, so I feel this should be relatable for everybody. The fact that Arataends up trying to fix other peoples lifes makes it even better, as he is growing as a person by acting helpful towards others. The only problem I have, is that we had the same story twice, but more about that later.
9/10

Art:
The character design is a bit lacking, often their animations look a bit subpar. For everything else however, this anime does a pretty good job. Especially the final episode is very beautiful to look at. You can also somewhat see who the animators favourite characters are (An looks much more detailed than the others in close-ups for example).
7/10

Sound:
Many people say that the soundtrack is awful. Well, it certainly isn't great, but it is not as bad as everybody makes it out to be. I agree however, that Relife should have had a more fitting background music than just a bunch of expressionistic piano solos. The opening on the other hand was not bad, felt like a sitcom a bit. As far as I understand, the different ending themes are songs that were popular about ten years ago (when Arata was in school), which I thought was a pretty cool gimmick.
7/10

Characters:
Arata is a very helpful boy, which makes him quite likeable. Provided you are of advanced age, he is also very relatable (kids these days, you know?). It was nice that nobody in this show was mean or evil in any way (excluding Aratas coworkers from his flashbacks), they just had self doubts, misunderstandings and other teenage problems. For me, Kariu was the most interesting and multilayered character, so I was a bit angry when they did the same thing with her twice (learning to cope with her inferiority complex).
8/10

Enjoyment:
Relife is a very enjoyable watch and something different for people who have seen every other slice of life anime. It has a very relaxing athmosphere, even though it is not free of drama, but you never really have to shake your head at the stupidity of the characters. The ending, which I won't spoil obviously, was very nice and brought somewhat of a conclusion, yet it leaves room for a possible second season. If one can ignore the problem with Karius story being repeated for no reason, this anime was quite enjoyable.
8/10

Overall:
7.8/10