Review of ReLIFE

ReLIFE is an anime that had a chance to be a solid 8, but fell short due to the common mistake in the market where a romcom will either fail to take itself seriously enough to deliver a real ending or put the status quo of the slice of life above everything else, providing with a generic, overused "and my days continued like that" ending, resulting in something vague, general, and unsatisfying. The story centers around a 27 year-old "shut-in" who is offered a job by going through an experiment that makes him look like he's 17 years old, and puts him back in the lastyear of high school for rehabilitation. After that year is over, everyone he dealt with will forget about him. In theory this sounds like an interesting setting but it doesn't really do anything with itself. The character spends all of his time failing exams, socializing, and refusing to pursue the romance he knows he wants. It sometimes pretends adults are involved, but it's such a slight shift in focus that it may as well just be another generic slice of life high school anime.

Trying to keep this spoiler free, the anime had two realistic endings it could've chased, the sad ending where the main character falls in love and is forgotten about, or the happy ending where a "miracle" happens, and he gets to stay with his sweetheart. Instead it chose to do what every other mediocre slice of life/comedy/harem/romance has done before, many times. Unless you like self-inserting or NEED to relate to your characters (which I consider a futile endeavor in anything that is supposed to be a fictional work, where you're supposed to accept an universe and its characters as a story told to you, not as a story starring yourself) don't waste your time on this.