Anime Review: ReLIFE (Summer 2016)

Re-Life  8.31 - Users 72,203
Episodes: 13
Studios: TMS Entertainment
Genres: Romance, School, Slice of Life
Duration: 23 min. per ep.
Rating:  PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Synopsis
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed, single 27-year-old who has just been cut off from his parents' financial support. Unable to find a job due to him leaving his previous employer within three months, he is stuck. One night after drinking with a high school friend, Arata meets Ryou Yoake, a man who offers Arata pills to turn him back into a 17-year old so he can redo his life. After agreeing to the experiment, Arata joins a high school class, and meets Chizuru Hishiro, a socially-awkward silent beauty who yearns to have friends. Through connecting with her and other classmates, Arata must find what he lacks to live a happy life in the real world within a one-year time limit.

Rena, Honoka, Yoake, Chizuru, Arata, An, Ooga

Characters

Hishiro, Chizuru

A student of in Year 3 Class 3. She is really smart, always getting the highest scores amongst girls in her grade, and lacks social skills.

Kaizaki, Arata 

A jobless man who seems to fail at every job interview he partakes in. After accepting the offer to be experimented on, his body turns back into a 17-year-old.

Kariu, Rena

Arata's classmate and member of the Volleyball club. She was the class rep along with Ooga for the past two years before losing her position to Hishiro this year. She is in love with Ooga, but has consistently refused to make her feelings known to him.

Ooga, Kazuomi 

A student in Year 3 Class 3. He is very smart and always scored the highest among the guys in his grade. However, despite his looks, he is really bad at sports and really naive when it comes to love. After realizing his feelings for Rena, he decided to confess to her at the fireworks festival, and he did. They then began dating.

Yoake, Ryou 

He works at the ReLife Research Institute, and is in charge of monitoring Arata Kaizaki during his ReLife experiment. - Kaizaki actually isn't Yoake's first ReLife subject. His first subject was actually Hishiro Chizuru, who failed her ReLife experiment.

Onoya, An 

Arata's classmate

Tamarai, Honoka - 

Best friends of Rena - She is the captain of the girls volleyball club. She is also childhood friends with Nobunaga and Akira.

Inukai, Akira - A quiet and straight forward guy. Childhood friend of Honoka and Nobunaga.

Nobunaga Asaji - Childhood friend of Tamarai

This story is different from others I've seen in some ways. This guy who has 27 agrees to be part of a trial and became 17 again. For a year he is going to a school and Ryou Yoake is going to study and evaluate. For that period of time Arata will receive money and house paid, for a jobless man that was good and nothing to lose.

Pacing is really slow and story wise is very simple. The main focus is the interesting narrative and the way Arata evolves as a person and sees his failures and try to change people around him.In the end after being built for several episodes it felt short and for that I will not give a 10 or 9. I think there will be a second season since the story in the manga has evolve beyond the first anime season.

In term of art I cannot talk to much but it's simple and probably a 2006/2007 anime felt like - in my opinion it will not change my grade since I don't care a lot for the art itself. I am in for the story. Unless we are seeing boobs and in that case I support ART above all.

In terms of music I really not the best person to judge but it felt flat with only a handful of songs in the background. Most of time there isn't any music.

The characters... Each one is different and it mature in the series, mostly with the help of Arata.

So, the story we follow Arata as he interacts with Ooga and try to make him confess his love with Rena and at the same time try to understand who is An the awkward Chiziru.

Chiziru is the the characters who gets a great develop arc and develop from a awkward persona to a friend. She reminds me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.

At the same time we saw Arata trying to recover from the first job experience where his actions led to a female sempai to commit suicide. 

I enjoy this story and this only covers one period of the school year so we can expect more...

Some spoilers...

We later learn that Chiziru was the first experiences of ReLife that ended poorly since she didn't evolve anything and each day was un-eventuful. Arata is falling in love with her and her with him but he doesn't make a move because in his mind he is 27 and she is 17.

Saiki, Michiru - Sempai of Kaizaki - She commits suicide after getting severely rebuked by her coworkers.

Summary

This series are much more than what they seem. They are a critic to japanese society of hard working children turn to hardworking men. Japanese society is very hard on people. They are always focus on work never really enjoying life and since birth you must be the best of the best. That's why the suicide rate there is one of the higher in the world.

It also focus on society views of young teens and the way they live.