Re:CREATORS

Episode 17

After airing only one real episode in the last three weeks and almost entirely recap and set-up material so far this season, my pick for the top series of the spring has definitely lost ground to this season's strong upstarts, including Made in Abyss and Princess Principal. It badly needed to come out of its break firing on all cylinders. For the most part, episode 17 accomplishes that. While hardly an overpoweringly awesome episode, at least it gets the action pumping again while also delivering one huge and thoroughly unexpected plot twist.

It's no surprise that Altair wasn't anywhere near as much at the mercy of Meteora and her team as they'd hoped. We knew that she had some inkling of what they were planning, so she goes in for the attack knowing full well what they're doing. Sure, she can't escape the Birdcage “as I am now,” but Selesia isn't able to do anything to her even with Vogelchevalier, and Meteora's reactions to her words indicate that the team doesn't have the full range of containment that they thought. Besides, Altair only has Alicetaria and Sho with her, which leaves Charon (and presumably his mecha) unaccounted-for, though perhaps somewhere in the sky based on a team member's brief sighting of an unknown object. Is he lurking in the Birdcage ready to spring a nasty surprise on Selesia? Altair hardly looks like she needs the help at this point. Also at-large is Blitz, who has gone to confront his Creator. While that move wasn't entirely predictable, it's not surprising either, nor is Magane popping up again to tease Sota at the event, though what she might do at this point is anyone's guess. Alicetaria also more or less confirmed that she's got something up her sleeve to foil Altair, but that was also expected.

So what's the huge surprise of this episode? Blitz's conversation with Suruga wraps up with the appearance of his supposedly-dead daughter Erina. That's a twist I definitely did not anticipate, a masterstroke of planning that even Altair might not have seen coming. We'll have to wait until next episode to see how Blitz reacts, but that would seem to be the one move he has no defense against, since Altair destroying this world would destroy Erina too. That also raises the question of how she got there. Did Meteora actually manage to transport her into this world, or does that mean the stadium is also part of the Birdcage? Either way, it offers some intriguing possibilities. Hikayu is also a wild card, since we have no idea yet what powers she's been given, along with whatever Sota was up to. So even though Team Meteora still can't control Altair, they still have a trump card or two sitting around.

The action this episode was pretty good and diverse, with lots of dramatic and flashy attacks and Alicetaria impressively causing trouble even for Rui's Overmachine. The Blitz/Suruga conversation got a bit bogged down in repetition, but that's par for the course for this series at this point. Essentially, all of this episode up to the big revelation at the end was just the preliminary battle, but at least we're into the real action now.

Rating: B+

Re:CREATORS is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.