Throwback Thursday | ReLife

I recently got the chance to watch ReLife for the first time. I had no idea what I was going to get myself into but I had plenty of friends recommending it to me. After looking over the synopsis I had a feeling they were right and it was totally up my alley. So I thought today would be a good day to look back at ReLife for Throwback Thursday. I do want to mention that I’m only talking about season 1 and not the OVA that completes the story. I will probably watch it in the coming of weeks.

For those who don’t know what ReLife is about, here is a synopsis from MyAnimeList:

Dismissed as a hopeless loser by those around him, 27-year-old Arata Kaizaki bounces around from one job to another after quitting his first company. His unremarkable existence takes a sharp turn when he meets Ryou Yoake, a member of the ReLife Research Institute, who offers Arata the opportunity to change his life for the better with the help of a mysterious pill. Taking it without a second thought, Arata awakens the next day to find that his appearance has reverted to that of a 17-year-old.

Arata soon learns that he is now the subject of a unique experiment and must attend high school as a transfer student for one year. Though he initially believes it will be a cinch due to his superior life experience, Arata is proven horribly wrong on his first day: he flunks all his tests, is completely out of shape, and can’t keep up with the new school policies that have cropped up in the last 10 years. Furthermore, Ryou has been assigned to observe him, bringing Arata endless annoyance. ReLIFE follows Arata’s struggle to adjust to his hectic new lifestyle and avoid repeating his past mistakes, all while slowly discovering more about his fellow classmates.

My first impression of the series was that it was very lighthearted and fun but that changed during the middle of the season. Things got a little more intense with the main character, Arata, being put in situations that he needed to help his classmates out of. It plays a fine line between drama and comedy very well. The dialog between characters was sometimes quick making some deliveries to joke even funnier and they also did more intense scenes well. My only issue with the story was how obvious and predictable some reveals were. The lead up just wasn’t developed well enough in my opinion.

The animation quality was pretty meh. I know that this wasn’t meant to be anything crazy seeing as this story just takes place in a classroom the majority of the time but TMS Entertainment, the studio responsible of animating it, has done much better work. Megalo box from earlier this year for example. This may just be a budget things so I don’t want to spend too much time talking about it but it was something that bothered me a little bit.

The OP was very infectious. Normally, I’m the one to never skip an OP but my friend that was watching with me did not allow me to lay a finger on the controller. The ED is also very chill. Nice cool down after some intense dramatic scenes. Overall, big fan of how both the OP and ED were handled. This is not a bad thing and this may just be a me thing but the OP and ED do have this really old school feel and it only came out in 2016. Like I said, may just be me but just the style overall seemed that way.

I gave this series an 8 on MyAnimeList and it is currently sitting at an 8.13 for a user score. So this series is definitely worth a shot if the synopsis is appealing to you. I definitely need to get started on the OVA and see how this story plays out. Thanks to Black Friday, I was able to find the bluray on sale so that’s a win! I would love to hear your thoughts about this series. Please leave them down in the comments below. Thanks for reading!