ReCreators ep 18 rant

Apparently MAL really loved this episode, so my opinion appears to be a rather unpopular one...

Why I didn't like this episode:
- Erina's revival has a ton of problems. Based on Suruga's responses to Blitz last episode (which was really great btw), Suruga wrote Erina's death really well and it fit perfectly with the type of story she was going for, with Code:Babylon proving to be a very successful and well-received story. Obviously, the protagonist shooting his own daughter would be a significant component to the reception. Reviving Erina sounds like a massive deviation from the nature of the story, and I fail to comprehend how the audience would accept that. Suruga's explanation of it makes no sense either.

- Furthermore, the revival was through a crossover with Meteora's world. Crossovers often aren't canon, or if they are, they at least don't have much impact on the respective individual worlds. There's no way the audience would accept a crossover decision to reverse a crucial character death as canon. Imagine if FMA had a crossover with Madoka or something which allowed some of the major crucial deaths in FMA to be reversed... yeah, there's no way viewers would accept that. ~They don't even accept FMA 2003...~

- And even if she was revived in the stories, why did she come to the Creator world? Did the good guys gain the ability to summon characters at will? That would be an unexplained OP Deus Ex Machina. Or was it a lucky coincidence that she just happened to be the next character that arrived here and they picked her up, shortly after her revival was written, no less? Suruga botched up her own story just for this glimmer of hope that Erina would manifest in this world...?

- Magane's conversation with Sota was a massive chunk of nonsense, since it revolved entirely on Sota's big secret plan, which we viewers are STILL not given the details of. Her analyses seem like they might be interesting and insightful... if we actually knew the context of her analysis. It's already annoying that they're waving around Sota's contribution without actually revealing it, but having a long drawn-out discussion centered around it is just really stupid. Either tell us what it is already, or stop showing us heavy analytical conversations that depend on it (even if they are probably quite well-constructed once we know what they're talking about).

- One of the few things that _is_ clear from the conversation is that Magane used her ability so that Sota's mysterious plan can work without needing acceptance from the audience. Apparently she helped the good guys because she thought it would be fun. While I agree that an unpredictable character can make a story interesting, having said character help the good guys (in what seems to be a really big deal, given how they're overhyping it) just for the fun of it... is... not what I'd call good writing. The same applies to her returning Hangaku.

- On to Shades vs Red Dude, and given that they're enemies from the same story, it would be appropriate for them to engage in a 1v1 duel. This should be exci- wait, what? The Mahou Shoujo jumps in and now it's a 2v1. WHY??? Is the Red Dude so OP that the story decided to abandon the perfect setting of a 1v1 duel and bring the Mahou Shoujo in to even the playing field? And then Blitz shows up so it's a 3v1, WHAT THE FURUDO ERIKA??? Do they actually think viewers would be interested in a fight where the good guys outnumber the bad guy 3:1 while there's nothing suggesting that the bad guy still has a fighting chance? This is seriously really dumb.

- Especially since Red Dude's familiar (is that what it is?) is really interesting, utilizing reflections, and it would be cool if Shades managed to come up with a creative strategy to counter it, possibly by utilizing unique features of the real world. But nope, let's just turn it into a 2v1... no, a 3v1, so Red Dude's combat potency is pretty much irrelevant since he's outnumbered.

- And even the Mahou Shoujo herself was really disappointing. The fact that she's the protag of a romance VN was an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast, and I was really curious to see how a character like her could be useful to the conflict. I was hoping they would come up with a clever way to incorporate her unique character and background to make a relevant contribution to the resolution of the story. But nope, they just turned her into a mahou shoujo and made her fight anyways, so her entire background of being a romance VN protag is rendered completely irrelevant. Thanks for getting my hopes up.

- Now, regarding Shades' spoiler leak, let me first praise the writers for implementing a really neat idea imo that specifically exploits the setting of the story. This is the kind of thing I want to see more of in ReCreators. That being said though, why the hell didn't Shades just say so from the start of the fight? Why did he have to wait until it was a freaking 3v1 before telling the Red Dude about it?

- A rather minor point, but when Shades revealed the spoiler, I actually thought he figured it out by actually reading/watching the story directly in the real world, putting the pieces together based on seeing Red Dude's perspective. But nope, apparently it was the creator who told Shades directly... and then got mad at him for leaking it. Why would you even tell him in the first place then???

- Finally, let's talk about the fight with Altair, which was also a huge disappointment. There are no apparent rules or limitations on Altair's powers so there doesn't seem to be any scope for a proper fight where each side carefully considers the abilities, resources and environment for both sides to make their own moves and respond to the opponent's in an exciting battle. So instead it comes down to... power level comparisons. ...Really? Let's just keep powering up our characters and gain the audience's approval. Pull out new abilities out of our butt to make our characters just plain stronger unconditionally and keep bashing Altair until we overpower her. Yeah, this is totally a really fun fight to watch that'll keep me at the egde of my seat as I squeal with delight at the sheer ingenuinity of every move!

Trust me, I really wanted to like this show after its really promising start, and last week's episode was actually really solid for the most part imo. But this episode... I really can't describe it as anything more than a trainwreck. The action may be entertaining if I turned my brain off, but yeah, this was a complete disaster as it is.