ReLIFE

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ReLIFE starts with a premise that is both incredibly unique and somewhat terrifying, because it takes a 27-year-old failure of a man and gives him a pill to look younger so he can essentially redo his final year of high school. My initial fear was that a story with this much slice-of-life potential wouldn't be able to sustain itself for over 200 chapters without becoming a purposeless slog, but the manga manages to stay afloat by being almost entirely character-driven. The main character Kaizaki is surprisingly relatable because even if you aren't a 27-year-old adult, his situation and anxieties mirror the anxieties of anyone facing ... an uncertain future. This manga really forces you to reflect on the bad parts of life as much as the good ones.

The heart of the series is the vast cast of personalities that Kaizaki interacts with and the way their individual layers are peeled back over time. You have Chizuru who is the brilliant but socially isolated girl, trying to learn how to make friends for the first time. And then you have Kariu whose arc is probably the most emotionally heavy part of the early story. The entire cast help build this sense of community. Even if I wasn't used to the slow pace at first the chemistry between these people eventually made me feel proud of them as a real group of friends.

However the manga isn't without its flaws because while the main relationships are handled with a lot of nuance, some of the side characters feel completely neglected. There is a weird trio involving a girl named Honoka that feels like a dropped plot point, because everyone else in the manga is paired off for romance, while her development just stalls out and leads nowhere. It felt like the author wanted to give her depth, but eventually just sidelined her which makes her parts of the story far less memorable than literally anyone else. There is also the issue of the ReLIFE laboratory itself, which feels heavily underexplained and simplified for an experiment that carries so much weight for the characters lives.

The ending is a bit of a mixed bag because while it is technically a great and emotional conclusion, it relies on a bit of a boring cliche to resolve the memory loss conflict. Despite those gripes about the mechanics of the sci-fi elements, the manga succeeds as a story about the desire to change and make meaningful memories. It avoids being over-the-top and stays grounded in the simple idea of a second chance.

ReLIFE... aah, ReLIFE. I remember, a few years back, every morning I'd wake up, prepare a cup of coffee, and read a chapter of ReLIFE before heading off to college. It was a pretty simple, but still satisfying routine of mine, and I kept it until translators caught up with raws. Then, bit by bit, I began losing interest in this manga. Recently, though, a wave of nostalgia hit me, and I decided to pick it back up and see how things are playing out. Oh boy.

I enjoyed ReLIFE a decent amount. The art is nice, clean (and being in full color doesn't hurt ... either), the comedy is pretty decent and I laughed out loud quite a few times. First 40 or so chapters, although remarkably cliche in their premise, were executed well enough that I had a pretty good time reading. But then it kept going... and going... and going... and, well, you get the gist.

That's the story of ReLIFE in a nutshell: it just keeps going. It has no fuel, but it still keeps on going. Story is the greatest downfall of this manga and the main reason for such a low grade. I don't blame it for hitting every high-school romance cliche in the book. For the most part, unlike other manga (at least early on), it didn't drag out conflicts unnecessarily, and it kept a steady, forward momentum. The problems began cropping up when the pace was broken, and when the story started running in circles, which was shortly after it was revealed to us who the Subject NO.1 was. Before that, the focus was primarily on the side characters, and the events were unfolding relatively quickly. Yes, it had its annoying moments, it had moments you've seen in every other story with similar setting, but it wasn't bad.

Then, the story stepped on the brakes so hard it nearly overturned itself. It did something that no manga of its type should ever allow itself to do: it became boring. Only one central conflict remained (well, if we exclude that random arc about the side dude midway which I wholeheartedly recommend you skip - that's how bad it is), and it was clear mangaka had no intention of ending the story just yet. So, to play the music of the story, characters also began running in circles. And it all just turned into a wallowing abomination that doesn't know when to just stop.

However, there's light at the end of the tunnel; as of ch. 200 (the one I'm currently at), the story seems to be wrapping up. I don't see it going past another 20 chapters (and even that's stretching it), but, considering the history of manga, there's a high chance it'll - again - just keep on going. I don't mind it that much, really. I'll inevitably end up reading however many chapters are left simply because I'm already in too deep to bail. However, it does leave a bad taste in my mouth. Nearly 60-70 chapters could have been cut cleanly, or at least rewritten to follow the flow better, and the manga would have been better for it.

Moving on to characters, while not awful as the story, they're not that great either to be honest. And, to be even more honest, they were never that great. Most of the side characters are just your standard insecure high-school kids with high tendency of throwing tantrums, while the supposed 'adults' of the story work their hardest to match them in that department. I swear, if there was a way to measure self-pity in this manga, it'd have broken the charts. The main guy had about 260 monologues that were nothing short of asinine attempts at deeper characterization that only end up being woeful wastes of space. Every one of his 'self-examinations' follows the same pattern, and he always ends up reaching the same conclusion, before abandoning it to open up some space for the next 'self-examination'. Mind you, this dude is supposed to be 27 years old. Meaning, he has a functioning, adult brain. Meaning that 'coming of age crap' doesn't work on him, because he's not 17 as the rest of the cast.

The main love interest is perhaps the highlight of manga. Unlike the side characters, she's not annoying and, unlike the main character, she doesn't waste screen time by constantly spitting woe-is-me liners. She receives the most character development of the bunch, and is practically the only reason the character score is 5 rather than 3, like the story. All the same, she simply isn't interesting enough to hold the manga on her own. Well, at least, she does behave like an actual adult (for the most part), unlike our MC.

The other two adults in the story are mainly there for either exposition or comedic relief. They do get their own bits and pieces of backstory, but it's so basic it's hard to truly care. They're there - for the most part at least - to explain the MC's circumstances, and to 'excuse' his 'woe-is-me' attitude that he hadn't dropped even now.

ReLIFE could have been something really great. However, it turned out to be just another wasted potential. Instead of tackling the generic high-school romance setting through the lens of an adult's eye, it simply forgets that it has adult characters in the story and just rides that high-school romance setting to ground. Its greatest fault is simply that it's too long. No love story - even one with a decent amount of chapters dedicated to side stories - should take 200 chapters to tell, no matter how short or long those chapters may be.

One thing I forgot to mention was also the mishandling of the tone. There were far too many times when the tone abruptly shifted and changed, making it so that I can neither enjoy the comedy nor immerse myself in the ongoing drama.

Couple all that with the fact that MC goes from 'understandable' to 'plain annoying' throughout the 200 chapters, and you've got yourself a pretty average ride. Not bad, but not great either. Just an average way to kill some time and occasionally slip in the bouts of laughter amidst rolling your eyes dry due to nearly everything else.

ReLIFE certainly had an interesting setting, but it fails to take advantage of it. The manga is terribly paced, the plot makes no sense half the time, and its attempts at creating drama feel contrived and unrealistic.

Now, most of its flaws wouldn't be so bad if ReLIFE was a gag manga created solely to be laughed at, but it takes itself extremely seriously. There are often chapters dedicated to Kaizaki monologuing about his mundane issues with a sad expression the entire time, but realizing absolutely nothing new by the end of the chapter. Just because the manga takes a serious tone, doesn't make it ... deep or profound in any way if it doesn't actually resolve anything.

Speaking of chapters dedicated to nothing, one of the first arcs is dedicated to Kairu, in which she basically yells and cries about her really unoriginal insecurities. This isn't so bad on its own, but its repeated again and again, until its ingrained in your mind that Kairu is a completely unstable teenager. It takes around 70 chapters for her issues to resolve and finally fuck off, which is really indicative of how badly paced it is. Onanie Master Kurosawa was only 30 chapters long, and yet it managed to resolve its central conflict (a much more interesting conflict, too) and clearly develop its main character. You can make the argument that Kairu resolving her issues is meant to be a catalyst for the other characters development, which I agree with to some extent. That's definitely what the manga is going for, but it just takes way too long for the development to actually occur, and the manga could resolve Kairu's issues in significantly fewer chapters.

And now, 200 chapters in, even the most loyal fans of ReLIFE admit the manga is currently extremely repetitive and badly paced. In the past 50 chapters, I don't think anything has actually happened. Every chapter follows the same exact formula: Kaizaki plays around with his 17 year old friends, enjoying high school; Kaizaki is then inadvertently reminded that he will lose his memories; Kaizaki becomes depressed and wishes he met Hishiro in a different setting. Take a shot everytime the manga presents this conflict but makes no attempt at actually resolving it. You will die. I wish I was exaggerating.

At least the first 50 or so chapters were kinda entertaining, and sometimes even funny. I can't say that for the later chapters. The author is clearly stalling because he has no idea how to resolve any of the major conflicts that he wrote in the first place. Even if he does eventually resolve them in a well-written way, it cannot make up for the terrible pacing leading up to the resolution.

Edit: The manga is finished. The conflicts were barely resolved, and in a really uninteresting way. It feels as if the author abandoned the rules about the experiment he set himself in order to create a happy ending..

As for the characters, they're all pretty boring/uninteresting, and some of them even annoying. Hishiro is probably the best character, as she actually goes through a decent amount of development, but she's really not that special. She can be pretty much summed up as a cute girl with Aspergers.

Finally, the plot barely makes sense in regards to the actual experiment. I completely understand the purpose of the ReLIFE experiment. The point is clearly to help the test subject grow as a person by putting them back in adolescence- among the biggest periods of growth for anyone. I get that. The experiment still doesn't make sense and is absurd beyond belief. The experiment ensures that any record of the test subject is erased from everyone's memory. What about written records, actual events caused by the subject, and pictures? Theoretically (if Ryou allowed him to), Arata could completely fuck up peoples lives and no one would even remember who did it after the experiment ends. I wouldn't be surprised if Kairu had a diary and wrote about Arata. How would her diary be affected? In addition, why is this experiment even allowed to happen? The test subject has his rent paid, is given an ample allowance, and is even given a job after the experiment ends. It's been made clear that the amount of government funding and time necessary for such an experiment for a single individual heavily outweighs the potential labor force/production possibilities made by that individual. There's pretty much no benefit to the experiment in the government's eyes. These are just two examples from the top of my head- there's clearly way more things wrong with the ReLIFE experiment excluding the obvious scientific impossibilities.

Of course, ReLIFE isn't striving to be realistic in that aspect, and I understand that. But the manga takes itself so seriously that it becomes a problem for me. Again and again, I'm expected to suspend my disbelief to make the setting make sense (recently, they introduced a new absurd concept relating to the drugs side effects) when they should have established these parameters at the beginning of the manga. As I mentioned, this would be fine if this were a gag manga, but it clearly isn't. How can I take the manga seriously when nothing makes sense?


The manga does have a cool gimmick of fully being in color, but it trades off having actual detailed art/faces for the color aspect.

I don't think you should read this unless you have some kind of hard-on for typical angsty teenage drama. If you want a high school drama with actual conflict resolutions and character development, I would recommend Onanie Master Kurosawa. If you're looking for a funny romance comedy, I would recommend Tsurezure Children, Kaguya-sama, or Komi-san wa Comyushou desu.