Summer 2021 First Impressions – Remake Our Life!

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Please note – the first episode of this series is an hour-long special. I will endeavor to keep the summary to a manageable level.

When the game company that 28-year-old Kyouya works for shutters its doors, he’s forced to move back in with his parents. Through a stroke of luck he meets Eiko Kawasegawa, a director at game giant SucceedSoft, and due to Kyouya’s vast skillset he’s able to land a pinch-hit job working on their 30th anniversary project. But the gaming landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and despite the reported involvement of members of the so-called “Platinum Generation,” (several well-regarded artists who graduated from art school at the same time), the 30th anniversary project is canceled, as is Kyouya’s contract. When he returns home yet again, he wonders if his life would be any different if he’d chosen to follow his dreams and attend creative arts school. But life doesn’t generally provide many second chances.

When Kyouya wakes up later, he discovers that he’s indeed been granted a second shot at life – he’s inhabiting his body from 10 years prior, only in this timeline he’s accepted the offer from “Oonaka University” to become a student. He goes to live in a shared house with three other students and learns quickly that the arts aren’t all fun and games. But a pep talk from Aki Shino, one of his roommates, gives him the strength to work toward learning his true talents.

Impressions: Funny story – I have fairly vivid dreams on a regular basis and I usually have a pretty easy time remembering the really weird ones. A couple of years ago I had a dream in which, similar to this series, I returned to my past with my current memories intact. In this case I returned back to my elementary school days which likely affected my reaction to the dream afterwards. But to say the experience was unsettling wouldn’t do a complete job of capturing the absolute horror of the situation. Having an adult mind and yet being thrust into the prison of childhood with limited rights and resources is pretty damn terrifying.

In Remake Our Life! the protagonist isn’t doomed to relive his entire life, which probably makes a lot of difference. He still gets to be an adult and have some freedoms, yet he’s traded the rat race for the competitiveness of art school – an environment where the students know they’re vying for a very limited number of employment opportunities once they leave the nest. In some sense having an adult mentality might seem like an advantage; one’s emotional regulation is often more refined by that point, most of us probably have better organizational skills… it feels like it would be going through life on easy mode in some respects. And yet, speaking as someone who’s even older than this series’ protagonist, being an adult rarely means you’ve got things all figured out. I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy and a fear of failure. Those things, I’m finding, are just facts of life.

That’s one aspect of this exceedingly lengthy premiere that I believe gets things right. Aki describes Kyouya as being very mature, because his mannerisms belie his greater age. Yet he still benefits from hearing her say that sometimes people just need to figure out what the have to offer the world. For all its tedious moments of fanservice and its dubiously-utilized 50 minute run time, this episode does a good job of establishing its emotional core. Eventually.

Pros: There’s something that’s always interested me about art school. For me it’s probably because it’s a road I never took despite believing for years that I was going to end up majoring in art. It’s always been a hobby of mine, but taking a few art classes kind of turned me off of the entire experience (apparently wanting to draw cartoon characters “isn’t real art.” Just think how many young people we harm by ragging on them for “drawing that anime stuff.” Anyway, rant over). Because of that I think there’s certainly part of this entire scenario that tingled my brain specifically. Even though I ultimately wouldn’t want to change how my life has unfolded because there are enough good things about it that I wouldn’t want to give up (and like I said, the idea of being trapped in my former body is upsetting), it’s difficult not to consider “what if?”

I think Aki’s pep talk is the highlight of the episode. The scene does a good job of showing that even adults don’t have things all figured out.

Cons: There are a few “twists” that are obvious from a mile away. In a sense that’s not such a bad thing, because I think good storytelling should give the viewer an opportunity to figure things out for themselves. That said, there’s a tough balance between logic and extreme predictability, and our protagonist’s good luck leaves little room for mystery. He ends up living with (at least) one of the artists he admires (and of course she’s introduced as a very child-like young woman with little awareness of her own body or the weird sexuality of her actions – a “con” in-and-of-itself). The woman who later becomes his boss happens to now be a student in his class. It’s a string of silly contrivances that feel much too convenient.

Content Warnings: Mild fanservice.

Would I Watch More? – Mostly likely not. I think there are some good things about this premiere, but I’ve got to be ruthless to my watch list this season and I wasn’t in love with this episode.