ReLIFE
I remember bumping into ReLIFE while keeping up with Tokyo Revengers and finishing Koikimo. To me at first ReLIFE seem like a fantasy romcom about a 27 year old man Arata Kaizaki which hasnt found much success in his job life, leaving his first job after three months and then struggling to find a job. From the start you could tell that he was kind of a lazy shut in which is killing time with any drinking party. After finding out that Kaizaki Arata will undergo a experiment of ReLIFE, living a life of a high school student for a year i was starting to actually get interested in where this anime will take it. Lets first check the characters and then lastly i will tell you the main takeaways i think we could take from this anime.
Arata Kaizaki
Arata Kaizaki is the main character of relife anime. He was first shown as a half shut in NEET which is jobless without any clear purpose. Most of his time was spent just ranting about how unlucky and sad his life is without doing anything about it. After this very short time in the anime Arata met Ryou, he introduced him into a relife project and gave him the offer of going through the experiment as the test subject. At first Arata wasnt really convinced - the main reason Arata accepted the offer at that time was probably because they payed for all of his livings and the fact that they told him he will for sure receive few job offers. At first Kaizaki told to himself he will just survive the year in the background without getting involved, but that quickly changed tho because of his personality, he was naturally a nice and kind person - so once he saw someone in trouble or someone being kind to him, he couldnt hold back but to start conversation. I really liked how Arata was through the whole anime able to build the relationship with the high school kids and mainly how he was able to help them deepen or save relationships between them. This gave him the new and young perspective on the world again. I believe it was what clicked for him and changed him for better finally after so much time... again living in the present moment to the fullest and doing everything he could to improve himself and others around you.
Chizuru Hishiro
Chizuru Hishiro at first wasnt shown as the main character.. or atleast i didnt notice it :D. At the start of the anime she was just shown as another high schooler. She was at the top of the class but had 0 friends and interest in building relationship with others. This throughout the anime changes.. mainly thanks to Arata. He is the first one to accept and give Chizuru hope to try to form bonds and relationships with others. Hishiro throughout the anime finds out how to build a meaningful relationship with people. With all of this. Chizuru was able to build something she maybe was already at the start uncouciosly scared of, she was able to build bonds with people deep enough that she then didnt want to leave relife experiment and those people behind, mainly Arata as she builded an interest for him.
Main takeaway
So what are the main takeaways i atleast got from this anime? I think the anime did a really good job with showing how hard it is of letting go some friendships and relationships you have built with people. The way they showcased Arata and Hishiro leaving behind all the people behind was i think very well made. The ending was also very suprising to me. I was so convinced that the anime will either end badly or well, i would say we got something in the middle. Despite Arata and Chizuru losing their memories about each other.. they were somehow able to remember each other and reunite again as adults this time, but on the other hand it seemed like they never got to reunite with the high schoolers theyve spend their time with, atleast they didnt show us(manga will surely answer this tho :D).