"Highschool sucks." - Almost every single highschool student ever.

There is a fairly high chance these years will become the worst time of your life as you live them, but there is also a high chance you won't appreciate many of the good things that happened right until that moment late at night on your friend's front lawn right after prom night.

What will you think then?

Was it worth it? Did you learn something useful in those 5 years? Does the good things outweigh the bad ones? Are you ready to face the world as an adult and take responsibility for your own life and actions?

Everyone has their own answers, i have my own, but there is a question that nobody really asks themselves because it would be impossible to really do: If given the chance, would you do it again?

But real life is boring.

ReLife is a company that gives a select number of subjects exactly that, a chance at reliving a year of their teenage in an attempt to give them a chance to correct things they regret doing or not doing during their youth so they may then change into better adults.

One of the most important things this show mentions is how much the sudden change of routine can affect your life, being forced by your parents to go to school every day may seem annoying but there is where your friends will be. As an adult nobody can really force you to go to work but yourself and co-workers wont necessarily become your friends, especially if it's a competitive work environment.

ReLife is a company that doesn't just pick whatever random floor-looker in the streets to give their wonder-drugs to, they have specially trained personnel that will choose very specific individuals with various personal problems and will only contact them and offer them the blue pill when they are left with no options, much like the protagonist.

Kaizaki Arata is basically what i fear to become once i'm out of the university (there is no such thing as college here), someone with no real ambition in life, no further goals after college that just graduates and tries to get a job for the sake of getting payed to stay alive. While he does manage to land a half-way decent job he ruins it all after just a few months for trying to stand for his ideal of justice and trying to defend someone he cares for against the ever-circling office vultures. He quits this job in a rage after failing to defend this person (and making things worse in fact), forever staining his resume and making him unable to land a full-time job anywhere
__
He didn't act like an adult.__

Someone at ReLife Chooses him as subject 002, someone with potential to be of high value to society and they give him the chance to be a senior year Highschool student for a whole year, and while the real objective of the experiment isn't completely clear the representatives insist on the users of the blue-pill to use this chance to change their life.

Just about everyone would take a chance like this, particularly when you are offered all your expenses to be 100% covered by the company and a possible job position after the experiment, even if you are pretty much being given a pill with no markings of any sort, in a back alley, late at night...

The implications of having a 17 years-old-looking 27 years-old man being implanted as a transfer student in highschool are quite rich and very entertaining to watch, although i must say im a bit inclined towards liking this anime a bit much since it hits home for me, as i can identify myself with many of the situations in the series.
__
"What? phones didn't have touch screens when you were in highchool? OMG"__

Yeah well, i didn't really have a phone with a color screen until i was in 7th grade and back then you could only make calls from certain parts of the city, if you wanted to send a mail from your phone you would have hit "send" and toss the phone high up into the air and hope it send it. Also, internet in your phone=dream.

Kaizaki Arata is surprised to find out that while things haven't really changed much since he was a highschool senior 10 years back, and others like technology, have evolved so much that things that were obvious and common to him are now unknown or archaic to his new classmates.

.#Nokia4Life

While initially he intends to just live off ReLife for the following year, being nothing more than a background character doing nothing to stand out he quickly enough is reminded of a very simple fact a lot of adults seem to forget: Teenagers are humans too, and as such, the possibility of interaction is unavoidable when placed on even ground.

So he instantly gets involved, and instantly lands new friends. Being a grown-ass adult he cant help but to worry for his new friends and attempt to help them as much as possible to the point of acting patronizing and giving them lectures like a dad would even though he is supposed to be their same age. The extra 10 years of experience do help however, not only himself but those around him.

Time to grow up.

He ends up being a significant influence in his new group of friends, and they also influence him back at being true to himself, a better person but most importantly, this group of kids will grow in the process, and so will Kanzaki Arata right along with them.

All in all, the series was fantastic but it suffered from something i find fairly displeasing in many manga adaptations, the anime itself was cut short either to incite people to read the manga or the people at the studio just had enough material in the manga for a short series, which is a shame either way since i would love to see things crystallize in the anime, i would love to see Arata graduate (again) from highschool and the effect it will have on him.

Never the less, the anime is quite recommendable and a very worthy watch, just keep in mind it does end rather prematurely.