This series is the one that dropped all at once at the tail end of the spring anime seasons, but MAL considers this one to be summer and I watched it, so here we go. I went into this one with bated breath, with my opinion already heavily influenced by the description of the series. The plot is almost identical to 17 Again, and by "almost", I mean exactly. Dude who peaked in high school and now has what he thinks to be an unfulfilling life is given a chance to relive his high school years. By then end of it, he'll probably learn something about himself and that he should cherish what he has, all with some awkward high school drama and comedy along with way to keep us interesting. Now, I wouldn't say that my preconceived notions about ReLIFE were wrong, but they definitely weren't completely accurate, with the show thankfully being less about Zac Efron flirting with high school girls and doing hair flips than I expected.

ReLIFE takes a pretty grounded approach to going back to high school as a 27 year old jobless man. There might be some magical technology to get him to "look" 17, but he's still out of shape, addicted to cigarettes, and completely out of touch with his classmates. The ReLIFE program that our MC Arata is enrolled in dictates that he must socialize himself with the younger generation and make friends. If he fails to re-integrate, he'll be left right on his ass where he started, while succeeding will result in the possibility of a well paying job. Of course, our boy Arata ends up falling for a 17 year old girl who is also a completely socially awkward mess, and the story focuses on them trying to both complete their goals of making new friends. Overall, the plot ends up boiling down to a pretty basic twist on the standard high school romance, but its fresh enough to keep me interested. The writing also plays on its shtick very well (which was honestly unexpected, I blame Zac Efron), and the comedy that comes flowing from that is honestly very enjoyable.

Aesthetically the show is pretty average to slightly above average. For the equivalent of a straight-to-DVD movie, the budget honestly didn't seem to be effected, with the quality being pretty consistent throughout. There's not a lot of action here, but there was a lot of care put in to making the characters' facial expressions stand out during dialogue and comedy sequences. Music wasn't anything to write home about, but it made the romance parts feel a lot more important, so at least there's that.

This one definitely isn't breaking any new boundaries, but that's alright, as it's a pretty enjoyable ride if you're into those more relaxing romcom shows. This is an adaptation of an ongoing web-manga, and the anime definitely doesn't finish in a satisfying way, AND there's a pretty big plot twist that gets dropped on you in the last two or three episodes, but it was still a pretty enjoyable ride. The novelty of saying that anime did it better than Zac Efron could might just be worth it on its own.