ReLIFE has been sitting in my inbox quite for a while now.  I knew the Kanketsu-hen specials were out there and I always intended to go back and finish the series, but life has a way of intervening.  That’s one of the benefits of a crap season I suppose – it does allow more time to take care of housecleaning like this – and with a couple of my already-sparse midweek series flaming out, I’ve finally scraped together enough time to start watching this four-episode finale special.

I was a pretty big fan of the ReLIFE TV series – I had it ranked #17 for 2016, and that was quite a strong and deep anime year.  Since it ended I’ve gone back and picked up the web manga, though I did stop before finishing it out of a desire not to spoil Kanketsu-hen.  In doing so I’ve come to believe that even with some questionable decisions (like way over-emphasizing the Kairu arc at the expense of the meat of the story) the anime was a definite improvement on the source material, toning down some of the more annoying affectations that the manga can be prone to.

All in all this first episode marked a relatively relaxed reENTRY into the ReLIFE universe.  It focuses more on Chizuru than anything else, as she’s put the pieces together and figured out that Arata is almost surely another test subject.  This is a considerable problem for Yoake-san of course, as acknowledging Chizuru’s suspicions means putting an end to the experiment and separating Chizuru and Arata forever.  And we know that there are no bigger cheerleaders for the two of them than Yoake and Onoya-san (who remains the most annoying person in the cast).

All things being equal, then, this episode is really more a re-introduction to the cast and scenario than anything else – a setup for events to come (and boy, are they ever).  My plan right now is to finish Kanketsu-hen over the next couple of weeks, life permitting.  It certainly wasn’t a problem to get re-invested in the story, so as we build towards the end the emotional stakes are definitely going to get much higher.  For now this ep feels more than a get-together with an old friend than anything, though, with a promise of more to come.