I was quite surprised that no one commented on the first impressions post for Bokutachi no Remake (though a lot of you did read it), as I thought it was one of the most interesting – and difficult – premieres of the season.  It’s my frontrunner for summer’s “most vexing series” by a good margin – I strongly suspect it’s going to be one of those shows where the good stuff is quite involving and the bad just makes me want to dump it post haste.  Not unusual for a LN adaptation, but no less vexing for that.

It does say something, however, that with a queue full of episodes to watch this morning Remake was the one my mouse clicked on first.  I’m genuinely interested in this series for a number of reasons.  In the first place, shows which seriously explore the creative process are both rare and welcome, and this one seems to check that box.  There were all sorts of intriguing tidbits planted in the double-length premiere, indicative of a script with some narrative ambition.  College – and adulthood – simply offers possibilities that high school and earlier does not.

But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there are those LN-isms that always seem to crash the party, unwelcome guests though they are.  There’s no need for the blatant sexulaization of the female characters (including Sawashiro Miyuki’s otherwise delightful Kanou-sensei).  Stuff like Aki randomly crawling into bed with Kyouya and Nanako flashing the house (the punch was just the cherry on top of the cliche sundae) undermines a story that otherwise asks you to take it seriously.  And speaking of which, why would Tsurayuki immediately go to “supernatural” when Kyouya came up with the train station idea?  That’s just dumb – I don’t know what the opposite of Occam’s Razor is called (I checked – it’s “Hickam’s Dictum”) but that has to be it.

Yet, that incident was also a fascinating observation on the creative process.  Basically Kyouya unwittingly plagarized Tsurayuki – it was as a result of his time travel but that kind of thing happens in the real world all the time.  Any writer can tell you that creatively we’re a collection of our reading experiences – they all influence us and shape how we develop as creators.  But you have to take great care to make sure influence doesn’t become pilfering.  My friend in the movie business puts it this way – you can’t copyright an idea, only the execution of an idea.

TBH, what I thought when Kyouya presented “his” idea was that it sounded like the sort of simplistic thing an 18 year-old would think was profound (ironically).  But for a 3-minute film like Kanou’s project that’s not a bad way to go.  The division of labor is next, with Kyouya in the role of producer – which is exactly what his skill set dictates he should be pursuing.  And we get the classic producer-writer flap right off the bat, with Tsurayuki basically arguing to blow up the time limit for creative purposes and Kyouya arguing that the goal is to ace the assignment and time matters.  As a writer it pains me to say it, but I think the producer is right.

Tsurayuki’s screwup with the camera is another one of things that does happen in real life, and it’s the producer who has to figure out how to fix it.  I appreciate that the writing here seems to come from a place of understanding with regard to the subject, and shows an interest in the small details.  What thrills me less is that we’ve been dumped into this scenario and asked to just take the elephant in the room as read for the moment – I think the story owes us more of an acknowledgement of the time travel side, if not an explanation yet.  But as long as that conceit is used to explore the ideas at the core of the story, I can live with that.  I’m definitely invested, but absolutely still cautious given the source material.  Remake could be an interesting – and frustrating – series to watch play out.