‘Re:Creators’ Season 2 Release Date: Ei Aoki Talks Anime Sequel — Magane Manga Spin-Off And Altair Character Cast Interview

The wait for the Re:Creators Season 2 release date may not be that long if anime studio Troyca has their way. The Amazon Anime Strike exclusive featured storytellers being pitted against their Creations after they discover the real world. So far, the story has resonated with audiences, but is there any more source material for creating the second season of Re:Creators?

Unlike many anime, Re:Creators is an original story written by Rei Hiroe that does not entirely rely on a light novel series or a manga for the source material. That meant the first season was allowed to have some sort of finality and the ending, Episode 22, does not come off as a glorified advertisement for selling more manga.

However, that’s not to say there’s no reason to read the Re:Creators manga. The main series, called Re:Creators Naked by Daiki Kase, follows the original story by writer Hiroe. Naked started serializing in Monthly Sunday Gene-X back in April of 2017, but there is also a second manga series by writer Yuki Kumagai called Re:Creators One More! that focuses on a different set of characters. The story is about Miharu, a teenage otaku girl who has a crush on Shou from the anime.

But that’s probably not the manga story anime audiences are looking for. Fans fell in love with the free-spirited psychopath named Magane Chikujouin. Hiroe has mentioned that even if Magane loses her powers like Meteora, then she’ll keep going around lying and getting into trouble. She is popular enough that a second manga spin-off was announced. Horror manga author Ida Tatsuhiko calls the Re:Creator Magane manga Chikujoin-san Is Having Way Too Much Fun and it’s available on Shogakukan’s Sunday Webry site.

Re:Creators: Altair Voice Actress Toyosaki Aki Talks About Her Character

As the main antagonist, the “military uniform princess” was the central figure of the story whose plotting provided a reason for conflict. It turns out voice actress Toyosaki Aki auditioned for multiple characters, including Aliceteria and Magane, but Altair was the character she wanted to play the most (Aki was also supposed to audition for Mamika, but it didn’t happen).

“Altair was the character I most wanted to play since the beginning, I was very happy to be able to take her audition,” she said, according to the official Re:Creators Season 2 website.

When Aki auditioned by casting spells she kept it calm and cool, but when Altair lost her temper she let her own emotions explode. The actress believes Altair is actually a very lonely person.

“[Altair] is a character born by Setsuna ‘s wish. That is, a person who lives by receiving the heartfelt expression of a girl who has reached the point of committing suicide,” she explained. “What kind of feelings will form when someone who is too bright and dazzling is born from such a person?”

Right before the anime broadcast in Japan, Aki was asked, “What is the story of Re:Creators?” She believes the anime is really “your story.”

“Altair, Shuta-kun, other characters, and everyone ‘s story goes on after the final story,” she said. “That will become your own ‘story’ that you have watched with them. I am really happy if you continue to think about such things from now on.”

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Troyca Tells The Story Behind The Story

In an interview with Akiba Souken, Troyca director Ei Aoki and writer Hiroe spoke about the production of the anime. They started off with the draft created by Hiroe and the appearance of the Re:Creators name inside the anime itself was decided from the beginning. However, the ending of the Naked manga is completely different from the anime, which was done on purpose.

Troyca originally envisioned the story as 18 to 20 episodes but they realized that certain scenes would require more time. Episode 21 and 22 initially started as one but then were separated out. The final episode ended up being an epilogue with no “flashy battle scene” that instead focused on the characters.

Some changes were made to Hiroe’s original work to make it flow better in anime form. Hiroe was focused on telling the story, whereas the anime added some scenes and shifted events around so the audiences could better follow what was going on.

The story had many meta-fictional elements, but Aoki does not think the series is truly metafiction.

“It is certainly a meta-fictional structure, but I was not thinking of making it too much of a metafiction story. I think it is close to a simulation if anything. How the drawn characters actually came to this world, how do they feel about this world, and what kind of actions do they take? Especially in the first half, I felt that there was a theme. The thirteenth episode of the full series is a piece of metafiction, but other than that I thought it would be better to enjoy a story purely about the characters.”

Aoki believes that creation is a collaborative process and he draws inspiration from many sources. Although he’s not a scriptwriter, he provides input to the production staff on the direction of the story.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a storyteller, but rather I’m a part of a team of storytellers,” he said, according to Honey’s Anime.

In the past, Aoki has worked on projects like The Garden Of Sinners, Fate/Zero and Aldnoah Zero. He says he enjoys using science to explain to audiences why they should believe what they are watching.

“I believe that by using science and theories you bring in a layer of reality inside an animated story,” he said. “By adding these features, I believe it does enhance animation.

The director is a big fan of Hollywood movies, especially Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies were edited.

“The common climax in his movies is that there are actually two or three stories happening at once and then all the different stories’ climaxes are edited into one, becoming one bigger climax scene,” Aoki told Ani-Gamers in a different interview.

“And I thought using that editing technique to move emotions is a very unique and powerful technique. So in that sense, I do feel that there’s lots to learn from Christopher Nolan’s films and his editing techniques.”

One of the director’s goals in creating the anime was to show how creating stories was rewarding and to involve the audience in the process.

“Setting-wise, in Re:Creators, there are three distinct groups of characters: the creators, the characters created by them, and the audience that sees them all,” he said.

“What I thought was very interesting about Re:Creators is that when the audience doesn’t agree with something, even if it was a decision made by the creator, it does not get reflected.”

The plot involves multiple anime and manga characters coming to life in the real world. If it were possible, the Troya director would love to meet all of them, but he’s also “pretty sure some of them have a grudge against me.”

Re:Creators Season 2 Depends On The Blu-Ray Sales And Anime Strike

As of this publishing, anime production company Troyca has not announced anything official about the Re:Creators Season 2 release date, although this article will be updated as soon as the anime sequel’s premiere is confirmed. However, there can be reasonable speculation about when, or if, the Re:Creators Season 2 air date may occur.

Considering the broad scope of the story, fans are already coming up with ideas for Re:Creators Season 2. Some would simply like to see villains pitted against each other in a giant bloodbath. Others want to know how Creations came to life in the first place. The most interesting idea has an older version of a fictional character meeting its younger self and coming into conflict based on the dramatic changes in ideas and philosophy that a person undergoes as they age (although it could be argued that’s Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works in a nutshell).

While all of those ideas have potential, it is known for certain that director Aoki desires to create a sequel. Troyca left the ending open enough that there is room for more stories to be told in that universe.

“I think Re:Creators ended on a relatively clean note,” he said during an August 2017 interview. “But, in terms of whether you are going to see more from this universe, well, that is all up to how well Re:Creators does.”

Like all anime, finances determine whether an anime production committee will give the green light on Re:Creators Season 2. Amazon probably paid a pretty penny to have the series as an Anime Strike exclusive, but the Re:CreatorsBlu-Ray sales in Japan are definitely a factor. The good news is that the first box set broke 2,000 copies in the first week and ranked 12 on the Oricon charts back in June.

The series has been selling consistently and Volume 4 also sold 2,050 copies in the first week at the end of September. There will be eight volumes altogether, with Volume 5 coming out next on October 25, 2017. The final volume will release in January of 2018. Let’s just hope the final sales number justify creating Re:Creators Season 2.

[Featured Image by Troyca/Re:Creators Anime TV Promo]