The story revolves around 27-year-old Arata Kaizaki, a NEET who has been unemployed for several years; only working part-time at a convenience store. One day, a mysterious man named Ryō Yoake offers him a job opportunity; but first, Kaizaki needs to become a tester for ReLife: a scientific experiment to make him appear 10 years younger and send him back to high school as a student. The experiment is supposed to provide a chance to experience youth once again and, in the process, fix whatever is wrong with the subject's life.
The manga began publication on the Comico app in 2013 with physical publication of the series following in 2014. The series was added to the streaming service Crunchyroll manga service on December 21, 2015. As of the March 5, 2018, Crunchyroll no longer hosts the manga. Several new chapters were also published by Yayoiso but are not for sale on Amazon. These episodes are available as online reader on the Comico official website and many others. English translation is also available for this manga. The last Report is 222 Named: "Restart Life". In volume 15, two bonus chapters, were added. The first is an epilogue. It picks up the same night Chizuru and Arata regain their memories of each other, and ends just over 4 years later. The other bonus chapter was a prologue, which covers how Arata was chosen to be a subject.
Anime
It was announced on February 13, 2015, that the webtoon series would be getting an anime television adaptation that is scheduled to air on July 2, 2016. The anime's main cast, broadcast information and first key visual was unveiled at the AnimeJapan 2016 convention in Japan on March 26, 2016. TMS Entertainment is producing the series, with Tomo Kosaka directing, Michiko Yokote and Kazuho Hyodo handling series composition, Junko Yamanaka designing the characters, and Masayasu Tsuboguchi composing the music. All 13 episodes of the anime were pre-streamed before the television broadcast on the ReLIFE Channel app on June 24, 2016. Crunchyroll released all episodes of the anime for premium members on July 1, 2016, each episode was made available for free members throughout the following weeks. The anime is licensed in North America by Crunchyroll, and Funimation released it on home video with an English dub. A 4-episode finale was streamed on Amazon Prime Video and released on Blu-ray & DVD on March 21, 2018.
Episode list
Music
The opening theme is "Button" by Penguin Research, while various artists perform a different ending theme for each episode. The ending songs are compiled into one album titled "MD2000 ~ReLIFE Ending Songs~" to be released on September 21, 2016. The title "MD2000" comes from a type of mini disc that came out in 2000 while the concept of the ending themes comes from the songs that Kaizaki used to hear back in his high school days. A series of character songs also released from August 3, 2016, started with Arata Kaizaki from volume 1. Each CD contains two songs with a respective instrumental version. A soundtrack CD containing 23 pieces of background music from the anime is released on September 14, 2016. The music is composed by Masayuki Tzboguchi.
A stage play adaptation was performed in Tokyo and Osaka in late 2016.
Reception
Volume 1 reached the 30th place on the weekly Oricon manga charts and, as of August 17, 2014, had sold 33,637 copies; volume 2 reached the 9th place and, as of November 16, 2014, had sold 46,040 copies; volume 3 reached the 23rd place and, as of April 5, 2015, had sold 73,019 copies. It was placed 6th in Zenkoku Shotenin ga Eranda Osusume Comic 2015. It was also nominated for Best General Manga at the 39th Kodansha Manga Awards. The series had sold 1 million copies as of February 8, 2016. As of October 2016, the manga had been downloaded over 20 million times.
