My first thought on starting this episode was “That’s a violent sounding episode title” and it truly did live up to that. This episode features some of the most brutal fight scenes in the series to date and damn if it wasn’t exciting. I might as well say this now, this was the best episode of the second cour of season two. I wouldn’t put it as best in the series or even best in the season but damn it’s certainly one of the best and considering how the story has faltered lately, we really needed this. Odd as I previously made the case that action was not Re:Zeros strong suit yet today’s episode is almost pure action and still a magnificent display. My hype is back and we got two more episodes to go. I can only hope those last two episodes can be as good as this one was.
We even had bits of humour this episode with the cut to Garfiels statement of Subaru’s courage to Subaru running for his life the floor below. But the thing I absolutely loved was Subaru’s attempt to create a dust explosion for this was an anime fan attempting to make use of science learned from anime which gave the results you could expect. Exactly where Subaru went wrong I can’t say for absolutely certain but based on the small amount of googling I did I believe that a single sack of flour wouldn’t give the density of particles needed for it to catch fire and the room wasn’t fully enclosed as it had doors and openings. But I just love it as it’s a solid reminder that if we were isekaied to another world we likely wouldn’t be able to recreate things we know based on limited knowledge and understanding from TV and film. Either way Subaru should thank his lucky stars that it didn’t work because if it did work as he intended then the explosion would kill him as well as the mabeast.
Then we have Emilia’s third trial and boy how long is this post going to be? There is just way too much to comment on from Emilia being in a burned down building covered in blood proclaiming her hatred for someone(Pandora being the most likely suspect) to a massive slew of voices giving hints to several future events. It might be easier to digest if it wasn’t in japanese though I do wonder how the english dub will handle this scene as it may even include characters who have yet to appear. I think I heard Reinhard mentioning putting down a sword, Subaru repeating Pucks line about only being a hero to Reinhard, Garfiel declaring to kill Subaru, Roswall saying that he realised that he hasn’t been walking alone this whole time but the one that interests me is the line “Why won’t the soul take hold?” which seems to be referring to a transfer of a soul into a new vessel. Topped off with foreshadowing about the return of Rem and some pretty hefty implications of a connection between the Witch of Wrath Minerva and Emilia. The hot theory being that Minerva is Emilia’s true mother though I honestly have no idea what to make of that encounter. I originally was thinking that it was someone else using Minerva’s look, Carmilla perhaps, but that may be unlikely. It’s clear that Minerva does have a deep connection to Emilia though but what that connection is I honestly have no clue. Again the obvious answer is that she’s her mother but I feel that answer is a bit too obvious.
In a shounen anime the fights can get rough but outside of the occasional broken/cut off limb or through chest punch you often end up with just some bruises on the characters. In today’s episode of Re:Zero we start with Garfiel gouging out Elsa’s eye which is an action which literally had me say out loud “Oh shit” and it only got better from there. These two were like wild animals tearing each other apart and it made for a damn tense confrontation. Which is a pity as it looks to be Elsa’s last appearance if the signs are correct. We got a fairly rushed look into her backstory as well as the reveal of her being a vampire which gives me the impression that this is fleshing her out before she leaves the stage. A pity as I did remark that keeping her around could have made things more interesting. I will say that I appreciate Tappei’s efforts to make Elsa more than a token villain. The easy answer in any anime, isekai or otherwise, is to make your villains hateable but not really human. So a lazy writer just makes them evil to a practically stupid degree with them often going even more out of their way to prove themselves utterly morally bankrupt. Any other villain would have laughed off the idea of Maylee dying but Elsa instead gives up on a killing blow to save her. It’s a small detail that really makes a good villain and if this is all we get of her then I really do recommend watching the break time shorts for extra scenes of her. Matter of fact here’s a link to a google docs folder containing all episodes subbed.
The reason I highly recommend these shorts yet again is that one of them happens to have some pretty interesting information in the Elsa and Maylee shorts that make the events of this episode even more impactful. Namely in the 11 break time episode Elsa remarks to Maylee that the first time she met her, Maylee fought for her life by biting into Elsa’s neck. The episode even has Maylee remark(Pictured above) that the next time she’s bitten she might die which low and behold turned out to be true. Theres also an episode detailing just how Roswaal passes infomation to them which explains how they can quickly prepare for Subaru’s arrival. It’s a shame she did go out this way just as she was getting really interesting, I can even see how that tale she told of what is likely her first kill shaped her thinking. To Elsa there is nothing that makes her feel more alive than a life or death fight and she’s more or less reliving a trauma over and over again for the sense of warmth and comfort the memory provided.
The last part of the episode is Ram fighting Roswaal and finally conveying her feelings for him to which I say these Oni sisters have the worst luck in love. One of them gets outright rejected and the other gets a fireball to the back for her trouble. I got to say that I don’t quite understand just what caused Ram’s feelings for Roswaal to change from searing hatred to love and going by the break time episode I don’t think Puck gets it either. So I am not surprised that Roswaal outright calls her a lair as even he cannot fathom why she could possibly grow to love him. So at this point I think that even if Roswaal doesn’t summon the snow (Which judging by the state of the place once Emilia leaves the trial, he likely did) that the big magic lightshow Ram, Roswaal and Puck had was likely more than enough to draw the attention of the rabbit. So next up it looks like we got rabbit stew on the menu.
Of note is that Puck indicated that Roswaal cast a spell on Emilia that made her more likely to fail the trial.
Garfiel said that he read that one of the witches was a vampire. This makes me wonder if Pandora is a vampire, meaning that she wasn’t undoing her deaths but just reforming herself with lighting-fast regeneration. If that is true, I think it’s possible that the Authority of Vanity/Vainglory does not protect from actual death and that dealing enough damage to Pandora will kill her for good.
I think what Ram feels is mostly Stockholm syndrome given Roswaal’s reaction to her feelings. She likely hated him and developed feelings for him over time. With her memories of Rem being erased, he feelings for Roswaal probably grew even stronger to compensate for the lack of Rem in her memories.
Oh, wait, Garfiel said the witch that was a vampire died, so it’s not Pandora.
I’m pretty sure all the witches aside from Satella are dead though? That point is a bit confusing – so it could be Pandora after all!
I changed my mind and now believe Pandora is a vampire again.
After Garfiel astutely determined that Elsa was a vampire and Elsa herself revealed that to be true with her having fast regeneration, I began to have doubts about Pandora undoing her own deaths. As such, I rewatched Episode 44 and saw some interesting things, and assuming that White Fox did not mess up in animating that battle, I have arrived at a different conclusion than most of the fandom.
The ice formations from Emilia’s attacks remained where they were when they hit Pandora. They were not undone when Pandora was shown to be living after supposedly being killed. With this information in mind, since Pandora’s Authority of Vanity/Vainglory selectively rewrites reality based on cause and effect with her undoing something removing the direct evidence of something happening, I believe that Pandora is a vampire with lightning fast regeneration and that she can be killed if she takes enough damage. In my opinion, it’s just a matter of her facing someone strong enough to deal enough damage to her until the limits of her regeneration have been reached. Maybe she is an original vampire or something, which could mean that her regeneration abilities have an incredibly high amount of uses, making her harder to kill than most other vampires.