Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Looks like the new opening and ending won’t be getting much use in this second cour either, not that I am complaining of course. This week I  wouldn’t be surprised if people were getting sick of Subaru as his actions continue to be erratic and destructive. The ending of the last episode gave hope that Subaru would be driven to make the right moves and strike back at Betelgeuse however while Subaru has got the right idea, he doesn’t have the know how to achieve it. I think it’s important for people to keep in mind one thing. Subaru is not you and you certainly wouldn’t handle this situation any better if you had gone through what he has. I actually find this aspect rather interesting as Subaru is at a simplistic level the kind of character you would normally self insert yourself into. However now he’s going against the viewer’s wishes and it forces us to see him from an outside perspective. I sort of see what the author is trying to achieve here but I must admit that his efforts may go to make Subaru too unlikable which would affect how we view his efforts in episodes to come.

What must be taken into account from now is the key to writing great tragedy. For you see what makes tragedy great is the ratio between hope and despair. The very impact of the events themselves depends on the author building a certain set of expectations and hope before ripping it all apart in front of the viewer. A constant tragedy is a dull boring affair that lets the viewer become desensitised to what’s happening on screen, therefore killing any attachment to the characters. I believe this is what caused Attack on Titan to falter in its later episodes and why I believe a second season won’t be quite as well received as the first. When your story is a constant stream of never ending losses then the viewer loses any hope of the characters winning and it just becomes a matter of when all is lost. This is what Re:Zero needs to avoid at this point in time because there is only so long people will put up with Subaru’s act. What we need right now is some small victories, things which give credence to the idea that maybe, just maybe Subaru could beat the witches cult. It is then when you bring out the tragedy again and smash expectations. Then begin the cycle  again by building up hope. My friends, Tragedy is like Dark Souls, a series of failures building hope towards a dream of magnificent victory.

This episode could be seen as each member of the King’s selection candidates telling off Subaru for being so arrogant. To some they may even seem mean spirited in how they lecture Subaru but it is important to take into account their perspective. A boy who previously talked big in front of everyone is now making claims that the witches cult will attack a village and that he needs their help. All things considered it’s actually rather kind that they gave him the time of day to listen to him ramble on like a madman. Each of the Candidates saw past Subaru and realised his true intentions so simply picking the right moves isn’t going to get Subaru through this. However within each telling off Subaru got was some wise words of advice which if Subaru heeds could lead him to victory. Crush is trying to get Subaru to realise that he is working out of his own selfish intentions and not for the sake of others. Priscilla is showing him that begging will get him nothing and that he needs to prove his worth.(Through that may have been unconsciously as I believe she thought that if she made him beg it would be more entertaining, but only found it disgusting.) Anastasia told him the keys to negotiation and that in order to get what he wants he needs to have something to trade.

In these words are the lessons Subaru needs to learn and it’s really a matter of when he decides to heed their advice. Still despite all of Subaru’s missteps this episode I admit that the idea of evacuating the village before the witches cult attack was a rather clever idea. Pity he forgot about the creature Rem previously warned him about in a previous episode, the white whale. I have some idea’s as to what makes this creature so dangerous as evidenced by the final minutes of the episode but I think I will wait to see if my thought is true. Start thinking Subaru, the wait till sunday is too long just to see you fail yet again.

~AidanAK47~

I have a certain belief when it comes to anime and it is that in a great series there is “That” episode. You know the one, the one you will always remember. The one that comes to mind when the series is brought up. Of course depending on personal opinion, that episode can be different for other people. However I think that sometimes in a series, there is one episode that truly hits the hardest. Some examples for me are Madoka’s episode 10, Cowboy bebops final episode or Fate/Zero episode 23. That episode that when the credits roll all you can really say is, wow. This is likely premature of me as we are only over the halfway point but I believe that this is Re:Zero’s, That episode. When this series is brought up in the future I am certain the image that will come to everyone’s mind is that of a decapitated Subaru holding Rem in the snow. The studio might agree on that point as a new Key visual came out on the official site which displays Subaru carrying Rem in the snow. But let me dial back a bit before I am labeled a zealous fanboy.

We finally hit the point where Subaru dies and it’s after finding the corpses of Rem, Ram and the children of the village. The bodies of Beatrix and Roswaal are oddly missing but considering their fighting potential they are likely guarding Emilia and if they are guarding Emilia that means they are dead center of the snowstorm. The room Subaru was about to enter is likely where they hid out and we get a rather unexpected death of Subaru, as he’s frozen to death and shattered. Thus we finally get the first death of the arc and find out where his “save point” is. It looks like it’s in front of the apple salesman again and upon first seeing it I thought Subaru had returned right back to the beginning. However it turns out to be in the middle of the shopping trip he and Rem went on. It also happens to be after Subaru and Emilia’s argument and his foolhardy mistakes at the selection which I am truly grateful for. It could have been so easy for the writer to just undo the mess and put Subaru on top but instead he took the high road and made it that Subaru needs to live with his mistakes and mend his broken relationships. Though he’s not doing that now as he’s gone completely insane and no longer has the mental capacity to deal with things anymore. This is the point where Rem has pretty much won the main heroine title. I don’t care if Emilia is technically the main heroine, Rem’s earned it ten times over by this point. Which is surprising as it wasn’t all that long ago when she caved in Subaru’s skull with a flail.

Subaru has been rendered a unresponsive vegetable at this point and despite not knowing how this suddenly happened, Rem sticks with him. Though she does make an accurate guess in that the witch is likely involved due to the scent of her growing over Subaru. She even fights to the fight to save his life after he’s abducted by the witches cult. That brings me to what I would call the biggest flaw of an otherwise perfect episode, Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is the main villain of this arc and boy, does he want you to know it. For Subaru’s development he’s perfect as he’s so unredeemable evil and unforgivable that he drives Subaru to fight him. However while in some aspects I like his purpose, I rather dislike his overly cartoonishly exaggerated insanity. He’s trying far too hard to be creepy and unstable that he’s just too hard to take seriously. He bares a heavy resemblance to Gates from Full Metal Panic: The second raid who also had a spastic personality as well as a pendent for killing his own subordinates. This kind of villain suits the needs of the plot but as a character he just comes off as weak. If he can manage to tone down his mood swings I think he has potential in how perceptive he is of others. Particularly he managed to see that Rem had unrequited love for Subaru and more importantly, that Subaru was retreating into insanity.

As the Joker stated in the famous comic and soon to be animated adaption “The Killing Joke” “So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit…” Subaru tried to take that exit but Betelgeuse wouldn’t let he close the door and that’s the strange thing about this. Betelgeuse did horrible things, brutally killed Rem and left Subaru screaming bloody vengeance but in an odd manner, he “helped” Subaru. Well, help might not be the right word, more he gave Subaru drive and focus. With the next loop Subaru is ready to fight back but the look in his eyes isn’t that of a hero. It’s the eyes of someone out to kill a man called Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse put down some nice hints in his scene, with him labeling himself Sloth and aptly wondering if Subaru was pride. It looks like all the archbishops of this “gospel” are representative of a sin and in the manga Betelgeuse does say that he knows everyone’s face but pride. I must admit however that I am really getting tired of the seven deadly sins being used as symbolism. When Full metal alchemist did it that was cool but lately everything under the sun has been using the seven deadly sins motif. At least change it up a bit. After all, there were originally eight deadly sins. Those original sins had despair instead of envy and the eighth sin was vainglory. Vainglory being the human desire to be seen, appreciated, acknowledged, and accepted. If this writer is very smart it could be possible that Subaru is Vainglory and that suits him to a much greater degree than pride.

What is by far the signature of this episode is the closing credits. Rem limped her way to Subaru and released his chains.(Still questioning how she’s still alive seeing as I was sure Betelgeuse broke her neck.) After she confesses her love and dies in his arms, Subaru carries her all the way to the manor which has been overtaken by a sudden snowstorm. After seeing Ram’s dead body a giant beast comes out of the top of the manor and upon locking eyes with Subaru, freezes and decapitates him. As the credits roll and Subaru is buried under snow and fog, this doesn’t feel like the end of a single episode of a series. If feels like the dramatic end of a movie and is just mesmerising. The music on this point as well is just superb with orchestrated violins. I think it’s fairly safe to say that the beast that froze the manor is Puck due to the ice powers, his tendency of calling Emilia his daughter and looking closely at the silhouette you can see the earring Puck wears clearly. It was previously mentioned at the selection and by Puck himself that he is a very powerful spirit and this is likely his true form revealed after the death of Emilia. His killing of Subaru feels like a mercy killing as he didn’t want him to see Emilia dead. Or it could be possible that he is aware of Subaru’s power to a degree as he has shown elements of a mind reading power. The real question now is what happens after this, when Subaru now is ready to strike back. My guess is Wilhelm will notice the change and play a part. My biggest worry from this point forward is that Re:Zero may have played it’s strongest hand, hit the peak and after this it’s all downhill. It has so far managed to avoid that but truthfully, I am not sure how it can top this.

~AidanAK47~

Never have I wished so much for a main character to die and not have it be out of spite. Todays episode shows us what Subaru will likely be fighting to prevent for the rest of the series and it is quite brutal. First let us have a moment of silence for the first Opening and ending. Poor souls never got much use in the end but well enough of that, the new opening hints at plenty of new developments and things to come. The song isn’t all that great but the visuals make up for it, particularly like the ending part with Subaru reaching out to a Emilia being engulfed in dark hands. Our main enemy this time around looks to be the witch cult and damn if they are not intimidating. They have a certain disturbing aura that just makes they unnerving and based on the strange way they showed up in front of Subaru, they don’t seem quite human. What makes the scene most interesting is that the hooded figures bowed to Subaru and left him alive despite killing an entire village. I was already certain of it but it’s clear than Subaru’s power and presence is tied to the Jealous witch and somehow these figures recognise that. Either way the sound work was top notch during this scene and throughout the anime now that I think about it. The unnerving choir notes are the most notable and well used as they do add a layer of mystical malevolence to the scene.

So after the spat with Emilia, Subaru isn’t in the best mood, nor has he come to his senses. I like that he isn’t following the typical pattern of locking himself away from people and curling up in a ball moaning “Woe is me”. He is actively going out of his way to break out of his funk but the problem is that his answer for doing so really isn’t the right one. Subaru as he is right now isn’t particularly likeable but there’s a difference between being unlikable because of poor writing or unsympathetic protagonists, and being unlikable because the protagonist is heading down a path the audience knows won’t do him any good. No one is supposed to agree with Subaru here because it’s clear that his motivations are wrong. It’s funny because if we take only take Subaru’s dialogue without context then in a regular light novel it would be the path to victory. Snapping out of your depression because there only something you can do and brashly running to a battle. In another story Subaru would be celebrated and encouraged. However Re:Zero is not that kind of light novel and it’s clear that Subaru’s problem runs a whole lot deeper. I have sympathy for him, for throughout all of this it’s easy to forget that Subaru is just a teenager and that he has gone through events that would leave a lesser man mentally crippled for life. I say he has more right to go off the rails than a certain Eva unit pilot, that’s for sure.

Subaru is busy convincing himself that only he can help Emilia, that he is the only person on her side and that she needs him. This is very dangerous thinking and I think Subaru needs to come to terms with his limitations. He needs to see Emilia for who she is and stop making her his end all for all problems and if he wants to get out of this he needs to recognise that he needs help from others to do it. Rem is likely the best person to show him that and by god I don’t know how she hasn’t nabbed the main heroine spot yet because in my book she’s earned it more than Emilia. She sticks with him even when she sees he’s making mistakes and even stops him from getting himself killed as she goes to the mansion alone. However that action could cost her as I doubt Subaru’s mental state will allow himself to trust her after being tricked like that. Crusch and Wilhelm seem to hold some sort of respect for Subaru and are actively trying to help him come to terms with things. With Wilhelm it’s easy to see, as he recognises that Subaru has indeed faced death before based on his eyes. Crusch is a bit more of a mystery, maybe she’s a romantic at heart or maybe she sees something in Subaru. Or maybe she’s tired of seeing him depressed, who knows. She does hold a firm set of principles so it could be just a matter of wanting him to look forward and prove himself. But she certainly accidently planted a dark incentive in Subaru’s mind. After all there is something only he can do and he might be thinking of using it as his get out of jail free card. Regardless of intention, I hope Subaru does make use of return by death because Rem just died. I certainly am not in favor is staying in the dead end were the best heroine is dead. After a weak start episode and a flustrating episode this is now when this arc has kicked into gear and I am certainly excited for it. The stakes are higher, the circumstances difficult and enemy unsettling. Subaru’s suffering is of a higher degree but my wait till Sunday will be arduous indeed.

~AidanAK47~

When I heard about this arc being hard to watch I readied myself for a number of things. I was prepared to see Subaru die gruesomely, to see him tortured and broken. However while I was ready to see him get destroyed by others; I didn’t expect him to be the architect of his own destruction. This was truly a painful episode to watch with Subaru attempting the brute force his way through story developments like a typical shounen protagonist and it just failing miserably. It wasn’t elegant, nor was it impressive and Subaru came off as outright pathetic in his attempts to make himself seem like a big deal. This is by far Subaru’s lowest point in the series and the visuals certainly show it. The manga tried to give him dignity in that there he was at least given some acknowledgement and looked decent even when getting beaten. Not in the anime, here he looked seedy, graceless and desperate.

Which leads me to rethink something I said in the last episode review of this series, namely that I was worried about Rem becoming irrelevant to the story. Perhaps I was worried about the wrong person and in truth the one whose rapidly becoming irrelevant is Subaru himself and he’s all too aware of it. After the closure of the mansion arc Subaru is in a a brand new run where he has no real idea of how anything will turn out. His usefulness has dropped to zero and his existence in Emilia’s life is no longer necessary. For when you think about it, he has no real reason to be at the King’s selection nor any real reason to be in Emilia’s life. The spotlight is moving away from him and I think Subaru has noticed. That’s what makes this episode a little easier to watch for me, for I see it as Subaru desperately kicking and screaming so that he doesn’t end up left behind.

I will admit that seeing Subaru going through all this is not a pleasant experience and while I appreciate the subversion of the shounen tropes, it’s still somewhat flustrating to see Subaru act like this. What makes this somewhat more frustrating is that Subaru is basically making the moves the viewer likely would. I know if I heard someone start berating the girl I liked by racist assumptions I would call him out on it regardless of where I was. Same goes for Julius as he questioned Subaru’s declaration of being Emilia’s Knight, I too would try to shout him down. Upon being challenged to a duel I would relish any opportunity to hit him. But here Subaru is making all the moves the audience wants but is experiencing the consequences of taking such actions. By declaring himself a knight he publical embarrassed Emilia in front of everyone and by fighting Julius he showed everyone just how much of his words was pure empty talk. I really like that when looking at it from Julius’s perspective all his actions seem logical. Most often to make the hero look better they have his opponent act illogical and unreasonable but here Julius was the more level headed one. He tried to make Subaru see just how he was making Emilia feel and even his challenge was him giving Subaru a chance to show his worth; while preventing him from getting murdered in a back alley for insulting the knights by making him an example. Obviously he isn’t right in every regard, I am fairly certain he got some enjoyment out of beating Subaru to a pulp and his philosophy of might makes right is just wrong. However he isn’t just some one dimensional caricature for Subaru to beat down and show everyone how great and right he is.

On the matter of the king’s selection I find it amusing that none of the candidates is aiming to simply be a good ruler and many are going for a radical and dangerous change. We have Priscilla who basically promises a complete dictatorship. Crusch wishes to rid ties to the dragon and let the people rule the nation which seems like a pretty big deal. Anastasia admitted that she is only after the crown to satisfy her own greed. Felt after being pushed into running as ruler due to Roms interference, declares that she was get rid of the social class hierarchy. Emilia in contrast seems to be the most reasonable one and promises to give equality to all people. Basically each participant has pretty much declared that they are going to do whatever the hell they want when they get the crown so I wonder just how this is planned to be settled.

The defining aspect of this episode is the scene after all of Subaru’s embarrassments where he and Emilia finally have a talk. The talk bordered on the overly melodramatic but hit some big points. Namely that Subaru has placed Emilia on a pedestal so high that he can’t even see her for what she is anymore. Emilia cannot understand just why he holds her so highly and Subaru can’t explain because of the curse. Leaving him rambling like a madman to Emilia about events that just didn’t happen to her. After Subaru lets out his most selfish true feelings; Emilia declares that they go their separate ways leaving Subaru alone. This is probably the most human Emilia has been in the series and he comments such as “I had high hopes for you” cut deeper than a knife. This is a massive turning point in the series but one that has me worried. This is big in regards to Subaru in that once he arrived in this world he made Emilia his center and focused all his efforts for her.

Now he’s lost that and the time has come for him to find a new objective but there lies a problem in this. If Subaru dies then possibly all this will be undone and even though while watching this episode I desperately wanted someone to kill Subaru just to undo the utter cringeworthy displays he put in, I do not want his confrontation with Emilia to be undone. If I am asked about whether this episode was a good or bad episode I say my decisive factor is what comes after this. This could be a great example of Shounen deconstruction if it remains this way and a great cornerstone of Subaru’s development as must pick up the broken relationship pieces caused by his mistakes. But if all this gets swept under the rug and Subaru gets to replay for the perfect end then this episode will leave a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

~AidanAK47~