Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 02

As Bill Murray can attest, reliving the same day isn’t the best situation to be in. You may gain all the time in the world to master whatever you wish, no consequences for any of your actions and the ability to do over any situation not matter how dire. But you have to live through the same tedious situations over and over again, reintroduce yourself to people day after day knowing they will only forget you and eventually the time will come when you will break from the loneliness of the situation. But things are much harder for Subaru who not only has to repeat the day but also repeat his death over and over again. I am willing to give Subaru a break for not figuring out the time loop earlier considering that death is pretty traumatic and it’s easier to assume that it was a dream than face the reality that you just died. However with three turn backs even he figures out that he’s in a time loop. Subaru has been killed three times, twice in the loot house by Elsa and now once in the alley when he was accidentally stabbed by a group of muggers. When I think about this story, I am glad that white Fox was the ones to animate this. This isn’t the first time after all that they have dealt with a story of this nature

This episode was not very eventful as it was essentially Subaru attempting to retrace his previous attempt at a much faster pace. To sell his phone to the thief Felt in order to obtain the stolen medal and return it to our elfen tsundere before Elsa comes by and kills everyone. What I like about this so far is that our protagonist doesn’t shake off his deaths so easily. He jokes about it and generally puts up a good front but it really did affect him deeply. He runs into Elsa while looking for Felt and looks to be hit with some heavy post traumatic stress disorder. He is truly, utterly terrified of that woman which makes her pretty intimidating despite her looking to be just a minor villain. It’s the small changes in Subaru which catch my attention the most as I find him to be the most interesting of the cast. Subaru claims to be a Hikikomori but on all accounts he doesn’t seem like one. It could be a case like with KonoSuba where the protagonist gets a huge confidence boost due to being in a anime situation but I don’t quite think that’s the case. Subaru doesn’t look like a Hikikomori, nor does he fight like one. His fight with Felt when she was attacking him was most surprising when he displayed some pretty impressive dodging skills. To me, Subaru feels like a former delinquent who picked up anime as a hobby. That would explain his fighting ability.

As for the rest of the cast, I find them lacking. The problem is that a large amount of them are standard stereotypes with not much to them. I don’t hate them as they have enough to be likable but they do lack unique depth. They need more to them to differentiate themselves from the number of similar styled characters. The father daughter relationship she has with the loot shop owner is a step in the right direction but she still requires more. But at least the characters do work for what this story is trying to do. In particular it was good that thanks to Subaru being so forward and knowing too much, it caused Felt to be more on guard and suspicious of him.  As well as Elsa gaining an interest in Subaru after he froze up in fear in front of her. Whether the changes Subaru made end up getting him out of this mess is still in question but it looks like he made some good moves this turn. I have a feeling that Knight introduced this episode will play a big role in how this resolves.

~AidanAK47~