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 think this episode started to show, that Subaru is improving. He is looking for assistance, since he realized, he can’t save anybody alone. While begging and appealing to sentimentality (let’s prevent people from being murdered, isn’t that bad of an appeal) wasn’t good bargaining, I think that was pretty much the only thing Subaru could have done. Aside from understandable rage at witches cult in the beginning, He isn’t being erratic & destructive – he just has no other options available to him.
Your little aside on tragedies made me puke a little
You have a very weak stomach. Might want to get that checked out.
I agree with the whole tragedy thing, I really hope too that they don’t start making this into a constant roll of failure and sadness. One of the reasons Clannad:After story was so bloody sad was because they did this perfectly, and as you said AOT did not.
This is also some of the best and easy to follow character development I’ve seen on a show. Which is fantastic for someone who stopped english in their 2nd to last yeah of high school.
Also, the purple haired girl is scary as hell. I’m an economics student and being a heir of a rich family+personal army+being smart as hell+biased judicial train of thought=the biggest threat I’ve seen so far on this show.
That’s why I like her. She’s likely the one most suited to play the game of thrones.
Maybe he’s asking the wrong people in the first place. Asking help from Felt and Reinhard would be the best course of action to take, so I have high hope that next episode we will get some “improvement”. Also, oil? He tries to burn down the witch cult?
I think Felt would have helped him – but Reinhard is away, so that’s not an option.
The Hakugei is quite powerful its capable of erasing victims along with any memories the surroundings has of them. I wonder how will subaro manage to fight that demon. This anime is really damn cool!!!! I like the twist!!! but i wonder what demon is that on the last part of episode 15.
Negotiating in a way that offered to his opponents an easy chance to try to take advantage out of Subaru, he actually got to see the true colours of the other candidates, while learning about how he should negotiate and getting bits and pieces of info here and there.
I can only see him trusting even more Emilia seeing how all the other candidates behaved in front of an unconditional plea for help. Everybody is so greedy.
I wonder why Subaru could still remember the dude after he was erased.
I also wonder how people know about the Hakugei, I don’t ever remember it being referenced aside from Rem’s warning about the mist.
“When you can’t with by reason, go with volume” (Calvin&Hobbes)
Sorry, but I disagree with your assertion that we wouldn’t do better than Subaru if we were in his shoes – simply be pointing out that it’s really hard to do any worse.
Frankly, I can’t remember _any_ other anime in which the lead character is trying so hard to make me drop the show. Subaru started out problematic with an egotistical streak which irritated me quite a bit, but recently he’s de-facto devolved into an unsufferable pouty 5-year old kid that is screaming bloody murder and throwing a tantrum whenever things don’t go his way. Yes, he’s been through a lot, but unlike you, I neither find it interesting, nor does it make me feel sympathetic towards him. If he could just shut his mouth for 10 seconds, show a modicum of self-control and use his brain _before_ he acts, he might actually grow up and accomplish something. He had shown glimpses of this in the past. In _this_ arc, he has only regressed, with even less thinking and much more screaming. And I sure hope that this trend reverts itself, because as much as I find the plot interesting, there’s a limit to how much brattiness I can endure.
*wishing for an edit function*
“When you can’t win by reason, go with volume”, of course. And “simply by pointing out”.
Sorry.
I can certainly understand why you have lost patience with him and I would likely have the same opinion if his current streak continues. But I do think it’s wrong to look at him based on what you would do. We have the benefit of an outsiders perspective. We can see exactly where he’s going wrong and what he needs he needs to do. I think we need to look at it from the perspective of “If I was my teenage self who had gone through everything he did, would I be making all the right moves?” Cause frankly I think my teenage self would be screwing up harder than Subaru. Teenagers in general are stupid, selfish and think they got the world figured out. Subaru is actually pretty accurate to that.
I get that watching Subaru stumble and fall, make mistakes and flail around helplessly can be hard to watch but I like that this guy is the opposite of your typical shounen protagonist or gary stu. He starts as your average “yankee” delinquent, not too bright, not awesome by any means, trying to do right by himself, even though he’s obviously dancing in the palm of someone else’s hand. (Why is the new spawn point at the apple stand and not the Inn Subaru woke up in where Rem left him in the night? XD) And I kind of share his frustration at how he managed to resolve several nasty situations one after another, only to have something new and even nastier waiting for him soon after. And getting dumped so hard by Emilia, the whole point of it all. Ouch.
One thing I do like about him is how he never seems to quit. After all the hell he went through, from working up the courage to consciously throwing himself off a cliff onto jagged rocks to save a girl who had just violently killed him (more than once) over the past week or so. I’m honestly surprised he tried to make things work with them, instead of just making a run for it or harboring at least some distrust towards them. The story does seem to cover it somewhat but I don’t think it’ll ever be easy to get over getting violently murdered by someone repeatedly. (*Thinking of Shirou and Cu*)
All for Emilia, his love at first sight(?). Who just dumped him hard. And he’s still at it, trying to save her, even though he’s met several terrible ends trying. If this were a game and I were playing him, I might try going a few loops to gather as much information as possible, especially about the Witches and their cults. I’d be looking at any 7-sins related party as a potential witch faction going after the Witch of Envy. I would also think of mastering swordcraft, possibly Subaru’s shadow magic so it can do more than just create a fog, anything. He seems to be practicing but I don’t think he could take on Sloth minions yet. Much less Betelgeuse. Of course, I doubt Subaru’s even caught on that there might be multiple witch factions. Even Rem seems to consider any witch activity as related to a single all encompassing witch cult instead of multiple parties.
Everybody this episode threw clues at Subaru as to where he can improve, including Anastasia. Her association with Greed is very interesting to me. I wonder if she’s like Betelgeuse and can sense that Subaru is under the influence/control of a witch and considers him an ally/tool against Envy? (LOL if Envy is the one controlling him though.) I wonder if she can tell that he’s respawning? Are all the cat people around her fingers of Greed like the Sloth guys?
Subaru is already starting to pick up negotiation tricks. I liked how he managed to talk those merchants into assisting them. Looks like next week, he’s going to wake up at the apple stand again though. But for him, even what kills him will make him stronger. Did the 2nd OP clue us in on who he’ll rope in to take care of the whale?
This series is too awesome. And it’ll probably end without resolving much. I wish my japanese was good enough to read the novels. T.T I’m waiting for Elsa to show up again. (Mamiko Noto!! Spillover from my happiness at finally getting Scatlach in FGO. I hope Scatlach gets added to Fate Excella somewhere, even though she’s already voicing Atilla.) I wonder whose faction she’s with. She’s obviously anti-Emilia but seems to have been hired. But by whom? Off the top of my head, I would think the Greed faction, since solving things with money would sound very much like them. The objective was also non-violent. Just steal the emblem, instead of something like bring back Emilia’s head or just “disappearing” her. Although Elsa does wind up getting violent when things don’t go according to plan. I wonder if she kills Rom and Felt no matter what to shut them up? Also waiting for more Betty. Her scene with Subaru at the cliff was one of the best in the show. I don’t want to know what it would take to get me to jump off a cliff onto a bunch of sharp rocks. Even if I knew I’d live to tell about it afterwards.
The saddest part is nobody knows what Subaru is/has been going through. Even Puck, I think, can only get his emotions, and not his actual memories. Perhaps the only one who knows is the witch controlling him. And he is kind of breaking mentally.
Point taken. Yes, the very fact that for a change we get no Gary Stu as lead is commendable. But does it have to be like THIS?
Maybe it really is just a personal thing. Subaru represents a type of person that I _detest_:
1) A deeply ingrained feeling of entitlement. “I’m the hero, only I can help her, so she better be grateful”.
2) Rage, tantrums and screaming instead of thinking as reaction to adversity.
3) Next to no self-control.
There’s way too many of these kind of people in the real world, I have to admit that I don’t enjoy finding them in anime, too.
Even in the way tamer first arc, I was already wondering “Why is he screaming so much? Is this supposed to add drama or cause a bigger impact?” – and the second is even worse in this aspect. If the tendency of LN series to escalate developments, this may force me off this show which I generally really like. Because I don’t quite share your optimism yet that Subaru is growing. In this arc, he’s rather regressing. Let’s hope that this is merely supposed to be the reaction to the horror he has recently experienced.