Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World 2 -24 [Choose Me]

In the end they only played the new opening and new ending about twice in an entire cour, that’s got to be some new record. My dear readers we are right at the finish line of the second season of Re:Zero and I can finally go back into retirement…at least until the next season rolls around…or LOGHs next episodes…or Heaven’s Feel 3…this site just won’t let go of me will it? Well I wouldn’t be complaining if Re:Zero dragged me out of retirement again as if anything I pray for it. I will consider my year made if they announce a season 3 in next week’s episode because I have decided that I won’t be reading the light novels as I just find the anime far more enjoyable. I have chosen the path of thorns in that regard as god only knows how long it will take for this story to be adapted to anime, provided we even get the full story. That said, Devil is a part timer got a sequel announced recently after eight years of nothing, so there could be hope. Maybe even Spice and Wolf season 3 if we dare to dream.

We might have reached the action quota for the season as today’s episode was mainly dialogue and emotional breakthroughs, with Emilia taking charge of giving Roswaal a kick in the ass and Subaru getting Beatrix to finally break out of the library. Reception to this episode appears to be quite positive if reddit is any good metric but I am reminded of a particular comment that one of my fellow writers on the site made about Re:Zero veering close to becoming just another isekai power fantasy. Indeed I once expressed a similar concern in my coverage of season 1 as Re:Zero does often toe the line that most modern Isekai fall over but often narrowly misses it. I may have finally understood just why that is from watching this episode, if not this entire cour in general, as well as alluded to it before. Essentially when you get down to it, Subaru’s failure runs are often far more interesting than the runs in which he succeeds. In a successful run, Subaru essentially lives out the isekai life he felt entitled to when he first arrived, the power of love and friendship saves the day, plot armour is on full force for main characters(Well Rem is an exception but there is the note that she’s sleeping with the chance of recovery and not full on dead) and Subaru gets a harem of girls that love him. Actually that may be my main problem with this episode in general as Subaru’s speech to Beatrix felt less like a friend reaching out to a friend and more like a love confession from a visual novel.

It seems rather odd to have Beatrix once dismiss Subaru in a previous run for reaching out to her when she cornered him on the fact that she would never be his number one yet in this run Subaru essentially is pushing an ultimatum on Beatrix to either die or be together with him which Beatrix only counters with the reality that Subaru’s lifespan would run out long before Beatrix’s did. Roswaal remarked on Subaru’s greed with this plan and indeed this is quite greedy with Subaru reaching out to claim the heart of another girl with whom he has already claimed the hearts of two, three if we count Petra’s crush. This is where the comment about Re:Zero being on the border of Isekai wish fulfillment rings a chord as for as much as I like the things it does right, this harem aspect has always been at odds with me. Subaru gaining power could potentially break this story but in the same way if Subaru ends this story with a high reputation due to his feats and a harem of girls then regardless of the effort and suffering he put in to achieve it, it would feel disingenuous to the message of Re:Zero as a whole. It wouldn’t be a message of self improvement for oneself but rather the message of “Put in a bit of effort and then you will obtain the things you believe you are entitled to” I would say that Tappei wouldn’t take it down that route due to what has been shown so far and his own inherent sadism but having recently finished watching Warlords of Sigrdrifa I would say that perhaps such a conclusion might not be beyond him.

So why is it that Subaru’s failed runs make for more interesting entertainment? Frankly because it’s within those that all Isekai convention is hereby thrown to the side and anything can truly happen. Plot armour is erased, Subaru can take the completely wrong actions, the bad guys can win and tropes be damned cause nothing can truly be predicted fully. In general stories you have an underlying set of rules which must be upheld as without them the story cannot continue. I can be certain that you could name a large number of stories wherein the hero gets the girl, defeats the villain and rides off into the sunset but I would say you could name less stories where the villain gets away, the hero lies dying while the girl cradles him having gone completely insane. For if an ordinary story went with option two, the story would end there and the writer would have to either negate the situation entirely or come up with a brand new cast to accomplish what they could not. My previous comparison of Re:Zero to a visual novel might be surprisingly apt as it does feel at times like an adaptation of a visual novel which adapts both the good and bad endings. One thing people may be surprised to hear is that the Fate/Stay night visual novel actually has forty bad endings detailing various ways Shirou could have died or suffered fates worse than death during his ordeals in the Holy Grail War but these aren’t the things you see in those animated adaptations as they only adapt the run in which he succeeds. It’s an aspect which Visual novels don’t take advantage of much admittedly as they are more interested in showing changes in the story based on the romantic interest you pick. But it is in those bad endings that a story can go truly off the rails into some interesting territory which is likely what makes horror stories so appealing.

I know I have said little about todays episode in this post and more talked about Re:Zero’s careful balancing act between wish fulfillment Isekai and more ambitious fantasy but I admit that we have a case of what you see speaking for itself. I do like that with the burning of the book, Roswaal is left stripped of his previous confidence and stupefied as to what he should do. Along with implications that he has been transferring his memories down his family line to carry out Echidna’s will with Beatrix mentioning him researching soul transference and this could actually connect to the prophecy of last episode which also made mention of it. Emilia being assertive and acting like the ruler shes being pushed to become is great as well as the bits of naive comedy out of her. I like the parallel of a former neet convincing a fantasy neet to leave her room and from the end of the episode I have a suspicion of Beatrix acting as a kind of mana battery for Subaru’s unseen hand as Yin magic was previously said to be more along the lines of support rather than true offence. But as a negative I really must mention how absurd it was that Subaru was running around and being in a burning building without letting out a single cough. The general rule of fires is that it isn’t the fire that kills you but rather the smoke they produce which leads to suffocation. So for Subaru to be within a fire for so long and still be able to give a rousing speech to Beatrix without coughing his lungs out seems like a bad oversight from the writer. I get the very nature of the situation was to force Beatrix into a position where she must choose between life and death but I think a small line or show of magic could have at least hand waved away the anime logic into something a little more believable. I think the main thing we can take away from this is that Echidna is going to be furious that Roswaal burned down her library. So next week is the last episode and I might spend that post talking about my overall thoughts on the season but I can say that certain individuals definitely lied about the second cour being better than the first and I was right to suspect as such considering how little I remembered of it. Once again I can sit smugly in the forever right chair, cross my legs and then pretend I am always sitting on it till the next time I get pushed to the ground.