We are at the end of an era or in layman’s terms we have reached the end of Re:Zero season 2 and it’s certainly been a journey. Unfortunately we have no word whatsoever on whether a third season is coming and I really hope they don’t leave us waiting another four years before anything comes. The popularity of Re:Zero makes it quite likely that another season is coming but nothing is set in stone until an announcement is made. If this is the final episode of this series then it makes for a rather underwhelming conclusion as it is definitely more of an end to a story arc rather than a full conclusion. Character arcs are certainly in a good spot and I suppose you could consider it a good stopping point as a lot of things have been resolved. That said the great Rabbit makes for a weak final encounter and there is clearly an air that there is much more to come after this fairy tale like atmosphere and villains yet to be dealt with. Though right now the question for us viewers is going to be what to fill the empty void it left in wednesdays. At least for me I can say it will no longer be eating up my entire evening writing a post on it if that is the only positive.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the great rabbit really was an anticlimax after the buildup and establishment of the level of threat it posed. I do get that the main threat that the rabbit is that it is notoriously hard to get rid of. In order to kill it you have to kill all of them at the exact same time and I think that actually needs to be the exact second. However as this episode shows, trapping the great rabbit isn’t that difficult so I don’t quite understand why nobody ever tried corralling them all into a hole or something. Perhaps the problem was having something that could bait them all but throughout this season it seems easy to lure them all with just food. On that I noticed that the great rabbit for a ravenous beast sure spends a long time just sitting and staring at its food. Ultimately the biggest challenge of this arc was convincing Beatrix to get out of her room and deal with it. She now appears to have a contract with Subaru and contrary to my previous assumption she does the majority of the heavy lifting with Subaru more acting as bait and helping out a little. A better way to handle things as giving Subaru power even through a secondary source could empower Subaru too much.
Aside from that we have the wrap up of Roswaals character arc with him getting a satisfying beating for all his wrongdoing by every character, even Petra. We have confirmation that he’s been transferring his soul down this family line and a rather curious reveal of what looks to be Echidna’s real face? I don’t know if it’s her at an older age or if she waifued herself up in the witch tea parties. Emilia managed to get a laugh out of me by actually believing that kisses create babies which shows that in kissing Subaru she essentially thought she was having his child. It’s a funny idea but does take on a rather morbid tone when you take into account that she kissed Subaru in the taste of death as well. By episode’s end we have Subaru turn from self proclaimed knight to actual knight in a sequence that is honestly so saccharine that it almost seems out of character for the series. I was waiting for the shoe to drop and show some sort of dark twist or reveal to sour the mood but that oddly never came. Perhaps like the first season there was a “Who’s Rem” moment that was cut from the ending in order to keep the season end seeming somewhat final.
As for my overall thoughts on this cour I would say that it was good but not great. The particular flaw of this season is that the first cour was so great that even a downgrade to good is a little disappointing. The flaw is that this cour had no return by death and there were far too many episodes dedicated to flashbacks. There were highlights but compared to the highlights of the first cour they fell short. That said this has been a pretty great second season and it certainly has changed a lot of people’s minds on Re:Zero as a whole. Perhaps popularly wise it was overshadowed by the likes of Attack on Titan but I would say fans of the first season are quite satisfied. I have heard that the next season would be a lot more action focused which could be a detriment. There was a good action episode this cour but I have my doubts on Re:Zero being able to maintain that level of quality for an entire season. Of course the question is if there will be a third season as currently it’s looking optimistic but you can never tell. If Re:Zero were to end here I would be disappointed as much like other anime it would feel like a story cut off too early. We need another season White Fox, and please don’t let this one take four years to come.
Looks like I was right that if Subaru lost his bet with Roswaal that he’d become Roswaal’s lackey and be forced to not save everyone since Roswaal saying that he himself was laying some groundwork for the next time shows that Roswaal thought their bet would carry on into Subaru’s next life, which means it is something Subaru could not undo. This was somewhat confirmed in Episode 45 when Roswaal said that because of their wager that Subaru had become an ordinary person, which shows that their bet has an effect on the soul, the only thing that doesn’t reset when Subaru dies because his body fully resetting means it’s his soul that retains his memories from past lives. This bet was an interesting way to add tension to the story for those who say that Subaru resetting everything kills any tension in the story.