“For a rat, Poison. For a White Whale, a harpoon. To our Honorable Dragon we are, Shitbags”
The above was actually the first time the white whale was mentioned in this series, way back in the second part of episode one. This was the password Felt said to gain entry to Roms shack. The first line makes me wonder if there is a rat mabeast giving the kingdom an equal amount of trouble. This was a pretty great episode. So much so that I will even forgive the music at the start of the episode blatantly robbing part of the Melody of the Chrono Trigger Theme. Todays episode focused on the battle against the White Whale and on the past of Wilhelm who was likely channeling the spirit of King Bradley from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Wilhelm when it came to fighting but I certainly wasn’t expecting him to jump on the thing and slice it up in what could be considered completely ridiculous yet strangely awesome at the same time. Goes to show that in this universe everyone is truly ten times more powerful than Subaru.
Even an old man, or more specifically an old man’s wife make Subaru seem like average Villager A. The flashback to Wilhelms younger days honestly would make for an interesting story on it’s own and there is a extra novel detailing how he and his wife meet and fell in love. Still the small scenes give us a decent idea of what exactly happened and I quite regret that Theresia is dead seeing as she is quite likeable. I wonder if it’s going to be a thing from now on for Re:Zero to make every side female character deeper and more interesting than the main Heroine? Emilia, you are going to need some serious development to catch up here.
We have the reveal of not only Wilhelm’s wife but Satella the jealous witch makes a brief but long awaited first appearance. When Subaru tries to tell someone about his power in order to draw the White Whales attention, Sattella appears over his shoulder with only her lips visible. She mouths the words “I love you” before disappearing. Seems she’s quite taken with Subaru but that’s likely not a good thing. It’s been pointed out previously in the series that if the Jealous witch takes an interest in you then it will only lead to bad things. In this case she isn’t just interested in Subaru, she’s outright enamored with him much to Betelgeuse’s dismay. White Fox have taken the costly move of not resorting to CGI to animate the white whale and I certainly thank them for it. CGI is still recognised as such no matter how well it is done and will truly never quite match the level of a 2D animated object.
The animation of this episode was quite brilliant and the fight was exhilarating with a nice exchange of blows between both parties. At first I was worried that the White whale would go down without much of a fight considering how much of a beating the army were giving it. But they managed to show just why this thing is so dangerous once it summoned its fog. It was similar to a raid fight in an MMO as all members of the army jumped into to attack in waves. The more damage they inflicted on this thing, the more dangerous it gets. Summoning the fog to hide, blasting people out of existence, making people go insane with it’s roars and pulling out it’s final and most dangerous card by episodes end. This thing knows how to put up a fight and I certainly would love to give it a fight in Monster Hunter if they ever made a tribute to it.
The beginning of this battle started off with such hope and perhaps I should have seen that this being Re:Zero, things were going far too well. At episode’s end it makes me wonder if this is a dead end for Subaru and he may need to come back to this battle with new reinforcements. Perhaps he needs Priscilla to give him a hand and maybe Felt can manage to get Reinhart to join the faye. Fairly certain he could make short work of this beast but as Wilhelm pointed out, his wife shouldn’t have been killed by this creature if it was only this strong. He’s right in that regard as based on how much Wilhelm was ripping it apart, his wife would have made short work of it. But then the answer comes with the episode’s cliffhanger. That there is not a White Whale but instead White Whales.
Considering that the army threw everything they had and couldn’t even kill one this truly doesn’t bode well for Subaru. Even Wilhelm is out of the running now but something tells me he isn’t dead quite yet. That whale swallowed him whole and I think he would be able to cut his way out. So once again this series leaves me thirsting for more as we get a new ending sequence that likely won’t be put to much use in the last few episodes. In fact we managed to get an opening and ending in an episode for once which is good yet somewhat disappointing. The next episode likely will end the battle with the white whale but one must wonder how much trouble the Witches cult after this will give Subaru seeing as the White Whale most likely wouldn’t leave anyone ready to help take them down.