A reunion that was supposed to spell the arrival of peaceful times is quickly shattered when Subaru Natsuki and Emilia return to Irlam village. Witnessing the devastation left behind by the calamities known as Sin Archbishops, Subaru sinks into the depths of despair as his ability to redo proves futile.
As the group makes their way to the Sanctuary in search of answers, Subaru has an unexpected encounter with the Witch of Greed—Echidna. Subjected to her untamed rhythm, he is forced to dive into the spirals of the past and future. At the same time, several mysterious threats set their sights on the Sanctuary, heralding a horrific fate for the hapless people trapped within.
Everlasting contracts, past sins, and unrequited love will clash and submerge into a river of blood in the second season of Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu. Pushed to the brink of hopelessness, how long will Subaru's resolve to save his loved ones last?
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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HanashiD4
Behold an unthinkable present! “I tried so hard And got so far But in the end It doesn’t even matter I had to fall To lose it all But in the end It doesn’t even matter” — In the End by Linkin Park“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” — William Shakespeare
Grief, trauma, sacrifice, burden, despair, depersonalization, and perseverance. This is what the dark and harsh reality of Re: Zero calls to wake Subaru up from his blind confidence and optimism before the light of hope and darkness of despair. It is a charm of suffering with a vicious substance in the depth of loneliness. The world with shine and gloom bestows one’s fate to realize before his eyes and crawl through the walls of fear. The horror of solitude craves him to curb his fancy by the answer of truth. With answers and consequences, what fate will judge Subaru according to his deeds?
With his weak yet “immortal’’ ability called Return By Death, Subaru must determine if his hope will either remain him standing or cripple him out till the corner of despair. Lost in the new world, he found his hope to grasp away from the solitude and build up with his smiles and plays as Emilia and others share the bond together. He truly wants to save his friends and comrades to stay away or fight through it, but his fanciful determination will result either in miracle or collapse. His ability considers as a reset button to move forward through a solitary phenomenon for altering his fate and judgment; however, the price of it, such as others’ forgetfulness because of dimensional hopping and the restriction to expose his truth behind the curtain by himself, is intensely flawed — delivering the chance for an alternative resolution within the plot as if he acquitted himself for cleansing his own sins.
Tappei did an outstanding job at applying the Law of Equivalent Exchange to his ability, especially his weak physicality — making it a simple yet intense thrill to catch the audience away from its boredom of perfection. The suspense is masterful and consistent based on every context, which makes Re:Zero intriguing to let more fans craft more theories and questions as a layer of curious engagement. Moreover, his character means to be morally gray as he doesn’t look at the other side easily, which means he can be once a foolish and casual person like us to aggress somebody to those who might threaten him or not. He has his own priority, flaws, pride, ways of resolve, and love for Emilia as his “knight in shining armor” personality drives him to be whoever he is. He can cry as a wimpy bastard or a try-hard hero of himself, but his determination grasps it ever since he had been gradually developing by chasing his grit even further with alternative resolution. Through his behavioral process, he manages to stay casual without forcing himself to be an uninvited guest in front of a pillar of society. That’s what makes Subaru a human person and a true knight — not his own heroic and fanciful delusions which most people like Ram, Priscilla, and Julius despised him for his amateur overconfidence by his self-importance back from the prequel of this anime adaptation.
He manages his personality to be uptight and miserable; however, Rem volunteers to be as one whom Subaru will vent out his drastic feeling that flows within him as the time of Episode 18 snaps him out despite resulting in an expected rejection. His vulnerability strikes him to grasp his confidence, but his lack of self-esteem asserts the reason for his failure. For now, he frequently realizes that the world itself doesn’t fulfill his fanciful wishes to become reality at all, which fate matters based on the context he made in the first place. It only works if the ethical standard has been met, and then Subaru will come for the rest. Hence, he is a well-written character. He consistently had gone through the process of Dunning-Kruger effect in a psychological sense based on his character from the midway of Season 1, and right now, we’re still looking forward to its next level…. I mean, this second season.
From the reference of Dunning-Kruger effect to the extent of Subaru’s Peak of Stupidity till his Valley of Despair in the first season, the second season projects more about his Slope of Enlightenment through the Trial of Sanctuary by Echidna’s lost soul. It tackles more about the diversity of its gloomy atmosphere. The mechanism of reality with unawareness of difference is crucially perilous. Without facing it, there will be no point to gain the courage against others with dreadful courage and competence.
Compared to most isekai series, Re:Zero subverts the common trope into its substantial value for achieving the unique message and formulating the setting to an authentic extent. The overarching plot has been connected, and the premise of this series becomes more lucid. Most characters are compelling to provide their own ideals based on the contextual background, and there are little to no nonsensical tropes to be presented in a big picture.
There are also new characters being set up to their motive, creating its thickness of plot development, and some side characters are well-reserved for their own plot progression. Most of them aren’t just here to boost Subaru’s morale, they usually have their own priority which provides the importance of their livelihood as the role of themselves and society. Sometimes can be friendly, and sometimes can be contradictory. The “power of friendship” trope is well done with proper foundation of each other’s relationship as if most students are sometimes doubting each other for some tentative reasons. They have their own stories which affect how they have been nurtured ever since behind Subaru’s back, making them relevant in most cases. With proper consistency, it is understandable for audiences to pique their curiosity and craft more hypotheses based on the observation throughout every significant scene.
The slow pacing of this season did a great job of building up more worldbuilding, character interaction, and lore for serving the premise to its promising level as the plot thickens further with multiple ways to ensure and stabilize the core theme of the story into a complex understanding of every fundamentals in a gradual manner; however there are some scenes that are rushed yet sensible to assert its foundation.
The story is written in Third-Limited narrative style, which Subaru always owns the spotlight of Re: Zero’s main storyline, and the narrative standpoint matches it up to deliver both contextual factors of shock and suspense. The plot follows in dimensional-hopping theory which most audiences think this is a time-travelling series; hence, it laughs me off whenever I mostly hear of its misconceptions. It fleshes out the message of the story and the concept of Subaru’s purpose and development for living in another world, especially Episode 4, which it also fills the space for making its premise to be more purposeful and adds the mystery or any substantial details on why Subaru was sent to this world to begin with. It also molds Subaru’s self-reflection during the time in his original world for projecting more leniency and understanding about his own character. The poignancy within Season 2 encapsulates and expands all the underlying feelings Subaru had before.
There are a lot of minor details that have foreshadowed for the future occurrence within a big picture, and there will be more twists to come if you pay close attention to every little detail. These perceptible details throughout the series significantly matter the most for the plot progression to be understandable, and connecting each plot point with sensible pictures is worth engaging to liven the audiences up in a mindblowing extent. Moreover, the story puts so many obstacles and chilling aura as Subaru will face against the odds for his objective to pass the trial and deactivate the barrier of the Sanctuary.
As a LN reader, I really hope this Arc 4 will give a proper and consistent adaptation since this is the best arc among the rest, and it did; however, there are some slight chances which disappoints me for a bit. Particularly, the animation quality and cut contents clouds me to clench my fist for a while; however, I don’t care about it since I’m all up for this beautiful and eerie story of a psychological drama and thrill in a visual manner because the rollercoaster is on the way. It also reminds me that they might cut some LN contents to avoid an excessive level of exposition dumps, and instead the anime adaptation prioritizes more into “Show, don’t tell” rule… or in other cases, “Show and tell” rule.
There are also some episodes with dialogue-heavy standards, but it is essential and relevant to its case for building up more consistency and adding the layers of intensity and progression with more directional questions as the anime provides more exploration with subtle explanation.
I wonder if some people say that the dialogues within Re:Zero are “systematically” jarring, then I totally disagree. First of all, dialogues are the key element to establish the characterization which provides what and how the characters are sharing and communicating in a way to create the social understanding between each other. If we say that the conversation is kinda “boring”, then have you tried chatting with others in serious times or listening to other people’s serious chat?
If we often ignore the conversation from other people, then it doesn’t build up the social exposure to the point that we have to understand each other’s perception. That’s also the similar case to how Re:Zero achieved its dialogue system. It is systematically consistent to the point that every character has to articulate before it will become otherwise. Whether in hypothetical or moral sense, every human being is an inconsistent creature with limited thought process and biased morality/ideology, and with distinctions, there’s a serving purpose of your need to communicate. That’s why you need something to vent out your thoughts and feelings.
If some audiences have reacted with their thoughts about the dialogue being “jarring, then that’s just a matter of your first subjective impression through how communication works.
Anyway, the orchestral music hits the thespian or gloomy vibes with a phenomenal melody which enthralls more transverse atmosphere as it pleases our ears to render its theme with consistency. The symbolizing beats are presented well with contextual deliverance. It signals perfectly to every character’s tone as it builds up more aura and meaningfulness around them. Each scene comprises its suitable meaning, which it brings more vigor to express the stimulation between fear and courage. However, I despise that they mostly haven’t provided the time for opening and ending song to present within every episode, yet it also exchanges with more lengthy minutes to catch up the writing size into an essential and almost absolute extent for recognizing the plot progression into a comprehensible standard. Length-wise, it is appreciative to offer each episode with significant impact by providing more projection to adapt.
In regards to the character section, please be aware of spoilers because I might go detailed for this.
**WARNING: SPOILERS ALERT**
At first, Frederica is introduced to be a new… or rather a recurring maid, as she formerly served Roswaal before the time of Ram’s duty. Her gentle personality has shown and explained about her professional experience of being Roswaal’s former and latter maid, so it suits her to be a person with decent help as a maid herself. Since there is an effect to forget someone’s existence, it also affects Roswaal to hire two maids, especially Petra. She also establishes a significance about her own character as she trains Petra to be a proper maid and also swear herself by the letter that she only got in her own hands as a hidden background about her — which we will get to know more about her later in the second cour. The twist of events is clear and connected between Rem’s occurrence and the purpose of their introduction; hence, it’s understandable.
However, one problem in dialogue-wise, for example, is Petra’s inappropriate response which triggers something abrupt to progress the story in a silly way. Whenever I see her, I always cringe when she often baffles me and other compelling characters with awkward moments throughout every scene; nevertheless, I don’t hate her since she is a kid with potential.
There is also another new character being introduced with relation to Frederica called Garfiel. Compared to Frederica, his older sibling, Garfiel appears to be a barbarous yet friendly character with strong finesse to begin with. At first, he remains intact and rational to the fact that he slightly cares for other people, especially Arlam Refugees, to have their sojourn. However, because of many loops from Subaru’s deeds, he alters his behavior to assault Subaru (and his other supporters/Arlam Refugees) because he senses an outgrown miasma throughout Subaru’s aura — dictating that he will protect the Sanctuary at all cost. He surely has his own deeds and priority with Ryuzu Shima’s help to establish his significance as a side character who will put himself as an obstacle against Subaru’s odds, making himself relevant to this case.
On the other hand, Otto has the support for Subaru, Emilia, and the rest of Arlam Refugees. He has the role to provide them with transportation, but it’s not just for that. He also has more responsibility to build more wholesome interaction with Subaru and Garfiel, ensuring himself that he will be in a great place for them — especially Otto saves and impresses Subaru with his timid humor and personality. However, Otto’s wholesome development has been wasted and paid by Subaru’s death loops to alter his destiny for a greater cause, but it doesn’t mean for him to be just a neglected accessory to Subaru’s eyes since Subaru himself wants to hide his burden and lift it up by himself. For now, he has a good potential to be a prominent character, and I hope the second cour will give him more screentime to showcase his significant greatness by helping Subaru out and determining himself to develop out of his comfort zone of timidity.
Roswaal has revealed his importance and plot progression for serving his purpose with the Gospel which also has it with Beatrice, uncovering their agency behind them. Surely, they have a long-time relationship between both of them since they have been residing within the mansion for a long time, and the context makes sense as it is according to the plan. Beatrice, however, has some share of problems with Subaru about her supposed role which clouds her from being isolated. How she conveys her emotional confrontation with Subaru grasps her outstanding chance to vent out her feeling of solitude within her own comfort zone, conserving it to build up more layers about her for the potential development. Beatrice also represents herself as a hermit which makes her an intriguing and realistic symbol of an isolated persona. Similar to Otto’s case of development, she can be a suitable candidate for that as well — looking forward to getting out of her comfort zone.
Echidna is also introduced as the Witch of Greed and a transcendental character by letting Subaru enter the Castle of Dreams. Her cold yet charm-provoking personality shines her gloomy aura to be a likeable and knowledgeable character as if she perceives logic through emotions just as she provides Subaru to confront his own past through his memories for his self-reflection. Her mild support to Subaru by his reminiscence helps the audience to know more about his character and build up a connection between the fantasy and the reality, which makes Episode 4 so special to our own eyes. However, Echidna knows her own goal behind Subaru’s back and stabs it as she teases his intuition with her plan. Her sham and manipulative exaggeration hits the bullseye towards Subaru’s heart which surprises me by her deceiving plan, as her black-hearted aura impresses me more. Her greed and love for knowledge is intelligible. Her sense of hatred and dark humor conveys well, and we’ll see more about it. Thus, I really love her pride and competence of being the Witch of Greed which gives an impact of her neutral strength. Hence, she’s my favorite character.
The rest of Witches have their unique characteristic based on their respective symbols. However, one of them doesn’t properly present their substance, such as Minerva’s obnoxious personality, and yet the charm of it is still there. The message delivers well to show how Subaru is judged by his own flawed nature and deeds, especially Typhon who projects Subaru’s sin within the depth of his inner core as being a “good” guy doesn’t mean to be truly a sinner. Each of their metaphors are simply considerable with their perceptible charm. Furthermore, we get to know more about Satella who isn’t entirely a “villain” character whom we thought to be, and her self-conflict is a minor point to recognize the value behind something we can’t see more about her.
Meanwhile, Elsa has reappeared once again to achieve her goal by putting herself before Subaru and his friends as their obstacle, making herself as a well-reserved antagonist. From the prequel, we can understand that her goal failed to achieve Emilia’s badge as she retreated from Reinhard’s abrupt help; however, this second season made a reservation for her to reveal her Plan B in a hidden manner. We really don’t know her motives behind the curtain yet, but the second cour will open the curtain for more explanation in a suitable time. Meili Potroute is also reintroduced as a hostile character alongside Elsa, and a minor detail from Season 1 makes a plot twist understandable when you pay close attention to it. Her introduction in scene-wise, however, feels boring yet equitable to play her own part.
It’s grueling for Subaru to learn from his mistakes and face against the odds as he needs a harsh and gradual realization for his endurance against his obstacles before his eyes. “I know hell” is what creates his words for him to act, and that “hell” is a laudable metaphor to describe his clasp of strength for shouldering the burden and moving forward despite its vicious outcome. The heavy impact throughout his experiences is understandable, which in return, most audiences can connect their empathy with Subaru — conveying more concerns regarding his own concerns. He has a lot of aims to set and stand by himself up for persevering through many ways to alter his fate against itself. He plays the puzzles in which one or multiple moves will tear him down into pieces if he stumbles on the wrong floor, welcoming him to the pit of despair. If not, then there will be a light of hope awaiting towards the end of Sanctuary. Because in the end, the only way for Subaru to fix the situation is to fix himself.
Meanwhile, Emilia will also face the trial by facing her tragic past that is still behind the curtains yet. For this season, we finally see her worthwhile flaw from being a “perfect” girl. Its twisted helplessness cripples her pragmatic mind in a discordant extent from bearing what comes before her as if she has been taking a lot of Math exams and being overly preoccupied by her restless yet twisted cloud of effort. Her uncontrolled state gives the impact to pull her away from blind of kindness.
There is no world where we can escape that loneliness without changing the core.
***SPOILERS END***
In regards to animation, there are some episodes, especially Episode 6 and 12, which have rigid proportions and movements as if some animators have a hard time rendering the sketches due to some bit of miscommunication amid the quarantine period. This is one of a problematic category which slightly baffles me to enjoy less than the quality in Season 1. Some erroneous frames and CGI renditions can be noticeable for most audiences to identify its upsetting quality. Whenever I rewatch these scenes, I’d rather grab my dumbbells and do the squats to sweat out my frustration, and I’m not also the type who will just cross my eyes and say “Fine!”. Nonetheless, it’s still fine if the adaptation is faithfully well-done which it is truly as it is.
Overall, this anime adaptation has exceptional results to capture its aesthetic value to a further extent. As Season 1 delivers some weak conclusions within the second half, the first cour of Season 2 provides a high slope of twist to let the audience rise for an engaging rollercoaster ride. Oh, boy! It punches right through the feels with sensible foundation as this show serves like a dark chocolate with 25% of sweetness. The worldbuilding here is excellent as it builds up more atmosphere into a thematic balance between light and dark. Re: Zero is packed with epitome of suffering, perseverance for truth and doubts, horror of loneliness, and substantial depth of self-reflection through the mastery of melodrama with contextual deliverance. Forcing Subaru to confront the consequences of his many deaths is a masterstroke for the series, even before you consider the terrifying and heart wrenching way in which it was delivered. While Re:Zero is great at genuine horror and gore, it is in the psychological terror that this show truly shines. I can safely say that it deserves more acclaim because this season fills up more layers from what it lacks in Season 1, and it has fulfilled the promise. All I do right now is to sit back and relax to enjoy my smiles and frowns while connecting myself through its excellent narration with indulgence of an outstanding cliffhanger. If there will be a single teaser for Season 3 adaptation, I will moan and cry for it. Hence, it’s my all-time favorite anime. This show is highly recommendable if you already have watched Season 1.
As the first cour offers more questions, will the second cour answer them?
To be continued in Winter 2021!
Marinate1016
The term "peak fiction" often gets thrown around and has somewhat lost its meaning these days. Peak fiction, for me, is something that exemplifies masterful storytelling, world building and well written characters. The best of the best. The zenith of storytelling. Only a few series I've ever read/seen have reached those heights. Re:Zero is one of them and is in indeed, peak fiction. Disclaimer, I am a Light Novel reader and Re:Zero is one of my favourite book series of all time. For that reason, I had a proverbial magnifying glass out when watching S2 cour 1. Looking for any type of adaptation, animation and artisticerrors. I genuinely found none. This first cour was one of the best adaptations I've ever seen of a Light Novel and you can tell it was crafted with love and by fans of the series.
The pacing and cinematography are done so well that it's apparent the staff fully understood the message of the 3 volumes adapted this cour and did an amazing job of translating it into the anime. Other than the second trial in episode 12, I can't really think of anything that was omitted or cut.
White Fox continue to impress me as a studio. From Steins;Gate to Re:Zero they have consistently put out heat and it's great to see.
Narratively, this season really starts the story of Re:Zero. Think of everything you saw in the first season as an appetiser of sorts for what we got in this cour and what's to come. The world and characters are so rich that you just get sucked in and want to uncover all of its mysteries. Speaking of getting sucked in, one really cool artistic choice that i enjoyed from this season was the omission of the OP and or ED on most episodes. White Fox prioritised storytelling over the intro and outro which allowed for much smoother transitions between episodes than most shows have. A minor thing that goes a long way for me.
In conclusion, Re:Zero S2 first cour was one of the best LN adaptations I have ever seen and did an amazing job of laying the foundation for what's to come in the story. It's a fun, wild, painful and beautiful ride that will leave you wanting more and more. Scariest thing is, we're just getting started.
Re:Zero S2 first cour gets 10 cups of Dona Tea out of 10.
SingleH
It’s not often I find myself with the experience to’ve been on both sides of the anime fandom regarding a show as contentious as Re:Zero. Whether you’re among the uncontrollable super-fans who’ve adored Re:Zero for the last four years or among its haters who’ve vehemently despised it for just as long and decried it with just as much fervor, I bet there was never a time when you were in the opposing camp, and while I suppose my position isn’t quite so polarizing, it’s definitely an awkward middle-ground of its own. What’s worse is the fact my opinions on the show as I knew it werenever actually changed, but the second season’s stark contrast to the first was so strong, that when it forced me to average the quality of both seasons, the results weren’t pretty.
I think what makes Re:Zero so interesting to me is just how ostensibly bland it is. All the people who hate it are of the opinion Re:Zero is any other isekai, and if you think otherwise, you’re either blind to tropes or just plain stupid, and they are basically correct, just for incorrect reasons. Where Re:Zero is bland is in its proceedings, its moment-to-moment. While its setting is that of every isekai fantasy you’ve ever seen, the actual set design of the world and its many locations is where the uncharacteristic amount of effort put into the show’s production really begins to shine. The first season of Re:Zero is extremely well-produced for a White Fox show—White Fox being a relatively small studio with little industry purchasing power and few people to outsource from, which isn’t even mentioning how often they themselves are outsourced from, left with even less staff to work on in-house projects with—so the fact they could put out anything on the level of Re:Zero season one is honestly incredible. The world of Re:Zero wasn’t the same game-start village copy/pasted from Konosuba ad nauseam, it was a real world, and it felt like a setting with some thought put into its creation, even if said creation was ultimately somewhat basic. The background art was as inconsistent as any modern anime nowadays, but at their height they were fairly gorgeous, and the color work was fantastic, especially at the beginning of the show. Re:Zero was, all things considered, a technically cared for work of animation in a landscape of utterly soulless contemporaries. However, the tropes really started seeping through the cracks in its text. While there is more political intrigue in the world of Re:Zero than there is in others, said political intrigue is quite sophomoric and not even explored that extensively. It’s a royal succession, and each of the different candidates has the most distilled version of whatever archetypically opposing ideology the author assigned them to have. You’ve got your capitalist, your royalist, your anarchist, your chivalrist, and your token moderate in Emilia. What I’m getting at here is just how simpleminded the show is under a magnifying glass despite the heart and soul behind its presentation, which is why what ultimately rocketed the series to stardom was the addictive shock-value in its thrilling direction and the astounding breadth of tone it was able to command in persuading its audience to care. Subaru is, to the haters’ credit, just the otaku self-insert. He’s just your self-deprecating guy serving as a mirror to the audience, pandering until they find him relatable, but the subtle difference in Subaru’s characterization is in the fact he actually has a personality, whereas most of these kinds of characters don’t. Most of these characters are only self-deprecating in so far as their mere existence, and devoid of realism, they never get ugly. Subaru, genuinely, gets very ugly.
When people claim every isekai protagonist is commenting on the otaku condition to some degree, they aren’t wrong, but those exemplars don’t dare get as personal as Subaru. Most isekai protagonists just go, “Oh, I’m this lazy bastard, but isekai turned my world upside down, and now I’m a god because, well, it’s like a game world, and I’m an epic gamer,” so on and so forth, but this admittance of having lived a pathetic life is still within the viewer’s comfort zone, because the show then commits itself to shameless escapism which justifies the indulgent lifestyle it just called pathetic with a fantasy world who’s sole purpose is to reify skills once worthless in the real world. While Re:Zero has all the same tangible elements in its many waifus and MMO RPG style setting, Subaru’s life is by no means worth being envious of because his super power is a curse. It’s not the most creative subversion in the world, but nevertheless, it is an intentional difference clearly meant to make a point, because instead of empowering him, his life in another world mercilessly tears him down. People hate Subaru even though—let’s be honest—they’re otaku of the anime community the same as he is, because they don’t have the perspective to acknowledge the fact he just hit way too close to home. I love Emilia memes aside, when people say they hate Subaru because of episode thirteen, what they’re really saying is it got too real. Most hack isekai authors imbue their protagonists with one rule and one rule only: keep it funny. The anxieties of their main characters are exclusively addressed through wry, self-deprecating humor, and their issues only effect them in their own minds and never become physically destructive, but with Subaru, the otaku’s problems have suddenly been manifested into stress, anger, and any other realistic emotional response, so it stopped being funny and just showed how sad the condition really is. If you hate a character merely because they’re impure, either you’re too immature to accept a fictional character being as complexly flawed as a real one, or you’re made uncomfortable by the fact you clearly see yourself in them, in which case you’re just a fucking coward. Subaru is proof a generic character can still be human, and when he endures such torture, those who empathize with his weakness invest in his struggles easily because he is the archetype easiest to connect with. He is the otaku boy, he is the self-insert, and the fact he’s depicted with such a beating heart elicits a genuine emotional reaction from his audience comprised of individuals much like himself. Personally, it was endearing to see a show with such an honest protagonist finally tackle the themes others like it had avoided or made light of, and it made the show feel like something a little more special and meaningful than the rest in its shallow genre.
The first season’s crowing jewel, though, is definitely its directing. The way that beautiful color design—the color balance in particular, and the gradients in the shading—informs the aesthetic; the tone shifts triggered by the atmospheric coloration and the brilliantly timed musical queues; and the audio editing and sound design, which themselves are facets of production very much overlooked in genres as cheap as isekai. It all has such attention to detail put into its presentation, it makes the show as a whole a more immersive experience. Re:Zero never feels too edgy because of how artfully crafted its scenes are, even when they are, by all rights, way too edgy. Almost in spite of this, though, the script behind the cinematography—not the sincere themes weaved throughout the script, but the writing itself—is always at odds with this directing style, and this is the problem with Re:Zero season one and the exacerbated problem with Re:Zero season two. What makes the script the problem is it’s so much more childish than the actual psychological core of the show is. I just discussed how Subaru is a character who makes his audience face reality in a lot more poignant a fashion than his contemporary self-inserts commenting on the audience watching them, but the way in which he goes about this is utterly juvenile, because he just over-explains himself in such petty detail way too much. When people criticize, for example, Mari Okada shows for being melodramatic, all I can think is, “Well, you’re not wrong, but if THIS is your bar for melodrama, then you yourself must be one hell of a drama queen.” Listen, Re:Zero is melodramatic, okay? The average anime is melodramatic. “Melodramatic” just means what is more dramatic than is realistic, and in real life, no one rants about their emotions as much as characters do in this show, in most anime, and in most casual entertainment in general, be it animation, live-action, or god damn puppet shows. I know the counterargument to what I’m saying right now is going to be one big fat middle finger, because if 99.9% of anime write themselves in this way, then why even bother bitching? But my argument to that is, well, 99.9% of anime aren’t masterpieces. Yes, a lot of them do have this problem, but that doesn’t make it not a problem, especially for someone my age who by all accounts should’ve quote-unquote “grown out” of this genre quite some years ago. Yes, it is a show for made for teenagers and young adults and it comments on issues of teenagers and young adults with teenage and young adult characters, so in that sense, it fits the market perfectly, and its massive success with those demographics proves this, but from a writing standpoint, I can’t help but feel like so little happens only because so much is being said…and in particular, in the second half of every arc.
The first half of every arc in Re:Zero season one is infinitely better than the second half because the first is where everything of interest actually happens, by which I mean, where the artistic substance, narrative intrigue, personal stakes, and thrilling pace of the show all lie. The first arc of Re:Zero is the four episodes spent in the capital where many of the principle characters are introduced and much of the foundational world building is set up, and these episodes are kept engaging by the thrillingly directed death scenes and fascinating hints at the greater mysteries to come. This is what intrigues viewers, this and nothing else, at least not yet, but after these hooks are sunk into our attention, it just becomes a generic fantasy action-adventure show where they defeat Elsa having finally learned of her general motive and identity. This wasn’t a problem in my opinion, because it’s only four episodes, and even being as impatient of a viewer as I am, an episode and a half of generic TV anime isn’t that hard to sit through when it was preceded by two and a half episodes of one of the most unexpectedly captivating opening acts to a show I’d ever seen going in with such low expectations. Where I stop being so lenient, though, is in the second half of each of the following arcs comprising the remainder of season one. I would consider the second arc to be the mansion and the third and final arc to be episodes thirteen though twenty six. I know most people would take that to be two arcs seeing as there’s two checkpoints, but since the conflict in both sections is centered around the ultimate goal of reaching Roswaal’s Domain with enough resources to protect Emilia, I consider it one big arc. Anyway, the first part of the mansion arc is so damn good because it’s just a super compelling mystery box which you pull back the layers on only to find yet another super competing mystery box hidden inside again and again, and you’re constantly in a state of learning a lot whilst seeing a lot. Most anime will just explain the thing, but season one of Re:Zero always committed to showing you the thing, enchanting you with the thing, then tactfully meting out natural answers to explain the thing over time. But once the thing is explained, the characters just kind of deal with it, almost monotonously, and while one would argue this to be inevitable, that’s where the bloated script becomes a problem. While I’d agree to a certain extent you can’t just introduce hurdle after hurdle without demonstrating the successful loop which actually made the leap over, I’d also assert the resolution to not strictly be necessary in such superfluous detail when said resolution is ultimately not all that dense. The thing about death loops is how overpowered the main characters are when considered objectively. On paper, the only thing stopping someone who can reset the events of any conflict until they or the side they’re fighting for becomes successful is psychological damage, because while they aren’t invincible, they are theoretically immortal. All an antagonist can do to stop a protagonist from looping is to break their spirit and make them give up, so any story with a death loop can only approach the conflict therein in one of two ways: either by limiting the properties of the loop to essentially void the fact the protagonist is immortal, like in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni where Keita doesn’t actually keep his memories between loops, or by making the protagonist’s mental state vulnerable to collapse, like in Steins;Gate where Okabe is constantly toeing the line between sanity and despair throughout the course of his struggles. And Re:Zero very much takes the latter route. This melodramatic insistence on constantly monitoring the emotions of every major character leaves the slower paced conclusions to each arc absolutely overblown with inflated dialogue and soapy fluff since the author feels the need to cram all the relevant character development into the successful timeline to guarantee its permanence. Seeing as Re:Zero just loves to have its cast stand around and talk about the plot when the plot needs to be resolved, the show as a whole gets so boring and becomes a never-ending exchange where characters who know more about the world than Subaru does exposit the relevant mechanics to him so he can solve the problem, and in turn, he exposits his overemotional analysis of himself and the surrounding characters so the young audience can keep up and get the point, even though the technicalities of both are in no way intricate or deep respectively.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the shaman dog cringeworthy, but only because if it was, I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep during those episodes, and while I acknowledge Rem’s backstory was engaging in so far as it adequately explained why she was such a static character, thusly justifying her self-effacing worldview on some level, it was just as predictable and emotionally immature. When I think of the mansion arc in Re:Zero, I don’t think of Subaru and Ram running around a generic forest which robbed the show of its beautiful color balance whilst expounding their adolescent emotions, interspersed with a collection of tensionless battles against an army of CG dogs. What I think of is Subaru staying awake all night, clutching his blankets in absolute terror of whatever—he knows—will kill him during the night, only for it come from inside his own body and compel him stumbling out into the dark, empty hallway, dazed and desperate, grasping at anything he can to try and call for help only to have his arm ripped off—and you see it with the haunting beauty of an expertly framed first-person perspective shot—hanging from the chandelier just long enough for you to experience the same horrifying realization the threat is coming from inside the house, and hearing the sound of the chains as—boom!—he dies and wakes up in the bed, dreading the thought of the days to come yet again. I think of him agonizing in confusion and sadness as he witnesses Rem emerging ominously from the forest with the mace and chain in hand, panicked in thoughts of why she’d ever do this to him and how he could ever reconcile with an enemy he only ever saw as an ally, just in time for her to mercilessly lunge forward and brutalize him as she had before, berating him with all these seemingly directionless insults and foreign accusations, all of which I knew nothing of, and Subaru knew nothing of, choking with blood as he insists just that and as I myself learn of all these crazy implications regarding his connection to the Witch—and then getting hit with that exhilarating lightbulb moment—that’s what the power is, that’s who brought him here, and I’m learning all these things from a character who knows more than I or my main character, and who’s not just sitting around explaining it to he or I, but who’s doing something spectacular, motivated by this knowledge I desperately want to learn, and which she is delivering to me with all the flair in the world. THAT’S what I think of when I think of the mansion arc, not just saving the day and watching teenagers coddle their emotions into some level of catharsis with unsubtle dialogue. This praise and subsequent critique can be stated of the final arc as well, because episodes fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen have—and I think anyone would agree, whether they like this show or not—become truly iconic. In the last four years, the shot of Subaru’s head getting snapped off by frostbite as Puck bursts out the roof of the Mathers’ estate has become nearly as iconic as the head of the Colossal Titan peeking over the walls of the Shiganshina District in episode one of Attack on Titan…okay, maybe not that iconic, but whether you like Re:Zero or not, there’s no denying these episodes have cemented themselves in modern anime history with their incredible imagery and their exciting delivery of information the likes of which I just described, like in this case, Betelgeuse holding up the Gospel to a catatonic Subaru asking if he is the one called Pride, implying not only the existence of Seven Deadly Sins as living threats, but the open possibility that Subaru was brought to this world and equipped with Return by Death by the Witch with the expectation he’d join her ranks. All these naturalistic yet narratively juicy dialogue moments delivered while cool shit is happening on screen is how you should be learning and progressing the story. You shouldn’t be progressing by standing around and expounding your emotions so everyone knows why you’re doing what you’re doing and why you want to solve the plot, then having subsequent exposition dumps on how to solve said plot, because no one cares. Realistic characters just shut up, do the thing, and have people judge them upon the merits of their actions like an adult. This was the downfall of Re:Zero season one in my humble opinion, and while I use a word as dramatic as “downfall,” I still liked that show quite a bit. It had problems, but they were nuanced, and they were problems shared by a great majority of anime, so they weren’t too egregious to sit through, and at its highest heights, it was borderline masterful.
Re:Zero season two is analogous to the second half of an arc from Re:Zero season one over the course of its entire run, and this is why Re:Zero season two has converted me into one who can no longer say they like Re:Zero. Re:Zero season two is a constant exposition dump. It is Subaru, coming off the heels of his last victory having secured all his relationships, realizing he’s made enough waves in the world to—minor spoilers—get the attention of the other Sin Archbishops. With the Witch’s Cult now coming after Emilia in full-force, this is no longer a radical cell led by Betelgeuse to try and assassinate her in her own domain. This is now a small-scale war against a terrorist organization and a coalition of militarized nation-states within a kingdom which Subaru has essentially started and leaders such as Roswaal and Crusch now have to conduct. Yet, despite all this, the stakes have, if anything, lowered drastically. The death loop which occupies the entirety of this cour, first of all, only comes into play around half way through the show, because the first half is dedicated to a deluge of banal conversations, but once the pieces finally begin to move on the board, even then, it just falls flat, lacking all its past mystique and therefore all its past intrigue. When Subaru finally dies, he sees not only what kills him, but who kills him, and we know this person, so we know why they did it. We also know why he’s going to do what he’s doing because it’s a location we’re already familiar with, so we can also extrapolate why they were there to do what they did. And even when he’s killed by something which is in any way shocking or new, he’ll wake up, and immediately have someone with the relevant knowledge info-dump everything he needs to know about said thing instead of letting him experience it himself like he did in season one oh-so intensely. While Re:Zero is not strictly a mystery, its mysterious elements were what made it such an addictive thriller. And that’s not even mentioning the fact those first few hours of wasted screen-time to get the ball rolling again were spent demystifying obscured elements of the world and storyline which didn’t tell us anything new in an interesting fashion. Skipping over the fact they ruined characters such as Roswaal and Beatrice by retroactively writing over their motivations from season one, there are a whole new set of characters, but they have no direct relevancy we know of and exist only to profess to Subaru mechanics which he didn’t already know, some of which include the six ancient Witches who were overpowered by the one Witch of Envy, only to make them all random waifus who demand no respect and inspire no fear. There are new locations, but none of them are visually interesting as set pieces, and the vast majority of our time is spent on familiar grounds anyway. Ultimately, the entire experience just drones on with very little pulse and a hell of a lot of dialogue. If season one endeared you to these characters to the point you can stomach them all standing around talking and arguing and going through over-emotional spiritual transformations that mean nothing, then I suppose this season will not only be engaging to you, but will also be emotionally gratifying, because the fact the trials and tribulations of the principle death loop have become more emotionally stressful than psychologically stressful suggests that’s what the author was going for, but when the emotions at hand are so callow, the stakes simply cannot be taken as pressing. To me, it just feels like the author thought of a way to begin a narrative in an organic and excitingly spontaneous fashion sparking questions you wanted answered, only to lead you along with exciting developments, thoughtful characters, and a meticulously created world wrapped in a familiar exterior, slowly giving you small answers to the most promising parts of the bigger questions, until he realized this could only ever be act one. When I said Re:Zero season two is analogous to the second half of an arc from season one, I meant it to imply just how much season two has put season one into perspective. I can now say that on the whole, even though the arcs from within season one are structured the way I discussed, season one as a whole when compared to the second is like “part one” of an arc from within it. Season one is overwrought with exhilarating moments of thrilling direction and expertly timed, densely packed, narratively rich dialogue, and driven by multifarious, multifaceted characters who you want to get to know, and season two is just the following, flat proceedings.
Season two is just the flat proceedings of a show which has exhausted its once tantalizing wheelhouse of concepts to capture its audience with. It’s just, we’ve set the board, we know the players, we know the objective, we know the rules, and I guess the author just had nothing left up his sleeve, so now we’re just doing the thing. We’re just going and learning about all the witches with flat exposition dumps, we’re learning about more aspects of the world with more exposition dumps, we’re meeting new characters and learning about their emotions through more long conversations. We’re just talking, and talking, and talking, and talking, and when we’re moving, we’re still talking and the actions we’re talking have lost their intrigue even when they honestly shouldn’t have. I mean, the new death loop only takes up the entire season because it’s so unfathomably complicated when compared to the previous loops, which I know sounds awesome, but the author must’ve thought his ambitiously large set-up would go over the heads of his young audience, so he decided to undercut the mystique of the deaths with instant explanations and continue to undercut the genuineness of his cast with constant clarifications of their already unsophisticated emotions. As I stated at the beginning of this mess, I know Re:Zero is a very contentious show, and for that reason I’ve tried to shut up about it, because even though I largely don’t care what people think of me, the last thing I want is to have a bunch of enraged teenagers spamming my MAL page because I expressed what they perceive to be the incorrect dissenting opinion. After all, I’ve written reviews which have done exactly that, and even though I don’t care about my reputation, I do care about my sanity, and I’d hate to proverbially stir the hornet’s nest yet again. But I think I can express my disillusionment with Re:Zero season two in good faith because I’ve made clear the fact I’ve now been on both sides. Re:Zero season two is a fundamental disappointment which failed to deliver on the expectations which the first beget, and frankly, I have no more expectations for this series going forward. I was not particularly vulnerable to season one emotionally, but from a directorial and stylistic perspective, I respected what it did right which countless others like it have done and continue to do so very wrong, and the fact it would just kind of peter out into what the haters always said it was is honestly something I can say I’m sad about.
Thank you for reading.
Phasar2022
Re: Zero was aways a bad Isekai and that's a fact. The second season continues to remind us why despite the claims of it being a deconstruction of isekai, it’s still a power fantasy. Subaru is constantly hailed as a normal person thrown in an isekai, yet he is a NEET and a dork that the moment he realizes he is in a different world he doesn’t look for a way home and instead runs after waifus. And most of the girls are all over him; even the extremely young ones. Is that what a normal person is like in the minds of delusional otakus? And don’tget me started on the double standards of the return by death bullshit. Subaru is hailed as a protagonist who differs from other isekai protagonists by not being overpowered, and yet he has an OP power that nobody can counter. And if pain is a lot worse than death, which is why (supposed) he is not using it actively for resetting the plot every time he messes up, then why is he willingly ending himself? The big fuss everybody was yapping about during the first season was how painful it is every time he dies and therefore he does his best not to die. And here he is abusing that power by ending himself so he will not have to suffer through the negative consequences. It’s the definition of a copout.
And even then, why is he not ending himself every time he messes up? Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s almost as if he never learns and has no specific mindset so that the author can use him however he likes instead of how he should be acting. Or, in a more sinister way, Subaru forgets to off himself so a lot of gratuitous and otherwise needless goreporn can fill half the episodes. There is a hilarious scene he gets eaten alive by bunnies. I repeat, bunnies! L O L, where did that come from? Oh well, it’s something new and completely changes the plot because time resets when Subaru dies. Something he couldn’t do himself by just killing himself. You didn’t see that coming. By the way, those cannibalistic bunnies are really evil, ain’t they? Because of their evil act Subaru is now punished by going back in time when he is fully healed, his friends are alive, and the world hasn’t frozen to death. Man, such evil bunnies, did you see the harm they caused?
And then it’s all that bullshit about his power not being a panacea to every problem because he cannot control the save point. He cannot reset everything that went wrong, such as being an asshole to Emilia or preventing Rem from getting magically forgotten. If that is true, then why has Emilia already forgiven him by abusing the very ability that is not supposed to be a copout? He defeated that whale monster by resetting his progress until he did it right and impressed her. So much for not being able to rely on that, and having to face the consequences of his actions. You can bet your sweet ass the same thing will happen with Rem. He will just keep failing until he has a perfect playthrough on how to wake her up and return everyone’s memories of her. There is no tension. Nothing is at stake. There is no time pressure.
And holy smokes, what happened to plot progression? The entire season is a nonstop back and forth without even a resolution at the end. The story hasn’t budged an inch forward since all Subaru does is dying and going back to the exact same save point. I know a lot of casuals are going to say it moved a lot forward by constantly feeding you with new information and more revelations, even if the actual plot is not going anywhere. It’s building up the setting! It’s unraveling the mystery! It’s digging into the mindset of its characters! Yeah, all those are done through talking. The dialogues are ridiculously long and tedious, and worse of it all is that they get erased every time Subaru resets time. If talking is all there is to the mystery and the characters, then the show sucks.
By the way, it’s insane how this lack of content makes many pretentious overthinkers to write essays that are longer than the show itself. I found 45 minute long videos about episodes where the only thing that happens is waifus infodumping boring shit. The absence of plot lets the pretentious overthinkers to talk about whatever bullshit comes to mind. Because as Peter Griffith has taught us “A boat is a boat, but a mystery box can be anything”. Lesson of the day. The less plot your show has, the more people will talk about it in order to add the plot that should have been there from the start.
Regarding the suffering, dear lord, it’s tortureporn of the highest caliber. It has lolis begging to be brutally murdered by a neet otaku. It has more lolis who control monsters that butcher to death hundreds of innocent people. It has even more lolis, being gutted alive and their insides splattering all over the place. It has people turning to glass and then mercilessly smashed to pieces. It has people being sadistically stabbed in the eye and allowed to live so they can die by the hemorrhage and pain. It has people getting skewered through with hands when they least expect it by those they trust. It has people with their heads getting smashed to pieces when they are defenseless while trying to help someone else. It has people getting chopped to little pieces by killer bunnies. It has waifus turning to psychopaths who let Subaru sleep on their lap as they laugh hysterically and he is dying after his body got shred to pieces.
Of course all that don’t matter since there are no consequences. No matter how many times someone gets brutally murdered, he will be fine when time resets. There is no perma death and anyone who says there is, is a complete retard. Not to mention how half the times he is not even freaking out every time he goes back in time. After a million times of doing it he doesn’t feel a thing anymore. Anyways, if you want to see torture, suffering and brutal killings, you will get them in spades. Extra spice for all the parts where Subaru doesn’t die immediately, because he gets saved by his friends who don’t know of his power, only to suffer and get brutally murdered anyways half an episode later. They try to make it seem like ‘oh shit, he didn’t die right away, which means the save point will change and everybody will remain dead’. Yeah, it’s trying to fool you into thinking his power is not fixing every problem, which is obviously a lie because time resets as normal and everyone is alive and well. Also can we at least admit we don’t care about any of the characters who constantly die and return to life a few seconds later? People end up remembering only the gruesome ways they die instead of their complex personalities and really meaningful actions, that are not undone in every episode. Such as all the good Subaru’s friends do when they save him. Really helpful and didn’t magically erase from the plot. Let’s face it, most watch Rezero for the suffering porn and the waifus.
Speaking of waifus, we have many additions to Subaru’s harem. More maids for serving the supposed ‘normal MC’ and more witches that infodump at the same time they seduce the supposed ‘normal MC’. By the way, some of them are underage, because Japan. Did I mention the female ghosts? Subaru is so normal even ghosts want to have sex with him. And holy crap does the author treat women as objects or what? Every time he doesn’t know what do with a waifu, he knocks her unconscious so Subaru has to protect them. Because that’s the closest thing he has to an objective. Protecting sleeping beauties that, just like in the fairy tale, they will instantly be all over him the moment they wake up. Which is exactly what happened with the half elf waifu. First thing she does when she wakes up is yelling “Subaru is mine, get away from my master”. Remember when she hated him for treating her like shit? Where did that negative repercussion which can’t be fixed by his otherwise not broken power go to? You can already tell what Rem is going to do as soon as she wakes up. Remember when she butchered him to death in an earlier playthough? Thank goodness his otherwise not broken power didn’t negate that so he could make her fall in love with him when just a few minutes ago she chopped him to little pieces.
By the way, I laugh over many tards of the show who are constantly getting worked up over all the progress Subaru loses every time he dies, as if something goes to waste. Why doesn’t anyone complain about all the edgy shit he’s undoing every time he dies? Like that serial box tiger. He saves Subaru’s life in one episode, while in the previous episode he wanted to kill everyone. Why are they not complaining about that getting lost, hm?
And I’ll be damned, what happened to normal traveling? Subaru is now teleporting out of nowhere in weird places. It’s like the author doesn’t know how to make him go there normally and has to use cheap magic so whatever shit he has in mind can happen in any way he likes. Thank goodness these powers are not broken because they would make the MC not to come off as a normal person.
There is a part where Subaru is in a fictional version of his real life back home and we are supposed to think he, supposed, realizes he is not special and, supposed, becomes a better person. Which is obviously a lie, since this is far from the first time Subaru realizes he is not special. It happens every few episodes, when things don’t go his way and he ends up crying on the lap of a waifu. Saying he just realized it now is a lie, because he constantly does before forgetting it and going back to thinking he is special for another three episodes. Rinse and repeat. Also, the scenes with his parents had no build up. This is the first time we see them and therefore there is little gravity behind what is going on. If they were introduced in the beginning of the story and half of what is going on now was established back then or during a few flashbacks, then there would be an actual reason to care about them and their relation with Subaru. Instead of that, we had dozens of episodes of a protagonist who doesn’t have a backdrop or established motivations that don’t go beyond chasing after waifus. Also, his parents are not real. He didn’t actually return to his world and he isn’t actually interacting with them. It’s all an illusion made by a witch. It’s fake, hot air, doesn’t matter. We are literally watching a show where the power fantasy is real and the real world is fake. That’s messed up.
Also, what the fudge do you think is going to happen next? You honestly think Subaru is going to return to the real world and make friends? No, he hates reality and will do his best to run back to a magical fantasy land that has videogame save slots, and where sleeping beauties and maids and ghost witches love him for being normal and with not with broken powers at all. He will go back to chasing after waifus in this fictional power fantasy for ronery otakus. Which was the case since the very beginning. What value is there in his realization if nothing is going to change? That’s the hypocrisy of Rezero that so many are defending. It’s escapism fantasy that pretends to be a subversion when down to it it’s only fooling around with a done to death premise without actually changing anything. It’s the tenth time Subaru realizes he is not special, his supposed development came out of nowhere through characters that were just established, through magic that works however it suits the plot, and through illusions instead of real life.
Jaereku
Few shows in recent memory have been the center of as much controversy as Re:ZERO. While one side claims it to be an indisputable masterpiece, basing themselves on arguments like “Subaru’s realism” and the “deconstruction of the isekai genre”, the other is often of the opinion that it’s more spectacle than substance, repetitive shlock that often relies on shock factor more than anything. This division combined with 2016’s infamous “best girl” discourse has served to turn people off from any future installments of the series, and perhaps few can blame them for that. Now, taking all this controversy around it into account, is this franchise stillworth a shot after these 4 years? Absolutely.
The first season focused on a deeply personal character study of Subaru, his savior complex and his eventual self-awareness, with one overlapping character arc in the form of Rem’s. Delivering on every front from visual directing to its creative use of the episodic format, along with its thriller aspect, it’s no wonder it became such a phenomenon in 2016. But Subaru’s arc has concluded; his entitlement and attitude have been addressed, his character arc seemingly finished. So where does the story go from here? Does it turn into—perish the thought—another standard isekai fantasy adventure, the very thing fans claimed it to “deconstruct”?
The answer is, thankfully, a firm no. Instead of going down that path in the next arc, the writer instead builds a complex web of mysteries and events, making use of foreshadowing laid down all the way back in the show’s first arcs. Every episode answers questions while bringing up newer ones, all of it leading to what might possibly be one of the most satisfying payoffs in the medium.
But while the solid plot and mystery form the backbone of this arc, along with the more history-oriented worldbuilding, the characters are its true highlight. Each character has their own agenda, their own struggles and weaknesses explored across different timelines— and for such a large cast, each one of them is handled with care and has a strong reason for being part of the narrative (...okay, except Petra.) Without limiting itself to Subaru, Re:ZERO doesn’t hesitate to turn a character’s world upside down and challenge their worldviews. In Subaru’s case, this comes in the form of exploring the mechanic of Return by Death to its limits, with multiple twists and revelations regarding the ability shaping the way Subaru approaches it, allowing him to go through multiple phases of development. As for the rest of the cast, each loop allows the exploration of different facets of characters, in such a way that a single timeline wouldn’t allow, with special care not to lose important moments of development in “failed” realities. Different circumstances lead to different reactions, and sometimes a character’s reaction is different even in seemingly similar circumstances, throwing both Subaru and the viewer for a loop.
That is one of the stronger aspects of Re:ZERO. It asks the viewer to think, hands them new pieces of the puzzle every episode and instead of outright giving every answer whenever a question is raised, it takes things gradually for a satisfying payoff in the end. It isn’t the kind of series you can sit down and turn your brain off to watch; you would still be entertained by the surface-level presentation, as it is in no way boring, but you’d be missing what the story really is trying to tell you. The amount of theorycrafting I see for Re:ZERO across different platforms, now and back in 2016, reminds me of the early days of the Attack on Titan anime and manga. These are the kinds of series that demand your attention, and if you’re willing to give it and engage with the material, you’re rewarded with layers upon layers of character work, foreshadowing and worldbuilding.
The cynical proponents of “Re:ZERO is spectacle and no substance” would be half-correct; the spectacle is there, which allows the show to be entertaining even on a surface level. Who doesn’t love a femme fatale with an attractive design and a disturbing love for intestines? Who doesn’t like dramatic endings to timelines, even ignoring the subtext and meaning behind them, if any? Who doesn’t like perfect cliffhangers and title card drops? And yet, all that said and done, the spectacle doesn’t make up the main appeal of the series. Re:ZERO isn’t lacking in climaxes, and while undiscerning viewers may write them off as mere shock value, every one of those more powerful scenes serves a narrative purpose, whether it be to introduce a new factor to the narrative, showcase a certain character’s mindset and goals, or set up foreshadowing and new stakes to face. In the past, critics would often deem moments to be “suffer porn”, while ignoring what those moments mean to the overall narrative, the characterization or development they offer to the characters included within; central themes like loneliness, stagnation, self-reliance and twisted love are lost on some viewers, hung up only on the superficial layer of dark fantasy that adorns Re:ZERO. Those strengths almost make me want to forgive the existence of Petra, a minor character whose role is entirely limited to establishing stakes for Subaru in this first cour.
On the more technical side of things, for the most part, Re:ZERO hasn’t lost its touch. While I have some reservations, big enough to prevent it from attaining a perfect score, the production is impressive on many levels. Yuusuke Kobayashi delivers a visceral performance as Subaru once again, with an astonishing voice range as he conveys moments of despair, relief and banter to near perfection. Rie Takahashi is another exceptional actress, from a kind voice that embodies the character of Emilia to a bone-chilling soft voice that almost feels like a twisted take on ASMR. Of course, Maaya Sakamoto as Echidna and many others deliver incredible performances as well, but the voice work isn’t the only triumph of the series’ audio presentation: the music is also what helps sell most scenes, from low & frightening bells amplifying moments of horror, to strong and dramatic instrumental pieces that immerses you into the scene in moments of action or tension. I’d even argue that in terms of sound, this season ranks above the first, even with the latter’s legendary production value.
The directing nails important scenes and doesn’t hold back the emotional peaks and gut-punches; the rest of the season is decent, still keeping the deliberate and clever framing choices the first season is known for, but also stumbling at times, unlike its predecessor. I feel like the adaptation could’ve done more justice to a couple of villains— thankfully, these misses are limited to a couple of scenes in the earlier parts. Director Watanabe’s ambition truly shows this season, his time in KyoAni once again showing through his use of soft colors in certain scenes, reminiscent of the famous 8th or 11th episodes of the first season.
Everything I’ve pointed out were fairly minor nitpicks in an otherwise solid production; however, what isn’t a minor nitpick is the apparent downgrade in the art department. The unshaded ears discourse aside, this season feels like the characters’ designs have lost a lot of their flair and unique characteristics. This is especially felt with Emilia, as you’ll notice the contrast when you transition from the first season to the second. The new noses for the male characters are unnecessary unfitting, perhaps even ugly to some. Along with the simplified designs comes a loss of shading in general and a minor downgrade in animation (nowhere near AOT season 3 or, god forbid, SDS) which undermines a few scenes and characters, to a small extent.
The reason why I hold this season’s production in high regard still, despite it not reaching the levels of Season 1, is simple: Re:ZERO is a passion project by White Fox. The studio doesn’t hesitate to skip OP and ED sequences to include more content in the episode, leaving as little as possible on the cutting room floor. Episodes are extended far beyond the usual time slot in the medium (and yet still feel far too short), up to half an hour to give more content, at the cost of ad revenue on Japanese TV that week. It’s an unusual, astonishing effort, especially given the current work-at-home circumstances. The first cour is 13 episodes, but amounts to over 16 episodes of content for any other series thanks to extended runtimes and skipped OP/EDs. I can only applaud director Watanabe for his special effort and dedication to faithfulness to the source, even if some cuts are inevitably made.
Don’t go into this Part 1 expecting a complete exposition, climax and denouement. Arc 4’s is a complex plot with many overlapping character arcs, events and moving parts to keep track of, and it isn’t something to be resolved in 13 episodes. Mysteries are established, character motivations are hinted at or revealed, stakes which truly challenge the protagonist’s Return by Death are set in this Part 1. Everything else is reserved for the second part of this arc.
Re:ZERO impressed me. After my disillusionment with the genre, an impactful and layered character drama that doesn’t hold back its punches, with a talented writer and an ambitious director to back it up, was the last thing I expected from the “isekai” craze. In very few series have I seen tweets about people calling or hugging their parents after an episode.
For all the misunderstandings and controversy around it, Re:ZERO is a special series, one well worth the investment. I, for one, can’t wait for what’s to come.
HellLyter
Four years ago, Re:Zero took the world by storm with its fresh and innovative take on the isekai genre, and it rekindled my passion for the anime industry. Now in 2020, a year plagued with disaster and disappointment for many, it has returned with a much appreciated sequel. Amidst the cancellation and delay of a plethora of anime as well as the release of a slew of rather underwhelming others, it was refreshing to tune in to Re:Zero each week to follow its engaging narrative and compelling cast. Though there's one integral character that I just can't seem to REMember for some reason...ok no, I can'tdo it. It hurts to even attempt a "Who's Rem?" joke! First it was "I love Emilia" and now this. Author Tappei Nagatsuki really likes to shaft Rem, doesn't he?
But seriously, Rem is a divisive character with both intense love and vigorous hate directed at her. However, you can't deny that her season one performance potentially left the biggest impact on viewers from the show and heightened Re:Zero's popularity overall. Therefore, I'm sure I wasn't the sole anime-only watcher who was a little worried about how the quality of season two would turn out with Rem essentially written completely out of the picture. Thankfully, Nagatsuki elevated his game when it comes to writing, and combined with studio White Fox’s excellent directing choices, produced a sequel that unquestionably has to be a contender for anime of the year.
This season, protagonist Natsuki Subaru must once again go face to face with a seemingly unconquerable dilemma where he must strive to find the perfect way to unlock the ideal outcome and live. Season two presents his greatest challenge yet, and all twelve episodes predominately take place within the same time loop. Now some may worry that this perspective constitutes a slow pace, especially when compared to the first season. And I agree, the first three episodes did feel a little sluggish, and I admittedly wanted the anime to pick up the pace. However, this approach ultimately works to the anime's advantage by allowing for the necessary development of mysteries, world building, character growth, and more.
Similarly to the previous season, the anime doesn't get boring with each life despite Subaru constantly dying and resetting to the same location. The loops all showcase a variety of diverse scenarios and feature different characters that work together to slowly unravel the intriguing secrets concealed within the story. And each time that you think Subaru might just succeed, cruel reality strikes him down, reminding us all that being Subaru is suffering. Honestly though, there’s just so much to unpack here that I’m trying hard to restrain myself from writing a lengthy dissertation on it. Ultimately, it’s better to experience the specifics firsthand, and I can vouch that it’s worthwhile to take the time to examine the intricacies of this surprisingly deep and clever narrative.
And that way I don’t have to write a painstakingly boring summary of it for you to read, so it’s a win-win for everyone!
Speaking of clever, I just love how Studio White Fox actually extended the length of many episodes by several minutes as well as removed the opening and ending theme songs in multiple episodes to allow for more time to expand upon the plot. Great directing choice. I also appreciate how they respect the intelligence of viewers. They don’t spoon feed us info and actually let viewers think for themselves. The clues are out there, and it’s fun to piece together some obvious conclusions with the hints properly laid out for us. Of course Re:Zero is not free of info dumps. The tea parties between Subaru and Echidna, the Witch of Greed, can be lengthy and a little confusing at times. I still mostly liked such moments a good deal however.
The biggest glow up this season in comparison to the last would have to be Subaru. His evolution as a character is subtle yet brilliant. Subaru's first trial provided valuable insight on his persona, while also tugging at my heart strings. Seriously, it was one of the best episodes of an anime that I’ve seen period. Why don’t other isekai try a similar concept of having the protagonist visit his original world? Also, his tea parties with Echidna highlighted his oddly trusting attitude and also his general narrow-mindedness in regards to multiple scenarios, exemplifying his prideful nature. What’s even more interesting is how Subaru is becoming more and more detached with each passing loop. As he becomes desensitized to his own life and those around him after constantly dying, he actually starts to walk down the path that both Roswaal and Echidna have taken and are clearly pushing him towards. Which can be summarized as focusing entirely on finding the perfect solution with a disregard for how to get there. Essentially meaning sacrifices are irrelevant, which completely contrasts Subaru’s heroic mentality. I respect the way that he’s been written, and Subaru has definitely grown on me as a protagonist.
One of my few complaints about the first season was that while I believe Emilia is a decent character, I thought that she needed to accomplish more to convincingly earn her title as main girl and was entirely eclipsed by Rem in the second half of the first season. This time around however, she was provided with ample time to truly shine.
And...she still didn't do too much.
But you know what? That’s ok. While she spends the majority of this season failing to complete a trial, I learned through her interactions with Subaru that the two really are meant for each other. Yes, shipping SubaruXEmilia might be shocking to hear from a "Remfag" like myself, but their interactions this season convinced me that they need each other at this point. Emilia really is Subaru's light, his purpose. He often loses sight of this, but when he rediscovers what he’s fighting for, he changes for the better. Now this seemed entirely one sided in the first season, but when Emilia isn’t rejecting Subaru for Puck, you can tell how dependent she is on him. Especially when she has a, to avoid spoilers, let’s say Yandere mode under certain conditions. I look forward to the continued development of their relationship.
The colorful cast of supporting characters upgraded from being a simply quirky bunch to actually having some personality and motivation. Village girl Petra and magical loli Beatrice each got moments in the spotlight. Roswaal was clearly set up to be a suspicious individual surrounded by intrigue, and the eventual revelation of a portion of his scheme was satisfying. Heck, even Otto of all people had a great bro moment with Subaru. And Ram…is cool. Though obviously, this group still has some flaws. For one thing, I thought Beatrice’s whole fervent ordeal sorta came out of left field considering where she seemed to be at emotionally in season one. They’re still a really solid supporting cast in my eyes nonetheless.
There’s also an assortment of new characters, however none of them really have had the chance to develop or really show their personalities yet with the exception of Echidna. The Witch of Greed herself is definitely a fun character and a positive addition to the anime. I liked how quirky and supportive she was but with the underlying knowledge that she would eventually reveal a more malicious nature befitting of a witch. The other witches haven’t had the time to do much yet, but the fact that there's a BDSM loli witch in an organic coffin who wants to eat me was enough to get me excited to learn more about all of the witches.
When it comes to the visuals, character designs are vibrant and unique. The cast is incredibly expressive and the facial animations do a fantastic job at exemplifying each character’s pain, anguish, and suffering. Yeah, this anime really likes to highlight people’s misery! I enjoyed how the aesthetics would appropriately reflect the mood, such as the pastel color scheme utilized during Subaru’s first trial as well as the horror-esque effects applied for the yandere Emilia moments. The visuals as a whole were predominantly consistent, though there admittedly are some gaffes here and there in regards to designs and movement.
The theme songs have the same energy as those present in season one, which was a positive for me. The soundtrack fits the mood accordingly. Whether it was playing more emotional tracks like during Subaru's touching first trial or more distorted sounds during disconcerting moments like Echidna's speech and literally every time Subaru dies in agony, the music elevated the impact of numerous scenes. Though what really blew me away was the voice acting. I forgot just how talented the seiyuu are. Rie Takahashi, Emilia’s voice actress, has got to have one of the most adorable voices on the planet. Plus her “aishiteru~” ASMR as Satella gave me chills. Also, Rem’s brief speaking moments in the show were literally ear porn in how sweet she sounds. Yeah, that probably sounds cringy as heck, but I can't deny the truth! Rem’s voice actress, Inori Minase, is just that good. The side characters like Beatrice and Roswaal all have unique vocal inflections that make them memorable as well. And of course, we can’t forget the believability of Subaru’s tormented screams courtesy of the great vocal talent of Kobayashi Yuusuke.
Is Re:Zero season 2 better than its predecessor? Right now it's hard to say. We'll just have to wait for the second half of the season to air, which is something that I am highly anticipating and hyped for. What I can say however is that Re:Zero yet again blew me away. It expanded upon the characteristics that elevated the first season to greatness and impressed me with its excellent execution. Re:Zero isn't just an ideal isekai. It's more than that, and I believe it is a truly phenomenal anime capable of standing with the best in the industry. For me, Re:Zero is storytelling at its finest, and it's a show that I would most definitely encourage everyone to experience.
Gilgameshuu
*Moderate spoiler warning* "If it's to save you, I don't care how many times I die" Note: This is my first ever review, and also English is not my first language so I apologize in advance if there are some grammatical errors or if my vocabulary is a little lacking, I'll try my best to make this review as clear as possible. Re:Zero, a show that exploded in popularity back in 2016, and now after a 4-year break it makes it's long-awaited re:turn in the form of its second season; fortunately for me, I did not have to wait for 4 years for the 2nd season as I'veonly started watching it early this year due to lockdown. Re:Zero holds a very special place in my heart, as it's one of the few shows that always keeps me on edge with every single episode, and I loved this show to bits, and after watching the second season, I've grown to love and appreciate this series more.
Season 2 picks up where Season 1 had ended. However compared to the first season, this plot for this season seems to be more focused and with a clearer goal, Subaru and the gang trapped in Sanctuary, clear trials, and get out. But since it's Re:Zero we're talking about, it can't be that simple and easy. Slowly Subaru starts getting many more problems than he has ever gotten before, cornering him to the brink of throwing away his very humanity. With just the first part of the 2nd season, this is already feeling as intense as the first season, we get a lot more deaths than and of course more suffering.
We also get introduced to plenty of new characters, but balancing it out to not have too much, and giving each new character a proper role to fulfill, and I've always thought about this in Re:Zero in general, it does a really good job of managing it's characters without them just being filler and utterly useless, and with plenty of depth for each character, this season we get to experience more interactions and development with the relationships of the cast. Not only that we also got a lot more information about the lore of not only Sanctuary, the Witches, and Return by Death. But in typical Re:Zero fashion, for every answer we get, two more questions pop out. I am very thankful we already are getting many answers to questions we've been asking 4 years ago, and I'm hopeful that we get more answers in the 2nd half.
The Witches are especially intriguing, I never expected them to act the way they do, I expected them to be more sinister, but it seems like most of them were just misunderstood. Echidona in particular is a very interesting character, she's someone who wants to satisfy her everlasting greed, and want to see every possible outcome. She's someone who doesn't comprehend human emotions and will do anything to satisfy her greed. The other witches' mentality is really fascinating, Minerva wants to heal everything and prioritizes healing anyone that's hurt before herself even if it costs her life, Daphne wants to sate the world, but in doing so brought about ruin and despair, Typhon, at first just seems like a small and innocent child but her authority is something more dangerous than the other witches, Sekhmet is sloth itself by definition, even breathing is too tiresome for her. Carmilla has a shy and timid personality, however, she isn't someone to underestimate, her authority is something not to be taken lightly, and finally Satella and the Witch of Envy, this season gave us a LOT of information about them as they are apparently two different personalities. her "love" for Subaru remains a mystery, hopefully, we get more information in the second half.
This season gave us more information to characters like Roswaal, and Beatrice, we got to know their goals and motivations as well as some backstory particularly with Beatrice. Garfiel on the surface seems like your typical Bakugo type character, but there seems to be more to him than meets the eye, and I expect Part 2 to give us more information about him and his past. His interactions with Ram are really cute as well. Otto became best boy in just one episode, my view of him from his introduction to now has changed significantly for the better, I first thought of him as a dick for pushing Subaru but now his actions are justified due to his Divine Protection, and him proclaiming to Subaru that he is his friend was just so wholesome, it made me tear up a bit.
We also got more development for Subaru, giving us a whole episode dedicated to his backstory back in the real world, something no other isekai has done or executed properly, it gives us much more explanation to Subaru's character and why he acts certain ways in certain situations and it helps us understand and appreciate his character much more. He's a really great main character and by far my favorite character in the series, and one of my favorite of all time. It's honestly rare to get protagonists with as depth as him these days, and I appreciate the author for not making him another bland and generic isekai MC.
The soundtrack for this show is amazing, however the lack of Myth&Roid and also the lack of insert songs are disappointing, instead, we got awesome tracks. Voice acting is incredible as always. The opening although is cut most of the time, is still really good, the foreshadowing and symbolism are great. the ending song is best for me this season.
I also appreciate the amount of passion and effort White Fox is giving to Re:Zero. Not only do they cut the openings and endings, but they also extend the episode runtime to add in more content, that's not something any show can just do, and it just shows the love White Fox gives for Re:Zero. I hope they continue to give what Re:Zero truly deserves, and I hope they continue to give Re:Zero the love and care it truly deserves.
However there are also some problems I had, particularly with the adaptation, the art was simplified and some character designs do feel off sometimes, this is especially true for Episode 10 in particular, and not only that, animation took some hit as well, that is to be expected because the staff was forced to work in-home, due to the pandemic, although even before the lockdown, and the outbreak, the art of episode 1 - 5(Starting episode 6 onwards, the staff had to work in-home) was still lackluster compared to the first season, other than that I didn't have many problems with this season.
It pains me to see when people call this show out as just suffering porn and just has good waifus, when it's more than that, and most people can't see it. Re:Zero is not a story about a guy getting dying in many gruesome ways just to get a harem in the end, instead, it is a story about a guy just trying his best to live his life, in a world where he doesn't fit it, where he has no purpose or goal, who despite knowing of his weaknesses and shortcomings desperately try to save those who are important to him, struggling and facing the consequences of his actions at the same time.
With how the plot is shaping up this season, I'm very excited how it would all turn out in the second half, considering the amount of buildup this first half gave us, I'm hoping the emotional payoff in the second half will be worth it. I really don't know how Subaru is going to get out of this situation, this seems impossible, then again that's also what I thought of the second half of season 1. Overall, this season has been absolutely amazing. With each episode it just gets better and better, I'm always at the edge of my seat every single week, anxiously waiting for the next, very few shows can pull this off for me, and Re:Zero is definitely one of those few shows. I absolutely cannot wait for Part 2, my excitement cannot be contained, this is going to be the longest 3 months of my life.
Atlos
Does Re:Zero S2 live up to the first season? Eh. What was the appeal of Re:Zero season 1? Because if you like me you enjoyed the fact that instead of the protagonist solving problems by being a light novel protagonist but instead running at it a dying multiple time until he manages to sort it out. Well let’s hope that isn’t that as Subaru doesn’t start dying until about 5 episodes in, instead the show treats us to some point less drivel that is barely relevant. This is one of the core issues or Re:Zero S2 not much of significance actually happens, the show is filled withdialogue that isn’t relevant and is just amateurish. The characters themselves aren’t much better either. They are so generic and hollow that can be tiring to watch token character A talk to token character B talk about some random events that impact the plot. All that ‘character development’ (aka suffering) is all kind of pointless in hindsight as Subaru hasn’t changed one bit, he is still the same Subaru from episode one.
All this begs the question, does the return by death formula still hold up, is it an effective storytelling technique after the nostalgia wears off? To put it simply no, the fact Subaru can seppuku himself and reset every bad thing that happens robs the show of any tension as there are no stakes whatsoever. The shows just devolve into Subaru learning something new, then having people die, then killing off Subaru and finally repeating the entire process again until the problem is solved. This is the same formula that we have seen before, I want something new not just the same formula repeated over again.
This brings me to the production values of the season which are significantly worse, the ost is either completely absent or so forgettable that I could end up counting the scenes that had music on one hand. The overall character designs and animation is also a downgrade from the previous season. While none of this is a deal breaker (season 1 wasn’t known for it’s spectacular animation) it can definitely dampen the overall experience. Combining this with some utterly baffling directing can cause the overall tone of a scene to be unclear.
After already attracting an audience from the first season this season attempts to break the mold by focusing on the characters and not the overall setting, robbing the show any personality it may have had and throwing away any interesting ideas that the first season may have had. What’s left is a bog-standard sequel that just ends up feeling empty.
Imquotable
I'm deeply dissatisfied with the first part of Re:Zero's second season. While I appreciate the mystery aspect and the unanswered questions surrounding Subaru being the chosen one, which encourages viewers to think and develop theories, there's one crucial element that should have been explained long ago: how the checkpoint system functions. Arbitrarily placing Subaru wherever the narrative demands without proper explanation feels like lazy writing. This season has numerous flaws; the characters' interactions come across as cringeworthy, particularly Subaru's, who now resembles a typical harem protagonist. Even Patrasche falling in love with him seems implausible. Furthermore, it's disheartening to see Subaru constantly blaming others for prioritizing theirown well-being when he himself is prepared to go to any lengths to save Rem, Emilia, and his loved ones. Hundreds sacrificed their lives battling the Hakugei to protect Emilia, yet Subaru failed to consider sacrificing himself and triggering a restart to save her without further casualties. His overly dramatic displays of emotion feel insincere to me. Ultimately, people act in their own self-interest, and Subaru should recognize this reality.
Much of the drama in the show could have been avoided. For instance, Subaru's dramatic plea to Elsa to stop killing Beatrice feels pointless when he could simply restart after everyone else has died. It's disappointing and pathetic.
The dialogue feels unnatural and amateurish compared to the first season, which was a major draw for me. One of my favorite episodes was the one where Rem confessed her love to Subaru, which was essentially a prolonged dialogue between them and was executed brilliantly.
PoeticJustice
The Re: Zero anime took the world by storm when it first aired. It had all the ingredients for an exciting anime. There were boobs, lolis, a compelling premise...and more boobs. I thought the original was a trainwreck. There were so many issues on a fundamental level regarding its plot, worldbuilding, and especially its characters. I had to rate the show a four because there were too many problems for me to consider a sound or average show. There were entertaining moments sprinkled throughout, but they were too far and between. Going into the second season, I thought it could not, but worse than thefirst season. This allowed the writers to 'right their wrongs,' so to speak. I am sorry to inform you that Re: Zero season 2 is an unmitigated disaster. Not only does the show double down on the first season problems, but it also adds entirely new ones. Let's dive in.
Season 2 continues from where the first season left off. After defeating Petelgeuse, Subaru and his friends are thrown into a new dilemma after unknown assailants attack Rem. This attack causes everyone to forget who she is, causing Subaru immense despair. He then sets out on his quest to get everyone to remember Rem taking along Emilia, the most useless female protagonist in anime, some lolis, and other irrelevant characters. Re: Zero Season 2 spends a lot of time meandering around, wasting several episodes that could have been used for world or character building. The season revolves around one arc as opposed to the first season, which had several. In theory, this could have been a good thing because it could have given the writers to expand upon all facets of the show. However, this rarely comes to fruition. Although there is some world building where we learn more about the world, it does not feel substantial enough. The world does not feel alive. Although there are characters with grand machinations, the show never seems to reflect that scope. This season also lacks the highs of the first. Although the first season was terrible, in my opinion, it also had some highs. I think everyone who saw the first season remembers that three-episode streak that was just raw suffering and despair, culminating in the fantastic episode 15. There were also moments like the end of the first arc, which were satisfying. Season 2 does not have any moments like that. Almost everything right from the first season was not present in this season. There is no catharsis. There is no emotional payoff when Subaru solves a part of the mystery. We are just left thinking, "that's it?" Even the moments that are supposed to invoke despair are lackluster. Subaru's suffering was arguably the best part of the show. There is not enough agony,misery, and woe to justify spending 13 episodes watching this show.
Another woefully underutilized aspect is the macabre element that was prevalent in the first season. Every arc, Subaru would be gruesomely murdered and would have to discover who is killing him. In season 2, that mystery is gone. We know who is killing Subaru every time. The secret lies in what he has to do to escape death. However, without the mystery of finding out who the killer is, the mystery becomes less compelling. I no longer care about the mystery. I wait for Subaru to die or kill himself. You can tell the show fails when you value the character's death more than the events surrounding it.
Once again, Re: Zero's problems lie with its characters. Simply put, the cast is terrible. But the icing on the cake is Subaru. Oh man, this character drags down the entire show. Subaru got a lot of flak from the first season, and it was much deserved. He behaved in embarrassing ways when talking to female characters. He was selfish, spiteful, and shortsighted. These traits onto themselves do not make a character bad. I prefer it when characters are flaws or are not likable. It usually makes them more compelling to watch. The first season's problem was that all of Subaru's character development came in one episode, making his transition to a "hero" and "savior" contrived. In season 2, Subaru's character arc is redundant. Although we learn more about Subaru's life back in the real world, we are retreading the same ground. Subaru hates himself and feels worthless, and tries to compensate by engaging in reckless and "heroic" behavior. I did not find his reasons for feeling so poorly about himself to be convincing enough for me to believe that is why he engages in that behavior. I just felt disappointed. And the other aspect of his character that he changed because he met Emilia and loves her. This made me think he is a shallow character. There is nothing wrong with a character changing because of love. However, in Re: Zero, Subaru, and Emilia's dynamics leave much to be desired and problematic in many respects. I will talk more about that when I discuss the supporting cast. Subaru is also athletic. He knew martial arts and was a good runner. This conflicted with the Otaku archetype that Subaru tries to fulfill. He is good at many things but hates himself for weak reasons. An otaku character should not be so competent, at least you would think. Part of that archetype is that the character is a loser. Subaru is a loser, but a loser in a superficial way. In many ways, he feels as though he is an idealized otaku. Subaru played video games all day and did nothing with his life but is very smart and talented. Maybe that is the point, but I felt that he is too well equipped to be a "loser." Take a character like Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Many people would consider him to be a loser. But he is a loser for reasons that make sense in the context of the narrative. Shinji has legitimate reasons for behaving in pathetic ways. When Subaru acts pathetic, excuse my Reddit speak, but it is "cringe."
Re: Zero's supporting cast is horrible. Simply put, they have no autonomy. They basically cannot exist without Subaru. Emilia is the biggest offender. She continues to be milquetoast, inoffensive, and bland. Emilia has no other personality trait than being a "nice" girl. She is incapable of accomplishing anything without Subaru's help. This caused me to question is Emilia capable of becoming a ruler. The only time she has demonstrated any competency was at the beginning of the first season. Emilia continues to fail this season, accomplishing nothing. Her chemistry with Subaru is also non-existent. Their interactions either involve Subaru ignoring her wishes and saving her or some "cringe" comedy that consists of flirting. Other characters like Rem completely lose all personality and exist to make Subaru look good. Every word that came out of Rem's mouth was how great Subaru is and how he is a hero. It was tough to watch.
This season's biggest disappointment has to be the witches of sin that were hyped up the first season. Good lord, I have never been so disappointed. They were said to be pure evil, malicious, and conniving. The witches are a big joke. First, their character designs are incredibly unfitting for the role they were supposed to serve. The majority of the witches are cute lolis, with two or 3 of them looking like teenagers. They are also beautiful, which betrayed their role. I was expecting them to be adults and evil-looking, but here we get designs straight out of a harem anime. It betrays the horror of the first season. This is what we were supposed to be afraid of? And these witches are not even bad people. All the witches are attracted to Subaru and try to help him through his anguish. I was baffled by this. Why are these witches so invested in helping Subaru through his suffering? This caused me to realize that almost every female character in this show revolves around Subaru. They cannot do anything without him; they all love and adore him. These characters cannot exist without Subaru. It is pathetic wish fulfillment. I was disgusted by this. I do not hate harems, but when a show attempts to be serious, I would instead not be aspects such as wish-fulfillment in the front unless it is subversion.
Isekai continues to prove its worthlessness as a genre. It is funny because I know that there is potential for this genre. Shows and films like Now and Then, Here and There, and Spirited Away show that isekai can be amazing when done correctly. But modern writers care too much about money, too much about appealing to their audience that they fail to create anything interesting. Re: Zero was a horrible experience. I'd recommend you find something else to watch.
H0wl1ng
My first review and made account just to express how appalled I am that this show has people praising it as a masterpiece when it is actual hot garbage. I watched the first season because some one I know kept hyping this up. I felt horrible watching through the first season because it had such a bad mc and how aside from some physical pain the mc is basically a self insert in a harem land. My friend was like oh but it gets so much better in the second season. So, since I know this guy for years I listened and tried second seasonand I am just appalled. The mc who was a piece of cringe in season 1 doesnt get any better in season 2. None of the other characters have depth, they just feel like a harem trope or a hentai trope but the action didnt happen yet. The worst part, this second season did not even go anywhere with the story but the story was random in the first part anyway so whatever.
This show is like a massive troll on hours of your life. I figured out why my friend likes this so much, he just likes the girls, but for actual story dont end up wasting time like me.
Mirando
You can hate me but I came to this show without hype train and this "Masterpiece" talk. Well... It's far from masterpiece. It's more like brutal isekai with cute waifus and some slices of plot and deeper stuff. But those deeper stuff are usually just talked out by characters so... Overall 5/10 with some parts higher First of all. I don't really care now when Subaru dies. At this point it's just a part of the story that I got used to and I don't really care. It just pushes the story forward making viewer feeling bad for him (Or like me you don't feel anything at thispoint) and creating this fake bond of attachment.
Let's start.
Music aspect: Music was good but nowhere close to Season 1. Just personal point of view. There was nothing like "Requiem of Silence" level of music in this season.
Sound Design: It exists, It fits, doesn't stand out
Now story part:
It continues plot filling up gaps but really?
First time we can actually care about something in this show and his skill to come back from death since Rem is bound to bed.
You quickly realise that something is wrong, aswell with whole sanctuary story.
It became obvious for me after a while that all that "bad" shit happening was actually Mathers' doing. There was noone left even to look for since it was way too convinient for him not to happen. Every time something was going badly he was away... Yea
Now subaru is left for trials, ok I got it, emotional time with parents. Didn't ring a bell in my case. Restrospections are a common thing in isekai, and like in isekai case - executed average'ly
Whole thing with behavior of Garfield and other people in the village was so random that even with further explanation still left shit load of questions. Why Lion behaves like other person every other time? Things from before the respawn also gets change or what?
Next the Echidna - Thank fucking God she appeared in this show. Finally a Girl who has actual personality and in last episode - she shows her true face. Finally a girl who doesn't lick Subaru's ass everytime like every other girl in that show. Evil - true to her beliefs and unnatural greed. Last ep saved this show from being 5/10 to 6/10
Character development. I don't see it. All this talk about people also loving Subaru seemed like he didn't catch that in the end after waking up from Tea Party.
And also in the first place - Is he retarded or what not to realise that people care from him, when they are willing to die for the sake of him? Sorry, someone is dumb here.
All the characters are there, all the action is there, but I just feel like I watch the same thing played differently with Subaru in the end of course - winning. Last EP sounds like typicall "You must change something and take away something from Emilia to keep pushing forward" but why do I feel like it will have 0 impact on relations between any single character in this show. In the end - all the chicks love Subaru anyway
I don't say this show is bad. I think that in the last 10 years we - as a viewers - lowered standards for a show to be considered a "Masterpiece".
I once had discussion on Isekai forum and what I took out as a leeson from this was TLDR: Isekai fanboys praise any isekai to a 10 without using too much brain.
This show is now over 35EP long and is not even licking Attack on Titan's foot in term of Character development, World building, story telling and basically any action, and ofc power of will and friendship bullshit.
There are very few shows that should get status of Masterpiece. In my opinion those shows should leave huge mark upon you, changing something in your life, changing point of view, motivating to something.
In my case Re Zero motivated me to forget about all the hype it has and go watch something actually good.
We get less and less actuall good shows with deeper meaning every year for the sake of for example "rental girlfriend" which is the biggest trash ever made, and it actually get praise for being relatable and realistic.
We must treasure good shows, not mediocrity or all we will be left with in the future is gonna be Rental Girlfriend :)
Now hate me fanboys.
KyomaBritannia
I'm honestly so surprised at how unsurprised I was to finish this season, dislike it almost completely, then come here and see how highly rated it is. I was intrigued by season 1, and wanted to see how Subaru progresses and watch as some of the mysteries unfold. I was annoyed by quite a bit, but there was some promise of potential. I didn't have too high of expectations coming into this, and yet none of them were met. (Some spoilers incoming) Story: The whole season is basically dedicated to one save point for Subaru. The stakes are at their highest with not one, but now two enemiesmost likely each far stronger than the whale he just defeated. Suddenly, these enemies are completely forgotten about as more and more enemies keep showing up, all demanding Subaru defeat them to advance to the next save point. At the end of 13 episodes, exactly zero of these enemies are defeated. Basically, nothing really happens.
World Building:
Now a stagnant story may be because the writer is focusing on world building to give viewers more knowledge and understanding of the world, more characters, character backstory, etc. This would help set the story up to have some kind of payoff near the end when something major happens or is revealed. The problem is that the information given about the world is mostly irrelevant, the characters introduced shallow and one-dimensional (and basically more waifu fan service), and backstory given for existing characters is again irrelevant, not to mention filled with cringe-inducing dialogue.
Characters:
At the end of season 1, Subaru is set up to start learning from his mistakes. He has to get better information such as figure out other character's motives, strengths and weaknesses, get help from others who are stronger or have skills he doesn't have, and generally have more of a clue of how this world works as he powers through to save his friends. Yet he regresses as a character. He cries pretty much multiple times every episode yet again instead of asking important questions of others and himself, he actively ignores or brushes off his friends until they demand to help, and most useful information he gets is because other characters give it to him on a silver platter.
All other characters come off as boring and again one-dimensional, just showing up to drive the non-existent plot forward. Many of their interactions with Subaru feel like they've been written by a 13 year old boy going through puberty.
Art & Sound:
Definitely a step down from season 1, but good enough to not hamper the show. I'm willing to sacrifice a little in these categories as long as it is made up for with improvements in other areas. Sadly, this was not the case.
Overall, the season has been a major disappointment, and I feel like my time has been completely wasted by continuing to watch this show. The hype was wrong yet again, people are too willing to accept mediocrity. How surprising.
Haunt-Me
Imagine a protagonist that makes Shinji Ikari crybaby extraordinaire look like a Greek god. Welcome Crybaru, where every episode he has a mental breakdown from having mental breakdowns. I swear the amount of tears he has shed could have put out every fire on the west coast of America. Story 1/10 The story goes absolutely no where. We learn about some background stuff on certain characters and more about the witches. Was any of it good? Nope. Did it push the story further at all? 1 centimeter if I'm Generous. Art 4/10 Nothing special. Every episode probably costed about 12 dollars. Sound 2/10 Hearing Subaru cry is enough to give mePTSD
Characters 2/10
No one is at all interesting. From the cliche witches to Emilia being as interesting as drywall. No one really grows here. Every character is in stasis or just so cookie cutter it hurts. Subaru is just a human husk at this point.
Enjoyment 2/10
Almost non existent, just like the effort went into producing this.
Overall 2/10
Avoid even if you like season 1, this is a waste of time. Part 2 could fix some of these issue but I'm doubting harder than agent Cole in L.A. Noire.
Dance-Seth-Dance
Even the ground dragons fall in love with the protagonist in this anime! So, how is this not just another generic harem? I'm not sure if I missed that in season 1, because I was watching with the premise that we'll get to find out why he was even transported to that world, and how that world exists in the first place. Then, it got fun to see how he'd deal with his Return by Death, and the immediate curiosity around it. It took them 4 years to release season 2, and I honestly can't remember if my criticisms of this season, are also relevant tothe first. How long did we have to wait for season 2 of AoT? It felt like forever, but I believe 5 years, and after those 5 years, my memory was a BIT fuzzy, but I remembered things, and characters. With this anime, I could barely remember anything about any of them. I really enjoyed season 1, so the question I ask myself, is did I become tired of these generic harems, and general making all females wear revealing/sexualised outfits style animes? I think yeah, but this season was also bad in the sense of the story, too.
There was absolutely no progression of the story in the entire season. We still didn't find out anything about why he is there, and where there really is. The whole mystery about his Return by Death dissipated to the point of being really tedious having to watch him scream and be shocked when someone dies, because we know they're not really dead. If you realllllly think about it, take out all his re-runs, and constant screaming and crying, how much did we actually get to watch? It kinda makes me feel as if all things in this anime are inconsequential, because he can always reverse time and undo it all, so nothing that happens, really matters. The only new things we learn each time he dies, is that THEY'VE ALL BEEN BETRAYED BY X PERSON. Oh no wait it was just a misunderstanding. SOMEONE ELSE HAS TURNED OUT TO BE EVIL, oh no, wait they've had a complete personality change and are a good guy again. And on that topic, at first the whole tea party thing was intriguing, but it got very boring, very fast, when they would flip-flop between making the witches evil/good every episode.
Overall Rem was one of the only characters I liked in the first season, even though she joined the harem. This season Ram was one of the better ones, but most characters are completely replaceable, or plain boring like our princess. Oh, and loving the constant damsels in distress btw. Harems, damsels in distress, fake deaths, cleavage everywhere, bad guys that all seem to turn out good/have a sad back story. How is this not a super generic anime?
Also love all those top rated reviews where they have only watched 4 episodes of the season, and ended up giving them 10's lmao. Nothing says unbiased ratings like people giving 10/10 reviews after only 4 episodes.
Balsamina
"i wanna insert myself into an isekai so how can i write that and make it look like im being intelligent to fellow isekai simps....? ah, ill give my self insert a lot of physical pain because if hes in physical pain he wont be called a gary stu right? right?? and being unable to die can't be an OP superpower. its not like he can destroy planets, he just can't ever lose to the bad guys and no matter what goes wrong, he can make it right. Oh but I won't compromise on the girls. they have to like me- *ahem* I mean, my maincharacter."
One has to wonder how the mindset of the writer of the premise must have been when writing this...
This show is not a masterpiece, far from it. This show is not intelligent writing, it is even beneath lazy writing. I call this, S1 and S2 a special snowflake self-insert "fic".
If you need to read the novels or watch a youtube documentary explaining the events in an anime to understand what just happened and like it, then the anime in question is undeniably bad. A work of art should be able to stand out as a beauty on its own merits without having to rely on overt external efforts to prop it up or patch its holes. This review is of the anime and the anime only -- the assessments presented here are not influenced by the novel or any external factors.
I'm going to start the review with the superficial shit that don't influence my overall scoring very much first.
Art: 7
It's pretty decent for a 2020 show. There aren't any complaints from me but the art isn't amazing either. It's stylistically consistent with the first season and that's really fair enough. It's pretty pleasant to look at and for a lot of people new to anime (especially younger audiences who can barely understand what is being taught in their middle or high school literature class) where the art matters more than the story, there won't be any major complaints either.
Sound: 6
I don't give much of a damn about sound unless its either amazing or it hurts to listen to. This show falls under neither. Typical anisong pop tracks for OP and ED. OST lacks any memorability but nothing that hurts to listen to or would get remembered after seeing the show. ED's good enough to recognize if a youtube playlist autoplays it when I'm not looking I suppose, but it's not anything artistically notable.
Now that the superficial bits are out of the way, let's dissect this anime and score it. Do note that there may be spoilers (depending on what level of information you regard as a spoiler) and that while I will try to keep "spoilers" vague, you have been warned.
Characters: 1
Just like the first season, this is the show's weakest. There have been attempts to improve on Subaru's character but they also completely downgrade two full major characters on top of making a joke out of some other side characters.
I will start with some definitions and scaling to use as a rubric. This is stuff I've placed in my profile description, but I'll put this here as well for easy reference:
"What rubric do I use when scoring character development?
1D - a literal name that never shows on the screen
2D - a showing of a character but that's literally it.
3D - it behaves in some way. It has a personality.
3.5D - it behaves in some way. It has a personality. It has at least a past and a present (1-3D) or at least a present and a future.
4D - it behaves in some way. It has a personality. It has at least a past and a present (1-3D). Most importantly, it has a future"
So where was Subaru as of S1...?
Well, in S1, his abridged intro at the start of the show would be "Hi, I'm a shut-in who got isekai'ed and simps for Emilia while role-playing as the hero of a fantasy world". The sentence is more or less the same at the end. Given that he does have a personality (the consistency of which is debatable), that would make him only 3D on the above rubric, which sounds nice, until we translate what my rubric's 3D means -- not a human yet, a literal sack of meat that just sits the same way through the story's timespace. Considering Subaru is the main character, we are not off to a great start here.
In S2, we start with the same sentence. Judging S2 as its own separate anime entry, this is an okay starting point, just like it was an okay starting point for S1. The problem here, is that the ending abridged intro for Subaru is still the same: "Hi, I'm a shut-in who got isekai'ed and simps for Emilia while role-playing as the hero of a fantasy world".
I will concede that there was a slight peek into his past in one episode, but the issue here is that while it was present, the episode fails to establish a relatable or even memorable reason for his being a "shut-in". His whole justification for becoming a shut-in can literally be summarized as "I did not get to be the absolute center of (positive) attention in school so I stopped going". This is a very poor excuse to end up a recluse and frankly, most people are not enough of a snowflake to become a recluse over something like this or 25 out of 30 students in every elementary, middle and high school classroom would be recluses. Most people, at least as per my life experience, do not need to get perfect test scores or be the perfect athlete or artist or have EX tier charisma to continue going to school. Of the cases of people becoming a recluse I am aware of, it takes something like a class bullying incident or a case of substantial induced stress to be at the top of the class. Subaru's parents were in no way tiger moms/dads and his classmates in the same flashback did not bully him. As such, as of this bit, Subaru as a character is somewhere between 3D and 3.5D. A typical well-written side character, varying on importance is usually between 3D-3.5D on the rubric. This is bad.
So what about the future aspect? Does Subaru change throughout season 2 as a character?
If there was change, it was miniscule. I did mention they made attempts to improve his character. The peek into his past was attempt #1 which fell short for the aforementioned reasons. Attempt #2 was having people tell him to love himself. Problem is, this happened on the very last episode and and while it did have a slight effect, his summarizing statement remains the same: "Hi, I'm a shut-in who got isekai'ed and simps for Emilia while role-playing as the hero of a fantasy world".
To give as contrast of what a 4D protagonist's start-to-finish summary statements look like, here's a look at a few examples:
Light Yagami of Deathnote:
"I am an ace student who just picked up a special notebook that I am using to enact justice upon criminals." (start)
"I am a god of justice who will realize a new utopia and I view everyone as beneath me." (end)
Lelouch Lamperouge/vi Britannia of Code Geass:
"I am an exiled prince who hopes to destroy my home country for revenge and to build a world that will revolve around being kind to my beloved sister." (start)
"I was and became a lot of things but I want to build a kinder, less hateful world not only for my sister but for everyone." (end)
Kira Yamato of Gundam Seed:
"I am a student who got dragged into a war and just want to protect my friends on this space warship." (start)
"I will end the war and stop the spread of hate." (end)
Subaru's growth, from start to finish of S2 is objectively none of the above. Even from S1 start to S2 finish, he has not made progress to his character growth on remotely the same scale. This is true of his ability growth, achievements list (since everyone else does the fighting), and his mentality and internal growth.
Now, enough about Subaru, what about his two love interests?
Well, that was where they royally screwed up. Of the two love interests, one of them is was a cardboard paper waifu cutout in S1 that served as a plot device more than a character. She stays a plot device here except with somewhat even less depth. The other one had the unrealistic "development" of going from hating the main character enough to murder him to dedicating her entire being to him in one episode after he saves her once. This was in S1. In S2, this character outright goes poof in the first episode and becomes a plot device that hardly gets screentime, let alone lines to say or gain any further empathy from the audience. Since both of these ended up just outright plot devices, there's not much more to say about them.
And then we have the villains...
There are seven of them and in S1, they were literally 1D. In S2, they finally show themselves, but it even turns out they are not actually villains, but waifus trying to help him. Just another bunch of flat characters that score between 2D and 3D (most of them at or leaning 2D) on the rubric, which is just bad.
Story: 2
In my review for S1, I had already established why Re:Zero cannot be classified as a masterpiece. To reiterate, I will provide an excerpt of it here:
"To hit masterpiece or epic tier, a narrative must be something that you can watch repeatedly, over and over, and not lose your appreciation of its value. This often happens with shows that both have a valid, moving, and engaging plot AND can leave the audience with something to take home, and think about in solemn contemplation. Anime is a medium full of works that can do this, but Re:Zero is not one of them.
To elaborate on this, we have to strip out all of the cinematics, choreography, theatrics, tricks of narration and sound effects that heighten an audience's perception of how epic or great a narrative truly is. When this is done, what we have left is effectively the story of someone of literally no nobility of mind and no notability of ability going into a fantasy world, where he immediately meets a cute girl, follows her around like a puppy, proceeds to meet more cute girls, and spends most of his time dying repeatedly to bruteforce the result that has the least amount of undesireable deaths of his waifus possible (aka get to the next save point). He has no drive to accomplish an overarching goal, his position and time spent does not allow him to compare or contrast any axiology or philosophy. His past is so blank aside from us knowing that he is a NEET/hikkikomori that we know nothing about how he ended up as one, and know nothing of him that could get in the way of a similar otaku boi sticking themselves in his shoes.
Now, following this set up, this show's premise dooms it to be forever excluded from the ranks of epic tier narratives in the minds of any serious critic of literature, be it a medium of written text, film, or anime. You simply cannot tell an epic story of a useless pleb. The Epic of Gilgamesh is remembered because Gilgamesh's unique position as a demigod king allowed him to contrast many things: having hundreds of women at his disposal to bed with vs just one soul who will cherish him. Having a true friend, even if that true friend is not human but a clay doll. It questioned the axiology of immortality and the meaning of life itself. Modern epic tier anime works such as Fate/Zero and Code Geass can explore the clash of ideologies. Deontology (Suzaku) vs Consequentialism (Lelouch), true deconstruction of the idea of a savior, a hero (Kiritsugu Emiya)... the list goes on.
However, there is nothing being deconstructed in this show. There are no axiologies being weighed."
This exerpt from my S1 review retains almost all of its validity through S2, save that in S2, we got a small peek at the main character's past. In my S1 review, I have also gone through genre by genre of what Re:Zero is classified as (mystery, fantasy, drama, psychological, thriller) and why this show fails to be good at each of them save for its thriller classification. Season 2 retains pretty much all of the same genres and the same failures. The difference is that, unlike its first season where Return By Death was fresh and the thriller aspect was working, by S2, it was no longer fresh and the thriller aspect of it fails from the start. This means, the story in S2 is failing to reach even "good tier".
Why is that so though?
Well, thrillers inherently only work for the first (few) watches. Although the number of repetitions vary between individuals, there is absolutely a finite number of times Subaru can die before the viewer stops caring about the fact that he did or how, or even what he experienced in the last loop. By Season 2, this point is more than reached, yet the show retains its kill-Subaru-again-this week format akin to Sailor Moon's monster-of-the-week episodes.
To top it all off, in terms of actual plot advancement, since the last save point of his isekai visual novel took a total of 9 out of 13 episodes of looping, the plot didn't really go anywhere significant either. Episode after episode, this show just did info dump upon info dump. Every info dump gave a lot of information to tease something but the tease fails since none of its info dumps from before get answered or simply not enough of them get answered. As such, at some point, the viewer realizes the information is pointless. For example, what is the point of telling us about Ryuzu's clones when the information is in zero way relevant to passing the current save point? As for information that we could benefit from, such as who and how Subaru was brought into this world and for what purpose, we never get. Thus, the events that would otherwise be dramatic had they been explained aren't explained and thus feels forced or out of the blue or just irrelevant.
So, what is really left at the end?
We have a show where the main character suffers physically, but all the girls in the show magically like him or baby him or both, even the supposed villains. Heck, even the assassin trying to kill him does so while dressed like a stripper. If there was any legitimacy to the assumption that this story was not written as a self-insertion harem fantasy, that is certainly gone as of the last episode of this wreck.
And what about the big reveal in the second half of the last episode? Well... cliffhangers have been done before. Frankly, it is a cheap way to try to keep your audience. Surely, this will work on fanbois and younger audiences but it certainly isn't working on anyone critically thinking while watching, especially those who are not and will not confuse their assessment of the anime with that of its LN source.
Enjoyment: 3
Unfortunately, as of Season 2, this show's magic (Return by Death) has long worn off. I had began this show with high hopes of it being capable of at least giving me something to enjoy on par with the first watch of its Season 1 which was rated at an 8 overall for the first watch. However, this entry simply fell flat as it not only relies on a bygone trick from last season, but could not add positively to its predecessor's legacy (first watch).
Reviewer's background: anime watcher only--Seen first season twice, seen every episode of season 2 twice except the last one which is only once. Will I give the LN a try? Hahahaha... hell no.
jarvis_kjellberg
\*May contain spoilers*\ . . . I did not like Re zero season 2 part 1 at all. . . . For me, a single aspect anime is enough to make it or break it. So when Re zero season 1 came out I was blown away by the concept. Mostly because it was the first anime of isekai genre I had seen. Subaru being the non flashy hero paired with the power of redoing everything (which we all wanted to do at some point) was the perfect mixture for an awsome anime. And also the fact that the anime covered multiple arc in one season was the cherry on top. Now let mesay why I did not like the season 2 part 1.
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I found none of the elements mentioned above in this season.
Yes there was some "BIG" reveals but let's be honest it was so predictable.
Subaru's trauma and suffering is one aspect that makes people rally behind him. It's either you love it or hate it kinda thing. In this season I found it to be quiet annoying. Because Subaurs pain just felt so artificial to me. Let me explain how so...
Whether Subaru gets physically hurt or mentally traumatized his "cries" or "screams" had the same tone. Make that repetitive and it becomes kinda annoying. It sounded more like a choke gag sounds than actual crying.
And Subarus falling into despair was fun for a while BUT the fact he would fall into despair and recover from it like it was nothing at all, and do it so many times that the word despair lost its weight/meaning behind it.
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The shifting personality of the supporting characters was something that I found hard to keep up with. And I think it was because they tried to put so many twist at once.In order to understand the reasoning behind a characters action I needed to know about the characters more. And I did not got to know the characters better because of the reason mentioned previously.
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Wasn't a fan of the animation from the first season but this season it felt like it got worse.
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It was an incomplete arc (obviously because it is a two part show). But not seeing Subaru act like a hero left me unsatisfied. I only saw his pathetic side. Wish it had some satisfying elements to it .
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And last but not least "BEST GIRL REM" didn't have enough screentime.
(rewritten)
DawdlingDreamer
Story: 0/2 Characters/Development: 1/2 Animation/Artstyle: .5/1 Music (OP/OST/ED): .5/1 Ending: 0/1 Keeps You Entertained: 2/2 Would Watch Again: 0/1 Total: 4/10 Ok...were do we start, I'm gonna start with the analogy I have been using the entire time I have been watching this show, the writer of this show either really like side quests or he's gonna pull off a masterpiece of putting something together. Every single episode there was something new added to the tasks of Subaru quest bar. Every single episode I left more confused then the last. If you asked me what happened in each episode, the season or what this show is about I COULDN'T FUCKING TELL YOU. Thisshow and I don't know how it fucking does this honestly keeps you captivated in the most intriguing dialog between characters and then half way through the dialog I think in my head its like there trying to tell me something but I can't understand a word there saying! Nothing it goes right over my head because every single dialog is really intrigued but nothing is explained or has any weight to it. Its the same insanity over and over again each fucking episode and once again this is either going to be a masterpiece where everything comes together or were gonna get so fucking played. The story gets a fat zero because it doesn't make any sense. Characters and development. I don't like these characters really, but I'm so confused that there may have been development. Animation idk anything about but sometimes I didnt like it. It has a single song it was fine. The ending was fucking trash. I couldn't be paid to watch this again. I feel like when I watch this show I'm getting told an old war story by my grandfather and he had a stroke half way through but I didn't notice because thats how he usually talks and its also not my grandfather its a carrot with a hat on and I'm tripping on lsd while dipping my balls in mayonnaise.......yeah.
mkzxwing
Verdict - drop after season 1 *Spoilers ahead* Just like with SAO (first season), i couldn't get with everyone on the hate train against this too. Even if i did split SAO to two parts (before and after leaving the death game), and while enjoying the first, really found the second half mediocre... Same thing here. Kind of. Overall i found the first season tolerable, if not decent (7.5~), yes, it was unnecessarily emotional, dramatic, ugly, and stupid, BUT, by the end, it really did feel like the MC finally grew a spine and solidified his resolve to be both of use, and not break and crumble goingforward, regardless of what happens next. It happened multiple times in the show, but if the first time was weak, and the second just shaky, last time, it felt like it'll be different, and, until the show's end, it was.
So, what's this season? It's a complete betrayal of those expectations, more cycles of everything about MC crumbling, pretending to strengthen, then crumbling yet again. Another bunch of new characters, and a complete meat grinder EACH AND EVERY EPISODE, emotionally and physically, literally and figuratively. There's no lesson to be learned. There's no positive charge to gain, no resolve or will to inherit from the main character or others, no moral high ground, lesson, wisdom or truth, no sense of achievement.
Subaru breaks. EVERY. FRIGGING. EPISODE. Again and again. Multiple times in an episode even. And the characters get to preach. Because they're all somehow so wise, and even seem to either consciously, or subconsciously know and/or understand the situation every time and give helpful advice (without him telling, or even being able to tell them what's going on), a shoulder to cry on, and a calming speech or pat on the shoulder. How? Why? What's the point, if there's no end point, lesson, knowledge, ANYTHING that will lead him down the right path going forward and make him stronger against the horrors to come? Beats me, it's been 38 episodes of this show by now, and they managed to break everything they've built by the end of the first 25, the extras and movie, with no end in sight any time soon.
And then it ends. Or rather is on hold till winter for the next season to come. Why should you, the viewer look forward to it? Who knows. Maybe you're a masochist or sadist? I have absolutely no other ideas in mind of who else this second season can be aimed at. I personally watched it out of sheer completionism and morbid curiosity as to what reason there is to continue after s1 aside ruining what it established or at best leaving the viewer in pretty much the same position as last season due to the nature of the show and source material (aka, as far as i see it : daily life>conflict>attempt to fix it via dying and resetting>revelations>more attempts>mental breakdown>recovery with the infinite wisdom of everyone around and the magical power of friendship>getting the resolve and info needed>solve it, rinse and repeat, sometimes even multiple times in the confines of a single episode). So far the former happened (it ruined what it established last season and within its own air time too).
Will next season be better and finally end and stop this vicious cycle? Who knows. But i'm certainly not looking forward to it, but sadly, i'll probably watch it (or at least riff over it) anyway since i want to finish this and the next review... Unless it won't end, and, knowing it, it probably won't, in which case, i'll drop it for good.
Final verdict (again), not recommended to anyone due to the lack of any goal, lesson, point, or finish line (outside sheer determination and relying on others, and some other things that where already conveyed in full LAST season), and a completely unsightly show from beginning to end. Unless, again, you like pointless repetition, or are a sadist/masochist.
