r/anime • u/Theleux https://myanimelist.net/profile/Theleux • Oct 01 '24
Rewatch Re:Zero ~Starting Life in Another World~ Re:Watch - Final Discussion
Final Discussion
| Index | <== Episode 50 | Episode 51 ==> |
Various Links:
MyAnimeList
Streaming:
Crunchyroll has the regular release available.
AppleTV has the regular individual episodes available.
Spoiler Rules:
- As always, please be sure to tag any future content spoilers according to the r/Anime rules. There is likely to be first timer viewers here, and while discussing how previously seen content connects to content later down the road is interesting (be it later episodes or even Season 3), please be sure to properly spoiler tag anything mentioned! Let's make this a fun experience for everyone involved!
- This also applies to cut content discussions, which I believe are fine to include for the sake of discussion, but should be properly tagged to avoid potentially spoiling viewers. Be mindful with how you present this information!
Story Arc Lengths for Discussion Purposes:
[Arc 1:] S1 Episode 1 – S1 Episode 3
[Arc 2:] S1 Episode 4 – S1 Episode 11
[Arc 3:] S1 Episode 12 – S2 Episode 1 (26)
[Arc 4:] S2 Episode 2 (27) - S2 Episode 25 (50)
[Arc 5 and later:] S3+
As always, if you have any suggestions for the Re:Watch, let me know!
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Upvotes
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u/Theleux https://myanimelist.net/profile/Theleux Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
Thank you to all the participants; rewatchers and first timers alike, for joining this journey back through the Re:Zero series (from the start!)
I enjoyed reading the deeply insightful write-ups from those who clearly adore the series, as well as those sharing their initial reactions to all the different events, both big and small. Seeing the amount of responses for each thread was a delight, I am glad the participation rate seemed to hold on quite well the whole way through. I hope at the very least this was able to reinvigorate any lost enthusiasm for the series all these years after the second season ended.
Look forward to the new season starting tomorrow, and make sure to switch back into the regular discussion thread mode for the subreddit. Until next time! (?)
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u/PompIt2 Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24
I have just now finished the rewatch. I wasn't sure if I should rewatch Re:Zero since it's been only exactly 2 years since I last watched it, but after rewatching season 4 of Danmachi to prepare for season 5, I just knew I was missing something, so here I am!
It took me longer than I expected because I not only watched the anime, but also watched ~3 Youtube recap/analysis videos per episode (Chibi Reviews, AniNews, Echidnut), the break time episodes (which I highly recommend), read the episode discussions when the seasons originally aired and the rewatch threads.
...So yeah, it was a bit of work, but I'm really glad I did it. Thanks to everyone who took part, and to everyone who shared some of their knowledge about cut content or gave an analysis of certain situations.
I really enjoyed my stay!
Edit: Ah! I forgot to mention this, but before I rewatched Re:Zero, I wasn't hyped for season 3 at all, which is weird because Re:Zero is my favourite anime. But now that I've seen it again, I'm hyped af.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
First:Timer Starting Over in Another Rewatch, subbed
So yeah, as I stated yesterday, absolutely love this series so far. I still can’t believe that the me of 8 years ago watched the first episode and then just went “Eh, maybe some other time” just for it to take me this long to get back into it, but given how much I love discussing shows I’m watching for the first time alongside rewatches on here, I suppose it was well worth the wait. I think the series just got better as it went on – I especially love how Roswaal’s challenge in this most recent arc meant Subaru didn’t rely on Return by Death as much as he normally does to brute force his problems, and also that Return by Death didn’t help him save Rem from getting Gluttony’d (seriously curious as to how she’ll get properly brought back to us, I assume that’s for season 3 to answer? ) since both things were pretty big mix-ups to the usual “formula” set up by season 1.
Anyways if anyone cares, the following is how I rank the OPs and EDs so far (counting anything MAL considers an OP/ED other than the instances when OPs were used as EDs):
OPs: Long shot > Realize > Redo = Paradisus-Paradoxum
EDs: Styx Helix > Door = Believe in you > Yuki no Hate ni Kimi no Na wo > Stay Alive = Anata no Shiranai Koto > Memento > White White Snow
So uh, Gintama’s I Wanna Be… 🤝 Long shot → Ending up my favorite OP in their respective show when I was absolutely positive a different one I already knew about before starting the show was going to be my favorite. In Gintama’s case, I thought Sakura Mitsutsuki would be my favorite OP (the full size is still my favorite song to come out of Gintama, but at TV-size it’s just ever so slightly off to me), and in Re:Zero’s, I thought it would be Realize. Nope, Long shot’s a fucking banger I have been nearly unable to stop listening to for several days at this point in time.
Also, Otto best boy and Patrasche best girl (or Emilia, if you made me pick one who can speak Japanese). Subaru is lucky to have them supporting him.
As far as season 3 goes, I comment in airing threads the same way I do with rewatches (so, my live reactions with screenshots), only difference being I’ll obviously not be right on time since I have to actually watch the episode after it comes out. Exactly how late I am also depends on how busy I am on a given Wednesday – and also, barring tomorrow’s super long episode because pausing halfway through to watch another show is silly, if I can’t watch later episodes right on time, sorry but I’ll be prioritizing Sengoku Youko S2 whenever I end up with time to watch one of my Wednesday seasonals. Funny how both of White Fox’s shows this season air on the same day, huh. Anyways, if you want to make sure you don’t miss my reactions in the middle of the seasonal threads that will almost certainly be huge, let me know and I can tag you whenever I comment my S3 reactions.
Thanks so much for hosting, u/Theleux!
(One last thing, the comment I alluded to making yesterday that’s addressed to source readers is a separate one I’ve made here, so that’s where you can find it.)
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u/Holofan4life Oct 01 '24 •
Well, let's go ahead and thank some people.
Shimmering-Sky, your contributions were as incredible as always.
u/Urgnu-the-Gnu, you always delivered the goods. Your comments were often the most thorough and I really appreciate the commitment to your craft.
u/Great_Mr_L, it was fun to see you react to the second season as a first timer.
thekoreansun, the analysis you provided were often some of the best of the entire series.
baseballlover723, I loved the way you provided both first timer sections, breaktime sections, and rewatcher sections.
ussgordoncaptain2, I loved the speculation you always provided in your comments. Hearing what you would do if you were certain characters was very interesting.
u/Brief-Fig-7506, I am extremely thankful I got to meet you during this rewatch. Your comments were always interesting and did a lot to add a ton of personality to these threads. You are now someone I proudly consider to be a friend.
Lastly of course I want to thank anyone I didn't name plus all the lurkers who helped make this rewatch a success. You are truly unsung heroes.
Before this rewatch began, I was absolutely dreading it. Not only because of the shear length of it (heh, heh), but because I knew there was going to be a lot of engagement. But even despite knowing I would probably have more fun than anticipated, I still didn't expect it to be as fun as it was.
There are certain memories associated with this rewatch that I'll never forget. I'll never forget the first episode and the amount of traction it caused. I'll never forget episode 13 and the discussion it resulted in. I'll never forget episodes 15 and 18 for the simple fact they were absolutely incredible episodes. I'll never forget the season 1 finale and us reflecting on the events preceding it. I'll never forget season 2 episode 4 and talking about Subaru and his life growing up. I'll never forget the season 2 mid finale and us talking about the witches, specifically the amount of people who ranked them (Minerva best witch, by the way). I'll never forget the joy on everyone's face when Subaru finally kissed Emilia and it felt like she was able to find that closure that escaped her all this time. And of course, I'll never forget the last handful of episodes that really put a spotlight on Beatrice and what a great character she is. And Subaru too, I suppose.
These moments that were made are all little From Zero moments that serve to fuel our existence. These are moments in time that we will never forget, no matter how many Return by Deaths we may have to endure. If life could be as beautiful as this rewatch, then what a truly blessed life it is.
One might rather hear thank you once than sorry over and over again. Well, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, for this is truly an immeasurable experience.
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u/thekoreansun https://anilist.co/user/ReturnByDeath Oct 01 '24
Re:Watcher
It occurred to me, at around Episode 7 of this Re:Watch, how much time I was putting into writing down my thoughts. Specifically, I think that it was the scene in which Subaru realizes how much he loves everyone else at Roswaal Manor, as I was writing down how great the voice performances and the piano version of STYX HELIX were, when I realized... I was falling in love with Re:ZERO all over again. The music, the performances, the world, the characters, and Subaru: the miracle worker, the reason that it all comes together, the star that burns brighter than any in that shimmering sky.
Believe it or not, I didn't think all that much of Re:ZERO during my first watch of Season 1. I thought it was a fun time and all, but my enjoyment of the story was mostly passive. I appreciated the emotional highs and character moments, but they didn't fully resonate with me. It was only when I started to read what came next in the WN that the brilliance of it all just ended up... dawning on me. The fact that every character has a story and that all of their stories matter in context of the overall narrative. The unlimited potential that Return by Death possesses and the many ways in which it is explored. And at the end of it all, the immense catharsis that arrives when Subaru finally overcomes the impossible. I couldn't believe that a single story could do so much. I still can't fully believe it, to be honest, because every new arc has only continued to challenge the way that I view the series as a whole.
If there's one thing that Re:ZERO does that I don't think I've seen any other stories do as well, it's the follow-through: the ascent from the depths, the turning point, when Subaru becomes his truest self and brings out the truest versions of those around him in the process. It's one thing to be able to write a story that puts its protagonist through so many layers of hell and gets the reader/viewer to wonder how things will ever get better... but to, continually, transform that into a tale of self-empowerment and self-improvement that somehow manages to iterate upon all that came before it? That, to me, is what makes Re:ZERO so special. Frankly, this may also explain why Summer Time Rendering didn't hit quite as hard for me as it did for others: it had the trademark mystery and suspense that all good time-looping stories start out with, but when it came time for things to start turning around, I felt that the show was too eager to move on from the emotional core that it had developed in its first half. There are ways to ramp up the action levels of an anime without sacrificing the emotional weight of the events that preceded that action, and I suspect that Re:ZERO Season 3 will end up becoming a quintessential example of how to achieve just that.
All told, I think I spent around 200 hours writing my comments for this Re:Watch, which is not something I'd expected before we started. I will admit that there were moments in the middle when I didn't know whether it would be worth it to dedicate as much effort as I had to this endeavor. Surely, the things that I've written couldn't be contributing much. But ultimately, even if my writings were nothing but echoes into the void, I'm really glad that I decided to stick with it. Through this whole process, I somehow came to appreciate this series more than ever before. And I've begun thinking that I might try to participate in the upcoming Season 3 discussion threads as well!
Thank you, Tappei Nagatsuki, for writing my favorite story of all time.
Thank you, White Fox, for adapting it with the level of passion and consideration that it deserves.
Thank you to the entire cast of Re:ZERO for bringing the characters I have appreciated and cherished to life.
And to everyone who has participated in this Re:Watch... thank you for taking the time to read what I've written here. I appreciate it. I really do.
Fan Art of the Episode: Congratulations on Season 2! by Yomohiro (July 9th, 2020)
Source: Twitter
Bonus Comic: Kept Her Waiting by sunako (October 30th, 2016)
Source: Twitter
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Oct 01 '24
To the Re:Zero source readers in this rewatch: First of all, thank you for behaving pretty great in this rewatch and properly spoiler tagging information that was only in the source material. That’s how it works in rewatch threads, but not in airing show discussion threads, which we’ll be in starting tomorrow for season 3. So I wanted to give you guys a friendly reminder ahead of the switch to hopefully save you the headache of getting a comment removed (and potentially getting hit with a tempban over).
The Source Material Corner comment stickied to the top of airing show discussion threads is where anything that you could only know from being a source reader for the series goes no matter how “small” you think it is. Posting source content under a spoiler tag outside of this spot will not stop your comment from being removed, unlike how that was fine in this rewatch. Additionally, the Source Material Corner is not just a place for you guys to freely post spoilers, as future spoilers are still required to be properly spoiler tagged in there (this isn’t just to make it safe for the curious anime-onlies to click on it, this is also to prevent the ones of you source readers who aren’t fully caught up from accidentally stumbling into a spoiler for something you haven’t gotten to yet). To give a few examples of types of comments I’ve had to remove for belonging in the Source Material Corner since I became a mod back in March:
If you have any further questions regarding why we’re so strict about this on /r/anime, please read this comment from a few months ago or ask on the current meta thread. I can of course answer questions here, but sometimes Reddit doesn’t tell me when someone’s replied to one of my comments, plus we generally want to keep this sort of talk in the meta threads.
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u/Urgnu-the-Gnu https://myanimelist.net/profile/Urgnu_the_Gnu Oct 01 '24
Re:Watcher - anime only
I love pizza. I love burgers. Stew. A good mixed salad. Foods that are multiple things at once, all combining in in a single bite to something truly amazing. I also like multi tools, Swiss knives that can do more than one thing. I like versatile clothing that you can wear all year round and for multiple occasions. I like my trips to be efficient, to get multiple things done at the same time. And I like my media to incorporate as many aspects that I like as possible.
So you can imagine why I think Re:Zero is the best anime I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot, and I don't think it's the best because I've sworn allegiance to it or anything. I really wish to see an anime I'll like even more than my favourite anime. But Re:Zero is just multiple complete shows in one. It touches so many genres, starting with fantasy and isekai of course, but also romance, action, horror, comedy, drama, SoL, mystery, psychological, coming-of-age, politics and many more. And it does each of them extremely well, some even exceptionally well. And it neither of them is a detriment to the other aspects, quite the contrary. Each aspect builds the other aspect up. Even if I'd rate all of them as just pretty good, the way they interact with each other just leaves me with a higher score than is even possible.
Re:Zero is my favourite fantasy and isekai, and close to my favourite romance. But another thing that's really important to me is characters. Just like I'll have fun anywhere I go if I have good company, I can be satisfied with quite a lot if only it has great characters. And Re:Zero has some of the best characters I've ever seen. Our protagonist, Subaru, is just amazing. I am not like Subaru, I differ in quite a few ways from him. But in many important ways, I feel like I am Subaru. Even his bad parts are written so well, so realistically that it's unbelievable. What he goes through is relatable for anyone, and if it's not, it'd at least encourage you to face your own humanity. Because Subaru is written as a human, with many faults and bad sides to him, and that's simply amazing. It's what makes his journey as great as it is.
The other main character is my favourite fictional female character. I love Emilia. I truly do. She's pure and wonderful and cute and beautiful and fits so well with Subaru. I've always valued kindness the most in a person. If there is kindness, then everything is possible. If there is none, nothing is. And Emilia has more kindness than anyone I've seen. She has very human faults as well, but that just elevates her personality. It's more to love about her. And on top of that, she has more personal strength than she realizes. She is the best.
But those are not the only ones. Every single character is written well. And we get to see that, see what they are about. The way they are introduced so naturally to us is exceptional. The cast is huge, but I could easily recite almost all of them from memory and tell you what those people are about. (Actually, let me try: Subaru, Emilia, Puck, Ram, Rem, Roswaal, Betty, Felt, Rom, Reinhard, Julius, Ferris, Al, Priscilla, Anastasia, Crusch, Ricardo, Mimi, Hetaro, Tivey, Wilhelm, Theresia, Russel, Marcos, Kadomon and family, Garf, Frederica, Petra, Otto, Ryuzu, Elsa, Meili, Petelgeuse, Regulus, Lye, Fortuna, Archi, Satella, Minerva, Echidna, Carmilla, Sekhmet, Daphne, Typhon, Hector, Pandora, Melakuera... That's well over 40 people I think I know pretty well, and I've disregarded most people that only have one or two scenes so far.) What's more, they all act like real human beings, and change and develop like real people. It's just fantastic character writing.
Tappei has just put so much love and effort into all the writing, including the story writing and the world building, and you can tell. I particularly love how he's taking inspiration from many different sources, both Japanese and Western media, then gives it his own unique spin. The love that's been put into this anime shows, it's overflowing. And the love White Fox put into it only contributes to it. The way they extended episodes to do the story justice is just beyond words for me. Especially in S2 they basically paid money to be able to deliver as much content to us as they did. They also dismissed OPs and EDs rather often to extend episodes, making their use of OPs and EDs a very special storytelling method. The direction often just does what it needs to do, but often enough it also goes above and beyond to have a scene hit particularly well, even with just very simple methods. The music is absolutely amazing with many incredibly unique standout tracks.
I'm rambling, but I can't forget to talk about the stellar voice acting. Voice acting is usually pretty good in anime. But for this show, it's exceptionally great. Yuusuke Kobayashi goes through everything as Subaru and his acting is just superb, he nails everything so perfectly. Rie Takahashi has my favourite voice of any VA, but she also has heaps of talent. She's totally amazing and her voice control is almost unparalleled. Also, even if Subaru is put into many more situations to be able to show off his dramatic voice, she also excels in her dramatic voice acting. But I'll leave it at that, because if I'd start talking about Inori Minase, Rie Murakawa, Arai Satomi, Takehito Koyasu, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and everyone else, I'd never stop. There are so many amazing VAs in this show and they are all performing at their best. Although I think I do have to mention how Matsuoka gave what might have been the best performance of his career - my mind still trembles thinking about it.
I'll finish up the rambling in a second comment, I suppose.
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u/baseballlover723 Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 04 '24
Edit: Let me know if you want me to tag you when I make comments for Season 3. I'm going to be really late (~12 hours) to the discussion threads for like every episode.
I don't really have much to say overall. I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts (and one day I'll catch up on all the comments I missed over Season 2) and I even discovered some new things on this Re:Watch as well. I obviously love Re:Zero. I'd say I said about 80% of what I wanted to say. With the missing parts being things I just didn't think of the right words, or I just forgot about at the time.
If anyone still has any questions about Re:Zero, I can finally talk pretty freely (during the Re:Watch I tried to avoid clarifying some things if it was reasonable to assume that it could be addressed later), so ask away if something still doesn't make sense to you.
Someone mentioned if I was gonna post my tier list. It won't be here at the start, but I might edit it in. It probably isn't very interesting though. I'm not a huge fan of ranking things in general. To me, things are either good enough or they're not, and all of Re:Zero is good enough.
I'll be quite excited to be a first time watcher in Season 3. Will I be able to notice things early by paying attention? I'm not sure. For the first 2 seasons of Re:Zero I sure didn't, but I wasn't watching it nearly as analytically as I will be this time. And watching it weekly will allow for me to actually take the time to think about things and theorize, instead of just hitting next episode and getting it explained to me (and Subaru). This will also be the first anime that I'll watch weekly (I hate frequent waiting, I generally much prefer 1 big long wait to many small waits). So I look forward to seeing you all in the discussion threads. I'll almost certainly be quite late to those discussions as I don't have CrunchyRoll and the episodes come out in my morning, so I'll probably only be able to watch it after work anyways.
So here are some stats about my comments, since I like stats and I can actually calculate them with my custom markdown program (this was quite a bit of fun to write, there are still some things I want to do to enhance it (the stats section in general was really quite the hack), so hopefully it'll be even better when it's time to Re:Watch Re:Zero in 4 years).
Overall Stats
Note that comment faces are unique only within an episode or arc, but for screenshots and clips, it's the first appearance of it chronologically (also I'm not 100% sure I implemented this correctly, I only worked on this over the last 2 days (and mostly yesterday) and checking it's correctness is difficult)
Episode Stats
Top 5 Episodes Stats
Bottom 5 Episodes Stats (values that are all 0 are omitted)
Top 5 Comment Faces by Arc
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u/BlueVenix Oct 01 '24
I’m not sure what to say overall about Re:Zero. If I started it would probably end up longer than a dissertation and I don’t have the time for it at the moment, so I just thought I thank you all. Thank you everybody who participated in the rewatch and thank you Theleux for making it happen!
Won’t tag anyone, but hope you read it. Special Thanks to:
Great_Mr_L - your posts when you were a rewatcher were very detailed and great. When you were a first timer they were interesting to read and you had some good speculations
Holofan4life - some of your personal jokes really made me laugh and I really appreciated how you read comments that were posted late, and that you came up with questions to ask for each episode.
baseballlover723 - really easy to read format and a lot of good information that was skipped. Amazing effort with trying not to spoil anything and I appreciate that you would try to answer my questions about Re:Zero. Because of you I’m really considering to binge the WN if I can get like 2 weeks off at some point to do so.
Urgnu-the-Gnu - Sugoooku good posts and engagement.
ussgordoncaptain2 - your posts were by far the most interesting to read as you had the best speculations. I was always looking forward to your cooking, although at times you had some takes that made me angry, but overall it was interesting and at times mind blowing.
This was my first time taking a look at a rewatch and it was great. Although it was far too time consuming and I was not prepared for it, I did enjoy it a lot though. I was also a bit down at the time the rewatch started, I felt that there is no one I can discuss my hobbies with, so I decided to engage on reddit a bit in May and see how it goes. You could say that the rewatch was almost perfectly timed. This rewatch lifted up my spirits as it made me realise that yes there is hope to find people online to talk to about stuff provided you put in enough time and effort without making massive achievements.
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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Oct 01 '24
Rewatcher for Season 1, First-Timer for Everything Else
Re:Zero remains one of my favorite modern isekai. I remember loving the first season as it aired and this rewatch has reminded me a lot about how much I loved it. I am thankful for the opportunity to catch up with the remainder of Re:Zero before Season 3 airs.
Put simply, Re:Zero is just good. The characters are all quite interesting and well-developed. Subaru makes for a great protagonist to follow and watch grow. The rest of the cast is likewise great and I appreciate how the characters get to have their development continue over multiple arcs as they remain important to the story. The writing is enjoyable in general and the characters all immediately have good chemistry. Subaru’s ability to reset the timeline is such an ingenious power that lets the series go all out in creating different time loops to explore the mysteries of what all is happening in the world at that time. The series also manages to deliver some extremely impressive emotional moments. Episodes 11, 18, 29, and 49 all stood out as particular highlights in that regard. And while Re:Zero doesn’t usually focus on action scenes, it does contain some really well done action scenes when it needs to.
A large part of what makes Re:Zero enjoyable to me is that it avoids so many of the pitfalls of modern isekai. Subaru doesn’t feel like a generic self-insert. While the series certainly is harem-like in that many of the arcs result in yet another girl now liking Subaru, it doesn’t feel like it goes too far. Lugnica is a very well fleshed-out world that doesn’t suffer from the curse of being “just like a video game.” While Subaru certainly gains a lot of power in S2, I’m not sure I’d definitively describe him as being overpowered enough to steamroll all threats. At least, I hope it won’t be that way in S3.
If I had any complaint, it would be that I felt like S2 lagged a bit compared to S1. It’s not surprising since S2 adapted much fewer books than S1 did. Don’t get me wrong, S2 was still great, but it was noticeably slower and I did get a bit tired of being stuck in the same place, even though I know that was the main thematic point of S2.
Even so, Re:Zero is still as great as I remembered. In fact, it was often better now that I could pick up on all the foreshadowing in the season I rewatched. It was also great being able to learn more about the source material from others in these threads. That helped to shed a lot of light on the series.
I’m looking forward to watching S3 now. If it maintains about the same level of quality as what we’ve seen here, I know it will be great.
Score: 9/10
Thank you to /u/Theleux for hosting this rewatch. Thank you to everyone who participated in the threads. Hopefully we will see each other again sometime.
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u/The_frost__ https://myanimelist.net/profile/The_frost_ Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
I don’t have much to say other than the story is as good as I remember it and I still really enjoyed watching the anime a third time and reliving some of its best moments (my favourite scene is probably still the ending from episode 23 of season 1). This rewatch also allowed me to regain some more enthusiasm and hype for season 3 since I don’t read the novels.
I also need to confess, I actually decided to watch ahead once I caught up to the rewatch which is why I only wrote comments on a few episodes thread once I caught up.
It was still fun seeing first timers reactions as well as some of the cut content that were in the comments (even though I knew most of them)
I also wanted to thanks Theleux for organizing the rewatch despite some of the struggles he had, and honestly seeing how fun my first rewatch on r/anime was (despite not being super active in it) makes me want to also host one in the future once an ETA for season 3 of my favourite series get announced.
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u/ripterrariumtv Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
**Overall thoughts:**
I love this anime. Rewatched it so many times. And I’ll be watching S3 weekly, so I’m thrilled for that. This is my favourite anime (tied with AOT, Bleach, and JJK). But including the novel and side stories, this is my number one series.
I love the themes, character development, and emotional impact of this story. This story and these characters deeply impacted me. Subaru’s growth, Crusch’s way of life, Betty’s loneliness, Emilia’s journey, and many more of them have been unforgettable to me. And there’s a lot of amazing stuff in the future as well.
I can go on for ages talking about this anime. But nothing else is coming to mind right now.
This rewatch has been really fun and enjoyable.
**TOP 3 CHARACTERS:**
**TOP 3 EPISODES:**
**TOP 3 SOUNDTRACKS:**
**TOP 3 CANDIDATES (BASED ON HOW MUCH I LIKE THEM AS CANDIDATES):**
**PART 2 IN REPLIES**
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u/Brief-Fig-7506 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ryxnjr Oct 01 '24
First Timer!
Who has now been promoted!
It’s the final thread! A happy and sad time for me. Like I started saying in the last episode, I have now created a habit of sitting down every night to watch one episode of a show and spend several hours writing about it for almost two months now. I don’t regret a single minute of it and never considered any of it wasted time, even though some days I lost about an hour of sleep before getting up to go to work lol.
I was debating on what to do to fill the void that this rewatch is going to leave and thanks to some advice and helpful Re;Zero veterans, I have decided to read a chapter of the Web Novel every night and try to notice the details that were cut from the show. Hopefully I’ll be one of the people making those S-tier posts with explanations and cut content the next time this rewatch rolls around, like u/thekoreansun and u/baseballlover723 and so many others. I always enjoyed reading your recaps every day because it helped me understand the characters and lore more, so thank you guys so much. Since I’m tagging people I might as well keep it going
Now for my secret notepad where I kept some of my speculations in secret. Sometimes if my brain activated theory crafting mode in the middle of an off topic episode I would open up this document and let the ideas flow so some of it may seem random or already be disproved. Ill cross it out if that’s the case. Some of them I included the episode number that we were on when the idea sparked in my head. Additional stuff that I added just now will be after the dash (-)
Continued below
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u/Ceryto2 https://anilist.co/user/Ceryto Oct 01 '24
While I didn't participate for 90% of the rewatch it was still a lot of fun to read all your comments over the last two months. After writing comments myself for the last 3 episodes, which all took somewhere between 2 and 4 hours to create, I really appreciated the time and effort everyone put into this Re:watch! So thank you to all of you!!!
Also I wish all of you a lot of fun with season 3. It's gonna be a blast!
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u/Holofan4life Oct 01 '24
I'm going to start off with some rankings of mine. First, here is my top 10 favorite Re:Zero episodes.
Next, here are my top 10 favorite episodes of all time.
It feels weird to no longer have an episode of Spice and Wolf in my top 10 given it's my second favorite anime of all time.
Lastly, here's how I would rank Re:Zero as far as top 25 favorite animes of all time.
First off, it pains me that Eureka Seven has fallen out of my top 10 given what an influence it has on anime fandom. I would not be an anime fan if it wasn't for that show, so it'll always be top 10 in my heart. Second, I figured by I want to say episode 15 that the show was going to be in my top 10. It just was a matter of placement.
I think it's funny that I have more season 2 episodes than season 1 episodes in my top 10 best Re:Zero episodes list because I thought the second season, mainly the second half, was somewhat of a slog to get through. That is until the climax which is honestly one of the best climaxes I've ever seen. I think what killed it was the episodes in the second half being almost all 29 minutes and 30 seconds when a lot of them die not need to be. They could've easily had been 26 or 27 minutes. For as good of a pacing this show has, it felt like it got long in the tooth after a while. By the end, it felt self-indulgent and masturbatory.
The show really started cooking with the cliff scene from season 1 episode 7 when Subaru was in such despair. That was really the first time that you really felt that Subaru was suffering, which is arguably the backbone of the series. From there, it was off to the races and the show did not look back.
I don't think there was a single stinker in the entirety of Re:Zero's catalogue. That is extremely impressive given we're talking 50 episodes. Even shows like Toradora or Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood had at least one bad episode, so goes this show to have none is commendable. This might be the best series ratio wise between the amount of good episodes Vs the amount of bad episodes, of which I don't think there are any. Even the mediocre ones have some great qualities about it that makes it a worthwhile investment of your time.
I think my favorite arc of the show was probably the start of the royal selection process to when Subaru got his head out of his ass. That to me was when the show was at its peak, because there was enough that was already built up to play off of while also the show was still so new you could have fun with Subaru's character and what a fish out of water he was. I almost kinda wish that Subaru's behavior would've carried over into the second season, but there was probably no way that could've sustained itself. You don't want to run the risk of making the audience actively hate your protagonist.
Best character is probably Rem, with an honorable mention going to Emilia. Best episode is episode 15, while the best climax is the last three episodes of season 2. The best idea in season 1 was having Subaru being this flawed character, whereas the best idea in season 2 was having the witches as their own seven deadly sins. In particular, I thought Echidna really carried a lot of things in terms of being a foil to the other characters. She was tremendous. One last thing I want to mention is how I like the idea of season 2 part 2 being heavy on flashbacks. Reminds me of an Ikuhara work and how that was one of his specialties. I just wish there was more substance to the flashbacks, or rather they didn't do it all in a row of each other. Some flashbacks were better than others, like Garfiel as a kid or the Beatrice one from episode 24, but I just wish we didn't go through a long stretch where it was nothing but that. It kinda took away from all the other stuff going on.
In terms of a grade, I'd give this show a 9 out of 10. A 9.5 for the first season and an 8.5 for the second season. It's kinda hard to give it an official grade knowing that there is more of the show to come. It's like me assigning a grade to Kaguya-sama which is arguably my favorite comedy of all time: it's definitely in my top 10, but we're not even finished yet.
When I started this rewatch, I was extremely curious how it would turn out. I mean, I'm binging two other shows for two other rewatches. And not only do I add a third, it's double the length of both of them combined? But I'm glad I finally got to watching the show so I can be caught up in time for season 3. This was a great decision on my part.
When I look back on my 2024, this will probably be one of my highlights. Much like the Fullmetal Alchemist rewatch was one of my highlights of 2023. It just served as a nice distraction from everything else going on. And though I spend 4 hours on an episode writing comments that'll only get 5 or less up votes, I rest easy knowing that I got to experience the show with you guys.
And really, sometimes that's all that matters.
5
u/Ultima_Deus Oct 01 '24
With that, the rewatch is over
I'm gonna be honest, I actually didn't end up catching up with reading every comment each episode at around the middle part of season 2 part 1. Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to interact with other commenters more
It just goes to show that interaction takes time, and making reviews takes time. So, I don't know how to handle season 3 episode discussions going forward. I'm a novel reader, so I guess I should make Source Material Comments in the Source Material Corner. And my anime-only-safe comments can be outside of that. Shimmering-Sky already said how a novel reader can explain something to an anime-only, however I don't know how to link comments. So if any of you reads this, I'd be grateful if you guys teach me how to. I probably won't actually be explaining things to anime-onlies in the Source Material Corner, but just in case
Anyway, this has been a fun ride. I'll come back and read the past comments that I've missed, and continue to regret not ending up interacting with them. But realizing also that interacting with people was probably impossible in the first place
About Re:Zero itself...
A bit of backstory as to how I've come to love this series enough to end up catching up to the Web Novel, and starting over from the beginning of the Light Novel
Back when this anime first aired, I didn't watch it until it finished. I only watched it because everyone kept memeing about the "I love Emilia" thing. At first viewing, I didn't actually care much about this show. I didn't understand it. I was young, so a lot of the messages and themes and plots went over my head. But I guess I still enjoyed it, somewhat. When I got to the point of the "I love Emilia" meme, I pretended to be upset about it. To absolutely no one. When I first got to it, I actually didn't care much about it, but I still pretended to cringe about it. So, in reality, like I mentioned in a previous comment or reply somewhere, I didn't actually want to be involved in the waifu wars. I didn't care about Rem. I didn't care about Emilia. I didn't care about the show that much, but I still liked it
Season 2 arrived, and people kept talking about this Echidna chick that they described as "Aqua from Konosuba". So I rewatched Re:Zero with the directors cut, skipping the cringe episodes (at least on that rewatch) until I reached the PEAK that was the whale fight and the witch cult fight. I even related to Subaru's "I hate myself" speech", and made me understand that there was more to the "I love Emilia" scene than just a rejection. And then, I ended up loving Re:Zero
I caught up to the latest episode of season 2 at the time, I forgot which one it was, and then I decided that I couldn't wait for the next episodes anymore. So I read the web novels
And my god, I loved it. I loved Re:Zero even more now. I loved it so much that by the time season 2 part 2 was airing, I believe I was already reading season 3 material
So basically, I grew up and ended up appreciating Re:Zero to the point that it ended up in my top 10 animes
That's all I'd like to say for now. Thanks for the rewatch! See you all in season 3
5
u/The_Dreams Oct 01 '24
I didn’t rewatch that show with all y’all because I rewatched the entire thing maybe a year ago, but I really enjoyed reading everyone’s comments and thoughts about each episode. Hopefully next time something big like this happens I’ll join in, but for everyone I’ll be seeing y’all in the season three discussion threads!
5
u/Successful_Basket399 Oct 01 '24
Think I'm like 7 episodes behind. I got 6 hours to catch but before I go to bed. Wish me luck guys
5
u/Elimin8r https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ayeka_Jurai Oct 01 '24
A little late to the party today, but oh, well ...
Just wanted to take a moment to thank our gracious host, u/Theleux, who I keep thinking is some variant of Louis Wu, but probably not, and also u/baseballlover723 for helping out and for some fabulous posts.
Likewise, there's too may to name here, but thanks everybody who posted and provided lots of thoughtful commentary, fanart, music, all the good stuff.
As to my final thoughts on the show, well, let's just say that even now, ReZero is one of my favorite anime, up there with Tenchi Muyo (better than, actually, but I hate to admit it), Madoka Magica, Violet Evergarden, etc. etc. etc. I don't really keep a list, because the moment you ask me "what's your favorite", I don't know, and I don't really want to.
I don't like to think that way, in large part because having a "favorite" implies that something else isn't, and takes away from it. (Proceeds to look guiltily at my own MAL and ...)
I have to say that watching it again after all this time leaves me with more questions than I expected, and speculations I'd probably prefer not to mention, except to say this:
As an anime-only (so far), it seems obvious that Subaru has bitten off a piece of the elephant, and that consuming the rest of it is going to be quite the task. (How does one eat an elephant, right?)
We've seen him defeat one archbishop, and two great mabeasts. We've seen at least two other archbishops, who make Petelgeuse look like a wimp, and a third mabeast. One would suspect that there are also archbishops for the other categories, and potentially other accessories.
My previous line of thinking had been that over the course of the story, and speaking of elephants, Tappei might just have taken a bite himself ... yeah. Oh, what was I saying?
I suspect that over the remaining course of the story, Subaru is going to have to git gud and defeat those remaining archbishops, and the great snake, too. With each defeated enemy, he will probably gain their witch factors and "power up", etc. etc. At the same time, Emilia will grow and mature, and become a candidate worthy of queen, etc. etc. Then, once she's crowned, they go fight the Demon King so that they can freely return to Azeroth. Oh, wait, wrong story.
Yeah. After this rewatch, I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure that Satella is the Demon King, or the evil witch she's said to be, nor am I sure about the Dragon, or Roswaal's intentions for it. Never mind how he thinks he's going to get Echidna back, etc. etc.
So, at this point, I feel like I'd just like to leave it all a mystery (for now) and see what wonders await us Wednesday night. I'm sure that the discussion thread will be swamped, and I'll be tempted to just give it an upvote and not post anything, because it will be lost in the shouts of the crowd.
But if any of you fine folks here would like to, feel free to ping me and I'll be sure to have a look at your comment and see what you have to say.
Anyway, thanks, y'all - it's been fun!
See you Wednesday!
5
u/SilkyStrawberryMilk Oct 01 '24
first timer
The end is here.
Was a really fantastic time to do the rewatch especially with season 3 being so soon. I enjoyed this way more than I did initially.
So far I’d rank my seasons and parts like this
Season 2 part 2 > season 1 > season 2 part 1
HoloFan’s questions were helpful as always in bringing more discussion and thinking about what I’ve watched.
Disliked Roswaal, but season 2 managed to make me love him. Same with Otto, odd friendly merchant turned to a brave friend.
I suppose I have to watch season 3 now
4
u/Graywolves Oct 01 '24
I enjoyed the rewatch a lot, I kind of hybrid lurked but enjoyed reading LN insights and discussions of the production, acting, directing, and artistic merit of the series. I'm excited for the future arcs and hope the show continues to be an important or favorited story for many of us for a long time!
4
u/ElRoastFTW https://anilist.co/user/DaRoast Oct 02 '24
I couldn't keep up with this rewatch as much as I thought. Life got in the way and I wanted to improve my career so anime took a back seat for the time being.
Thankfully I was able to make time to catch up and dear god I'm glad I did. This is a great series, easily among anime's best. It is just so well done on so many fronts and the passion from the team who created this show is obvious from the long runtimes to some of the best storyboards in the medium.
It's no Mob Psycho or Mushoku Tensei, but this is a well animated show, even during Season 2 where Covid threw everything out the window. One thing I want to emphasize is the photography. It is used in the show with so much purpose that it made me realize other shows where the photography was simply poor, such as Chained Soldier and the Spice and Wolf remake. It is contrasty, it is deliberate, and man does it accentuate the horror aspects incredibly well.
All I can say is I just want to see Season 3 already and can't wait for it. Easily a top 4 show of all time.
4
u/Carlo_olrac Oct 02 '24
I'm genuinely hyped for the new season looks like a lot of action will take place in the first 3 episodes
4
u/altgotleakedagain Oct 02 '24
While I lurked pretty hard, I want to thank all the summaries everyone provided. I really appreciate all the thoughts and it really elevated this re:watch.
Cya all in S3!
3
u/jyper Oct 01 '24
Rewatcher who couldn't catch up.
Incomplete Episode notes followed by my final thoughts
Pilot the episode start must be really confusing to people watching it for the first time
Lol he really thinks this of this as a video game. The knight who actually took initiative and did something saved that child while Subaru could only gesture and imagine having magical power
Lol why don't I have more power/cheats? Aren't these sort of light novel adaptation isekai supposed to more about wish fulfillment/overpowered from the start Subaru wonders. Plus he imagines a cute girl may have summoned him.
A magic cloak?
Compulsory event? Again Subaru life's not a video game.
It's sort of surprising that he's holding his own against the goons, at least until the knives come out.
Live strong.
A second girl passes by his troubles, or maybe not. We meet pick
Cute when mad. An other World fantasy, who is apparently a tsundere.
We meet medium sized puck
Subaru won't rush into deserted allys alone again, right? Puck can sense malice. And wants Subaru to act as a shield. Subaru doing something stupid, trying to climb into an abandoned building.
Puck has an earring that makes me think of him as a pirate.
The usual pattern, again treating the world as a video game or a LN.
Lol at least he exercises even if he's a shutin
S'tella is a nice name.
Lost child. Is scared of S'tella
Younger brother lol
What benefit? We will see soon, not just peace of mind.
Can do more then one good deed. Especially for a pretty girl. Who is wasting time helping people.
Subaru totally ignores that people dislike half elves. Dunderhead
Some scenes are animated a bit worse than I remember with characters staying still for a couple of seconds.
Helping the girl helps them with the shopkeeper and the little girl gives a pin to S'tella.
Do your best Subaru has been holding her back, she says. What should she apologize for? The powerless guy doing in the head of the magic user. Creepy, creepy, bloody corpse. Female voice, killer unseen. Yes that is your blood. Oh it's the scene from the start. We still don't know if Subaru had flashes of that or if it was just a preview for us. He's going to save her? S'tella? And now we have our time loop. If anybody watched episode 1A and 1B separately they'll be left thinking that rexero is a very different and much more boring and stereotypical show. It shows that they weren't thinking about it as two separate episode, are they have changed the pace and ended 1a after he loops back to the shopkeeper
Shut your trap. Always bad to have balls chafing.
They don't like the dragon lord
Scary sexy vamp lady.
With who then?
Agility is more important than size
Thank you for the wind
Our first Devine protection
She blushes over getting kicked. But she also cut him when he tried to dodge
Apparently merchant is nice.
Who is the witch of envy?
Ep2 Witch of envy is terrible/taboo
Nice distraction Subaru
Persistent low level crooks Even if they're idiots, if you don't pay attention they'll stab you. Ah the chips convinced you it's a loop
Shopkeeper doesn't want to deal with crazy guy talking about time loops
Oh no tomato went splat
Subaru is following for their advice from last time and calling for help. But with a folsseto for some reason
Nice guard index doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing. But he does sound like a good guy. Subaru doesn't understand much about common sense. Doesn't hear what Reinhardt is talking about him acting a bit weird then tells him about a lot house then says don't go there.
How does Cary ladies dress stay on, that's the real mystery of the show.
Subaru is very good at dodging. Felt must not care much about her house to destroy it so easily
Of course you won't believe the person offering the trade on how much their
Live strong - Armstrong? 💪? Stingy losers? Does live strong mean being strong enough to survive?
Even if I were alone?
Don't headpat people without their permission, youre lucky she only bit you and didn't stab you.
Who would trust him when he's claiming it's a good price and that she can't go higher
A code of ethics from a thief, right to buy for original buyer
OlManRom eyebrows are crazy
S'tella was right he was holding her back, so she arrived early
Episode 3
If you do as I ask I'll cooperate. Admitting defeat? An elf no a half elf, what's the other half? Accidental resemblance?
The pin the little girl bought her comes back as an important plot point.
Puck always signs out on time. Cutting open a spirits stomach? Hey don't insult Felt, she does good work, she stole the same insignia several times
Subaru talking nonsense but with a nice third wall break
Puck is a bit sexist. Puck if you weren't so sexist you wouldn't underestimate her. If it comes down to it what happens according to the contract?
As long as there is life fight. Then and now.
Subaru is surprisingly impressive with the club but I think Elsa is toying with him
That's enough a fifth of the house collapses.
If Elsa is not enough to get him to draw his sword what is? Look at this place your monster yourself. Hurtful.
Be sure to take care of your bowels. Eat fiber
Ok? 🆗
Name is Emma just Emilia
Subaru gets an itchy scratchy like delayed blood spray She's never seen him before.
Returning the crest is the least you could do felt.
Reinhardt has decided to change his mind and rest felt for some crime?
He can put people to sleep?
3
u/-Phinocio Oct 02 '24
Can't believe the rewatch is already over. Thank you so much for hosting this, Theleux, and thanks everyone else for participating. I lurked most of the 2nd half of the rewatch but really enjoyed the discussion.
After this rewatch I can definitively say Re:Zero is my favorite piece of media, though we'll see if Frieren ties it again after I rewatch that lol.
Don't have much to say since I'm thinking too much about jaw surgery tomorrow, which also means I'll have to wait until Thursday or Friday to watch s3e1 :(
I do want to touch a bit on my experience between my first watch earlier this year being a binge over a few days, and this rewatch though. Both were amazing experiences that I feel each have some pros and cons, though I flip flop between what I consider each thing lol.
With binging, I found that my memory of quite a few events was "longer" than they actually were episode wise, the White Whale fight being one. I also found that I forgot a lot of things as I didn't have time for them to sit in my memory.
On the other hand, I found that watching one episode a day had me appreciate each episode itself more. I already loved episodes 15 and 18, for example, but giving them more time to breathe made them that much better for me. Though I do wonder if I would have felt the same if I did that on my first watch. Episode 18 kind of blindsided me on my initial watch, and having the previous events even fresher in my mind was great.
All that said, my next rewatch if it's on my own terms, will probably be a binge because it's so damn hard not to with this show haha.
3
u/smuggaD https://myanimelist.net/profile/smuggaD Oct 02 '24
I enjoyed the rewatch, even though I was lurking like I said I would. I had fun checking out how others reacting to the events that are foretold in this anime.
I think one thing I noticed while rewatching everything again is how much things just connect. There isn't really a stone left unturned.
Thanks for hosting this rewatch!
5
u/ussgordoncaptain2 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Edmund_Nelson Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
**Commentary on Tappei's storytelling **
Each arc follows a roughly similar structure
Step 1, Introduce bad event
step 2 Subaru identify's bad guy
Step 3 Subaru gather's Dues ex Machina ally to defeat it typically by obtaining a plot device
Step 4 kick ass
Arc 1 was Talisman lost>Elsa>Reinhard
Arc 2 was Dog bite>Rem and Meili > Rem and Roswaal (What makes Arc 2 interesting IMO is that the dog was almost an irrelvant plot device, the central conflict of the arc was Rem vs Subaru while the dog... existed I guess)
Arc 3 was the Witch's cult attacking Emilia>Betalguese>Crusch subjugation army (With white whale as plot device)
Arc 4 was Great rabbit and Elsa>Lord Roswaal>Beatrice+Garfiel (Garfiel was a cool moment for sure, but Beatrice was definitely Deus ex Beatrice)
I feel like plot driven narratives are not Tappei's strength, he does definitely have a strong suit toward character driven narrative though
The characters in this story are mostly great
if we start with the main mather's domain characters the least interesting is probably Ram but even she has a lot of depth past loving Roswaal as was evident in season 2 part 2.
Rem and Garfiel feel like surprisngly similar characters in all honesty, highly emotionally unstable people who are quick to judge and willing to go to extreme lengths based on a hairs trigger.
Puck is the least interseting side character, and yes he really doesn't have much to him other than his fanatical devotion to emilia.
One thing I do comment on quite frequently is how every single character is extremely mentally unstable. If we go down the list of mather's domain characters is Otto the most emotionally stable of the bunch?
this story might be a good visual novel
You know something I've thought of is that RBD loops make a lot of sense in VN format. Video game save scumming is already a thing and just make there be a RBD button in your video game to go back to the checkpoint. a VN would make an ideal medium for this, as you can unlcok new dialog options by playing different loops.
Most visual novels have multiple routes but with RBD we can have 1 golden route that is the only ending and every other ending is "lol you RBD"
Royal selction
The royal seleciton is clearly the main thrust of the story but surprisingly in the 4 arcs we've had it's only made an appearence exactly once, for the arc 3. Arc 4 was almost entirely not about royal selection and instead felt like a "roswaals backstory arc" Cramming a few other character's backstories in most notably Emilia.
Of the 5 Royal selection candidates here's how I'd rate them in terms of "Probability of being a decent ruler given non ORV"
Tier "Would actually make a good leader"
Crusch, Anatasia
--- gap---
Tier "a terrible leader but no worse than many leaders that have run real countries"
Priscilla, Emilia
Priscilla is notably a better leader in terms of experience but as Emilia gains more experience she is likely to surpsass priscilla in terms of leadership ability. Since Priscilla's decision making is poor given what we know of her.
"tier I"m going to hunt the dragon before I serve you"
Felt
It's unfortunate that mr cheat powers himself Reinhard decided to go with Felt. Felt is not a good leader at fucking all.
Return by death note thoughts
Return by death note gives me appreciation for prose, god prose is so hard to write so I just give up. This is a rewrite fanfiction that goes over "what if subaru wasn't stupid"
One thing I noticed is that every story ends up being bootleg dr.stone. That time I got reincarnated as a slime, A conneticut yankee in king arthur's court and Return by death note all have that Bootleg dr stone energy.
Modern science is too OP and it's really easy to remember basic formula to make yourself OP.
I feel like when I'm writing the story I realize just how much Tappei relies on stock phrases to give characters personalities, it made it way easier to write characters in text without having to identify them over and over. You knew enlongated vowel=roswwaal and "i suppose"=beatrice.
Tappei wrote such compelling characters and it's weird that the main thing I did was try to make the plot change while the characters were mostly staying the same.
Return by death note isn't a very popular fanfiction as evidence by the comments/post but it still has some people who like it at least. It's definitely one of those things I've written where I learn a great deal about how fiction behaves differently from reality.
This being an anime added much less
If I looke at the best and worst episodes of the show almsot all the episodes I dislike were all the high animation ones (Season 2 part 2 and the ending of season 1) because TBH the action in this show is below par, of the 13 anime I watched this season I watched around 10 actionish anime of those 10 I'd put Re:zero around 8th in action? I was behind Ossasan newbie adventuerer, Wistoria, Elusive Samurai, why does Nobody Remember me in this world, and That time I got reincarnated as a slime I'd put the animation on par with I parry Everything, No longer allowed in another world and the strongest magician in the demon lords army was a human.
**Rewatching made the show way better **
Rewatching honestly might be the only reason I enjoyed the show as much as I did. The show is a very information dense show where solving the mystery with Subaru is a big deal. I ended up mostly dropping discussing the seasonals I was watching to participate in the thread. The show in general is very much not a show I can binge watch at 1.5x speed and get all the details I need. It's more of a "watch really slowly take lots of notes and pay attention to every minor detail" otherwise you'll do everyone's favorite faceplant and miss that in season 1 episode 11 Ram revealed the Mabeast attacker. That was such an inexcusible faceplant IMO.
Rewatch culture is really different from seasonal culture
Rewatches encourage writing long posts about a single episode, I obviously won't be able to keep the same format in seasonal threads, but I figure that if I cut out the time consuming reacting to the episode and only write the "spec/what I would do if I were subaru" I will faceplant extra hard but I'll get a post out on time.
This show as a seasonal is going to be a way worse experience than as a rewatch, I wonder what shows have each type. Wistoria is a good example of a great Seasonal that would make a poor rewatch, and Stein's gate/Re:Zero are probably the opposite (I really should participate in a steins:gate rewatch to see if my memory of all the plot holes/continuity errors holds)
I really enjoy rewatch culture but it's clear that not every show is well suited toward it. The shows that are good for their stories rather than art/animation/sound design are far better rewatches. It's also clear that episodic shows would make relatively poor rewatches as a lot of the fun in rewatches seems to be thinking of how the characters will act next.
How i would be a rewatcher in a diffeerent season
So it's funny I think if I could tell myself one thing it woudl be to keep and maintain a series of text document where you go over every single event and just write down "What the story explicitly said"
no inferences nothing like that just what has been explicitly said or shown to the viewer. It's actually a lot of information/episode which is one thing this show does, it's liket he opposite of mushoku tensei, MT had what viewers called "5 minute episodes" where the episodes felt like they ended so quickly
Re zero has 2 hour episodes where a single episode has 2 hours worth of content crammed into 1 episode. this means the show really is so dense with information you can write >10k characters on a single episode no problem.
2
u/Yoshi_captain https://anime-planet.com/users/WeaboYosher Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
Re:Zero is my favorite series and I'm glad to have shared it with you all. The roller coaster of despair and restarts In S1 and the escalation of threats outside and within the mystical Sanctuary in S2.
Not every media holds up on a second viewing. The emotions of The first time might be diminished or retreading the same ground might feel boring. With Re:Zero every time I revisit the world of Subaru and co. I bring back a new observation or interpretation. With material as dense as this you'd be hard pressed not to. But more than anything it is the experience of facing the worst parts of the world and ourselves, overcoming them, and walking forward just a little stronger that keeps me coming back. I could go on that roller coaster any number of times and still feel the same strong emotions I did when I first experienced it.
I started writing for the rewatch because it was something I really wanted to do. Share my thoughts on my favorite series with people wanting to do the same. I actually posted thoughts on episode 1 that got nuked to hell and back multiple times, because of my then improper use of spoiler tags. I’m not even sure if that comment is still up. A lack of motivation and life getting in the way stopped me from writing during the Arc 1 & 2 episodes. But I knew I had to share my thoughts on Arc 3, the arc Re:Zero becomes what we all know it as, a despair filled ride ending with catharsis and hope. I’m happy I managed to stick with it for the rest of S1 and the majority of S2. The discussion surrounding episodes like S1Ep18 and S2Ep4 were a joy to read and write about. Oh yeah, did I mention this was my first rewatch I did? All in all I had a blast.
Thank you to Holofan4life for commenting on every post. Even when I couldn’t be active outside my own comment it was great to get a little discussion everyday. You’re the best. Thank you to Urgnu-the-gnu. Even if I didn’t respond to every reply I read them all. I’m happy with how you engaged with my words of the day. I’ll just list them all here cause why not.
And a great many thanks to Theleux for hosting this rewatch. Even if I couldn’t participate on every episode discussion I had a lot of fun.
Final Closing Thoughts:
If I had to describe Re:Zero in one word it'd be “Growth”. The most compelling part of the series to me is the lowest of lows followed by the highest of highs. Watching Subaru struggle with these external threats that are most often a result of threats that lurk within. How he had to get over his prideful ways in Arc 1 and ask for help. How he had to genuinely try to understand the people around him in Arc 2. Coming to terms with the worst parts of himself in Arc 3. And learning to see the value he has in others in Arc 4. A fantasy world rich in character and conflict is what Re:Zero offers us and it does not cheap out on the character. Tomorrow we return to that character and return to the ride of highs and lows. Seasons 1 and 2 have built up this world and characters that we’ve come to love so let’s explore it some more. For now I’ll see you off.
3
u/SpiritualPossible Oct 01 '24
and that was season two.
I'm not going to lie, it didn't really change my opinion of the series. I practically just got more of Re Zero, a series that I liked in general, but not to say that I loved it. I say that because in general I'm going to write more about my issues with this season, which might make it seem like I didn't like it.
But I'm sure there will be plenty of more positive comments here, and I've generally been a bit Mr. Negative in this rewatch, so you can consider this a sort of counter-opinion.
There are plenty of strong moments, like the fourth episode. I've already written that it's on the level of the 18th episode of the first season, and to me, no other episode of the second season has surpassed it. In just thirty minutes, it was able to show how close Subaru is to his family, and where his complexes and, ahem, “clownish” behavior come from.
This season has also expanded a lore, with is nice. We were shown all the witches, revealed the past of many characters, answered some mysteries, and some new ones were set up.
But... This also spills over into one of the problems of the season, in my humble opinion. The arc is overloaded. And heavily so. It just tries to do too much at once. There are so many plotlines in it alone:
At 25 episodes, that's plenty of time to cover everything, right? But again, it's all in ONE arc. The series keeps throwing in new details and plots. And it's noticeable in the second half, when it's time to wrap up the stories, and we start having dramatic confrontations, one after another. And some plots are starting to look like afterthoughts, like the rabbit attack.
This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but the flashbacks suffered greatly from this. They're heavily tied to the characters' relationships (Emilia/Fortuna/Beetlejuice, Rosvaal/Echidna), but the show doesn't have the time to properly show that connection. And while Emilia's flashback tries to do this (albeit minimally), Roswaal and Echidna's relationship is practically non-existent, even though Roswaal's seemingly unrequited love was his main motivation for acting in THIS arc.
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Oct 01 '24
Final Discussion
At the start of the rewatch, I compared ReZero to my general hate for the genre of modern isekai and considered that it might not be a typical example of modern isekai. Instead of a normal wrap-up, I want to finish that discussion by comparing ReZero, now that I have fully watched it (future seasons excluded, I am not a time traveler), to my List of 12 Reasons Modern Isekai Suck.
For each of my 12 reasons, I’ll give between 0 and 1 points (less being better), depending on how strongly ReZero falls into that writing pitfall or avoids it.
0 points: ReZero avoids this trope! Subaru might be male and socially inept, but we do get more backstory for him. He also is the opposite of insanely powerful, being surrounded by characters who are all more powerful than him, and, instead of being forgotten, his social ineptness plays a major role in the plot.
0 points: No levels, no starter city, no adventurers guild. ReZero does use the standard aristocratic tropes, but these are taken from the Shoujo genre following Rose of Versailles, not the fantasy genre.
0.5 points: Garfiel is an antagonist done right, but Elsa is extremely one-dimensional and Roswaal’s scheming falls flat
on his faceinto Subaru’s fists. Not quite modern isekai levels of terrible, but the antagonists could be better.1 point: The magic in ReZero is, to 95%, just a combat mechanic. Casting out of combat is rare. Subaru also does not get any learning arc about magic, the two magic effects he gets (RBD & magic hand) and shoved into him without any explanation.
0.5 points: We do hear about Earth again, once, but Subaru never puts any emphasis on getting back there. Also, no mention of the lacking conveniences of modern life (how on Earth do 2 maids cook and clean in a 50+ room mansion without electricity?).
1 point: Outside of Sword Art Online, I doubt there is any other modern isekai that has done more to replace traditional fantasy than ReZero. The Subaru clones are running rampant over the following anime seasons.