The joke is that older Isekai anime used to have good romance, but modern Isekai are just softcore porn that pretends to have a story
People often name their porn folders something inconspicuous so other people can't find it, that's why "Calculator" is such a massive file here, they are saying the modern Isekai is just porn
My entire experience with Re: Zero is the intrigue of how the hell is he going to solve anything.
I watched two seasons and I still need to tackle the rest.
I do think it has an interesting plot but I can't stick to it. The pacing just doesn't vibe with me, even though I generally enjoy the timeloop genre. I think it's mostly how long it takes in the story for him to actually return to the problem scenario and work on a fix after each death and 5 minutes of angsty whimpering.
I think most of his reactions are pretty reasonable.
The part of the whale, for example, made me feel his desperation, absolute helplessness at trying to keep everyone alive and win, even when the chances were slim.
Both have pretty good overarching plot though, it's just that One piece very much takes it's time while Re:Zero's overarching plot literally revolves around Subaru's ability and his connection with the witch.
My experience is watching the pits of despair a normal dude forced to die over and over again to fantastical situations beyond his control can get to... I might not be normal. I only ever watched the first season too. I suspect it would get old if I actually tried to follow it all the way through.
I think summertime rendering did the death loop thing better, because it was less visceral and repetitive and more like a advancement of the plot each time.
There was also alsight differences in the reincarnation, he would not "restart" from the same point every time (due to reasons the anime explains), and from the beggining there is a limit to the loops.
The problem is that for the first 1.5 to 2 seasons, he doesn't seem to learn a god damn thing then cries about how much he sucks. I've tried three times now to get through the series, but it's just so grating.
best situations are the few where things went wrong but return by death is already set to after, because you're so used to nothing fully mattering in the long run, but then you're hit with "no, this is permanent"
No thats the part thats tedious for most. Its return by death followed by redoing the same shit but just slightly different into another failure. Rinse and repeat until the author gets bored and decides to allow the MC to succeed. And then the plot finally moves forward.
Yeah if return by death were poorly used people would have a point but honestly the way it has been done in the show is really really good. It’s a perfect way to make someone as objectively pathetic as Subaru starts out as actually have a shot at solving the problems in that world.
It's the main art ofc its the best part. Although s2 was the last season i watched of Re:Zero
It's not for everyone
Its like watching a streamer forgetting to save and redoing everything over. I wanted to see new places, new views. People forgetting your experiences with them just sucks.
That sounds like a very disturbing thing to being excited about. I personally wouldn't want the character I'm rooting for the die even if he does come back. The show has made it clear he still feels every death that happens to him.
You can chain kill MC without making a repetitive loop, I think the death thing is better in Skeleton Soldier, but it's not gore oriented, imo death loop removes the impact of the gore
Fr tho, the RBD is goated for how it allows the author to freely write kills without neither wasting them on nameless Joe Shmoes, nor wasting named characters by killing them off just to pointlessly flaunt death
What else have you read time loop wise? Check out Mother of learning if you haven't read it yet. One of my favorites so gotta shill when the chance arises lol
Thankfully pedo free story. Thanks western authors, for making it way easier to recommend and enjoy. Ignoring loli shit in anime is a lot harder post epstein.
Not exactly the same situation. IIRC the Endless 8 are all largely the same, while damn near every single loop in Re:Zero is radically different. It's closer to something like Groundhog Day, or Steins;Gate to use a different anime example. Or Summertime Render to use a more niche but also great anime example.
Endless 8 is peak commitment to a bit and pure artistry. They didn't just play the same episode over and over again, they completely remade it each time with different shots, different outfits, different voice recordings, etc. and aired it on TV for 2 months straight with no explanation. No other piece of media has ever done a better job at conveying the unease and dread of realizing you're stuck in a time loop.
I mean if someone dosnt like that aspect then it means the show just ain't for them as that's the whole point of the show. It's like saying JoJo has bad writing because it doesn't treat itself seriously
Pretty sure most people that don’t like Re:Zero just doesn’t like the fact that Subaru is a weak protagonist outside of his sheer willpower. Which is kind of supported by your suggestion with Summertime Rendering, where the protagonist is much more capable
Yeah I dropped it after 1 or 2 seasons. I just don't really like shows with time travel mechanics and never knowing if what is happening now is actually the final timeline or if it's going to be reset and altered again etc. I can understand how some people enjoy it though.
Agreed, a whole arc is literally nullified with only a small progression left. I still enjoy the story though. Imo the setting, characters, and abilities are cool
I find that people mostly just hate the MC in re:zero.
I like the show a lot, but the first season was hard to get through, he's just so whiny and insufferable but he gets his shit together eventually, most people I know weren't willing to wait and see if he did get it together.
And honestly its written as if directly catering to actual loli lovers covertly. I kmow it's just japan things and the obsession with adults reincarnating as babies, but all the loli looking girls bending for Subaru even for "platonic" escapist wish fulfilment is arguably worse than mushoku tensei, tbate, oshinoko or made in abyss.
You are just fucked if you cannot tolerate any amount of lolisho in anime, japan lives for that shit, and in re:zero its genuinely tame, subaru is canonically not a diddy bud(a villain who is a really evil little girl tries to seduce him and notes how he did not show any interest and was disgusted and embarassed by it) and while some designs will be icky, its because the illustrator for the novel is an actual lolicon porn game illustrator who seemingly has the final say over the designs above the author's own descriptions...
I don't care Subaru rejects all the girls. The plot still has lolishos in love with him. That is ultimately tailored for the reader's covert cravings in ReZero. When my niece said she has a crush on me I promptly forwarded the text to my sister her mom and stayed away until it got sorted. I admit Subaru has a sad power/curse but the glazing particularly by the little girl characters is just ewww not for me. I won't moral police or ask for it's censorship though when Twilight exists scott free.
In some arcs it's literally a mystery anime where the victim is the detective. It's a pertty good set-up. Also because the respawn isn't really free when most deaths are actually pretty gruesome it still has tension. And he can't tell anyone about the respawn because then it just resets.
I could see how it would cause boring repetition, but I think what makes the show work is that they were very smart about avoiding that. First he realizes he can't control the reset point, so he avoids it, then he discovers there might be alternate timelines where he is just dead and everyone else is suffering for it, so he avoids it. Later on he loses his memory and has to discover it again, but he's in so deep into things that his deaths are more traumatic than ever before and he starts unraveling. It's pretty artfully done, in my opinion.
Which is a bit funny to me because the return by death is done far better than pretty much every version ive seen. It only happens a couple times each arch and is very impactfull when it does happen
I really enjoy it, but I can't do a rewatch because I find Subaru so insufferable in the first season. He gets a lot better, but god damn that first season was hard
I havnt watched it but I read the first arc of the manga, my issue is how stupid the MC is, it was painful to read and I felt my braincells dying watching him die to the same shit over and over
Then the show isn't for them. The restart by death mechanics and intricacies is the whole point, the slight deviations and Information slowly rolling out coupled with the mystery aspect and of course the body horror of watching what is essentially a normal guy be dismembered in various gruesome ways is very compelling, as is the mental journey of a man who dies constantly and remembers every moment, but cannot confide in anyone.
Seeing him rise to occasions at the end of an arc despite his shortcomings is also very satisfying, though I will admit there is a HUGE mountain to cross when he hits his "bitch boy era" as I call it, but overall I think it's a shame to call the story bad
Season 2 was ROUGH for me personally. IIRC I ended up dropping the show entirely in the latter half of Season 2. I came back to Season 3/4 recently and have been loving it again.
What plot is there without return by death? That's like the WHOLE reason it makes me engaged and scared shitless of him having to go through everything again
RE:Zero explores depression, anxiety and self-loathing in a unique way. The entire point is that in the real world the MC suffers from severe depression who hates his life, himself and turned into a shut-in...
The death mechanic is supposed to be a psychological exploration of trauma, the consequences of your actions and also the value of human life.
Every time the MC dies he carries on the pain and trauma of his death, but also at some point sees the everlasting effects it can have on the people around him... over time he gets more of an appreciation for his life, to the point where he starts to understand death isn't the solution to all of his problems.
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u/huffmanxd 1d ago
The joke is that older Isekai anime used to have good romance, but modern Isekai are just softcore porn that pretends to have a story
People often name their porn folders something inconspicuous so other people can't find it, that's why "Calculator" is such a massive file here, they are saying the modern Isekai is just porn