「エリオール大森林の永久凍土」 (Eriouru Dai Shinrin no Eikyuu Toudo)
“The Permafrost of Elior Forest”

And that boys and girls is a wrap. Or at least the first half of the wrap, because you obviously didn’t expect to get all the answers did you? Right? Right. Yes, with another glorious half hour episode (albeit now complete with actual OP!) gracing our screens the final bits of Emilia’s past were revealed as the setup for Sanctuary’s endgame was laid bare at last. Make no mistake, there’s still plenty left to learn, but at least a light is now shining at the end of the tunnel.

Given what we knew to date of Emilia and her childhood situation, it’s probably just a tad surprising that not only did the girl freeze everyone and everything in her immediate presence, but also that Pandora was the one who messed with her memories something fierce. The course of events after all fails to identify the role of Puck and Roswaal later on with Emilia’s unfreezing, although given all the blatant teasing on the part of Pandora and Emilia’s immense magical strength it’s not hard guessing why. One does not nonchalantly call Emilia the daughter of a witch amidst her bringing forth a key to unlock a seal containing god knows what without seriously indicating that is the honest truth. And as for what’s hiding behind the seal, well, I imagine we’ll get that answer once Satella’s backstory is properly revealed – and Pandora returns to try her hand at convincing once again.

As for more down to Earth shenanigans, nothing really intriguing, at least this week. With Emilia having concluded the first trial and Echidna grudgingly accepting the girl will breeze through the remaining two, it’s up to Subaru to now save the mansion from Elsa. How he does so is the big question, but right off the bat you can expect things to go differently this time given the involvement of Garfiel, Otto, and Ram, and the earlier discussion from last season about Subaru saving Beatrice from the library. Roswaal may anticipate some further deaths on the part of Subaru here (that sly greeting with Otto definitely hints towards it), however I’m not too sure he’ll be able to salvage his strategy. When you’ve got the whole gang properly working together, Emilia set to finally lift Sanctuary’s barrier, and Elsa as the only persistent threat to contend with, it’ll take more than one wrong move this time for the jester to prevail.

Unless a witch or mabeast deigns to get involved once again of course, but I’m not about to start making predictions on that.

9 Comments

  1. I think it’s possible that there are actually 11 witches in Re:zero because it appears that Subaru’s name is a major part of the lore of the series. For those who don’t know, Subaru is also what the Japanese use to refer to the Pleiades star cluster. Six of the stars in that cluster are visible to the naked eye, and there are six dead Witches of Sin. The Pleiades star cluster is also referred to as the Seven Sisters, and there are seven witches bearing the name of the seven deadly sins in Re:zero. Vainglory and Acedia are historical sins, and vainglory is hardly used in modern times, with people using vanity to mean the same thing, so Crunchyroll probably just went with the modern term. Given the presence of Pandora in the story, there should also be a Witch of Acedia since Tappei is drawing also from historical sins for the lore of his story. Interestingly enough, there are eleven stars in the Pleiades star cluster with nine of them having names, making it fitting that there might be 9 Witches of Sin. Two of the stars have yet to be named, and as such, I propose there might be two secret witches that have some other concept applied to them instead of sins. Given that Pandora also referred to Emilia as “Witch’s daughter”, meaning that Echidna might not have said that to insult Emilia and maybe that Emilia’s mother is one of those yet-to-be-determined witches.

    Vance
    1. IMO the story is likely to stick with the introduced seven, the concept of deadly sins is (in the modern lexicon) linked with seven concepts and many of the original sin definitions have since been combined or streamlined into the current terms. Also broadening the witch number stands a good chance of diluting things and taking away time and development from key characters.

  2. Although acedia (or accidie in English) has been regarded by some theologians over the years as an 8th deadly sin, these days it’s usually lumped together with sloth. So the corresponding witch is Sekhmet.

    Angelus
  3. Yeah, that was surprising.
    Unlike other children in other stories Emilia was a good girl, kept her promise and did not break the seal.
    Not Emilia herself or Puck sealed her memories, but Pandora. But Puck was nowhere to be seen in the memories shown and it remains to be seen whether they’ll disclose that remaining information in this arc or not.
    The OP shows the roles of the allies in the upcoming fights against Elsa and the bunnies. The two archbishop’s who sent Rem into coma are not really featured though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this arc ends with another cliffhanger.

    boingmann
    1. I expect this season will wrap up all of the Sanctuary arc so at minimum I think we’ll get the answer on Puck’s and Roswaal’s involvement. There’ll definitely be a cliffhanger, but likely in teasing the next arc rather than leaving a major hole in the story.

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