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「俺を選べ」 (Ore o Erabe)
“Choose Me”
Oh now that was a culmination if I ever saw one. Threats dispatched; new life-long friends made; and, oh yes, promises of final showdowns – I dare say we got it all and then some. Also red ogre girls surviving to fight and verbally abuse Subaru for another day. Admit it, you knew she’d pull through.
Given how much it was built up earlier, no big shocker that Beatrice’s redemption moment (hey, it sort of counts as redemption!) was a nice and long drawn out affair. While easy to guess Subaru would finally make the tart little librarian see reason, I must admit I got a sympathetic chuckle out of her rationalizing during the whole process. Poor Beatrice was at heart sheltered and, in a sense, coddled; outside of Ryuzu Echidna was all she knew for intimacy (in a parental capacity) and all she had to go off of for understanding. When Echidna stated that Beatrice’s role would end when a suitable inheritor of her knowledge came around, no surprise then Beatrice took that seriously and put her trust and faith in it fully. That person would obviously identify themselves, and in that moment Beatrice would have her new Echidna. Or in other words, happy ever after.
The catch of course is that this isn’t exactly what Echidna had in mind. The flashback shows pretty well that rather Echidna likely anticipated Beatrice finding the suitable person herself. Just take the grimoire she was given to determine her future, it’s not blank due to age – it’s blank because Echidna made it that way. What does a blank future indicate? That you’re meant to fill in the pages yourself. It’s interesting to note in this regard that Roswaal likely received the same blank tome, except instead of throwing trust in an unlikely stranger, he used it as a means of keeping his love for Echidna alive (soul hopping isn’t just the purview of Betelgeuse, who knew?). Both of Echidna’s disciples thus refused to accept the reality of their situation, choosing to cling to memory and self-imagined hope instead of letting their futures escape the confines of their pasts. Beatrice of course finally accepted needed change in the end thanks to Subaru’s relentless intransigence, but Roswaal has a bit of work left to go. At least until Ram finally awakes, because I guarantee between her and Emilia the poor guy won’t be allowed to mope for too long.
Well, they will right after dealing with the Great Rabbit and finally leaving Sanctuary for good. Re: Zero after all is never one to leave off an arc that easily, and with the whole team now together, I think we’re in need of a good battle to see just what the new and improved Subaru party is made of.
Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was not blank, Pancakes, and he has been following it during the arc. It’s the reason he makes it snow in the Sanctuary to attract the Great Rabbit. Earlier in Cour 1, he also asks why Subaru can’t make his desired future in the book happen, meaning that Subaru’s actions can lead to changes in his book. I don’t think Beatrice’s book was always blank as she indicated in Cour 1 that it stopped telling her the future after some time, many years ago. In Cour 2, she did suggest that it was always blank, but assuming that Crunchyroll translated that moment in Cour 1 properly, perhaps the book had been blank for so long that Beatrice could not remember well a time that it was actually functioning properly instead of it never having told the future before.
Given that Roswaal was looking into soul replication and vessels and that Puck was confident he is a human, Roswaal must have artificially prolonged his life by injecting his soul into his descendants after their bodies have fully matured since they aren’t as useful before they have reached their primes of their lives. This would allow him to possess the body of his descendants, allowing him to have lived for over 400 years as he has indicated.
Whoops apologies I wasn’t clear enough, what I meant was that Roswaal’s tome likely started blank, but over the years he filled it out with a huge swath of information (as indicated by the library flashbacks). Thus the remark about how his tome gradually turned into his sole (and one-sided) lifeline to Echidna; his future was entirely devoted to retaining the past as he remembered it.
Now whether or not they were both blank is definitely up in the air because as you mention the official translations are somewhat ambiguous and there were no direct scenes of the interiors of either tome until recently. Also my memory is quite hazy of the source material which has been known to screw with my thoughts at times 😛
And yes, Roswaal has been doing something of the sort, although its exact nature hasn’t been fully described just yet.
nothing is up in the air. beako’s tome was empty, roswaal’s was full of things that needed to happen, so he tried to make those events a reality. he never wrote in the book.
Eh I don’t think we can state what the initial state of Roswaal’s tome was since it’s never been revealed. Certainly could’ve been filled with stuff by Echidna at the start, but to my knowledge there’s no firm indication of it.
It has been explicitly clear that Roswaal has followed the guidance of his not-quite-Tome of Wisdom more than once this season.
I like the episode period(.) What more can I say.
So how many cute, immortal, ultra-powerful magic girls is Subaru going to commit to love and stay with for the rest of his life and can’t he get in trouble doing that?
This feels like watching Gundam… because I have no idea of WTF is going on.
Part in parcel of this season not airing immediately after the last, but I think a lot of the holes are now being filled as the finale approaches.
My inner seiyuu hound had a “Wait a minute!” moment when I heard the (young) voice of Roswaal B. Mathers, since I recalled reading a news article about Takehito Koyasu’s son who’s now also a seiyuu: Koki Koyasu.
And sure enough, it was indeed the younger Koyasu voicing Roswaal B. Mathers. (Been curious what young Koyasu’s voice is like, now I know.) Looking forward to his future roles with great interest.
Roswaal is probably one of the best anti-villains in anime. On the surface he’s a decent respectable guy who you’d probably befriend under the right circumstance. But underneath that when he has a goal he absolutely must achieve he can be so utterly heartless. He has so many layers but at the same time never crosses the line into true villainy.
You also don’t need to be evil to be an anti villain tbh. Even if he does something absolutely ridiculous that may cross the line he’s doing it for what he believes to be a noble reason and has a clear purpose. He’s never “too far gone”.
What a heartwarming (semi)conclusion to the arc. Good use of the ending song as well. Loved it.
Nuking the murder bunnies shouldn’t take too long, so it’ll be interesting to see what else they’ll show us in the final episode of Re:Zero S2.