Posted by OP2 Sequence
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OP2: 「PARADISUS-PARADOXUM」 by MYTH & ROID
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「絶望という病」 (Zetsubou to Iu Yamai)
“The Sickness Called Despair”
I hate to beat Subaru when he’s down but the poor kid just doesn’t learn. It’s painful to keep reliving the same scenes from last week, but it really drives home how hard he took it… and yet at the same time, he keeps doing what he thinks is “right”. As I watch Subaru try and better himself and get stronger, I can’t help but feel like he’s doing it all for the wrong reasons. Not to say that he doesn’t have the right intentions in mind, but it doesn’t translate well in-person. Subaru also forgets the context and the circumstances which he’s in and it frustrates me that he’s blind to what’s going on around him even though everyone else is giving him the benefit of the doubt. Reinhard, Crusch and Felix are all trying to explain things to Subaru but he’s not really having it – especially when Crusch and Felix blatantly state that they’ll be enemies if he leaves the castle. This is one scene which really had me cringe again because Emilia brought him here to be in Felix’s care and once again – Subaru runs away because he thinks he knows better. Even Rem tries to reason with him and he overlooks everything else because Roswaal’s manor’s in danger. Now, he might be right – but in that situation, he didn’t know any different so he’s really upsetting a lot of people on a hunch and throwing away the last contract which Emilia made for him. Once again, not really listening or showing any signs of trustworthiness and in the end, it doesn’t make the situation any better for either himself or Rem.
I’m starting to get why people are annoyed of Subaru – he’s becoming a main character that has a lot of personality and he’s actually a good guy but it’s hard to be on his side. His actions could be interpreted in so many ways depending on which side of the fence you’re on and what’s frustrating is not that his point of view, but his lack of understanding for anyone else’s point of view. He’s very tunnel-visioned in this quest to be Emilia’s savior that he actually becomes so ignorant of everything else – even if it’s for his own good. To the point that even though Rem clearly has a lot of affection for him, puts him to sleep in order to proceed on her own. Rem knows that having Subaru come along would only drag her down and she goes off without him hoping that he’ll stay behind. Of course, we all know that he won’t and when he finds out that Rem has died in the village, he’ll only think that “it’s because I wasn’t there”. How about not internalizing everything? It’s understandable that Subaru thinks that arcs 1 and 2 were “saved” because of him, but not everything is about him and he’s not going to fix and save everyone. That’s the harsh reality and he needs to learn that this arc. Hopefully it doesn’t have to be with the permanent death of Rem though.
Without spending another full episode talking about Subaru – let’s just say that I hope he improves over time or he’ll become the character we all love to hate. As for all the other events going on in the episode – there isn’t too much that isn’t all said in the last few minutes of the episode. It wouldn’t be Re: Zero without someone dying in some crazy shock and awe scene. After Rem leaves Subaru, he ventures looking for anyone to take him to Roswaal’s manor and finds Otto (Amasaki Kouhei) who takes him as far as his dragon would go. Otto is probably someone of importance later, given that he actually has a name and some screen time; just food for thought. Leaving Otto, Subaru bumps into the same group of people that slaughtered Rem/Ram’s village in their flashback but they don’t really do anything to Subaru from what we can see. When Subaru arrives at the village, the finds that everyone is dead… and burned and massacred in the most gruesome ways possible. In the process, Rem is also murdered and there’s no signs of anyone else. The cliffhanger isn’t much to go on right now but if the OP is any indication, we’re in for a surprise once Roswaal and Emilia show up again. I don’t think we’re going to get a reset this time nor a resolution anytime soon but that means that it’s likely that Rem might stay dead? There’s also a new character that resembles a crazier clown version with the creepy hands that grab Emilia at the end of the OP; which I also assume are the same hands that prevent Subaru from speaking up about his revival abilities. I’m not sure how that plays out into the elections just yet, but Emilia seems to have a slimmer chance of winning than Felt now with all the hate she gets resembling the Witch. Poor girl.
Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: #Rezero and its cliffhangers. Damnit, now he probably has a revival on his mind. Subaru continues to get on my nerves a bit, but hey… at least the story is still moving along.
I think the new OP has scenes with Rem that indicate she will be alive once more. Unfortunately for Subaru, I think the conclusion he will draw from the massacre is that he was right about how he needs to be by Emilia’s side at all times to save all of the villagers/Rem. I’d imagine that the solution lies more in fixing stuff before it gets to the point of massacre, but he seems likely to think that he should be the Hero gallantly saving the village from the evil hooded group.
Subaru is too self-assured in his righteousness that he completely ignores anyone who might challenge him. He thinks everyone else sees him as useless, but fails to see that he is, in turn, branding their opinions as worthless and dead-set on proving them all wrong. Yes, in the end, he settled the first 2 arcs well, but it wasn’t by taking everything on by himself as the big Hero; his ability to connect with people was his biggest attribute, not his combat ability.
Seems likely he’ll get a chance to redo his actions soon enough, but he won’t be able to accomplish anything as long as he’s focused on one-upping the knights and proving to everyone that he is the Heroic MC he imagines himself to be. That resentment he feels towards everyone who is trying to give him advice is only going to be a self-destructive spiral no matter how many times he resets.
“Unfortunately for Subaru, I think the conclusion he will draw from the massacre is that he was right about how he needs to be by Emilia’s side at all times to save all of the villagers/Rem.”
Well, and he’s not wrong.
If it was not for Subaru, everybody would be dead several times by now.
First in the slums with the crazy bitch, then with the crazy demon dog, now this… Do people really think everything would be fine with Subaru wasn’t there to save the day?
While he haven’t been totally useless so is his main contributions not what he did himself, but how his actions made others move.
What kind of confuses me right now is why Roswaald seems so incompetent. He should be aware of the danger to his land and mansion.
@Andre
I’m not saying that he hasn’t saved everyone with his actions before; what I’m saying is that his role is not as Emilia’s bodyguard taking down all threats by himself, which he seems to believe. If he were at the village at the time of the massacre, nothing changes except for him dying and respawning. The only possible way him being there would change anything is that the hooded figures seem to respect him (probably has something to do with the witch’s smell) and would somehow let them off. In combat he provides little to no value, especially compared to Rem. I highly doubt what he needs to do to save the village is to actually be there when it happens; there’s probably a trigger that happened beforehand that he needs to find out about, and that’s is his opportunity to make a difference. Finding out about the massacre is important, since he needs to know what bad events happen to figure out how and why, but him being at the scene when the massacre starts means he’s probably already failed.
Subaru does not save the day by being this great Hero, but using the information he learned from past attempts to gain allies to help him in those dire situations. In the first arc, his main contribution was getting everyone (Rom-jii, Emilia, Reinhardt) to fend off psycho-assassin, not defeating her himself. In the second arc, he puts his body on the line to take on all those curses, but he does not come out alive without Rem, Ram, and Roswaal. Subaru played an important role in making sure that good outcomes have happened, but he is not some hero who can take on everything himself. That is not his role to play, no matter how much he fantasizes it is. If he continues to envision himself as the Hero (yay glory and fame and Emilia-tan), rather than a scout (very important, but unheralded role), he’s just making things difficult for himself, and he won’t ever be satisfied. Emilia and Rem have shown that he can gain their favor by doing these little things, instead of being the big hero, but he seems hell-bent on becoming the hero he is in his head, that his actions are backfiring.
I know that Subaru is a good guy, and that his character right now is unbearable, but I believe that this feeling of utter disgust at Subaru is a testament to the Re:Zero and it’s plot. I mean all of the things that he has said so far, are very shounen-esque. Any of those phrases said in a different anime would be acceptable, but not in this anime. I feel like the author wanted to hammer into us, the audience, what happens when we take a hero and subvert and twist and mangle, whilst keeping his motivations the same. This subversion turns him into something so ugly, we couldn’t have recognized him from episode 1. The animation is there to play along as well, and so is the music. The execution of Subaru’s lines and behaviors are done in such a way that we as the audience couldn’t hope to excuse and forgive Subaru for acting the way he is. I can’t wait to see how all of this build up for Subaru will be used.
Eh, I can’t agree with that, but that would selling depth writing short. Sure one point of it is that your supposed to be frustrated with Subaru, but ta sametime as the audience who is in the know about everything his situation unlike the every other character we should be able understand were he’s coming from. Afterall he’s fought hard to save several people in cast with everything he’s had even despite suffering though the pain and fear of his deaths to do it. That shouldn’t be overlook or trivialize despite the fact he’s in a rut and is acting emotionally.
If anything he was going what was a typical shounen situation then acting like this than I would agree.
I think the difference between this and your typical Shounen character is that Subaru comes off as someone “demanding stuff in return” or feeling self entitled. When your typical Shounen character spews off similar lines they come off as being altruistic or selfless.
Also forgot to mention that in the Typical Shounen story the MC would at least spend some time either hesitating or at least going along with the “original plan” before taking matters into their own hands. I think Cherrie hit the nail on the head where the problem is that Subaru thinks everyone but himself is wrong and has gotten tunnel vision because of it.
Sure a bit of tunnel vision is needed to get some things done but while a typical shounen character will take time to consider others views before deciding that “something else is more important”, Subaru simply brushed aside all the concern and consideration, not even taking the time to understand the situation he finds himself in and dives blindly head first. I think that is what’s annoying a lot of people, that especially after he should have learned his lesson last episode about blindly doing things
@Juan
Typical shounen character don’t die multiple times save people they care about and end up having deal with people telling them they’re powerless without every knowing anything about their situation. Subaru may have become more self-centered due to his about but it still based on earnest desire.
Again, if Subaru just listens to everyone, then everybody in the village dies and he’s left nothing but regret and guilt. I agree this isn’t he can rush or just get tunnel vision about, but if he cares about what’s going on there then sitting back is unacceptable.
Art of Subaru // acceptable in a differrent shounen manga-anime? Not really.
Subaru says just like a typical supporting character who has his/her agenda (say, revenge by defeating evil enemies) and has worked and trained so hard for it for long, but feels resentment and jealousy towards MC, because not he/she but only MC gets recognition and opportunity to do something important and glorious, all of which drives him/her into mad, try whatever to take recognition and opportunity back.
I don’t agree. Even if the writing is made to make us see his flaws, the writing imo is going overboard here. A skillfully written character to be hated will have you disagreeing with him and such but still finding it bearable to an extent. You shouldn’t get the feeling of absolute frustration and disgust especially when you can see the character’s POV and see where he’s coming from.
All in all, I think you’re giving the writing too much credit here. I’ve seen a lot of the shortcoming of the writing been written off as great writing and I just don’t understand.
I generally agree with you but I think we have to wait a bit more to decide whether the writing is good or bad. I think you have to give it at least until the end of this arc because sometimes it just takes one event or scene to turn the whole thing around.
I don’t know man. I personally think that whether making 99% of the fanbase hate Subaru (for his actions) this much is intentional or not isn’t really good writing. I mean perhaps I’m wrong, but I feel like there should be a much more subtle, smarter and better way to illustrate what’s being demonstrated here and have the audience question and think. A way that highlights problems, make people go like I don’t agree with Subaru while still making him bearable enough so that the majority of the fans aren’t just out right hating on him.
I get what your feeling because honestly I feel the same way. Maybe what I’m saying is a bit of wishful thinking or perhaps just trying to put some faith that the author of the original work has something planned out. Or maybe perhaps this whole arc is meant to actually “teach” something to Subaru.’
Considering his special power is to turn back time and repeat things regardless of what he previously did, maybe this time around he won’t get the chance to and he realizes that he can’t be too gung ho about things because actions will have consequences… Hopefully it’s not Rem’s death though that becomes permanent. Well anyway I get where your coming from because I’m there too but lets just hope there is some method for the madness
Good writing has nothing to do with whether you hate a character or not. You can dislike a character and he or she will still be well written. Furthermore do not know where SUabru’s character will pan out at the end of this series.
I disagree wholeheartedly. Whether or not we find him bearable is one thing, that is irrelevant to me. Your point was that the way Subaru was poorly written as such that he is unmistakably worth our frustration and disgust; but my point was that the author wanted us to be frustrated and disgusted with Subaru.
This is evident because of the language Subaru uses and his behavior to everyone. People around him care and want to help him, yet Subaru doesn’t heed them. If that was all he did, I doubt many of us wouldn’t be frustrated or disgusted with Subaru; however, Teppei writes Subaru in a way that we do find him reprehensible.
Not only does Subaru not heed and listen to those around him, a show of a lack of empathy, but he is actively hostile to those around him. Subaru spurns Crusch and Felis as they act in a way that could benefit him in the long run and most importantly, when Rem leaves Subaru in the wake of the night, he curses her out, instead of just despairing. Teppei (the author) does this because he wants to antagonize Subaru. He wants the audience to disapprove of Subaru and position him to be, unquestionably, the magister of his own downfall. Teppei also wants to communicate the mental toll and the despair that Subaru has. Does he go far? In your opninion, he does, in my own opinion, he goes far enough. I believe that the writing is strong, because it does what Teppei wanted to do, which was subvert the typical mail character in the Fantasy setting. If you have seen his comments, he has major disagreements with modern Light Novels and their direction in narative. Where you see weakness, as far as what I understand from what you have posted, is where I believe you should see strength. The writing, in my opinion is spectacular.
My biggest pet peeve with this series used to be Subaru because I misinterpreted the authors intentions. I though he was just a really poor job at a self-insert character who would get all the bitches, despite acting like a walking self-insert for socially inept otaku. Now that that is out of the way I’m actually genuinely enjoying this a lot more.
Also cool to hear that the author does indeed dislike common Light Novel antics.
Actually, I have to disagree with a lot of the views against Subaru here. I actually feel Subaru is somewhat justified in his actions, although some of his selfish mindset is indeed bad.
You see, look at it from Subaru’s PoV. A lot of people are telling him to stay put because he doesn’t have enough power and etc. True he’s weak, but none of them knows what he knows, that he can return from death. Also look at how Subaru’s been operating so far. He’s more or less been in the thick of things and putting himself on the line for arcs one and two. The end result has been positive.
So from his view you have a bunch of people who “don’t know his true power” all telling him not to do exactly what he has been doing, and what has worked well so far. Further more he can’t even tell anyone that what he’s been doing has been working. No wonder the guy is so frustrated!
At this point we don’t KNOW what would have happened. Let’s say he listens to what everyone else has been telling him and stayed put. Then it turns out he gets second hand info about some kind of massacre and that Emilia was hurt or killed etc. What will that leave him with? In the end he’ll have return by death anyway with no info on what the heck happened.
If he went into the thick of things with Rem he might have been killed out of hand yes, but he also might have glimpsed the threat. In the 2nd arc even him getting killed by Rem in the middle of the night gave him some info which he used later.
Here is the question though. Should he really blindly listen everybody let the massacre happen and regret for rest of his life?
There is two sides to this coin, you have to remember all of this advice is being given without anyone understanding his situation and what he can actually do. Not going to village would be actual worse decision than staying at castle.
The truth of matter is that Suabru making right moves, but in the wrong way. That has part has to do people not acknowledging his own deeds, it frustrates him since he’s fighting against his own insecurities of inadequacy. And that creates a lot of depth for his character.
I agree despite his actions being emotionally and being spiteful (which is understandable given what his been thru with his power). Also people are forgetting he doesn’t know when the next save check point is reached till he dies first.
Since it’s obviously he’s in a bad end route this time, the best thing for him with his powers is to be in the thick of the action and gather as much intel as possible till he dies and resets once again
@Iron Maw: “Not going to village would be actual worse decision than staying at castle.”
Would it? I haven’t read the LN so maybe later/next episode there might be some reason to give that validity, but as things stand, I don’t see how you can make that point. WHAT did Subaru accomplish here other than set forth a chain of event which got Rem killed? He found out about the village massacre? OK, but he wouldn’t/couldn’t find out about that later? IS Emilia in immediate danger? I wouldn’t think so with Roswaal + Ram & maybe Puck (during day) around. This sure as hell isn’t going to help their relationship even if Rem didn’t die. Rem dying is just BAD!
— “The truth of matter is that Suabru making right moves, but in the wrong way. That has part has to do people not acknowledging his own deeds.”
I don’t think you can neatly divorce the two (right moves/wrong ways). Subaru’s method is trial & error. It’s messy, and by definition not the most correct, efficient way to proceed. He does, uh, die a lot before moving to the next “arc”. Worse, he does not seem to be learning from his mistakes, but stubbornly plods on with an increasingly rigid mindset as I noted in my post below. That, in essence is a main issue I and others have with his character. He doesn’t think nor does he seem to care about learning from his mistakes. Just plod ahead, and if things get too bad, he can always die & reset. If he ever lost that ability, he’d be totally screwed, and much of it by his own doing unless he changes.
As for people not acknowledging Subaru’s deeds – disagree. During his rant to Emilia, she sure as hell acknowledged she owes him a debt (though IMO there’s some quid pro quo there). She’s acknowledged is deeds even before that scene. Roswaal gave him a reward for helping Emilia as did Puck. Rem sure as hell acknowledged his deeds (and has now fallen for him.). Ram acknowledged his deeds last arc. Reinhard noticed his actions back in the first arc. As you noted, they are friends. So PLENTY of people have acknowledged his deeds. Who else (or what else) do you want? Julius? WHY would Julius have knowledge as to what Subaru’s done? If anything, Subaru doesn’t acknowledge any hardships Julius has gone through to be a knight, not that Subaru would seem to care.
The only “problem” with acknowledgement from Subaru’s POV is that that he doesn’t get what he wants – Emilia swooning for him. THAT is what all that talk about “understanding” is about IMO. He’s the ONLY one for her, etc., etc., and he’ll play hero time and again because then she “HAS to understand”. There’s no excusing his rampant jealous & possessiveness. Again I submit that even if he succeeds helping Emilia get the throne but she ends up with some other guy, he would go ballistic with the “you owe me” bit. She could give him noble status, money, land, publicly acknowledge his efforts, etc., and right now I can NOT see him being satisfied with anything less than getting the girl he wants. Even then, I can envision his unwarranted jealousy and possessiveness continuing.
Look the guy has his positive points and I’m not suggesting that he’s done nothing at all, but for myself and others, lately, his negative aspects are overwhelming the positive ones. So yeah, depth, but depth with consequence to how readers/viewers perceive his character.
————————————
@Devastator001: You have a point about intel, but there are other ways to go about that as well. Doesn’t have to be just stick with Emilia 24/7. In the end, it all gets whitewashed away thanks to his reset function, but his methodology at times leaves a lot to be desired. The fact that he doesn’t know when the next “save point” is means that he should be THINKING and measure risks before taking action. WTF is he going to do if the next reset is AFTER Rem dies? May not (sure as hell hope not) happen, but is IS a possible risk.
Like I said, right now his methodology is 99% trial and error which isn’t the best way to go about it. Rather than rely upon that, try to do things so that “reset” isn’t necessary in the first place.
That’s one of the problem I have with Subaru way before this arc. The writing seems to prevent him from doing anything but trial and error. Even in the first arc, he just dives right in without thinking, which irked me but I’ll forgive him since he was just thrown into this world. But as the 2nd arc rolled around, this problem is becoming more apparent since he seems to only think one way. By this arc, it’s just so bad that it’s completely stupid. He hasn’t even seemed to pop any thought about his power aside from the fact that he can respawn. Never thought about how it works, his save point, etc and he seems even less interested in learning of his surrounding, seeing as his power is most powerful when he holds memory and knowledge of the future and going back to change it, but he’s not even doing this, at the same time he’s so concerned for Emilia. Like he wants to help her ascend to the thrones yet he does nothing that will help her do that.
Why the hell should he wait find about that later when he can’t control his checkpoints? All it will result in him being unable to change anything and he can’t take such a risk.
Furthermore putting aside Emilia, she only one he cares about in the village, there also Ram, the children. That fact whole place is such a terrible state proves that he’s right for just sitting back. He’s wrong for thinking he’s only one who can help with it.
The fact he’s seen happened here alone is enough to prevent what going happen in the future. You post comes off as callous and way too focus on Rem. Yes it sucks she died, but she party responsible for that by going off on her own. She turned back after she put Suabru to sleep went somewhere if she wanted to.
That really doesn’t matter. That how his abilities work. It’s not about being correct, it’s about utilizing the what you have to solve you problems. RbD is useless on it’s own if Suabru cannot apply it properly and info he gets from to save people. His use of RbD is not the problem it’s hero complex he’s developed from recent success that is. As the flashbacks have been implying, he’s struggling against his own feelings of inadequacy which turning RbD from what was just a tool into a crutch. Using a means to find information is fine, but thinking he can do anything from it is wrong.
@Iron Maw: Couple things. It’s not that I’m being callous, it’s that, while perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, right now I think the village is lost regardless (not sure about you, but I’m not an LN reader). But sure, IF he can in fact do it all, solve everything, save everyone, then great. No problem with that. Your comment seems to imply he can fix everything, then again you also wrote “…thinking he can do anything from it is wrong” so not sure what exactly your stance is. Again, I might be proven wrong, but given the series grim-dark tone, this strikes me as quite likely a situation where there isn’t a clean, happy ending with no casualties even if he does get help.
And YES – one big, BIG issue is the reset point. As you say he can’t control the “game save” point. In FACT, as Trap Master points out in a post, not only does he not know how the mechanics works for his reset, apparently he’s given no thought whatsoever to his one “super power”. If this next “save point” is AFTER what happens in this episode, then what? This “critical” information is rendered not critical/time-sensitive. All he did was set forth a chain of events that got Rem killed to satisfy his hubris. BTW, Rem going off to help him reminds me of what she did last arc so her actions this time around are not surprising. If the reset is before this episode, then sure, he can try again with Plan B (or Plan C or Plan D….). Still, the question remains whether him rushing off this time factors into the reset point or has now bearing at all unless we also get information on that point.
Again, haven’t read the LN and not on Reddit or other places reading theories/spoilers so I have no idea how the reset point works. What I do know is that there are consequences to his actions which he doesn’t think about – same thing I and others have mentioned repeatedly.
As for your second point, my comment on trial and error is directly on point to your assertion that he’s “making the right moves”. YES, he needs info, but also to THINK! Bloody THINK rather than blunder around trying A, then B, then C, then D, etc. (trial and error). Again, by definition that is NOT the best, most efficient method, and thus he’s not making all the right moves as you assert. Lets keep in mind that his some of his moves include accepting a pointless dual where he gets his ass kicked unless the “critical” information to be obtained is “can a trained Knight kick my ass in a sword fight?” (obvious answer is obvious).
Sorry, but to me the guy makes a lot of his own problems, particularly lately. AGAIN, not saying he’s Evil McEvilly with no redeeming characteristics, but I’m sure as hell not alone on thinking the guy has not acted appropriately/wisely (again more so lately, but there were complaints about him early on). Subaru is one of the most divisive main characters I can recall in quite awhile, and for a change the issue isn’t that he’s too hax/op.
@Trap Master
Except he’s already that about it in the 2nd arc but because his check points are random, there is no methodology he could possibly use to find out how they work. He can’t even speak about his ability to anyone either. Let’s not pretend this something he can get convenient answers for.
Frankly if your gonna complain about a major concept of the show than perhaps you should just stop watching. RbD for better or worse is how the story progress and how we seen different sides to many character and as well as develop Subaru’s character. Both in positive and negative directions.
I don’t remember him giving much thoughts about his check points and even if he did, he never seemed to have done any thought on how to use this to his advantage beside his “I must be beside Emilia 24/7” strategy. And while of course, he shouldn’t just kill himself randomly to figure out how his revive points work, he could definitely put more thought into it. Is this determined by something outside of his control, for example perhaps the Witch has direct control over where he spawns (given how Rem and Ram can smell the Witch’s smell from him) or perhaps as people have suggested previously, that it’s when he fully depletes his mana pool that he respawns, or is it that he’s made contact with another magical being that causes this revival to occur(him having made contact with Beatrice and her casting a spell on him). If it’s truly random, I don’t see any point in having this power as he could potentially just respawn a couple of seconds back and never be able to change anything in the past. There should be some rule/pattern to this or else Subaru is just conviniently respawning at all the key points for no other reason than just because he needs to start here to solve this arc. What I’m saying is that while there is not a lot to work with, there is something to work with. If I had this power, I’d definitely put some serious thoughts into how my powers work given what happened and analyze what happened and create theories. Not just stubbornly spend the entire time trying to convince Emilia to get him into the castle in an unconvincing manner with no alteration of his arguments to try to convince her. He never changed his approach in perhaps hinting at his power, or trying a different way to convince Emilia to take him into the castle. It doesn’t take a lot to make them realize there’s something wrong with your situation (in this case revival) without directly speaking (and I’m assuming writing about it and other direct approach will not work. And see, Subaru never thought to write down his situation or try another approach, since he’s only tested that he can’t SPEAK TO people about his problem myself without being stopped, but he has no confirmation of whether he can tell them directly in some other form of communication or even indirectly hinting at it). If I had this power + curse, I’d be trying to find some loophole that allows me to express about it.
Also, I’m not complaining about the concept of the revive mechanics, just how Subaru handles it. There’s nothing wrong with starting the thing several times to finally figure out a solution, but it’s how he uses it handles it that’s causing unneeded frustration. I still enjoy this show (if I didn’t enjoy the show, I would’ve dropped it a long time ago) and just because I enjoy this show doesn’t stop me from criticizing the series.
I really like your opinions on Re:Zero, because you analyze Subaru’s character in the right way, and apparently not so many people on the internet do that. For example, your understanding of his behavior in episode 13 was perfect.
About this episode, I found really interesting (and well done in anime form) how Subaru was constantly in a denial stage: he kept saying “Emilia needs me”, “I’m the only one who can make things right” and so on, but he was constantly reminded of the truth by those flashbacks of the past episodes, and he just kept going on and on in his paranoia (at this point, I doubt he has a lot of sanity left).
His denial was especially strong at the village: he ignored everything like none of those corpses were there, until he just couldn’t avoid to face reality.
That was a really great moment imho.
About the hooded figures, I just want to point this out for whoever missed it: they bowed to Subaru before disappearing. They massacred the entire village, but then not only they didn’t harm Subaru, they actually bowed to him and just leave.
And it was creepy af
Yeah, I agree. It’s almost like Subaru is developing a mental illness of sorts, I read a post elsewhere analyzing this and they also mention his denial, besides the points you mentioned, do notice how he reacted to the corpses in the village houses, it wasn’t till he actually physically interacted with one of them when he fully realized it and freaked out.
O I’m blind, you did mention it xP
The thing with Subaru is that while he is pretty easy to understand (in my opinion anyways), it can be very difficult to like him or accept some of his actions.
For instance, it’s pretty obvious why he’s pretty much broken down mentally by now (in fact it’s remarkable how long he lasted), but that doesn’t make his treatment of Emilia at the end of last episode or the blame game he plays in this one any more likable.
Of course it doesn’t.
In fact, it’s important to recognize that his behavior is terrible.
But it’s also important to understand why he is like that and how is he getting more and more crazy, and not many people on the internet realize that. I read some threads, and people are either hating Subaru retroactively (even if they liked him before), or saying that this change of tone is totally out of character, and I don’t get how anyone could think like that after all the attention White Fox put into showing us flashbacks, reactions, facial expressions and denial mechanisms
Lelo // Do you think Subaru would behave differntly (in a good way) if he had met julius and heard ‘you not good enough for her, no worthy of her’ of sorts on the 1st day in the mansion, or he felt rosewaald or emilia tried to keep him away from emilia on his 1st day in the mansion?
I doubt it. He has been mentally broken, insane from the very beginnig (ep 1).
@fripsidelover9111
Subaru had the “I’m the main character so I’ll win” mentality from the very beginning so yeah, just meeting Julius in the first episode wouldn’t have changed his behavior.
What will change it is facing the harsh reality and the consequences of his own actions, but this change is only possible because he reached the breaking point of his delusions, after being everyone’s hero in the first two arcs.
Julius saying “You’re not worthy of her” in the very first episode or at the start of arc 2 wouldn’t have had any impact on Subaru, but the whole point of those words wouldn’t even be there given that contest, so I don’t think it’s an appropriate “what if” scenario
“he kept saying “Emilia needs me”, “I’m the only one who can make things right” and so on, but he was constantly reminded of the truth by those flashbacks of the past episodes”
You do know that there is about a 99% chance that he will save everyone with respawning in this arc too? (Even if he saves them by pointing the right people at the problem.)
He is handling social situations badly and isn’t all that smart about his respawn ability either and is a mental wreck. But he is entirely right that he is the one who will fix everything by finally choosing a working route after heedlessly rushing into danger again and again. (Learning to scout and collect information properly would reduce his death count much faster than learning to fight.)
My thoughts regarding Subaru is a little bit different from what was said before. For me, Subaru is totally broken right now regarding his mind. It comes to a point where he created his own world where everything that happens and goes right is because of him. Everything that has a meaning and is for the greater good if because of him. And, if anyone, no matter who is, tries to deny that vision, he completely shutdown this person and either send them off or goes away.
In other words, his mind is in a state that everything that goes against the reality he created right now is a threat and must be eliminated from it, and everything that does not have a part in it will be completely ignored. A point that sustain this idea of mine is that when Subaru arrived at the village, he saw all of the dead corpses but ignored then until he, by accident, stumbled at one and physically interacted with it. Then, after that, he finally left said world and come face to face with reality.
So, as a Anime Only viewer, I hope that after a few resets (since I think that just one won’t cut for him to come back to the true reality) he’ll somehow go back to how he was at the beggining of the series, knowing his flaws and trying to fix things without pushing everyone aside for that, because as long he act like that he’ll only have fewer and fewer allies for the next villain, who for what I spoiled myself will be his greatest threat till now.
If you only knew .. How broken he will become.i won’t spoil anything
The story goes in a way to prove that our bad Subaru is really right in thinking “Emilia, you hopeless without me!”
and we see a seriouly angel girl, rem, whois so devoted to Bad Subaru, no matter how he is pathetic.
No surprise. After all, Re:zero is a popular, Otaku literature, so it has to be otaku pandering.
Looking at this post I’m pretty sure you don’t know what Otaku pandering.
The episode wasn’t about proving Subaru right or wrong, but showing his problems have no easy answers. So could take-off hater glasses reducing the narrative to buzzwords just because you don’t like the MC?
Nah, it ain’t Otaku Pandering. Otaku Panderings desperately want to get and keep every reader they can, whereas Re:Zero was proud when it lost many of its readers due to being too dark and heavy XP
Iron Maw // You wrong. I dislike not Sbaru, but the story of arc 3.
If the story went in such a way that bad traits of Sbaru happened to cause all the tradigies and he fell into despair as he realised it was him who caused all of themto die, then I would say “a great character for a fiction, though flawed as a person”
Now the just hyperbole. Subaru’s bad traits aren’t responsible every bad thing that happens, just his relationship with Emilia. The rest were all due to things outside his control. It’s not his fault the Witch Cult came in a massacred the village. Even then he has understandable reasons for his behavior. But main point of this character for him overcome flaws learn to trust people more. But for that to happen his hero complex needs to be dealt with so he stops shouldering everything alone and become a better person for it.
Iron Maw // Did you even read my comment?
Yes. In the actual story, his bad traits are not responsible for the messes, tragedies (the witch cult’s massacre) as you say. I konw that, and it’s exactly what I don’t like about the the actual story.
“his bad traits are not responsible for the messes, tragedies (the witch cult’s massacre) as you say. I konw that, and it’s exactly what I don’t like about the the actual story.”
So… are you saying that you don’t like the fact the the story is NOT protagonist-centered?
Because that’s what “his bad traits are not responsible for the messes” means. It means that the world doesn’t revolve around him, and that there are a lot of characters and groups of people that simply keep doing what they were doing before he came to that world.
Which makes a lot more sense than a series of events that just randomly start when the protagonist appears and begin to follow him everywhere he goes.
Lelo // I’m not saying a series of events should follow Subaru wherever he goes. For example, it was Subaru who followed an event, the royal selection in arc 3, not vice virsa. And I have no issue with it.
So let me repeat saying again what I don’t like about the actual story. As I wrote, the actual story unfolds in a way which justifies our Bad Subaru, his belief “Emilia, you hopeless without me. I am the only knight worthy of you”. Even worse is that it’s one of the main forces which will save the day, defeating all the bad guyes.
His bad traits will bring about NO bad consequences. Quite contrary. Even this episode alone is enough to see that the story was made (by the author) in a way to prove our bad shut-in otaku delusional Subaru right after all (hopeless Emilia without me), every sane peolpe – emilia, julius, crusch etc- wrong (a sort of plot twist ?)
In other words, the actual story which will follow is like saying the audience, “hey, you are all wrong to ascribe those negative attributes (immature, possesive, lack of empathy, jealous, tunnel vision, ignorant etc…). Reinhardt, Julius, Crusch are wrong too with their advices! The ugly Subaru was, in fact, right!!!”
Shocking how he didn’t learn from his mistakes but then again what did we expect from a guy who had to die several times in the first arc before he realised his ability. Problem I have now is that I found this episode hard to watch, even fastforwarded some scenes and some just made me cringe during them
” what did we expect from a guy who had to die several times in the first arc before he realized his ability.”
You’re right. Suburu needs some serious time to digest info. Hopefully he knows to play it smart and get help from others.
https://randomc.net/image/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2028.jpg
On the side note, I wonder how many anime has extremists that always kill while using religion to justify their actions. I sort of hope these sort of guys appear in Gate Jieitai kanochi nite kaku tatakaeri, I want to see them get filled with lead.
Did you forget RORY MERCURY?!
When I started watching this anime, I’ve taken to it because of a promise of an “everyman hero” – somebody, who lacks great power (physical or intellectual) or fortitude (again physical and mental). This promise seems to be fulfilled better, then I anticipated.
Subaru can’t die – so that would not be an issue. So what would be the stakes? I’ve assumed it would be a question of heroic determination. How much pain, suffering and feeling of helplessness a person would be willing to endure to be a hero. And the first two arks were all about that. This 3rd ark introduces a different question. Subaru can’t die and he won’t quit. But will he act for others or for himself? For now it’s firmly the latter. I’m counting on him shifting to the former, while enjoying the unveiling disaster, brought by his selfishness.
Subaru is a peon in a world of great noble knights, wizards and demons. With his past as NEET, it’s likely he feels inferior. Of course he fails to see, as Rem tried to explain to him – he doesn’t need to be evil-slaying hero to be valued and loved.
He saved everybody in the past two cases as a hero-protagonist would. Forgetting, that Roswaal and Reinhard made the victory possible.
He’s the special one, who doesn’t view Emilia with prejudice, others do. Of course he also put her on pedestal and worships an image of her, that doesn’t exist.
P.S.
There’s a fire and a person trapped inside. A bystander without firefighting training or protective equipment rushes into the flames and saves the person inside.
There’s a fire and a person trapped inside. A bystander without firefighting training or protective equipment rushes into the flames and gets lost, inhaling smoke and losing consciousness.
Who is the hero?
The difference being for Subaru, that one one knows and he cannot tell anyone, that he can rush inside as many times as he has the will for, until he finds out how to save them.
No one else can know that. Only Oslo suspects he has experienced many deaths, and Roswaal suspects something special too but not certain what he knows.
I don’t recommend trying to be a hero irl, but this is fiction with infinite lives and an indominatable will– and Subaru will do as he does.
Oslo?
I don’t think I can do this anymore.
It literally took 2 episodes for me to be sick of Subaru beyond repair.
Why is it so hard for him to understand that the world he is trying to hard to adjust himself to cannot simply open arms because his intent is incapable of being solidly determined?
You can do nice things for people and not have to have a good reason, nor explain it, for a little while, but that doesn’t go on forever. You can’t keep putting your life in the utmost danger for someone who has absolutely no clue as to why you do so ESPECIALLY considering they barely know you from their POV.
How he can remain so selfishly selfless is just beyond me. His entitled behavior is driving me insane, it makes for great TV, but I cannot stand him right now. He’s got this unfortunate delusion that, because he keeps this girl out of danger more than she’ll ever know, that he’s entitled to be stuck to her like glue and has become so full of himself that he fully believes he knows better simply because he only does these things cause he likes her and they get results eventually.
He’s completely taken this respawn ability for granted and doesn’t consider the consequences of his actions because it’s always in the back of his head that he can try again until he gets it right if push comes to shove.
And then to make things more unbearable he truly now has rationalized that Emilia is utterly hopeless without his assistance as if this girl, the girl who bears the looks of the most hated being known to the land, is not well versed in the art of taking care of her damned self.
He hasn’t even considered for a minute that maybe it is his intrusion into her life that has brought so much trouble and conflict.
There’s no way of ascertaining that Emilia would have died following her initial contact with Felt
There’s no way of ascertaining that this magical dogbeast would have lead to Emilia’s death or even Rem’s death
The only thing certain about anything regarding Subaru as far as Emilia is concerned is that her life has been exceedingly hectic because of his presence even if the end result is one of favor and that Subaru loves her.
Too bad none of that matters since Subaru can’t tell her why.
Why does he cling to Emilia?
Why does he love Emilia?
Why is he so unlike the entirety of people in the Kingdom?
Why does he put himself in harms way?
Why does he value the life of someone who happened to save him from a random alleyway excursion a few weeks back more than his own?
W-H-Y H-E-R???!?!?!?!?!?!
These are the questions she has that Subaru can’t answer and because he can’t answer these questions there’s simply too much mystery left in the air to be comfortable with considering she is in the running to become the Queen of the Kingdom.
Why can’t he just think before he does something? Oh my God.
Yeesh the tunnel vision is real with him. I hope he redeems himself soon cause this is becoming far too hard to watch.
Also, that opening sequence really unsettles me. There’s already a sinister element to it, but the feeling somehow intensifies the more I think about it.
Something evil is really coming.
Yes, there is. Because Emilia could used her power to communicate with the spirits to find the loot house faster. In fact she did this very first loop in episode 1. She also told him he was actually slowing her down which turned out to be a good thing.
That makes no sense. Did you forget that when 4th loop where Subaru did nothing Rem died instead of him? This very thing contradict your statement. Furthermore both Suabru and Roswaal had come to conclusion that only reason for that attack on the manor was because of Emilia. Just like Elsa. This aren’t random attacks.
Sure Suabru right now has tunnel vision, but doesn’t mean the thing he did before were incorrect or wrong.
https://randomc.net/image/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2017.jpg
Careful there Subaru, you’re dangerously close to becoming the first male yandere main character in anime history!
Subaru’s white Knight antics had been annoying me for a while now, so it’s great to see the show tackle them head on. For once he feels like an actual NEET that would end up alone in his room…
I think Subaru’s main problem is empathy. He cannot see things from the perspective of another person’s.
He cannot see himself from an outsider’s POV. (hence the nasty faces) That’s why he irritably muttered “Mind your own business” to Reinhard when he himself is butting into Emilia’s. That’s also why he made such a scene with the well-meaning fruit seller in front of the noticeboard. He is ignorant about the ways and culture of the world and fails to adapt to it. At the moment, his and only his viewpoint matters, even as so many people chide him and even try to gently correct him, he stubbornly clings to his failing views.
It’s not like Subaru’s unkind, but he’s basically a kid throwing a tantrum right now. In this world where just about everyone could kill him with their bare hands, he’s screaming to anyone and everyone that he’s right and significant.
At the moment, he needs to take a huge senseless beating to bring back his senses. If you recall how slow Subaru took to comprehend his Return by Death powers? (Tom Cruise caught on practically immediately) I think all these internal drama problems are caused on by same slow uptake problem, just on a different matter.
I have no doubt that Subaru will mature greatly by arc’s end. Just that he’ll have to suffer, and suffer hard. And to be honest, he deserves it. Not the least on how little he appreciates Rem. How dare he?! REM BEST GIRL
It would take years to adapt to the culture and grow up. He IS still a kid, and acting appropriately for his age and location–which to say is dumb, and fish out of water. He’s literally thrown into an other world with no prep and is faced with the situation of his friends dying on him, while he cannot die. He cannot afford to wait, because anyone of value to him will already have been dead.
Everyone else values his life more than he does, and only he knows he cannot die.
Yes, the boy needs more emotional maturity, but given his situation, he’s not going to catch a break. He’s already overwhelmed by the stress of being in a new world, let alone the death of all his loved ones let alone himself every run he makes, and the inability to talk to anyone about it.
Anyone who’s even come close to dying (themselves or faced others) should be a hot mess for years. He’s already had enough experiences to be messed up for decades, and shouldn’t be even up.
Drasca// He often acts like a 7 years kid with a teenager body. The world he is in now is a lot of similarities to a medieval (european) society except for magic and monsters, and every high schooler knows that formality and hierarchical order in status is highly emphasized in such societies. It’s just common sense. But he shows little awareness of that for a teenager as if he is an ignorant 5~7 years old boy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have acted and talked to Roswaald as if he is a friend of Roseaald, being equal to him in status.
His social interaction skill is so bad, but it worked well miraculously for no reason in earlier arcs.
To get along well with a medieval time villagers by teaching a modern japanese radio dance? A silly joke which works only in LN.
I think that’s at least half the fault of Roswaal and Emilia and Reinhardt in the first two arcs, who indulged him because he’s a funny kid/saved lives/whatever reason.
How exactly do you expect Subaru to have known how hierarchical this magical fantasy world is when he pals around with a Priestess candidate, a Duke/the strongest mage in the kingdom, and the strongest sword in the kingdom with no consequences?
Roswaal takes baths with him and makes perverted jokes. Reinhardt calls him friend after one meeting in an alleyway. Emilia is Emilia. These are not the actions of people that demands rigid formality and hierarchy.
I’m sorry, but you’re under estimating Subaru and human in general to adapt to things. It does take years to become fully accustomed and aware of all of a culture, but it doesn’t take that much to scratch the surface and understand the basic culture. For example, I went to Japan and I can pick up some simple things like how Japanese people bow and like to be very respectful to strangers/people older than you. It’s not hard to pick up the simple, obvious points of a culture, and I don’t see why this is any different. It’s pretty clear that the knights play a large role in this country and the power system in place is not foreign either.In fact, this seems to resemble medieval times, so it should be even easier to understand how this country works.
Also, imo, even a kid shouldn’t act like this. I’ve seen so much people brush off most of his behaviour because he’s a “kid” or “stupid”, when it isn’t the case or shouldn’t be excused even if it’s true. For example, just because a kid is crying and shouting because his mom didn’t get him a toy he wanted at a store, he’ll still get scolded and he still learns from this that he can’t get all that he wants and he’s gotta work for those. Subaru on the other hand gets told his faults and literally just moves on like nothing happened. Some things, a child can even understand. For example, you don’t just make a promise and break it, or you have to look from other’s prespective (Subaru is butting so much into Emilia’s business, without considering her feeling, while he just pushes Reinhard away telling him to mind your own business. Also, something are so simple a child should do but he doesn’t even do, like the fact that he could’ve tried to ask for help from others (even if he can’t speak about it) but that thought never even crossed his mind until way later or how he seems to be intent on helping yet never seemed interested in leaerning and deducating himself about Emilia herself or anything about the world, which is really ridiculous. Also, him running into death isn’t what a kid would do, kids would run away from this, so he’s not a kid either.
@Drasca: MAL list Subaru as an 18 year old hikikomori. While some people mature faster than others and the hikikomori part doesn’t help, 18 is not a kid though he may act like one at times. So I don’t think his attitude and actions are entirely “appropriate” for his age (young adult). While it may take some length of time to fully assimilate into the society, it doesn’t take years to figure out some basics of medieval fantasy (“RPG”) world as fripsidelover9111 notes. What happened to this guy’s “gamer knowledge”? If you play such games, it’s pretty clear that knights have status and are a fairly big deal. He also could do MORE on his part to ask about the world/situation he’s in rather than just stick to his “do what I want/don’t think about things” attitude. Not suggesting he has it easy, but I DO think he makes the situation worse than it needs to be. That’s on him.
——————————-
@Guile: Let’s not go with some “enabling” theory here. How do I expect Subaru to know about a medieval caste system? Well, one, see above about him being a gamer (and he sure seems to have played fantasy RPGs). Two, ASK QUESTIONS. He did ask questions about the Jealous Witch & curses before. It all goes back to bloody THINK! He’s warped into “strange RPG world” then uh, wouldn’t information about said world be helpful? The fact that these people do not adhere to a rigid hierarchy is a BOON to him in terms of being able to them questions & get information. But Subaru being Subaru doesn’t care. Whatever, just go with the flow and worry about getting a date with Emilia.
One thing that’s odd about Subaru’s situation is that I’ve NEVER gotten a sense he’s worried about returning to “RL” AT ALL. Did his “RL” life suck so much he’s glad to escape, or is it just more of his “don’t think about the future, do what I want right now” mentality?
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@Trap Master: Agree.
Oh yeah, totally, fantasy RPGs should have prepared him for getting dropped into another world. Or knowing medieval history about his own world will definitely map well to a completely different world that evolved on a very different set of rules. With dragons and elves and witches and stuff.
He spent his time learning fairytales and learning to write. You know, in between the murder attempts. Maybe that’s not AS helpful as diving into an intensive course in the local geopolitical situation, but it’s not easy either. Presumably not being illiterate will come in handy at some point, just like knowing the status of the local knight classes would have done now. I hope so, anyway, or that whole segment with Ram could’ve been cut…
It doesn’t help that he appears to not want to think about his situation in any great detail, probably because it’s big and scary.
@ Guile: Give me a break. This isn’t an all or nothing situation. So if you got thrown into a medieval setting RPG world tomorrow, you’d have NO clue whatsoever about the status knights probably have? Really? I’m not suggesting such things are common knowledge for everyone on the planet, but for him, yeah I’d think he’d have some idea.
Just because this is fantasy RPG world does NOT mean that NOTHING in terms of medieval concepts apply at all (usually such games borrow concepts from RL medieval times). Uh, there ARE knights, kings/queens, nobles, etc. – pretty much a medieval caste system in place even if the actual right to the throne is different. Also, there’s simply some common sense. If nothing else, might be prudent to take a low key approach (ideally while gathering information), and try to avoid unnecessary mistakes due to lack of knowledge about a particular situation. But if you want to go with the theory of “nothing from RL should apply”, then ”all the more reason” to do some investigation, ask questions, etc.
Yes, he’s done some of that, and certainly literacy helps (though I can’t recall if that was his idea or forced upon him by Ram so he’d be more useful. Probably the latter given his lackadaisical attitude). Back to the political situation, how long would it take to get a basic understanding of that? A half-hour? Hour? He doesn’t need a politician’s detailed understanding of every nuance, but given the fact that he’s latched on to a candidate for the throne, he should make an effort to have some idea what’s going on rather than just remain blithely unaware. Hell, I’m curious as to some of the details about how this whole candidacy works, and I’m just watching a show. Oh, but he found time for a date. Priorities I guess. >_>
— ”It doesn’t help that he appears to not want to think about his situation in any great detail, probably because it’s big and scary.”
All the more reason to THINK and try to get a better understanding of his situation rather than blithely go along with spur of the moment/do what I want/”half-elf must get”.
Calm down. Let’s tone it down with the strawman there. I don’t think anyone is saying he should know everything, but these are basic things that he failed to do. Of course playing games =/= being in that world, but he should at least:
1. have some background knowledge of these worlds, as the re:zero world seem to also be partially based upon the fantasy LN/game world, and
2. have been able to infer somethings from both interacting in the world and just pretty obvious knowledge. There are lords and lower class, and there are different races with differing opinions on differing races. The world is also based on the medieval times(so you can’t just say this world has completely different rules), so there should be enough information for Subaru to go off of to make at least somewhat smart/safe actions.
Also, there was a deccent amount of time passed from arc 2 to arc 3, and seeing as he wants to help Emilia so much, it made little sense how he didn’t pay attention at all at how he could’ve helped her. He didn’t study the politics and such, fine, but he also didn’t seem to put much thought into how he can help her combat wise, to fight for her/prevent her death(espcially on how he could potentially use his power to save her). The only thing that seemed to have presisted throughout this time was he must be beside her, only he can help her and him trying to convince Emilia to have him to into the castle in the most inefficient way possible when there was so much more stuff he could’ve done to help her(even thinking of another way to convince Emilia to let him into the castle).
Basically, no one is saying he must know everything or he can’t make mistakes. But given the information he has, he should’ve been able to infer and make at least somewhat smart choices and he could’ve done a lot more in doing his homework on how he can help Emilia given his motivation, and on how he so passionate he is in wanting to help Emilia.
Ops, that comment was for Guile. I agree with daikama that Subaru could’ve done so much better in this situation.
[quote]Give me a break. This isn’t an all or nothing situation. So if you got thrown into a medieval setting RPG world tomorrow, you’d have NO clue whatsoever about the status knights probably have? Really?[/quote]
Yep. So you have a bunch of Sages who are in a position of power, trying to find a Priestess for their dragon god dude. The only noble you know is a kickass mage-clown who employs something weird masquerading as a drill-haired loli and a pair of onis. Turns out there’s some delightfully zany guys in shiny armor (traps, kansai-ben shirtless knights, etcetera) hanging around who mostly seem free to talk and joke and pal around in the throne room. Is that because they have power, or because the rules are lax? Considering how all the nobles he knows lets him say whatever he wants and never tries to slap him down, I don’t think Subaru was necessarily off base assuming that’s just how things go here.
[quote]1. have some background knowledge of these worlds, as the re:zero world seem to also be partially based upon the fantasy LN/game world,[/quote]
I don’t really follow. Is there a Re:Zero game? Has Subaru played it? If you just mean ‘Subaru has played fantasy games, he should therefore be able to figure out some of this stuff’, every fantasy game has its own central conceits and twists. For all he knows, knights could be completely subservient to a special class of mage-clowns who rule over them with gay iron fists.
Your other major point was that Subaru should learn more about the world, and I’m not arguing that. If he were a being who ran on logic instead of emotion and guts, that would totally be a smart plan. He’s not, though. He’s a teenager in love, and I can’t think of a less logical creature upon God’s earth.
I think you’re missing what I’m saying. You’re going since a game world is not the world Subaru is in, therefore there is aboslutely no similarities between them and nothing can be derived from his experience in games, when that’s not true. As I said, the world re:zero takes place in resembles that of a fantasy setting where a lot of the things in the world are commonly found in LN, games and other stories. In fact, Subaru himself makes the observation that he’s off in another fantasy world and he might have some power and so on, so he clearly recognizes the world he’s in, yet he seems to be absolutely ignorant of the situation he’s in when he should be at least vaeguely aware of them. I’m not saying he MUST know all the rules of the world because he has contact with the fantasy genre(and yes there are variations in every fantasy series), but there are some common things found on fantasy genre that’s also found here but Subaru seems to be aware of some while being completely blind to others. You’re saying that the fantasy genre has no overlap with the re:zero world when it’s not true. You’re just going the extreme in creating examples where the story settings doesn’t match the world of re:zero at all, but I can very well do the same with for all he knows, knights could be one of the highest honour a soldier can acheive and so a normal servant of a lord shouldn’t badmouth the knights. See, bringing in these extreme cases doesn’t help at all. What I’m saying is that there are some overlap between the fantaasy genre’s worlds in all of its stories and the world re:zero takes place and Subaru could’ve definitely taken some of those knowledge to help him but he didn’t. That plus the fact that this whole power system at least somewhat resembles the whole lord/king + lower class people of the past in our own world, so I just do not see any reason why Subaru can’t make some simple connecting the dots to figure some simple things out and acted accordingly to it.
Also, I just don’t get why everyone has to go on the Subaru is an just a bundle of emotions with no working brain what so ever thing whenever he does a stupid thing. He’s clearly shown himself to be much more than that in the previous 2 arcs and even if he’s weak at fighting and some of his shot calling falls short, he’s had plenty of times where he used his head like a normal person would even in emotional times. And as I said, sometimes, even the dumbest of creatures can do better than some of the things Subaru did. It doesn’t even take a 3rd grader to figure out that perhaps if you’re in this foriegn place and it seems you’re going to live there for a long time/forever, you should start to get to know the world and have yourself join the society of that world. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you should not badmouth the upper class (in a world like re:zero and in times in the past) or that if there’s a royal election, you’d need power+knowledge+respect from the people to be able to win. If he truly wanted to help Emilia, he wouldn’t have done the things he’s done in this arc, because all he’s done is further jeopardize Emilia’s position, especially with him making a huge fuss in the crown room(and yes I know one elder was impressed by the act, but compare that with the vast majority of the others in the room minus some of the named character like Reinhard and such, they now will have an even worse image of Emilia. The girl who looks like a witch with an utterly disrespectful and savage servant is probably what they’re thinking now).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that some actions he’s taken are just simply too dumb, even if you paint Subaru as being not the brightest bulb or dumb, unless he is legit over the top dumb, in which case some of his previous behaviours do not line up, as they were too smart for someone that dumb to pull off.
@Guile: Trap Master above pretty much covered it. Again, this is NOT all or nothing, and there certainly are common similarities with fantasy RPGs and/or the fantasy genre. It’s not like every single facet of Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru is completely and utterly unique, never before seen in the world, dissimilar to all fantasy games/fiction that has come before it.
I think it’s worth noting Subaru’s dialog from Ep. 01A: “I’ve been summoned into a parallel world!? I guess I can assume this is a fantasy world with the typical medieval-style culture.” [emphasis added] So yeah, the story has SOME different things, but also some similarities – such as kings/queens, nobility and knights (aka similar to a medieval caste system). Not only that, but IMO that dialog backs up what I wrote before in that given his background he should have SOME basic idea about SOME of the more common elements in this world. Problem is that for whatever reason, he just brain farts when it came to the knights.
Subaru please die… Please prevent the death of best grill…https://randomc.net/image/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
Do you also wonder what the internet rage would be like if it turns out that Subaru’s save point is after the end of this episode?
I’d be pretty sad that best girl dies, but looking at it from a story prespective, that’ll be fricking amazing. We and Subaru can see that we can’t just reset everything if mess up and hopefully this’ll serve as a lesson to his selfish, reckless actions (if it happens) and teach him to preperly think things through as he may not have a chance to re-do his mistakes.
Just watched ep 13 & 14 and boy was the 2nd hand embarrassment real and thats even with reading the ep summary before hand and giving my self time lol Subaru’s hero/white knight/savior complex has hit the roof and its not producing a good look. You think after dying dozens of times he’d be more mindful of his actions and think through things better but alas it seems the last incident has simply left him big headed and delusional about his own abilities and postion. He remembers the victory but little of the trial and what was needed to finally win (it wasn’t something he got all by himself).
It’ll be interesting to see where his new save point is. If he’s lucky it’ll be before he crashed the the royal selection and embarrassed himself and the girl he loves but I bet it’ll be right after his argument with Emilia (which will mean tackling the next I incident with less allies welp)
https://randomc.net/image/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2007.jpg
I think Crusch-sama (she shot up in my mind a lot this episode, not the least bit that gorgeous outfit <3 ) said it best with Subaru,
"Think of the things you CAN do, not that you can do ANYTHING."
Especially given Subaru starts thinking bad things MIGHT be happening solely because he wasn't by Emilia's side even though he was just recently in a situation and conversation that showed the prejudice against half-elves, like he thinks that even if he was there with Emilia, then that would somehow magically prevent any sort of possible bad things from happening involving her and that he could take care of everything himself.
Basically, Crusch's words were like (indirectly) trying to remind Subaru of just how he was able to accomplish anything the last couple arcs in coming to rely on the help of others to get things done and not to try to shoulder everything himself like he tried to before and is doing now. For all his RPG "Main Character" style of thinking, Subaru seems to quickly forget/ignore that even most of those main characters never did every single thing on their own, but usually had the help and support of a team and other NPC friends.
Wilhelm also noticed how Subaru quit trying to seriously become stronger during their training, which connects to Subaru previously thinking on how his rebirth ability is like some sort of free pass to get out of any problems.
Then the writer decided to be more cruel and reveal that Subaru affection to Emilia too also manipulated :p
Well, that escalated quickly. Yep, liking Crusch. She strikes me as a straight forward, honorable type. I do wonder what deal was struck between her and Emilia as rivals to the throne. She has no tactical reason to do Emilia a favor and help heal Subaru, yet she agrees to do so. She definitely has no tactical reason to warn Subaru that they would be enemies once he leaves though what would the guy expect? They are in different rival factions for the throne after all.
The “hooded guys” are definitely a mystery and that scene important. As others have noted, they do seem to bow to Subaru before leaving him alone rather than just easily kill him. It means something for sure, but exactly what – no clue right now.
Poor Rem. :< Poor, poor Rem. First clearly she's got a thing for Subaru and knows he's only set on Emilia, but still pleads for him to "save a bit of himself" for her. Frankly girl, you can do better IMO. Then there's the whole large sword in the back deal. :< Subaru better reset and save her. He’s got enough reasons to do that already before this happened. He’s also “reset” before to save Rem so I don’t know why he wouldn’t do so now. That being said, I doubt we get a reset next episode.
*sigh* On to Subaru. The guy just does not f**king think. Cause -> Effect. Consequences. Risk. These are foreign concepts to Subaru, and for me it’s getting old. Again, yes, I defended the guy back in the first arc, but uh, we are waaaay past that point. Adding possessiveness, jealousy and hubris does NOT help. Dude’s getting worse.
I previously commented that IMO, Subaru does not know Emilia very well, but simply just idolized her from way back in the first arc (i.e. “a hot half-elf girl who was nice to me”). Fits with the tropish hiki-neet background. I’d be shocked if he wasn’t the stereotypical ML who never had a girlfriend, etc. This episode backed up this theory. During the scene with the crowd looking at the candidate posters, he NOW just realizes that she’s long been subject to discrimination due to her heritage and resemblance to the Jealous Witch? WTF!? How the hell is that not obvious – certainly after the candidate meeting if not before!? It’s 1+1 math, but he can’t add it up and/or be bothered to even think about it.
Oh, but “she didn’t tell him”. Well if he can’t spend 1 minute thinking about the obvious, did he ever think to ASK her? Evidently not. Again, he doesn’t appear make any real effort to get to know her (and this to me suggest there’s no “off screen” effort either). Why bother? He’s already idolized her and good enough for him apparently. Emilia does ask him questions. Yes, he’s limited regarding his origins (from “RL”) and his “reset” ability, but at least she’s making an effort. At least she’s trying to understand his POV.
But for Subaru, “no one understands him” – not Emilia, not Rem, not Reinhard, etc., etc. At what point is the guy going to have some introspection and realize that maybe, just maybe, the blame doesn’t lie solely with everyone else? I think we can also put aside any debate regarding whether he meant his harsh comments to Emilia in a previous episode. IMO the dialog in this episode supports he did mean them. No heat of the moment here. He’s going to save her regardless of consequence and then “she’ll understand. She has to.” No, she doesn’t. More like she won’t. You’re trying to do the same bloody thing you’ve been doing which is backfiring. She doesn’t understand, she doesn’t want you to do these things, and you’re pushing yourself on her regardless. Rem getting killed on top of it all is just adding napalm to the fire.
It just… goes… on. All the negative traits such as jealousy, possessiveness and hubris reinforced. Look at the dialog when he finds out there’s some sort of trouble in Roswaal’s territory: “EVERYONE around her is an enemy. The ONLY one who can take her side is ME” [emphasis added] WHAT!? Granted Roswaal is a bit of an enigma, but there’s nothing yet to suggest he’s Emilia’s “enemy”. Dude did save your ass from the ma-beasts. What about Rem & Ram? What about Puck? WTF dude? GAH! Frustrating ML is frustrating!!. I agree with Cherrie that Subaru’s character development is absolutely critical going forward.
Taking a step back, I agree with others that Subaru is an atypical “shounen” ML. Not just that he’s an average, flawed guy (i.e. not some prodigy genius and/or has hax superpowers). Yet those flaws & his general personality make it difficult, certainly for some, to like the guy. It’s a pretty bold move from a writing perspective to make the MC like that. Honestly, I swear there are times the author is actually trying to make Subaru less likeable. It’s also a risky move for sure if in fact readers have actually dropped the LN here due to Subaru.
Except he already knows about the discrimination. He read about the Witch of Envy in book, hear the history lesson from Betty, and speculated why she called herself Satella. He also saw the racism directed at her at meeting and he wasn’t surprised to among popluace in capital.
So he don’t need to ask because he knows. He also Emilia is kind person doesn’t deserve any of it, putting aside how much idolizes or not discrimination is wrong. Judging an entire race judge by actions of one or so groups of individuals because person responsible from them. Subaru is correct to speak out about it but perhaps not right time. You need stop attributing every defense of Emilia negative.
You seem to forget Emilia actually like the fact Suabru one few treated her well whenever they talked. He didn’t see as demon just because she was half elf and was something Puck highly appreciated because she now had friend.
Besides Subaru’s attachment comes fact she is his savior and emotional pillar in this world. She only one who didn’t attempt to rob or kill him and lended him a hand in need. He may have gain so attraction to from her kindness, but there nothing wrong with that. His recent overprotection of her are results of nearly constant dangers that have him and her. His now inflated sense of self-worth is coming from the fact he feels is denying his worth. Suabru only trying to protect her best way he can because he knows this only way he can but his insecurities are getting the best of him making act emotionally as been throughout the start for this arc.
@Iron Maw: “Except he already knows about the discrimination. He read about the Witch of Envy in book, hear the history lesson from Betty, and speculated why she called herself Satella. He also saw the racism directed at her at meeting and he wasn’t surprised to among popluace in capital.”
Then explain Subaru’s dialog: “You didn’t tell me everyone felt that way about you… I can’t understand if you [Emilia] don’t tell me either” during the scene I mentioned above. If he understood (and he should) as you suggest, then that dialog would not exist plain and simple. Clearly, this was something that he didn’t realize for whatever reason.
Furthermore, please do NOT ascribe statements to me which I NEVER made. I sure as hell never stated, directly or implied, that discrimination was not wrong. My point above is that he’s NOT making an effort to understand Emilia, really get to know her beyond his idolized form established when they first met. THAT is the issue. Obviously he’s correct that she shouldn’t be discriminated against.
In addition, I’m not forgetting that Emilia likes Subaru to some extent. However, they “like” each other to a different degree – much different. It’s absolutely no different than if one person likes another as a friend and the other wants a romantic relationship. Even within friendships, both sides may not be equal in terms of how they regard said relationship. In that sense it’s kind of like Rem & Subaru (poor Rem). Clearly Emilia doesn’t want the guy around 24/7 like he wants to be, especially lately.
— “Besides Subaru’s attachment comes fact she is his savior and emotional pillar in this world. She only one who didn’t attempt to rob or kill him and lended him a hand in need.”
Disagree and we’ve been here before. Reinhard certainly helped out Subaru TWICE in the first arc. He just wasn’t the very first one (and a hot girl). Roswaal certainly hasn’t tried to kill Subaru yet (and in last arc Rem/Ram seemed to be acting on their own). He did, however, save Subaru from the ma-beasts. Granted Beatrice is kind of tsudere towards him, but she’s helped him out as well (information and saving him from the curse once). Ram was fairly nice to him before she thought he was responsible for killing Ram despite his Jealous Witch “stink”. It ain’t all just Emilia here, but Subaru doesn’t seem to care much about that.
As for his “emotional pillar”, yes, but I still maintain this goes beyond simply “gratitude” which his jealousy, possessiveness and “only I should be by her side” crap illustrates. Besides, co-dependence (which this is heading towards) isn’t a valid reason for his actions. If she doesn’t want the guy around 24/7, then she doesn’t want the guy around. If she only wants to be friends, then well, friends it is. Welcome to life. Now, does that mean that he’s done nothing, or that being friends with Emilia has no merit? Of course not, but there are limits, boundaries, and he fails to understand that. Besides, if he needs an emotional pillar, what about poor Rem? She sure seems to care a lot about Subaru now, and could provide that if/as needed. But he’s besotted with Emilia, and “b-but she was first” in the end doesn’t validate everything. Again, such is life. First loves don’t always work out (especially when one sided). One doesn’t always “get the girl/guy”, yet people are able to move on.
Sorry, but you can’t just try to label his actions and motives as pure and altruistic because IMO they are not. Again, the guy does have some positive qualities and has done some helpful things, but his negative qualities and actions lately are overwhelming that.
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FYI – don’t need to repost. Appreciate the thought, but I would have figured it out.
For those of us past our teenage years, this show reminds us just how incredibly annoying it is to deal with teenagers sometimes. That terrible mix of too ignorant to do much good but too stubborn to listen to any advice is something most of us (hopefully) grow out of but Subaru is definitely still at that stage. He is both socially stunted and emotionally retarded and it shows. He acts like an attention seeking special snowflake with his declarations and poses. It is a mark of skill from the author that Subaru comes across with as much nuance as he does. After being sent to this strange world, he fixates on the first girl who shows him kindness. The Return From Death ability gives his situation a certain degree of unreality. He can literally reject one reality to replace it with another. In the back of his mind, I suspect that Subaru still considers the people he interacts with as characters, as if they are actors sharing a stage with him, rather than real people. Subaru learns through trial and error the right buttons to press and right levers to pull to get the result he wants. He does not seem to understand them as people.
His lack of any real empathy is palpable when he defies Emilia repeatedly to indulge his own wishes. Subaru has likely placed her bid for the throne in jeopardy by demonstrating that Emilia cannot attract anyone other than crazed weaklings to stand by her side. Offending the Knights en masse cannot be good for Emilia either; for better or worse he has declared his association with her and it is tantamount to declaring that Emilia’s camp has zero regard for the Imperial Knights as an organization. After dying repeatedly to ensure Emilia’s survival and success, Subaru appears to believe that his suffering entitles him to Emilia’s affection somehow. He does not have to earn it the regular way, he deserves it already even though to Emilia Subaru is a relative stranger.
One thing that has yet to penetrate his skull is that Subaru only succeeded in the last two arcs through deus ex machina interventions by people far more powerful than him. Reinhardt pulled his fat from the fryer against the assassin and Roswaal blasted the demon dogs to bits. In the end, Subaru’s actions basically created the correct circumstances for the right people to intervene. By himself, Subaru lacks any power to truly change anything as he lacks any palpable ability or influence. The sooner he understands this the better. An intelligent protagonist would by now try to understand how his powers work and how to leverage it into the means to manipulate the people around him.
I reckon this is what makes Subaru so aggravating. He is not someone making the best of a bad situation. He is not a hot blooded hero charging into the fray because he must. He is the idiot bashing his head futilely against a brick wall waiting for someone to break the wall apart for him out of sympathy since it is clear that he can neither succeed on his own nor stop willingly. Rather than the raw courage of many shounen heroes who face terrible odds, Subaru comes across as a petulant child instead. As it stands I believe that many people are wavering with their sympathy for Subaru turning into antipathy instead. It is not easy to get that kind of reaction from the audience so the author is doing his job well but too much and the audience will simply tire of the work.
I think you misunderstanding here. With or without Subaru presence the major population HATE HER. The won’t accept her on the throne, not because of who she associates with or dosn’t. It’s because they have irrationally fear of her and all other half-elves. They don’t see her as Emilia they see her as reminder of Satella rather than judging her character.
The head Sage member actually point that Suabru coming to her defense against the racism was good for what is worth, because it show that maybe isn’t the white devil if there people who trust her that strngly.
Subaru coming to her dense publicly is not necessarily bad. The problem is how he does it makes him a total embarrassment of himself as well as Emilia.
I think that what Mary said is accurate. In politics it is both the quantity and quality of your supporters that matter. The Sage is being kind in noting that if Emilia can win such devotion from a man, it speaks well of her character. If Subaru appeared to be an upstanding citizen then others will think better of her. However he posed strangely and declared himself her Knight, a title and position that he has not earned or has been awarded to the best knowledge of the people around him. He then proceeded to insult the Imperial Knights, get beaten up in a duel and basically had his life saved because the Knight challenging him is effectively letting himself be a hate sink. He is aware that the other Knights were content with the beating he left Subaru so that they might not pursue the matter any further. Other Knights might not have been so charitable and Reinhardt can’t be everywhere to protect Subaru if another Knight makes it a matter of honour to cut the braggart down.
Essentially he is reinforcing the point that no sane person would support Emilia’s bid for the throne. Yes the population hate her but with allies among the Knights and Nobility Emilia could still conceivably win an improbable victory. Thanks to Subaru, that road might be closed now since in feudal society the sins of the retainer are the sins of the lord. If the only person willing to speak for Emilia is a half-crazed idiot that knows nothing of propriety or even good manners, what does that say of Emilia?
Think of how many concessions Emilia must have made to gain Crusch’s aid in healing Subaru’s damaged gate. I cannot think that favours for a political rival come cheaply. Rather than bow his head and ask Crusch for her understanding or even outright apologizing or negotiating, Subaru breaks the contract and at best wastes Emilia’s efforts. At worst, he might have made Crusch into a confirmed enemy and tarnished Emilia’s reputation even further as a fool who cast pearls before swine. Sure he is having it tough but it does not excuse the fact that Subaru does not seem to stop to think for even one second before rushing off headlong into trouble.
@Mechamorph
Yeah, if the consequences were only towards Subaru and Subaru alone, then it would be easier to forgive his actions, but as you said, his actions AREN’T only affecting him but also the person he supposedly loves/obsesses over and he doesn’t seem to realize that in the least, all while trying to justify it by saying Emilia “needs” him to do those things because she’s “hopeless without (him)”.
And with the way Subaru has been acting, if things end up worse for Emilia due to his own words and actions, he’ll think he needs to do MORE of such actions to “help” and only make things even worse in a continuous loop.
See, I think pinpointed one of the thing I have beef with this seires. The thing I have with this series is how this series is handling Subaru’s character in thie arc. I’m still somewhat rooting for him, but it just feels the writing is just going over the top with this. You don`t need execessively torture your MC when he`s already suffering so much, because any additional addition is just absolutely unnecessary and forced.
It’s like when people include excessive gore or jumpscares without having any any additional meaning to it, and with how excessive it is, it just turns people off, becomes bland and gives the audience the “sigh, not this again” reaction. I really wish the author kept this in check so that it delivers on what’s going on here, while making it bearable for the audience and not shoving everything down our throat non-stop.
Except he already knows about the discrimination. He read about the Witch of Envy in book, hear the history lesson from Betty, and speculated why she called herself Satella. He also saw the racism directed at her at meeting and he wasn’t surprised to among popluace in capital.
So he don’t need to ask because he knows. He also Emilia is kind person doesn’t deserve any of it, putting aside how much idolizes or not discrimination is wrong. Judging an entire race judge by actions of one or so groups of individuals because person responsible from them. Subaru is correct to speak out about it but perhaps not right time. You need stop attributing every defense of Emilia negative.
You seem to forget Emilia actually like the fact Suabru one few treated her well whenever they talked. He didn’t see as demon just because she was half elf and was something Puck highly appreciated because she now had friend.
Besides Subaru’s attachment comes fact she is his savior and emotional pillar in this world. She only one who didn’t attempt to rob or kill him and lended him a hand in need. He may have gain so attraction to from her kindness, but there nothing wrong with that. His recent overprotection of her are results of nearly constant dangers that have him and her. His now inflated sense of self-worth is coming from the fact he feels is denying his worth. Suabru only trying to protect her best way he can because he knows this only way he can but his insecurities are getting the best of him making act emotionally as been throughout the start for this arc.
Trap furry injecting mana, Rem in nightgown giving hugs, resting your head on the lap of your crush, Subaru obviously has massive blue balls causing an abundance of testosterone. Wonder if getting laid would solve all his problems.
I think the best course of action that Subaru can do was to find felt&reinhard and ask help from them…Even i think he can at least try to negotiate with crusch and he throw that possibilities away, nice going!
While this is a fantasy genre, but it teach the way of relationship in realistic way, usually the MC has many plot armor so with his/her hot-blooded or cold-blooded personality they usually can get away with becoming a one man army or having a loyal and idiot subordinate.
Funny how everybody railing on Subaru keeps talking about Subaru not listening to everyone around him. You all completely forget that everyone’s advice is given without any idea of Subaru’s reset abilitities or the incredible amounts of physical and mental trauma he’s endured for everyone else’s sake. If Emilia had even an inkling of what Subaru has truly been through for her and everyone, you can bet her attitude towards him would have been MUCH more sympathetic less railing.
The fact that all you guys railing on Subaru don’t mention a thing about how his compiling trauma must be affecting his reasoning, or that the other characters’ logic is fundamentally off the mark because they don’t know about his reset ability, shows you aren’t appreciating his terrible position or suffering.
It doesn’t help that the writers are totally overblowing their making Subaru look bad, as was stated above. The ridiculous expression on Subaru’s face at the end of last week’s episode made me hate the writers for this ridiculous schlop, not Subaru.
A person can have PTSD and still be an annoying shit
Agreed. I’ve been trying point out that his problems aren’t that black and white.
Instead there are some post like daikama suggesting he just do what he’s told blindly (i.e let everybody die cause Rem) rather taking the advice those around him into consideration while trying to help out best he can.
It’s not necessarily that he refuses to listen to advice; it’s that he thinks, “since they can’t understand/don’t agree with me, their opinions are invalid.” OK, so he can’t talk about his ability. He decides to instead never explain himself or why he’s so obsessive, so he remains isolated and doesn’t try to help them understand him. Not everything can be refuted by “I have this power that you don’t know about, so I can ignore your advice.” If anything, he should well understand how hard it is to get someone to listen when they don’t have the same info. Just as he can’t say “I know the future, so you need to listen to me or everyone dies,” others likely have their own reasons they won’t explain about what they’re trying to tell him.
I don’t think Subaru or any of his actions directly caused the village massacre, and finding out is beneficial, assuming his reset point occurs before and with enough time to actually avert it. However, his decision making is flawed, even with the knowledge gap caused by his ability. Take his earlier decision to follow Emilia to the meeting of the candidates, despite how hard she tried to keep him away. Maybe she wanted to spare him from potentially embarrassing her and himself, but didn’t want to just say that outright? He never considers the possibility that others may have his own best interests in mind but have reasons they won’t say.
Suppose the issue Rem felt wasn’t actually a big deal, and by leaving Crusch and Feix, he caused an even greater problem for Emilia because of it. In this case, he was probably right to find out about the massacre. However, he never for a second considered anything beyond “I must be by Emilia’s side at all times to protect her.” The idea that Roswaal, Ram, and others can take care of Emilia, while he recuperates for a more dire time, doesn’t even cross his mind, even though they likely would be more capable than anything he could do himself. He doesn’t show any signs of learning from his past mistakes, as his tunnel vision continues to be a major issue.
He can’t even heed advice like “don’t use magic while we heal your gate,” favoring his own pride to try to win a duel. There was no good reason for Emilia’s sake to do that, only his own. If a situation arose and he actually needed to use his magic, but his earlier waste became an issue, can he blame anyone other than himself? He’d likely blame Julius for challenging him to the duel and “forcing” him to use magic, instead of looking in the mirror. Subaru’s ability is not a magical ticket to just ignore everyone else because they can’t understand him. If Subaru has some relevant knowledge of the future due to his ability, fine, ignore the advice that doesn’t take that info into account. However, when he’s rejecting advice because of his inferiority complex, then he’s just being a whiny brat who thinks he knows everything and doesn’t need to listen.
His strength is in gathering info via his power, and using that knowledge to prevent bad events from occurring; it is not in direct combat as Emilia’s bodyguard in the middle of said bad events. Finding out about the massacre ASAP is important, since he should know as much as possible before any new reset point. Going to protect her in some fanciful notion of being Hero MC is foolish. Him finding out about whatever is going on is commendable; him thinking he is the only one who can protect her is not. Just because he went back against all advice and got necessary information about the massacre, doesn’t mean the decision-making process to reach that point was sound and something he should repeat. The result of finding out what happened at the village does not excuse the entire process he took to get there. He’s suffered immensely mentally and physically, but that does not mean he is entirely blameless for the predicaments of the last 2 episodes.
I believe that your analysis is reasonably sound. Subaru lacks the ability to change events on his own but does have the power to give agency to others to change events for him. In effect Subaru has the mightiest power ever created, the Almighty Save/Load Button. He can keep trying for better outcomes so long as he can handle the mental trauma. And really at this point it is partially self-inflicted. If you understand that you have a theoretically endless supply of “continues” the first thing any sensible person would do would be to procure a means of dying quickly and painlessly. A poison or drug for example. That alone would cut down the mental trauma aspect somewhat since he experiences no pain when dying.
Despite the lessons from the first two arcs, Subaru has learned nothing. Beatrice proved to be invaluable in several scenarios but he never even asks her about something as simple as spells that prevent you from disclosing information. Consider that the average high school student knows things that could revolutionize the world in a medieval setting and you can see that Subaru is not even trying to help Emilia. Just mouthing off at people is more of a hindrance than anything else. He will never be a mighty warrior or powerful spellcaster in any reasonable time frame but Subaru does not have to be. Leveraging on things like Germ Theory, Crop Rotation and the Steam Engine could make life so much better for so many people if only he could just get someone to listen to his ideas. You know like Roswaal. Having Emilia implement ideas like Liberalism might win her friends among the populace. Just boiling water before drinking it means that a lot less people will die of cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other water borne diseases. Pasteurization does the same for milk, making it much safer to drink. Immunization, especially inoculation against smallpox, could save countless lives. Even if this fantasy world lacks many of these things, odds are that enough analogues exist to change the lives of plenty of the common folk. Emilia could reap the rewards of Subaru’s future knowledge, ideas known to pretty much every educated person. Does he even try to use any of this? To figure out what is different from this world and our own? Nope. Nothing. Not even things that would have to violate the fundamental laws of science to be invalid such as Euclidean geometry or Newtonian Mechanics. Just about anyone from our time is a mini industrial revolution waiting to happen. Subaru, instead of using this to gain allies, goodwill and influence, is doing nothing but hurting people who care for him. Even the Knights are sympathetic and point out that causing Emilia to don an anguished expression in public due to his actions is something unbefitting of anyone who claims to be her personal champion.
at this point subaru became the chosen undead from darksouls. he died and come back to life only to die again and lose a little bit of your sanity and humanity every time……
A bit of a tangent, but I’ve been watching Baka Test again. As soon as I saw this,
https://randomc.net/image/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu/Re%20Zero%20Kara%20Hajimeru%20Isekai%20Seikatsu%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
Yup, those FFF guys are definitely scary.
I am of the firm belief this show/story would be better if Subaru simply wasn’t in it. The only redeemable potential future is one in which he learns from all his mistakes and becomes a better person but according to all the LN readers within this site, he learns nothing and never grows as a character which is astounding.
Also how he doesn’t think his existence in this world is odd or peculiar is beyond strange. Just looking at the facts empirically, one would have to come to the conclusion that he is bewitched:
-Gets taken from home world and brought to another world (this shows a direct willful action by another agent)
-Is given ability to “reset”, presumably by said agent.
-Smells like the witch and is clearly ensorcelled by her powers.
-Immediately falls in love with a person who resembles the witch in every fashion (Emilia).
-Pays no need to anyone else, hell bent on serving that one person (anyone who has read Dracula will immediately see the similarities).
He doesn’t act like a person who is romantically invested in a person, he acts like a person that is bound to serve and attend to a person. All I am saying is that when the most villainous person in the history of a world is the being that brought you to said world (not known, but simply heavily implied the Witch brought him there), you gotta take a step back and evaluate everything. If you were a member of that royal assembly you would immediately question this character garbed in strange clothes and rambling hysterically.
I also disagree with the concept that Subaru is meant to make fun of shounen characters, when he is absolutely nothing like a shounen character. “But he’s trying to do good…”, yeah but so was Light and no one considers him a good man. Intentions, hopes, dreams, these things mean nothing in life. It’s all about the actions you take and, most importantly, how they are perceived by others. Naruto, Ichigo, Luffy, Gon, etc. all of these shounen characters are MC’s because not only do they perservere, but they inspire those around them to believe and not quit as well.
If you disagree, no worries, it is all love. That’s the beauty of discussion.
Who the hell said that? If mean fripsidelover9111 then ignore him, because he’s full of it.
And honestly it should be plenty apparently the story is building up Subaru’s character for some changes. Complaining about the fact his flaws are being expose to facilitate his development down the line is silly. Saying a character needs to be removed just because don’t like his attitude at moment shows how much crappy shows have been consuming that filled with one-note MC’s who never get critically challenged by the story in order to seriously promote growth.
Iron Maw // Calm down. You looks like our ugly, childish Subaru.
SoVeryOdd // Well said. And there is another very odd thing with the show.
Neither Roswaald nor Emilia makes a real effor to know of him despite that Subaru us a very suspiciou person from their perspective. They never asked seriouly where he came from, and when he came to the kingdom, where is his family, how long he has been in the kingdom, what did he do before had met Emilia, what his life was like before he came to this kingdom, what social caste his familiy belonged to and so on …
These two persons had to pretend to be so eager to know about him, even when they had some hidden evil conspiracy about Subaru and knew already who he really was.
There is more. It’s also ridiculosuly odd Subaru never wonder why they never make a hard attempt to investigate of his background info.
Yeah that is annoying, the character interaction are weird which doesn’t make me optimistic about it being an interesting study of subarus character either.
@fripsidelover9111 – That’s a very good point, especially given his Jealous Witch “stink”. At some point, you’d think SOMEONE – Rem, Ram, Roswaal, and maybe Beatrice (add add anyone else who knows about that) would want to ask/investigate about that let alone Subaru in general. Clearly the guy “isn’t from around here”. His actions may have alleviated some negative suspicion, but there’s still good ‘ol curiosity. There are times when characters not named Subaru also do not act like you’d think the would in this show.
Another thing I’d add is that for a character warped into RPG world, Subura doesn’t seem to have ANY care or concern about getting back to his “RL”. Maybe he doesn’t care, but I do think that point should be addressed eventually regardless if he wants to stay or go back.
Guile // Roswaald is practically the only noble with whom Subaru has had meaningful interactions, and he let Subaru talk whatever he likes to do and never slapped down him for being rude.
But Subaru heard how irregular Roswaald is in personalty. And he also konws how formal and rigid the 2 maids are about roswaald. Furthermore, Subaru had no good reason to assume roswaald attitude is normal, considering that he saved Emilia. All of these are enough for him to guess he got a sort of special treatment thanks to Roswaald’s irregular weird, funny personality and his saving Emilia, and to suspect that his friendly rude attitude might cause harsh backclash from more regular type nobles.
I gotta say, Subaru is probably an accurate depiction of a loser gamer teenager. All hormones and no human interaction experience. Expecting girls to act like they do in dating sims or some crap. I think this is Subaru on a steep learning curve. He’s incredibly self-absorbed, but he’s supposed to be what? like 16? Have you ever argued with a 16 year old about anything that matters? It’s pretty hysterical how self-righteous and ignorant they are. We all been there. I’m actually glad they’re giving him such glaring flaws. It’s opportunity for growth.
@Alex: FYI – According to MAL (which I presume is correct), Subaru is 18. And yes, Subaru has a lot of growth potential as a character. I just hope some of that happens fairly soon.
I almost feel Subaru thinks he’s in a game, because he was a NEET before all of this happened, so he’s kind of treating the experience as a game, which is probably what’s frustrating us all: It’s not a game. This is real life now and Subaru doesn’t seem to fully grasp that. He’s been given this reset curse, a curse because the Jealous Witch gave it to him, and he believes it’s an ability that has made him the main character. In real life, there is no main character. Yes, lots of characters would be dead if it weren’t for Subaru, but you gotta think back. If Subaru wasn’t transported into this world, would Elsa have killed Felt and Rom, or would Felt have just sold her the insignia and moved on? Yes, Rem may have still died to the dog bite, but there still may have been other events to stop these things from happening. While Subaru is resetting himself to stop tragedies happening, there’s a good chance they may have never happened if he were never there, but Subaru doesn’t see that, and it’s really frustrating.
On the technical side of things, the visuals of the new OP match the song much better than the first OP did.
That isn’t to say the first OP was badly done, but I was spoiled by the trailer for the series that used the same song and did a fantastic job matching visuals.
At this point I look upon Re-Zero as an intentional deconstruction of the “chosen one” anime trope. The lead frequently takes all the actions lead characters in other shows would do to be the hero and gets profoundly punished for it every time.
Then he doesn’t understand why he failed because his entire life experience has been playing games where the story works out right when he does the things he’s doing.