Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (Season 2)

Episode 17

Hurrah for an entire episode of smol Emilia! We've been blessed!

Between Emilia, Subaru, and Garfiel, Emilia's trial is by far the most complex. That makes sense given just how much mystery has surrounded Emilia's backstory up to this point. I went into this episode expecting her past to be heavy, but it's probably for the best that this episode takes its time getting to the soul-crushing part. For the most part, this was actually the most light-hearted episode of season 2, featuring a disarmingly cute Emilia and the return of the quirkier tracks featured in the soundtrack of season 1.

The brilliance of this episode is that it doesn't stop to comment on the massive elephants in the room. The viewer is left to make the inferences themselves. The most notable presence is that of Geuse, who seems to be a benign figure here in complete contrast to the crazed Sin Archbishop that he eventually became. He seems to be struggling with guilt over something that took place a long time ago, and he regards young Emilia as a savior. It now makes sense why Beatrice was sad about his death early in season 2, and it also puts into context a brief scene in season 1 episode 23 when tears fall from Emilia's eyes after she takes down Petelgeuse. She might not have remembered him at that point, but on some level she must have sensed how important he had once been to her.

To be honest, I had always lowkey thought that Geuse was Emilia's biological father, but that doesn't seem to be the case, although he does seem to become a father figure later in the episode. The elf Fortuna is Emilia's aunt and mother figure, because apparently Emilia's real parents are absent due to seemingly tragic circumstances. If Emilia's dad is Fortuna's brother, then that implies that her mother is a human. Even in the big backstory episode, so many aspects of Emilia's background are still shrouded in mystery, which is honestly kind of frustrating! But given that Re:Zero has a habit of drip-feeding its Deep Lore, I'll take what I can get.

This episode was mostly concerned with setting the scene for tragedy, making a big point of the imposing seal situated in the forest. We know that the people of the forest end up becoming frozen statues, and that a perpetual snow covers the land. The question is how that came to pass and what emotional effect it had on Emilia. When the Sin Archbishop of Greed Regulus, whom you may remember as the anime Ben Shapiro guy from the first episode of season 2, shows up at the end, it's a pretty clear signal that things are about to take a nasty turn. Maybe we'll also get more context for why the normally ever-curious Echidna is so disinterested and outright dismissive of Emilia throughout this episode.

To borrow a turn of phrase used by Fortuna and adopted by Emilia, this was a "sugooooku" interesting episode. After recalling her happiest childhood memories, let's see if Emilia now has what it takes to face the darkness head-on.

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Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.