Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World-
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
whiskeyii
 Posts: 2256 |
|
|||||||||
|
Right now my running theory about Subaru's previous deaths is that they were a reaction to his scent, given how badly Rem reacted alongside the ulgram in this episode.
Overall, pretty solid episode. The only bit I didn't get was why he tried to tell Rem about the Return by Death power during the fight. I didn't get it; they were already all in the same area, and there didn't seem to be a need to draw their attention--actually given that Subaru started to hightail it out of there with Ram, I think drawing the beasts' attention would've been a bad thing. Props to the show for timing, though. Just when I thought, "hey, shouldn't that sword have broken from that kind of abuse", snap! There it goes! 
I too noticed that the girl with braids didn't seem to be in the village when the other kids crowded Subaru, but at this point, I'm just going to chalk it up to prolonged injuries. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Melicans
Posts: 622 Location: Canada |
|
|||||||||
|
So I guess it seems likely (though perhaps too obvious) that spoiler[the witch was the one who cut off Ram's horn]; which if true certainly explains Rem's more innate distrust of him given that he has her scent on him. Perhaps spoiler[Ram is less likely to notice his scent because her horn is missing? Some of her powers vanished when it was cut off, so the scent may be less detectable to her too].
Also the only child who Subaru didn't know the name of. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
|
|||||||||
Well, there was the whole situation with the sword woman with mysterious motives who repeatedly murdered all the heroes and may or may not have known about Subaru's power, the knight guy who eventually drove her away, plus the thief girl and her macho sidekick (or is it the other way around?). All of those people and associated plotlines suddenly ceased to exist when Subraru woke up in the mansion. Presumably they'll return at some point, but there's been no hint of how or when for 6 or 7 episodes now. As for the rest, yes, I understand he was acting suspicious, and that Rem/Ram were not the only ones trying to kill him. Generally when someone who might be a spy is living in your house and acting suspicious, you'd want to keep a close watch on them, interrogate them if you decide they're up to something. Maybe torture them, if you're feeling edgy. They keep an eye on him for a few days and then straight-up murder him, without even trying to figure out what he's up to or who he's working for. What was that supposed to accomplish? If he's a spy, you just angered his boss and learned nothing; if he's on your side, you killed an ally for no reason. (And he's probably both, so, two birds with one stone?) They seemingly went berserk out of love/protectiveness for each other and the rest of their family (or whatever you want to call them), and sometimes seem conflicted over whether they like Subaru or want to evsicerate him, so I still think "yandere" is appropriate. I don't like the term/trope, either, but that's partly why I'm using it here... I'm not saying I hate the show or anything, but I definitely feel like it was better before this second save point, mainly because a lot of what's happened since then feels like filler. It took four episodes to scare away, but not kill, a terrifyingly powerful and remorseless swordfighter. We've now spent 7 episodes fighting demon maids who should be on our side, and a cursed puppy's army of hellhounds with very low hit points. Some plot development has sneaked in, but mostly it feels like we're killing time until we get back to the real enemy (the witch who may or may not be Emilia) and wherever the plot was originally headed. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
ThatGuyWhoLikesThings
Posts: 1014 |
|
|||||||||
She didn't really seem to be anybody important, she was just somebody hired to retrieve an extremely significant object from Felt, who stole it from Emilia. She was just the villain for that arc. I don't see her playing a major part again anytime soon. If anything, the person who hired her is probably somebody to keep in mind. I don't remember any indication that she knew about Return By Death.
Well, if what I've heard from LN readers means anything, this is all just setup. The plot doesn't really start to get going until this arc is finished.
Eliminating the threat is more important than finding out where the threat came from. Rem stated that he's either from a rival faction that seeks to rule the kingdom or the "witch cult", whoever they are. It's very easy to guess what he's after solely based on his actions, seeing as how obviously obsessed he is with getting close to Emilia, a royal candidate for the throne. Either he wants to steal her insignia or just wants to flat-out kill her. From the perspective of most people who aren't Subaru, a lot of what he does can just be seen as a ploy to earn the trust of Emilia so he can screw her over later. A random stranger wanting to get close to a person of such significance is bound to set off some red flags. In fact, Subaru's behavior being so obviously suspicious was the reason Roswaal preferred to take the wait-and-see approach rather than getting rid of him immediately. He can't believe such an idiot could possibly be a spy. Ram is slightly more willing to trust him despite it all, though she's still understandably wary of him. And since Rem can smell the witch's scent (unlike Ram, who seems to be unable to), she finds his presence actively repulsive. She seems to be able to tolerate it now that he's earned her trust. Last edited by ThatGuyWhoLikesThings on Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:37 pm; edited 4 times in total |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
xyz
Posts: 243 |
|
|||||||||
|
I also feel this arc is a little bit too long and my mind is starting to drift. There were some good moments like Subaru's emotional melt down and Emilia's comforting him. But I'm getting tired of this arc as I'm not really interested in the demon maids fighting evil puppy story.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15524 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
|
|||||||||
Rem was in berserk mode and was probably about to get herself killed from acting reckless, he needed to hit her horn, but despite raging probably could have kicked his arse by thinking. First he distracted and got her main attention but also made her angrier by the witch scent, only to then confuse her by throwing Ram because of course she is going to save her. Maybe she might not have seen Ram as much being thrown without the extra attention. Just a quick aside, we know that Ram uses wind like magic to kill while Rem mostly uses her fists and the weapon. Ironically I think that Subaru was actually put out of his misery by Ram in 2.3, Rem does not seem to move and we just see a streak before him then passing away. This was actually followed by Rem saying that her sister is too kind, that Rem planned to keep him alive longer to suffer while Ram would not. For the record Rem and Ram are not yandere. Yandere is when a character might seem charming and normally emotional, but later are revealed to be really possessive to a scary degree, which I don't think is them. I would actually put them as kuudere, that is that they appear to be cold and emotionless at first, but are revealed to actually be really warm and emotional underneath. That might not seem right as it later that they try and kill him, but to keep in mind that they do it because they are so protective of the other one, and I don't think it is them being quite possessive. And on the idea that the plot and character from the first arc have not been brought back or hinted since, I actually think we saw a bit when Roswell left the mansion. All of his attention seems to be on the next ruler thing, which leads me to believe that he only left after trusting Subaru enough to leave, but also only in relation to the topic, which was probably called out to look into what the situation is with Felt. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
|
|||||||||
Does the Ram in this loop know that story? I thought that was two lives ago but perhaps we can assume Subaru told it to her again in the current time track. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
rinkwolf10
Posts: 750 |
|
|||||||||
Yeah, some of use picked up on that. Anyways, the significant of this arc is to show the Physiological ramifications of the time loop power that Subaru finds himself in and world building. I mean they could have just done some straight up exposition but that wouldn't be even nearly as fun as this take or true to the story telling thus far. Notice that this isn't the same regurgitated story playing out over and over again and Subaru has to do the right things just at the right time. But, rather, he has to try new things and get unexpected results even when expectations from previous iterations tell us they will play out a certain way. There is always aspects or reactions nor we or Subaru can calculate for nor expect. So essentially he is living different events with a same start. It's nothing like the Endless Eight and that is the impression that I'm hearing here right now.
I thought so too. That is the loop where his throat is sliced by Ram. So, the contradiction was for us to spot and evaluate rather than Ram. Also, as someone already stated, that fact that the witches stench is present doesn't disprove the Dragon's involvement of the time loop ability. It could be that the ability is from the Dragon but the inability to talk about it (fear invoking event) is from the witch, no one ever said that one is dependent on the other. Actually, they can very well be independent variable of one another. It makes sense (no pun intended) that the time loop itself isn't from the witch because every time the witch's ability is evoked the scent gets stronger and by that logic the scent would get stronger with each time he evokes the loop power. Which, judging form the context isn't the case. Thus the loop and the inability to speak about the loop (and witch's scent that comes with it) could be 2 separate forces at odds with one another and not the inadvertent effect of one because of the other. And, yes I also noticed that the Girl that held the Ulgram and was suspiciously the only one carried that far into the woods is some why missing from the picture this episode and there was no mention of her which is strange seeing as how she is the primary reason things escalated to the heights they are this episode. Last edited by rinkwolf10 on Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Mitrospeed
|
|
|||||||||
|
People have to realize that we're still at the start of the story. This arc and the one before act as a prologue, an introduction and preparation at the same time.
The characters from arc 1 aren't cast aside ( believe me no character is in this story ), they simply had their introduction needed for the prologue. The reason why we don't see anything of them in arc 2 is that we share Subaru's PoV. If he doesn't get new information on them then we also don't get any. See This whole arc as one huge set up for what's to come from arc 3 onwards. Also what we currently deal with isn't "demon maids fighting monster dogs". If you take only the face value of things in this story, you'll always be left clueless and miss a lot of stuff. So many events that seem rather unimportant set up events for later, you just have to wait for the story to draw the connection. Patience is really a virtue in this story. Especially since this an actual story telling with its pace rather than an adaptation. |
||||||||||
Juno016
 Posts: 2399 |
|
|||||||||
He realized after running away that Rem wasn't going to be able to keep up her fight alone. She was going to go down, so he needed to distract them. And he remembered that Beatrice mentioned his scent got stronger after he had attempted to tell Emilia about his secret. By trying to tell Ram, he was shut up by the darkness and the scent was made stronger, diverting the attention of the beasts (and Rem). |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
|
|||||||||
|
So i just caught up with this show last night (staying up way too late to do so...), and wow. Where did this come from?! This is in a dead-heat with JJBA Part 4 for my favorite show of the season, probably of the year. I love the interactions between the characters, and the more emotional stuff has been really effective.
I've seen some complaints that the show is a bit wordy, but I actually prefer this to the awkward staple of the main character having a 5-minute inner monologue in the middle of a conversation, while the other characters patently wait for him to continue talking. Subaru simply stating his thought processes and telling others what's on his mind is a huge relief for me. Can't wait for the next episode. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
cloud8100
Posts: 550 |
|
|||||||||
|
11 episodes in and I can honestly say there has not been 1 ep yet that has disappointed me at all. That is amazing.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
HaruhiToy
Posts: 4118 |
|
|||||||||
At this point I have to wonder if Subaru is brewing trouble for himself. He must be aware at this rate Rem might fall in love with him. So what's going to happen as he makes headway (as he did this episode) with his real focus which is Emilia? Aside from that anybody who expects that date to go off without a hitch should be forced to wear an optimism-restraint girdle for their own safety. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
|
|||||||||
|
Man, I was about ready to drop this show after the last few episodes of meandering, and now suddenly we get a great episode with all the general concepts a non-filler episode could possibly contain: backstory and character development and plot progression and intrigue and even some long-overdue closure to the aforementioned meandering. You cheeky writers.
My only complaint is that I really could have used this background on the demon-maids a bit earlier, maybe after episode 7, so I wouldn't have had to wait until now to understand anything at all about them. (There was that story about the ogres, which apparently is an actual Japanese folktale since the exact same story appears in Ore Monogatari, but it was too vague to be much help.) |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11454 |
|
|||||||||
|
Episode 11
That was pretty great across the board. I'm not usually one to be suckered in by this type of loli-cuteness, but Rem's full-faced smile charmed even my socks off.
Is it? Maybe I'm being cynical, but after his display of literal fire-power in dispatching the ulgram beast, I got the sneaking suspicion that Roswaal was behind the torching of the village so that he could get hold of the twins for his own ends (though he probably encouraged the cultists to be his boots on the ground for the actual slaughter - notice none survived to point any fingers). As he carried Ram away, his outfit seemed of a kind with the cultists. Allowing her to be dehorned first ensured his control over her. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group