Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World-
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stilldemented
 Posts: 232 |
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This show is so much fun!
So Subaru has a decision to make. Will he reflect on his actions and learn from his mistakes or will he double down on his beliefs and make the same errors until he learns a life lesson the hard way? This question seems to have taken the spotlight for this new arc. As an outsider looking in, it is always easier to see the mistakes others are making and be blind to our own. That’s why I can understand why fans of the show can be frustrated with Subaru at times, but I look at him and see a protagonist that is juggling too many issues for his heart to handle. Subaru doesn’t annoy me because his mistakes are very human and I see no reason to shame that. He’s a character with a story worth telling. Judging by some of his remarks, Subaru has serious issues with being perceived as worthless. If I had to guess, this probably feeds into his background as a shut-in otaku and how they are generally perceived within society. He’s struggling to find his place in this new world, but he hasn’t moved past his preconceived knowledge of isekai fiction long enough to realize that the fate of the world does not rest on his shoulders. Subaru has mistaken his transference to this new land for a sign of his true destiny as this world’s savior. The main reason for Subaru’s frustration is that the characters in his life are going off-script. They do not feed into his coping mechanism for his trauma and that becomes a personal attack against him. Subaru is in for a rude awakening, but I think it should be said that he is right in that he is the only one with the power to prevent these tragedies from occurring. The problem is that the struggle is killing him on the inside and hurting the very people he keeps giving his life to protect. He shares this fatalistic flaw with Shirou Emiya from the Fate franchise. I also want to talk about Satella briefly. I just appreciate her presence throughout the show Out of sight, but always in mind. How no one is willing to speak her name. How being of the same race as her instills prejudice. And the twisted fixation with Subaru in that she gives him this power, but makes sure he knows that she can end him in an instant if he refuses to play by her rules. That’s a really difficult character to pull off. I’m going to cut it off here. Re:Zero has been a great show for generating discussion and getting my brain churning. This show tickles all my preferred genres. I love that the show is getting seriously twisted. That stuff is fun to analyze. It has become a delightful way to spend my Sundays. 
And honestly, I believe White Fox will end up making even more of this show. It’s that engaging. 
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11553 |
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^ As usual, you've said all the stuff I wish I could get across. Thanks!
There was a lot here that made me ache for Subaru's defensive conclusions in how to cope with last week's fallout (and once again, his feelings and motives were dismissed as "meaningless" which isn't helping his anger issues), but I think the thing I found most disturbing was that several times he seemed to be not only accepting the Return by Death, but relishing it. He's actually looking forward to dying as his escape hatch because he hasn't yet worked out what all went wrong, and what he needs to do to fix it, aside from keeping his mouth shut next time and not trusting anyone. His situation has already isolated him, but instead of taking advantage of what opportunities he has to not be isolated, he's retreating back into his hikikomori comfort zone. But I just can't shake the feeling that this newly suicidal attitude is going to seriously backfire on him... Yes, this series definitely does give you a lot to digest each week. 
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Calsolum
 Posts: 902 |
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shoot i was supposed to recheck that the first time i watched it lol. That did strike me as odd as well and they immediately took off so i made a mental note to rewind and recheck if that was the case; cause it also could have looked like they were getting a running start after they gauged his combat ability(0) As for subaru being influenced supernaturally by Satella/jealous witch I don't believe that to be the case as well. Alot of his actions can in fact be explained by him naturally acting that way, while he is a LN protagonist, within the series he's just a socially awkward kid thrust into a foreign land with no anchors save Emilia from his point of view. As I said before things can still get far uglier before they get better and so far i'm enjoying every moment. He's pretty down in the dumps but he still hasn't hit rock bottom yet.
I liked this as well because I've seen way too many protagonists 'save' the mistreated slave/family of antagonist from the public by yelling at them telling them that they're being prejudiced, they ignore him, he gets a few feats under his belt and yells at them again and they slap their heads and go "doh this wrong. We're sorry. Thanks for putting us straight." Subaru has his work cut out for him if he intends to change public opinions of half-elves and I hope that it isn't an easy fix.
yeah that was particularly painful, Subaru seemed pretty good at reading the general feelings of people but his fight with Emilia is seriously clouding his vision to people just trying to help him. Rem isn't really helping her case by hiding her feelings but I suppose she doesn't want to make him have to choose between her and Emilia knowing that he will hurt her and make their relationship awkward. God dammit Subaru just vent already and go back to your happy go lucky self, everyo-- err most people like you better that way
I know what you mean, I've always liked Subaru the only time i got annoyed was when he started getting excessively talky but that was much later down the line. Its quite easy to go "there he f*cked that up" or "tsk tsk tsk expecting/demanding a reward for doing the morally right thing? what a shitty person" and the like, but if we try to treat him like an actual person and not 'just' a fictional character he's quite interesting. Its one of the many reason I adore Tokyo Ghoul because of its many very lifelike characters. |
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chex mix
 Posts: 415 |
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It's not even just that he's expecting or demanding some huge reward solely for doing good deeds and saving people. He's been doing good deeds and saving people, in a world where he has no idea how things work, or who to trust, or how to read and write, without any sort of skills with which he can make a living if these people cut him loose, and he's been doing all this while being constantly brutally murdered, sometimes by the very people he's trying to protect, and trying to trust. All he wants is to feel safe, and Emilia is his safe space - she's the first person he gets to know, and the first person who immediately needs him for something. Obviously he latches onto that, even before being brutally murdered the first time. Even the world jumping alone is incredibly scary, and the inane chatter is his way of covering that up. Everything since then is totally reasonable PTSD reactionary behavior. I have no idea what it's going to take to make him feel somewhat safe again, but I don't think he'll stop lashing out until he does, and I think the next loop will reflect this.
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HaruhiToy
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By "target" I did not mean that they were trying to kill him. They want him to do something. The slaughter was meant to motivate him. They might be aware that he can't be killed or, more specifically, that killing him isn't in their interest. In that way it could make sense. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11553 |
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^ Hmm. If Roswaald was indeed behind the attack on the oni village, he could be instigating this as well, as a way to force Subaru's hand and get him back in Emilia's good graces. I guess that would kind of require that he knows or has some idea about what Subaru can do (unless she hasn't been killed yet and he just felt Subaru + Emilia are a necessary ingredient to his plans, destruction of everyone else be damned).
Regardless of who's behind this attack, I can't fathom the purpose of the cultists behavior toward Subaru. Why encircle him and bow and leave? If they were finished dispelling the fog so he could now get through, I still can't see anything to be gained by letting him see them. Likewise if they were fleeing the scene of the crime. If they were intended to incriminate the witch cult in his eyes, why bow to him? I have a feeling this is not going to make sense even if/when it's explained.
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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^It seemed to me that they encountered him by chance, studied him for a second, saw something dark within that they respected / feared, bowed to it and left. I don't think it had any other meaning as far as Subaru goes. I don't think the attack was related specifically to him. He just happened to come upon them after they'd finished attacking Roswald's domain.
I feel pretty bad for Subaru at this point. He comes to this world like many viewers, assuming he's the hero. Right now he's looking more like the guy he thought he left behind, just a nobody in over his head. Whoever said he looked like a villain in the making may have something. His feelings of inadequacy coupled with his need to do anything that will make people acknowledge him could lead to choices a lot more terrible than those he's already made. |
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Pierrot.
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Or it's because of the witch's scent subaru has on him and they were just showing some respect as they passed by? That's what I got from the scene. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18394 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I could buy that more easily, although I'm not convinced that's quite right. I am absolutely convinced that there was a specific purpose for the attack, though, as almost nothing in this series so far has happened without a particular reason.
I don't expect it to go that far, though. Eventually overcoming struggles like this makes for a much better story than succumbing to them. (See The Twelve Kingdoms, especially the third arc.) Something is going to happen to help reorient him, and could be something as simple as seeing that Emilia was successfully protected even without his intervention. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2266 |
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>.> Well, I kind of take umbrage at Gina's implications about my statements regarding Priscilla. Like I said, I like the diversity she adds to the cast. And this show has had a rather glaring lack of antagonists, so I'll take a wider spectrum of personality where I can get it.
I have, however, been thinking a lot on Emilia's place in all this. I still stand by my assertion that Subaru has put her on an unattainable pedestal, which royally backfired on him. And he's still oozing an uncomfortable amount of hubris and entitlement. But I do also think that the people Subaru's encountered have, for whatever reason, done very little to educate him on the workings of their world, Emilia included. I dunno, maybe it's a cultural thing, or maybe it's just covered in more depth in the novel, but I'm honestly gobsmacked that it took this long for someone to just tell Subaru, "Yes, we hate all half-elves". On the other hand, if it's a common prejudice that's just taken for granted, it might just be as tacky as, oh, a KKK member saying, "Yes, we hate all non-Christians". I mean, no one actually out and out says it, you're just supposed to know/infer it, otherwise it gets all awkwardly bigoted. 
So could Emilia have taken her time to explain why she didn't want Subaru at the selection? Probably. On a character level, it doesn't make much sense for her not to. But I've got a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the vagueness was functioning more on a meta level than anything else, building suspense for an event for the episode/arc to center itself around. Same goes for Subaru's faux pas, big and small; had he been informed of a lot of it earlier, we wouldn't have the same conflict on our hands right now. Other than that, I don't really have much more to add; the review pretty much said it all for me. I will add, though, that Otto looks way too distinctly designed to not be a recurring character. Oh, I did have a belated thought, though. If Subaru is indeed possessed by the Jealous Witch, than it's likely that she's trying to guide him down a certain series of events, hence why these folks attacked Roswaal Manor; it's all to propel Subaru into following a certain "route" to a specific ending, hence why he gets so many do-overs. I feel a little sheepish that it took me so long to realize that. ^^; EDIT: I've given this a bit more thought about why this conflict worked for me, when just about any other "I (the author) need this to happen to move the plot forward" conflict doesn't. For me, I think it's because, even though I feel like I can sometimes see the author pulling the strings from behind the scenes, the conflict still feels like it came about organically, at least for me. Emilia doesn't open up about herself, going so far as to give Subaru a fake(?) name during the timeline when they bonded the most. Subaru seems a little similar in that vein as well, as he tries very, very hard to hide when things are going wrong, rather than opening up about it; even when it's not related to his do-overs, like in this episode when he's being pummeled by Wilheim, he keeps everything bottled up rather than confiding in someone like Rem. And as we've seen here, that tends to make him implode and lash out. So even if Emilia's frustrations weren't mixed up in Subaru's inability to talk about his do-overs, I could still see a similar conflict happening between these two. More so because Subaru's catastrophic behavior at the selection had little to nothing to do with his do-overs. Even without his savior complex (which, truth be told, he might've had even before getting Return by Death), I think the way he clings to Emilia for support would've brought about mostly the same result, as I feel like a lot of Subaru's frustrations are borne from a desire to be useful. He really didn't seem to take it well when Julius or Crusch implied otherwise. Ugh, I wrote a novel. Sorry folks! |
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Juno016
 Posts: 2412 |
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Even when Subaru does a lot of the same things, he notices small differences in each timeline. Actually, Roswaal leaving on some kind of trip is not small. If Subaru isn't the one behind those changes, then someone or something else has to be...
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WeNTuS
Posts: 65 |
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Am i only one noticed that the evil guy with black hands (like one which is swallowing Subaru from inside) looked similar to Roswaal?
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cloud8100
Posts: 550 |
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That guy in the op was creepy as hell.
It's nice to see people discussing Subaru and his actions instead of just insulting him like I've seen some do on other sites ¬_¬. Too many have a tendency to automatically hate on any protagonist that seems like an actual person. Although the way he acts may appear wrong (sometimes) its easy to see and understand why he is at that point and how he saw Emilia as an anchor basically as soon as he saw her. |
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jutsuri
Posts: 49 |
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I wonder if Subaru will die at the beginning or end of the next episode, and what the save point will be. This loop seems quite a lot longer than the previous two, it's going to take a while to cover 4+ rewinds of this one so maybe he'll figure things out with fewer deaths this time. The new opener also created a whole slew of questions to ponder until next week. This is by far my favorite show so far this year.
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rinkwolf10
Posts: 750 |
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I felt like that something was Rem's death. Just the fact that he thinks of her and her safety first and not Emilia after witnessing the carnage in the village tells me that that moment brought him back to reality and to give him a good dose of what is important and that his fickle/petty grievances pale in comparison. Also, I feel that Subaru isn't totally oblivious to Rem's feelings as hinted too with the conversation they had in the INN. In which he states "you are doing this because you want too as well". It feels like at that moment that he does understand at least a little of how she feels. |
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