Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World-
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dash56
 Posts: 151 |
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That little moment was worded very strangely. At first I thought he was hinting at a Return by Death power in his own weird crazy way. When I went back though it looked like it might have been a more religious belief thing. Like he was talking about the witch and being reunited with her after death. Kinda like his own heaven of sorts. Last edited by dash56 on Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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hoju22
Posts: 14 Location: Detroit |
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From the desk of a NEET (well sort of):
Speculation based on what people have said regarding how the show has only revealed the tip of the ice berg, I believe Subaru still has a ways to fall and grow. Most notably, Subaru doesn't have his own self-worth, yet. Rem's rebuke of Subaru's self-loathing (in what I assume falls at the beginning of a lengthy, yet undisclosed timeline) certainly gave him a boost in confidence, but it's still a crutch at this point. Even in her sincere confession, Rem is enabling Subaru's new "game world" view that he is the hero. After all, he is a hero to Rem. "I love Emilia" says it all. He still has a false sense of his place/duty in the "game world." He's yet to realize how much of a naive duckling he is, clinging to the first good thing that gave him the time of day. (Perhaps a bad example: When I had friends, they said I would marry the first girl who lays me ... a prediction that still remains to be seen.) One wrench in my logic, of course, is that it appears that Subaru will finally stop going it alone. That's growth, for sure. But I guess that I'm predicting that the author has more tragedy in store: What happens when Subaru learns that his allegorical mother duck isn't who he envisioned; what happens when Subaru's new crutch is permanently dispatched; what happens when he stops being the hero and starts being Subaru? P.S. I think Welcome to N.H.K does the best job of sending a message to NEETS. Last edited by hoju22 on Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11514 |
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Then you might find Mother's Basement's breakdown of the OPs from these two series (compared briefly to SAO, which he despises). The first half covers Re: Zero's first OP and it's an eye-opener. |
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michizure
Posts: 177 |
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I was rather afraid that might be the case. It's been said before, but novels and anime are different media, with different editing requirements. On the other hand, I can imagine it was an easier decision to extend the episode (and warn folks with recording devices about it in advance) than it would be to tinker with the author's immortal prose at such an important turning point in the story.
See Cognitive Dissonance. |
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Gistradagis
Posts: 96 |
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Just went and watched it. Ah, that somewhat random but at the same time kinda accurate comparison with SAO X) His analysis of Re:Zero's op is also really interesting, especially about Emilia's shadow being backwards. Maybe a hint at her being some sort of daughter/creation/spawn based off Satella, if not the witch herself? It feels like the image is saying that Emilia is Satella but also isn't. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11514 |
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I think that's called the Suspension Bridge Effect. 
You didn't mention Rem in your analysis. It seems to me that Subaru has exactly the same motivation for caring for Emilia as Rem does for Subaru. Both claim their beloved "saved" them. Rem clearly articulated her viewpoint, but Subaru could only insist that Emilia had saved him without further details. So I think people have forgotten that he feels that way and why. If asked to give more reasons why he loves Emilia, they would sound a lot like Rem's reasons. He loves a variety of her physical traits, her kindness, her gentleness, her sense of duty and responsibility, her desire to help people. But mostly he loves her because she literally saved his life, and she was his first - the first woman to actually pay attention to him and listen to what he had to say and seem interested in his answers and in him as a person. For her it was merely curiosity about an odd stranger, but for a hikikomori like Subaru it was exhilarating (which was partly the cause of his early babbling). As that movie line put it, she made him want to be a better man to be worthy of her (which is why Julius' saying he was not set him off so violently), even if he kept falling short. So while his infatuation with her may be based on somewhat superficial things, it's no more implausible to me than Rem's infatuation with Subaru, and I don't think it's any more unhealthy. I'm withholding judgement about whether it's unhealthy at all at this point, since it's still way too soon to tell. Being therapeutic might be good enough for the time being. |
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Gistradagis
Posts: 96 |
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His love may be silly, even nonsensical. But hey, why should it make sense? Even if it was nothing but love-at-first-sight, it can be perfectly valid and bring him to the ends of Earth, as well as end in tragedy, or even simply never get realised at all. We don't need to try and be so rational about Subaru's infatuation with Emilia, I'd say! |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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Despite what I've read here I just don't buy that a seven minute pep talk is going to turn Subaru's life around after all he'd been through and the shape he was in mentally. The fact that it did kind of invalidates what everyone is saying went before. Either the author tortured the crap out of him and broke him, in which case this episode is not a reasonable resolution; depression like he was exhibiting doesn't have an easy turn around. Or, we weren't meant to see him as that seriously damaged, in which case what happened here was reasonable and he can turn it around in a short period of time. I don't like either one of those options.
Well I guess there's a third option, and that's what would make this work for me, and that's that Subaru is still f*cked up but putting a smile on because Rem wants him too, and he'll try one more time because she wants him too. But that wouldn't make it starting from zero, more like infinity minus one, so I have trouble believing this is the case. Ah well, we'll really only know where this series is going one it gets there. |
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Mitrospeed
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I get what you mean with that. This shouldn't be a common thing but to be honest for this iconic scene it was the perfect choice. If you followed the WN history, you would know how crazy people went over this particular moment, when the story lifted its mask and revealed itself as a unique take on a zero to hero story. That was the moment when intrigued readers became fans. I followed the Japanese's reaction to this episode and it was phenomenal. Apparently they love how much respect was paid to the author and really love this creative decision. I guess this was a rare instance where the 1:1 translation was placed and timed perfectly. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11514 |
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Heh, go back and watch his "What's in a Scene" one about SAO being the worst. It's hysterical because he gets really worked up about that one scene. Not that he's not right, but he's not normally so...colorful. 
Back ot, you're right, love doesn't need explanation, but in this case it still has a plausible one. |
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Gistradagis
Posts: 96 |
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Is it the one about why Yui is the worst character ever? xDDDD because that one made me crack up, because one similar youtuber I follow is Digibro, who also has awesome videos on why SAO is the worst thing ever, but he mentions how Yui is one of the few things he liked from SAO X) |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2456 |
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I like to think Rem's pep talk was powerful for Subaru because she demonstrated a clear understanding and rejection of his self-loathing, sunflower, and in engaging with him over it gave him a real human (/oni) connection to hold onto in a world that's increasingly felt isolating and oppressive to him. But I agree that it'd feel artificial for it to simply "cure" him; I think it's believable that he'd get a second (third, fourth.. uh, whatever count we're on here) wind from this new and more vulnerably genuine connection with her, but his newly borrowed resolve should only be the first in a long series of steps for him back to psychological well-being.
I have trouble agreeing that we shouldn't look for verisimilitude in a work of art's central romance (or any of its romances), if that's what it means for a love story to 'make sense' (this is my complaint of type A), Gistra; if a particular romance is built on emotions that seem completely unbelievable and artificially shoehorned into a story, I think that's an extremely important failing. (I mean: would a story with romantic relationships determined by a pseudo-random number generator really be of comparable quality to an otherwise equivalent story that gave us realistic kindling for its pairings and paid attention to that in crafting its relationships?) It may or may not be the case that Re;Zero's suffered from this kind of problem, and I'm having fun discussing and trying to figure out whether it is, but I do think this is an important criterion by which to judge the quality of storytelling, romantic or otherwise. On the other hand, I don't think a love story's quality should be judged by how calculating and rational its participants are, or by how well a story's romances conform to external moral and prescriptive criteria, if that's what 'makes sense' means. But even here I think it's OK to become frustrated or upset if a story celebrates something you find reckless or upsetting (this is my complaint of type B); the story may be well told, but that doesn't mean the audience has to agree with its moral. I had considered including something about the Rem-Subaru relationship in my write-up as well, Gina, but was getting a bit tired of hearing myself type.  I think a romantic Rem-Subaru connection would have been at least as believable (less of type A complaint) as Emilia-Subaru and been somewhat less ill-advised (less of type B complaint), but I agree that it'd still have problems. Another poster (can't recall who, but they recently replied) has observed that Rem seemed to jump from a wildly codependent relationship with her sister to one with Subaru, and I think that's pretty accurate (and unhealthy). On the other hand, Rem and Subaru have spent some significant time coming to understand one another; he knows her past and helped her overcome it, and she knows him well enough to cut to the heart of everything about him that is redeeming. I think there's a lot more substance between the two of their experiences than between Emilia and Subaru; even as I acknowledged above that Subaru has suffered tremendously for Emilia and that probably deepened his feelings for her, he's done the same for Rem in similar frequency and with similar severity. Comparing the two potential love stories, I can't help but feel that Emilia-Subaru's is favored by the narrative simply because Emilia came first and is the female lead. And that feels somewhat dissatisfying.
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2265 |
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^Agreed on all points, especially the Emilia-Subaru angle. I have no doubt that Subaru feels something powerful for her, but I don't think it's what most people would qualify as "love". I do hope the show (or the webnovel if we don't get that far) takes the time to develop their relationship into something deeper, preferably based on mutual respect and understanding.
(Also, yay, more Mother's Basement fans! )
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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I won't say much about the speech between Subaru and Rem, because there's not much to say. It was an inevitable event, because where Subaru was the only alternative between someone pulling him back up the way she did, was him falling apart completely and the show ending with no more out of him (less he turn into a villain, which would be an equally unparalleled moment in anime history).
My favorite theory about Puck, Emilia, and Satella, is that Puck is literal in calling Emilia his daughter. The exact route to that end is interesting to devise, but it's possible that one of the taboos the Jealous Witch violated was artificially creating life - she somehow tricked Puck and basically created Emilia as some sort of combination of herself and Puck. Outrageous theory, I know. Slightly less outrageous, Emilia was the daughter of Satella, before Satella became known as the Jealous Witch. Whatever event ultimately got Satella reviled the world over, she and Puck were close at the time (close friends, if not master and familiar). Knowing she couldn't stay with Emilia, Satella entrusted her daughter to Puck. This is clearly a more cliche possibility, but it works. Either way, the dedication and affection Puck seems to have for Emilia does not appear to be so simple as being impressed by her power, felt sorry for the prejudice against her, or just moved by her actions. He seems to be deeply, emotionally, tied to her, with his literally willing to destroy the world if she's not in it. You typically only see that in two instances - a lover, or a parent. Puck doesn't seem to be interested in Emilia as a lover, so that leaves his statement of parenthood. |
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stilldemented
 Posts: 232 |
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I think the thing worth keeping in mind is that the show has told the audience every reason as to why Rem has fallen in love with Subaru. No stone unturned.
As of right now, the show has left the expression of Subaru's emotions for Emilia up to inference. So I can see why by contrast it would seem difficult to understand why he would choose Emilia over Rem. It's all there on screen, but it hasn't soaked up as much limelight since Emilia has been away and Rem has become more prominent. Idk. Personally...*gulp*...I never committed to any side. I've never been all that deterred by adoration of a character. So...my jaw didn't even come close to dropping when Subaru rejected Rem's confession to continue pursuing Emilia. I didn't get angry of upset or anything. I totally respected Subaru's rejection. Mad props to the writer for that scene. Subaru and Rem handled the rejection like complete pros. These are two people that only want the best for one another. I thought that was a fantastic way to end that scene. And not one you find in anime very often. Last edited by stilldemented on Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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