Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 3

Episode 59

This is one of those episodes where a lot happens but there is little actual progression in either the overall story or the development of the characters—and, to be clear, that's not a complaint. This episode is doing what it sets out to do quite well.

It's designed to serve two purposes. The first is moving all our heroes into place and getting things going. What's happening isn't a singular fight but many smaller ones across several different battlefields—i.e., Subaru and friends have split up to handle the Sin Archbishops in the towers they're hiding in. Thus, we see each group of heroes start their respective fights against their adversaries. More than that we get a least a brief reminder of which fights have personal stakes in addition to the general ones facing all those trapped in the city.

The second purpose of this episode is to deliver a ton of action to hook everyone back in. (While this anime is technically continuing on directly from the Fall season, it's been months since the last episode aired.) The action we get is flashy and well choreographed—with more than a few superb, dynamic camera movements that raise things to an even higher level.

Of course, the action isn't just fighting to look cool—especially about the fight against Regulus. When we left off, Subaru and Reinhard had their “big hero entrance,” literally kicking down the door to Regulus's wedding to Emilia—and smashing him with it. As the fight begins in earnest it becomes clear that our heroes have no idea how to win. At this point, both Reinhard and Regulus are seemingly immortal. Thus, it is Subaru and Emilia's job to figure out the rules of how Regulus' powers work—and hopefully find a loophole they can exploit to defeat him.

This task would be much easier if they could get his wives to turn on him, however, each has learned how to hide deep within themselves—to do nothing that might even potentially anger him. That boils down to doing nothing unless he expressly commands it. As the battle rages around them, they don't move—not even flinch. This is the extent of the power he has over them—and it's not something Subaru can overturn with an awkward, heartfelt speech.

In the end, each of our scattered heroes has begun their life-or-death fights and none are going particularly well. However, no fight seems even close to ending—so here's hoping that our heroes have some tricks up their sleeves (the villains most certainly do).

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Good thing Al was left behind or Crusch would be in real trouble.

• At this point I'm officially on team Priscilla now. Her self-confidence in every action she takes is infectious.

• I wonder if what Reinhard said about his sword was true or simply part of the plan to throw Regulus into a rage.

• I'll be disappointed if every single character survives their fights. There's real tension in the story now but if there are no losses for our heroes then all that disappears. This victory against villains built up over three seasons needs to come with a cost for the story to remain believable.

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

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.