Re:Zero

82/100 [spoilers]

TL;DR: surprisingly good. It’s popularity speaks for itself; most of the polarization on this anime is driven by the fact that people are incredibly divided over the main character. I think he is a bit pathetic, but the series is enjoyable regardless. Strongly recommend watching it.

Synopsis: 17 year old Japanese otaku becomes friends with a princess and abuses the ability to travel back in time after dying to change the world.

A 17 year old Japanese otaku named Subaru inexplicably gets stuck in a fantasy world, witnesses a theft, meets the victim, and tries to help her return the stolen item. Unfortunately, they are murdered when they get to a shady house, and now Subaru has found himself sent back in time to the beginning. He does not realize this at first, and is confused to find that people who he previously met do not recognize him. Using the knowledge of his future self and lots trial and error, he eventually manages to help the victim, who turns out to be a princess caught in a war of succession, who he is not committed to helping.

With two asides: Subaru is narcissistic, awkward, and wimpy, which makes him a difficult protagonist to identify with and a lot of the scenes with him in them “cringe funny”. He also cannot tell anybody about his ability to reincarnate; combined with the constant deaths and reincarnations, he is gradually driven insane and has to fight against himself to pull through.

Sounds… Kind of gay, which is why I held off on watching it for so long. After having finished the first season, I must make a confession: I liked it.

Which is a fairly common opinion, though the show is much more divisive within the core anime community who think it’s normie goyslop.

Facts and logic aside, the most cited reason for disliking Re:Zero is that Subaru is weak, which is not really a reason — basically everybody thought Subaru was weak, but only so many of those people hate Re:Zero. Rather, it’s a personal preference thing: some people cannot tolerate weak protagonists, and some people can. Why people are so divided on weak protagonists in this case is difficult to tell, but I suspect it has to do with how people are wired on the inside; some people need to identify with main characters, some people do not; some people have high levels of cognitive empathy, others do not.

Sometimes, people’s opinion on series can shift after they rewatch it or think/talk about it, so disagreement becomes naturally less taboo and uncomfortable, but if that is not the case, the arguments become more nasty and cold. Due to the fact that enjoying Re:Zero seems to be somewhat hardwired, discussions around the show are unusually heated and aggressive.

The decision to make Subaru the way he is was justified, as having a reincarnation mechanic already reduces the stakes of the series by a decent amount; if he was a normal strong hero then the series would have been much more boring as he would have dealt better with the toll of constantly dying and killed himself more often.

[spoiler section]

For the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the elephant in the room was the Endless Eight; for Re:Zero, it was the infamous 18th episode where Subaru and Rem, a girl who accompanied Subaru for a long time, have an intense episode-long argument. Subaru is fed up of reincarnating and failing and wants to run away with her, while Rem tries to stoically convince him to stay strong. Eventually, Rem tells Subaru about a detailed lovey-dovey fantasy where they move away, marry, and she gets pregnant. Subaru responds by telling her that she loves… Emilia. I, personally, was livid. Even though I had been spoiled on the “I love Emilia” line earlier to this, it was way, way, WAY worse in context. Not only did Subaru reject Rem, the better girl, he did it right after she made a massive, embarrassing confession. Even though this was infuriating, I cannot say this affected my perception of the series as a whole; people make dumb decisions all of the time.

the face of a broken woman

This series could have been a masterpiece if it did three things different:

1. Every time Subaru dies, he switches to a different timeline, but the one that contains his death still keeps on going. If so, committing suicide would be more morally grey, as he would just be adding more timelines that end in tragedy for him and his friends. If Subaru had reason to suspect that this was the case, then he would be much less likely to commit suicide to reset time and the toll of dying would be far greater on him. Given that that the mental toll of dying is greater, he could have been written as a stronger character without reducing the stakes of the series.

2. Improve the villains. They suck.

3. Improve the dialogue. It’s too dramatic and cliche.

Overall, I would strongly recommend watching it. Not necessarily because it is good, but because of its cultural relevance and the degree to which people’s perceptions of it are polarized.

S2 REVIEW.