Hello one and all. I’m glad you could join us for this 5th episode of re:Zero. We are creeping to the midway point already. Man, seems like the season just started. But before we dive in, How are you enjoying the shorter more concise posts I’ve been trying to put out Crow?
Wow! Start off with a loaded question! I’ve always liked your writing style and content, and I still do. It’s like comparing two gems. Do I like the emerald, or the ruby? They’re both high quality gems, so I’ll invoke my Old El Paso rights and say I like both!
O.k…so I write my part first then Crow answers and I might amend or add paragraphs in response after that but as I’m typing this, I have no clue what Crow will answer to my question. Maybe he’ll say he hates it! So I can’t just answer “great” and move on to the review. Although that could be funny too…
The struggle is real, I say in bold. And to adhere to Irina’s own rules of spoiler etiquette, there may be spoilers!
Onto the review!
After what turns out to have been Subaru’s first trial out of three, he is returned to Sanctuary only to find that Emilia is in considerably worse shape than him. Also the people of Sanctuary are not all to be trusted it seems and Roswaal is being a fabulous troll as always which actually gets Subaru mad this time.
I’m going to try to give my impression roughly chronologically.
Echidna turns out to be a classic femme fatale type, which I realized with a bit of a shock was one of the few unused archetypes in the show. It’s actually not that common at all in the Harem animes I have watched, so this was a nice departure. I did like the line where Subaru told her she looked great in that uniform. Smooooth!
Clearly, Subaru is a man of culture. I thought her reaction was delightful! She has a pretty laugh.
Speaking of which, was Subaru always so hyper competent and almost flawless? I remember him being a bit of a dork and occasional screw up. This guy is pretty much perfect! I really like dorks so it’s possible that I may have imagined it out of wishful thinking.
Dying several hundred times will do that to a man. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s not curled up in a fetal position in some out of the way corner. Guy’s been through a lot. Just look at the end of this episode!
I have to say, one thing that sort of bothered me throughout the episode is why didn’t we see Emilia’s trial? Her childhood is way more traumatic and eventful than Subarru’s. It’s also an establishing point to the entire plot. I really would have loved to see those events from her point of view. And I bet it would have been exciting to. As a main character, Emilia could use some development. On many levels, I think it was a huge missed opportunity to leave her story offscreen. I guess we could still see it next week though. I’ll claim credit if we do!
I’m a witness! And hearing what she said when Subaru returned from class made me even more curious. “I-I’m… It wasn’t me! It wasn’t! And yet…” What was that about? Plus, seeing the bleak look on her face was heart-breaking.
Oh, but we got to meet Pink Beako and that was awesome. I was hoping for a mix of second and first best girls and I guess it’s kind of what we got, but turns out she couldn’t quite beat the originals in my heart!
I thought she was going to smack Subaru when he called her a “loli hag.”
At this point we got a lot of details about Sanctuary and the seal as well as some hints of behind the scenes machinations. This bled into a scene with Roswaal who was much more open and straightforward about his machinations. I’m sort of surprised that Subaru still gets so worked up about him. He was super calm with Echidna so I thought he might have mellowed. Also you can’t really expect anything else from Roswaal. I’m pretty sure that guy knows everything…
I thought that scene was fantastic. Roswaal out-Machiavelli-ed Machiavelli (if you’ll forgive me for verbing a noun). I think the reason he got upset, besides the dozens of incidental deaths, is the toll the consequences of his decisions imposed on Emilia. Though I can’t fault Roswaal’s political calculus. But, damn! And he had Subaru dead to rights — there was no way he’d tell Emilia.
So Emiia is playing the ultra meek girl this week. It makes sense, she’s being forced to relive her greatest trauma over and over again. But the line “I’m not very smart” didn’t jive with me. I think it’s because I see it so often in second rate doujin. What?? I don’t read doujin. Who said that?
I didn’t. Do you have a guilty conscience?
I left it out of my ultra short and sweet summary of the episode, but we did get a bit of a bang at the very end. The episode extended to take over the end credits. As a double demi human, Subaru is free to leave Sanctuary as he pleases without his soul getting splinched. I skipped that part earlier but demi humans who try to cross get their soul neatly severed from their physical bodies because magic.
And so Subaru returns to the mansion alone to get some answers, confront Frederika and potentially annoy Beatrice. I’m rooting for the latter, never rough Beatrice. However, when he gets there, he is summarily dispatched by someone. I thought two things at this point. First I thought, YAY action! I really like the reset premise of reZero and I am ready for some groundhog day shenanigans. My favourite parts of the series by far were the very early episodes when Subaru was still trying to figure everything out and was constantly getting killed because he was going at it through trial and error, and the last few episodes of season 1, when his almost solo attack on the cult became a grim mirror of those early events. I’m excited about this turn.
Second thing I thought is that we’re probably supposed to recognize the stabby lady but I don’t remember at all. I hope she wasn’t in last week’s episode or something cause I would look pretty foolish but I can’t swear by it.
I nick-named her Knifey. Would stabby be better? Remember back in the first season when Subaru tracked Felt to Old Man Rom’s place? Knifey (I think canon calls her Elsa Granhiert) was all about literally disemboweling folks. Quite a lot of fun at parties! I’ll skip making a joke about piñatas. She was stunningly fast. I think it took Subaru several tries to beat her, and then he only did it with Emilia’s help.
I wonder where Subaru’s last save point was? I think we’ll find out next episode!
I like Knifey. Let’s go with that!
