It’s Wednesday! Or as I like to call it, almost Friday. I’m forward looking like that. It’s a pretty big work week this week but things are going well. Things seem to be slowly settling and that’s a welcomed respite.
How about you Crow? How be things for you?
You know how you have an important task you have to clear your schedule for? Then a more important comes in, so you have to freeze the first task so you can pick it up later, then start the new task? I’m literally five layers deep right now for the week. And of course everything’s due. Sigh. But at least I’m employed. And as you said, it’s almost Friday. So there’s that!
Looks like I’m in bold. There’ll be spoilers. You know, the usual.
I have to say, one of the first things that struck me as I watched this week’s episode is that Subaru and Pandora have a few things in common. Well, maybe just the one, but it’s a pretty important one. I actually think that Pandora dies more than Subaru does. I mean she beat his entire season record in like half an episode.
These two should be friends. No one is ever going to understand what it means for Subaru to die all the time like Pandora does. And we already know that she’s his type, design-wise. What do you think Crow, good match?
You know, until you’d brought up it up, it didn’t even occur to me! But thinking about it, she ticks a lot of the boxes! We haven’t seen her pout yet, so it’s not clear she’s a perfect match. But as you said, she understands the whole death thing better than anyone Subaru’s met so far!
I gotta say, it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen an anime stretch out a fight over almost three episodes like that. It sort of reminds me of the good ‘ol DBZ days. Pretty nostalgic.
My Hero Academia season 4 gave it a good shot! And I just realized I never put an episode guide together for that. I got to get on that…
I know that re:Zero is based on light novels and my understanding is that these are essentially just what they call young adult novels in Japan. As such, they aren’t necessarily illustrated. I have a few, most recently I got At Night I Become A Monster, which I really enjoyed and it has no illustrations at all. I was wondering if the character designs are entirely a creation of the anime, as they are quite striking. If so, good job on the part of the designers for the adaptation.
It would also explain why the series does not tend to use visual language too much. If it’s simply something that is not part of the source at all.
It seems like the series relies more on the strength of accumulating plot actions, with some notable character details (not related, generally, to body language), which it then uses as the raw material for plot twists.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. But it is remarkably missing little character movements like you see in Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, for example.
Emilia was a pretty fun kid. Despite all the tragedy, she fought back and insistently at that. It didn’t quite work out at the time but it was still impressive to see.
Kudos to her eff-it courage.
I am one of the few people who has not seen Frozen, so I am not sure about this, but from what I have heard, Emilia’s backstory does seem to be a lot of parallels with the Disney movie. Have you seen Frozen Crow, are there any similarities?
For the record? Let is Go was a powerful song. It’s not Idina Menzel’s fault it got played ad nauseum! From a 10,000 foot level or at a first glance, there are some similarities. For example, both Elsa and Emilia had not only a skill with ice magic, but a ridiculous amount of it. For Elsa, the story was about her trying to suppress her powers because of a childhood accident. For Emilia, she didn’t even remember she had the powers! But in both cases, the characters had to confront who they are to move forward.
No, seriously, Let is Go was not a bad song!
I really like Pandora’s poncho thing. I know it’s pretty random but I kinda wish I had one. It looks super comfy. Speaking of Pandora (see, it all fits), she’s apparently the witch of Vanity and not Vainglory. Unless I got confused again. Ultimately they are all synonyms of pride, although vanity is generally further imbued with a sense of emptiness or lack of value. As in someone who is proud can be justified in their pride but someone who is vain is not. I’m not sure if that would make the Witch of Vanity a lesser version of the Witch of Pride or a greater one as it seems more sinful. Or are they the same?
Pandora doesn’t seem particularly easy to kill so if she was replaced by the current Witch of Pride, I would be very curious to know how that happened.
Last week, when I checked Anilist, it listed her as Vainglory. So, I went with it. This week, it’s Vanity. So, thanks for setting me up Anilist!
Her poncho looks a little breezy for the climate. But it does look like it doesn’t restrict range of motion at all.
It seems that the ordeal really did Emilia some good. She was a lot more fun this episode. I’m not sure what happened to Echidna, though. I hope it’s not a tradeoff cause I think I still prefer fun Echidna to fun Emilia.
Well, there’s Emilia, this P.Y.T. who turned Subaru’s head. Echidna’s what, 400 or 500 years old? Don’t get me wrong. She looks great for her age! But it’s got to weigh on her. Especially the Subaru thing. I think Echidna was sure she’d snagged the sweat-suited hero…
When the episode snapped back to Subaru and friends, I got a little shock. reZero is usually a pretty show but boy, those models were a bit out of whack. Is that even an expression?
It was almost too dark to see!
So now there are two trials left for Emilia, but apparently, nothing to worry about. I’m not sure they will show them to us. And the showdown with painted Roswaal. I liked his little exchange with Otto. Personally, I hope we get at least one episode of just fun slice of life stuff. I feel like we need to recover a bit.
Emilia certainly needs a break. She did well in this episode, but it had to be emotionally exhausting. In fact, my favorite moment was when she got back and looked at the graffiti Subaru had left for her. It seemed like events overwhelmed her, and she started crying. To me, who is admittedly an emotional cinder block, that felt more dramatic than some of the more bluntly presented images.
Though I gotta say… I felt sorry for Geuse. Not enough to forgive him for what he did — um, will do — to Rem, but a little.
Also, is everyone at the manor just dead forever now? Cause it’s been a while. Subaru’s rez point probably reset. Maybe that’s why no one ever mentions Rem anymore… Oh, I bummed myself out.
I’d need to do some math (which I am too tired to do right now!), but I think Subaru still has time. In fact, I think that’s part of his bet with Roswaal. Besides. If Rem, Frederica, Beatrice, and Petra are dead, I’ll be quite put out. Enough to write a sternly worded letter or two!
Previous Posts
- Review of Re:ZERO Season 2 Part 2 Episode 39: STRAIGHT BET
- Re:Zero 2 pt 2 episode 40 – One More Time With Feeeeeeeeeeelings
- Re:ZERO Season 2 Part 2 Episode 41 – Young Garfiel And Simply Emilia
- Re:Zero 2 pt 2 episode 42 – Audaces fortuna iuvat
- Re:ZERO Season 2 Part 2 Episode 43 – Thought As a Child
While I enjoy the story, when they think “this is an important moment, so we must make it as dramatic as possible,” then the show loses me, and it’s done that a lot during this arc. Look, show makers, can’t you trust the story to speak for itself? You don’t need extended tearful closeups and stuff, it’s plenty sad as is. Do you really want to remind me that there’s a man behind the curtain?
At this point, I can say I liked the first half of the season better, and it’s not due to the story. Too. Much. Melodrama. It’s sad enough without all those stylistic flourishes. (That said, Re:Zero fans generally like those scenes, so I can’t tell them not to do it…)
So Emilia froze all the elves by herself? Now that would certainly explain her guilt. It’s also interesting that Pandora basically overwrote her memories, but somehow Puck disappearing started to bring them back? How does Puck fit in here? I don’t get it. He’s a Great Spirit tasked with the end of the world, and bound to be defeated by Reinhard, if I remember this right. I always thought he got sidetracked by meeting Emilia, but last week (or the week before), it looked like he was actually looking for her. And now it wasn’t even he who sealed her memories… I’m confused.
And if I understand this correctly, Betelgeuse was struggling with the witch factor already, so then Pandora tricked him into killing Fortuna, then revealed his mistake to drive him totally round the bend. That’s interesting actually.
As for Echidna: it makes sense that she’s more boring when she’s with someone she doesn’t like. She’s not having fun and just wants to get this over with, I assume.
Finally, “Witch of Vanity” vs. “Witch of Vainglory” sounds like alternate translations of the same name. I think of the difference between “vanity” and “pride” when it comes to action like this:
Pride: I will do it this way no matter what, because it’s the right way to do things, and I obviously only do it the right way.
Vanity: Whatever I do is right by default, because it’s me doing it.
That fits Pandora pretty well, I think. I forgot who the witch of pride is, though.
I don’t think Pandora revealed Petelgeuse’s mistake to him to drive him insane as he already knew that he killed Fortuna. Pandora told him it was all for love and then whispered something to him at the end. I’m guessing she convinced Petelgeuse that everything he did was for Satella, and that’s how he was able to move on from killing Fortuna although he was driven insane in the process. Petelgeuse did indicate in episode 42 that Fortuna’s words could keep him going for a hundred years after all, which shows that Fortuna was good for his mental health.
Typhon, the little girl, is the Witch of Pride.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the info about the Witch of Pride.
But did Typhoon take Pandora’s place or do they really have two witches with synonyms for monikers. That would be silly. It’s probably something lost in translation
Actually, if they have the same position, it’s Pandora who’d have to have taken over from Typhoon, since from what I remember Satella killed all the other witches and then got sealed? I mean local myths don’t seem to be all that reliable, so I wouldn’t be surprised if something else happened altogether, but I’m fairly sure that’s the timeline I’m supposed to be holding. By the time Satella was sealed, all the other witches were already dead. Did I miss something?
oh so all the witches in part 1 were dead. Ok, I get it now. I wonder if the other ones got replacements as well.
I am not familiar with the novels but I keep getting a feeling that something is getting lost in adaptation here. The sheer amount of exposition is a little lazy as far as adaptations go already and I think the cinematic language may actually be messing with the tone in this case. But I could be entirely wrong
Oo now that you mention the point of commonality between Subaru and Pandora…I hadn’t thought of that either! Very good. I’ll have to consider that going forward in the series now.
There’s so much tangled mess right now in the series I think I’m getting too confused to be able to easily observe interesting aspects like that. Still I’m enjoying it. There’s lots of great characters, which we expect of Re:Zero at this point. Although, I think it’s high time a certain blue-haired maid returns to the action.
I have to admit, I’m also having some trouble keeping up. Maybe I need a recap episode…