Re:Zero 2 pt 2 episode 50 – Watership Down

25 thoughts on “Re:Zero 2 pt 2 episode 50 – Watership Down”

1. I think everyone who looks for, thinks they’ve found, and tries to find a definitive answer to their theme of choice within a series written by Tappei is disappointed, when the idea these themes should even have a definitive answer in the series is actually a problem. Self love? True love? In Vivy this also applies, AI bad or good? What defines the self? They’re all personal or topics for philosophical discussion(and AI bad or good is just a silly question either way, Vivy is more a fantasy take on it and I actually like how it blatantly ignores referencing current technology), and anyone who writes a paper with only their answer on a philosophical topic will have their definitive answer knocked down by future writing, because what’s more valuable is going to be the discussion beforehand than any single conclusion(even though I’ve looked up research papers in different topics to aim for just reading the conclusion, and in those cases I usually end up reading the intro which summarises the middle sections a lot more than the conclusion which will be garbled without the context).

   A lot of people have gotten angry with the show when they perceive a definitive message and interpret everything through it. But then, season 1 episode 7’s ending could be saying Subaru should just kill himself for his friends and yet it’s set up for some of the most traumatic scenes in his second trial, as the current Subaru then understands some of how traumatic it was for Beatrice to watch. True love succeeds is definitely not a theme, because that’s just not true. Ram’s fight with Roswaal doesn’t have anything to do with her being right because she’s in love…she’s been in love with him all along in the actual series(though I doubt she was at least a few years after basically being forced to depend on him). Ram’s love isn’t healthy same as in fact Rem’s isn’t healthy and Subaru’s season 1 deliberate suicide wasn’t healthy…but it’s also her starting to have agency. Because in re zero you’re not going to see self hating characters start caring for themselves and the world just obey for the sake of good messaging…that’s why I enjoy that messaging coming through despite the surroundings, it’s hard work.

   A little side story detail which shows what I mean about regaining agency back in season 1 between episodes 11 and 12(which is where about a month’s worth of side stories are written to fill), is that in the side story where Rem makes mayonnaise because Subaru kept bringing it up it’s clear that from Subaru’s perspective, she’s become far too attached and he’s pretty disturbed by it, but the reason he isn’t going to just shout “Stop! Get some help!” at her is because Rem is actually doing things for herself, clearly for the first time in a long time, even though at present it’s the byproduct of some unhealthy dependency on him. In addition to that, the fact that in the light novel volume 3 which is when we actually see Rem’s perspective on him when she starts trusting, not killing and then 180’ing into attaching to him, she starts that process with essentially admiring that he’s in her eyes extremely weak yet achieves things without simple brute force while feeling it’s similar to someone and the implication is that what Rem attached herself to him over is what she fails to value in herself. As, by the oni village standards, she was the weakest and views herself as inferior based on her sister’s former power. Subaru simply saying he loves her too in ep 18 as a result would be missing the point of her growth, as he’s focusing on accepting her wishes for him to live the way he spoke of to her which is why she fell in love in arc 2, and not responding to her confession’s surface level. Not only would Subaru simply responding with a confession to Rem be betraying why she loves him(the things he did to support Emilia and everyone else as well) but betraying the start of her loving herself despite never being able to replace the second oni god version of her sister she tried to.

   So yes, in the same way, Ram’s confession(and in fact every confession in the entire series, which seems to fly over people a lot with how it doesn’t give the catharsis of a series written to have happy romances or even unhappy romantic tragedies) is only important because of loving Roswaal on the very surface. It’s more important to Ram because though she hasn’t changed how she felt about him for a while now, she was just quietly keeping things to herself while acting only as his pawn. I don’t know the exact contents of her contract but she was obviously not able to act against him until it ended(by the way, contracts can be etched into your soul and capable of destroying you with it when broken at the least when Roswaal’s involved given they are magical and he’s a very powerful mage) and has continued to manipulate Subaru and the others in season 2 on his orders. Yet in the fight, Roswaal finds out she is capable of going against him, meaning the contract maintains events having diverged from his gospel, even though he himself believes it’s still going to end with the gospel following the current timeline, and honestly for Roswaal’s perspective it would be far easier to stomach that she’s taking revenge. Remember, he spent all that time acting as if he’s superior for building strength over generations for his goals, making sacrifices all over following the gospel, and people who would call him a monster are just weak people who can’t achieve anything because they let their humanity get in the way. Ram coming to fight him while saying she’s doing this for his own good is making a fool of his viewpoint: with all of the things he’s done, at the end he’s just as weak as he thinks they are.

   So Ram saying she loves him and getting to burn his gospel is her finally having agency away from Roswaal. In fact, after she felt the events had diverged from the gospel enough to oppose him was the end of the contract for good, I think a lot of people just don’t like the theme of agency getting expressed through a lot of abusive or unhealthy relationships but the point is that these are points where they start to grow, they don’t finish growing from then on let alone after becoming a happy couple and never having a voice(there aren’t a lot of successful couples in re zero but there are a lot of people in the process of building different relationships). (Ram is also one of the biggest highlights of arc 6 so since season 3 is seemingly covering arcs 5 and 6 completely, you’ll see many more sides to her then.)

   I would say future arcs especially make clear that re zero has a sort of anti authoritarian in the bigger picture, finding meaning and worth in yourself through others eg through the love of others in the small scale message to it. Winning through “power of friendship etc” stuff is spoken of as a bad trope but that’s because depicting that power is usually basically the same as any other muscly hero winning with brute force, so in re zero it’s powerful because we can obviously see that relying on power to achieve things is tempting and anything else looks ridiculous to some(“Why doesn’t he ask Reinhard to fight Elsa/the white whale/Petelgeuse? Why doesn’t he ask Echidna to solve all his problems with Rem? Why doesn’t he get Beatrice to help by “asking the question” like Roswaal says?” being examples). At the end of the day Reinhard can be as overpowered as he likes, that didn’t protect him from being dumped with a tonne of generational trauma plus trapped within the politics of a kingdom which sees him as a warhead to direct across borders but also promise other countries they’ll keep him completely within their control from the age of about 5. He still needs love and the kindness of people who don’t just assume he’ll do what they want. Echidna can make all of the promises of absolute knowledge she wants, yet absolutely none of her plans to make her wishes come true worked in the end as she can’t predict how people will change events just by using the book of wisdom like a operating manual for them, because agency. Ironically, Echidna’s authority has access to all the knowledge of the world and potentially I think could even reach others too? Including the (in re zero) real world, yet she clearly failed repeatedly to use that knowledge to recreate it perfectly in other gospels which all became some level of failure or limited version, but in general the reason they don’t show Subaru asking for more info is because his problems are with current sin archbishops, ie the current generation of witch factor holders each of whose abilities will be equally beyond Echidna’s authority’s ability to combat – basically, she has no idea how to stop Regulus or Pandora, explain return by death or get back Rem’s memories because they’re authorities and far beyond what she can easily solve with her own.

   There were just so many instances of asking “I don’t know why they don’t do this/think they can do this/give up on this” which can easily be answered with “I don’t think you understand how powerful authorities are supposed to be, and at the same time how they rarely solve their problems because power as brute force, even in the form of manipulating other people through some level of omniscience, is shown as not the answer in re zero.” Subaru doesn’t think he can get back to his world when he arrives because he knows he’s not going to live in an idealised fantasy with a lot of quick fix tropes. And anyway, he was brought here by a 400 year old unkillable magically sealed witch who destroyed half the world, had to be defeated by a dragon, one of the strongest people in history, and a sage, and still has people scared of saying her name, is the reason for not just Emilia but EVERY elf and half elf to be reviled more than the demihumans they fought a civil war against and also oppress horribly, who according to Beatrice(and demonstrably in multiple appearances in season 2) “doesn’t understand human language”…why would he think he can go back to Earth? (Also this wouldn’t even be a question if him learning Al is from Japan, was here 18 years already, asking “did you ever try to go back?” and getting back “I didn’t have that luxury I’ve just been trying to survive” from someone who spent most of it as a gladiator slave in Volakia where he lost his arm and had his face disfigured wasn’t cut in episode 12.)

   TLDR: Anything conclusive like “true love/good will always triumph” isn’t likely to be a theme in re zero but love is very much a theme and often in an unhealthy way. Agency is the most important aspect, in the small scale this is explored together with love and relationships of different kinds, in the large scale it shows in how poorly people trying to fix societal problems with brute force(which removes agency from the masses) goes in history which is also why Echidna, Roswaal and Reinhard all seem to provide(desperately, annoyingly ambiguously, and through their mere existence depending on which) quick answers which aren’t actually answers for Subaru’s problems. (Also most problems which anime watchers have are in fact answered in the novels but people with problems will rarely read them sadly…)

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   1. Oh and to add a bit! Crow’s theme was right, it’s just Irina answering with “Isn’t that the same as learning to count on others?” is wrong. People who say this keep missing the key difference between arcs 3 and 4, while in arc 3 Subaru actually had people willing to work with him on a very large scale once he stopped bottling up, lashing out at people and generally being difficult to work with as he’s just trying to go “I know what’s best for you!” without their trust, in arc 4 coming out of the ending of arc 3(season 2 ep 1) all of that is taken away. Now it’s “Power of friendship!” as the goal, but with Roswaal saying you have to sacrifice others and I want you to ignore Emilia’s wishes, Ram under Roswaal saying Frederica is your enemy, Frederica also under Roswaal telling you not to approach Garfiel, Garfiel essentially because of Shima saying you smell like the witch so I’m not letting you do the trials, but then ALSO because of Roswaal as he is after all the lord who Sanctuary residents would be even worse off without saying I’m not letting you leave without the trials being completed and Sanctuary freed from the barrier. And Shima because of Ryuzu Meyer using Garfiel to prevent Sanctuary being freed because it was what the clones’ originator truly wanted to make a sanctuary for demihumans escaping oppression(note Ryuzu was a half elf who was grateful to Echidna for taking her in with the others to the point of giving her life) and so she both doesn’t believe it’s safe for the demihumans within to live outside and doesn’t want to in her mind betray Ryuzu’s sacrifice no matter whether the current sanctuary is exactly what she wanted.

      Season 2 or rather arc 4 is the same message but Subaru only had to learn any of it because of how all the mind games and paranoia this arc affected him, especially with someone they’re deeply reliant on being the antagonist.

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4. Great review ! And I’m glad to see a Konosuba fan and Stargate fan too 💕 I was sad to see the end , but I knew it was coming , and yeah I kind of guessed Rem wouldn’t wake up yet . Subaru probably has to fight the bishop of gluttony or something . But I did enjoy the season finale , Roswaal all getting beat up , and Disney Princess ending for Emilia and Subaru, except with a poor girl in a coma. Sadly we’ll probably have to wait a few years for another season 😭.
   @Irina glad you stayed with the show even though it’s not your favorite , I enjoyed reading yours and Crow’s thoughts 😊✨

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5. Fear not, Irina, I can answer almost all of your questions.

   “Why did Roswaal do all this? To break Emilia’s spirit so she can serve as a vessel for Echidna? OK, fine. But why murder the people at his mansion? Why burn it down? Why risk Beatrice, the beloved daughter of the woman he loves? Why hire vampires? Why summon the bunny rabbits? Why challenge Subaru? How do any of these actions help his goal? It seems really convoluted if it’s just to keep Subaru away from Emilia.

   And I know Subaru could leave at any time. Why did Emilia go through the trials at all? Why not just leave Sanctuary as it is, Roswall and all and just go on her merry way to, maybe help find a cure for one of her most dedicated servants who she’s forgotten?

   Why did there need to be so many clones? ”

   First, I will say it was not Roswaal’s intention for the mansion to burn down. That was the result of Subaru, Otto, and Petra’s actions because they needed to kill the big Guiltylowe mabeast, and with Garfiel occupied since he was fighting Elsa, they had to resort to burning it to death.

   Now as for why Roswaal did all of the things he did, this was implied in Episode 36 and confirmed in Episode 38 with Episode 45 adding a bit of context. In Episode 36, Roswaal told Subaru that he must cast aside all else and focus on one precious thing and only then can Subaru be like him (Roswaal), which shows that Roswaal is trying to turn Subaru into him, someone who works only toward his one wish, which Roswaal does to the best of his ability as ordained by the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom (I say not-quite-Tome of Wisdom because it was revealed in Episodes 33 and 49 that what Beatrice and Roswaal had were working copies/replicas of the real Tome of Wisdom) that Echidna bequeathed to him that tells the future.

   That’s the reason why Ram considers the tome the source of evil since Roswaal just blindly follows it, and that’s why Roswaal has made it snow on Days 1, 2, and 3, depending on Subaru’s actions since the Tome updates itself to guide Roswaal to his desired future, and when Subaru does enough to deviate from what it says will happen, the book updates itself to tell Roswaal to make it snow, leading to the Great Rabbit coming, to force Subaru to reset and start over because Subaru is making a future that Roswaal doesn’t desire, which is a future in which the Sanctuary residents and Emilia are killed. Ram was very upset that Roswaal could cause such atrocities just because the book says so.

   As for why Roswaal makes it snow and hired assassins to kill those at the mansion, it’s because he wants to force Subaru to make a choice between either saving those at the Sanctuary or saving those at the mansion likely because he believes people are weak and need to cling to one desire as stated in Episode 45. I’d say the reason he believes this is due to the trauma of getting beaten down by Hector and then somehow losing Echidna 400 years ago in a yet-to-be-determined way that the story has not revealed yet.

   As for why Roswaal has to do this to Subaru at all, I believe it’s because Subaru’s Return By Death, whether it be his actual power or actually Satella’s power that she is using for his sake, makes Subaru very much unpredictable and hard to control. This is speculation, but given that Roswaal stated in Episode 33 and Episode 48 that Subaru gives him hope and is the key to making his wish come true respectively, he likely believes that Subaru is the one person who can make his wish to revive Echidna as revealed in Episode 50 come true because of Return by Death allowing Subaru to undo things until he gets things right, which would make Subaru a very valuable asset if he could control Subaru to a certain degree. As Roswaal stated in Episode 48, it is very hard to restrict Subaru’s actions, and using Emilia as a means to do so was part of his plan.

   That’s why Roswaal placed a spell on Emilia that allowed him to change the contract Puck and Emilia had together, which was the reason Emilia was unable to call out Puck when she needed his help. The whole reason they were sent to the Sanctuary in the first place is to have a discouraged Emilia be trapped in the Sanctuary since she’s a half-blood that can’t leave due to the Sanctuary barrier trapping half-bloods. That would mean that Emilia would be too emotionally disturbed to take the Sanctuary trials, forcing Subaru to take the Sanctuary trials himself in her place, which was revealed in Episode 38. Otherwise, Emilia would be trapped in the Sanctuary forever. Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom likely showed him that Subaru would gain the qualification to take the Sanctuary trial from Echidna, and that is probably how Roswaal knew that this was the path for him to take.

   As for why Roswaal would hire people to kill all those people, including Beatrice, at the mansion, it’s been stated before by him in Episode 33 that if you expect his help, you’d have to accept his inhumanity, so I believe it’s clear that Roswaal literally threw aside everything aside from his one goal of reviving Echidna as he himself indicated multiple times. Everyone else was just a pawn to him by that point. My guess is that he hired Elsa, a vampire, because having a regenerating vampire on his side would make it that much harder for Subaru to win.

   Roswaal really didn’t believe he could lose after all his preparation as shown by his bet with Subaru in Episode 39. As for why he made that bet, it was specifically because he believed it would make it easier to control Subaru in the future since it filled the conditions of an oath. As you recall from episode 18 of Re:zero, Petelgeuse indicated that in death, he would be reunited with the Witch, which indicates there’s an afterlife and strongly indicates the presence of souls in Re:zero. Arbiter Melakuera indicated there was reincarnation in Re:zero in the Re:zero OVAs, which is a second instance that suggests that there are souls in Re:zero. Season 2 confirmed that souls are a thing in a Re:zero when Echidna indicated that her soul was trapped in the Witch’s Graveyard in the afterlife.

   I’m now getting to my point. I believe that the first step of Return by Death involves resetting time, restoring Subaru’s body and resetting to a previous point in time. This also suggests the soul is the reason Subaru retains his memories from previous lives since his brain shouldn’t remember anything since it is straight up restored to its previous state, meaning the second step of Return by Death is sending Subaru’s soul back into his restored body. So if Roswaal and Subaru’s bet somehow has a mandatory effect on the soul, then Subaru would be forced to do whatever Roswaal wishes even after a death because Return by Death does not reset the soul. Episode 45 confirmed this to be the case when Roswaal said that he and Subaru’s wager turned Subaru into an ordinary person, which implies that Subaru would not be able to avoid the effects of the oath by resetting, which shows that the oath has a mandatory effect on the soul.

   So basically, what Roswaal has been setting up since Season 1 when he had Ram tell Subaru and the merchants to evacuate some of the citizens to the Sanctuary is a way to control Subaru and break him, making him someone who will look out for Emilia and no one else since Roswaal absolutely needs Emilia to become the ruler to kill the legendary dragon to revive Echidna. As for why Roswaal needs the dragon to be killed to revive his beloved, I don’t know as that hasn’t been revealed. If you’re wondering why Roswaal chose to back Emilia in the Royal Selection, it’s because all of the other candidates have notable backers. and with Roswaal absolutely needing to be there when the winner enters into a covenant with the dragon, he needed someone like Emilia who wouldn’t have more prominent backers since she’s a half-elf who resembles Satella, making most people rule her out immediately because of that. I see something recurring here is that Roswaal doesn’t trust other people, which is why so many people this season were told one thing, not other things, which was not necessarily because he wanted to pit everyone against each other, and why he tried so hard to control Subaru and Emilia.

   I don’t think there is a cure for Rem. The only way to restore her to her original state is to kill the person who did this to her, so Roswaal can’t just go off and find a cure for her, especially since only Subaru remembers who Rem is. Emilia was told about Rem in Episode 26, but she can’t actually remember Rem.

   My guess about why there had to be so many clones is because as the number of people trapped in the Sanctuary increased, more clones needed to be made to keep an eye on people so that the 4 main Ryuzu clones with lots of authority could properly oversee the Sanctuary.

   Emilia was also never meant to be a vessel for Echidna. Maybe she will be a vessel for Satella at the end of Re:zero though.

   Oh, Irina, given you’d had trouble thinking about themes for this season, I think I’ll give you one. The main theme this season is about loving yourself. Satella told Subaru to love himself and that people grieve when he dies as a reason for why he shouldn’t use his deaths as test runs for a final loop. Emilia had to overcome her feelings of weakness by accepting that Subaru really believed all the things he thought about her. Yeah, I didn’t find their kiss scene romantic given that Subaru had made some entitled remarks about Emilia not long before, but I do believe the main point of that scene is that Emilia needed some reassurance from Subaru that he was telling the truth after she was mentally not in the best shape because she was unsure about whether she’d even still be the same person after all her memories returned, because Puck had broken his contract with her, and because Subaru broke his promise with her to stay with her through the night.

   It took me 2 hours to post this given I was checking past episodes to make sure I referenced the right episodes with regards to what I was talking about, but I feel that it is now satisfactory for you to read.

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   1. See, I knew there were answers. Thank you so much Vance. Even at two hours, I think you put this together really quickly. That’s so much information, it’s amazing,

      I didn’t get those answers from the series and neither did Crow. Which is way more impressive cause he pays very close attention to this show.

      As for the theme of loving yourself. I can see it but again it sort of gets murky when you consider that Rem being true to herself got her punished without any redemption this season, and that Echidna’s self love was framed as a bad thing. Otto had been a rich and successful merchant but lived only for himself and through the season learned to put his self love aside for others. If we isolate certain parts of the story there are a lot of themes going. I still think that learning to trust other or learning to let go of the past were well illustrated. It’s just that I really need to consider them in isolation rather than take in all the story threads.

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      1. That’s fair enough. I do admit that to see any consistent themes this season that you have to view them in isolation since they don’t uniformly apply to every character.

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      2. Rem was, in fact, punished *because* she didn’t care for herself. She always saw herself as a nameless replacement at first, then when Subaru saved her, she became dependent on him and was “Subaru’s Rem”. That led to her giving her name to Gluttony with her small speech about Subaru, and her name & existence got eaten.

         It’s as much about self-love/reliance as depending on others. There’s a healthy balance to be had. Subaru couldn’t get anything done by himself in the first cour when he tried to abuse Return by Death, and only got things done after casting it away. Emilia on the other hand kept depending on Puck and Subaru emotionally, and only grew when the contract with Puck was broken and she stopped relying on Subaru (ie. taking the Trials herself).

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   2. Very well researched!

      I have notes from every episode I watched, and going back through those, I can confirm some of the points you brought up. Others, you’ve done some detective work and have drawn conclusions, which is great. It’s good when a show rewards its viewers like that.

      Yet…

      I go back to Dewbond’s observation: “Steins;Gate is a show that rewards you for paying attention, but also doesn’t penalize you not paying attention like ReZero does.”

      Do you write fiction? If you do, and if you like to write complex plots, then you know the responsibility you have as a writer to bring your readers along. If you fail in that responsibility, then you let yours readers down. You blunt the impact your story will have. Readers won’t feel the full effect.

      If I was the only one to miss the points in Re:ZERO, I’d write it off to I just wasn’t paying attention (though I take notes on everything I watch). But Irina, too? She’s much better at recalling character nuance than I am, and I think she’s downplaying her ability to understand and internalize plot. Just read her Natsume’s Book of Friends reviews — or, heck, the reviews we collaborated on for Zombieland Saga.

      It’s not like either of us are new at this review thing.

      Please remember: I really enjoy watching re:ZERO. I’ll likely watch the next season. But consider this: I don’t think I know of anyone who does more in-depth analysis than you do. The closest I can think of would be Doublesama. Yet, it took you two hours of research to prepare your answer to Irina’s questions.

      Questions which represented the heart of the show!

      Is that the experience the writer wanted us to have?

      Again, I like the show. I’m not tearing it down. I _am_ suggesting that it’s one thing to show and not tell; it’s another to show and show and show in an ambiguous way, then expect the audience to fill in the blanks. The end result is that the character’s motivations and plans feel nebulous and ill-defined. And that robs critical moments of their emotional impact.

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      1. I hear you given that I see a lot of people who say they did not understand what happened in season 2 of Re:zero, whereas nearly everyone who watched Season 1 in full knew what was happening in that season.

         I think part of the reason for this is that this entire arc might have been written as a mystery series and the rest of the problem is that Re:zero tried to fit over 30 episodes of material into 25 episodes, which made it a challenge to adapt. I can only imagine it would have been worse if a studio aside from White Fox tried to adapt this arc in its entirety given other studios probably wouldn’t have given up the ad revenue to extend the episode length.

         I’m Discord buddies with a novel reader, and he says this Sanctuary arc is the longest and most dialogue-heavy arc, so future arcs might be easier to adapt while not neglecting to make clear all the characters’ motivations. Apparently, the next arc of Re:zero is the one with the most action, and given that actions scenes take up less time to animate than dialogue-heavy scenes, we can only hope for an arc which is more clear about everything given there will hopefully be less of a constraint on time compared to this season.

         I do believe that this season had a lot going on, and as a result, some moments were indeed robbed of their emotional impact as you say. Some of my favourite scenes in the series are those like the Emilia and Subaru scene in Episode 13 and the Priscilla and Subaru scene in Episode 16, both of which weren’t filled to the brim with content, allowing for the emotional impact of those moments, notably being Emilia’s displeasure and Priscilla’s disappointment and righteous indignation to shine through.

         I can only hope that White Fox adapts the next arc well so that there is still an appetite for more Re:zero as I feel that for a number of people this fourth arc of the series dampened their excitement for the series.

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         1. There was a definite shift in the way s2 was adapted vs s1. Not only in the pacing and occasionally muddled motivations but I also think that s1 used a lot more visual and context queues to set up the narrative whereas s2 was way more exposition heavy. And even though exposition is generally more clear, it also take more time so you can’t always get all the info you need in. This said s2 is higher rated than s1 so it seems that fans may prefer the exposition approach. If this sways the studio, next season will be closer to this one than the first one.

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            1. S2 may be higher-rated than S1, but Blu-ray sales are down 50% compared to S1, and I don’t know how merchandise sales are doing compared to Season 1, but I assume that they might be down because of Rem being out of commission, unless Emilia has become a lot more popular this season.

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               1. I would assume Rem had an impact but I think that Bleu-ray sales are down because of the wide digital availability of the season that has just finished. That might change in the coming months

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6. I wish I had answers to your questions, but Re:Zero is actually pretty good at making me not think. That sounds like I’m putting it down, but that’s actually a good skill to have for an entertaining but not particularly deep show. I do think Roswaal saw something of himself in Subaru, in the sense of blind dedication to a woman, but it irked him that Subaru wasn’t single-minded enough and still tried to save others, too, rather than sacrificing everything else, which a truly dedicated man should. That’s not really his motivation, though. His real motivation would have had something to do with the book? Something in there? Really, I don’t know. I tend to forget Re:Zero fairly quickly, too. I find Re:Zero entertaining in the moment, but I don’t really think about the show much when it’s not on.

   I’ve never read Watership Down, but I’ve seen the film. I’m fine bunnies killing each other, though, if that’s the story. My basic idea is that everyone, cute or not, should get along, but that’s not really the world we live in, so…

   And if you’d like a wacky comedy isekai, you could try Ixion Saga DT. Konosuba-type protagonist, with a excentric but comptetent party who like to affectionately tease him, and group of bishonen antagonists. Loves to make fun of sappy set-ups. I think you’ll like it at least a little. (Crunchy should have it.)

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   1. Oh, thanks for the recommendation.

      Did you guys try 2017’s Magical Circle Guru Guru? Lively little show, it lovingly lampoons RPG narratives & mechanics, plus following the two silly leads as they goof around was good fun.

      I only managed to catch a handful episodes at the time, but I’ve been considering another try.

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      1. I have not, it sounds very interesting.

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      2. If you liked what you saw, it’s well worth finishing. It’s energetic and cute and you’ll get more characters to expand the cast. I imagine people who like 8bit rpgs wil get the most out of it.

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   2. Crunchy does have it. I have had great luck with your recommendations, it’s on the list

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   3. Now I remember! You were the one who recommended Ixion Saga DT to me, weren’t you?

      I finished it a couple of months ago. I’ve been meaning to thank you for the recommendation.

      Gotta say: I have never seen anything quite like it. That last episode… Really glad Mariandale got her wish in the end!

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      1. huh, well I guess I won’t have to worry then

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         1. Hmmm. Well, I guess I should have spoiler alerted that. It’s such an old series that I for. Sorry about that.

            On the bright side, I didn’t say which of Mariandale’s wishes got granted. She had several.

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      2. While I don’t think the show in general is all that unique, that ending really is something. I tend to bring up the show whenever someone brings up Konosuba. I like the humour, though, like the main character getting homesick and carving a playstation controller from wood. I don’t want to say too much, though.

         Interestingly, it was based on a game still in development at the time. That confused a lot of people. The game came out in the final month of series. Which is especially interesting, since it’s such a balls-to-the-wall show.

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         1. LOL!

            I see what you did there!

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