What (anime) are you watching?

seitora

Well-Known Member
Yeah... Thing is, she's not a "Young Looking" bunny girl. She really is a 12-year-old child.
I looked it up after you mentioned it. Yeah...definitely something the anime glossed over. It does make her disgust over her using her Charm magic make more sense, though.
 

MnemoD

Well-Known Member
Wow. That was *not* my impression with things. vol 14/15 sounds like a long way off, but I might give this show/LN a shot. I like watching relationships grow.

-chronodekar
With where the second season left off, we'll definitely deal with the marriage part in any potential S3. But yeah, the LN as of the last time I was able to read a translated version (the translator I read it from stopped translating, the dickass) they were dealing with Rem having issues with Diablo not being able to spit it out and tell her how much he loves her- which kind of jumps here and there a bit because Rem is- in fact- very insecure. And Diablo- being a protagonist- can't just tell someone "I love you, and that's what matters"- it has to be a whole production.

Stopped bothering with Reincarnated as a Slime. Still watching Villainess Death Flags because Catarina finally got hit with a clue-by-four, and now knows everyone of her friends is trying to get with her (even if she's terrible at remembering this and recognizing the patterns they all display, because she's full on aho).

Went back recently and watched Golgo 13 after hearing the first OP to it, enjoyed watching it.

While I will rage endlessly about RWBY, looking forward to S9 and seeing if it will finally be the straw to break my back, considering the only reason I'm still attached to the show is to see where Jaune ends up.

Watching Kanojo, Kanojo because it's pretty silly- in that "CRINGE!" way. Plus I like that- for once- it's a semi-harem anime where the main character doesn't just collect all the girls, he is actively trying to just stick to the two main girls and things just kind of happen. Bit of a rare thing, that.

Curious about Vanitas, but I've heard spoilers for it that make me refuse to watch it.

Still waiting for when I can watch the (now "Final"? since maybe they're making more material in the verse) Evangelion movie, since fuck Netflix and the like. Even if I know how it ends and that pisses me off.


We're getting Date a Live S4 in Fall, which is HYPE! So excited for that.

For those of you who heard about World's End Harem and might be interested in watching it when it comes in Fall, Don't unless you want to be sickened. It's great if you love the world being a fucked up place, but it's a Taro-work in manga form.



Arifureta is getting another season in the Winter, so hype for that-



Overlord S4 will be along at some point, hype for that.

Sono Bisque Doll (AKA: Seamstress boyfriend and gyaru cosplayer girlfriend) will get an anime at some point, and that will be worth a watch for pure cute-factor, even though the manga is just now getting to where the two are HOPEFULLY gonna confess, FUCKING HELL NO ONE JUST TALKS TO ONE ANOTHER IN JAPAN, DO THEY!?

Isekai Meikyuu (AKA: What might as well be porn, because it is porn. Done by a porn artist.) will get an anime supposedly in Summer of next year. If you're a gigantic pervert like me, definitely catch that, because the art is good and the plot is pointedly not trying too hard and makes sure you know it's just there to frame the sex and character interactions. Great if you don't need a big plot and just want some tits and something you can follow along with without breaking out a glossary index.

Shikimori-san is Not Just Cute! will get an anime at some point- and while it's wholesome, it's exceedingly slice of life and has no real drama, it's purely there to make you d'aw. Great if you like that, but runs it's course in about 20 volumes, and it's on- like- volume 350-ish.

So, It's Treason Then! (Tensai Ouji) will get an anime as well, which is great for the pure comedy-of-errors it is, so great for a watch when it comes out if you want to see someone try to commit treason so he can live a lazy life only to wind up becoming Fucking Light Yagami, but a Good Guy.

Koi wa Sekai (AKA: Sentai Superhero and Supervillain are dating without everyone knowing) will get an anime at some point as well, very enjoyable- lots of actual good drama that isn't just "I CAN'T SPIT IT OUT" or other boring anime tropes that you might be tired of if you enjoy ACTUAL romance and drama instead of arbitrarily created drama. Plenty of fanservice too, if that helps any.

Niehime no Kimono Ou (AKA: Beast King and the Sacrifice Princess) will be getting an anime. Kind of a bog-standard Beauty and the Beast anime, but it does what it does well. It won't mystify you, but it is cute and endearing- and has some good action in it when it does step away from the romance angles.


Ane Naru no Mono (AKA: My big sister is FUCKING NYARLOHOTEP: The SFW version) will be getting an OVA, heavily recommend it if you like slice of life with some horror (of the psychological kind).



-----


All in all, plenty to look forward to, though most of it will be in the Fall or Winter-forward.
 
While I will rage endlessly about RWBY, looking forward to S9 and seeing if it will finally be the straw to break my back, considering the only reason I'm still attached to the show is to see where Jaune ends up.
Nowhere good, because the fandom will just bitch about him being Miles self insert if they do. Also, because no one's been willingto forgive him for Jaundice.

Watching Kanojo, Kanojo because it's pretty silly- in that "CRINGE!" way. Plus I like that- for once- it's a semi-harem anime where the main character doesn't just collect all the girls, he is actively trying to just stick to the two main girls and things just kind of happen. Bit of a rare thing, that.
So would you recommend it to anyone(read: me) just looking for an enjoyable comedy?

Arifureta is getting another season in the Winter, so hype for that-
Sequal or reboot?

Sono Bisque Doll (AKA: Seamstress boyfriend and gyaru cosplayer girlfriend) will get an anime at some point,
Oh, hell yes! The manga's great, so getting to see it in Anime format is something to look forward to.

and that will be worth a watch for pure cute-factor, even though the manga is just now getting to where the two are HOPEFULLY gonna confess, FUCKING HELL NO ONE JUST TALKS TO ONE ANOTHER IN JAPAN, DO THEY!?
Low birth rates in Japan would indicate yes.
 

MnemoD

Well-Known Member
Nowhere good, because the fandom will just bitch about him being Miles self insert if they do. Also, because no one's been willingto forgive him for Jaundice.


So would you recommend it to anyone(read: me) just looking for an enjoyable comedy?


Sequal or reboot?


Oh, hell yes! The manga's great, so getting to see it in Anime format is something to look forward to.


Low birth rates in Japan would indicate yes.
I give the same example for people calling Jaune a SI that I give with Shirou from Fate- Literally WHO would self-insert someone just to horrifically maim them mentally? I'm CLINICALLY DEPRESSED OVER TWENTY YEARS and I wouldn't do that to MYSELF. (Without it being lewd, anyway)

I absolutely recommend Kanojo Kanojo if you want a laugh- but as I said, be mindful going in that you are not going to laugh "Ha ha" you are going to laugh "What the actual fuck why would you do this to yourself?" It's that kind of .... sadistic laugh that says "This is why you fucked up".

Sequel.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Watched the first 2 eps of The Great Jahy won't be Defeated! I liked it. About all I can say, really.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Watched the first 3 (well, 4, since the first episode was double-sized) of Re:Zero. It's...huh. For some reason, I got bored in the middle segments. Probably because Subaru was wandering around like a drunk with no sense of direction. He nails the parallel dimension aspect, but for some reason takes a while to comprehend the time travel aspect. Well, it's understandable from his perspective, considering he has the shock of consecutive deaths casting a haze over his logic and comprehension, but from a viewer's perspective, it's rather painful watching him stumble around figuring this out slowly. Well. Not as painful as getting disembowled :O

Puck is a qt. Emilia is a qt. But Felt is the cutest. I feel like it's going to go for a slow Subaru x Emilia because my shipping senses are tingling, and I'm thinking that'd be a waste. Because Felt truly is an adorable girl, once you get past her attempt to keel-haul Subaru in the last loop.

Honest-to-God, at the end of episode 3, when they have the 'delayed shot' of Subaru's shirt getting sliced open and his stomach cut up, I was thinking, "Goddamn, is it possible to get cuckolded by a fictional death-cum-time-travel mechanic?" Because I'd honestly feel cucked if all his hard work was brought short by another death right at that moment XD

No idea if I really want to get into this for the long run. I'll watch a few more episodes, at least.
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
RE:Zero, is a hard series, at least I found it to be so... there are some really bad periods in the 50 ep series. I find I don't like him much at times... To me, he is at least trying to do the right thing despite growing odds arrayed against him and a intolerable situation in that he cannot explain in a lot of cases why he is doing what he is.

Also... he may have that ability to come back, but he remembers all the pain and agony he goes through, that not only would tend to change someone, but also make him go mad. think about all the ways he could die. and it does not get better for him, as he tends to die a *lot*.

This series is like a groundhog day engineered to make it rougher on the person reliving things to have a good life... changes to history reveal new aspects.

Ironically, one of my own favorite characters was last seen I think around 25 or so... even were she to reappear it would not be as any signifigant part

I did not actually pick that one up myself, but been watching it as it is released with my brother, whom likes it far more than myself. Had it not been for him... I would have dropped it far before ep 50.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Watched ... Re:Zero. It's...huh. ... feel like it's going to go for a slow Subaru x Emilia because my shipping senses are tingling, and I'm thinking that'd be a waste. ...
Canonically, Subaru x Emilia are a pair, I think. The nature of Subaru's power does force the relationship to be a slow burn (Emilia does not remember all what happened to him). The show is amazing/incredible at what it does ... but I will not recommend it for everyone. Our main character has to *die* for his "power" to activate. The anime hints that each time he does so, he gets covered by a "taint". That says nothing about the mental trauma he has to deal with - made a *lot* worse by the fact that he cannot speak of it to anyone.

I think my biggest reason for watching the show, is the hope that things eventually get better. The problem is that things get worse before they get better and I really don't know if they might conclude to a satisfactory point. The fanfiction related to Re:zero is in a similar state. There are some really impressive stories out there, but none of them are finished (that I can recall).

-chronodekar
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
Canonically, Subaru x Emilia are a pair, I think.
I can agree with that... but he is also in love with the one maid... Rem.

The main issue for me is I actually like some of the others more than either. Like either Crusch Karsten or even Enchida.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Continued watching Re:Zero. Got up to and finished episode 10, so out of another loop and into the presumed third loop, assuming he gets killed again and again this time around.

I'm a little surprised with how gory and dark this can get, that the LNs even got greenlit for an anime adaptation that seems to be more marketed towards a 'mainstream' audience instead of the darker seinen audience. Maybe the studio looked at the premise, and thought, "Wait, so you mean he repeats the same time loop 3, 4, 5, or even more times? That's perfect! We can recycle so much footage between episodes!"

Then episode 7 happened and that hand from the shadows appeared. JFC!

One of those little things that makes me crack up is Subaru pitching his voice higher in a false pitch to imitate a girl

Something I'm rather a little surprised is how four of the girls to show up so far (Emilia, Felt, Ram, Rem) are all rather easy for Subaru to have character development moments with. Even if those moments get reset every time he dies, he's easily able to reconnect with them in some way. Beatrice is the odd girl out (and Elsa, but she was established as a villainess from the get-go). But especially with Emilia, Subaru is able to easily get her to go out on a date with him, and almost nothing he does really gives her an actual bad impression. Even his perverseness is usually brushed aside with snark. Really, it's only his trauma from his death experiences that actually freaks them out. From a viewer perspective, I guess it's actually really necessary. The show would be torture porn to some extent if Subaru kept dying and also struggled to connect with the potential love interests, only to have hard relationship work reset after a death. Better to have Emilia laugh at Subaru and Puck having it out.

Still, my man Subaru keeps retaining so much knowledge that he 'shouldn't' know in the final, surviving run of each loop. It's rather surprising how little the other characters have shown suspicion aside from the odd moment here or there.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Still, my man Subaru keeps retaining so much knowledge that he 'shouldn't' know in the final, surviving run of each loop. It's rather surprising how little the other characters have shown suspicion aside from the odd moment here or there.
Subaru, cannot physically tell anyone what his ability is. You *might* see this in season 1 - but the gist of it is that attempting to do so, almost immediately starts another loop. So, from a psychological perspective this is really draining on Subaru. Everyone sees him as the one who's ideas work out well or do not fail. In actual fact, he's just doing trial-and-error. He develops a lot of guilt for the misdirected praise.

-chronodekar
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
Well... Subaru gets warning signs first... but yeah...

In other news... watched a few things:

The Jobless Reincarnation series, all 11 eps... was disappointed that after 11 eps, it is not realy an ending... will be very upset now if there is no second season... this series had one thing I could do without... the perversion. They keep bringing it up to remind people we are not dealing with a young genius but a 35+ year old otaku & mild pervert. Personally, I like his master and his maid most. The main matchup seems to be heading toward him hooking up with his 2nd cousin.

The Realist Hero kind of went off track this latest episode, covering a new port city instead of what that Army commander told him.

The guy in the Tsukimichi series reminds me a bit of either Touma or Seina Yamada... the guy has good luck, but for every bit of good luck, tragedy seems to follow from it.

Watched first episode of a new witch series on Hulu (name escapes me at moment)... almost thought was connected to the Jobless reincarnation, as the witch looks almost identical, but it is not. Annoying that the parents actually tried bribing a witch to set their own daughter up for failure... wished she had confronted them on it... instead she just let the father weep at her leaving,
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
The Jobless Reincarnation series, all 11 eps... was disappointed that after 11 eps, it is not realy an ending... will be very upset now if there is no second season... this series had one thing I could do without... the perversion. They keep bringing it up to remind people we are not dealing with a young genius but a 35+ year old otaku & mild pervert. Personally, I like his master and his maid most. The main matchup seems to be heading toward him hooking up with his 2nd cousin.
Is this the anime with a guy called Rudeus Greyrat ? I remember reading a translated version of it online before dropping it at some point due to the protagonist *almost never* growing up. He learns new skills, but seems to retain the mental state of ... well, something less than a hormonal teenager.

The Realist Hero kind of went off track this latest episode, covering a new port city instead of what that Army commander told him.
Sounds like they are doing what the Light Novel wrote then - I am happy to say that this is not typical anime filler material. But, I am sad to say that it felt like LN filler material. When I read it, it made me wonder if the author took a break, wrote something else, randomly stuck it in-between a bigger crisis he was part-way through writing, but forgot to take it out later.

-chronodekar
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Watched up to Re:Zero Episode 13.

I was a little surprised Subaru managed to get through his super-curse without dying even once. He even managed to hit all the right flags in the process.

Then he goes to the capital with Emilia, and he hasn't died...yet. I'm not really surprised, either. Some of it seems to be bad luck, but it's basically a given the camp for at least one of the other priestess candidates wants to take out the competition, so they would be behind some of Subaru's deaths so far. In the capital city, foul play resulting in death would be heavily investigated and possibly traced back, whereas an assassination attempt in a podunk town or a private estate would be a lot harder to do the groundwork on.

I find that I have a hard time watching tv shows or movies or anime at points where the main character goes and does an impulsive, idiotic, 'cringe' moment, like if a character goes and does something that obviously makes a fool of himself in public, that just completely stops me from watching for 10 or 15 minutes or hours or days or even weeks sometimes. Which was...Subaru, really, in the five priestess' conference. While he's been very boisterous and spirited at times, he hasn't quite copped to doing something outright idiotic, until now. Well. I'm sure he's hoping the next time he dies will reset him back to before all this embarrassing stuff happened. Especially after Emilia tells him off at the end of Episode 13. He's been vaguely a 'jealous stalker boyfriend' type through much of the series so far, but Subaru at least seems like the kind of guy to realise it when Emilia yells at him about it, and try to not continue that behavior. It might just take him a few more episodes and deaths, first.

Also, Felt returns. Loving that genki girl energy, even if she's got an anarchist vibe to her. For some reason her dress at the royal selection gives me a spider theme vibe...though it may just be because she vaguely resembles Yamame Kurodani in her royal selection dress, and Yamame is a spider-girl. And, Felix...I find it hilarious there is a trap catboy in this show.

You know, I haven't read the LNs for Re:Zero, and probably won't bother. But this is the kind of story that I wouldn't be one bit angry if the anime deviates from the LNs...at least, in terms of condensing death loops. For all I know, maybe there's a point in the story where Subaru dies 8 times, but the anime condenses it to 3 loops because something that might be tolerable pacing in literature would be dragging on far too long in animation. I know Haruhi fans wouldn't have minded one bit if the Endless Eight was trimmed down to 3 or 4 episodes instead :p
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Up to Episode 19 of Re:Zero

Episode 15 has an insanely good credits roll. It's not really a great anime by any chance, though it has the production values. But somebody on the studio staff was making little stylistic choices like this that are surprisingly really good.

This arc is...very painful. Mostly because Subaru, up until episode 19, just keeps falling further and further into his own abyss, brought upon by all the deaths he sees, and deaths he personally encounters, and the slights and betrayals he feels are made against him (nobody is 'betraying' him, but in his state of mind, that's what it comes across as). I feel like there's a little bit of a weak narrative, too, at points. Subaru can't tell anybody about his Return by Death ability, but when he freaks out on Emilia, he doesn't even say one word about the Witch's Cult, when he was able to say it perfectly fine to everybody in the Capitol. Maybe the LN explains it better, but he doesn't seem to be so far gone he can't even mention that he got a heads-up the Witch's Cult was coming to invade their domain. The one carriage driver and Rem seem to have been erased from existence after their encounter with the White Whale, with only Subaru remembering them. Given there's a few episodes with the White Whale coming up, that might get explained soon.

Rem is adorable and totally best waifu currently. Too bad for her she's destined to be the third wheel. Emilia, in turn, honestly seems to be a little too kind-hearted for her own good. From her perspective so far, Subaru has constantly been ebbing between saving the day and between being a complete nuisance, and yet she's only snapped back once.

I'm mildly surprised it took us right up to Episode 19 to actually get a character who's visibly an anthropomorphic humanoid in Ricardo. Up until now, we've had a few characters like Emilia (half-elf), Rem and Ram (demons), Felix (cat-boy), etc., but they're all basically human in appearance. But there's been tons of anthropomorphic furries strolling around in the background of every episode that's been in the city, and I was thinking that was such a huge wasted opportunity thus far.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Up to Episode 19 of Re:Zero
Rem is adorable and totally best waifu currently. Too bad for her she's destined to be the third wheel.
You know how in fanfiction stories, some authors like to introduce their own OC characters? These OC cast can add some really nice flavor to the plot, some are really worth getting attached to. The problem is that once you get attached to a really good one, it becomes really, *really* difficult to talk about canon to those who are unaware of your special OC. It feels like they are missing out on something special, you want to introduce them to the story, but chances are, they don't care for fanfiction.

Rem reminds me of that kind of OC. Just that ... well, she's a canon character. It's complicated.

-chronodekar
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
You know how in fanfiction stories, some authors like to introduce their own OC characters? These OC cast can add some really nice flavor to the plot, some are really worth getting attached to. The problem is that once you get attached to a really good one, it becomes really, *really* difficult to talk about canon to those who are unaware of your special OC. It feels like they are missing out on something special, you want to introduce them to the story, but chances are, they don't care for fanfiction.

Rem reminds me of that kind of OC. Just that ... well, she's a canon character. It's complicated.

-chronodekar
Yeah. For how the ship is supposedly Subaru and Emilia, Re:Zero (the anime at least, no idea about the LNs) sure does like to just throw about every flag it can on the Rem route. Not just the many moments they get together that simply haven't been replicated with Emilia since Subaru's first death loop, but also, I feel like Subaru bridal carries Rem (and occasionally Rem bridal carries Subaru) just about every episode.
 
Just thought I would mention, the new 'Rebuild of Evangelion' just appeared on Amazon Prime, not sure if it was mentioned yet.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
And finished Season 1 of Re:Zero

The ending was nice. It just...didn't really click all that well, because there simply wasn't that much Emilia in the second half of the season. Plus it's kind of weird. From the viewer perspective, which is through Subaru, he's had a moderate amount of time together with Emilia. From Emilia's perspective, however, she still barely knows Subaru, since a lot of her interactions with Subaru were retconned by Return by Death. I guess to her, she must have saved Subaru at some point in the past for something she didn't know about and he refuses to say/can't say, but she would be assuming it was months or years ago.

Still, it was amazing how quickly the last third of the season was to easily go through. Maybe because Subaru isn't being an idiot and doing things every episode that gives me secondhand embarrassment and make me stop halfway through an episode for hours.

I kind of like how Subaru was genre-savvy enough to make sure Betelgeuse's body was blown up completely the first time. He's clearly played enough games or watched enough anime where the final boss has a second form. I was a little disappointed that he got his Shadow magic, used it a couple of times...then never used it again. Maybe in the 2nd season.


Just thought I would mention, the new 'Rebuild of Evangelion' just appeared on Amazon Prime, not sure if it was mentioned yet.
I believe @Watashiwa and @violinmana have watched it

Also, you should post more!
 

PCHeintz72

The Sentient Fanfic Search Engine mk II
I'm 3/4 through the series called the Wandering Witch. It is a laid back form of anime, as the episodes are a form of recounting of stories from her diary/journal of event she came across in her wanderings... not much on action, but more on moral lessons.

Not seen a series with a format like that for a while now.. kind of refreshing. I likethe catchphrase she tends to use, mostly at end of episodes. Kind of endearing.
 
And finished Season 1 of Re:Zero

The ending was nice. It just...didn't really click all that well, because there simply wasn't that much Emilia in the second half of the season. Plus it's kind of weird. From the viewer perspective, which is through Subaru, he's had a moderate amount of time together with Emilia. From Emilia's perspective, however, she still barely knows Subaru, since a lot of her interactions with Subaru were retconned by Return by Death. I guess to her, she must have saved Subaru at some point in the past for something she didn't know about and he refuses to say/can't say, but she would be assuming it was months or years ago.

Still, it was amazing how quickly the last third of the season was to easily go through. Maybe because Subaru isn't being an idiot and doing things every episode that gives me secondhand embarrassment and make me stop halfway through an episode for hours.

I kind of like how Subaru was genre-savvy enough to make sure Betelgeuse's body was blown up completely the first time. He's clearly played enough games or watched enough anime where the final boss has a second form. I was a little disappointed that he got his Shadow magic, used it a couple of times...then never used it again. Maybe in the 2nd season.




I believe @Watashiwa and @violinmana have watched it

Also, you should post more!
I probably should, but usually I have very little to say.
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Got through 13/25 episodes in season 2 of Re:Zero

The episodes are a lot easier to go through now that Subaru isn't being an embarrassing idiot, and slowing me down since I'm suffering secondhand embarrassment from him doing stupid things. Of course, that means that now he's dying to other people and events more often, instead of being an idiot. It's kind of interesting that he can go several episodes without dying, and then suddenly get killed just when I about forget he can Return by Death. And that now he's getting into scenarios where I'm hoping he can die soon, instead of other characters trying to keep him alive.

I made the comments during the first season that pacing has to be interesting in a show like this with the Return by Death gimmick. And while there's still Subaru character development and him learning new information, goddamn does it slow things down when he's stuck in a single loop for basically half a season already. From a literature perspective, you basically have to have the witches here and aware of each of his individual loops. Having multiple characters who aren't reset every loop helps with the leaden pacing.

His shadow magic really hasn't been expounded on much outside of a very rare couple of uses and Beatrice showing some offensive stuff. Mostly because he's still stuck in one loop, so his physical body hasn't had much time to recover.

Waiting for the actual big reveals to start dropping, too. The big one is why Subaru is in the whole Return By Death thing, anyways. Satella says she does it because she loves him, but not why she loves him. So I'm guessing either future Subaru did something to or for past Satella, or Satella is somehow very first loop Emilia, who introduced herself to Subaru under Satella's name when she wouldn't have any clue that he was an out-of-worlder. If he was merely a foreigner, he still would have heard of Satella. So Satella as the Witch of Envy might not have existed in that very first iteration.
 

chronodekar

Obsessively signs his posts
Staff member
Got through 13/25 episodes in season 2 of Re:Zero
The big one is why Subaru is in the whole Return By Death thing,
spoiler request (open after you've watched the rest of the season):
if you figure this out at the end of season 2, can you tell me what it is? Between fanfiction I'm reading, I think I've lost track of what canon is. For that matter, I don't *think* it was mentioned, but it is likely that I'm just mixing up canon and fanon.

-chronodekar
 
Been listening to a lot of Ikkitousen music recently. Thinking about rewatching the two series of it I own; maybe even finally watching the third and fourth series if I bought them,
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
Finished up Season 2 of Re:Zero. I still have the two movies (OVAs?) to watch.

Some very insanely good stylistic bits, like when Emilia takes a dive into the lake and there's a moment where it does a frame-stop and she admires her reflection right before she hits the water.

Garf stopping a blade with his teeth was cool.

Beatrice...I guess I find her character arc kind of a little bit tiring by the end? It feels sort of 'realistic' that it would take a long, long time to break her out of her shell. After all, Beatrice had 400 years to think herself into a corner, so it's not like Subaru can just show up and give her a musical number and get her to come with him in an afternoon. But still, at the end of episode 49, I was just about done after several minutes of Subaru trying to convince her, and Beatrice repeatedly just shutting down with the same words over and over and over about him not being 'that person'. There was a somewhat similar scene with Emilia and Subaru several episodes earlier when Subaru was telling her he loved her (again), and Emilia goes through several variations of the 'how can you love somebody who's weak' and 'why did you break your promise' and 'how can you keep helping me out' over and over again.

Assuming a 3rd season gets done, I assume it should just about wrap up the series. Royal Selection, figuring out what the hell Satella's business is, stopping whatever other threat there is that at least killed Echidna (the Devil of Melancholy was presumably under Satella's control because she's said to have devoured the other 6 Witches, but who knows), defrosting Elior Forest, finding out the rest of Emilia's past, finding out why Subaru isekai'd, reviving the other 6 Witches (maybe), fighting and killing the Black Serpent as the last of the 3 great Mabeasts created by Gluttony, and finding out if Subaru ever ate that damn ramen pack.

I find it difficult on whether or not to actually recommend Re:Zero as a series. The character development is absolutely fucking top-notch, much better than most JP series I've ever seen. Plot beats move along moderately well, and there's very little that I feel gets retconned or pulled out of thin air. I've mentioned before how pacing becomes an issue, and this season got bogged down in a way season 1 never did because it's the exact same subplot for essentially the entire season, and the entire same set of death loops. Even bringing in the witches only keeps things fresh for about 5 episodes. Season 1's thing was that Subaru was unlikeable as a character for a large part of it. While some of it is because he's obnoxious, it also goes hand-in-hand with his Return by Death, where the pain of being killed over and over and the trauma that comes with it leads to a believable cycle of breaking him down and having to stand back up again, over and over again. In Season 2, he's a lot more likeable and less prone to making idiot episodes, but now external forces are conspiring to do the exact same thing. Basically, the whole plot device of Return by Death and how he's made to suffer both from RBD itself and from the events that he has to go through multiple loops to figure things out and come up with a trial-and-error path are the things that make it hardest to watch through (I've heard it described as 'suffer porn'), even if it's the central intrigue of the series.

On that note, the anime adaptation is still amazing. Not only does the animation pretty much never get lazy and slapdash, but a lot of episodes were pushing 30 episodes, and cutting out the opening and closings, sometimes just putting the theme song or credits over top of the ongoing episode. I'm going to guess 50 episodes adapted 13-14 LNs all on its own, when 50 episodes following a conventional 22-minutes-including-OD/ED would only get 9-10.

if you figure this out at the end of season 2, can you tell me what it is? Between fanfiction I'm reading, I think I've lost track of what canon is. For that matter, I don't *think* it was mentioned, but it is likely that I'm just mixing up canon and fanon.

-chronodekar
No idea. I assume it's something that the LNs that go past season 2 may delve into, but I don't think season 2 really said it. I mean, Satella's powers is the 'how', but not the 'why' beyond that she loves him. The few episodes about Emilia's past I guess try to hint her birth mother is Satella. I think that's a red herring and Emilia herself or some version of her is Satella, because otherwise it makes a weird dichotomy if both mother and daughter are crushing on the same protagonist...not to mention said protagonist is an isekai protagonist, so I'm assuming some weird time fuckery because it would be weird if Satella was crushing on somebody who just appeared into the world.
 
Top