Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

When Subaru Natsuki leaves the convenience store, the last thing he expects is to be wrenched from his everyday life and dropped into a fantasy world. Things are not looking good for the bewildered teenager; however, not long after his arrival, he is attacked by some thugs. Armed with only a bag of groceries and a now useless cell phone, he is quickly beaten to a pulp. Fortunately, a mysterious beauty named Satella, in hot pursuit after the one who stole her insignia, happens upon Subaru and saves him. In order to thank the honest and kindhearted girl, Subaru offers to help in her search, and later that night, he even finds the whereabouts of that which she seeks. But unbeknownst to them, a much darker force stalks the pair from the shadows, and just minutes after locating the insignia, Subaru and Satella are brutally murdered.

However, Subaru immediately reawakens to a familiar scene—confronted by the same group of thugs, meeting Satella all over again—the enigma deepens as history inexplicably repeats itself.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Emilia Main

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Natsuki, Subaru Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Rem Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Beatrice Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Ram Supporting

Murakawa, Rie Japanese

Argyle, Felix Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Romanée-Conti, Petelgeuse Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Suwen, Otto Supporting

Amasaki, Kouhei Japanese

Pack Supporting

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Karsten, Crusch Supporting

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Iizuka, Aya Producer

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Yoshikawa, Tsunaki Producer

Reviews

Mar 1, 2025

ggol

Recommended

TLDR: Must-Watch
It's about problem-solving and dying all over again until that problem is eventually solved.
The review will be based on the whole season until season 3.
Final verdict 9/10

Introduction
Subaru is a normal and unemployed hikikomori who has one day been wandering around a convenience store. Until suddenly just out of nowhere he is dragged into a magical world where knights and witches are common. Curious and excited this is where his journey begins.

Story 10/10
If you have ever played one of those visual novel games in Japan or multiple-path/choice storytelling like Fallout or Mass Effect. This anime is heavily inspired by that. However, Re: Zero's whole ... concept heavily aligns with mystery, problem-solving, and choosing the right path in order to progress with its story. The story of Re Zero is very rich as much of the story has a lot to do with the past and future to be discovered. Subaru is a normal guy who possesses no destructive power but has one of the most powerful rewind times abilities whenever he dies. Suddenly out of nowhere he was dragged into another world and met Emilia and instantly fell for her. However, she lacks the empathy of love and he decides to tag along with her and be her knight due to the constant threat of an organization that is known as the witch cult group who is trying to assassinate her. Throughout his journey, he does not have the power to take on his enemies head-on, but he has the power of friendship, analysis, and leadership to work along with them and beat back the enemy as he serves more as a strategist than a typical shonen character who is trying to defeat the villain all by himself.

Characters 9/10
Although cliche, the characters are well-fitted into their role and everyone is balanced out with their power particularly the main character has no destructive strengths. However, he has one of the strongest abilities that allows him to turn back in time to solve the problem that had occurred before. This requires a lot of problem-solving as he is trying to solve the mystery that he couldn't solve.
What's more interesting is that the characters have so many interesting stories and set a lot of premises that will eventually be discovered. I know this is unintentional, but the internet has hyped Rem to an extraordinary extent at the beginning of the series and towards the later bit Rem has mostly been out of the story which kind of sucks, but it is still fair as to balance out the screen time between other characters.

Animation 8/10
At first, the animation is great and ahead of its time. However, as the season went on the animation certainly didn't change, but the problem is the animation is starting to show its age as the anime takes forever to make unlike Mappas Chainsaw Man and JJK the animation is improving at a rapid pace. One thing for sure is that by book the animation looks standard and normal however when there is scenes that involve combat or injury is extremely well animated. The scenes can look really nasty with the amount of blood and gore that is animated within it. So is generally a good animation, but is slowly showing its age as there is barely any improvement to it. As the old saying goes "Why change it when it is not broken" This can apply to Re zero.

Conclusion
The story is about Subaru trying to solve out the mystery that has been in his way. Whenever he dies he needs to strategize his tactics in order to move onto the next stage. The characters are all portrayed well and all have adequate screen time between the series and the animation is great, but it is starting to show its age due to the long development of each seasons.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Feb 9, 2025

ClassyClavicle

Mixed Feelings

20 Episodes. It takes 20 episodes for this anime to change from being a cringe-inducing, absolutely unwatchable mess of a person making every possible worst choice, into a half-decent story where the main character actually grows and learns. It was only after watching the show turn around after the 20th episode did I realize how much an anime relies on writing a well-developed main character, at a good pace that hooks the watcher. Re: Zero should be a case study in how not to pace an anime. The only reason I continued watching, is due to the cult-like following of this anime I have seen ... online, from those whom are absolutely death-gripping the notion that this is the best anime of all time. It most certainly is not.

Re: Zero toys with the ideas of deep and dark topics, but only when it deems convenient to do so. Subaru repeatedly shows instances of a "broken psyche" only to immediately follow that up a few scenes later with the most cringe-inducing "join my attempt at a harem" speech you've ever seen. As described in the intro, this continues for 19 episodes until the 20th which is finally a trauma dump that results in some self reflection, and the first bit of character growth seen since the start of the show. This whole pacing is made even more revolting upon realizing that certain streaming sites are featuring the shortened version of the series, which combines two episodes at a time into one, fifty minute, foot-dragging, absolute disaster of a pace, episode.

The Redemption: Beginning with episode 20 and carrying onward, the viewer is now privy to the character development that should've slowly been taking place throughout the show, all in one fell swoop. Natsuki Subaru becomes a thoughtful, reflective, and self-aware person, who takes his lessons and learns them, rather than literally defining insanity by trying the same hairbrained cringe methods over and over again. It is at this point that the viewer begin to see all the lessons Subaru learned from the first 20 episodes, and the show becomes an instant "play next episode" anime, like countless other favorites.

In terms of art, this anime is just fine. They make some intriguing art choices now and again, but it holds up, and looks just fine. In terms of cinematography, the show does quite often use "talking heads" which can feel a bit unnatural, but most things are framed well. In terms of writing: Fire whoever decided that 4/5 of the show would be spent inducing physical cringe in the viewers, leaving only masochists and those with morbid curiosity to continue watching in hopes for a complete 180 in the pace and development of the show.

As previously mentioned, the show toys with deep and dark topics, and yet manages to completely disrespect them with the use of Subaru being an absolute dunce, moments after experiencing such topics. Also, as someone who is anime only for this particular series, I could not for the life of me, tell you what the plot is supposed to be. As of the conclusion of S1, it has been: Guy gets placed in another world, falls in love with a girl, bad guys want him but also her, and he's about the dumbest guy you could ever meet so bear with us while he figure out how not to be an idiot. Essentially, the show parades (and is paraded by viewers) as some in-depth thought-provoking masterpiece look at the human psyche in a recurringly traumatic environment, when instead it is a brute force attempt to point at [inset dark topic] and say "see how messed up this is?" It doesn't trust its viewers to see and understand subplot, which is reasonable considering how many times the show intentionally subverts its own subplot by having the main character destroy the entire environment that the scene was made to create. Until, of course, episode 20 and beyond, in which the viewers see actual redemption and progress.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 20, 2025

Chiefie

Not Recommended

The main protagonist is the most unlikable dumbass to ever walk the Earth and seeing him open his mouth to speak his nonsense fills me with dread. He makes so many out-of-line comments that the anime and its characters tend to treat like something completely normal and I cannot understand why.

The redeeming qualities are pretty much everything not to do with the actions and personality of Subaru. The worldbuilding, setting, and main plot point of Retuning by Death are all interesting aspects that makes one want to continue watching, and it is all that saves the rating. Although the a show having the plot ... point of repeatedly killing a character you hate is a plus in a hate-watching sort of way.

If I continue watching this I pray that character development will actually develop his character instead of him just continuing business-as-usual as soon as the current conflict is dealt with.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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