Beatrice for me, without a doubt!
Even way back in season 1, I was just pretty neutral towards Emilia or Rem.
Emilia to me at first seemed like a typical goody two shoes princess archetype. To me, it feels like she doesn't really love or even just "like" Subaru, even though she's always kind to him, she was just "kind" to everybody so she doesn't show kindness to him out of love or affection, she just does it either because she's actually good natured at her core or she's doing kindness to offset something dark she's trying to hide, get rid off or trying to make amends to, I don't know what but it's definitely not because she loves him, at least at this point in time.
As for Rem, Rem completely distrusted Subaru initially, she hated his guts, even though Rem acted nice during Subaru's butler training period and Ram acted harshly towards her, she was just faking it and it turns out the Ram was actually that one that somewhat cared for him. Rem killed him multiple times and even tortured him, it was even Ram that stopped Rem from torturing him by just giving him a quick death in the forest. Rem just turned 180 on him since he was so "heroic" or so she says during the Monster Dog scenes. If anything, Ram is nicer than Rem at their core while Rem was just later infatuated with Subaru so we see her being so nice to him, being a "Perfect Waifu" some might say.
For me, while Beatrice never showed much care for Subaru at face value, she was really tsun tsun most of the time, but it turns out that she really does care for him. She even expressed that if Subaru was going to die no matter what then at least he does it where she can't see it because she can't bear seeing him die. BUT I think my primary reason for warming up to her character was because I was so immersed in watching Re:Zero that I really felt the pressure that Subaru feeling during season 1 and whenever Subaru was in the Forbidden Library, Subaru felt relieved there, so I felt it too, whenever Subaru was really getting crushed under pressure, her Library was always there to give him a peaceful place to gather his thoughts, Beatrice was always there to help him out, give him important hints and even remove a curse from him, Beatrice really helped out Subaru a lot even though she makes it appear that she doesn't want to. I was so immersed in the show that whenever Subaru felt the pressure I felt it too and when he gets time to breath and think with Beatrice side at her Library I felt relieved too, which is probably why I become fond of her character and with the events of Season 2, I just loved her character even more. Even during season 1, it felt like Beatrice knew more about Subaru than she lets on and this season just confirmed it. It's like having a burden you can't share with anyone else, that stuff can take it's toll on you and when you get a chance to share your problem to someone, it can lift a great weight off your shoulders even if that person can't do anything about it, just being able to share your problems can make you feel better. For me knowing Beatrice at least had a vague understanding of what Subaru is going through is similar to that feeling, at least there's someone else who knows that isn't an "evil" witch. Which is also why I really loved the scene where Subaru realized that Echidna knows of all his sufferings, he was finally able to vent it with someone else so for Subaru, Echidna's garden became like Beatrice's library for season 2.
As for Echidna, in the few episodes that we've been shown so far, she's shaping up to be a very interesting character for me in such a short time, I especially like non-violent tsunderes like her.
Also, i'd like to talk about Felix for a bit, at first his character seems interesting but during Season 2 I liked him a little less, the words he said after Crusch's lost memories made me realize that he doesn't have such great core principles, sure he just wants to keep Crusch safe but it also showed that he will disregard any oaths, vows and deals he makes as soon as it no longer favors his side and for me, braking a promise isn't something i'm fond of.
But Beatrice is my personal pick, but if the question is who's more suited for Subaru? then it's Emilia in my opinion, even though I don't think they'll end up together. During Season 1, I had this crazy idea that in the end of Re Zero, Emilia will be fully taken over by Satella and the only one who can stop her is Subaru but stopping Satella will mean killing Emilia and once Satella/Emilia is killed then Subaru will lose his Respawn power meaning he will lose Emilia forever, at the time I felt like that would be the show's end, something tragic where Subaru gets to save the World but at the cost of the most precious person to him and this time he can never take it back. But during Season 2 episode 4, another ending popped up in my mind, S2E4 showed a really important message there that extends even to real life people. Even during Season 1 I guessed that Subaru was a shut-in who wasted most his life and that being sent to a new World was his chance to make things right this time, that's how I rationalized his immense determination in this fantasy World to save people and make things right, I assumed that in his head, he was given this second chance and he was not going to waste it again, Season 2 confirmed I was right, which I guess it was pretty obvious to most people that he was a shut-in during Season 1, but in S2E4 (which btw is my favorite episode in the whole show so far) we learned that he has a reason to go back to Earth, he still has unfinished business that he needs to take care of in the REAL World, I think this show is trying to tell a message to people who use anime or any other thing as extreme escapism, to hikkikomoris who withdraw themselves away from the real world and their problems, if this is the message that the author is trying to convey then he will really have to make an ending where Subaru will return to his World to face his problems and fix his life there. IF that's the case then in my perspective there'd only be two endings where either Subaru loses Emilia with a tragic ending or he leaves Emilia to face his problems in his old World. |