Sometimes some anime series become very famous, not because of its exceptional plot, not because of unique characters, or even because of its breathtaking art. Sometimes you can have all of these things but still see a series fail so miserably. However, once every few seasons, if you blend together just the right proportions of mediocrity in all respects, you might just make it big. Re:zero is one of those series.
DISCLAIMER: Not a spoiler free. This review assumes you have watched the anime and is intended to discuss multiple events from the story.
STORY: (This is all I will talk about)
First off, we have our MC,
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Natsuki Subaru. Is he a typical shut-in NEET protagonist? Yes! How do we know? LOL he tells us himself. Okay so we start off with our so-called shut-in MC buying what a typical shut-in buys at a convenience store. However, all of a sudden our MC is teleported to a parallel medieval world. Why is this happening? Who brought him here? Why is it set in a medieval world? Are you sure this isn’t SAO? Not only do we not know, but not once was it even brought up in the entirety of the anime.
Into the first arc. Here we are introduced to our female MC. Despite having her own problems to deal with, she is the first person to come to Subaru’s aid when he is in trouble dealing with this new world. A quirky, ravishing beauty – the first person our MC appears to befriend. Are you still sure this isn’t SAO? In order to thank Asun- err I mean Emilia, Subaru offers to help her with her initial problem mentioned above. They start wandering around the city and finally find what they are looking for. A little action ensues and Emilia and our big-shot MC die. But wait! He wakes up in a past self! A ‘save point’ as he called it. So it isn’t SAO after all. In SAO you only get one life, right? Our MC can apparently come back to life every time he dies. MC realizes that beyond this save point, Emilia didn’t meet him yet, so he tries to recreate the previous circumstances in order to help Emilia out regardless of whether she wants/needs it, find the person who killed them, and at the same time become friends with Emilia. I can understand his reasons for trying to find the killer, but why go so above and beyond in order to find the lost item Emilia was looking for? He literally just met her! This guy was literally trying to give away an item so valuable in the medieval world it was almost hailed as witchcraft, costing 20 holy coins – his cellphone. Was Emilia really that pretty?
Regardless of his reasons, all goes well and Subaru is invited to Emilia’s mansion as a guest ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Here we are introduced to the rest of his one dimensional harem – oneechans, imoutos, lollies, mascot characters, faggots, you name it, they all get introduced here. The rest of this arc is used to demonstrate how his “time travelling” power works and how it is activated using basic plot devices to instigate commiseration for our hero.
The second arc – The election. We find out that Emilia is not only strong, rich, kind, and beautiful, but she is also 2D. Jkjk, we found out that she is also heir to the throne of their country. She has an election meeting of sorts with all the important people of the country in one room. Somehow Subaru sneaks in. We are introduced to the other candidates (whom are all females) to the throne who God knows how were chosen. Each one of them has their own twisted imagination of savagely oppressing the country should they ascend to the throne. Emilia is the only one with ‘Normal’ intentions. However, she is mocked because of it. Our Hero Subaru can’t accept hate on his girl, and starts lashing out at the other candidates making a complete fool of himself (and Emilia by calling himself her Knight LOL) and throwing all his character development out the window. He is shamed in public and banished from Emilia’s mansion. This guy wakes up at a save point every time he dies, and he knows it. Yet after royally fcuking up on such a grande scale, he decides against it. Against the only thing that makes him the protagonist of this show.
The final arc – The witch’s cult. Finally, we come across the main plot, but it lacks proper focus. We have no idea who these guys are, we just know they’re evil, and obviously Subaru is mysteriously connected to them. Subaru, who is banished by Emilia, starts living in another candidate’s mansion in order to train. Eventually, he decides to go home, but in doing so, he discovers that the entire region has been wiped clean of any life thanks to the witch’s cult. Subaru is determined to stop them. He dies at least a billion times trying to do so, crying about Rem’s death each time. We’re supposed to feel sad at this right; the fact that Rem dies in vain so many times in Subaru’s arms? But they tried fitting in too many deaths per episode which made it feel rushed overall. Second, because Rem’s death each time was a result of Subaru’s own actions it was hard to feel and sympathy for our MC. He makes the same mistakes over and over again, after re-living the exact scenario many times, proving his terrible hindsight.
Overall, the series uses over dramatic dialogue, forced misunderstandings, implausible characterization, has random spurs of Slice of Life scenes, and lots of random info-dumping in irrelevant scenarios. The anime was all over the place yet they forgot to focus enough on world building. We hardly know anything about how this medieval world works, hell what it even looks like. This show is enormously overhyped, almost to the point where I feel guilty for not liking it. Re:Zero is a sterling example of what you would get if you decomposed SAO and tried to squeeze all the good out of it. Little do the producers know that SAO didn’t have anything good in it either.
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Sep 20, 2016
Sometimes some anime series become very famous, not because of its exceptional plot, not because of unique characters, or even because of its breathtaking art. Sometimes you can have all of these things but still see a series fail so miserably. However, once every few seasons, if you blend together just the right proportions of mediocrity in all respects, you might just make it big. Re:zero is one of those series.
DISCLAIMER: Not a spoiler free. This review assumes you have watched the anime and is intended to discuss multiple events from the story. STORY: (This is all I will talk about) First off, we have our MC, ... |
