Re:Zero, the anime that drove everyone mad with suspense and started the Waifu Wars of 2016. A mixture between suspense, drama, action and comedy, founded over the being-sucked-into-another-world premise. The series that seemed so entertaining and so interesting at first with the addition of a new element: the Reset. As episodes passed, the series grew with mystery and unanswered questions, the action scenes and the drama had everyone at the edge of their seats, and one question arose: Will it live up to stay a good series?
...No. It didn't.
This review contains mild spoilers.
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Story: 4/10
To be honest the story is the weakest point of the anime. At first it seemed like a great mashup between the being sucked into another world (from now on: Isekai) and time travel, then adding the classic otherworldly royalty to the mix, all with a hint of adventure, action and suspense. The problem is that in the anime, Re:Zero never gets the chance to fully exploit none of these elements, and collapses thanks to its own weight.
At the start we have our main protagonist the NEET Natsuki Subaru who, by unknown reasons, gets sucked in to another world. He never wonders why and never shows any interest in coming back, maybe it was a blessing! Ok so, little or nothing is known about Subaru's past in Earth. The instant he is sucked into the world of Re:Zero the only mentions we have to Earth are Natsuki's groceries and his cellphone, elements that he knew how to use very well later in the series. From there on, all the plot transcurs in this new world. What bugs me the most is that exactly, the Earth, the past of Subaru (and the suck) are forgotten completely and play absolutely no role in the development of the plot afterwards. I felt that as a waste of potential (Subaru may have been a lone wanderer from the same world instead and the series would be 95% the same), but not that serious.
At some point in the series I thought the series was going to add harem into the mix (WOW suddenly the MC is living with FOUR WOMEN AND AN AMBIGUOUS GUY) but thankfully it didn't.
The whole reset/timetravel/checkpoint stuff seemed to be the main flavour of the anime and it opened the door to some very interesting and dark approaches to the isekai element. We are used to see Isekai anime as lighthearted comedy-adventure series and in the first episode Re:Zero seemed just like that, but when the Reset element was revealed the series showed some GREAT potential. Thanks to it we're able to compare Re:Zero with other time-travel/reset anime like Steins;Gate, Madoka or Higurashi. What I like about these is that we get to see the cast pushed to the ends of their sanity, acting like you would have never expected to see them act (Mami from Madoka and the whole cast of Higurashi are an example) and then resetting a timeline, leaving us with the protagonist trying to avoid getting to the point they were just in, obviously with a BIG impact in their minds every time a reset is done. Re:Zero achieved just this and it was by far the main reason it had me wanting more and more on the first half of the series.
However, the Reset element in Re:Zero prevented the development of the main plot as we were stuck in time, obviously. With the Maids arc over I thought "wow, so this anime really had a plot!". From the royal election onwards I felt like I was watching a different series. The mystery was gone, the series became another adventure anime. In a sense, Subaru just accepts that he is in another world and can time travel (and WOW he can cast magic spells as well!) and doesn't go further than that.
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Art: 7/10
The vast majority of the show is delivered with beautiful drawings and fluid animation (except for the last two episodes, wonder what happened there). Character design is nothing out of the ordinary (just when did anime eyes become smaller and nobody noticed?). For some reason nowadays I feel that every character design is exactly the same with no difference between studios but hey! that's just me. Not many complains here.
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Sound: 8/10
The voice actors did good job interpreting their characters. The OST of the series is pretty good and it does a good job linking shock scenes with the "ha!" choir. The OPs and EDs are really good and have lyrics related to the plot and very well represent what's going on: Redo with its reversed guitar and noisy synthesizers representing going back in time (reset!) and its opening animation which contains itself reversed at the end of it, representing the Reset-centered first half of the anime; Paradisus-Paradoxum has a more mystical feel to it, with the addition of strings, eerie choirs and electronic beats, representing the more adventure-ish half of the show.
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Character: 5/10
Even though for some reason I liked the cast, EVERYONE is a stereotypical anime character, from the NEET boy, the cute princess, the maids, the mascots, the bishonens, the cool swordsman with a dark past, with the eccentric villain and not forgetting the know-it-all loli who speaks in a weird way. Characters get fair development (Subaru with his constant heroic BSOD and Rem being the prime examples) and most characters are justified despite being generic (except for Beatrice's way of talking, that was just cliché).
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Enjoyment: 7/10
Even though no plot gets unraveled at its fullest and despite the generic cast, I enjoyed the series. Why? I just don't know, but the series managed to make me enjoy it.
As you may have read, I really enjoyed the first half of the series, so much that my rating was a 9 with hints of a 10 (maybe too much). My cravings for another episode and for knowing just what was going on slowly decayed after episode 12, when I was slowly accepting the fact that no one was going to explain anything and all the mysteries were going to be kept unresolved by the end of the series. Some say Re:Zero ended in episode 15 and I feel like it was a good episode to abort the series in.
It didn't feel like the plot holes were left intentionally. It felt like somebody gave Subaru the ability to use magic and then everybody forgot about it.
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OVERALL: 7/10
Thank you for reading.
I did this review considering how the series ended and that there is more source material.
