Plot: A normal/regular guy named Natsuki Subaru unexpectedly enters into a fantasy world full of animal like warriors, assassins, knights, witches, magic users and so on. While the story hasn’t fully explained why he entered into the fantasy world in the first place, I am hoping all those explanations would come sometime at the end of the story. Now about the story, the settings looked cliché because travelling into a fantasy world was not uncommon thing in Anime series. So, just like many people I also thought that “O well, this is going to be another cliché fantasy anime” turns out not to be and I got those findings at the end of the first episode. So, why did I think of that? Simply because the protagonist actually dies in the first episode! So, it seemed to be but he was revived after he was killed by an assassin along with the female protagonist. As the plot progresses, it was found out that Subaru has the power that’s called “Returned by Death” (simple explanation he has the power to revive if he dies). So, as the plot progress we are introduced by new characters but before that we get to introduced to female protagonist, a half elf named “Emilia” whom Subaru falls for in first sight (though she called herself Satella which is refereed to jealous witch’s name and there was no explanation why she told that in first place). The series sole motivation was to Subaru protecting Emilia. As the plot progresses, Subaru keeps dying and keeps reviving with occurring many events and trigger points (that’s all I can say to keep the spoilers at minimum, the rest was for the viewers to find out).in terms of saying how much explainable the plot is very difficult because the plot itself was very complex. All I can say the plot starts to thickness as it goes forward.
Characters: This section was one of the most highlighted factors of the series. There are lots of characters introduced in the series and each of those characters played their part just fine. I will focus on two factors here. Number one, Natsuki Subaru and Number two, Rem and Emilia.
So, how is Natsuki Subaru as a protagonist?
1) He is just basically a common guy who might be an otaku/neet himself with no coolness about him whatsoever and have a Meta dialogue system of talking. (At first glances)
2) Became an absolutely annoying, stupid, horrible, bullshit type of character that you want to punch in the face. (In mid stage)
3) Realizing his stupidity, changes his attitudes and thinks with a brain and later become a master strategist with help of his power Return by Death (3rd Phase)
So, what can be said about Subaru as overall protagonist?
In my view he is not your cool type protagonist as you expect in a fantasy series. He is not the best protagonist either but he is exactly a character which doesn’t goes with the flow and overall he is just like everyone of us, filled with smartness and stupidity which makes him a more humane protagonist and one of the best well written character in recent years.
Section number 2, who is the main female lead, Emilia or Rem?
I would say Rem for a particular time given she has more screen time than the half elf princess but in overall I would say Emilia given she is the center of everything for Subaru. While these two characters have their own role to play, the character development was a major success.
And finally we also have a guy whom we want to punch to death (Romanée-Conti, Betelgeuse). To be honest, this is that one guy whom has gone to my all time hated character list. There’s that one thing that I also noticed about re zero is that all the middle or minor side character has impact on the story which is very rare these days and those characters are much more involved in the story.
Music/OST’s: Putting right kind of music in right scene is something always important for anime series to make viewers involving in it more and ReZero has certainly done it. Not to mention Myth & Roid has done great to opening and endings. Also, there were some unprecedented things that I have seen in this series and one of that is I have hardly seen any anime skip openings/endings to give much more content to the viewers.
Overall: So, in the end in my view ReZero has become one of the successful series in not just this year but probably in last decade. There are some specific reasons as to why it has-
1) In a directional point of view, it has been one heck of a series and kudos to director Watanabe, Masaharu who has worked in series like Zankyou no Terror, Air, Akame Ga Kill, Inuyasha but this is his first series where he directed the whole series and it was excellent.
2) The script was excellent and to add that we have got some well written character which gave us love and hate at the same time and almost 60% of characters are popular for their personality (don’t know when the last time it has happened in a fantasy series)
3) This series has got so much trigger point and to strong at that. Some moments gave the viewers hope and some despair. The rotations of those moments are excellent. We get to see episodes full of actions, while we also get to see episode purely based on dialogues.
4) And finally, Logic and strategy never has gone with this series at the first place. So, overall the series has delivered perfectly with emotional drives in almost every episode.
That was a long review but these explanations aren’t enough to judge the series. I haven’t felt the amount of intensity for a long time while watching the series. Off course ReZero needs more seasons because there are tons of content in the Light Novel out there but even if there will no seasons for ReZero, it will go down as one of the top anime in fantasy genre ever in the history of anime. So, right now I can only finger crossed for more season!
