As I mentioned the concept of time travel when dying is interesting and an interesting way to explore characters more in depth but I will get more into characters later. But, yes, the concept was great and for the first half of the series, it was very interesting. It was great to see our protagonist, Subaru overcome the challenges before he gets brutally murdered by a beautiful women or dog once again. For this half, seeing the scenario play out again completely differently was quite something, especially seeing all the new scenarios pop up. These arcs would take a few episodes and were amusing as the action and suspense would always be full on.
It was later in the series that this once fascinating concept would start to fall flat on its face. The deaths would happen as per usual but the scenes seemed more repetitive and less unique to what happened previously. The story was spaced out over countless episodes with myself just becoming annoyed by how little the story was progressing compared to before such as the countless fights with the white whale that did incredibly little to progress the plot before Subaru dies yet again when you think the plot has eventually reached a point where it can move on. There are several moments where you are introduced to a character that you are pretty sure has no plot importance and the story has wasted time on them. The overuse of the once interesting concept made it hard for me to complete the series since I no longer had interest in whether any of the characters had lived since the suspense had long since gone.
Re: Zero has a very large cast of characters from knights to maids to animal beings. The designs are always very colourful and pretty which are very interesting and great if you like that type of design. Firstly, though, we have to talk about the main protagonist, Subaru. Subaru is meant to represent the member of society that is pretty introverted and probably good at video games and that's pretty much it. Anyway, we do see character development of him throughout the series as he dies and breakdowns as it gets to him. Then we see him build himself up again. Also it's a nice change to see a non overpowered protagonist that cannot fight his battles alone because he is so weak. However, although he is a well developed character, he isn’t a character everyone will like, myself included. Though he is developed, he is incredibly annoying and obnoxious during many moments of the series making you want to slap him in the face. Also he may make you cringe from the way he does things throughout the series.
However, if you can get over the unlikeable personality of Subaru, you have a large cast of (mainly) female characters and male characters to choose from. With determined characters such as Emilia to protective sweethearts like Rem, you will fall in love with at least one character in the cast. Also, even when your eventual favourite character leaves the show for pretty much the rest of the series, you will gain another character you can love just as much.
Now, I will move onto the art of the series which I must say I enjoyed very much. The contrast of the ‘pretty’ style with such bloody scenes was really nice to see and personally, I enjoyed it very much. I often thought of the art to be like Sword Art Online meets Another. The art definitely fools you into thinking it's a nice fantasy adventure kind of anime before brutally murdering the main protagonist which I have to say is very cool.
I will say Re: Zero is not the best anime out there but is not the worst. I, myself, quit the show a couple episodes before the end as I no longer could cope with the plot. But if the concept interests you and you are willing to continue onto the end of the series, I fully recommend watching it. However, if you aren’t interested by the first 3 episodes, then it is likely not the anime for you.
