Spoilers from here on out.
I'm going to tell you guys the truth: I was one of those fanboys that would defend the show to my last breath when I was still watching it. The premise felt fresh and interesting, the gore and despair were consumed whole-heartedly by my thirst for such an anime, and the story kept me on my feet—even if it never let me drop, for the movement of the story is really only represented in Subaru's psychological state, and ultimately, the main plot goes nowhere (but this is only the first season). Therefore, after I took a step back and saw Re: Zero for what it really was, I realized that it wasn't so much of the masterpiece that I thought it was.
The negatives of this anime can be seen in places more or less noticeable. For example, many of the side characters have little to no depth, some relationships between the characters are unrealistic and vague, and the anime itself is extremely unbalanced—in some places it excels while in others it falls short; these problems can only be seen by taking a step back and seeing the anime for what it is. Many people can overlook this view and only see the anime from within its episodes, offering a limited outlook. But the same can be said from the opposite view. Some can only see the anime from the outside, but they completely overlook the inside—the guts of Re: Zero that made me fall in love with it. This is a common occurrence, not just in anime reviews, but in life itself. For instance, you can look at the American Revolution and say that it was one side of the country versus the other side, or you can look deeper and see that there were thousands of sides, thousands of teams, families, groups, and people that each wanted something different out of the war, just as each of the characters in Re: Zero each wanted something different; they each had a mind of their own.
I see reviews that bash Subaru's character. They say that he's annoying, his character made them want to stop watching, his stupidity made them cringe, he resembles a baby, and this is all completely fine, but the thing that legitimately made me angry at the reviewer is when they commented how there was "no cost or meaning to anything that happens" and how "Subaru's mistakes are immediately erased upon death". It makes me question if they even watched the damn show because this view is flawed to the brink. Every time Subaru makes a mistake, things don't just redo themselves. Subaru takes the hit for his own mistake. His guilt, regret, and despair grows stronger every time he lets another one of his friends die. And the reviewer completely ignores the fact that after every single rebirth, Subaru is faced with the choice to give up on his friends. He could have easily ditched them, and went off to live an immortal life, void of death, and instead, he chooses to fight off the death and keep trudging towards the happy ending. Through this, we can see the main theme of the anime itself, where Subaru's struggles resemble the lives we live, and however cheesy it may sound, we gotta keep working towards that happy ending—a simple, but powerful lesson.
Episode 15 was one of the most tear-jerking episodes of anime I have ever seen. Yes, I will admit that it was an unnecessary episode with an exaggerated amount of despair. The viewer already knows how much Subaru is suffering. Why burn it in so deep? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I do not see one thing wrong with this. Anime is built on exaggeration. The reason for the raw despair shown in episode 15 is simply to make the viewer more horrified, more heartbroken, and feel so bad for Subaru that the emotions that he feels can be translated to the viewers' emotions. It is the "rising action" of the season, leading to the climax at episode 18, when all the emotions of despair come together and Subaru finally makes the suggestion of running away to Rem. And this delicate moment of Rem being able to encourage Subaru and give him all the love she could muster was what made the anime for me. It brought me back to a time when I was in the dumps, when I thought life was literally going to melt away from my fingertips and seep into the dead ground below me, and a single one of my friends came up to me and brought me back to my feet. The fact that an anime could remind me of such a moment baffled me.
The reason that Rem is hyped so much as the ultimate waifu is not because she has big cute eyes and wears a maid uniform. No, that would be looking at it from the outside. It is because she symbolizes the friend that is always with you. She symbolizes the warmth of a hand reaching out to help you up when you are down. She symbolizes an existence that knows who you are, what your good points are, and she is able to translate that into words for you. The relationship between Subaru and Rem is without a doubt the central theme of the season and made me fall in love with it.
Despite all that, Emilia is still there. That's exactly what she is. She's just... there. I'm just going to slap y'all in the face after my expression of love for Rem and just be quite frank with you. Emilia is a very empty character in this season. She has almost no ties to the main theme except for her lap pillow scene (which I'll get to later), and her relation to the royal selection seems to be just a side story. She gets no screen time for half of the season and still Subaru stands for her. This is indeed a negative. However, it is not so bad as to break the anime. I regard this as a minor issue, even before taking into account that the second season may expand on it. It isn't hard to brush this off and say that Subaru loves her because he just does. Romance comedies have shown me that you don't need a reason to love someone, and despite the cliches, they are good animes and the cliché is accepted. Why should Re: Zero be held on a different standard when it comes to love, and why does Subaru need a reason to love Emilia? Although her character is shallow, and hopefully its expanded on in the second season, there is no need to make a negative out of the relationship between Emilia and Subaru simply because it is unrealistic. Like I said before, anime is built off of exaggeration.
Despite this, she does have an effect on Subaru's psychological state. When she offers Subaru a lap pillow, to Subaru, it is like a reward for his hard work, and it becomes another motivator for him to trudge through the despair. In this sense, Emilia lightly symbolizes the ultimate goal that Subaru longs for, and it also attributes to Subaru's love for Emilia.
However, Betelgeuse is a different story. His hideous appearance and meaningless impact on the plot is laughable and hurts the serious aspects of the anime. If he was less derpy and more villainy than he could actually be a good thing for the story, but his exaggeration is taken too far. However, the direction his character goes is the right one; if he was replaced by a cunning villain type, then the chaos and despair of evil in the anime would be disrupted by his character and show a different type of evil that could easily spin out of control.
The rest of the side characters are just exaggeration factors and some don't relate to the story in any way other than to provide fan service. But honestly, I could care less. To me, it is clear that the plot of the first season is centered around the main characters, and judging the anime for its side characters would be like bypassing a story's right of focus—for all I care people could go talking about how Subaru's mom doesn't appear in the anime and make some stupid argument about how it detracts from our understanding of the anime. The anime is about Subaru, not Beatrice, Roswaal, or any others.
To wrap up this review, I'll talk about my personal opinion of the anime as a whole. I enjoyed this anime to the brink when it was being aired. Every week I was excited to watch the next episode, find out who would die, how Subaru would react, and listen to Kobayashi Yuusuke's awesome voice acting as Subaru would scream his heart out for his friends. When I stepped back, I realized that the anime wasn't as good as I thought it was and that the plot was actually doomed to go nowhere unless something new occurred. I realized how stupid Betelgeuse was and how unexplained the entire situation with Subaru was. But still, I think the pros heavily out way the cons. The anime is close to being a masterpiece. Some think it is, and others don't think it is, and that depends on their personal enjoyment. However, one thing that I will stand with is that this anime is good and definitely worth your time.
