The overall “gimmick” of the show is the best demonstrator of this. Re: Zero applauds itself as being somewhat of a deconstruction of classic fantasy/VN narratives where the main character finds themselves in a world they don’t recognize. As opposed to typical character-teleported stories where the main character is given artificial benefits, whether it be through the plot or physical advantages, Re: Zero is mostly the opposite where Subaru really isn’t given any benefit whatsoever besides the ability to travel back in time. Instead, Re: Zero is comparatively more bloody and gory compared to your average fantasy, subduing the idea of an over-advantaged main character and instead looking through the lens of how a fantasy might pan out in the eyes of a modern day character.
But this is ultimately Re: Zero's most glaring flaw. Re: Zero really tries to force its deconstruction forward, but the result is something that I found incredibly unnatural. Time travel is an extremely overpowered plot device and it’s easy to make a story incredibly bland if a plot device isn’t held back with some cost to equal its benefit. In Re: Zero’s case, it does this by not only making Subaru die in fairly gruesome ways, but it also makes him bear witness to the deaths of the people he cares about the most. The problem with the way Re: Zero handles this is that they really push this cost to the extreme. In many reincarnations, literally anything that can go wrong will go wrong, no matter how much of a crazy coincidence it is. There WILL be tiny dog that kills someone in the narrative for no reason. There WILL be a giant killer whale that appears in order to push the plot forward that will somehow find a way to kill Subaru anyway. Subaru WILL be captured and tortured, possessed, maimed, or so on and so forth in pretty much every way that you can imagine regardless of how much it does or doesn’t harmonize with the plot or pacing of the story.
To me, this makes it fairly difficult for me to take Re: Zero seriously. Yes, many of these reincarnations have a setback in the form of dead side characters that you may or may not be invested in, but they happen so frequently and extremely that my reactions to many of these deaths became diluted. Many of the reincarnations felt flashy for the sake of the shock factor rather than have any further meaning to either the plot or the characters. The example I’d reference for this is when Petelaguese breaks Rem’s bones depicts her slowly crawling towards Subaru. Coupled with the deaths that we see before of after this event, it's needlessly dramatic and mostly unnecessary to prove a point. The remnants of how over the top this show is can be seen in other areas outside the deaths too. Petalaguese is the worst offender of this, constantly distorting his body and ripping his skin for no other reason other than to look disturbing. On one hand, yes, this makes the character memorable and it becomes instantly recognizable when this character or someone he possesses appears on screen. On the other hand, it’s really hard not to laugh at how ridiculous and stupid he looks, which once again undermines the atmosphere of the actual scene.
That leads to my next point, where if you can’t really take the conditions seriously, then what was originally an absurdly powerful plot device remains as such. There’s virtually no other reason why Subaru shouldn’t kill himself constantly when all shit breaks loose. There’s no consequence in killing yourself to reset the situation when things go wrong once a repeat is established. At that point, there really doesn’t feel like there’s a reason why I should be particularly invested in any of the reincarnations if there are no stakes.
One counter argument is that you might feel a visceral connection to these deaths because you care about the characters, thus giving the cost some tangible value. And to a certain extent, this is true. If you disregard all the laughably extreme ways they make characters like Rem die, there is definitely a real and emotional reaction that you should theoretically have when watching these characters perish, even if they’re ultimately revived; Steins;Gate is an excellent example of this. However, unlike Steins;Gate, I found it difficult to be emotionally invested in much of the cast. For example, even amongst casual fans, there’s a reason why people tend to make fun of Emilia and prioritize Rem more, and it’s mostly because Emilia is a straight up poorly written character, partially due to how Subaru was written. The chemistry between Subaru and Emilia is given minimal development; it’s mainly just a relationship we’ve just had to accept. Sometimes this kind of dynamic isn’t totally unacceptable and can eventually find its own footing, but the problem is that Emilia dies a lot in the show and she also isn’t given a ton of screen time either. Steins;Gate used the first half of its 24 episodes to establish a connection with each of the characters involved in the story rather than just jumping straight into the thriller component. This doesn’t exist in Re: Zero. She feels like a particularly empty character given no inherent value other than to be Subaru’s seemingly unreciprocated love interest. This mainly applies to most of the cast, but I will say that the main exception to this is Rem. At the very least, there is an actual development and a real reason why she has an infatuation with Subaru, and it wasn’t done in any particularly contrived way (though albeit unoriginal, but hey, it works). My only criticism with Rem is that she’s a little too infatuated with Subaru almost to the point where it’s comical, which is a shame since it undermines one of the few good characters in the anime.
Speaking of development, Subaru isn’t the worst character in the anime, but he isn’t the strongest either. He can be a frustratingly selfish character to watch, but it’d be disingenuous if I said his infuriating nature didn’t eventually go through some much needed and refreshing development mid-way through the show. That being said, he still fulfills the trope of being loud and unnecessarily eccentric, constantly referencing games, manga, and anime as his go to media for comparison to real life. His banters and outward monologuing are fairly cringy and often took me out of the experience of trying to relate to someone who was otherwise an everyman character. In fact, he reminds me exactly of the type of character Kazuma from Konosuba is trying to parody and make fun of.
To touch back on the gimmick of time travel, another reason why this overall had a negative impact on the show is how it influenced its pacing. It was atrocious; though the first time loop happened rather elegantly, the second time loop in the mansion occurred for almost a whopping eight episodes or so, where mostly the same thing happened each time. That’s ridiculous, especially concerning that the time loop has little emotional investment with it for the reasons stated earlier and the fact that Rem’s development hadn’t even occurred yet. The earlier parts of the show should be either spent building the setting (which they actually did very little of throughout the show) or developing the characters. Instead, the show jumps right into the plot, and the negatives of the loop are highlighted as a result since the investment isn’t as strong. Of course, on a simpler level, just watching the same thing happen repeatedly is also just boring. The rest of the time loops more or less follow this trend, and it hampers the pacing and quality of the show significantly.
The materials of a good show are there. The character designs are mostly vivid and colorful, the time loop mechanic has the potential to work well when looking at shows like Steins;Gate, and at least with Rem and to a lesser extent Subaru, we see that characters are able to go through some real development that allows us to be more emotionally invested in the story. However, the rest of the anime falls apart because of how poorly it handles its central plot device. It tries to be a deconstruction despite having very little depth, the story itself moves at a snail’s pace, the extraneous details and polish of the show are weak, and when the show tries to merge all of these flaws together, the result is a boring show with less potential that it seems to have.
