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Starts out promising but quickly loses focus and descends into mediocrity. The premise has potential and the story beats are fine but the writing is severely lacking on a technical level, most notably in the web novel. The light novel is better but not free of the issues, and apparently has numerous inaccurate translations. In both stories it feels like the story quickly loses its broader direction. Dialogue is often boring or painful to read, the endless flirty banter does nothing to establish sympathy or connection to the characters. Many locations give the impression of existing only as a backdrop for character actions, without establishing context in a broader world that would give the actions meaning. Antagonists are given annoying verbal tics to use in every line, undermining any emotions their presence ought to convey. Subaru and other characters are given bursts of meaningful and well-motivated character development, some of which are very good, but their infrequency and the surrounding filler makes them difficult to appreciate. All of this makes the experience of reading incoherent – the main cast fights the arc’s villains in a set of disconnected locations that don’t feel like part of a broader world, and for reasons which are only nebulously connected to a long-term objective. After ~7000 pages I don’t remember any lines, descriptions, or locations that particularly stood out to me. Ultimately the good just doesn’t come close to justifying the length. The main cast is memorable, but I don’t have much interesting in seeing the continuation of their story. A good editor could probably cut 2/3 of the web novel content and a good translator could probably rewrite the rest into something pretty good. As it is, it varies from mostly unimpressive (light novels) to often unreadable (web novel).
The light novels are a ‘mixed feelings’, if you like the idea of Re:Zero and don’t take issue with some of the aspects of the writing I did you might really enjoy them. A lot of people certainly seem to. The web novel is a definitive ‘not recommended’.
Disclaimer:
My opinion might change on this, this review replaces a previous different one and though I skimmed back through some light novel and web novel volumes to refresh my memory it’s been a while since I read from the start through Arc 6. I also switched to the web novel pretty early, maybe the later light novels improve. I might give Arc 7 a try when the light novels come out, and I could change my mind.
