Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2nd Season Part 2

After a stern yet compelling speech by Otto Suwen, Subaru Natsuki solemnly swears that he will successfully make it through this timeline and save everyone he can along the way. The first step toward achieving this goal is to help Emilia work through her past; however, that is easier said than done. Feeling as if she has been lied to by everyone around her, it will be difficult for Emilia to trust anyone, even Subaru, her self-proclaimed knight.

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2nd Season Part 2 presents the culmination of Subaru's experiences with the Sanctuary and its people, along with his unwillingness to give up hope on saving them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Emilia Main

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Natsuki, Subaru Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Rem Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Echidna Supporting

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Beatrice Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Ram Supporting

Murakawa, Rie Japanese

Romanée-Conti, Petelgeuse Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Suwen, Otto Supporting

Amasaki, Kouhei Japanese

Pack Supporting

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Mathers, Roswaal L. Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Yoshikawa, Tsunaki Producer

Watanabe, Masaharu Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Episode Director

Reviews

Mar 24, 2021

Jaereku

Recommended

“I love who I am.”

The final line of the opening’s chorus, as well as the ending’s titular “Believe in you”, form the thesis and backbone of this season of Re:Zero. This cour shifted its focus away from the usual Subaru character study, delving more into worldbuilding, developing its side cast and delivering its core messages.

Why does Re:Zero, within the abundant sea of modern isekai, stand out like a shining beacon of light 5 years later? Some will argue it’s the breadth of its “best girl” selection, others will say it’s the impactful thriller elements. Re:Zero’s true strength lies, if you were to ask me, in ... the humanity of its characters and the messages it imparts. These aspects are in the limelight in this cour. The previously established Trials mechanic is used to explore characters’ histories and motivations, all the while sprinkling in setups upon setups leading up to the grand picture of the series. Subaru, as the protagonist, takes a back seat; he lends a hand to the other characters, gives them a push, and yet it remains up to them to make a choice and save themselves. Yes; Re:Zero Season 2 is about self-reliance — but it is also about the fact that when you do decide to take that first step, whether it’s to change, to save or improve yourself, there are people out there who will cheer you on. The message of this cour is a deeply positive one, hence the show momentarily forsaking its usual gimmick. It’s also a very satisfactory watch, after the feeling of deadlock within the first cour, as the characters smash through insurmountable odds set up by the charismatic villain of Part 1.

Due to the nature of the show, some spoilers will follow.

Cour 1 revealed the antagonist for this season to be Roswaal, behind both the Sanctuary situation and the mansion attack. I would, however, say that beyond specific characters, the true antagonist in this arc is a symbolic, or abstract one — the idea of “stagnation”, which happens to be behind every obstacle of the arc. Roswaal is stuck in 400 years past, believing in the permanence of feelings and chained to the past, intent on fostering that same weakness which he believes exists in others to manipulate them; Elsa is on a desperate hunt to recapture a feeling of warmth from her past; Beatrice remains bound to a 400 year old contract; Garfiel is terrified of the world being too big for him to protect everyone and decides that the Sanctuary should remain closed off. Re:Zero acknowledges that the status quo is attractive — is it not normal to stay attached to the beautiful Witch who saved your life, to want to recapture a feeling of relief from one’s past, or to want to keep your world small where you can control and protect everything? — before pointing out that it is also deeply self-destructive and dangerous, from the impending doom in the form of a carnivorous rabbit horde to the mental degradation of Roswaal and Elsa’s characters. All of these ideas are conveyed with no shortage of symbolism, the most striking one for me being the use of Beatrice and Roswaal’s Gospels.

In order to overcome these barriers, Re:Zero asks its characters to find the balance between “dangerous self-reliance” and “toxic dependence”. Subaru, unable to overcome anything by himself despite his abuse of Return by Death in the first cour, realizes something in the second thanks to a friend; the gears of victory start spinning only when he reaches a hand out to his allies and starts valuing his own life. The main heroine Emilia takes the opposite path, beginning her growth only when her dependence on Puck and Subaru is broken. From there, this hero-heroine duo constitute the heart of the anime, spurring everyone else into action. Characters argue and fight; ideals clash, sparks fly. This would be around the part where the average viewer would call the dialogue overlong and repetitive, without any effort on their end to connect with, or at least understand the situations at hand.

I couldn’t disagree more.

The dialogue forms the heart of the arc; when a character speaks, their lines aren’t artificially tailored for some 3rd party viewer. The core ideas, themes and motivations aren’t spoonfed; they’re inbetween the lines, asking a degree of investment and attentiveness from the viewers. Camera angles assist the viewer in finding meaning, if not to simply immerse them into the scene, like the series’ iconic eye reflection shots that convey “understanding” or “trust”. The argument between Subaru and Emilia in EP40 is probably the strongest display of that particular strength of the series, from the sheer rawness of it to how real it felt as an unreasonable clash of emotions, all the while allowing the two characters to overcome their emotional hurdles. It wouldn’t be difficult to argue that the Sanctuary premise, and the mansion situation at hand, are only present to allow all of these clashes and character explorations to take place, and the attentive viewer will most definitely appreciate this setting that goes beyond the isekai fantasy norm.

From a purely script-writing perspective, a lot of these moments overshadow the first half of Season 1, and come close to even the legendary, all-dialogue episode 18. This is all, sadly, from a purely script-writing perspective. While the directing throughout the show is generally good (with sadly more dips than usual in this cour — and no, this isn’t referring to the liberal use of filters, which I didn’t find too bothersome as someone used to such things), the animation is insufficient to carry the weight of certain moments. Anime is, first and foremost, a storytelling medium, but even the best story will fall flat if poorly translated on screen. While Part 2 certainly doesn’t fall to that level, the feeling that something is *missing*, or to be more precise that the characters are too static to properly elevate the scene is certainly there. It also certainly doesn’t help that the downgraded character designs, making most of the male characters hard to look at compared to Season 1, have carried over from S2P1. Re:Zero has had segments even heavier in dialogue than this cour before (again, the pure dialogue-heavy EP18 comes to mind), but a lack of dynamic animation on top of the increased complexity of the writing will inevitably lead to some false perceptions for the average viewer. These production-related issues, along with some cuts to the source that may negatively affect the flow of scenes for some, make it so that I cannot give this a perfect score; nevertheless, White Fox persevered admirably, trying their utmost to stay faithful to the source with consistent 30-minute episodes, this entire season reaching up to 33 episodes disguised as 25. While cracks in the production are present, series director Watanabe managed to balance out ambition with a schedule that didn’t require a crunch to the finish line like other popular gems of this season. But I digress.

Making up for the more static animation is a soundtrack that may just match AoT in its movie-like feel; the “fantasy” aspect of the series shines through in almost every track. The voice acting is stunning, from Yuusuke Kobayashi’s emotional performances to Rie Takahashi’s more and more confident and energetic voice, matching the arc of her character. Let’s also not forget to praise Takehito Koyasu, who managed to convey every facet of Roswaal’s character with skill. To top it off, this season came with two character insert songs, both used fittingly and beautifully. In a season as focused in fleshing out its cast through numerous backstories, character arcs and climactic moments, these are some of the most essential components, and I can only be glad the production remained stellar on that front.

Overall, if I had to sum up in a sentence what this arc of Re:Zero imparted in me, it would be, once again, “when you finally decide to take the first step to make a change, there will be people willing to help and encourage you along the way”. Subaru isn’t strong, he isn’t even cooler, but he isn’t alone anymore— just that fact is enough to change the tone of the series into something more positive. You cannot remain dependent on others, but avoiding human relationships with those around you will also get you nowhere.

If nothing else, I think what Re:Zero Season 2 does is worth lending an ear to.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 24, 2021

tal_carmi

Mixed Feelings

Re:Zero's second season's worst aspect is revealed through each episode's runtime. A little under 30 minutes and most episodes do not include an OP or ED. At first glance you might think this means every episode is packed, but in reality every episode is not packed but rather bloated.

Bloated with what? Information, lore, backstories, exposition. The story doesn't move until the last couple of episodes of the second part of the second season. The lore itself isn't bad, at times it can actually be quite intriguing, but it's just one mystery after another. I don't mean mystery as if you as the viewer are given ... hints and you can hypothesize on what's going to happen or take a shot at guessing missing information. The mysteries you're given are impossible to interact with, they're just there to make you question why what's happening is happening, but there's nothing to help you make sense of it all, it's all just one big confusing mess.

*SPOILERS*

Take Emilia's trial for example (also the trials are a lazy story telling tool for revealing information), we're introduced to the Witch of Vanity, who is she? No idea. Petelguse an ally of Emilia's family, why? Why does he care about them? What is he doing in the witch cult? No idea. Everyone's worried about 'The Seal', what's 'The Seal'? no idea. Emilia's the only one with access to the key for 'The Seal', why? no idea.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect the show to spoon feed me answers and reveal everything without keeping a sense of wonder. The problem is that this type of story telling is constant across almost the entire season. You are constantly bombarded with scenes such that you simply have no idea what to make of them. At a certain point it just gets overwhelming and I simply didn't care to know what anything means anymore.

Re:Zero's lore is reach and grand, but the way it's revealed is lazy, inorganic (Characters will just constantly spill out information for no reason that makes sense) and it's just too much lore and not enough actual story. A good mystery keeps you in the dark while keeping you intrigued and following a certain kind of logic, Re:Zero keeps you in the dark and you're just forced to wait until it decides to let me some light in.

One big reason for why it's so hard to understand the lore is because it's given through a huge cluster of eccentric dialogue that sounds really deep but is really just too complicated for it's own good. For some reason every character speaks in the exact same way, it causes the dialogue to unnecessarily drag on for too long, hence the long runtimes of each episode.

Beneath all of this horrible story telling though, lies a beautiful world and epic fantasy. Hopefully next season's plot will be tighter.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 24, 2021

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

Most I know of lost interest in the show and the few who lasted until this season were largely bored of it. Despite the plot remembering to move forward for a change and although it is presented as important in-series, a large portion of the audience did not get what it liked at first, and therefore got bored of it. They just didn’t care about the flashbacks that flesh out many of the minor characters, or the explanations of things that happened in the past which led to the events in the present. And sure, fleshing out the minor characters and answering whatever questions you ... had thus far sound very interesting and a positive thing for any show to have, but the main reasons most were watching the show for were the suffering and the waifus. It wasn’t the minor characters or the world building, which were frankly very passable and hardly got attention until this point. The average fan of this series began watching it because it had waifus and goreporn. He didn’t give a shit about the past of unimportant characters and he sure as hell didn’t care about the lore.

Similar things happened with the politics of Attack on Titan, the war of the underworld in Sword Art Online, and every arc that shows what nobodies are doing in Overlord. If these shows had given more focus on secondary characters and plotlines since the very beginning and if they were not mindless softporns and action flicks, then people would indeed care when there is a flashback that fleshes out minor characters and answers questions. But they didn’t do that. They were focusing too much on dumb shit for 40 episodes or so and then tried to move to other people and aspects that were completely overlooked thus far. Guess why the average casual won’t care about any of that.

It’s the same thing as having a 12 episode flashback about Yamcha from Dragonball where they explain the reasons why he eventually became a baseball player. Would this flesh him out and explain a few things about him? Sure. But would anyone care about any of that when the main appeal of the show is Goku and Vegeta changing haircolors as the audience tries to calculate their power levels for over 30 years? Despite adding to a show, a lot of things are not the main appeal of the show and thus they are boring for the vast majority of the audience. Stop wondering why every show that tries to go beyond its main appeal becomes boring despite ‘becoming better’.

If I sound like I am rumbling all this time, it’s because I said all there is about Rezero in the previous seasons, and all that was left for this one was the above remark. That aside, Subaru didn’t die a single time, the problem was solved by resetting enough times until he once again gets a perfect playthrough, and a bunch of stuff happened to other characters for which I don’t give a damn about and neither do most others. The finale left everyone with an expressionless face, since we all expected it to be like that and it took forever to get there by constantly side tracking for things we didn’t care about.

ZZZ out of Misery, won’t bother to remember anything about it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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