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I felt a lot of things watching Re:Zero. I want to say something about it overall, but it's hard to call it good or bad. Scratch that. It was pretty good. But not because it had flawless writing, or the best fight scenes I've ever seen, or the most interesting character in the world, or a well executed plot and clean cut ending. It didn't have any of that.

A lot of interesting side characters and side plots remain left out, unfulfilled. The show's theatrical ending left much to be desired. And yet, it took me on a roller-coaster of sorts, and through that I ... grew a bittersweet attachment to it. I got frustrated, sometime disgusted, and often confused, mostly due to the main character. At times situations seemed to play out illogically or just idiotic, but even so, enough episodes seemed to play out spectacularly or give the right amount of reward to keep me from quitting.

But despite its ups and downs, or how inconsistent it may have seemed episode by episode, in retrospect, most of the conflicts and reactions eventually played into a story I could make sense of. And maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, having spent 25 hours or so of my life on this, though there were a few times I thought of dropping the show. Even for those times that the show's cheesy or ridiculous writing nearly drove me away, it executed itself earnestly and without hesitation or regret, and I found that admirable. Almost like a child telling a story with so much excitement that they'd trip over their words from talking to fast, even though the story itself wasn't anything special. Not to say Re:Zero didn't add some unique elements to the rise of a hero story.

Regardless, if there's one thing Re:Zero did well of, it was keep my interest to the very end. Despite the often unbearable main character (or two), the characters really did make the show entertaining. And even with the occasional convoluted conflict or sloppy scenario, the backstory and world all contributed to a story I could get immersed into and find interesting enough to stick with. Lastly I throw in that I found a lot of sound effects to be memorable, and I loved most of the soundtrack. Even after the final episode, I plan on picking up the next season, and hope for a ride even bumpier than this one was.

I'm going to attempt to give my impression with little to no spoilers, but I might slip-up a bit, so read with caution. In any case, I'm mainly concerned with the characters and plot.

It would appear that Denpa-teki was attempting to be deep and meaningful, presenting a number of life questions through character dialogue. But rather than answer said questions in meaningful ways, like tying them into the plot in the form of lessons learned or something of that nature, they are instead replaced with some contrived world logic/ ideology with little basis in reality.

What is presented are a few different psychopaths ... committing crimes for superficial reasons. There's essentially one case with a single culprit or two for each episode. With this, the main characters attempt to resolve said crimes after seemingly being dragged into them. The resolution of conflicts in both episodes aren't very interesting, anticlimactic even, though at times the situations were ridiculous enough to get me to chuckle.

With this in mind, I find a number of inconsistencies and illogical behavior in this show. There are a few scenes where it would make a great deal of sense to call the police, but with little explanation or reason, the characters decide to take things upon themselves. The police seem fairly useless in this show anyway, so I guess you can't blame them, though the main male does pretend to try and call at one point. You could say they were simply stubborn or felt a strong sense of justice, but there's little reason to believe the extremes displayed. Their actions are simply convenient for plot. There are also instances where they should have died, but are spared either by a hand wave, like uncanny luck or temporary emotional diarrhea on part of the culprits. I don't always have an issue with this if executed in an interesting or humorous manner, but Denpa-teki uses clumsy excuses.

Character motivations are largely unexplained. Any attempt at exploring a character's backstory is very short and offers little in information. At most, it is shown that a few of the characters have met in the past and may have shared an emotional experience, but this is the extent of such scenes.

For example, the main heroine's obsession with the male protagonist is never really explained, and it appears she's simply suffering from chuunibyou syndrome. The contents of her room, and even her sister, seem to imply this. She goes on about a connection to him from a previous life, but aside from a brief scene from her childhood in the second episode, this is the extent of it. For the most part, she stalks him a lot, and it's only in the second episode does an inkling of intuition actually lead her to him.

The male protagonist is hinted at having some kind of troubled past, but this is hardly explored. It could be gathered that his parents are dead, but this is never made explicit. According to him, it's none of your business. Just accept that he's moody and troubled. His behavior is also a bit inconsistent toward the end. I was initially fond of him for his convincingly natural lack of restraint when angry, while also maintaining a sense of respect for those who deserved it. He could be described as the type who'd choose to fight, rather than flight or freeze. But by the second episode, for no real reason, he becomes fairly useless. There are a number of scenes where you'd expect him to jump into action, only to have him freeze in place instead. He does make up for this a couple of times, but there's little reason for the times when he doesn't. Aside from the fact that this was inconsistent with his character earlier on, it also fell out of line with his eagerness to pursue the crimes presented in the show. The last few scenes in episode two were the most irritating in this regard.

The rest of the characters are either psychopaths with poor, unconvincing reasons for being so, or served nothing more than to aid the main characters.

The art style is nothing special, and the animation is a bit awkward in a couple of scenes. I have an HD copy of both episodes, so I'm skeptical that it's due to poor file quality or corruption.

Overall, this OVA was disappointing. While I seldom watch shows that dive deep into the human psyche, or address life's most challenging questions, I've watched enough of them to know this one fails to do either very well. Episode one was much better than two, and I feel it would have been fine on its own.