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This manga had some good vibes but made me feel increasingly sad and uneasy the more I read.

The premise is that God made a typo when ordering the MC's girlfriend count. Unable to fix it, (omnipotent my ass), the MC is now destined to have 100 female relationships, with each female in danger of dying if tche MC fails the relationship with her. God tries to make it sound better by saying that only girls fall in love at first sight, which is extremely biased and unrealistic.

Overall this feels very forced, especially when you consider the fact that the girlfriends could have went on with ... their lives and get engaged with the guy they love, but are instead locked into loving a guy with extras upon sight, almost like they lack free will.

The character arcs for each girlfriend are usually nice and deep, but end up quickly forgotten and without enough time to sink in as the next girl on the line comes and the previous ones become a shell of their former glory.

Personally, I dropped the manga after the mother of one of the girlfriends, who had a good thing going about not letting her daughter be in a relarionship because she herself was a victim of love, just fell in love with the MC through eye contact. The "dream" the MC has where he meets the mother's late lover (who was supposed to love the mother A LOT before passing away) and he just up and tells the MC that he accepts him as her new lover and asked him to take care of the mother and daughter for him was the last straw . It just screamed cuckoldry and disrespect, even if the MC loves all his girlfriends equally.

I'm positive that as the manga progresses it will lose its charm and it will become apparent to more and more people that its story is a recipe for disaster.

This anime really grows on you over time while teaching the value of not being caught up to times. The story takes place in a technologically evolved society. In the many shots were the girls' school is seen from above, it almost seems to be getting engulfed by the larger technical school around it, even the girls that go (or where supposed to go) there consider handwork useless ans outdated.

Throughout the anime they learn to realistically construct anything they wish through teamwork while having fun in the process. The bittersweet ending with one of their members having to leave perfectly wraps up this wonderful journey.

Re:Zero is a problematic masterpiece.
Every creation has its flaws, of course, yet that doesn't mean that it can't also be a work of art. I find Re:Zero to be the perfect example of an anime whose problems are mostly not noticed or even ignored in the face of all the greateness the anime presents.

Thus I decided to write a review noting why the first season of Re:Zero can be both enjoyable and painful to watch, with most emphasis given to the latter for the reason stated above. Before I begin I'm giving a spoiler-warning as this review contains points from basically the entire series. I ... hope that you have at the very least given Re:Zero a try before reading this, its good to have your own opinions before listening to that of others.

Re:Zero is an amazing story featuring vibrant and colorful characters, great world-building and a unique time-travelling mechanic as the center focus. The atmosphere can drastically change from comedic and light-hearted to disturbing and frightrning and while Subaru is forced to relive events, every reset manages to feel very distinct from one another. However doing that came with its costs as some key points are left ignored and unanswered or even retconned as the story progresses (plotholes).

Some examples that stuck with me include:
*At the very start, Elsa killed Felt and Rom to get the insignia that Felt is implied to have overpriced, yet in the restart when Subaru wins the negotiation Elsa literally gives up and says she's leaving (only fighting them after learning that Subaru was planning to return it to Emilia).
*Puck can turn into a powerful giant yet never does that to quickly conclude the fight whenever Emilia's life is in danger.
*When Subaru gets pushed out of the cart by Otto he uses what little energy he has left to run on foot for his life. Not only does the White Whale somehow lose his tracks, Otto supposedly encounters Fingers along his path, gets killed and has his ground-dragon conveniently backtrack to the place they were previously running away from to pick up Subaru. Also mind you that we've seen that the first thing Fingers do when attacking a cart is kill its ground-dragon.
*The completely forgotten plot-point of there being a hidden catacomb behind the mansion's library, where Subaru froze to death by Puck.
*In the second-to-last attempt, Subaru fights Betelgeuse and his Fingers who share his crazed personality and power, some were with him, another in the forest and some waiting for the village to be attacked, yet they're not even mentioned in the last attempt. Its not that they disappeared solely because Subaru prevented the village attack so where were they all the times he was fighting Betelgeuse then?
*Subaru learns that revealing Return by Death can attack and even kill other people (as seen with Emilia), something he completely forgets, using it again during the White Whale fight despite Rem sitting right besides him. She could have very well been hurt in his place or killed again.

The last one I find really weird as Subaru has been shown to worry about technical things like that back when he was afraid that he only had 4 attempts per save point. He also never questioned perhaps the most impotant factor of the entire story, when his save point changes. It seemingly updates on its own, like right after he has killed the White Whale or done the biggest fuck-up in his life with Emilia for the story's sake.

Subaru utilizes the knowledge from his previous attempts and calls upon the help of allies and items he picked along the way. While I'm very glad that his power is strategy (something wildly rare in isekais) there were so many instances where he could improve his own abilities to make himself more useful on the field. Seen as he had no problem exercising on his own in the past, he could have exercised with Emilia and Puck to learn how to use Shamac, and in extent Dark magic without damaging his gate or later train properly with Wilhelm to learn about swordsplay. Then when his time was over he could kill himself to restart his training as even if his physical training disappeared he would keep his memories, thus his experience, of using them correctly (and simutaneously getting used to offing himself when the sitaution goes dire). He should have at the very least asked Reinhard/Crusch or Otto about how they got their divine protections to get one for himself.

The 1st and 2nd arcs come off as rather slow-paced and "cheesy", always throwing a plot-twist or Subaru death at the end of the episode to keep the viewer invested. It doesn't help that the anime almost never plays its openings and endings, but mostly uses just the music of the ending song.
I do not consider this a nitpick. Openings and endings hype up the viewer with their visuals and music and become something familiar to look forward to seeing again every episode. Skipping on them so often doesn't help you feel that sense of familiarity while watching, especially when you're just starting the anime where its most needed.
And I hated how both arcs stole the glory from Subaru and the established party by deciding to have an overpowered ally suddenly reappear and take out the enemy. It was very anti-climating, considering how we saw Subaru having learnt to evade Elsa's bowel-directed jabs or using Shamac's blindness ability to attack the Bossgarm's weak spots.
And I can't forget the ridiculous last-minute grenade (sorry I meant fire stone) that Subaru pulled from his ass to aid Julius during his fight with Betelgeuse at the end of the 3rd arc.


Now the first-half of the 3rd arc is by far the most controversial part of Re:Zero. If you hadn't been bothered by all of the above during your watchthrough you surely felt uncomfortable during these episodes. The worst part wasn't Subaru breaking his promise to not get involved in the ceremony for absolutely no reason, nor was it Emilia describing Puck as a "great spirit who controls fire" despite seeing him use snow/ice/crystal magic the entire anime. It was the utter mockery of a "royal meeting". The room is filled to the brim with nobility, Imperial Knights and The Wise Men who are supposed to be the deciding factor for the Royal Selection's matters yet all the participants showed the worst attitude they ever could (not to mention Subaru who was constantly giving second-hand embarassment every time he talked).
*Anastasia interrupted the important recollection of why the Royal Selection is happening, which as we saw later would have lasted for a few seconds, to complain that she was busy and had no time.
*Crusch agreed with Anastasia and had the audacity to think she knew the purpose of this specific meeting. Not only that, she was wrong af cause she believed her knight's random comment which litetrally contained the word "Maybe".
*Priscilla is revealed to have not even told her knight about the point of the Royal Selection and publicly talks smack to Emilia.
*Emilia shows that she cannot even defend her opinion and gets interrupted by the other participants like its nothing.
*Felt literally declared to destroy the entire nation, I thought she was being prepared by Reinhard all this time for this exact moment yet she acts like she just woke up there with a dress on.

In this arc the writer really wanted to have Subaru be at his worst both in terms of mental health and strategy, problem is we've already seen him remain strong and mentally capable for 2 whole arcs prior.
*Subaru should not be provoking Imperial Knights and doubting their power as he's already met 3 who were extremely friendly to him, one of which had immense skill and saved his life.
*Subaru should not be getting lectured about negotiations and being prepared before it as he's already experienced one many times over.
*Subaru should not be running for his life after Rem's been killed as he's already been shown to deliberately end himself for Rem's shake. Heck he should have ended himself right after he got publicly humiliated, badly damaged and on top of that ruined his relationship with Emilia.
Instead of that we got episodes of Subaru running around without thinking and generally acting like a dick to all his sourroundings. As much as this shift in attitude is supposedly justified no one can disagree on the fact that watching an angry Subaru shout loudly all day and get outsmarted by everyone is not a fun and fulfilling experience.

Having stated all this you must be confused that I'm giving the anime a 9/10, yet as I stated at the very start, the positives outweight the negatives. This anime has such a unique premise and atmopshere with emotional scenes and unique strategic action. I especially remember how moved I was when Subaru decided to suicide for the first time in order to save Rem and Ram, despite thinking that he could die for good as he'd never went as far as a 5th attempt per save point. Or when he exchanged his feeling with Rem on episode 18 and after realising that he was cursed from his shut-in habits and negative thinking, put aside his old ways to Re:start his life from Zero. As much of a catastrophe as the episode's before were, episode 18 somehow managed to make up for it and put the story back on its tracks.
That being said, Re:Zero has more than enough reasons to be at the very least disliked... and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the franchise has to offer!