This Week in Anime

What Has Re:Zero's Subaru Learned?

Micchy
You know Nick, in a season this light I figured the odds of there being a piss anime were reasonably low. Like even if Steve and I seem to gravitate towards trash, surely the universe would spare us this time. Unfortunately, I have brain poisoning and can only come up with one interpretation for Re:Zero's witch tea party, and it's not a fun one.

I've seen Jojo part 5, you can't fool me!

Hey, Subaru's been making some progress following his epiphany 9 episodes and 4 years ago! He's almost not a complete disaster now.

Though it feels weird to call it a new season considering it picks up right after the end of S1 with virtually no re-introduction, dropping us straight into the post-whale hunting shenanigans of Subaru and co. as if it didn't have a 4-year gap between seasons. Like you could let the series autoplay on Crunchyroll and you'd never be able to tell that episode 25 doesn't lead immediately into the next one.

Meanwhile Re:Zero only has magic ladies who also pretend to be schoolgirls sometimes, which isn't quite the same thing as magical girls. For one, I assume most magical girls don't feed other people their magical piss.

Though not as sad as the way Rem expects Subaru to be her hero. Subaru's probably capable of saving 15 percent in 15 minutes on Geico car insurance, but anything beyond that is pushing it. RIP Rem, the internet's favorite blue anime maid. You had a good run.

Regulus is Just Asking Questions, okay? You're not allowed to mute or block him on Twitter because that's a violation of his First Amendment rights, which totally exist in magic JRPG land.

Though compared to its importance last season, the Witch Cult really takes the backseat to the Witches themselves in this one. I'm sure the troll partners will be relevant at some point, but right now Subaru Natsuki's biggest hurdle is the Witch of Greed's trial of [gasp] self-reflection! And if there's anything Subaru Natsuki hates doing, it's looking at his faults with an honest eye.

Yeah, to get into Subaru's revelations this season, we need to revisit episode 18 from last season, where Subaru admits that he isn't special and only ever wanted to play the hero for his own ego. Rem comforts him then by reassuring him that she loves him for who he is and not the person he pretends to be. That moment solidified her as Best Girl in many people's eyes but didn't 100% sit right with me - I think Subaru gets off a bit too easy, getting comfort from a convenient anime maid who apparently doesn't have a problem with his very real flaws. While that episode marks the start of his journey towards being a better person, I don't think the premise Rem gives him (that he's already good) is quite the thing he needs to hear.

I think I'd like episode 18 more if Subaru legit had qualities to like, but S1 Subaru teeters too far into obnoxiousness for the revelation to quite work for me. Though as harsh as I'm being on him, I do think anything short of the gentlest of support would've driven him farther into self-loathing, which perhaps says more about the realities of dealing with people like Subaru than anything about the series per se. In any case I see Rem's confession as a set of emotional training wheels for him - she gets him started on the path to honest self-reflection so he can continue working out his issues himself. Rem and Emilia can help to a point, but the real hard soul-searching he has to go through alone.

If there's one thing I love about this season it's how every other character continues to dunk on Subaru. They're doing good work, even if they don't realize it.

Boy knows his taste in anime girls and it's apparently just Emilia clones.

He has a poster of Asterisk War! Who even likes Asterisk War?!!

Clearly that's all buildup towards the actual last boss, the entity known as the Beatrice Pout. I'm only half kidding when I say I bet she's one of the fabled witches.

She's got a bit going on! Like, say, how she doesn't love the way Subaru treats her like a tutorial fairy sometimes. There's more to Beatrice than giving quests, dammit!

Which doesn't make him pathetic or a bad person or anything! It just means he's a flawed person like everybody else. That he realizes as much is a huge improvement for him, though he still has to process the defeatist attitude he had towards his previous life.

Really, it's unfair of Echidna to expect him to want to sit around chatting with her considering she pissed/spit in his tea. Like even if she is basically omniscient and can tell him anything he wants to know, a lack of hospitality is gonna be a dealbreaker for some people!

That sounds highly unsanitary to me, don't you think? Especially in these times. Echidna can hold her Fantasy History lectures over Zoom like a responsible educator.

Maybe not, but Echidna has a fair bit of potentially lethal suffering planned for Subaru anyway so same diff.

Remind me though, do those usually involve half-naked dads?

Aside from a handful of moments and the beginning of episode 1, this is the first look we've gotten at who Subaru was before getting isekai'd. We knew he was a tryhard dweeb with a serious case of self-loathing, but before now we hadn't gotten to see what his family or school life looked like.

I will not hear this slander against mayonnaise. Subaru's family is actually perfectly fine! Though like all families they can get a little overbearing.

Welcome the mayo into your heart, Nick.

Yeah, it's not a lack of a relationship with his dad he's worried about; they've got plenty going there. The problem is mostly in his head - Subaru has all the support in the world, but he has so much respect for his parents and so little for himself that he convinces himself he doesn't deserve their love. He's worried about living up to his dad's example, which makes him think he's a terrible person, which makes him try too hard to be quirky and likable, which leaves him further isolated from his very social father. It's a self-perpetuating cycle of self-hatred that he never got to break before getting isekai'd.

Subaru spent most of S1 learning that Emilia didn't owe him love just because he played at being savior. But there are (were) two people whose support he never had to earn because they chose to raise him in the first place.

Those two lessons are two sides of the same coin - no amount of unasked-for help can guarantee someone will love him. But similarly, no honest-to-god screwups can negate the love his parents already give him. Love isn't a measure of his inherent worth; it comes on the giver's own terms.

Ngl I teared up a little at that. As much of a scrub as he still is, Subaru finally understands how lucky he is that his parents loved him regardless of how much he thinks he deserves it. And it's not something to feel guilty over but to hold on to in his darkest times.

Look I don't know what kind of parenting she's doing but I'm pretty sure between changing diapers and wiping toddler butts she's seen a lot more of his butthole than just that. Unless she means she's seen up his butt, which is admittedly pretty weird to bring up in conversation.

Twist: everyone Subaru knows is a witch, including Julius and the tiny new maid.

I wouldn't mind an invitation to her tea party, yeah.

Got it, no Love Nectar cookies.