This review will contain spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2 Part 1.
Right from the outset I'll tell you that I'm giving it a 40/100
For those who love this series:
tl;dr ~ Arlan's opinion is wrong
We're introduced to him within his own world for a very short window of time, and in that we have a few facts about him established.
The first is that he reads manga, and even has a slight grasp of the narrative flow in that he recognizes the "hook" of the manga.
The second is that he has his own money, which means he either works, gets an allowance, inherited cash, or some other means of funding.
The third is that he's superstitious, as he notices the ten yen is a grooved edge.
This also leads into that he's slightly wanting for romance, which was of course reinforced by how he noticed a couple passing by and reacting ever so slightly to it.
The ten yen superstition deals with using a serrated edged ten yen coin to call from a specific phone and the one you love will answer.
This implies that Subaru has a target of affection, or at least hopes to find someone who loves him, and that he's at least interested in seeking out the person.
Another thing established is that he's getting food, which once again makes one wonder if he's living with his parents or not since it's more akin to what you'd see a college kid who's on his own do.
Then we notice that it's night time as he leaves, which means that either his parents trust him and are okay with him being out, or that he lives on his own.
When he's transported to the Zero world, Subaru showcases that he understands fully what an Isekai is and also that he has some degree of gaming knowledge. He also eventually, after realizing that he's not getting whatever he wants immediately or inherently special, pulls out his phone.
Four numbers are shown. His Mom and his Dad, which means that he at least talks to them on a regular basis, a pizza place which implies that he feeds himself from time to time, and City Hall.
The parents aren't much of a shock given what we've seen so far, the pizza place on the other hand once again reinforces that he's living on his own.
City Hall, however, is a large red flag in that there's only one reason he'd have that on his call list, and that's because he uses it often. If it was Work he'd most likely have it marked as "Work", or the specific section within City Hall he worked at.
If he's consistently contacting City Hall that'd once again imply he's on his own, that he needs to get ahold of them to deal with insurance, identification papers, garbage/etc, or any other number of accessible functions.
Throughout the entire first season Subaru never talks about his parents, anyone from his past such as friends or coworkers, or really talks about anything. It leaves us wondering if Subaru even had a past, or if he even interacted with his parents. He didn't seem to regret not seeing them anymore, or that he was in another world.
Instead the series is focused on Subaru as he struggles with surviving in an unknown reality, and with the help of dozens of other major characters he does just that.
He also develops an unusually high infatuation with Emilia after the slightest of encounters. The way he seems deadset on helping her reflects someone who's suffered similar losses, such as when a brother loses a sister and blames himself. That eventually develops into a need to save other women in trouble, especially if they look similar to the sister.
This in turn also feeds into how he still cares for Rem to the point of suicide, he'll put himself into harms way to help almost anyone near him since he doesn't want to lose people. It's a type of Savior/White Knight complex that usually stems from a past where someone close to the person suffered, and they develop the wish to help them and eventually that blossoms into a full blown complex.
Subaru also begins to showcase a tenacity to handle death. He purposefully kills himself by jumping off a cliff onto spiked rocks, a terrifying and painful way of dying. He is nearly devoured piece by piece by a horde of demonic hounds. He's tortured slowly by Rem who crushes his body parts in a deliberate way to avoid killing him but maximize the pain. Through it all he finally reaches a point where, when he has to die at the end of Season 1, he does so with almost no problem and is already thinking of his next plan.
Which leads me to talking about that. Subaru demonstrates that he can think ahead, that he's smarter than you'd expect, and that he establishes plans and learns from his mistakes. We're seeing from Subaru a steady growth toward a character who knows what needs to be done, and then figures out the most optimal way to do it.
The pacing of Season 1 is overall great, with only the middle of it snagging. The side characters shine, often times more so than Subaru, and numerous breadcrumbs are lain out in advance. We eventually end Season 1 with Subaru having started to accept who he is, how he needs help, and how much he cares for those around him and wants to help them.
First we need to admit something about Subaru that comes out full force in this chunk of the series. He has some sort of mystical "Harem King" ability, nearly every woman he encounters is deeply interested in him(Sometimes in bad ways). There's usually no rhyme nor reason for it, they're just interested in him because he exists.
This undermines any type of actual relationship growth that can happen with Subaru and those characters. He doesn't have to accept them, treat them well, learn who they are, develop a rapport, or anything else. They like him because they like him.
This wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't for the fact that Subaru does nothing to earn that. He treats almost every single person in this section of the series very badly. He either yells at them, blames them, accuses them of something, walks away from them, calls them monsters or evil, or some other variation of that. When a woman is crying in front of him he just stands there, not offering support.
When Rem is forgotten by people, as she was in the past, he treats even Emilia with hostility and contempt. He already knows that they can't help it, but he lashes out at everyone. When Beatrice tries to save him from dying he shouts at her, to the point that she breaks down and weeps in front of him, and so he keeps yelling. When the witches help him, treat him with respect, and even bring him back from death he calls them monsters.
And speaking of the witches, the Witch of Lust uses her power and emulates Rem. This, however, isn't the Witch who is making that choice, but rather Subaru. It's showing him who he wants to see.
Throughout Season 2 Part 1 there is one person that Subaru prioritizes more than anyone else, and that's Rem. The so-called woman he loves Emilia is second fiddle throughout the entire thirteen episodes.
So not only does Subaru backtrack to the point where he doesn't even seem to care about Emilia, but he backtracks to a point even worse than how he was in the middle of Season 1. The author takes Subaru to a point where he's devoid of empathy, compassion, or even guilt.
The author on top of that also backtracks Subaru. He no longer takes dying easily, he freaks out and can't handle it. His mind which before was developing strongly and his ability to handle himself are thrown out the window. When he dies the same way he has before he freaks out, when he gets chewed alive(As he had before) his mind seemingly snaps and Echidna saves him from going permanently insane. Nearly every recovery from death is significantly worse than before.
His ability to plan and think ahead, his strategizing, is also thrown out the window.
Everything that was built up with Subaru is stripped away and leaves only the most disgusting human imaginable as the person we're supposed to be enjoying to watch.
In regard to surprises there are none in this season, outside of how Satella appears in person. The author doesn't merely foreshadow, but he brazenly rubs the twists in our faces before they even pop. Subaru acts like most of these are so earth shattering that he can't even stand, which again reminds of how he went from being quick of wit in Season 1 to absent of wit in Season 2 Part 1.
The pacing of Season 2 Part 1 is also awful. The series stagnates as it wallows in Subaru spending most of his time suffering over and over again, while the author continues to expand the lore of the world. They spend so long building everything up that we're left waiting for an eternity.
And finally we're left off with the best moment of the Season. Otto punching Subaru.
I do not like this episode. For those masochists willing to delve through my poorly handled review to reach this point, even you probably don't want to continue on.
What we have here is called a "Trial of the Past".
The "Trial" consists of Subaru "living" on Earth and interacting with his parents. We're shown numerous things, and all of those to me are awful.
We see that Subaru's parents care deeply for him, are supportive of him, and would probably move mountains for him. These are the types of parents anyone would want. He lives with them, and even seems to have some degree of fun with them.
We see Subaru's room, and all of the gaming merchandise and anime merchandise that it contains.
We learn about Subaru's past, his friends he had and why he has none now.
And everything we're shown injures the story as a whole.
Subaru's room showcases pictures and figurines of different types, with one type repeating more than the others. Girls that look like Emilia.
This explains why he cares so much for her. It's not out of thanks for her helping him, it's not out of a savior complex deep rooted in some tragedy of the past, it's not due to anything deep.
It's because Emilia is the Ideal Girl Of His Dreams. He idolizes that look and yearns for it, and with Emilia he has it.
That is why he mistreats her so often, it's why he handles her like an object rather than a person, and it's why when he consistently claims he loves her he truly does not.
We've established that Subaru is shallow.
We learn that Subaru's father is often considered a perfect man, and Subaru in turn while growing up showed promise. However as he started to reach his teen years he wasn't so perfect.
So he quit.
He didn't try harder, he didn't seek help from his father, he didn't talk to people, he didn't attempt to go a different path than his own dad, he simply quit. Because he wasn't getting first place in everything without effort.
We've established Subaru is a quitter.
When we talk of Subaru and his friends we in turn also realize that he has none, and we learn why.
Subaru opted to act out as a kid, and those closest to him slowly started to separate from him. They didn't want to deal with the outlandish and more asshole Subaru. His response was to keep acting this way, and in turn people kept walking away, and he in turn kept acting this way. Eventually he was left with no friends.
So when Subaru reached High School he decided to keep acting that way, and didn't get any friends.
We've established that Subaru refuses to learn from his mistakes.
Another thing this episode does is show that Subaru lives, happily, with his parents.
So why does he have City Hall on his phone?
Don't know
Why does he refuse to talk about his parents?
Don't know
Why does he not care about returning home to them?
Don't know.
All this episode does is:
Establishes that Subaru doesn't really love Emilia, nor even care about who she is
Establishes that Subaru still is refusing to change, as he continues to act out and lash in Season 1 and Season 2 Part 1 in the same way that drove his friends away on Earth.
Establishes that Subaru has no empathy with how blasé he is over the absence of his family from his life.
Establishes that with enough pressure Subaru will just give up.
I can not even begin to explain properly how frustrated I felt with this episode. Every progression of Subaru I saw, every potential of his personality, every aspect of his quirky behavior, all of it was ripped apart by this episode.
To make things even worse he passes "The Trial" by literally doing nothing except talking about his past with the illusion of his father.
We don't see any changes in his personality after this, we don't see any progress, we only see the same thing we did prior to the trial.
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