(漫画家)

note: this is my first review for anilist! yayyyy. i’ll try to make it as spoiler-free as possible, but i will mention some developments, so if you are like me and doesn’t like to know ANYTHING about a show before watching it, i recommend reading this only after finishing the show!

note 2: this will be a anime-only review, so i won't be discussing the merits of adaptation but since i liked it (review spoiler!) i will probably read the source material and then come back to review my review or. something! let's get started then.

#####I'm not much of an isekai person, but I'm willing to give it a go every once in a while, when the premise seems at least a bit different from the usual I-am-a-nerd-who-plays-videogames-all-day-long-and-I-was-transported-into-a-MMORPG-and-in-here-no-one-thinks-I-am-a-loser-and-all-the-girls-wanna-fuck-me, which is how the genre has presented itself to me at least. But I’ll confess that what brought me to Re:Zero wasn’t an expectation of authenticity: it was the fact that I could not go 10 seconds on Instagram or Twitter looking at cosplay hashtags without facing one of the blue or pink-haired twin maids from this show. And the fact that so many girls chose to cosplay them was obvious to me (they cute, they lewd) but I felt left out from not knowing what was so good about the show, so I decided to watch it. FOMO is a real thing!

#####At first, it does seem like the exact kind of isekai I described: Subaru is an obsessive gamer and a konbini foodie, weak to strong lights, suddenly transported into a world that resembles a lot of fantasy scenarios he knows well. The girls he meets are cute and magical, apples are still apples but called appa, so it’s just the right amount of recognizable estrangement. Subaru also expects this to be a classical isekai story, so he’s eager to become a sudden hero as soon as danger starts and his hidden skills pop off. That threw me off a little but since I was there for the twins, I resisted. The catch is, as you probably know, that Subaru can to certain “checkpoints” after he dies, much like in a videogame. Since he recognizes this feature, he’s excited and ready to use that to his advantage.
#####What seems to be a blessing at first, at least for our charismatic main character, quickly reveals itself to be a nightmarish curse, since the events that occur afterwards both by his actions as well as the circumstances are not only dangerous, but brutally violent, cruel and psychotic, and there are no special skills unlocked for Subaru. He’s just a dude who dies a lot, and then comes back in time, only he remembering what happened. Any friendships or accomplishments he managed to get between his deaths are wiped out from everyone else’s reality, and if he tries to tell about his “Return By Death” skill, he is taken by the heart – literally - by a strange, dark and uncanny figure who puts him under significant pain and terror.
#####That was the moment the show got interesting for me: when it was made clear that, unlike most of the isekai I came across, or even most of the shounen, adventure type shows I came across, Subaru would actually have to work himself mad in order to get anything done in this world. And I do mean mad. From menial tasks such as learning to read and write in the new world’s language to gaining the trust of the people around him, from falling in love with a half-elf spiritual-arts user to discovering the secrets and the horrors of the society he’s now a part of, nothing comes easy or free of charge for Subaru. He learns through death, betrayal, trauma and just plain stupidity sometimes, and as much as he is the hero and main character, we as an audience are constantly reminded that he is just a dude, who up until just the other day would spend his days and nights cuddled up in a dark room with videogames and store-made food. He was not prepared for slaughter, foreign political tensions, mana-eating beasts and all these shenanigans.
#####That’s the trick of Re:Zero for me. It is a show that presents itself as an isekai adventure but it is above all a psychological thriller filled with action, romance and comedy which are all way beyond the usual isekai tropes. In fact, I finished the show with the impression that it was made into the genre simply as a way to fit the zeitgeist or some editorial decision, because this could easily be a diegetic fantasy story without many of the main elements having to be altered. Subaru could be an integral born-and-raised part of this new world and everything that made Re:Zero a great, fun watch could still be there. I’m focusing on this because I know a lot of people are also a bit tired of these tropes and therefore could end up evading a show like this one, but if the repetitive ass tropes of isekai are what put you off, you will probably like this show all the same.
#####I would also like to mention a specific part of the show that made me very glad but it is absolutely a spoiler so please, only read this next section if you’ve watched it and are just interested in my humble opinion!

Spoiler, click to view

One of the highlights of the show for me were the twins. Obviously! Of course they would be. They made me understand why so many people have a special love for maid characters, and I felt like Kobayashi-san at times when I started to rant about how great they were to my cats and my husband. Maids are great because they have an archetype, so whatever you develop from them is bound to be a fun contrast or a sweet wholesome figure. If your maid is lovely and gentle, great, that’s a bonus to the fact she’s a maid! And if she’s feisty and sarcastic then you’ve got a contradiction! A break on expectations! Ugh, such fun. About the twins: I adored the humor that was imprinted in them, I adored not knowing how they would react next, I adored how they were sincere with their own feelings on every reality that Subaru experienced, I adored how Ram and Rem ended up following completely different paths not only with how they see their own past (which I found to be one of the best background/origin stories ever) but how they envision their futures and how they live their everyday lives, and I love that they made it very clear that Rem was not part of a love triangle along with Emilia and Subaru, but that she was a main piece in his life, someone indispensable, someone who he loved in a different but also very special and unique way. What he feels for Rem cannot be compared to how he feels about Emilia, and how they both feel towards Subaru cannot either. I am a major SubaRem, by the way. I also love Emilia, but how his relationship with Rem is just. Ugh. I liked how their own thing developed, I loved how she is the lewd-thoughts one in their dynamics, and her declaration of love for him was also one of my favourite romantic scenes in anime history! So authentic, so fulfilling, so honest. I’m a deeply romantic girl so it resonated to me a lot, and it was a nice breath of fresh air among all the tension and violence that was going on in the main story.

tl;dr: if you dislike isekai, this is for you! If you like cute maids, this is for you! If you like tense violence and some very disturbing scenarios that are suddenly cut dry by death, this is for you! Also therapy.

STORY: 9/10; SOUNDTRACK: 8/10; VA: 10/10; ART: 10/10;