[felix]

Originally Posted by Sheba

You makes it sound like Re:Zero's sole selling point is that it is darker and edgier.

Given how the episode thread is filled with people who are prepared to attack on sight when someone with a different view on Subaru even agrees with them (not a typo) it's not really out of the question.

There's also been quite a few of these shows with "edgy" themes, where it's not really a complex drama, it's dark but also sunshine and roses often enough, and it has interesting but not really complicated or philosophical themes mostly reliant on the idiotic behavior of either the protagonist or everyone around him. We might as well start a new "edgelord" genre for them, much like we have souls games now due to demon souls, dark souls and so on in games.

Originally Posted by Sheba

Which is wrong. Re:Zero is appreciated for taking cliche from the isekai genre and subverting it in a more logical and, arguably, realistic direction.

Speak for yourself. Some of us don't even give 3 episodes to the really dumb isekai shows so "subverting" here doesn't even register. Its not realistic either, it's more like just very deus ex machina ish with an extremely underpowered sometimes-dumb character getting his way. If we were talking realistic characters would actually die, permanently. Also, Subaru could very easily have started selling his pandora's box of knowledge to the highest bidder from day1 and gained enough influence in a matter of hours to achieve most of his goals easier; but conveniently he's a giant idiot in everything and slow to grasp the obvious. It's at it's core as standard dumb isekai when it comes to Subaru as it gets.

Originally Posted by Sheba

Subaru is a bumbling otaku. This means that, ie, he is not going to suddenly gain charisma and delivers passionate speeches that will sway the "medieval screwheads" (to quote Ash Williams from Army of Darkness), and he actually made a fool of himself in the 13th episode in front of the Court. His liberal values from the 21st century is not going to win the people over. And that is just an example.

All of that just makes him a boring character. To me this is the same as writing-in the times he has to go to the toilet. It doesn't add anything, and even mistakes need to have a purpose otherwise they're just filler. Some of Subaru's mistakes feels like the author is trying to point things out to a 3year old, so it's hard to give them any merit story wise. The events of last episode could have very simply been written as a few lines of dialog illustrating how he's incompetent in negotiations, and it would have achieved the same goal. Actually the entire episode could have skipped to him telling Rem how he failed.

Originally Posted by Sheba

If that kind of direction is repulsive to you, you still have Konosuba who is to Isekai genre what Slayers was to high fantasy. Subversive, but in the more comedic direction.

Kunosuba isn't subverting anything. Neither is re:zero really—dumb main characters is almost like a definition of the genre. If anything Hai to Gensou no Grimgar is the one with subversive elements, or lack of traditional elements.

Also, there's very little merit to calling "X subverting Y" since just like a cheap magic trick it only works once. You're saying it like all a series needs to do is shit on another one to get 100 points. Re:zero is good example, for all everyone might be up in arms in defending poor idiotic Subaru, the series could replace Subaru and the world and premise would still hold it up (unlike something like Grimgar where the characters are also "weak" but can't be replaced). On the other hand you would have a much weaker show if you kept Subaru and replaced everything else—even if you kept the death-reset premise.