Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu - Anime General Discussion (Archive)

[Jerseykid]

Originally Posted by bakato

None of that development is applicable here and no development can guarantee that you won't make mistakes.



You make it sound so easy. Try throwing yourself off a cliff and get back to me.

If I know I am going to come back it's a little easier

[Cicili]

Originally Posted by SeaDoor

Boy, in this thread it pays to not be part of the tl;dr crowd!

Funny thing is that I believe that the overwhelming majority of what has been posted so far is correct even from opposing views. It's causing my brain to hurt.
At the beginning, I was taken in by the cute interactions among Emilia, Puck and Subaru and now continue to crave an occasional fix. Starting to wonder if this is such a "meat grinder" of a story that getting any further cute fixes will even be possible. (Not forgetting Rem and Ram of course.) GoT, indeed!

We do get carried away quite a bit writing essays sometimes.

But i guess that just shows that the show is good because it gives us sooo many stuff to talk about. It's nice to see that there are a lot of discussions not only on this site and everywhere. Its part of the fun of a show.

Also this is only episode 2 of arc 3, knowing arc 3, i'd say you can prepare yourself for many more walls of text.

[moridin84]

Originally Posted by Jerseykid

Why isn't he considering killing himself and starting over? Because that whole episode was all kinds of things going wrong for him

He hasn't had any time to think. The episode ended directly after.

He may consider it but that would be a REAL low point.

[Applehell]

Why would he kill himself when doesn't kniw where he will end up as of the moment since he can't control his checkpoints? As far Subaru knows he'll just end up back with whole ordeal in manison and he's not right state of mind to go though all that right now.

[erneiz_hyde]

I expect he would kill himself anyway and find that he didn't go far enough back. Would make the situation sink in his sorry head deeper. Maybe he will even go as low as actually being glad to see that Emilia died somehow (Rem style) so he can suicide and redo that scene again.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Jerseykid

If I know I am going to come back it's a little easier

Not really. He remembers the actual deaths vividly, recalls the pain and the fear and everything else. I myself have known what it's like to be in a life-threatening state, and let me tell you something I never want to experience it again even if I know I'll survive and have no lasting damage. Frankly, the fear and the sensation is all on its own enough to bring on uncontrollable dread. There's a reason he didn't jump off the cliff right at first: simply knowing what he'll feel before coming back is utterly terrifying, potentially even more terrifying than the finality of death itself since it's more real and concrete; that jump was incredibly brave and strong.

Also, as a few have mentioned, he has absolutely no way to know where he'll reset to. He could reset to before he started working as a butler, or to right after he fixed things up there, or to after that fight with the knight, or even immediately after that catastrophic conversation. He seems to be relatively confident that the resets will continue, but there's still all kinds of uncertainty.

[Loran Cehack]

He may know he'll come back, but he does not know in what situation his checkpoint ended up and there's always that fear and the vivid sensation he gets from dying. It's kinda like a defense mechanism from our mind, really. No one likes to fell that way and it takes a extreme act of courage to go through it all repeatedly. That time he jumped off the cliff, he only managed to do it when he cleared his thoughts and decided to do it for the sake of others, so it's not something i see him doing all the time now .

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by Jerseykid

Why isn't he considering killing himself and starting over? Because that whole episode was all kinds of things going wrong for him

It would be hilarious if the save point is after the quarrel between him and Emilia.

True suffering.

[EroKing]

[Triple_R]

I didn't particularly like Subaru in Episode 13, but I'm use to not liking him much. Subaru says something very awkward and/or cringe-worthy in pretty much every episode - Episode 13 is just taking him to his logical conclusion, really.

Really, Episode 13 is just "Subaru being Subaru". He has a big mouth, and he has almost no sense of self-discipline or personal restraint whatsoever. He also runs almost entirely on his emotions, as he usually doesn't think things through carefully and analytically. So Subaru making a big cringey scene in Episode 13 wasn't that surprising, though admittedly some of the fall-out of it was surprising. It made for a mostly interesting episode.

So I'll get to what I found disappointing in my reply to Chosen_Hero and Obelisk ze Tormentor below.

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

13 episode in and I still think that Subaru might be legally retarded, while Emilia gets the award for most generic and basic character I have ever seen.

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Emilia is the most generic and basic character you've ever seen? Well then, I guess you're lucky that you've never seen worse character than her coz there are actually millions and tons of other female characters which are a lot more generic than Emilia including the ones in popular series like SAO, Highschool DxD, and countless of others .

I think that Chosen Hero is overstating Emilia's weaknesses, but there certainly is room for criticism here. And I disagree with Obelisk implying that Emilia is far less generic than all the female characters in SAO - Some of the SAO female characters are more interesting to me than Emilia has been so far.

Granted, Emilia had a wonderful start. I found her interesting and compelling way back in Episode 1. But, for me, her character has yet to recapture the heights she did way back then. I don't know if I'd call Emilia generic, but she increasingly comes across as very safe and vanilla to me. Likeable, sure, but also very vanilla.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Episode 13. Emilia honestly strikes me as the least interesting of all 5 royal selection candidates. Each had an opportunity to explain what type of ruler she would be, or what was her key goal, and Emilia's could not have been any safer or more generic at a meta-level - Equality for all! The author went with what was quite possibly the safest route possible for Emilia.

Now, to be fair, "equality for all" is likely a radical idea in-universe, at least. But even in the area of "radicalism", Emilia is clearly trumped by Felt's "burn it all down, I hate you all!" apparent anarchism. Compared to her 4 rivals for the throne, Emilia's position is the very picture of safe and conventional. And even Emilia's personality seems very mild compared to most of her rivals, with a couple of them seeming far more colorful than her.

I still like Emilia, but I definitely would like to see something more distinctive from her. Right now, she's not terribly different than numerous mecha anime Princesses with nice/safe personalities and the most conventional of modern ideals.

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I Nowhere is this clearer than in Episode 13. Emilia honestly strikes me as the least interesting of all 5 royal selection candidates. Each had an opportunity to explain what type of ruler she would be, or what was her key goal, and Emilia's could not have been any safer or more generic at a meta-level - Equality for all! The author went with what was quite possibly the safest route possible for Emilia.

Now, to be fair, "equality for all" is likely a radical idea in-universe, at least. But even in the area of "radicalism", Emilia is clearly trumped by Felt's "burn it all down, I hate you all!" apparent anarchism. Compared to her 4 rivals for the throne, Emilia's position is the very picture of safe and conventional. And even Emilia's personality seems very mild compared to most of her rivals, with a couple of them seeming far more colorful than her.

I still like Emilia, but I definitely would like to see something more distinctive from her. Right now, she's not terribly different than numerous mecha anime Princesses with nice/safe personalities and the most conventional of modern ideals.

Putting SAO comparisons and what one considers generic aside, I'm suprised you didn't get why Emilia would want social change. She part of a race that is heavly discrminated against for what one of their own did centuries back. Now she is feared as demon for things that don't have anything to do with her personally and has to stay out of public eye most of her life to avoid harassment or worse. Yet you think she is just saying it as random "generic nice thing" that has nothing to do with her personal history and struggles for acceptance (things that many people under similar cirmcustances like modern day Muslims) for people to see her beyond look-a-like of the Witch of Envy?

Not to mention this conflict of separating one's percived imagery from who they actualy are directly ties into her problems with Subaru. Because her view he's sort of become like everyone else, just on the opposite extreme ironically enough. Of course in that case it's more complicated, but this just a case with how differing perspectives are playing out and how Emilia views the world.

I personally don't recall Asuna dealing with anything with that kind of depth or many recent LN or mecha heroines with that kind of social stigma. And this not even getting into whether she is actually Satella or not.

So yes it's generic if you remove context of her statement from what we know about her cirmcumstances, implications of her backstory and her fairly distant disposition towards most people. But the same could be said for the other candidates. All of their ideologies are no less common than Emilia's, but makes them interesting is what it relfects about the deeper issues surrounding themselves.

So it's not something I view as safe, but something that makes a lot of sense for her character because if the gimpiles of we are seeing of she might been through for most of her life rather than some meta heroine thing. It's also offers a window to state of some of the social issues in Luginca.

[Kenju of the Right]

There were plenty of times where I was annoyed at Subaru's cheesy lines and lack of thinking but that just took it to the next level.

God I felt so bad for Emilia, I was getting such strong second hand embarrassment

[Loran Cehack]

Originally Posted by Applehell

Putting SAO comparisons and what one considers generic aside, I'm suprised you didn't get why Emilia would want social change. She part of a race that is heavly discrminated against for what one of their own did centuries back. Now she is feared as demon for things that don't have anything to do with her personally and has to stay out of public eye most of her life to avoid harassment or worse. Yet you think she is just saying it as random "generic nice thing" that has nothing to do with her personal history and struggles for acceptance (things that many people under similar cirmcustances like modern day Muslims) for people to see her beyond look-a-like of the Witch of Envy?

Not to mention this conflict of separating one's percived imagery from who they actualy are directly ties into her problems with Subaru. Because her view he's sort of become like everyone else, just on the opposite extreme ironically enough. Of course in that case it's more complicated, but this just a case with how differing perspectives are playing out and how Emilia views the world.

I personally don't recall Asuna dealing with anything with that kind of depth or many recent LN or mecha heroines with that kind of social stigma. And this not even getting into whether she is actually Satella or not.

So yes it's generic if you remove context of her statement from what we know about her cirmcumstances, implications of her backstory and her fairly distant disposition towards most people. But the same could be said for the other candidates. All of their ideologies are no less common than Emilia's, but makes them interesting is what it relfects about the deeper issues surrounding themselves.

So it's not something I view as safe, but something that makes a lot of sense for her character because if the gimpiles of we are seeing of she might been through for most of her life rather than some meta heroine thing. It's also offers a window to state of some of the social issues in Luginca.

The main problem with that context you spoke of is that it was very poorly handled so far. Aside from that legend Subaru was told and that great exposition\reaction Emilia gave back when he called her by the first name she gave him in the market, practically NOTHING else was said about it and then all of a sudden they mentioned it back in the royal selection (very timidly plot-wise) just as way to bash her and get Subaru angry.... In terms of storytelling and even getting us to create empathy for her status, it just was executed badly here.

I get that we see this world through Subaru's eyes and we'll only get the big picture when he does, but that only serves to prove that she was right to say that he's idealizing her in his head and doesn't know the real her, since all he knows is what we know and it's that she is a generic "princess" character with a probable terrible past that we know nothing about. So his actions were that of a creepy teenager stalker that has this picture of his ideal girl in his head (due to a first encounter in which she was kind to him) and chases her around ready to defend her but without a single clue as to what's around him and what she really want.

As pathetic as this meltdown of his was, it served the purpose of him trying to understand her a little more and thinking before acting (at least i hope so).

[Sayaka Rei]

I don't think we can judge (or it would be fair) the character of Emilia at this point/this season, at least as long as the focus isn't on her.
Because of the enormous length of this series, the author take his time for that. Not that long, four arc.
It would be like judging Rem & Ram only with episode 4. They seemed only the classic maid ...

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by Loran Cehack

The main problem with that context you spoke of is that it was very poorly handled so far. Aside from that legend Subaru was told and that great exposition\reaction Emilia gave back when he called her by the first name she gave him in the market, practically NOTHING else was said about it and then all of a sudden they mentioned it back in the royal selection (very timidly plot-wise) just as way to bash her and get Subaru angry.... In terms of storytelling and even getting us to create empathy for her status, it just was executed badly here.

I get that we see this world through Subaru's eyes and we'll only get the big picture when he does, but that only serves to prove that she was right to say that he's idealizing her in his head and doesn't know the real her, since all he knows is what we know and it's that she is a generic "princess" character with a probable terrible past that we know nothing about. So his actions were that of a creepy teenager stalker that has this picture of his ideal girl in his head (due to a first encounter in which she was kind to him) and chases her around ready to defend her but without a single clue as to what's around him and what she really want.

As pathetic as this meltdown of his was, it served the purpose of him trying to understand her a little more and thinking before acting (at least i hope so).

You don't need know everything need about Emilia to understand some of the issues she grappling with in the story. Your given enough you hints, mainly through showing rather then telling. Rem was handled the same way until ep 11 told her backstory. Furthermore Emilia most likely going to be present thoughout the story where others will come and go so fine for her layers to be gradully peeled back. Partially also because she not at level of intamcy with Subaru were her past can be directly be shared.

[moridin84]

Having a main hero/heroine try to push forward equality as an agenda is kind of cheap.

From a medieval perspective, it's a radical and shocking viewpoint but it's easy to think up with the power of hindsight.

Also telling the privileged class (the nobility) that she wants to make everyone equal is only slightly less stupid than what Felt said.

Originally Posted by Sayaka Rei

I don't think we can judge (or it would be fair) the character of Emilia at this point/this season, at least as long as the focus isn't on her.
Because of the enormous length of this series, the author take his time for that. Not that long, four arc.
It would be like judging Rem & Ram only with episode 4. They seemed only the classic maid ...

We are half way through the series and she's the main heroine.

[Sayaka Rei]

We are half way through the series and she's the main heroine.

Half way of anime, something like 1/15 of this series.
If we consider it as a normal lenght LN, we are about halfway through the second volume.
But I understand what you mean, it's simply a choice of the author.

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by moridin84

Also telling the privileged class (the nobility) that she wants to make everyone equal is only slightly less stupid than what Felt said.

No less stupid than telling them you're force them to abandon their deity who they have prospered from for centuries, or telling them they should support you just because you have some divine luck. One way or another everyone of the candidates have something pretty radical for culture of the country.

[moridin84]

Originally Posted by Sayaka Rei

Half way of anime, something like 1/15 of this series.
If we consider it as a normal lenght LN, we are about halfway through the second volume.
But I understand what you mean, it's simply a choice of the author.

Using that logic, it's not just Emilia, we can't make any judgements on the show at all.

No less stupid than telling them you're force them to abandon their deity who they have prospered from for centuries, or telling them they should support you just because you have some divine luck. One way or another everyone of the candidates have something pretty radical for culture of the country.

True I suppose.

(I kind of didn't pay attention to the speeches)

[Applehell]

Sayaka Rei is correct though. In terms scale of within the overall story we are still really just in the prologue. At least until the 2nd half of this arc. I know it can be easy to forget, but this is still just an adaptation.