Re:zero rant

The current season of Spring 2016 has generally been a bore; almost everything airing is either really boring or executed poorly. At best, Flying Witch offers a relaxing atmosphere combined with some interesting details here and there. At worst, there is one series that piss me off like no other; a series so asinine and completely engulfed in its self-convinced intelligence and put no stop in employing whatever poor writing techniques while maintaining the pretention of telling an actual story. Episode by episode, this series has managed to drive me to the point of actually putting the effort of documenting everything I hate about this show, Re:Zero

Being a part of the endless wave of shitty Light Novels adaptation crashing upon the anime industry wreckage that this show is, of course it would feature yet another generic premise and if you weren’t sharp enough to see this from the synopsis, it’s SAO. MC-kun is summoned into another world, found his fated bitch and then shit happens, that kinda stuff. There’s so little novelty left in this I actually think people stopped giving a shit about whatever variation they try to come up with.

What seems to make this show appealing, to whoever actually decide to watch this appears to be because it features time travel. Although there’s undoubtedly good reasons to be investing in stories with such a complex and difficult plot point and the outcome, if executed correctly, can be greatly rewarding; this double edged sword turns upon the writer easily the moment he makes a mistake. For every Madoka or Steins Gate (bar the last 2 episodes), there are a gazillion series that trip over itself in its attempt to line up the disjointed storyline. For example, look no further than last season’s “Hype anime” Boku dake Inai Machi, or ERASEthisanime. In the climactic moment of the last arc, the series failed to connect its previous arcs into a cohesive and guided narrative, instead having to make up some idiotic character reasoning and ridiculous plot convenience to set up the final showdown. The thing is, in a time travel series assuming the character retain his memory, the emotional stake increase with each repetition and as such raise expectation so high that any series unable to meet this will just crumble under its own ambition. With Re:zero, the series is seriously inept at even understanding what its emotional stakes are. Each repetition doesn’t build upon the next, they occur randomly as if the main character doesn’t really remember what happened the last time. Essentially it makes a big waste of time for anyone not watching this series for the sheer purpose of watching a series featuring time travel. Now I know episode 7 (the latest as of this being written) did feature some sort of development, which I will address later; however, this doesn’t change that the first 6 episodes are utterly devoid of any progress and for all I know the new arcs will probably start out the same.

The script of this show is really what drive me insane, however. Surpassing even the likes of Subete F ni naru or fellow LNs’ endless exposition, Re:zero carve itself into my heart as something that manage to piss me off everytime someone opens their mouth. For the rest of this paragraph, I will try to demonstrate how the dialogues of this show goes. The script is utterly overlong and overstuffed, for reasons I can’t comprehend but can’t resist to contemplate within my head to make myself sound extremely reasonable; every dialogue never seems to end but contain very little meaningful or significant content, making everything seems to last forever; reasons for which I will probably assume that author, like all other shitty LN authors, want to fabricate the pretention of being smart just by presence of many words, which is clearly not an effective strategy; I have also heard that source material is seriously long despite being written in the span of only 2 years, which is absolutely mind boggling and makes me question as to how does one even read the novel with even longer and more meaningless paragraphs, maybe the person like to read a lot but I don’t see why he can’t just read something more entertaining than walls of hollow text.

The show is full of dialogues like this, infested with run on sentences, nonsense expositions within expositions that get followed up with more nonsense talking, all the while offering 0 value to the plot or characters. The generic excuse of character interaction doesn’t apply here either as there’s no attempt to characterise anyone or deepen character relationship, unless you consider MC-kun repeating the same pick up lines development or something.

As if this isn’t bad enough, this series made the decision to even include shitty meta humour that just seems to be in every fucking LN these days. Look, series like monogatari makes a fortune with it because it actually do something with the trope. JUST BEING SAFE AWARE DOESN’T MAKE YOU A GOOD PARODY. The seemingly useless dialogues in monogatari always carry much more metaphorical meaning and actually get incorporated into the arc later on. Re:Zero decides to be even more obnoxious than that, however, it doesn’t even use it for parody purpose. In any given scene, the main character will just mention about how it would be totally like an anime if this were to happen next and things proceed just as he said, which is often not even meant to be interpreted as funny. It’s not clever; it’s not subversive; it’s just calling to the fact that it knows everyone knows this shitty trope will happen. How does anyone watching this show not get at least insulted by this is beyond me.

It’s this tendency to put up the front of being aware of what they’re doing that puts my cynicism into overdrive; as a result whatever poor writing device they use turn the series even more grating. For example, the first arc featured 4 repetitions, or 80 minutes worth of content. Despite showing that MC-kun is aware of being “trapped in a fantasy” he cant figure out for shit that he returns to a check point everytime he dies; despite consistently showing his resolution to accomplish what he seeks to do, things ended up getting resolved because he got lucky and met the deus ex machine in the last repetition. Any series with an actual ounce of brain would have featured a planned path towards solving the problem; why not have him explore the extent of his power, why not have him at least conjure a list of possible courses of action and test them out. But no, the series feel like you will enjoy the talking and take whatever dumb Deus Ex Machina it use as genius.

It’s at this point that I’d like to address episode 7, which was certainly different and was bad in a whole different way. It’s not something new to the series, however, but rather one that became obvious because the issue of coherence is finally put to the front. Even in the first arc, there was this part MC-kun got cornered by generic bullies and for some reason he only managed to beat them in the second repetition, never again. There are various examples throughout the series; random things that are mentioned out of the blue that never become relevant after its utterance. Anyway, the issue with episode 7 is that it assumed that the audience and the MC has cultivated enough emotional weight from the past repetitions for a turning point, which isn’t true. Firstly, there was never any reason to care about any of the characters that appeared in this arc; they simply were there and talked with MC-kun. Secondly, there has never been any sort of significant relationship established that the episode try to show he cherished; all we have seen is a 2 second flashback randomly inserted that we don’t even understand the circumstances. And thirdly, the “emotional breakdown” is utter phony, because simply he never tried to begin with. Did we see him go through painstaking and emotionally crushing repetitions of trying to communicating with them, each with more effort than the next, trying to understand them? No. Therefore there was no reason he should even feel betrayed. If you felt sorry for him then I feel sorry for you because you’re a gullible sack of tears.

As expected of the quality of the writing, the series has no themes to speak of. Even in search anything of resemblance to a purpose the series seem to offer nothing. Is it about having a journey in a new world and experience the beautiful parts of it? Doesn’t seem like it. Is it about showing the emotional strain of a person retaining the memories that others do not? Not really, he doesn’t seem to care about much more than getting laid with waifu archetype-chan (or befriend her friends I guess). Is it about constructing an intriguing mystery with an answer constantly eluding our protagonist no matter how hard he try every time? Apparently not, he doesn’t try and there has been nothing worth considering a mystery (or even presented as one). There isn’t anything I can gather that can come even close to a narrative purpose so here’s my proposal as to how this abomination came into existence. The author wanted to write a self-insert fantasy about meeting cute girls in fantasy land that features time travel but he also reads SAO reviews so he try to disguise it as best he can with: “”Dark”” themes.
Unfortunately, blood and gore do not make themes, and including them doesn’t make the series mature. If anything, this create a whiplash between what happens 90% of the episodes and the random edgy moments that offers nothing other than just being there.

MC-kun, whose name I believe is Subaru, is exactly like the show, terrible. Many parts of his characterisation done poorly I have discussed before; his motivations are shallow, being nothing more a desire getting into a girl’s pants; his actions, in conformity with the plot, puts the pacing of the show at snail’s pace and his development is essentially a simple realisation he could have made back on episode 2 if he wasn’t preoccupied with trying to get into Emilia’s pants time and time again. We know nothing of his character outside his self-introduction as some NEET who work (so not a NEET) and he’s fit. In spite of this, the show assumes we are supposed to care about what even happens to him (episode 7) which is nothing short of insulting.
As with all LNs, the side characters are either useless damsel waifu archetypes or useless characters who exist for the purpose of exposition.

With all that said, it’s very confusing to me as to why this show is liked. At the time of writing this, Re:zero is has an average rating of 8.56 on MAL, ranking 78. It’s also the 3rd most popular for the Spring season, following the second season of Attack on Titan and Boku no Naruto Ripoff. There is a lot to be said about the reliability of MAL statistics but I can never seem to get a grasp of a well substantiated reason why someone would consider RE:zero to be great. It’s usually either “I like the concept”, “the girls are cute” or “I like how it’s dark”, all of which I have addressed above. If episode 7 was to be episode 2 I could see why someone would be invested in whatever the MC attempts with his power but this is not the case. How someone manages to sit through the first 6 episodes of absolute nothingness and finds it interesting baffles me.

Going into the rest of the series, I plan to keep an open mind. Episode 7 even with all it problems does seem suggest the possibility the show might actually go somewhere now. Whether or not this potential can be realised is up to the author, whom as you can tell I really don’t truth or respect.

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Originally I planned to chop this thing up twice a cour but since the current arc just ended but there are likely nothing worth discuss of the likely repetitive nonsensical first 2 episode of the next arc I thought it would be better to just complete my analysis of the second arc first.

Following the revelatio- err realisation from Subaru that he could use, or rather abuse, his power to develop a better understanding of the people he meets to figure out what’s the root of the problem; the arc actually decide to progress in 4 episode consecutively (!!!!) to reach a conclusion. Besides the fact that it completely ignores the possibility of using his respawn as a mechanism to further develop the mystery/story (like what, you know, makes sense with the premise), I’m actually fine with the decision to finally stop dilly dallying around. And for this I congratulate the show of graduating from disgusting abominable garbage to typical garbage. However, on this blog a minor improvements don’t make trash stop being trash and everything, good or bad, is to be put under scrutiny.

Mystery/Progression

In my previous rant I completely dismissed any sort semblance of a mystery from Re:zero; in hindsight, I think my presumption is even more justifiable of the previous episodes. After actually getting a grip of himself and allowing the story to actually move forward. In this, we see that NONE of this has anything to do with what came before. Turns out there isn’t even any sort of mysterious figure in the dark or overarching major events that has been leading to Subaru deaths, rather they are just haphazardly plot points made up on the spot to reset everything. As this timeline continues the only thing that becomes more apparent is how disconnected and unrelated it is from the previous ones; the mysterious killer does his thing indiscriminately and did not even receive a speck of screentime besides being evil and bad. This abrupt shift comes unnaturally because of the dearth of information resulted by the nonsensical stuff occupying run time in every episode; had the revival plot point used even remotely competently, the progression would have been much smoother.

By the end of the arc, as if recalling what Subaru said about trying to understand the maids in episode 7 (which I assume is like 20 volumes apart in the overstuffed novel), it inserts this completely asinine sobstory that doesn’t correlate with the “plot” of the arc or how the character has been shown just to have this episode with lots of crying.

Characterisation

The story of the 2 maids, or really just the blue one, is probably and admittedly the only instance thus far that the series has actually been clever. I’m not referring to the fact that the blue demon from the story is the red maid vice versa hurr durr. I’m referring to the clever twist that they ended up swapping roles following the traumatic event which would have been amazing and extremely interesting in a series that actually managed to portray these characterisation before the one episode with lots of crying. At which point have we seen Rem actually acting as the protecting figure for her sister, who btw is extremely shallow despite being a part of this backdrop as well. At which point have we seen Rem crumbling under the weight of the expectations she has placed on herself before the crying episode. It was never a part of her characterisation before this episode where they have to try explain the character in the most contrived way possible; hell they even had the choice of showing her protecting Ram at any point by including her in the shawolfman investigation. There are simply no effort put into constructing this narrative throughout the arc, resulting in chunky incoherent segments that doesn’t support one another. Furthermore, it’s not apparent at all how either of the maid arrived at a resolution following these events; Rem was told to not be so hard on herself, but in doing what? On the off chance that random wolves might attack again and force her to use her power again? Because I really don’t see how she will be doing anything different than she already did at the status quo. I don’t know how much of this is lost between adaptation, if it were there in the source material then shame on White Fox but my experience with this kind of series usually point towards the lacklustre source.

Just as a side note, there’s something I find confusing and correct me if I’m wrong but I think the red – blue demon story is definitely not about “protecting” like the show use it. Meanwhile the theme of the story shouldn’t be taken literally, wasn’t it more about sacrificing yourself for the happiness of others and how it doesn’t always reward you? Ram didn’t lose her horn or went on an edgy killing streak of her own kind or something of the sorts to protect Rem; it was just unfortunate for her to lose in a raid by these random ku klux klanmen, regardless of whether she happened to lose it in front of Rem. Alternatively, it’s not like Rem was actively putting Ram in front of her and did everything in her power to ensure her happiness. You see, there has already been something that did this well; only in 1 episode but showed a much better understanding nevertheless. Ore Monogari first episode portray this metaphor exquisitely through setting up a scenario that actually correlate with the story; regardless of how the series falters afterwards it was a very good episode showing how character is really the embodiment of the metaphor. Furthermore, before this point is even made, having metaphors in a series isn’t really a merit, especially when executed poorly like this series; it’s a thing that has been done by so many other LNs specifically as well (Campione!, Rakudai, Yuuki Yuusha, Highschool DxD or god forbid, Momo Kyun Sword) so don’t count on calling it unique.

Typical structure problem

I have mentioned and explained a lot of times why the typical and standard clichés of LNshit makes them incredibly poorly written and often frustrating to watch but not much about how the typical structure in which they are constructed is also fairly problematic; this season provides an interesting contrast in Re:zero and Hundred which makes a good point to expand on this topic. In general consideration for the plot, the 2 are essentially identical and to pretty much all the typical shows of this type being cloned rapidly. The “plot” is always broken up into clunky chunks of incoherent and disconnected stories because of the way LNs are organised into volumes with their own buildups and climaxes. The focus is almost always about the girl on the cover of the volume, meaning showing how she fall in love with the super awesome MC-kun and then slap on some typical sobstory to guilt trip you into thinking she’s well written character. This structure is extremely detrimental to their anime adaptations as there’s most likely no coherent continuous narrative (unless it’s lucky to be in the hands of genius that make shows like Baccano); the characters also suffer because the spotlight is always shifted to the new character who in turn lose screentime to establishing their archetype and whatever exposition needs to be included in the volume. Everyone watching Hundred knows exactly what it’s up to and instantly arrive at the conclusion it’s just one of those anime; yet for some confusing reason the same viewers watching Re:zero instantly claim that it’s the best thing since umm the last season overhyped LN adaptation. As a critical watcher I really can’t see where they differs substantially beyond superficial details; the main character is bag of wish fulfilment traits with no real will of his own, the female characters are subjects of fantasy, misogyny and objectification, the setting is bunch of unexplored scifi nonsense and the plot doesn’t progress in any coherent or interesting way.

The “mystery” aspects of the show also suffer from a lot of recurrent problems with mystery series these days. After the establishing the main mystery, being in this case pretty much WhodunkilledSubaru, there’s a need to maintain interest through an outflow of relevant information and consistent progress in unravelling it. However what tends to happen is that these series tend to hide as much information possible, probably in an attempt to mask how abysmal the actual mystery is, to create this illusion that there’s a lot more to learn about. For those enjoying the thrill of ride solely for the sake of it this is completely but when the truth is revealed in all its anticlimactic fashion, many will end up disappointed. For the second arc of Re:zero, there’s so little revealed despite the number resets until the last one, which then reveal not much of what little he learnt is of importance; resulting in some of the most lame, pointless and poorly structured mystery ever made.

Emilia is a shitty character

As much as I want to say I am open to improvement at any point, it’s has only been becoming more certain to me that the author has no intention of making Emilia a proper character (Asuna did get some spot light … 45 episodes in though). Meanwhile it’s easy to label her just as another objectified trophy, there’s a few things about her that makes it extremely aggravating to watch. Being essentially the raison d’etre for Subaru and playing supposedly one of main role of the story to come, the way she’s written is absolutely abhorrent, horrific and disgusting. Despite her role in the story, all she has ever been is this damsel who continuously fuel teenage boy fantasy by being helplessly useless and only do things that pander to Subaru. The point to which this ridiculous proposition is played out is hugely damaging to her character. Her supposed competency in combat is made irrelevant by the fact the fact she needs to saved and later told to sit still while Subaru do the manly work (totally not misogynistic!); her supposed determination and kindness is only made relevant when she’s giving some kind of reward to Subaru for trying a bit harder or something. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if getting laid with her become the ultimate endpoint or something. When characters are treated like this I find it extremely hard to give even a shred of concern or respect to them, no matter how attractive their character design may be.

Poorly dialogues continue to be consistent and enraging problem in the show. Meanwhile the decrease in obnoxious “meta” comments is highly welcomed; the show still struggle to create a dialogue that isn’t directionless, full of nonsense exposition and change abruptly. Like I explained earlier, not only are these extremely annoying to watch, they also negatively affects the screen time available for characterisation and further flesh out the story. For example, in the episode 8 following the melodramatic episode 7, one would expect the show at least show some sort of tact and maintain the tone of the previous episode. Instead what we got was this overlong explanation about how powers in this world and let Subaru learn one technique to be used once later in the arc. It’s a poor investment that could have been simply been removed and in turn allowed a lot more to be done, like fleshing out the problem with Rem suspicion in the very same episode that wouldn’t have been resolved by a magical nap lap. More importantly, besides the pacing issues these expositions incur, there’s another issue with them, Who The Hell Cares? There’s never enough correlation between what the characters blabbering about and what actually happens in the arc that it makes them boring to sit through.

What following arc holds
With the second arc coming to a close after Subaru got lucky, again, and Rem denied of having any actual development and transformed Subaru’s harem member, Re:zero launches into a new arc which returns to the royal elections. All things considered, this setting provide a far better opportunity for the show to utilise its potential even with what little and typical political intrigue it managed to set up. Whether the show can really step up its game and actually delve into the intricate details of a political intrigue and finally put its respawn mechanics to proper use is entirely up to the author.

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Closing on my previous discussion (rant) of Re:zero I tried to adopt an optimistic outlook towards the newest arc. In all fairness, the first episode alone does give a false impression of what the arc entails; thus I could never foresaw the ugly, hideous mess that is about to unfold before my eyes.

First and foremost, it’s utterly incomprehensible to me what the show is trying to show or where it is going. It is not a problem that’s new to the show, as I have already discussed previously how the previous arcs are also poorly structured and constantly fail to build on anything. The issue here is that this problem becomes even more exacerbated when the show try to raise the stakes without providing the depth or fleshing out the details of the story at hand; the result being a mess of nonsense events that tries so hard to give the impression of having tension meanwhile in reality a series of incoherent plot points. Episode 17 exacerbates this problem even further, with massive plot twists being slapped onto each other like an Uno game; needlessly to say each plot twist not only hold no impact of their own, but also undermine whatever happened before it.

With each episode going for something different, it’s obvious why the overall structure suffers but even on their own, the individual episodes also suffer from terrible, horrible writing; making the watching experience of this arc even more gruesome. Episode 13 forces some serious stupidity in order to have some nonsense discussion about chivalry and follow it up by some of most unnecessary, inconsequential and especially unchivalrous act. The episode also feature this argument between Emilia and Subaru as though their relationship so far has been anything beyond him wanting her oblivious pussy; it’s not substantiated, it’s pretentious, it’s empty and it does very little in the way of developing either character. Episode 14 features the start of endless torture of Subaru doing anything but learn (even worse than him doing nothing to progress the plot), the majority of the episode dilly dally around until it brings up this random plot point where emilia castle get attacked (swiftly becoming the focus of the arc and not the election because fuck you); edginess ensues, ending with the typical cliffhanger corpse fake out and you’re left wondering, what was the fucking point of that. Episode 15 is one that is especially bad, so bad it’s almost funny featuring, for no particular reason, the Ku Klux Klansmen being REAL CRAZIE about killing indiscriminately. The show doesn’t even care about explaining why or how this is happening or how it related to Rem/Ram incidence; it shows the guy talking about nothing for 10 minutes because it can, it shows random torturing because it can and it makes Subaru pretending to be heartbroken mute doll because it can and the show needs all the more edginess to pretend it’s mature. Episode 16 masquerade as having Subaru trying to solve the problem (finally) but only to reveal that it has no intention of constructing a consistent narrative immediately drift back to nonsense expositions and events that doesn’t relate to the last.

In particular, Episode 17 was so incoherent and haphazardly put together that it’s almost a microcosm of all the problems in the series. Subaru is incapable of reflecting on himself or learn anything; female characters are barred from having any sort of personal will (including the disgusting method of erasing the only instance of characterisation in the show – Rem’s relationship with her sister); the plot trainwreck in spectacular fashion with nonsense plot twists and dumb contrived dramatic scenes that holds nothing more than shock value. I could go on in excessively more details why any of these episodes suck even by themselves but at this point I would be repeating myself.

If you have actually been reading what’s written here, I have put a lot of emphasis on having a focus and being coherent in creating a narrative, which I hope I don’t have to explain why that’s the case. However, one could make the case that you don’t always has to have a linear narrative which I completely agree. Innovative story telling is what makes series like Baccano so interesting but before we let that dreamy notion pass over our heads, let’s make it clear that Re:zero has shown in no way that it’s aiming for this super stylistic and amobitious approach. Never has it demonstrate the ability to connect the loose ends of whatever dumb plot points it brought out only to be left as lingering questions. Even on first viewing of Baccano you can tell that, despite the constantly time lapse, the narrative is still focused on one point, being the events on the Flyingpussy. This arc of Re:zero, in contrast, features: introduction of the other contenders (why?), preach about chivalry (why?), have Subaru turn into a stubborn cunt (why?), a ku klux klan attack (why?), torture (why?), an insane evil leader (why?), the other contenders making fun of him (why?), a whale (why?), memory erase (why?) … and so on. It would be understandable for someone who watches this series just for sheer sake of seeing a lot of plot twists but the circulating notion that this show is somehow clever only become more baffling by the day.

Even in consideration that these incoherent events are meant to somehow show Subaru sinking into madness, it’s hardly a strong case. Sure it had a lot of elements that would suggest to you that he wasn’t mentally stable but there’s barely any indications that these elements all serve a singular intention. Episode 16 didn’t follow on episode 14, 15 and episode 17 doesn’t relate to any of the ones before it. In comparison, there has been many series that has done this well that’s extremely easy to see without having to selectively pick out details that support your point and ignore others. Kaiba starts with chaotic details and later focus on explaining its start; evangelion expands its characters mentality with chaos and madness in later episodes. Or for an even more potent example in any of Satoshi Kon's work where the progression is hardly even smooth or logical but still manage to construct an overall picture dabbed with insanity. So maybe the author may well intended this but in presentation nothing came through.

Now I am fully aware that there is one overarching plot point that has been the only thing consistent in this series, being the witch topic which possibly also involve Subaru power and his reason for being summoned. I would totally understand why anyone would find this interesting but in all practicality, I find that this has never been given enough spotlight, or interwoven into the narrative in anyway that makes it something worth considering it about. How am I meant to hold anything but indifference to a plot point that never receive any explanation other than just shocking comments about his power or the repetition of how the witch is disliked. I’m not saying that it’s a bad plot point, however, as it could still go anywhere but it’s certainly not one would concern me at this stage.

To further my point that has somehow not become boring already, this arc hasn’t even come close to establish any sorts of coherent theme even with all these “dramatic” events. Even the last arc’s twin demons metaphor create an abysmal semblance of some sort thematic message; hell, even the generic light novels can tread on some sort of cliché message about protecting your loved ones or something; Re:0 third arc has absolutely nothing. Is it something about being stupid and stubborn? Is it something about helplessness caused by stupidity? Is it something about being unable to escape your fate or your past? It’s hard to discern what’s being communicated with all the dumb shock value infused absurdities that happens on screen, if there was any to begin with.

YOU KNOW NOTHING SUBARU
One of the major confusions (out of the hundreds) that I have while watching this arc is for what godforsaken purpose are we shown the events surrounding Subaru this way. It’s hard to decipher whether the series want us to realise that he is leading himself into destruction like a Shakespearean tragedy (inane comparison I know) or to sympathise with what he’s going through being something he can’t avoid, or whether all this farce is somehow meant to represent his spiral descent into madness. The fact of the matter is, it is really none of this. The only explanation for his irrational behaviour is that the plot demands him to be so to introduce whatever dumb plot twists it needs to; keep in mind this problem is not exclusive to this arc alone, but merely become more obvious in face of an utterly incompetent plot. For example, let’s look at episode 15 where Subaru, once again resolving to the silly “mental breakdown” bullshit that he knows won’t solve anything only to be revealed by another character that he isn’t even good at pretending to be crazy; what purpose does this serve the plot or his character? did it allow the view to reach a deeper understanding of his inner thoughts? And did this allow him to learn anything? Nope, nope, nope. Or in episode 16 where the show pretends to give the impression of progress only to find itself at another deadend because, as a result of his (and the author’s) inept ability of thinking outside the box (seriously, there are a lot of more ways of showing that you know the future without telling so) Subaru knows absolutely nothing which resulted in the plotline returning to incoherent gibberish afterwards. As a result, I have no idea whether I should care about his suffering or abhor him because of his actions.

Despite this, there has been claims of Subaru’s character development during this arc which is insanely mind boggling to me. He literally did the same thing that got him into shit several episodes ago. Moreover, it’s important that people realise what character development really constitute instead of just claiming any resolution to do something to be development; Subaru HAS NOT CHANGE AT ALL. His motivation are exactly what they were and he has not gained anything from all of this. If you’re somehow still under this illusion please realise that this arc has just set up Subaru this way from the start to halfassedly pull him out of it.

What really piss off me off about how this arc goes about “”developing”” Subaru however is that many of the major “twists” involve Rem more than Emilia; this is such a poor decision on so many levels I don’t really see how I have to explain why it is so. But for the sheer sake of really picking this series apart let’s delve into this. The arc begins by showing Subaru accompany Emilia to the selection … introduction ceremony??, giving you the illusion that emilia will actually play a more major role in this arc; later on we find them in an argument showing emilia is actually concerned about Subaru suicidal and socially inept behaviours (and probably how creepy he acts towards her, like seriously) resulting in her parting him. Now at this point even an idiot (I hope) can tell that it would be a development arc that’s at least decent if they somehow show him coming to terms with his shortcoming and somehow win back Emilia’s confidence. EXCEPT EVERYTHING ONWARDS ONLY INVOLVE REM. What is the point of setting up this dramatic tension between them only to not expand on it. By sticking him with Rem, there’s nothing to be gained for either of them, Subaru cant develop because of Rem and neither could she as there’s going for them to grow off of. Even in later episodes where Subaru has taken the initiative to make things happen, the plot still refuses to involve Emilia in the events concerning her own life, highlighting even more its desire to keep Emilia this perfect submissive helpless waifu archetype that will never accomplish anything without her strong boyfriend (who again acts creepy as hell towards her). I have mentioned before about how abhorrent this disposition is to the character and detrimental to the story and it just persists and aggravates.

I have not touched much on the characters in this series besides Subaru, Rem and Emilia as they really don’t serve any purpose worth speaking about. And much like how this arc exemplify all the problems of the series, the new characters are even more pointless than the previous ones. For what purpose was the candidates introduced an arc that doesn’t even concern them other than to introduce these girls archetypes into the story as if we haven’t enough already? Even when the plot tries to involve them it just becomes clear that there’s absolutely no reason for them to be in this narrative. For what purpose was the purple hair knight introduced besides to give some nonsense speech about chilvary? This list goes on and on.

In summary, it can be seen that many of this arc problems are really just exacerbation of existing ones but when put into something that’s meant to resemble a continuous narrative become an extremely infuriating and senseless mess. As the arc have yet to end, there is still a miniscule possibility that the series may somehow rectify itself but all these episodes, in addition to ridiculous baseless claims have again drove me insane.



Conclusion, sort of
Instead of trying to be futilely optimistic again this time, I would like to close out this rant with a shameless opinionated plug so here we go.
I distrust everyone, if there’s anything watching and criticising anime has taught me it is that no one’s opinion regarding art is to be trusted. I don’t mean it in a negative sense to sound edgy but that you really have to see and judge a series for yourself. The reason why series like SAO and NGNL make it big and on a smaller scale, Danmachi, Assterisk war, Overlord, Rokka, GATE and of course, Re:zero being popular among online boards is because they thrive on modern viewer’s desire for cheap, not brain-intensive popcorn entertainment. Evidently, all the empty “hype” for the latter shows went away as soon as they finished airing because of the thorough lack of impact that they have. That’s not to say these people are incapable of judging for themselves but I meant that the way the entertainment culture has grown to be is that people are more willing to be immersed in a series with obviously poor writing for escapism purposes and in confidence that what they have been recommended is good. It’s fairly common to see users on boards (from the obviously representative one board that I use) ask for which good series they should watch (or the more arrogant ones that claim they have seen every possible good anime out there); it’s obviously easier to watch something (someone told you) is good as opposed to figuring out why it is so yourself. This is all extremely understandable however, as of course not everyone has the time for, or is interested in analysing everything they watch extensively and thoroughly. Still I would make the case of encouraging people, which I hope to achieve by putting time into these ramblings, to at least try expressing how they feel about the show rather than to just jump the next bandwagon that comes by next season.