Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 3

Re:Zero has long since established itself as one of the greatest isekai series of all time. It’s shown us time and again the possibilities and heights this genre can reach with a competent writer, delivering some of the most famous and beloved scenes in the history of the medium. I mean hell, one of the most iconic characters of all time hasn’t even been around in two seasons. This show has become one of the most iconic in history, yet season 3 manages to blow everything we’ve seen out of the water. White Fox have always been a great studio, but the attention to detailand quality that went into season 3 of Re:Zero are through the roof. From more light novel accurate character designs, to better pacing, to enhancing big moments from the LN, this was incredible. Arc 5 is my favourite arc in the series and this season did it justice. It both tugs on the heartstrings and makes you want to jump out of your seat with excitement. There’s a little bit of something for everyone in this season and every single cast member gets a big moment to shine. Well done White Fox, you were at your best here. I personally have always been pretty pleased with the job WF did on Re:Zero. Yea, some monologues and scenes were removed or swapped around, but that’s how it goes adapting a book. They have always nailed the characters, the eerie atmosphere, the world and story and that’s the most important thing. But season 3 marks a change in the approach. It’s clear either fan feedback has been heard by the production committee or the staff themselves wanted to focus on bringing everything out of the source material this time around. The number of episodes, splitting the season into two, going with extended length episodes a couple times, White Fox felt much more in command of the story this time around and it couldn’t have come at a better time since Arc 5 sees Subaru take on his greatest challenge yet. We’ve seen him fight one archbishop, but in this season he has to take on FOUR. As you can imagine that’s not something he can do alone, so teamwork has never been more important than in this arc. When I say every single character gets a big moment to shine and grow, I mean it. It’s truly a group effort to overcome the archbishops and save the city from impending doom and it’s only achieved thanks to everyone stepping up and surpassing their limits. Look, I was hype as hell reading this arc and seeing Garf, Priscilla, Otto, Wilhelm etc get their big moments, but seeing it animated with the incredible animation WF brought to Priscilla’s big fights, Garf’s big showdown, Regulus v Subaru, Wilhelm’s big moment etc., just made it that much better. This season also showcased just how deep and complex the magical and ability systems are in this world. The sheer number of fighting styles on display this season was cool to see. Tappei-sensei has put so much work into this world and I’m glad it’s paying off. Simply put, this season of Re:Zero just feels bigger and better than anything before it while acting as a platform for Subaru to showcase his growth. He’s always been someone who overcomes insane obstacles that would break most people, but this is the start of a new Subaru. A much bolder and more confident protagonist who can stand up to characters of immense strength and not backdown because he KNOWS he will find a way to overcome, even if it requires dying a few times. For a guy that’s suffered as much as anyone in this medium has, to see him grinning with that sort of confidence was such a treat, even the other characters who are much stronger than him have supreme confidence that he’ll figure out a plan to save the day. Our Subaru is no longer someone who stands behind others, but now he’s leading from the front and even able to strategically go on the offensive like we see in his big archbishop fight. It’s a full circle moment that feels very satisfying given the hardships Subaru has dealt with. But he’s not alone, Emilia, Otto, Garf, etc., all showed tremendous growth in this season and in some ways it feels like the start of a new era for our characters. They’re battle hardened and ready to go on the offensive against the witch’s cult. Production wise, RZ season 3 has got a total makeover. The pacing, direction, art style, animation, EVERYTHING is the best it’s ever been in the franchise. Admittedly I’m limited in the WF series I’ve seen, but Garfiel’s fight scene might be the best piece of animation this studio have ever made. Emilia’s big action scenes looked great and of course my beloved Pristella got so much attention to detail. My favourite tweak was the character designs though. I love Otsuka-sensei’s art, so seeing the anime get closer to that was a welcome change! I think this season of Re:Zero is as close to perfect as one can get. I know there’s some fans who still weren’t satisfied with some details being cut out, but you can’t please everyone nor can you ever really cram everything from a 300 page book into a tv show. It just doesn’t work that way. White Fox did a great job of conveying things from the books using flashbacks, direction techniques and more though. They went with a show don’t tell approach and it worked. Hell, this season was so good I came out of it an Emilia fan and I HATED her before. Now I agree with Subaru and think she AND Rem are the way forward. Great fights, emotional storytelling, the most interesting arc with the highest stakes, most intimidating villains and the biggest disadvantage for Subaru and Co. thus far. Their story of overcoming insane odds is the best Re:Zero’s ever been and one of the all-time great seasons. Re:Zero season 3 gets a very easy 10 out of 10.

Re:Zero Season 3 is an odd one. The animation quality was great, a huge step up from the previous season (which was most people's main complaint about it), and the content of this season story-wise was phenomenal, but after all is said and done, it felt like something was missing. This wasn't the case for the first few episodes. The element of mystery and tasteful despair really set this Season up to be on the level of Season 1, at least tonally, which was extremely promising; Unfortunately though, something changed part of the way into this Season. Perhaps it was because of the huge number of fights,or the large cast of characters that needed attention, but regardless of what the core issue was, it resulted in the majority of the Season failing to properly convey fantastical yet subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) dark elements that Re:Zero is built upon. After the first encounter, this Season genuinely felt akin to Shonen slop, with the perspective ping-ponging from one character and their fight to the next. At a glance one might assume that this is a given considering the events of this arc in the Light Novel, but what a lot of people don't understand is that parts of the source will always be cut in an adaptation, and in Season 3 they cut things that simply shouldn't have been cut. This is perfectly put on display in regards to a certain greedy guy who has a huge presence in this season. The fight with this figure in the anime is very goofy, which on its own is fine and really plays up this character's pathetic nature; but unlike for instance the Betelgeuse fight in the first season, which was goofy but still carried aspects of underlying horror/threat, this fight had none of that. I personally left that experience a little bit disappointed, having had great hopes for it; but I relented, assuming that in the source material that fight was the same way... apparently it wasn't?? Supposedly everything that was missing, such as genuinely menacing moments, and monologues that delved deeper into this character and their twisted nature, existed in the Light Novel but were excluded from the anime. This to me is frankly unacceptable from a directive standpoint. It would be different if they simply had too little time to include these things, but not only did they cut the season's contents down from what COULD have been 24 episodes, they devoted a good chunk of that specific fight as well as other ones to flashy moments and fanservice. I don't mind these things, but the fact that they were included while CORE elements of what this season SHOULD have been weren't, is silly. To put it in perspective, it's literally like if the moments where Betelgeuse talks to himself, explaining his logic and twisted sense of love, were omitted. These are core to helping the audience understand this character and their perspective, even if it's almost alien and frankly insane. To generalize what I've said and apply it to this entire season, it genuinely just needed more time allocated to its characters and the themes attributed to them. This is surely not exclusive to the aforementioned fight, and I have no doubt that there are other moments that fail to carry the energy that they should have. For example, I don't know for certain, but considering how out of place it felt in the anime, Garfiel's character arc definitely had aspects of it cut. To know for sure about any of these things I need to fully read the Light Novel (which I intend on doing), but until then, given Tappei Nagatsuki's amazing track record, I choose to believe that these flaws are all due to a failure to properly adapt the source. You cant even blame it on budget this time like you could with Season 2 Part 2, because all of these episodes looked phenomenal; It's simply a directing issue and I couldn't be more disappointed. I personally think that they did things in the way that they did in order to attract new viewers (tourists), but I'm probably not going to get confirmation on that. With all of this being said I love Re:Zero and consider it one of the greatest series ever conceived, so the lowest I can give this Season is a 7. This Season is by no means unwatchable, it's quite a fun watch actually (other than that Liliana episode holy &*#%), but if you appreciate the complexity of the earlier Seasons it will no doubt leave you feeling as if it could have been more. I just hope that the reception is mixed enough that White Fox understands what went wrong and gives the show a full 24 episodes for its next season. TLDR: Needed more episodes, with time dedicated to complex aspects of characters and tone-building, decided to clip farm with its budget instead.

Re:CUCK -Revenge of the Otakus in Another World- Season 3 is the worst in the series thus far, and the "rocking" OP that has all the smugly smiling characters lining up like they're walking into a capeshit film is telling. The dialogue and characters have always had weaknesses that were masked by the more intricate plotting, mystery, and tension of past seasons, yet with almost the entire cast bouncing off of one another with sassy one-liners and yucky banter in what has shapeshifted into a battle shonen, the series is at its most juvenile: Just look at the Looney Tunes ice skating chase with hammerbonks or the 12-year-old DBZ/Superman fanfic writing of one character heading to the moon and back to earth in less than a day. Early parts of Re:LOLI feel like they're set at a kindergarten because of all the lollygagging with lolis, upping the ante for the baby talk moerot like never before, until they're sent to nap time because of how long the battles are. Looking to the latter half, episode 14 is a contender for the worst episode of the franchise. At least half of it's a sluggish, pointless flashback consisting of information the viewer either knew already from the White Whale arc or didn't need to know. The forced drama and crybaby antics here look like a parody (except they're dead serious) of a soap opera. Re:SNOT has led me to realize how important animation and composition are for crying scenes in particular. A raw closeup of grandpa Astrea ugly crying all of his dignity away, with the tears practically looking like icicles stabbing him in the eyes because of how static the shot is, cheapens everything further. The sappy music is the rotten cherry on top. The director embraces the author's clumsy melodrama and makes it even more obvious, when an adaptation should try to diminish these issues rather than double down on them. There are also a few added characters and developments outside of the main plot and battles: There are new rambling villains, with Wrath being like a Diet Petelguese but with a poorly concealed identity, and the reveal will undoubtedly be butchered by the ridiculous melodrama. Liliana is a bard, who looks exactly like Trixie Kong, with a hackneyed filler backstory that she dumps on us in the middle of a battle because we just needed another flashback to Re:TARD the pacing. For the character with the most bloat in Re:BARF, there's Garfield boasting of being a "Gorgeous Tiger," the unconvincing "trauma" of having Elsa stalk him as a figment of his mind (as opposed to the more appropriate Subaru), a generic quest for vengeance, and a sappy backstory and "must protecc" side plot. We could have done without most of this, and it's hard to imagine anyone being moved by his portrayal, as the main reveal undermines any developments to his character from the Sanctuary arc and is embarrassing. There are cliche things with great execution in many cases, but this is told without any real craftsmanship. Most other characters aren't worth mentioning. Although not as expressionistic as other examples of weebish heroes, like Dandadan's Ken Takakura and his removable pork and beans, Subaru is perhaps one of the most well-rounded pathetic, simp, doormat, zero-to-hero archetypes to emerge from the collective consciousness of the otaku. Which is not to say that Subaru is a good character, but he represents all the trashy wish-fulfillment, otaku pandering, and "Just Like Me" syndrome cases, and Re:REEK distills it all into one of the stinkiest, please-change-out-of-your-Adidas-track-suit-that-you've-been-wearing-for-several-years-straight-and-take-a-bath packages. It's all there. A NEET with no confidence, who sits around playing video games and does unspeakable things with grill figurines, dies and is isekaied into a world where he is quickly thrown waifus and responsibility far more desirable than what he'd ever find back home. That's not to say Subaru's rise is without considerable effort, for Re:CUCK isn't the easiest of power fantasies, at least at first. Furthermore, while he is OP, it comes with a cost: He is a loser who fails over and over, soaking up the pain and rage of the otaku like a suffering messiah as he works through the elaborate plot like a puzzle and makes things right with the help of his reset hacks, various mommies of his harem course-correcting and pulling him up by his bootstraps, and numerous higher-status males who come to respect him and blow smoke up his increasingly smug and annoying ass. An obvious undercurrent running through the series has always been Subaru's self-loathing, relative uselessness compared to the other characters, the constant tone of "You're pretty awkward and not very reliable, but I can see how hard you try," and whiny insecurities. Of course, because of the "reset by death" hack he achieves great things. Re:CUCK is ultimately about the reformation or redemption of the NEET otaku, but since being a cog in the machine is not particularly inspiring, we're instead treated to an exciting fantasy world, adventure, and lots of waifus. The meeting of Emilia and Subaru in S1 of Re:SIMP, which has him ascending from would-be stalker to white knight by means of a plot convenience, goes something like this: Emilia: Boohoo! Oh, if only I could reform the kingdom and end discrimination against half-elves like me. Subaru: That sounds like a great cause, Emilia-chan. Tell me, does your hypothetical society discriminate against otakus wearing Adidas track suits, by any chance? Emilia: What's an otaku? Are those the vegetarian hobbits with smol Peepis that I've been hearing about lately? Subaru: Ahahahaha... forget I asked *Subaru shifts his beady eyes*. I would be honored to help as your knight, milady *Subaru kneels and takes Emilia's hand, his long, thin, forked tongue slithering out with a hiss*. It appears quite a bit of that redemption is underway by S3 because the tone is now much lighter, whereas S1 sometimes felt like a horror series, for it dripped with Subaru's despair (okay, that was probably just the waste seeping out of his track suit), reveled in crushing suspense, and what seemed like perpetual dying and resetting. By contrast, S3 has all the characters appearing to respect Subaru, and even though ikemen like Julius used to roast him on a spit (at least he got in his "loli tsukai" line in this season, which is equivalent to little girl user/tamer/wielder), they're now brothers in arms, if not outright bromancers. A number of his waifus had tsundere traits, yet almost all of that has vanished, with even Ram probably eventually getting the tsundere-to-deredere pipeline taming treatment in future installments. Subaru, unsurprisingly, gets the kindest, most unconditional, mommy-like moeblob of all time, Emilia, who can see his inner beauty beneath the track suit, as his main squeeze (any moeblob who will not accept him unless he takes off his track suit is trash!). There are a few reasons why the tsundere archetype is popular. One is because they are more difficult to tame, and the other reason is because the more beta society becomes, the more desire there is to be treated like a doormat. But I think the other thing to note is that even when the tsundere kind of likes or even begrudgingly comes to love the MC, when she's being mean to him, there is a subconscious knowing that the little rat bastard deserves every kick to the balls and wounding of his pride that he gets. There's almost none of that here, even though he deserves it for being such an insufferable MC; spare the rod, spoil the child! Nevertheless, Subaru is on his way to becoming one of the great men of Re:CUCK's world and acts like a smug bastard put on a pedestal and worshipped. I'm sure he'll go down in history for his laughable "Okay, everyone, listen up. I'm a loser and totally pathetic compared to all of my allies, but even I'm managing in this struggle, so you can too" speech. Then he's like, "Don't make fun of me... I know it's a bad speech... Uwaaaah..." And his allies are like, "Nuh uh, that was amazing, Subaru-sama." While it's a matter of taste whether one wants a series that's on the darker or lighter side, the author doesn't handle the latter quite as well. Just look at his villains. They are unhinged baby-eating psychopaths on meth, cocaine, and caffeine, all at once. There's the gruesome device of dying to reset the story. Subaru is quite troubled throughout much of the series. Many of the characters are exposed to trauma to the point of crumbling under the weight of a psychotic break. There was an outlandishness to the scenarios because Subaru would end up having to correct the most dire of outcomes and navigate through a labyrinthine and ever-changing plot, and we got to see things from different angles that added dimension or information to characters and events that we wouldn't acquire otherwise. The device is used a few times early on in S3 and is soon forgotten, without even the slightest tension of it being utilized again for most of the run. Part of why this season is so lackluster is that there was once a greater sense of mystery and more attempts at creating atmosphere, yet all of that fades away as a result of S3 being like a long-form version of a battle shonen film. The formula for films of this type is even more subpar than your average TV shonen because we're introduced to new villains without much, if any, development or backstory, everything is usually rushed and shallow, and these films rarely rise above being action fanservice. To seal the deal, we even get to see Subaru suddenly become a poorly dressed Indiana Jones, tripping villains and swinging across rooftops with his whip. Very quickly, rivalries form or various characters pair off to either overcome a challenge or because they have some kind of counter to one of the villains. The worst part about the various characters being paired up against the villains is that it, again, sounds like a puzzle meant to be solved, just like the way the reset was often used in the past. It would have been more gripping had they failed because of uneven pairings, leading to Subaru dying and realizing a need to rearrange the parties so they are better matched. There could probably be more insight into the villains this way, since we would get to see them be victorious at least once or more. There are too many battles going on at once for anything to be well developed. Even though several of the villains had been introduced prior, like Gluttony and Greed, none of them had many scenes or much to their characters, not to mention that content was cut for the adaptation. Petelguese stood out with his unhinged monologuing, and that's pretty much the course taken with all of the villains, yet the scenery chewing has ceased to be that amusing. None of the villains receive as detailed of a portrayal or an appropriate amount of time like Petelguese did, who we even got to see prior to his induction into the cult. There are hardly any insights into these villains as we watch the battles unfold. Going into this, what do we really know about Gluttony, for example, other than he made a few of Subaru's waifus forget things? We don't learn anything else about him until nearly the last episode, when the anticipation for his fights would have been greater if his scenes had been incorporated earlier into the series, and there's no reason this couldn't have been restructured more because most of the fights are occurring simultaneously. Even if you set aside the lack of resetting, the plot structure is less than ideal, and the finale is extremely rushed. But once you understand how the formula works, you'll realize that there's no chance for any of the main characters to die or for Subaru to use his reset by death, completely dissolving any tension or interesting progression for most of the season. If you reset in relation to one of the several ongoing fights, you have to reset all of them, and that's a hassle, which just emphasizes the laziness of this season's approach. The most important fight of Re:CUCK S3 ushers in the ultimate NTR and Revenge of the Otakus experience. As if to provide foreshadowing, there's a scene where Subaru is driving the carriage and Otto and Emilia are having a friendly conversation in the back. The ever-insecure Subaru almost drives off the road at numerous points for our first dose of cuckold comedy. To make this component hit below the belt even harder, there have been a few tweaks to the character design, but they are most obvious with Emilia because she is the main heroine and temporarily a damsel in the worst kind of distress: the dreaded NTR event! In past seasons, when there was regular conflict between Emilia and Subaru, the eyes were sharper around the edges (tsurime), but they are now much softer and rounder (tareme). The result is that she appears more innocent and docile, has an increasingly generic "girl next door" moeblob feel, and she has lost any mystique she had from earlier seasons and is just Subaru's boring trophy. They also apply a blush effect that makes her look like she's in heat and dtf, heightening the impression that the Archbishop of NTR's Peepi is looming over her like a sword of Damocles. Then we get to the main course of ball-busting suspense, for the Archbishop of NTR swaggers in and abducts Subaru's elfblob to take as his waifu. Of course, the Archbishop of NTR has like 72 virgins already, and I imagine his cowering harem will subtly convert to Subaru's outer harem once his nemesis bites the dust. The contrast here is supposed to be that the Archbishop of NTR is the most tyrannical and perverse scumbag, while Subaru is gentle and noble. If you look past the initial dominance of the Archbishop of NTR, in a sense, he's like the most narcissistic and smug otaku who plays multiplayer video games with cheat codes (invincibility hacks), collects waifus (note that the virginity check is something of a red herring and these waifus are purely objects of another sort), and goes on endless monologues on message boards about how incredible he is, all leading to him being an NTR hentai super villain. He is the most obvious mirror held up to Subaru; the Archbishop of NTR is essentially a villainous Subaru with unlimited power and no character development. Most isekai and otaku-centric shows at least implicitly interact with the idea of a redemption story, but the way these two characters are paralleled is a riot. The "7 deadly sins" are obviously meant to be a reflection of the MC's bad traits that he's working through in some sense, but the author lays it on really thick: He writes a story where Subaru (author/otakus) meets Emilia (crush) first and can goof up and have infinite resets to win her over and save the day, and he's such a well-meaning, dedicated simp that she falls for him. Then the author depicts the Archbishop of NTR (bully) as the villain responsible for using and abusing his many conquests (harem). You can tell the author is attempting to process his trauma of the high school bully cuckolding him by dating the girl of his dreams, dunking his head in the toilet, and stuffing him in a locker. The author simply reverses everything as part of his Re:CUCK -Revenge of the Otakus- plot. Finally, Subaru is so amazing and good that he has Reinhard (Chad), who he constantly notes is better than him and how inferior he feels next to him, save the day and step aside so Subaru and Emilia can be together. The author takes this fiasco so far that he finetunes the mechanics of Reinhard's sword draw to serve the double-edged purpose of enhancing the shaming of Regulus and making the later Astrea character arc more emotional, yet the latter is squandered because the author writes such contrived melodrama. Subaru spends most of his time in fights against the Archbishop of NTR shaming and talking down to him, cavorting around like a mooning monkey, screeching insults and flinging poo simultaneously. I've never seen a better example of a fight devolving into a glorified shaming ritual than this, and I can almost hear the author crying from the catharsis of having finally gotten the better of his bully through words in a popular LN series. If the author had put as much effort into plot and characters as he did shaming this one villain, then S3 could be a masterpiece! Subaru and Emilia's interactions with the witch cult, even when there should be "bombshell reveals," don't lead to any deeper insights or effective beats. The worst part is how they shot themselves in the foot by being so judgmental and spiteful with writing cues here, while being overly forgiving elsewhere. We know that the witch cult are villains who will eventually all be captured, reformed (Subaru needs to pad out his harem, after all), or killed. We're all flawed and grapple with these "sins," yet the witch cult brings out the absolute worst in an individual. We've already seen the transformation of Petelguese from a normal man into the monster that he became. All the leeway they give to Subaru and how we're supposed to feel sorry for him... well, isn't Regulus just a shade of Subaru at his lowest but with immense power to act out his most depraved fantasies? Regulus and the entire witch cult are really tragic figures, and the way they present this, with all the exploitative glee of gawking onlookers gathered around the carnival freak show, is a disservice to the themes and storytelling thus far. In a lot of ways, the power fantasy is far, far more pathetic in this segment of Re:CUCK than your average isekai where the MC is simply OP, and S3's naked, warts and all, writing makes it even more ridiculous.

I'm back, baby. Re:Zero fans' brains are trembling. If you don't know who I am, I currently (and, for the past 5 years) have had the highest-rated negative review of the second cour of Re:Zero Season 2 (albeit, it's a preliminary review, so if you want to see it, adjust your filters accordingly). My relationship with this show has been a complicated one through the years. I thought the first season was pretty solid–there were a lot of interesting things set up, the animation was clearly done with love, and the character designs were striking. But it also tired me with its long-winded speeches, boringexpository dialogue and self-indulgent navel-gazing. Then season 2 started and it was without a doubt one of the worst arcs of anime I’ve ever seen. I won’t retread my old review here, but what I will say is: after rewatching the whole series in preparation for season 3’s airing, I would absolutely double down on that original review now that the whole thing has aired and I could binge it in a day instead of watching weekly. Fast forward almost 5 years. We finally–FINALLY–get the 3rd season animated. I’ve often wondered why this show takes such long breaks in between seasons when it’s so successful, and I think in a way, that question is its own answer. This series is a money printing machine even when it’s not airing; with merch, light novels, and manga sales to keep the dollars (or, I guess, Yen) rolling in. With that solid financial foundation it can take its time in between seasons to give White Fox a chance to really cook with the animation and build hype with the fandom. That’s just my theory, anyway. Going into this show and coming off the heels of the Sanctuary arc I was fully prepared to hate this season with the same fiery passion that I hated the last one. And, well, apologies for burying the lede but: I actually, surprisingly, kinda liked this season. All of the haters who filled my DMs last time are going to have to put their pitchforks down, and maybe my long-winded introduction was just my way of edging you–you’ll never know. Anyway, since the vast majority of positive reviews here are just going to be fanboys glazing the show, I’ll take a slightly different approach and try to sell this season to you if, like me, you weren’t a fan of season 2. First huge positive change: we finally get a new location! Season 2 took place entirely in one place–and it had to be the most visually boring place in the world: the middle of the woods. For 25 consecutive episodes we ran around in the woods and I was begging to see more of the interesting world this story teased us with outside of the dumb Sanctuary. In season 3 we head to the Watergate City of Priestella, which is a Venice-inspired beautiful city built in the middle of a lake below the water level, leading to a complex system of locks and levies which looks visually interesting and immediately sparked my imagination. Then, there’s our cast. We finally pick up the plot thread of the royal selection candidates which we started at the end of season 1 and basically abandoned during season 2. Crusch, Priscilla, Felt, and the rest of the gang are back and boy did I miss them. Garfiel is still with us unfortunately (I wish we could have left him behind in the Sanctuary with his obnoxious shouting) but he wasn’t nearly as annoying of a presence in this season as he was in the last. Finally, we get to the real meat of the story. What actually happened in this season? Well, considering the first eight episodes are called the “Attack Arc” and the last 8 are called the “Counterattack Arc,” I think it’s no spoiler to say this is basically a long battle arc, and that fact has been mildly controversial in the community. I’ve seen people say this arc had way too much action and not enough plot or story progression and believe me, if there’s one thing I hate it’s big dumb action shows. But, my biggest problem with season 2 was that all of the conflict happened internally and unconvincingly. It was all characters moving from one vaguely defined emotional state to another vaguely defined emotional state via talk no jutsu while standing around in the woods. Forgive me, but a battle arc feels like a breath of fresh air after that. And for a battle show, the battles are really good. They’re well animated, the stakes are high, and the battles always progress the narrative. Making this season into a battle arc also returned a certain “heroic” nature to the characters. In season 2, I didn’t feel like any of the characters were really heroic; they were all stuck inside their own heads and written to be as pathetic as possible (aside from Ram being based and battling Roswaal). Basically, no one in that season was someone I wanted to be. There were also very few positive interactions between Subaru and any of the characters, which became exhausting to watch. To really emphasize the difference between the two seasons, consider this. The entire formula of season 2 was: Character: “I feel a certain way” Subaru: “You shouldn’t feel that way” Character: [kills Subaru] Subaru finds out Character’s tragic backstory Character: “I feel a certain way” Subaru: “Here’s why you feel that way. Now stop feeling that way” Character: “Aw dang, u right.” Repeat ad nauseam. Make sure the characters are screaming at each other during the whole conversation, too. You end up with a story that has a ratio of people-talking to things-happening that is way out of whack. In this season, we make up for lost time by swinging the pendulum to the other side and going all gas no brakes. It’s fast-paced, snappy, and filled with sakuga. Do I wish it was more of a thinker? Sure. But I’ll take this over what we got in season 2 any day. Now, we have to talk about the downsides. First of all, it absolutely boggles my mind that Rem is still in a coma. She was the breakout character of the first season and became one of the most–if not THE most–popular anime characters in existence. And the author made the wise decision to capitalize on her popularity by… writing her out of the story? This isn’t a spoiler by the way–Rem has no credited voice actress on the MAL page for the show so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she wouldn’t be making an appearance in this season. The only explanation for her absence I can think of is that Tappei Nagatsuki basically wrote himself into a corner by making Rem a competing love interest to Emelia. When Subaru declared his unwavering devotion to Emelia in season 1 but still led Rem along because he needed her, the fandom didn’t react very well to that and with good reason–it made Subaru look skeezy. But because Re:Zero is a light novel and Subaru needs his harem the author couldn’t think of a satisfying way to resolve that conflict and so just took the chicken way out and put Rem into a coma until he could think of what to do with her. With that being said, we also have the lingering issue of the writing in general. While the long boring preachy monologues about emotions from season 2 are largely gone, the DNA of this show still shows through. For instance, in episode 7 there’s a speech Subaru gives that goes on for literally (I timed it) 10 full minutes and it could have easily been boiled down to 45 seconds. The people who claim that this show is some kind of brilliant masterpiece of subtle writing are living in a different dimension than I am–either that, or they’re 14 years old. We also have a few random annoyances that kept taking me out of the show. Emelia’s chest has grown several sizes for no apparent reason other than the typical chest inflation that always seems to affect these long-running light novel adaptations. I have no idea who that’s supposed to appeal to, if you want to have a busty character just put them in the show, why change an existing character’s design for no reason? Also, while technically impressive that Aya Yamane voices Liliana’s speaking and singing voices, they’re extremely different from each other. I guess I can’t call it unrealistic since in real life it is the same person, but from a creative design decision I think it would have made more sense for her singing voice to sound closer to her speaking voice, so as not to sound like a complete 180 when she starts into her songs. As far as the ending, it kind of felt like an anticlimax. We’ve left so many plot threads open and questions unanswered that this feels more of a first-cour of a larger season than its own standalone thing. You won’t finish these 16 episodes and feel very satisfied with what you get at the end. So where does this leave my opinion of this show? Well, at the very beginning of this review I said I kinda liked this season. That’s pretty much the best description I can give–albeit a non-committal one. After the dreadfulness of the second season, almost anything would seem great by comparison. And by the very nature of Re:Zero, each arc can have a drastically different quality to the one before it. I think what this season has done for me more than anything is restore my interest in the show and my faith that we could possibly get something really strong in the future. But as for this season itself, it has its ups and downs and the best I can do is give it a 6, which in my ranking system is a weak recommendation. Thank you for reading.