Makoto's review of Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu

Neutral

What makes a show bad? It can be the absence of good, or the overwhelming presence of bad. Although I wouldn't say re:zero is bad, it does have a couple of major issues that prevent it to be great. And season 2 part 2 elucidates that very clearly. The first and biggest problem is Subaru. Subaru is a loser, and that doesn't make a compelling character. It works well for the story as a whole, but not for him. He is a protagonist of a fantasy show with no relevant powers. He constantly deals with strong opponents and has only one weapon: Talk no jutsu. No, going back in time is not a power. Even if he does acquire information on every iteration, he is still powerless to do anything with it. The only way he interacts with the world is through conversation. He does have small skills that are mostly insignificant. Most of his progress is based on convincing people to help him. It is a novelty, for sure. How many powerless protagonists in fantasy anime can you cite? But it doesn't work, specially because Subaru is not only a loser in power, but also in personality and presentation. Subaru's personality is probably the worst part of re:zero, and you can feel it in season 2 part 2. The larger focus on the other characters makes for a much interesting show. This works for a character like Shinji (Evangelion), because you are supposed to hate him. Every character in Evangelion does. Subaru is disgusting but he is a self insert that everybody in the story likes. The only reason anyone does so is because the story tells them to. Stakes in re:zero are diminished because everything depends on Subaru's state of mind. If he is well and determined, he is going to convince people to do stuff and everything will work. If he is not, then problems occur. That is not a problem in itself but I have to admit it is not for everybody. Another issue is the lack of proper editing in writing. Re:zero is a mix of a lot of interesting, well connected beats, with weird, dysfunctional ones. It feels at times like a directionless fanfiction. You could and should remove the entire whale part and nothing would be lost, and a good editor would probably force the author to remove it. Rem's character conclusion would also never survive the editing process. She is turned into what is essentially a doll because the show has no room for her, but didn't properly write her out of the story. Instead, she is there in body only, literally just a shell. My next point has the potential to ruin not only re:zero, but animation in general to you, so read at your own risk. Re:zero is notorious for an animation issue called cheeky mouth. It is very distracting. Most anime are guilty of these, but it is particularly bad here because re:zero has nothing to distract you from it, and the director insists on putting characters in profile without doing it properly. With that out of the way, the good: Re:zero has some very nice and compelling characters. Rem and Ram are a selling point, and so is most of the side cast. I am personally not attracted to Emilia as a character, but she is well acted and has a good design. Photography and sound on the parts where the anime cares about are very good. Even though it suffers on the most economical scenes, the expensive ones are very nice. In the end, what makes re:zero ok besides its characters is its story and world. It is well crafted and it makes you wanna learn more. Even though it is never consistent with how much it reveals, and is sometimes confusing. Even though you might have to suffer through some whales to get there, the worldbuilding is nice. Overall re:zero is decent. It is above average but end up being weighted down by its issues, primarily its main character. I would not recommend it to anyone that is not already predisposed to watch in the first place.