Review: Rezero S1, OVA 1, OVA 2, and S2
Story: (6/5)
TL;DR, dark, deep and plot twists.
For people who considers Rezero bad probably haven’t finished S1E18, to me, that is the point where Subaru started his development, progressing from a humiliating, self-centered simp into a more analytical, talk-no-jutsu simp. Rezero's strong point to me is its ability to pull off such a boring MC ability (return to save point) into a story that’s full of plot twists, showing that every action/word of Subaru matters, just like in real life.
So anyways before E18, the anime covered Arc 1, 2 and some introduction to Arc 3. S1E1 introduced an antagonist which is still quite powerful even in the later arc, Arc 4 (S2), which is surprising, given usually anime like this don’t give much difficulty and significance towards the first villain (unless they’re the ultimate boss, which Elsa isn’t).
Arc 2 is a great arc for the Oni maids’ background development, and also the writer really pulled off a great suspense setting, questions like “why did Subaru die?”, “is Ram the killer given Rem is ‘charmed’ by Subaru on the second run?”, “does the death of Subaru coincides with Subaru’s ‘choice of ogre’?” etc. all of these build up to the final reveal of the killer really blew my mind, also the ending of this Arc is very beautiful. This arc also has some minor reference towards other pop-culture/anime, such as Subaru’s line “I don’t know this ceiling” (Evangelion) and Emilia’s “May the blessing of the spirits be with you” (Star Wars). After this Arc, we were introduced to OVA 1 & 2 which gave some backstory on how Puck and Emilia met and also some development on Rem & Petra’s affection toward Subaru.
Arc 3 is arguably one of the hardest arcs to watch, given Subaru’s a douchebag in the beginning of the arc, he disobeyed Emilia’s wish and followed her to the Royal Candidate meeting and then basically embarrassed Emilia with words and action that are good intended (protecting Emilia from racism) but horribly executed, also his stupid jealousy towards Julius that leads to their one sided duel & the resultant conversation is just soul-wrenching to watch, the amount of cringe literally ALMOST made the ship sank if Emilia isn’t being super tolerable towards his actions, this beginning basically retarding his character progression back to square 1.
For around 5 episodes more we will need to deal with Subaru’s jerk mindset towards Reinhard, emotional blackmail on others, and pathetic actions on attempting to save Emilia. During this moment we were also introduced to the second (or third) antagonist of the series, Betelgeuse, which is super gory and fucked up, the emotional scar that leads to PTSD of Subaru is understandable. And after this event he slowly become increasingly frustrating to watch (props to Rem for upholding his actions), until he figured out that running away is his only solution. Which leads to S1E18, literally the episode that start transforming Subaru to what he is now, in a roughly 5 minutes monologue, he talks about his terrible personality, how much he hates himself, and he’s pathetically weak in all aspect. But Rem’s viewpoint of him being a hero to her and ultimately the confession will always hold a dear place in my heart of how well the episode being presented. The rest of the Arc is basically Subaru being big brain and also the usual plot twists. And thus, the first season ends with Subaru and Emilia return back to good terms.
The first season focused a lot on Rem rather than Emilia even though Emilia is the true main heroine, not that I’m complaining, but Season 2 (heck maybe even S3) basically Rem is totally removed from the story due to her name and other’s memory on her being eaten by Archbishop of Gluttony. Arc 4 is a long arc which has 25 episodes, and until now it is the most complicated ‘mission’ of Subaru, he has a lot of quest and side quest in this arc and he needs to find a way to deal with it accordingly. Those includes Roswaal’s schemes, Elsa & Maylie's attack, Beatrice's suicide intentions, Garfiel & Ryuzu's mystery, Frederica/Petra/Rem's safety, Emilia's sanity, Rabbit issue, and also original goal of pursuing Archbishop of Gluttony is just overwhelming, if I’m in his shoes I would literally panic.
Even still, our MC managed to pulled it off a solution rationally, which clearly shows his rationality has grew since S1E18. He also managed to use talk-no-jutsu to convince Emilia, Garfiel, and Beatrice, which is totally emotional and all but cringe nonetheless. Also, the way Echidna at the final episodes (and may seem to be possessing Shima) acted maybe hinting in even deeper plot hole. This is just never gonna end anytime soon.
Characters: (6/5)
Rezero’s greatest asset is its ability to introduce interesting and well-constructed characters with genuine intriguing intentions and motives. And also, starting the story with a ‘trash’ MC and slowly making him more likeable and growing stronger in both physically and mentally is a play that not much writers dare to play due to the short attention span we have, but Tappei Nagatsuki did it and succeed in it. Although the early stages of ‘resetting’ will retrograde the development of side characters due to they’re unaware of Subaru’s Return by Death ability.
Basically, all of the important
characters introduced until now have some tragic backstory, with Subaru’s past
is presented to us during the trial of sanctuary, showing the reason behind his
eccentric behavior of always shouting and making bad jokes, also due to being
compared to his father as a child he became self-deprecation. Emilia with the
face resembling Witch of Envy always suffer racism issues, and her childhood of
losing Mother Fortuna, which leads to her conversation with Subaru on S1E13 about
‘looking at her as she’s normal’ and ‘breaking promises’.
What I appreciate in an anime is that not just the main hero/heroine get their sad development/backstory, but also the side characters too (which FMA: Brotherhood excelled at). Roswaal, which revealed to be the mastermind behind the acts of Arcs 1, 2, 3, and 4 is shown to be another huge simp, but towards Echidna, his teacher instead. He often compares himself with Subaru, stating that they both force their ideal image towards their love ones. Unlike Subaru who learned to find strengths in people, he perceives having feelings or showing feelings, being dependent and feeling lost as signs of weakness. With that being said, the current ‘reincarnated’ Roswaal believe deeply in the tome because he has nothing else as he lost the love of his life.
Turning to Ram and Rem, their clan has been massacred by the Witch Cult in the past, which is somehow tied to Roswaal, as he didn’t stop the Witch Cult when he could. During this event, Ram being the prodigy of Oni clan has her only horn (where her powers originated) chopped off, Rem who was the twin of Ram felt guilty of being relieved that her horn chopped off wanted to atone her sins which thus leads to Subaru’s talk on S1E11. For the longest time, she’s been comparing herself to Ram as she perceives without her birth, Ram would’ve been more powerful, her inferiority causes her to be a bit resentful of her genius sister. When Subaru guide her out and thus become her hero, Rem becomes loyal and affectionate towards Subaru even if his smell reeks of the witch. Rem’s confession to S1E18 is just so beautiful, as it shows how Rem sees Subaru’s worst side but still love him unconditionally nonetheless. Ram on the other hand developed Stockholm’s syndrome towards Roswaal, which I don’t really understand why.
Beatrice is a Great Spirit created by her ‘mother’ Echidna, when Hector attacks the Sanctuary, she has no choice but to see her only friend, Ryuzu, sacrifice. She also become the guardian of the forbidden library at some point later. She was told by Echidna that if she doesn’t return, someone will open the door to the library and take her as their spirit. This ‘promise’ was actually a delusion by Echidna to see who will she pick rather than knowing an actual particular special someone is going to pick her up. Beatrice thus bound herself in this promise, as 400 years went by, she seen different generation Roswaals opening the door, and occasionally some random people. Slowly, she gave up on ‘that person’, thinking they will not come to take her. Her cling on the ‘promise’ forms depression in her, until Subaru gave her a talk on making her choosing him instead, she is finally freed from her toxic mindset in S2P2E11. We were also introduced to side characters such as Otto, Garfiel and Wilhelm which all have their respective sad backstory, but we’re not gonna talk about them or else this will be excruciatingly long.
I do believe the Witches of the Sin, all have their respective tragic backstory which will be presented in the later Arcs, as from what I see, they’re kind people but how they give their kindness is in a ‘wrong’ or ‘evil’ method, by our moral interpretation. The reason for what I think that is because of Daphne, Witch of Gluttony created the three great mabeast so that people won’t starve like once she experienced, just that these mabeast turned out to be also deadly/destructive to humans as Daphne thought it would be ‘fair’ this way. We still yet to understand Echidna’s true goals from the anime besides her thirst of knowledge, also the reason of her hatred towards Emilia is also unknown to us, which probably will be explained in the following seasons.
Sound/Music: (6/5)
Rezero undoubtedly has
produced some of the most well-known, beautiful and emotional soundtracks in
anime. To start off, we will be talking about the openings, “Redo” (OP 1) and “Realize”
(OP 3) are amazing songs which everybody loves, the melody simply suits Rezero setting
perfectly. “Paradisus-Paradoxum” (OP 2) and “Long Shot” (OP 4) are less popular compared to
the two mentioned before but they’re still great, but initially OP 2 scenes disturbed
me due to the first couple moments depicts Subaru’s conversation with Emilia,
which I hated, but slowly ignoring it after Subaru stopped grieving over it. "Relive" (OVA 1 OP) didn't really got played in the movie if I recall correctly, but I do like this song.
“Styx Helix” (ED 1)
shows Subaru’s initial mentality of not wanting to die and suffer over and over
again, “Stay Alive” (ED 2) is one of my favorite ED of the anime, shows Emilia’s mental
side after her conversation with Subaru on S1E13. “Memento”
(ED 3) always reminds me of Garfiel’s line to Subaru, “You have no idea what
pain or suffering even are!”, but to be fair I don’t like this song as much as the
fourth ending. “Believe in You” (ED 4) is the
best ending for this anime in my opinion, this is because in the rare occurrence
of MV of this ending played in the anime, the chorus of the song turned the
black and white MV to a colorful one, symbolizing Emilia was alone and has no
one to trust before Subaru comes in, who believes in her as much as she trusts
him. "Memories" and "White White Snow" (OVA 1 ED) emits a 'winter wonderland' mood. As for "Yuki no Hate ni Kimi no Na Wo" (OVA 2 ED) is your typical nice Rezero level ending, nothing too fancy.
There are rather lot of insert songs in this anime which often act as ending songs, which like the opening songs, rarely got played in the anime (the MV particularly, as sometimes the songs are played in background) as the director wanted to stuff as much content as possible. Anyways, “Wishing” by Rem is the best insert song ever, the lyrics are tragic as fuck, this song is played during Rem’s love confession and the lyrics is about how nice is to be in love, and her dream reality of being with Subaru. “Boy’s dream” by Emilia is played when she gives Subaru to sleep and cry on her lap, which is an amazing song as it is the first time Subaru is near his mentality’s end. “Door” by Emilia and “What you don’t know” by Ram are their respective love songs, I don’t dote on them as much as on “Wishing” and “Boy’s dream” but they’re not bad. There are also some less known insert songs namely “Straight Bet” and “Theater D” which are played on Subaru’s first suicide and Subaru’s first hell loop respectively, the latter being very disturbing.
There are A LOT of wonderful OST in this anime, just to name a few, for the sad OST it has “Requiem of Silence”, “Reason to Believe”, “To Become Happy”, “Echt of Sorrow”, “The Past’s Destination”, “The Eternal Freezing of Elior Forest” and “Chain of Memories”; for the calming OST it has “Longing for Sunbeams”, “Wish of the Stars” and “Subaru and Emilia”; for the epic songs it has “Takt of Heroes”, “Their Individual Vows”, and “The Breath of a Vow”; for the horror OST it has “Call of the Witch”, “Gray Trane”, “Train of Thought”, “Margrave Roswaal”, “Deceptive Music Box” and “Threads of Entwined Truth”; and finally, for the happy OST it has “Timbre of the Beginning”, "Memories of Time and Sky" and "Take Care".
Art/Animation: (4.5/5)
Well, you could
argue that a few episodes of the first season used CGI in background and you
can’t accept it, but it’s not that bothersome to me as they don’t really use it
excessively in every episode if I recall correctly. The battle animation is
very fluid, Reinhard vs Elsa battle is okay, but Julius vs Sloth is amazing, all Rem’s
and Emilia’s fight also well executed IMO, they don’t give you shonen level of
hype but Rezero isn’t a shonen anime to begin with. Rem's confession also has good animation direction, the birds and sky clearing up really lightens up the mood from Subaru's self-realization.
The art direction is absolutely amazing, I mean, the character design, simply iconic and memorable. The female characters are generally good looking; however, the male characters aren’t exactly ‘handsome’ when compared to other huge titles. Sceneries of this anime are well executed, not Makoto Shinkai’s level of detail and greatness but hey it’s amazing nonetheless. As for the cinematography, there’s not much to compliment to give to be honest, besides maybe the symbolism in ED 4’s MV.
Conclusion: S Tier
I’ve changed my ranking system for easier navigation and corrected some of the ranking of past anime, as I think they don’t really deserve their place over time.
I’m a guy who likes to predict the plot and feel rewarded by guessing it correctly. but the whole S2 is just "I didn’t expect this" and "what the fuck is going on" due to the never-ending plot twists, which is a great thing.
Anyways, Rezero is a masterpiece
in a decade, and I seldomly give such high compliment to an anime, it is a one-of-a-kind
anime and I will recommend to anyone who watched enough anime to know the
cliches and get their face slapped by plot twists.
The philosophy behind Rezero is deep and meaningful, progressing from self-deprecation to self realization and finally self appreciation, also giving the wisdom of relying on others when time needed, selfish suicide acts and easy way out is not always the correct way. There's a video on YouTube that perfectly represents my point, for people who didn't understand the true intent of Rezero.