A proper fantasy
(This review contains
spoilers!)
So I’ve seen enough lazy fantasy anime
that one really has to do something special to shine out above the rest in my
eyes. Countless times over, I’ve heard this story: a male slacker is magically
teleported to some fantasy world, where he either has some extra-special
magical power or there’s a prophecy that he’s destined to save everybody. Later
on, he meets a plethora of eligible bachelorettes with various hair colours and
one-dimensional personality types. They all get up to shenanigans over the
course of 12 episodes, and the series ends with them defeating the villain, the
hero running away with the woman of his choice, and everybody living happily
ever after.
When I first heard about Re:Zero back
at the start of the Spring 2016 anime season, I wrote it off as just another
one of those: a cookie cutter fantasy story designed to appeal to lonely geeks.
However, after witnessing the sheer outpour of excitement and fan art for this
show, I just had to see what all the
fuss was about.
Going in, I thought it was going to be
some genre-defining, expectation-shattering reimagining of the fantasy genre.
Sadly, Re:Zero holds tight to several of the tropes that plague similar shows,
including the various “waifu” characters and the main protagonist with the
super cool special ability. On the flipside, however, Re:Zero is able to
ultimately subvert these tropes, and in the end creates an engaging and fun
show.
So what’s the premise? Re:Zero is the
story of Subaru, who is (you guessed it!) a slacker with not much to care about
in life. Then, by some magical power, he’s pulled into a fantasy world, where
he’s quickly enlisted in helping a girl retrieve an item of hers that was
stolen. The retrieval fails, killing them both, but Subaru magically
time-travels back to hours earlier, giving him a chance to do it again.
The time travel is both a blessing and
a curse. For one thing, it’s interesting to see how different events play out
over the course of a few days depending on how differently Subaru acts. There’s
also a lot of fun surprises to be had, especially early on when the main cast
is still being established. Unfortunately, things start to lose their weight
once you realize that he can just kill himself and restart if he messed up too
much. He actually does this at one point early on, further pressing the point
in.
The world itself is very strongly
built, even if we don’t get to see that much of it. While we never get much
backstory into the world itself, there’s a lot of mythos to it. The showrunners
had a very clear vision for what they wanted this world to be, and it seems to
have been realized. This is helped by some excellent animation. The fight
scenes are a marvel to behold, especially the later ones.
Onto the characters, again, these are
very hit or miss. There are a lot of
superfluous characters in Re:Zero. The way the final episode ends makes me feel
like this is just the first part in a much larger story (and the fact that this
was a manga originally basically confirms that for me), because some of the
characters amount to absolutely nothing despite being paraded around as crucial
to the story, and even some important characters leave at the start of the
climax and never return.
Unfortunately, the two leads are some
of the weakest from the main cast. It took me until I was 75% of my way into
the show to finally start warming up to Subaru, and considering he’s the main
protagonist and our point of view for this world, that’s a problem. It’s made
sort of intentional that he’s a bit of an unlikeable character, but the least
you could do is make us root for him a bit more than we do until the start of
the final act. Emilia, the female protagonist, is also pretty two-dimensional,
without much character growth aside from a prejudice against her in-universe.
The side characters fare a bit better.
The best one is undeniably Rem, the blue haired maid. She’s the most developed
and three-dimensional character of the bunch, if only for the fact she’s the
only one who gets an extensive arc focused entirely on her. Her voice actress
(who you may remember from her amazing performance as the delusional Yuki
Takeya in Gakkou Gurashi) really brings Rem to life in a way none of the other
characters do. Sadly, as the show goes on she sort of falls into the trap of
becoming so devoted to the main protagonist it’s almost silly, and she doesn’t
have much to do in the final episodes. But regardless, she’s easily the best
part of the show, and I really hope we see more of her, should the show return
for a second season.
There’s a lot of other side
characters, but I’ll only touch on the highlights. Rem has a sister, Ram, who
unfortunately never grows much more than providing snarky quips at Subaru.
There’s also two other denizens of the mansion that Emilia lives in, but they
go absolutely nowhere. Later on in the capital we discover yet even more
characters, like a rival knight to Subaru, a leader of another kingdom, and Wilhelm,
who may just be the coolest old man in anime history. Aside from Wilhelm, these
characters are mostly forgettable, and the fact that there’s so many of them
filling up the landscape makes it hard for those with less screen time to stand
out.
In fact, a large portion of the
characters seem to exist only for a few episodes, before vanishing completely.
I guess the show’s setting them up because they become relevant in the later
manga chapters, but it’s ridiculous how many of them are pointless. Felt the thief?
Comes back for a plot twist, then never appears again. The red haired knight?
Again, same thing. Hell, the antagonist from the first few episodes is
established as a renowned deadly assassin after her escape, but she’s never
brought up again!
Ultimately, Re:Zero shines by giving
us a compelling plot and strong world building to keep us invested in what
happens. Even if the overall plot is extremely tropey at times and a lot of the
characters are either unlikeable or entirely pointless (Rem is best girl), you
grow to like all of them, even Subaru. If you’re a fan of the fantasy genre or
you just need to see what all the hubbub is about, I’d recommend checking it
out! It’s a solid watch that you won’t regret spending time on. While it’s not
the genre defining masterpiece I was expecting, it’s a step in the right
direction for the genre.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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