Offbeat Steps Under the Moonlight

With episode 50, Re:ZERO Season 2 has come to an end. And I have to say, it was a pretty good ending. Not everything I would have liked to have wrapped up was, but it was a satisfying conclusion to the season nonetheless.

Since Betty is still the best character in the series, let’s start off by talking about her and Subaru. The big thing here is that Subaru and Betty now have a pact much like Emilia and Puck used to. I don’t think Emilia has a pact with Puck right now.

Subaru having a pact with a greater spirit is kind of a big deal. We only know of a few greater spirits. And I think the only other one we know of that has ever had a pact is Puck. So this seems to be a fairly rare occurrence.

Also, I’d just like to point out that now Subaru and Betty have the Koyomi and Shinobu dynamic going on. We even got to see Betty chilling on Subaru’s lap just as Shinobu does with Koyomi sometimes. That’s a good dynamic. You love to see it.

But, Subaru’s contract with Betty brings about some questions. Is Subaru able to use Betty’s magic reserves (and gate) when he’s in contact with her? I assume this to be the case since Subaru was able to use a lot of powerful magic without issue.

However, even if Subaru can only use that much magic if he’s in contact with Betty, he should still be able to use the Minya spell. Unless that spell literally requires more magic than Subaru has, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to use it in a limited capacity.

Okaeri, Roswaal

Continuing on with Betty, we now shift to her new dynamic with Roswaal. Apparently, Betty never realized that Roswaal was transferring his soul down through all of his own ancestors. You’d think that she would have caught on, but I can also see why she didn’t.

There are two reasons why Betty didn’t realize who Roswaal really was. The first is simply that Roswaal stopped visiting her in the Forbidden library at some point for some reason. The second is that Betty didn’t realize it was even possible for him to perform the spell needed.

I do kind of like the fact that Betty didn’t realize this was the same Roswaal she knew 400 years ago until now, though. It fits a lot better with both of their “redemption” arcs. Roswaal is now back on the right path and Betty has overcome the feelings that were holding her back.

Now, one of the mysteries that wasn’t resolved is the mystery of Echidna’s appearance. Why was her face obscured during all of the flashbacks involving her? And why did Emilia not recognize her when she saw her body in the tomb?

When we finally do get to see Echidna’s face in this episode, she looks exactly like we’ve known her to look, except dead. Hiding her face in the flashbacks I can forgive if it was to make this moment with Betty and Roswaal more emotional or something.

But I really don’t see any explanation as to why Emilia wouldn’t have recognized Echidna’s face after meeting Echidna in the trial. It’s not as if Emilia forgot who Echidna was. She literally said that Echidna should be there, but she doesn’t recognize the body she sees.

I think this is just one of those mysteries we’ll never get an answer to.

Upgrading the Party

By the end of this final episode, Emilia’s “party” is much stronger than it was back at the start of the season.

Subaru now officially holds the title of Knight and has a pact with a greater spirit. Roswaal, who was previously stated to be the strongest mage in the kingdom, is now contracted to serve Emilia. And, other powerful allies such as Garfiel have joined Emilia’s side as well.

At this point, I would basically say that Emilia has everything she needs to become the next queen of the kingdom. Who could really oppose her at this point in time? Crusch’s memories are wiped, Subaru is friends with Anastasia’s military, and Priscilla is probably too busy learning that other fruits have skins.

Realistically, Priscilla is probably Emilia’s primary rival at this point, though. Her faction is the only one of those three that Subaru doesn’t have an in with.

And then, of course, there’s Felt. Felt is an interesting rival for Emilia to go up against for one specific reason. And that reason is named Reinhard. Reinhard is the most overpowered being we know of within the Re:ZERO universe.

Yes, we know of the witches, including Pandora. But even if we consider all of them, Reinhard is stronger. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Reinhard could defeat all of the witches at once if he had to. He has a divine blessing for every possible situation.

But, just because Reinhard is overpowered doesn’t mean he’s actually a threat. I don’t see any situation in which he would actually fight against Emilia’s backers. If Emilia claimed the throne as hers, what would Reinhard really do about it? Unless the world was endangered by that action, probably nothing.

Conclusion

What do you think of the final episode of Re:ZERO Season 2? Did you like how peaceful the ending was? Or were you hoping for something to go wrong? And what are your thoughts about the mystery of Echidna’s appearance? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Emilia the Witch

Last week’s episode was still possibly the best of the season. But I have to say that Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 49 is a close contender. It may not have been full of action, but it didn’t need to be. It had a lot of great character drama to make up for that.

The first portion of this week’s episode was definitely the weakest part, despite having strengths of its own. Emilia’s character has developed a lot over this past cour — as even Ryuzu Shima points out to her. And, Roswaal has developed as well, just in the opposite direction.

Until now, Emilia has generally followed Roswaal’s lead as he’s the one who’s supporting her candidacy for the royal throne. But now, Emilia is the one in the position to call the shots while Roswaal has been reduced to a hollow shell.

I think my favorite thing about this first part of the episode was seeing their dynamic shift with Emilia supporting Roswaal instead of it being the other way around. Emilia has gained confidence in who she is as a person. Meanwhile, Roswaal has lost everything — Ram, the Tome of Wisdom, and even his own identity.

And when I say Roswaal lost his identity, I’m referring to his apparent copying of Hector. I thought something happened that fused them or put Hector’s soul into Roswaal’s body. But according to what Puck said to him, it seems that I was wrong.

There was also a point at which Emilia refers to herself as a witch. According to Rain. in my Discord server, this is in reference to her being called the Witch of Frost in The Frozen Bond. So it wasn’t Emilia acknowledging that she’s actually one of the witches.

Magic of Space and Time

Something I noticed during this week’s episode is that there’s a fair amount of space-time magic being thrown around in Re:ZERO like it’s no big deal. To be fair, it’s not like average people are using these spells. But it’s still interesting to see.

It still hasn’t actually been confirmed, but I think everyone pretty much assumes that Satella is the one who summoned Subaru into this world. And if that’s the case, that would probably be via some sort of space-time magic.

Then, there’s also Subaru’s return by death ability which is obviously space-time magic of some sort. Subaru isn’t the one using it — and again, it’s suspected to be Satella’s doing — but it’s a pretty major example considering the structure of the series is built around it.

Betty also uses spatial magic of some sort. I don’t know if she can mess with time, but she has the ability to teleport people around. She apparently did this in the first season, but I forget when. However, she obviously used this type of magic against Subaru in this episode. And the magic she uses to conceal the library is probably connected to this as well.

We also can’t forget about potentially the most broken space-time magic user: Pandora. In a way, Pandora seems to be the opposite of Betty. I’m not sure if she can actually control space, but it seems very clear that she can control time.

And, while we don’t know much about these spells, I’d be willing to bet that they make use of dark magic — which Subaru has an affinity for. I’m not saying Subaru is definitely going to learn space-time magic. But theoretically, Betty could teach him something.

Choose Betty, Not Emilia

The second half of the episode that focused on Subaru rescuing Betty from the burning mansion — and her fate — was the best part. Even if this episode wasn’t the best episode of the season, that was probably my favorite half of an episode all season.

I think both Betty and Subaru had some great arguments for why they hold the beliefs they do. And that fact made the entire scene of Subaru trying to convince Betty to go with him feel a lot more real and a lot less forced than it otherwise could have been.

Obviously, Subaru’s position is the “correct” one in the end. But it’s easy to see where Betty’s coming from. Not only is Subaru saying that he won’t be the person she wants him to be, but she also knows that his time is finite while hers isn’t.

If you’re looking at Betty in this situation and thinking that she’s missing Subaru’s point, you’re right to an extent. But you have to keep in mind that all of Betty’s past trauma stems from her being left behind by other people. She doesn’t want to agree to go with Subaru since she knows he’ll eventually leave her too.

Echidna died, Ryuzu sacrificed herself, Puck disappeared for some reason (possibly to watch over Emilia), and I think it was also mentioned that even Roswaal stopped visiting her in the library. So, yeah, I think she has a valid concern when she says that Subaru is going to leave her in the end.

However, I think Subaru’s position in this whole thing is just as good, if not better. Yes, he wants to save Betty, be her friend, and make sure she’s not alone anymore. But he knows that’s not going to convince her. And so he plays to her sympathy by begging her to save him instead.

This whole situation reminded me of Koyomi and Shinobu from Monogatari in a lot of ways.

Conclusion

What do you think of Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 49? Do you think Roswaal is going to stop acting like Hector once he recovers? Do you think space-time magic is going to play an important role going forward? And how do you think Subaru and Betty are going to solve the Great Rabbit problem? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Re:ZERO Episode 50 is available.

Love Me Down to My Blood and Guts

I hope you’re ready for an extra-long review today because there’s a lot I want to cover with regards to Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 48. This episode was an absolute mess, and yet it was the best episode of this season of Re:ZERO. It was a mess because of how many seemingly important pieces of information were casually dropped during the biggest action episode of the series.

Before we get into the content of the episode and all of the new information that comes with it, I do want to touch on one thing first: Whether or not we’re in the correct timeline. I think a lot of people, myself included, have assumed that we’re in the correct timeline for a few episodes now. Everything has been going right for Subaru, and a lot of important developments have occurred. However, I now have some doubts.

There are really two things stopping me from definitively claiming this to be the correct timeline. First, is the snowstorm that’s beginning to envelop the Sanctuary when Emilia exits the tomb. That’s a bad sign because it means the Great Rabbit isn’t far behind. However, as I’ll get into later, I do think there’s a viable way to avoid the coming massacre.

Second, and most troubling, is the apparent death of Ram. Again, I’ll cover this a bit more later on, but if Ram really did die at the end of the episode, I don’t see this being the correct timeline. Unless Subaru gets a new checkpoint after her death, I can’t imagine that he would continue forward while knowing that he has the ability to try again. That’s just not who he is.

The Final Trial

Emilia’s second and third trials seemed pretty easy compared to her first. I’d say her second trial was the easiest though. She didn’t really have to confront anything painful in that one. She just had to accept that something she dreamed about wasn’t reality. That’s not so bad when reality is going relatively well anyway.

Luckily for Emilia, she could basically use her same logic for completing the second trial and the third. That logic is that while the future is unknown, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Would she have liked if the second trial was real? Sure. But since she doesn’t know the future, her current future might turn out even better. And since the third trial only showed possible futures, it doesn’t definitively mean her future won’t be bright.

One of the most intriguing things about this part of the episode that focused on Emilia, at least to me, was her interaction with Minerva at the end of the final trial. Minerva mentions that she knows Emilia’s mother. This seems to imply that Emilia’s mother is one of the witches, which I think many of us have suspected for a bit.

I’ve had a lot of theories regarding Emilia’s connection to the witches. I theorized Emilia and Satella were the same person, that Emilia was Echidna’s daughter, and that Emilia was Satella’s daughter. Based on how Minerva started crying when she heard how strong Emilia was, at this point, I think Emilia could even be Minerva’s daughter.

That would definitely be a twist. I don’t think anyone would have said Emilia was Minerva’s daughter before this episode. But it kind of makes sense now. After all, Minerva and Emilia are both tsundere-types who make excuses about why they’re helping people. Like mother, like daughter.

Echidna is Alive

Alright, so this next theory of mine is pretty hot and I’m not really convinced that it’s true. But, what if Echidna wasn’t actually dead? First, I’ll explain the theory. After that, I’ll go through why I’m not really all that confident in it.

Later on in this episode, Garfiel mentions that one of the deceased witches was a vampire. He uses this alleged fact to come to the conclusion that vampires can die, and therefore he can kill Elsa. But what if he was misinformed about the death of said vampire witch? After all, Pandora is still running around unbeknownst to most people who believe all the witches are dead (or sealed in the case of Satella).

With that in mind, when Emilia sees Echidna’s body, she doesn’t recognize her. She states that this should be Echidna’s tomb, but that she doesn’t recognize the body as belonging to Echidna. And on top of that, we don’t actually get to see the face of the body in the tomb. So, isn’t it possible that Echidna is alive and elsewhere as a vampire and the body in the tomb isn’t hers?

Now, why do I think this isn’t likely to be correct? Well, there are a few things standing in the way. First is the fact that Garfiel does say the vampire witch is dead. Second, as Rain. in my Discord server pointed out, we never saw Echidna’s face in any flashbacks, so her true appearance may not be what we recognize her as from the tea party/trials.

But to me, the most convincing piece of evidence against this theory is actually something I brought up back in my review of episode 28 that some people called me out for. Back then, I mentioned that Carmilla was named after a vampire. So, if any of the witches was a vampire, it would certainly be her, right?

Garfiel is Immortal

I know the title of this section is “Garfiel is Immortal,” but I have no real evidence to back that up. There’s just a bit of circumstantial evidence. However, something I am convinced of is that Elsa is dead for good (unless this isn’t the correct timeline).

To explain this, it’s better to start off with why I believe Elsa is officially dead despite being an “immortal” vampire. Did you notice that before she was crushed, the wound on her neck didn’t heal? Per her own words — and what we witnessed prior — all of her injuries automatically heal immediately. So what was different about the wound on her neck? It was dealt by Garfiel biting her.

Why does this matter? If you know anything about vampires in pop-culture, it’s probably that they suck the blood of their victims from the neck. So, I believe what happened here was based on that in a way. Garfiel drank Elsa’s blood, thus removing her vampiric ability to heal.

I said I don’t have proof that Garfiel is immortal. But if him drinking Elsa’s blood removed her immortality, it makes sense to me that it would grant him immortality. I feel like the immortality has to go somewhere. It’s not as if he’s casting a spell that nullifies it. He’s removing it from her body, which means it would have gone into his own body.

A lot of people probably wouldn’t want Garfiel to be immortal now because that would make him too overpowered. But if you consider that Subaru’s group has only defeated one Archbishop by this point and has fought zero witches, I think there’s plenty of room for the power ceiling to be raised. Even with that immortality, Garfiel still isn’t standing a chance against someone like Pandora. He might be on par with Regulus at that point.

Maylie Saves the Day(?)

At the start of this review, I mentioned that I had a possible way for Subaru & co. to stop the Great Rabbit from killing everyone in the Sanctuary. The solution goes by the name of Maylie. What is the Great Rabbit? A mabeast. What is Maylie’s specialty? Controlling mabeasts. So is there really any reason she couldn’t stop the massacre from happening?

Of course, there are some logistical questions here. How is Maylie going to get from the mansion to the Sanctuary in time? And why would Maylie help to stop the slaughter? But, I think those can both be answered reasonably easily.

In regards to the first question, we know there’s a secret doorway within the mansion that leads to the sanctuary. We know that Frederica is aware of it and that she’s in possession of Maylie. As far as the doorway is concerned, it might be an underground passage, but I also think it could simply be a portal of some sort as well. If that’s the case, Maylie could be within the Sanctuary relatively quickly.

As for why she would help, the simple answer is that Maylie doesn’t want to die. At the very least, she would use her power to stop the Great Rabbit from killing her. But I think it’s more likely that she would stop it entirely after seeing that Frederica, Petra, and the others aren’t treating her as an enemy. Maylie doesn’t seem as bloodthirsty as Elsa, despite some of her previous comments about killing Petra.

R.I.P. Ram

The final topic I want to touch on has to do with Ram. And to get this out of the way at the start of this section, I have no idea how Ram isn’t going to be dead after taking one of Roswaal’s fireballs head-on. However, I am fairly confident that she’ll survive somehow. Maybe she’ll be in bad shape and have to be healed by Emilia later on. I’m not sure, but considering how much progress has been made in this loop, I don’t think we’re resetting.

More importantly, I need to say that I hate Ram’s love confession to Roswaal. I don’t necessarily think it was out of place. And I get the feeling that most of us saw it coming. Last week I wasn’t convinced Ram was in love with him, but there were some hints of it in this episode before she outright said it.

Why I hate this is simply because I thought it felt way too cheesy. There’s no real reason for Ram to love Roswaal other than Stockholm syndrome. It’s not like he’s ever treated her as more than a tool. And she’s always been aware that he was the one who slaughtered the rest of her clan. So her confession felt a bit too forced.

There’s also the fact that this confession came in the middle of a major fight in which she and Puck are facing off against Roswaal essentially for the fate of the world. If Roswaal wins here, that puts him one step closer to achieving his witch-related goal. If Ram and Puck win, it deals a major blow to Roswaal.

Adding a love confession in the middle of all this felt very out of place to me. Especially since Roswaal basically acted like a tsundere in response. He got flustered and did everything a tsundere would do short of calling Ram “baka.”

Conclusion

What do you think of Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 48? Who do you think Emilia’s mother is? Which of the witches do you think is the vampire? Do you think Garfiel received Elsa’s immortality? And how do you see the issue of the Great Rabbit being resolved? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Re:Zero Season 2 episode 49 is available.

Subaru isn’t “That Person”

Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 47 definitely wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be based on the setup from last week. We got a bit of the fight between Garfiel and Elsa, we didn’t get any of the fight against Maylie, and we only got a short montage of the fight against Roswaal.

There were also quite a few moments throughout the episode when some potentially retconned information was dropped into our laps. The first of this information came from Betty when she told Subaru that her copy of the Tome has always been blank.

Previously, Betty had stated that she used to follow the Tome, but that one day it stopped showing her future. And she claimed that this is when she lost hope. So which is it? Was Betty’s copy always blank, or did it actually tell the future at one point?

Something else you may have noticed is that Betty was much more willing to offer up information this time around. I get that this sort of needed to be done so that we didn’t have to sit through the same conversation between Subaru and Betty again. But it came off a bit odd considering Betty normally isn’t so loose-lipped.

She’s the one who brings up her copy of the Tome, mentions Roswaal’s copy of the Tome, and even brings up Ryuzu’s name. If she had said any of those things in the previous loop, Subaru wouldn’t have understood what she was talking about. But here, she mentions them as if the two of them had previously discussed them even though they hadn’t in this loop.

Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like that was a bit of an immersion-breaking conversation.

Frederica isn’t Ready to Die

Another conversation from this episode I thought was odd was when Petra implied that she didn’t want Frederica to die this time. Frederica then consoled her by saying that this time around she has no plans to die. That’s a pretty strange thing to say, isn’t it?

It seems to me that the implication here is that they both have memories from the previous loop for some reason. I don’t think that’s actually the case. But I have no idea what else this exchange would have been referring to. Did Frederica already die off-screen in this loop and get revived?

The implication here was definitely that Frederica was killed at some point, not just defeated temporarily. So I have no idea what’s going on with Frederica and Petra. I’m probably thinking about these lines way too much, but they stood out to me due to how strange they were.

Now, my lovely Discord members Rain. and PenguinFTW believe that Frederica and Petra were simply talking about how Frederica fought off Elsa earlier so that Petra could escape. And while I do see where they’re coming from, the phrasing makes it seem like they’re referring to something much more extreme.

Petra makes it sound like something terrible happened to Frederica and that the two of them had been apart for a long time. But it probably hasn’t been more than 15 minutes since they parted ways and Frederica is unharmed. So that doesn’t really add up to me.

I recognize that the mundane answer is probably the correct one. It’s definitely not going to be revealed that Frederica and Petra have memories of other timelines. But, it’s not impossible for that to be the case in a weird way. I’m pretty sure earlier this season Emilia mentioned feeling like something had happened before which was from a previous loop.

Happiness Reflected on the Water’s Surface

There will probably be a lot of people who disagree with me on this, but Emilia’s second trial was the worst part of the episode. Yes, we got a great shot of Emilia diving into her reflection on the water (which she hit face-first, by the way). But other than that, I was pretty bored.

Seriously though, diving off a cliff and breaking the surface of the water isn’t something I would recommend. Seems like a great way to get a concussion and break a few facial bones or your neck.

Anyway, compared to Subaru’s second trial, Emilia’s was a walk in the park (literally). Subaru had to see what the aftermath of him dying in all those other timelines was. Emilia just had to see people she cared about being happy. I get why it was her trial, but I also hardly consider that a trial.

Still, there were two interesting pieces of dialogue to come out of this trial. The first was when Archi questioned whether or not Betelgeuse is actually dead. As far as we knew, he was definitely dead. Subaru even obtained his Sloth Witch Factor as proof of this. But now doubt has been cast.

Will we see Geuse show up again in the present? And if so, what form will he take? Will he be back to his old Geuse ways before he became mad? Will Emilia have to confront him? It could definitely be interesting. However, I generally prefer that dead characters stay dead within the same timeline.

And, the other point of interest was Echidna reaffirming her hate for Emilia. This time around, I’ll say that my theory about Emilia being Echidna’s daughter is probably wrong. Maybe Echidna hates Emilia because she doesn’t think a descendant of Satella deserves to be happy? That seems like the most logical explanation for her hatred now.

Conclusion

What do you think about Re:ZERO Season 2 episode 47? Do you think there’s any significance to Betty now saying her Tome was always blank? What do you think Frederica and Petra were referring to? And would you want to see Geuse return into the series? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.