Tag: Felix Argyle

Re:Zero Episode 67 (Season 4 Episode 1) – Analysis + Important Details + Aside on Crunchyroll’s Horrible Work

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For this season, I will not be using the same approach I did with Season 3 in that my posts will be less recap and more interpretation of the scenes along with my heavy focus on theorycrafting as all the recap itself burned me out as I kept taking the same approach with multiple series.

Before I go into that, I deride the current state of Crunchyroll, which based on the translated words at multiple points in this episode, point to machine translation with stuff that makes no sense in the context of what is currently happening or what came before. Muse Asia, which is available in southeast Asia and to those who use VPNs with hosts in that region, is known for having much better translations of Re:Zero than Crunchyroll, and I suspect a higher-up at Crunchyroll knew this, which is why Crunchyroll used its financial and legal might to force Muse Asia to release Re:Zero Season 4 two weeks behind its simulcast, which is a big departure compared to the past. It’s disgusting that instead of trying to do a better job, Crunchyroll, or maybe should I name Sony instead since it owns Crunchyroll, decided to kneecap a competitor that was putting out a far superior product compared to what it was churning out with machine translation and robbed viewers of being able to watch an accurate translation in a timely fashion.

Episode 67 starts out somber with Subaru feeling a mixture of pain and anxiety over him being the only one to remember Julius although Julius is clearly happy that Subaru took this subject as far as he could. Subaru remarks that Julius only had his name eaten, which makes the people in the world forget you, as opposed to having only having your memories eaten, which happened to Crusch, and having both eaten, which makes it so that you functionally never existed in the world even though your body still exists although in suspended animation, with the source of that info being Puck when he spoke with Subaru early in Season 2.

After Julius said that he considered Reinhard and Felix friends following Reinhard saying that they were acquaintances or perhaps more than that, Anastasia according to Crunchyroll says, “Just two friends? I don’t think that’s all there is to it” when the conservation was about the trio of Reinhard, Felix, and Julius, showing a complete failure to understand the conversation, which suggests machine translation that can’t understand context. Using Google Translate, I see that “Tada no tari no tomodachi?” rendered as “Just casual friends?” so I’m assuming a proper translation would be “No more than mere friends?” rather than “just two friends”, which is very wrong based on the context. Subaru notably raised his eyebrows at this point since her suggesting there’s more to it than that shows that Anastasia remembers who Julius is unlike all the others aside from Subaru, which clearly demonstrates that she’s not the genuine article. If you recall from Season 3, Al clearly stated that the one in front of him cannot be Anastasia ’cause of her ability to use magic, and I speculated that either a shapeshifter had taken Anastasia’s place or someone/something had possessed Anastasia’s body.

Anastasia then suggests that even though they captured the Sin Archbishops (which is false since only Sirius, the Sin Archbishop of Wrath, was captured), they should visit Shaula the Sage, who is known as one of the three great heroes of the Dragonfriend Kingdom of Lugunica ’cause Sirius would be unlikely to tell the group what they need to know to either undo the damage to the victims of the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony and change back those who were transformed into different creatures by the Sin Archbishop of Lust. The Sage is supposedly the keeper of knowledge who foresees everything that will ever be, but I wonder how true that is since Echidna’s Tome of Wisdom apparently could see all of the past, the present, and possible futures of Re:Zero’s fantasy world based on Season 2, so it’s a question mark how accurate this info is. Shaula supposedly lives on her own at the Pleiades Watchtower located somewhere in the Auguria Dunes located in the easternmost edge of Lugunica, which was built to prevent invaders from reaching the sealed Witch of Envy, so now we know where Satella’s body is. Reinhard had set out in search of the Pleiades Watchtower two years ago when the Royal Family fell ill and was eventually wiped out, but a barrier prevented him from ever reaching it, similar to how there’s a barrier near the Sanctuary in Season 2 that made it hard for outsiders to find the correct path to get to the Sanctuary. He had been ordered to make this journey by the council, as in the Council of Wise Men, who are ruling in place of the king. He can’t take part since since he has to escort Felt and transport Sirius Romanee-Conti back to the Capital, and there’s probably no one better suited to bringing Sirius back since no one is a match for him in Lugunica.

After they make camp for the night, and everyone aside from Subaru and Anastasia are asleep, Subaru drops the fact that he knows it’s not really Anastasia speaking due to how coldly she talked about Ricardo, a close friend of hers who has a life-changing injury, with him saying something’s been off the whole time, a nod to early on in the episode when she gave a sign that she remembered Julius. Whoever’s in Anastasia’s body reveals that Priscilla also outed her, but surprisingly, she didn’t name Al, Priscilla’s knight for some reason, which I find suspect given the opportunity was 100% there. She reveals that her name is Echidna, identical to that of the Witch of Greed, and that she remembers nothing about herself aside from her name and that she’s an artificial spirit whose true form is the fox muffler that Anastasia wears. However, this artificial spirit speaking in an Echidna-like cadence suggests that she’s lying to an extent. Given Re:Zero has already used a character in the past speaking like that of another character in Season 2 in Roswaal to show that he had been traumatized due to his beatdown from Hector in Season 2, imitating his speech pattern ’cause to him Hector was the embodiment of power itself, it’s clear Tappei is willing to use speech patterns to imply relationships between characters. Now, I’ll be referring her to Foxidna from here on out on due to it being Subaru’s preferred name for her.

Where I’m going with this is that the number three is important in Re:Zero. The group who sealed Satella were revealed to be the Sword Saint of the time, the Dragon Lord, and Shaula the Sage, was a trio. The Pearlbaton siblings are triplets. There are three magic attribute pairs in fire and water, earth and wind, and yin and yang. There were the Three Great Mabeasts in the White Whale, the Great Rabbit, and the Black Serpent. The Sin Archbishops of Gluttony are a trio. Liara, Garfiel’s mom, has had children with three fathers since Frederica and Garfiel had different fathers as they’re half-siblings. To refresh one’s memory of previous seasons’ events, Puck called Beatrice his little sister in Season 1 and only in Season 2 did we find out that Beatrice is an artificial spirit made by Echidna. This makes Puck also an artificial spirit of Echidna’s if you’re able to connect the dots from past content. In the Frozen Bond OVA that came out in 2019, it was revealed that Puck had been ordered by a female speaker whose speech had been denoted by a special font to find Emilia, and he had a contract or oath with this female speaker wherein if he got too close to Emilia as in formed a contract with her, he would lose that which makes him himself. This special font was reused in Season 2 in one particular episode that showed that Echidna was the one who had given Puck the task of searching for Emilia and made him take up that contract/oath, and what it did was cause Puck to lose some of his memories. This is why Puck had no idea that Roswaal L. Mathers was the same Roswaal from four hundred years ago, only that he was body-snatching his descendants and why he allowed Roswaal to become Emilia’s sponsor at all, and only after Puck broke his contract with Emilia did he remark that Roswaal is speaking like someone he used to know very well and eventually remark that Roswaal will never be that devil/warlock, referring to Hector, ’cause he had finally recovered his memories. Also of note is that Echidna tasked both Puck and Beatrice with something in searching for Emilia and taking care of her Forbidden Library until she finds “that person”, so it’s established that Echidna has given her artificial spirits orders or suggestions for hazy reasons. Given Foxidna is familiar with Echidna’s speech pattern, she may very well be lying about knowing nothing about herself and at least remembers talking with Echidna four hundred years ago. Given this information, Puck, Beatrice, and Foxidna may be a trio of artificial spirits created by Echidna when one considers how often Tappei makes use of the number three, and since Foxidna had the opportunity to mention Al but didn’t, choosing only to mention Priscilla, the order or suggestion Echidna may have given her is to not say anything about Al with Subaru under any circumstance since she was about to bring up Al to Priscilla in Episode 59 only for Priscilla to answer what she had intended to ask before she said it. Echidna may have plans for Al that she needs Subaru to not know.

My next point will go back to the point I made at the start of the episode in that Foxidna remembers who Julius is. This is a very surprising development ’cause based on previous seasons, Subaru was the only person who remembered victims of Gluttony’s eating Authority, meaning this is breaking new ground. Given Echidna was the Witch of Greed in the past and was seeking immortality, and we know she had successfully created at least one soul clone since Tea Party Echidna spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49, Foxidna might be another soul clone who was placed into a fox muffler as her body. This would make sense given Foxidna knows Echidna’s speech pattern, and Echidna may have worn the fox muffler that is Foxidna in the past, and that’d be how Foxidna learned how Echidna speaks. If that’s the case, what are the common denominators between Subaru and Echidna that could explain why Foxidna remembers who Julius is? What we know for know for sure is that both of them had Witch Factors, and people with Witch Factors and Witch cultists in general emit miasma, which we visibly saw in Episode 15 from Rem after Subaru looped and had retreated into a shell due to his being unable to bear how so many people died ’cause he wasn’t able to save them given Petelgeuse claimed that the love that hangs upon Subaru is equivalent to that of a Sin Archbishop, showing they emit something that is responsible for what Rem and Beatrice have described as a foul smell, and we know that Subaru can command Witch cultists due to his emitting a lot of miasma, and if Echidna split her soul into Foxidna, she may still have a piece of the Greed Witch Factor. In conclusion, I surmise it is either having at least one Witch Factor itself or emitting a high amount of miasma that allows for Subaru and Foxidna to remember Gluttony victims, and this makes me believe that all Witches of Sin, Sin Archbishops, and people with Witch Factors in general can remember Julius if they cared to even if this is just conjecture for now.

Furthermore, Foxidna says that she had Anastasia’s consent to take control of her body when danger presented itself and only this time was she unable to. I speculated last year with regards to Season 3 that Priscilla may have known what happened to Anastasia in Episode 59 when she Priscilla mused on the unseemly guilt, the vixen, Foxidna, placed on Julius, and it’s very likely ’cause Julius while out to battle the first time against the Witch Cult, he was unable to protect Anastasia, which is what led to her taking over, and Foxidna’s remark backs up my speculation. Foxidna made it seem like Julius doesn’t know about her to Subaru, but he almost certainly does. In Season 3 when the one who appeared to be Anastasia used yang magic, the magic came directly from her whereas when there was an actual metia as used by Beatrice and Felt, we saw the magic emanating from the metia, not Felt or Beatrice, so this should show that Anastasia was not using a metia. And given the White Dragon’s Scale, Kiritaka’s mercenary group, didn’t incur serious setbacks against Sirius aside from Kiritaka’s capture, perhaps Anastasia had a mishap somewhere outside their base since everyone was buying time for her escape. In a big city, there are many potential hazards, so it’s not just the Witch Cult or Demi-Beasts you should worry about. As for Julius showing no discomfort upon returning the first time, Julius has a reputation for being the most knightly of knights, the opposite of Arc 3 Subaru, the self-proclaimed knight, so I believe Julius could remain stoic if Anastasia had really been hurt due to him being away from her when others aren’t capable of that.

Foxidna also had a very interesting thing to say about what she’d do to return Anastasia’s body. She said that she’d make the choice that offers the highest probability of success, and that’s why she wants to visit the Sage, and if that’s the case, it backs up my theory that Tea Party Echidna deliberately steered Subaru into getting Emilia to do the Sanctuary Trials with her saying that even have after three days of trial and error, which imply that she changed up the trial to try to get Emilia to pass it, she was unable to break Emilia out of her shell, lied about her telling Beatrice to wait in the Forbidden Library for “that person” ’cause she was just curious who Beatrice would choose, which was an effort to sound as evil as possible so that Subaru would reject her contract that would involve him doing the Sanctuary Trials, and this is backed by Tea Party Echidna saying after Subaru rejected her contract that he didn’t him to think that she was the only evil one of the Witches of Sin, leading to her taking away Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb, and this is important since Subaru was using his ability to enter the tomb as a crutch instead of speaking to Emilia and getting to know her, which viewers know to be true since the first thing he did after he composed himself was to try to go back into the tomb. Perhaps choosing the choice that offers the highest probability of success is actually a fundamental part of Echidna’s character, which would explain why she, as I surmise, enacted a grand plan with the heroes from four hundred years ago to bring the world to a good future. She may just say that all she wants is all the knowledge in the world, but the world continuing on instead of staying stuck in a cycle of being destroyed and reconstructed would be the best way to acquire more knowledge, so surely she took to the plan that would offer the highest chance of success. And there are signs that Foxidna may even have the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom just like Tea Party Echidna did based on how she suggested to Subaru that taking Rem with him would be a good plan since he could say that he was the one to save her when she wakes up, which Subaru used a reason to take Rem with him on the journey to Ram when they meet later on in the episode, and Subaru’s notably reacted to that, showing that Foxidna’s words had a strong impact on him and that it dawned on him what a great idea it was in that moment. Foxidna may have shown that she’s just as manipulative as Tea Party Echidna and the original Echidna was. I suspect there is a very important plot reason why Rem has to be at Pleiades Watchtower, and it’s something we viewers won’t be able to see coming, but Foxidna knows why it must happen, and that’s the reason she planted the idea in Subaru’s head.

When they finally made it to Roswaal’s mansion the next day, there was yet another terrible translation by Crunchyroll when Subaru’s words were translated to “I hear the meeting with all the fakes went well.” As stated earlier in my write-up, the Council of Wise Men are currently ruling Lugunica in the absence of a king, meaning “caretakers” or “regents” would be a much better translation. “Fakes” in this scenario is gibberish that no human would come up with, showing that Re:Zero has an AI translator. This shows that just as Reinhard venturing out to try and reach the Pleiades Watchtower was done so by decree of the Council of Wise Men, Roswaal needed to meet with the Council of Wise Men to give Subaru’s group the okay to make the journey, likely ’cause of Satella’s sealed body being at the Pleiades Watchtower, meaning permission is necessary to ensure that the Council of Wise Men approves of their decision and doesn’t get squeamish at the thought of a large group travelling to where the Witch of Envy is sealed. Subaru reveals when they’ve arrived at the mansion that they are there for two reasons, to pick up Rem and Meili, and given that Meili blushed hard when she heard Subaru’s footsteps and that all the stuffed plushies there were made by Subaru since no one would know to make a plushie of a witch from fairytales from Earth given witches from Re:Zero’s fantasy world don’t look like that, this shows Meili has really taken to Subaru, making his title “The Little Girl User” very apt. Meili is only happy to go along since she doesn’t want to be cooped inside all day and going back to a familiar place where there are mabeasts she can control is fine with her even though she swears she isn’t like Beatrice and Petra, which is false given what we saw of her reaction to Subaru coming down to visit her.

In a later scene, Julius also shows some very uncharacteristic vulnerability, diverging from his reputation as the greatest of knights, in wondering which is more painful, being forgotten or forgetting someone else, ’cause he was struggling with being forgotten and not being able to remember his own kid brother. However, Subaru snaps him out of him by reminding him that he remembers how capable Julius due to his humiliation by Julius’s hand, and that immediately improved Julius’s mood, leading to him bantering about Subaru’s weakness and how Subaru is remarkable since he can bounce back from bad situations so easily, and they’ve come a long way since Julius talked smack about him and completely and utterly humiliated him.

After that, Subaru heads to Rem’s room, and Ram asks him why he’s willing to go far for Rem. He remarks that he wants to be the first thing Rem sees when she wakes up, much as Foxidna pushed him into thinking. He says that when you take emotion out of the equation it doesn’t matter who saves her, but he really wants to be the one to do it with all of his being, which elicits a genuine smile from Ram, showing just how much she appreciates Subaru for caring about her sister even though she herself has no memories of her. Given that Subaru is the one that got Roswaal, who Ram loves with all her heart, off his awful path of doing so much evil ’cause of his not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, and Ram attributes Rem’s feats in the mansion arc to Subaru due to her not remembering Rem, it’s very clear Subaru holds a special place in Ram’s heart even if it’s not the same feeling Rem had for Subaru but moreso akin to that of a honourary brother and genuine friend for remembering Rem and all that he’s done for Roswaal’s domain, and that smile from Ram just showed how far the relationship between her and Subaru had come, which I very much enjoyed since Ram is one of my favourite characters in the show. He then enters Rem’s room and shows how he is resolved to bring her back thinking he wasn’t able to get that across properly before, maybe ’cause he had no leads or anything of the sort, but Foxidna gave him the drive and hope he needed.

The last part of the episode shows Garfiel breaking down when his mother asks why he shows so much concern for them with him explaining away that he can tell that they’re kind of losing it, which Liara has no good comeback for, but she knows something is amiss when Garfiel suddenly looks like he wants to cry, and she holds him as if she were his real mother, which she is, as he bawls about missing his mom, and Rafiel and Fred both walk out of their rooms to see what the commotion was before Mimi guides them back. Once Garfiel is at the door and about to leave, Liara says goodbye to him and urges her young kids to as well, and only after he learns of Rafiel’s name and that Liara named both Rafiel and Fred that he gets the sense that somewhere deep down she remembers him and Frederica given the similarity in their names, which very much lifts his spirits, and given Garfiel in Season 2 had a notable arc on thinking that his mother abandoned him, that moment must’ve been very good for his self-esteem since although she may not have remembered him he was still in her heart in a way, which was good for closing a character arc from Season 2, showing that Tappei plans his story for the long haul.

As for the episode itself, I thought it was a great start to the season and had good emotional moments, nice lore drops, and a number of instances of potential foreshadowing, and this was just a setup episode itself, so I’m looking forward to this arc, which is supposed to be the favourite among the fandom although we’ll see whether White Fox delivers on that front, and if it does, whether it is all that it’s hyped up to be. If this season is a success, it’ll be in spite of Crunchyroll’s rancid translations.

A Re:Zero Theory: Priscilla knew what happened to Anastasia, which is what provoked Priscilla’s comment to the current Anastasia in Episode 59

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To deflect the topic about Priscilla’s trust or lack thereof in Al, Priscilla talked about the unseemly guilt Anastasia placed on her knight, and in the anime there’s no clear indicator of what Priscilla could be referring to at the time due to an information gap.

But later in Episode 60, we see Anastasia use magic, which both Al and Felix both assert that to their knowledge she shouldn’t be able to in Episode 65, so this suggests something happened to Anastasia during the first battle against the Witch Cult.

This would explain why Priscilla mused on the unseemly guilt Julius felt, and it’s because Julius while out to battle failed to protect Anastasia, which is what led to this shapeshifter or imposter, whichever it is, taking the real Anastasia’s place.

Whereas we saw Felt bring a metia that Beatrice activated, there was no sign of Anastasia using a metia. When there was an actual metia, we saw the magic emanating from it, not Felt or Beatrice, and given the magic came from Anastasia rather than an object, there was no metia, so it’s an imposter or shapeshifter.

And given the group didn’t incur serious setbacks against Sirius aside from Kiritaka’s capture, perhaps Anastasia had a mishap somewhere outside their base since everyone was buying time for her escape. In a big city, there are many potential hazards, so it’s not just the Witch Cult you should worry about.

As for Julius showing no discomfort upon returning, Julius has a reputation for being the most knightly of knights, the opposite of Subaru in Arc 3 the self-proclaimed knight, so I believe he could remain stoic if Anastasia had really been hurt due to him being away from her when others couldn’t.

Re:Zero Episode 66 (Season 3 Episode 16) – Analysis and Important Details

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I thought the episode was a satisfying conclusion to this season although there was one detail I hoped would be revealed that didn’t. Included in my post this time will be an update on how I believe Al relates to Subaru as I’ll be including something I didn’t in my previous write-ups.

The episode opens with Beatrice and the group fighting Lye, and she notes to Otto she can use up to five magic crystals as she needs to save one to bring back Puck. Two of them were used up as they fought with Lye eating the names and memories of three of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries with the special effect of them being shattered and reforming showing that they had entered the same state Rem and Joshua are in. When Felt returned, Lye attempted to eat her name but faced serious negative effects with his eyes becoming bloodshot and him feeing nausea that resulted in vomiting given it seemed to be a fake name Rom gave her in childhood. This gave them the opportunity to use two of the remaining of three crystals to fire the special metia Felt brought to them that appears to have once belonged to Echidna judging by Beatrice’s reaction to it. Lye was defeated, but he somehow swapped places with his sister, Rui Arneb, who gutted Dynas’s legs and then did the same to Otto when Rui had moved to strike Beatrice with Otto getting her out of the way. Apparently, one of the powers of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony is to transform into people you’ve eaten before although we have yet to see Lye or Roy do that since Rui had taken the form of a man before going into her true form. Rui realized that Felt herself didn’t realize that her name is not her true name upon interacting with her. Rui notes that she’s backing off, most likely due to her Gospel’s instructions, reasoning that since Lye was beaten to a pulp and since Roy just does as that woman, who I assume is Capella, says. Rui says it’s not whether you’re a gourmand or a foul feeder as what you eat isn’t important, and it’s who you eat with that’s important. Beatrice, with only one magic crystal she can use, since one must be saved for bringing back Puck, decides not to pursure Rui although Felt really wanted to even though they were clearly outmatched.

If it wasn’t clear from Rui’s interaction with them that she was holding back severely, I’ll make it clear now. It’s clear with how Regulus’s Gospel making him believe he’d meet the Emilia camp again despite it not happening until the fourth loop of Arc 5 is that Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path as I have long believed rather than being an object that makes the holder’s goals/dreams come true. This was also likely why Capella went to attack the government office the heroes had made their base of operations when if she had stayed with Theresia and Kurgan both Wilhelm and Garfiel would’ve both 100% died and why Capella was certain that she accomplished all that she had needed and was leaving, when her pursuing Al, Felix, and Anastasia would’ve resulted in one or more of them dying, and for this very reason, Rui left as well when she could’ve butchered them all since Beatrice only had one magic crystal left aside from the one she was saving for bringing back Puck. I believe people who have treated Re:Zero as a serious story are meant to pick up on this, but people who expect the usual from most isekai series that don’t have much happening on a story front don’t realize that Re:Zero is a deep story and that it wants you to draw conclusions from these things happening multiple times in succession. You have to actually think critically when you watch Re:Zero. After all, Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was basically a tool meant for Echidna to keep the world on a particular path, and it wouldn’t be a stretch if the Gospels had a similar purpose.

Kiritaka then announced that they had taken control of all four control towers and had driven away the Witch Cult. After Subaru and Emilia make their way to the government office seeing that it had been destroyed, they are reunited with Beatrice, and Subaru princess carries Beatrice, leading to Anastasia saying that Subaru can be a boy after all, which Emilia affirmed, although I’m not sure Emilia affirmed that in the same way Anastasia did. First with Ricardo joking earlier in the season that Subaru seduces little girls and now this bit with Anastasia showing that characters are openly mocking Subaru about him attracting little girls knowing that Subaru isn’t really that type of person as that’d be inappropriate, which isn’t a bad thing of course given how serious of a show Re:Zero can be.

Subaru and co. then pay a visit to Garfiel, who is proud of Subaru for showing off what a man he is by saving Emilia. He’s in good spirits given he joked that he didn’t want to hear about his condition from Subaru of all people, which Emilia could see, and Beatrice resorted that he’s feeling too good about himself given it’s usually when he’s nice and quiet that he’s actually suffering. Mimi then barges in and has her way with Garfiel with Otto saying that he really should’ve acted like a man who’s hurt. Otto is expected to be able to recover from his injury, and Subaru wishes that he’d consult with him before leaping into danger since they’re friends after all with Otto replying that there’s no way he could just sit back and do nothing when Subaru had so much on his plate, ESPECIALLY since he’s his friend, and that just shows why Otto is such a good person to have on your side. Otto says he’s sorry that Gluttony got away but that they did gain something from this since Priscilla captured Sirius.

They start interrogating Sirius, and when Subaru asks what made them think about demanding the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the artificial spirit, as in Beatrice, Sirius remarks that she doesn’t even care to think about what the others were thinking and that they only gathered here ’cause of the instructions from their Gospels. When Subaru puts it out that there that they follow their Gospels so religiously to revive the Witch of Envy, Sirius retorts by saying she doesn’t give a damn about that and that the only one she loves is Subaru with her going up to him to lick him, which Emilia struck her hard for doing so. When Beatrice urged them to leave, Sirius started singing horribly since she had realized the power of song from Lilliana, and Subaru says that she shouldn’t consider Liliana and her singing to be the same with it being completely different. Fortuna then taunts Subaru, saying the situation is the same with him in that he’s not Petelgeuse but with both his soul and body and Petelgeuse’s melding together with her goal being to drag Petelgeuse out from within him although it’s hard to say whether this is pure delusion or a fact. Although I do believe Petelgeuse exists in a pocket dimension within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul, I do not believe their souls have literally melded together. Before they leave, Sirius warns them that Gluttony will be after Subaru. The subs say Gourmand, Foul Feeding, and Satiation, but given the words are used to describe their representation of the Gluttony sin, I feel it should be Gourmet (since Lye wants Gourmet food, which is why he makes his prey feel strong emotions to juice them up and fights them as if to prepare them well for being eaten), Foul-Feeding (Hyphen for grammatical purposes), and Satiation are the right terms to use, and I will use them moving forward since I’m not going to expect Crunchyroll to have any sort of consistency moving forward. I’m guessing Sirius got wind of this ‘when she compared the text written in the Gluttony Archbishop’s Gospels compared to her own ’cause Lye, and Roy and Rui by extension, have been after Subaru since Lye ate Rem’s memories, which is part of the reason he was so hyped for a confrontation with Subaru in Episode 59.

After they walk out of Sirius’s cell, Al replies that they got nothing aside from making them feel gross, which Subaru shoots down immediately, leading to Al saying he sure knows how to make those freaks like him, which suggests that Al is not Subaru himself since it alludes to him not being able to ingratiate himself with some of the Sin Archbishops whereas Subaru has, possibly showing that he was a failed hero of the story. Beatrice then tells Subaru to not get too friendly with Al, which Al is disappointed to her after he helped wake her up, calling her Beako, which she remarked she only lets Subaru do, and Emilia thanks Al for helping her pass a message to Subaru, which Al reacts well to, similarly to how Subaru said in Arc 2 that he’s the type to like to be rewarded for his efforts. When they emerge from the underground, Beatrice reveals that Al visited her and got her Kiritaka’s magic crystal, which is what woke her up but that he wouldn’t tell her anything about how he got it, and that soured Al on Beatrice even though Subaru does the same thing to others. It was only after Emilia spoke well of Al that they were forced to admit that Al’s not a bad guy.

I have to mention this regarding Al now. I don’t believe he is Subaru himself since there is a good deal against it, but I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. Ever since Episode 22, A Flash Of Sloth, I have been looking up the names of Re:Zero’s characters since that title could’ve referenced multiple things from that episode, showing that names are important in Re:Zero. Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flugel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flugel. As for the time period in which Flugel existed, Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama in Episode 43 for taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, which shows that Flugel was from the same time period Satella was from.

Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse summon a thousand shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), Subaru using a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25, and Subaru suddenly having an upswelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together.

Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flugel as I speculate, also did that as well and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones, and that would explain why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were created from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time, why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts, why he failed when Subaru succeeded, and why he didn’t know about Capella’s powers.

When the group reconvenes without Julius and Ricardo, Anastasia, or whoever she is, reveals she is against letting Sirius live, which upsets Felix since Sirius is their only lead on how to save Crusch. Anastasia doubts they’ll get anything useful on Gluttony or Lust from Sirius, but Subaru disagrees and doesn’t think it’d be a total waste of effort although he does understand she’d uneasy about keeping her in custody. Wilhelm then shuts Felix down for making a fuss of things. Reinhard also takes Subaru’s side and says he’ll transport Sirius to the castle since this is a rare opportunity to learn about the Witch Cult. Then the topic comes to Lust’s victims, and Felix says that they can’t be healed since they’re creatures that’ve been completely remade. Priscilla suggests giving the people turned to flies death since they’d probably prefer that, and when Subaru starts to protest, she calls him a fool and that ideals that are all talk have no value, which leads to Emilia saying she’ll handle that by putting all of Lust’s victims in cold sleep, and Priscilla backs down after seeing Liliana’s exuberant confidence in Emilia and even says she’ll make Emilia her rival after she does, probably ’cause she was again as I said in my write-up for an earlier episode saying things that were stressful to others to bring out the best in them.

As dawn breaks, Kiritaka thanked Subaru for saving the city, and that he was had been fully prepared to die until he heard Liliana’s song. We get shots of all the relevant parties and then have Subaru thank Subaru and for Reinhard to say it’s a tremendous honour to help a friend, probably since Subaru treats him like an actual person like others instead of a weapon.

Subaru and Emilia are then happy that Lusbel and Tina are safe, and Emilia says that they have to celebrate that since everyone worked so hard to make that happen. Subaru then sees Subaru, who is wounded in a lot of ways and has lost an arm. When he makes a remark about Julius, Ricardo doesn’t respond, but Subaru sees Julius all by himself in the shadow of a building, and Julius is astounded that Subaru remembers him since Emilia doesn’t. This shows that Roy ate his name, which rewrites reality as if no one ever remembered his existence. I don’t believe Julius’s possessions were also erased given how three members of the White Dragon’s Scales broke into pieces of glass and reformed into their current state of being in suspended animation, showing that they had become something fundamentally different than before. As Puck revealed in Episode 26, if a Sin Archbishop of Gluttony eats your memories, you lose your memories, your name, your existence erased, and if both your name and memories are eaten, you become a shell of who you were in suspended animation. Given even Rem’s possessions disappeared when she had been erased by the White Whale, your possessions probably don’t disappear unless both your name and memories are eaten, or Rem’s possessions were just thrown out ’cause no one could remember her.

What this shows is that Subaru has a resistance to Authorities for some reason. After Unseen Hand was used in his presence once, he was able to see Petelgeuse’s Authority the next time he saw it being used. When the White Whale, which Puck referred to as Gluttony in Episode 18, erased Rem, Subaru was the lone person who remembered her, which showed even back then that he had a resistance to the Gluttony Authority. When Rem was again erased by Lye, he still remembered her, proving that the White Whale was either made or modified somehow to have its mist have a similar effect to the Authority of Gluttony. After Sirius used her Authority on Subaru, in subsequent loops, it took longer and longer for him to fall under her control. This latest incident shows that Subaru still retains his resistance to the Authority of Gluttony. I don’t know where this resistance comes from though and expect it will be made clear towards the end of the series.

Anyway, with Season 4 being confirmed to be in production, I eagerly await to learn more about Re:Zero’s fantasy world and the aftermath of Julius having been forgotten. I also wonder what is up with whoever this Anastasia is. This season was fun and a refreshing change of pace compared to previous seasons.

Re:Zero Episode 65 (Season 3 Episode 15) – Analysis + Important Details

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This was my favourite episode of Season 3 so far. It had very compelling fights ’cause the fights themselves made you care about the characters either directly or indirectly due to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s powers, more compelling villains since Regulus was just a noob with an OP power who was just evil in contrast to Lye and Roy, interesting foreshadowing, and character writing that is consistent with what came before.

The first two scenes need to being looked at as a whole given how one interaction doesn’t make sense if you don’t do that, so I’ll be covering both the ongoing fight with Lye and the start of the fight with Roy, looking at them together as if they are a whole. The episode starts with a lot of the White Dragon’s Scales mercenaries making light of Lye since they think he’s just one brat, but he moves really quickly, leading to Gaston trying to take him on directly with him being taking a big blow from an attack Lye called the “Fist Lord’s Strike”, which seemed to pack a lot more punch than what Lye had attacked Gaston with a number of episodes back. Otto then used Earth Magic, which he had revealed he had in Season 2, to get Lye away from Gaston since he realized all of them would be in huge trouble if Gaston were to be killed. Otto then noted that he’s surprised by Lye’s lack of finishing blows considering he probably had the opportunity to kill Gaston then and there instead of merely hitting him with one blow. Lye then taunts them, saying that they’re useless for not being able to handle one brat and that he’s nothing compared to the indiscriminate Roy, and in this sense I believe he is referring both to how Roy is not a gourmand like he is and how Roy is unrestrained in dealing with his prey.

And now to the Roy fight, as I mentioned in an earlier episode, Julius reacted to Roy referring to him to Nii-sama, and it’s ’cause deep down he retains the feeling he had a younger brother even though Roy has erased Joshua by eating both his memories and his name, the latter of which causes all proof of your existence to be erased, and when both are eaten, you become like Rem, who is a shell of herself in suspended animation. That’s how Roy could dodge Julius’s Al Clauseria and then counter his 2-spirit combination attack after he demonstrated to Ricardo how much better as a swordsman he was. Then he dropped his swords and said, “Eclipse”, and struck Julius with his fist, which dealt a lot of damage to Julius. When Roy started using Water Magic, Ricardo was baffled that he had mastered sword arts, martial arts, and magic, and Roy had described himself as a humble, nameless mage after Ricardo asked him just what the hell he was, showing that he had gained access to the skills of a mage that he had erased, and perhaps the reason he said Eclipse after he dropped his swords the first time was to show he was switching to someone else’s memories to harvest his/her skills and knowledge, which allowed him to be skilled at martial arts. I believe Lye and Roy can only tap into one person’s memories and skills at a time basing this mainly on how Roy dropped his swords before he said, “Eclipse”, and switched to martial arts against Julius and how he called himself a humble, nameless mage when he used water magic against Ricardo and Julius. If they could tap into more than one person’s skills and memories at a time, Roy wouldn’t be speaking as if he was just a mage or dropping his swords when he intended to change his fighting style if he could just put them away, which shows he tapped into someone’s memories who isn’t used to moving around with swords on his/her person. Ricardo then dispelled the water dragon attack with a roar, leading to Roy being giddy about how it’s a long time anyone survived that attack, which shows that he is indiscriminate as Lye had indicated with him being unrestrained in handling his prey by going all-out from the beginning whereas Lye has seemed to be going easy on them by not dealing any of Otto’s group a finishing blow even though we’ve gotten much more of that fight and only the beginning of this Roy fight. Julius then remarks about why Roy has chosen evil despite his skills, and Roy taunts him with Joshua’s memories, calling him the brother he always idolized due to him picking an appa from a tree for him when he was sick, but Julius has no recollection of that even though clearly feels something deep down given his reaction to Roy’s words. Roy then says with Joshua’s memories that he always felt that he was a burden, but now with Joshua’s memories in tow, he implies it’s great now to be in control, saying he actually resented Julius for picking that appa for him since it’s something he couldn’t do himself at that age. It was then implied that Julius took a blow after rushing towards Lye, and that became a good time to segue into the Capella and Al fight.

Then it segues to Al having split Capella in half from the top of her head to her belly with Capella musing about how many more times will it actually take before he can actually kill her. Al then replies even if he dies a hundred times, he’s not sure that he could ever kill her but that maybe she is the one who hasn’t thought this through since he knew she’d come here which means they were prepared to give her an especially warm welcome with an attack that would shatter her very soul, and Capella just tells him to do it if they went through all that effort to do so. She says that if they did all that for her that her principles won’t let her turn down the thoughtfulness in what they had prepared for her. Al then has a cute interaction with Capella when he says that she’s seriously going to die and that dying hurts and is scary, especially the first time, saying she doesn’t want to do that, showing that Al does indeed have a power that lets him defy death, which was hinted at in Episode 60 when he said that she better get out of there before he dies. Al, for the lulz, even threw in a dirty joke for her about how she should save her firsts for when the time is right, which she really appreciated although she remarked that he’s probably doing that to lie to her, leading her to transform into her black dragon form, asking him which form he likes the most with Al replying that he can never love anyone. Al then steps on a part of the ground that caused the whole place to start collapsing, and he dives into the water.

When Al got out of the water, he nearly took off his helmet, but seeing Anastasia was there, he decided not do it, saying he’s self-conscious. Anastasia says she didn’t expect Capella to take the whole place down, and Al says he was secretly crushed three times, which suggests that Capella killed him three times. Then Felix also joined them, and when Anastasia asked whether it was pointless to hope that Capella had died, Felix remarked that even Anastasia blowing off Capella’s face with magic wasn’t enough and that she thought Anastasia couldn’t, leading to Al drawing his sword against Anastasia since he knows magic is something Anastasia’s not capable of using. I’m not sure who this could be in Anastasia’s body though, whether it’s a shape-shifter or a possession of sorts. Al only backed down ’cause Felix pressed Al’s sword against his skin, causing it to bleed.

The information suggests again that Al may have been the previous hero of the story given he knew the remains of the witch in Priestella is that of Typhon’s and that you shouldn’t give out your real name to the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. As for why Al is very likely not a future Subaru, Al neither knew about the extent of Capella’s regeneration nor her power to transform into your ideal partner by reading all your reactions to her, showing he had limited to no exposure to her, meaning she may not have been the Sin Archbishop of the Lust during his run-through as the hero of the story. Another point against Al being a future Subaru is that Al can specifically mention that he has been dying to Capella with it implied that she knows that is the case, which Subaru is not permitted to do by Satella when he has the intent to share information about Return By Death. This suggests that Al simply has a different power than Subaru and that it’s not a matter of Al being able to control his power better. Granted, this is not definitive proof that he can’t be Subaru since we don’t know all the rules of Re:Zero’s world. We don’t know whether an Authority can change over time, and if it can, perhaps Al’s Authority used to be identical to Subaru’s before it became whatever it is now.

Capella then returns as she reforms from rats with her missing her eyes leading to her getting the last two rats to conglomerate into her full form. This may indicate that Capella has a minimum mass given when she was missing a couple of pieces of her body she couldn’t fully reform herself. Capella is acting very dere with how Al hit her with such a passionate attack even though it didn’t end doing any permanent damage to her. When Al draws his sword against her, she tells him not to misunderstand since she’s leaving due to her already having done what she wanted to do, and as Anastasia interjects, it’s what the Gospel ordered her to do, which Capella didn’t respond well to, saying that her feelings for them aren’t from some book and that they’re real, describing it as pure love, which triggers Felix, leading to him saying that if they kill her, she bets Crusch’s body will be returned to normal, something Capella shoots down immediately since her and her blood are two separate entities. She then sends out her Demi-Beasts that are alive yet dead since they’re so intent on chasing after her, which Felix makes Felix cry out in tears about how she could do such a thing with Capella remarking in an attempt to provoke Felix that it might be ’cause no one ever told her to not play with corpses. This does get under Felix’s skin since as a healer he probably values life and respects those who have died as opposed to Capella turning corpses into monstrosities and not allowing people to move on. Al then directs them to flee, and Capella tells them if they don’t keep up the fight that more people will die, creating more Demi-beasts in the process, urging them to slaughter them all before she splits her bodies in rats and starts fleeing from the city.

As I have stated before in my previous write-ups, I do not believe that Witch Cult Gospels are true texts that tell the future but are merely meant to keep the world on a particular path given how Regulus’s Gospel made him believe he would meet the Emilia camp again in the first loop of this arc despite it not happening again until the fourth loop. Capella escaping could be the way for the source of the knowledge of the Gospels to ensure that none of Al, Capella, or whoever this Anastasia is, die since if she had pursued them, one or more of them may have died, showing that it’s also keeping the world on a particular path. While they’re fleeing, Felix eventually cries out to somebody to help, leading to Reinhard using his super hearing to hone in on their location, and at Felix’s urging of him to kill all the Demi-beasts, he does. I believe Felix is crying for them to be given death since they currently can’t move on after dying due to what they have become. I believe Reinhard’s eyes were obscured for this week’s episode ’cause he is suffering while fulfilling his duty as the Sword Saint. ‘Cause Reinhard was adamant that the corpse soldier Theresia was just a corpse soldier, meaning he was justified in killing her, Wilhelm said that he had nothing left to say to him and urged “Sword Saint Reinhard-dono” to do his duty in using his immense strength on the battlefield, reducing him to merely being a weapon. Earlier this season, Wilhelm wanted to close the gap between him and Reinhard, but him saying in the previous episode “You’re right. I’m wrong. So I have nothing more to say to you”, followed by referring to Reinhard in an extremely impersonal and respectful way (full title with the -dono honorific) is a pretty clear indication that the gap is not closing anymore as you really don’t hit someone with a “I have nothing more to say to you, so respectfully go away” if you have any intention to be friendly with them afterwards. Reinhard just wants to be treated as a person as anybody else would, and that’s why he reacted so well to Subaru saying he’d make up for any of Reinhard’s shortcomings in Episode 58.

Back to Otto’s group and Lye, Gaston remarks that Lye is pretty damn good at fighting, and he knows this ’cause he was trained by the gardener at Reinhard’s place and can see that Lye’s movements aren’t that of someone who is innately talented but has trained for years. Upon hearing that, Otto realizes that Lye and Roy can gain the knowledge and skills of anyone they eat, and Otto plays dumb. Lye says that unspoken messages, which I’m guessing should actually be “hiding your body language” and was a mistranslation, isn’t a strong point of Otto’s, so maybe she should give up on being a merchant before he gets hurt. Lye then immediately eats one of the mercenaries, Hicks, and nobody remembers him, not even Dynas, the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Lye says it’s because this type of thing is so sad that they love to engage in this sort of one-sided reunion in which they taunt the people who have lost someone dear to them much like Roy had also been doing, and when Dynas says that he hasn’t seen the guy who had been eaten before despite clearly on some level knowing there’s something off, Lye taunts him with his memories, suggesting it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t protect Miriam (and Maylie? The subs said Mary, but there was someone with a similar name from Season 2).

Enraged, Dynas rushes towards Lye and gets knocked back easily with Lye musing that strong emotions are great ’cause they’re so rich, and that’s likely why he takes his time buttering up his prey as opposed to Roy who immediately escalates the situation with his prey, which is why Otto remarks that as a normal person he can’t think of people in terms of how delicious they are, prompting him to ask everyone to not say his name, only for it to be revealed that none of them knew it to begin with. Otto put it out there that he believes that what Lye is doing in letting them fight back is his idea of setting a table for a meal, and Lye remarks that people with keen instincts are hard to finish off and that they get away with it ’cause it makes them all the more tasty. Otto declares that he has won with Lye indicating that Dynas and Gaston are not bad but not worthy of a main course but that after losing Felt it would be bad to also let Otto get away too, especially Rui would rip him a new one, and this is not the first time Lye has mentioned Rui. Given Rui would rip him a new one if he were to let Otto go, it perhaps suggests that Rui is also a Sin Archbishop although who knows where she is given she is nowhere to be seen. Otto then tells everyone if he touches them that they’re as good as dead since he can eat anything he touches. They all rush towards Lye after Otto thanks him for his impeccable manners, and after Gaston creates an opening, Otto grabs Lye and puts two fire magic stones underneath his shirt, which explode on him, revealing many scars. Otto wonders whether those scars made him the way he is, which leads to Lye pestering him about giving out his name to him and also saying he has other ways to get him to talk, such as eating Otto’s fingers one by one. Beatrice then makes a grand entrance saying it’s rude to start eating before everyone is at the table. I’m not sure how she’s awake after she was in a severely mana-depressed state, but absent a proper explanation, maybe she restored enough mana to function after one day of sleep. Otherwise, someone restored her mana through some other means. Otto was about to say Beatrice’s name, but Lye tapped into Rem’s memories and already knew it, and his impersonation of Rem is just so disgusting on every level. He clamours to meet Subaru since Rem had talked about how Subaru would pass judgement on him in Episode 26, which is why he was so eager to meet Subaru in Episode 59. Beatrice is determined to not let Lye meet Subaru given that he’d be extremely hurt, possibly irreparably, which is why she and Otto have to take care of him here and now. Beatrice and Otto don’t really remember Rem themselves, but they have been told about Rem by Subaru and knows how much she means to them.

I just find Lye and Roy to be much more compelling villains than Regulus was, who was just an evil man-child with a broken power. Lye and Roy taunting people with the memories of people they used to know is more effective at making me care their fights both the characters fighting the Witch Cult and the Sin Archbishops themselves. Capella also steals the scene of basically every scene she’s in. The touch with Reinhard being disheartened over how his relationship with Wilhelm has relationship has deteriorated further and the bit with Anastasia being a possible fake was also great to watch, and I believe this episode was Re:Zero at its best.

Re:Zero Episode 60 (Season 3 Episode 10) – Analysis + Important Details

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We start off this episode with Capella back the government office. Apparently, Felix and Anastasia prepared a ruse for Capella with Felix’s hope that Capella would tell her how to cure Crusch, but Capella herself doesn’t know how to heal a body that has given in to dragon blood as she wishes she knew the answer herself. Capella also remarked that Crusch’s blood couldn’t overcome her blood even though it’s noble herself, which suggests that some bloodlines may have special properties. We know there was an Emerada Lugunica that existed 50 years ago was beautiful, intelligent, and feared by all. Could Capella be Emerada who was resurrected by black dragon blood? Or did she see herself in Emerada’s story and took on her name? After it is clear that Capella doesn’t have the answer to what they want, Anastasia gets out of bed and hits Capella with yang magic (Season 2 revealed that yin and yang are the two other elements aside from the four primary ones with shadow from Season 1 appearing to be a mistranslation) and activated her trap, which broke part of the floor, revealing that they had already dug a tunnel down to a lower floor as part of their prep for this encounter. Anastasia had worn a wig and wore bandages to mimic Crusch’s condition, which was very well-played, and then used the same magic from before to knock Capella to that lower floor, where she encountered Al, who warned Capella to get out of there before he dies. This indicates that just like for Subaru, death is likely not the end for Al, which was something Elsa hated about Subaru’s eyes since he clearly didn’t see death as the end of the road.

Theory crafting the specifics about Al’s powers outside of it involving time seems to be an impossible endeavor given how many things it could possibly, so I won’t bother doing that. Instead I will reiterate that I believe Subaru was summoned to bring the world to a free future and stop the cycle of the world being destroyed/reconstructed. I propose the key is to have Subaru be born weak and improve Subaru’s self-esteem so that he isn’t conceited like past heroes I believe existed in the world. Al and especially Subaru were perhaps both born weaker compared to previous heroes to give the world a chance to end the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed by making it so that their lived experiences were different from that of the previous very strong and conceited heroes I believe existed in the past with both of them probably having been summoned by Satella. For more on my main theory, read one of my previous posts here: https://thoroughwatch.org/?p=36

Afterwards, after Reinhard tries to follow one of Subaru’s plans, which ends in failure with Reinhard being knocked probably across the whole town, Regulus says that he is a perfect, complete human and that he’s entirely fulfilled with there not being such a thing as more or less for him. Emilia has a great moment where she calls him out by saying that has been coming out of his mouth has been “I want this” and “I want that”, citing that he’s an incredibly selfish person. She says that if he’s fulfilled then he should take better care of his wives. Sounding very hurt, she mentioned how Regulus tied his wives down and made them give up, and then she realized that she absolutely hates Regulus on every level, which pissed Regulus off so much he started picking up huge portions of water into cubes and accelerating the water once he stops having them stay in place.

After that, an ice chase ensues as Emilia freezes water as they try to escape Regulus with Regulus in hot pursuit of them since he can walk normally on ice and doesn’t need to skate like Emilia and Subaru do. Emilia then suggests handing Subaru one of her lesser spirits and asks if he can hang on by himself, to which Subaru replies that as a kid he was called the “Ice Princess”, which suggests he either cross-dressed or cosplayed as a girl frequently in his youth while skating for whatever reason, possibly as a way to avoid being compared to his dad due to him being desperate to get out of his dad’s shadow. Subaru having an inferiority complex was a plot point in Episode 29 (Season 2 Episode 4), and I thought it was the best episode in the series for the subject matter it touched upon, which explained Subaru’s behaviour throughout the first season and up to that point. There is no filler in Re:Zero, so whether it was cross-dressing or cosplay, perhaps Subaru will be forced to pull out a trick from his youth.

I’ll stray from the scene order now to focus on Priscilla. Sirius again does something to make herself the center of attention. If you recall from Episode 51, Sirius’s antics at the clock tower in Episode 51 and 52 were meant to get people’s attention on her specifically given her power allows her to nudge people’s emotional states to what she desires after first getting their attention. In this recent episode, Sirius makes a fuss about how she brightened up the place since it was so dark, and this led to Liliana falling under her control. Priscilla, being the scene-stealer she is, decided to give Liliana a passionate French kiss to free her from Sirius’s control, which was not a bad idea since she already knew Liliana had some level of attraction to her. After that, Sirius directs a whole bunch of people from the city who had fallen under her control towards Priscilla and Liliana, which led to Priscilla using her Yang Sword to create a line of fire on the bridge leading to them, which stopped those under Sirius’s mind control from advancing. She then tasked Liliana with breaking those people from Sirius’s control, putting extra stress on Liliana by emphasizing that all of their lives are depending on her voice. This reminds of earlier this season in Episode 58 (I didn’t include that in my analysis, which was an oversight, I guess) when Priscilla said something that appeared to demean Liliana which motivated Liliana to do her best to live up to her family name. Perhaps Priscilla has the habit of saying something that is demeaning or stressful to the recipient of her words so that she can draw out a person’s best qualities. This was again shown in a more extreme fashion when Priscilla tested Subaru’s strength of character with her proposal that Subaru lick her foot in Episode 16. Priscilla had intended for Subaru to reject that offer, but Subaru was in very poor shape mentally to consider that was what she was gunning for.

Priscilla then engages Sirius and is definitely a match for her in combat, but Sirius appeared to taunt Priscilla with the mentioning “Iris and the Thorn King”, “Teleos’s Rose Knight”, and “Magritzer’s Gibbet”, which provoked Priscilla into becoming enraged. Whatever these three terms are, they clearly have a personal significance to Priscilla. I have an idea of why Priscilla had such a strong reaction based on previous content. Clearly from Episode 12, Priscilla must’ve come from a very high-class background given she had no idea that appas have red skin. Given “Iris and the Thorn King” and “Teleos’s Rose Knight”, whatever they are, involve a king and a knight, Priscilla may not be your average noble and might be royalty, and given it’s clear that Priscilla is not from Lugunica’s Royal Family since everyone would recognize her and ’cause Lugunica’s Royal Family perished, she might be royalty from a different nation. When Priscilla remarked in Episode 13 that Felt must’ve remained a slum dweller ’cause she can only manage tedious conversation, that might not have been a random insult but a hint that Priscilla went through hardship and lost her status as royalty at some point. I always thought the way Priscilla spoke to Subaru in Episode 16 at points made it seem like she was a queen or empress given the sort of inflections the voice actress used, and perhaps that was intentional and just phenomenal voice-acting.

Also of note and relates to the stuff with Priscilla is that I missed something for last week’s write-up. I had noticed that Julius looked surprised after Roy said something to him, but I was unsure of what to make of it, so I rewatched Episode 59, and Roy addressed Julius by “Nii-sama”, meaning Crunchyroll botched the translation, showing that Roy knew Julius is an older brother, and that is why Julius seemed taken aback. We know that Sirius did not know Priscilla personally yet said the perfect things to unnerve her, so it seems the reason Julius didn’t stick with the original plan to not use your real name if you encounter the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony is ’cause Roy probably said things that made Julius believe Roy knew info about him. We know Sirius didn’t actually seem to know Priscilla at the start of their encounter, so either the Gospel gave her instructions, or there was some other tell we’re not aware of. Perhaps Sirius and Roy both had instructions from their Gospels to say what they did or had good info from the Witch Cult’s spy network, and that’s the main reason Julius abandoned their well-thought out plan.

After many failures regarding penetrating Regulus’s seeming invincibility, Subaru asks Emilia for a hint by asking what happened to her after she was taken prisoner. Emilia responded by saying that he asked her if she’s a virgin, that he calls his wives by numbers, and when she said that that makes him seem like an evil king, one of them (Wife #184) called him “Little King”, which Subaru knew as the Latin name for Regulus, and he stated that it has another name, which is implied later in the episode to be “Lion Heart”, and I will get back to that at the end of my post, but I first I have to leave it out there that the Memory Snow OVA hinted that Subaru is a star nerd since he knew his own name was referring to a star cluster in that animation project that happened in the off years between Season 1 and Season of Re:Zero. Subaru then asked Emilia what Regulus’s hand felt like when he was strangling her, and she said it felt like nothing, which prompted Subaru to ask Reinhard to find out whether his heart is beating, which Reinhard confirmed it wasn’t to Subaru as he was being sent flying into the moon. This leads to Subaru beating Regulus at his own game at yapping by saying that Regulus has a right to hear about how he’ll lose since he’s all about his rights. Regulus, who says he is merciful, will allow Subaru to talk, and Subaru first says that Regulus’s power is the ability press the start button in the middle of the game, maybe ’cause when you start a game there’s a rush of momentum with all the animations starting up and everything, and that’s how he can launch dirt, air, and even water as we see in this episode at very high speed. Subaru says his ability is Lion Heart, the ability to stop time for his own body, and Regulus’s face shows that Subaru nailed it.

As I have noted in a previous post of mine, I have been looking up Re:Zero names ever since Episode 22 of Re:Zero, “A Flash of Sloth”, in which there were several instances of sloth that impacted the story. I had already looked up the names of the Sin Archbishops before, but it appeared my initial search was not enough with how Subaru was able to draw conclusions about Regulus’s ability when I couldn’t, so I expanded my search to more star facts and even mythology.

Betelgeuse, the name Petelgeuse is based off, is a star, in particular, in the constellation of Orion and the ninth-brightest star of the night sky. It’s called “Orion’s hand” in Arabic, which is almost certainly why Petelgeuse’s Authority was the “Unseen Hand”.

Baten Kaitos meant “belly of the sea monster” in Arabic, and I reasoned after Season 2 that that must be about Lye’s eating ability, but after seeing that Alphard is referred to in Arabic as the “backbone of the Serpent”, Baten Kaitos is most likely hinting at the White Whale while Alphard refers to the Black Serpent, the last of the Three Great Mabeasts. Lye Batenkaitos had called the White Whale “our pet” when he and Regulus attacked the White Whale extermination force on its way back to the capital. At the time, I thought it may have just been a pet in general of the Witch Cult, but since Season 3 shows that the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony have a speech quirk in which they speak as if they are more than one person despite being individuals themselves, Lye probably had direct control over the White Whale, and that’s why he personally came to avenge it. Interestingly enough, on names.org a user-submitted meaning indicates that Lye means “fog” in a Native American language, and this may be how Tappei decided to have the White Whale emit a dense fog.

The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius as the morning star heralded the hot and dry summer and feared that the star caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused. Owing to its brightness, Sirius would have been seen to twinkle more in the unsettled weather conditions of early summer. To Greek observers, this signified emanations that caused its malignant influence. All people perceived to be suffering from its effects were said to be “star-struck”, which may be how Tappei decided to make Sirius’s Authority involve people falling under her control and feeling a sense of closeness to Sirius. Sirius means “glowing” or “scorching”, and the glowing part could be referring to how she makes herself the center of attention while the scorching part could be how Tappei decided to make her a fire-magic user.

Capella means “little goat” in Latin. In Greek mythology, the star represented the goat Amalthea that suckled Zeus. It was this goat whose horn, after accidentally being broken off by Zeus, was transformed into the cornucopia, or “horn of plenty”, which would be filled with whatever its owner desired. Perhaps this is how Tappei decided to allow Capella to transform into anything she desired. Since she took the Royal Family’s name, “Emerada” could be a perversion of “Emeralda” much like “Satella” is a perversion of Satellite. “Emeralda” is a variant of “Emerald” with emeralds symbolizing rebirth and wisdom, which may be why Capella is good at reading people and why she might have been resurrected by that black dragon blood in her body.

The Arabic meaning of Regulus is Lion Heart, and that should be part of how Subaru figured out Regulus’s power. Regulus is a fixed star, and fixed stars are luminary points, mainly stars, that appear not to move relative to one another against the darkness of the night sky in the background. Due to their immense distance from Earth, fixed stars appear to move so slowly in the sky that the change in their relative positions is nearly imperceptible on human timescales, except under careful examination with modern instruments, such as telescopes, that can reveal their proper motions. Hence, they can be considered to be “fixed” for many purposes, such as navigation, charting of stars, and timekeeping even though they do move but not to an extent that the naked eye can detect such movements. This should be how Subaru concluded that Regulus’s Authority freezes time for his own body since a fixed star seems frozen in time. As for how Subaru concluded that’s what makes him invincible, the Nemean lion in Greek mythology had impenetrable fur, and that should be how he figured that Lion Heart had something to do with Regulus’s actual heart.

Re:Zero Breaktime Season 3 Episode 5 is a must-watch since its shows unequivocally that Al was summoned to Earth much like Subaru was: https://x.com/LoremIpsumVerb/status/1851218364317761852?mx=2

Now I will explain how Al factors into this and why I believe he is Subaru’s brother and a previous iteration of the hero of the story. Although I posted the link to my main theory, you might not have time to read it, so I’ll post mainly the Al portion of my main theory. Subaru means Pleiades in Japanese, and Pleiades is referring to a star cluster in the Taurus constellation. Al’s true name, Aldebaran, is a star in the Taurus constellation that follows the Pleiades star cluster in the night sky. In Arabic, Aldebaran means the follower for that reason. While some of the Arabic meanings for Sin Archbishops hint at their powers, perhaps it would be better to consider Al’s name in relation to Subaru since Al isn’t a Sin Archbishop.

Since Aldebaran follows the Pleiades star cluster, perhaps he was given that name because he was Naoko and Kenichi’s next son after Subaru, which showed a fixation from at least one of his parents on their first son who disappeared. Al told Priscilla not to call him Aldebaran in Episode 16 of Re:zero, and that might be because that name is a constant reminder that his parents loved Subaru more than they loved him.

Since names have power in Re:zero, Aldebaran as a name could very possibly mean that Aldebaran would be the next person to be summoned after Subaru was. Aldebaran is pretty much guaranteed to have been summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world since at least one of the carriage driver, Priscilla, or Al recognized Subaru’s attempt at hitchhiking when hitchhiking shouldn’t exist in a medieval society, meaning Subaru’s attempt to catch a ride should’ve fallen flat on his face, since Al literally knew what Subaru meant by the Kansai dialect when he was exasperated about hearing it in Episode 12, since Priscilla used the English word “chance” knowing Subaru knew the word (and given that Priscilla doesn’t know what apples are, she probably isn’t from Earth since pretty much every grown adult on Earth has at least seen an unpeeled apple before), which shows that she did so knowing Subaru was from the same world as Al, and since Mimi was eating cheeseburgers, which shouldn’t exist in a medieval society, meaning someone from Earth has previously invented them in Re:Zero’s fantasy world. This means Al is either formerly a Japanese citizen, an immigrant who had not yet become a Japanese citizen, someone whose work brings him to Japan sometimes, or a fan of Japanese culture.

Now, I have to say that Re:zero is a logical series. Unlike tons of poorly made isekai series out there, all characters in Re:zero have their own underlying motivations. Something like the isekai protagonist of other bad isekai stories would be made to look good for being self-righteous against Lugunica’s knights, but Subaru got his shit kicked in ’cause Re:zero is a serious story not meant to solely be wish fulfillment. It’s clear that Re:zero is a story where there are actual consequences ’cause of this.

Where I’m going with this is that there are time travel stories out there that posit that all of time is happening at once, meaning there are no real rules and almost anything can happen with it being a matter of the writer’s discretion. The bootstrap paradox commonly featured in time travel stories is also highly illogical and only exists “just because” rather than there being an actual legitimate reason for being used that can be reasoned through logic aside from the author said so.

‘Cause Re:zero is a highly logical series, I posit that time is linear in Re:zero, and I think the main reason Al was summoned to the fantasy world to a point before Subaru’s arrival at Lugunica’s Capital is that Subaru was transported to somewhere in Re:zero’s world or a place that was a limbo between worlds where his body never aged even the slightest before he suddenly arrived in Lugunica’s Capital in Episode 1 of the series and that this period where that happened was before the time Al was summoned to Re:zero’s fantasy world. This is why I do not believe Al is a future Subaru.

Re:Zero Episode 59 (Season 3 Episode 9) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Re:Zero Episode 59 (Season 3 Episode 9) Analysis + Important Details

Re:Zero is back after 2 and a half months, and it had some very interesting details that will probably be relevant to the plot in the future, and details like those are why I love series such as Re:Zero and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) since I adore series with very strong long-term planning and foreshadowing. The first two important details are that Priscilla doesn’t completely trust Al since he keeps a lot of secrets from her when Liliana put it out there that she must trust Al a lot since she was leaving him to defend their stronghold at the government office and that Anastasia was keeping secrets of her own from Julius, which has been leading to him increasingly feeling an unseemly guilt from Priscilla’s perspective, and of course, Anastasia retorts that Priscilla shouldn’t make it sound so nasty, showing either a lack of empathy for Julius from Anastasia or a playful jab from Priscilla to get the attention off of herself due to her trust or lack thereof in Al being highlighted. While it may make sense to think that Priscilla was talking about something regarding Anastasia’s arrangement with Kiritaka, I’m more inclined to believe it is referring to something else, which may be brought up again either during Arc 6’s adaption, which is rumoured to be 22-episodes-long after this 16-episode adaptation of the Priestella arc, or a fourth or fifth season. As I’m not a source reader, I don’t know when Tappei intends to flesh out this reveal.

After that, we see the introduction of several of the groups and who they run into, and aside from Wilhelm confiding in Garfiel about his deceased wife, which was probably meant to inspire Garf and motivate him to fight at his best, the two most relevant pieces of info are that Theresia’s soul is being warped and that Priscilla knew that someone got ahead of the Witch Cult’s plan to learn the details of Typhon’s corpse by slaying the other nine members of the Council of Ten aside from Kiritaka. Why the point about Theresia’s soul being warped is important is after Wilhelm slashed off the hood of Theresia’s outfit, the face we saw was that of a young Theresia despite her having died when she was middle-aged when Reinhard was young. In some other fantasy series, modifying or changing someone’s soul can result in that person’s physical appearance changing, which mostly confirms Wilhelm’s belief that her soul is being warped. Back to Priscilla, the Witch Cult’s plan was most likely to kill some of its members to get the remaining members to talk, which the cult can no longer do after the slayings. Priscilla spoke as if that person wasn’t herself, so it was likely either Al or a close associate of hers after the process of elimination. The only named Priscilla associates viewers know of in this arc are Al, Heinkel, and Schult. We know it couldn’t have been Heinkel given the sort of shit he was doing around that time that happened, and little Schult definitely didn’t do it, so that leaves Al unless it was someone yet to be revealed.

A big point from a previous episode is that Al left right as Subaru and his group were getting prepared to fight the Witch Cult in Episode 54, and he said he was looking for Priscilla, but Priscilla confirmed in Episode 58 that he did no such thing, which makes that time period the perfect opportunity for him to kill nine members of the Council of Ten.

More of the presentation this episode indicated that was the case with how Priscilla indicated earlier to Liliana and Anastasia that it’s not a matter of whether she trusts Al as there’s a lot he doesn’t tell her. Perhaps Al didn’t tell her why exactly he needed to kill the other members aside from Kiritaka instead of simply relocating them.

If you recall from one of my theories, I believe Al was the previous iteration of the hero of the story in the immediate previous iteration of the world. Perhaps Al took Beatrice’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom from that previous world and is acting based on knowledge from Echidna, meaning there were more than just 2 copies since Al had a copy from his previous world. That may be why the First District’s watergate was opened right as Subaru would’ve fallen to his death, and that is ’cause Al’s acting with instructions from Echidna. In a previous write-up, I suggested that Al accepted Echidna’s contract unlike Subaru when he was the hero of the story, but maybe that wasn’t it, and Al has a different sort of arrangement with her. He must know Echidna on a personal level to some extent given his distaste for Emilia making others a priority before herself, which appears to be the reason Echidna appears to dislike Emilia even if she has a deep respect for Emilia and Satella if one of my previous theories is correct, showing that Echidna’s tastes rubbed off on Al.

When the show flashes back to Reinhard and Subaru, Regulus is exasperated that Emilia chose Subaru over him. He could understand if he had lost in love to Reinhard, the manliest of men there are, but losing to Subaru is an insult to him, especially since Regulus had forgotten about ever having met Subaru in Episode 53, which called back to Al saying that the Witch Cult had never lost before, and the reason they never made any preparations in case of a counterattack from their group was that no dragon would care what the ants at its feet are planning. This is also relevant later on with Otto, Felt, and the White Dragon’s Scales, what I had previously thought was an item but was actually an armed group employed by Kiritaka that helped Otto escape the first time he met Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, Lye Batenkaitos. Lye had no recollection about meeting Otto, which was shown by how Lye said so you met us (Roy Alphard) before meeting us (him) when Otto mentioned he thought the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, showing Lye completely forgot about Otto much like Regulus did regarding Subaru. Thank goodness I have exposure to someone who knows Japanese as he indicated that Crunchyroll botched the translation and that Otto said something along the lines of “You’re different from the one at the government office” instead of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony went by a different name, which completely changed the translation. The correct translation shows that Otto thought that Lye was a fake Sin Archbishop at first, but this encounter now shows that Lye is the real deal, meaning there is at least two Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.

Lye then said that now that you’re all here you might as well help us look for the hero who will judge us. This is actually a callback to Season 2 with how Rem said that her great hero, Subaru, would bring them to justice. As Lye was the one who ate Rem’s memories and could likely feel the strong emotions Rem felt about how Subaru would defeat them, Lye hearing Subaru’s broadcast hyped him up big time for a showdown against Subaru. I don’t think the narrative will allow that to happen in this Priestella arc as Subaru’s group is really strapped for battle-ready personnel with how it’s just Garfiel and Wilhelm against Kurgan and Theresia, Julius and Ricardo against Roy, and Priscilla against Sirius. There’s just no way Subaru will be able to help with Regulus’s wives and Regulus himself and fight Lye, so this showdown will probably be postponed for a future arc.

Otto motioned to bring Lye to Subaru in exchange for his life as a negotiation tactic, but Lye was furious as he had a very visceral negative reaction to Otto being a merchant who would put a price on anything to line his pockets, so it’s clear he and Roy were either ripped off badly by a merchant or were slaves to one. As Lye prepares to attack, Otto used his Divine Protection to get two Water Dragons to attack Lye before it skips over to Julius and Ricardo engaging Roy Alphard, who is another Sin Archbishop of Gluttony. Interestingly enough, Julius forgo calling himself Juli when the last time he engaged Roy he was careful not to use Subaru and Crusch’s actual names, calling them Little Girl User and Valkyrie instead. Perhaps during his last battle with Roy, which was offscreen, Roy revealed he already knew Julius’s name, potentially due to Julius being a well-known member of the Royal Guard with very distinct physical features. With how episodes this season not being extended-length for the most part aside from Episode 57, it’s possible an explanation for Julius’s decision was cut out of the adaptation although it’s possible to still infer the reason for that decision.

Back to Subaru and Emilia, it seems Regulus’s wives truly fear Regulus on every level. Earlier in the episode, Subaru remarked that they have nerves of steel with how none of the wives reacted to Regulus threatening to kill them all if Reinhard and Subaru advanced any further. Now, they can’t come to believe Regulus can be beaten even though Reinhard had performed a miracle in front of their eyes with how he came back to life after dying due to his Divine Protection of the Phoenix. It’ll take a lot of work to win them over, but I believe Subaru and Emilia have to be able to do something about this, as otherwise they will never be able to stop Regulus’s apparent invincibility. As Reinhard hinted at earlier in the season, he has the ability to wish for any Divine Protection he wants, which is how he could transmit his thoughts to Subaru while fighting Regulus as it seems he received the same Divine Protection that Liliana has. It seems Reinhard also has super hearing as otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hear what Subaru had been saying. It seems one of Subaru’s plans is to have Reinhard kick Regulus really far away to give them alone time with the wives, so Subaru quite possibly thinks Regulus’s wives might know the secret behind Regulus’s invincibility.

As we get back to Wilhelm and Garfiel towards the end of the episode, Garfiel takes a big blow from Kurgan, and his trauma from his fear of death has again reared its ugly head, and Garf wills himself to continue on as he reasons the only thing he’s good for is fighting. I wonder how they will get out of this situation as retreat is not an option given how completely stretched thin the forces of the side fighting the cult is, and if one part of their group fails they all fail since they must take seize control of all four control towers at once. Garf realizes that the black piece of mass is not actually Capella after all, which may be a blessing in disguise ’cause if she were really with the two corpse soldiers, he and Wilhelm would certainly die.

Felix is then caught off guard by Capella who pretended to be several people on his side, but she’s here to wreak havoc, and given Priscilla left Al to defend the government office, it looks like we’ll have an Al and Capella showdown even though they aren’t in the same room yet. Felix should not be able to put up a good fight against Capella due to Capella’s insane regeneration. A lot is happening this episode, but things are definitely moving along, and I’m looking forward to more strong content from this season.