Foxidna – Thorough Watch

A Re:Zero Theory: Episode 67 indicates the heroes from four hundred years ago were involved in the creation of the Witch Factors

Posted on April 10, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

After Season 4’s first episode, I believe there’s a very good reason to believe this. Episode 67 hints that Foxidna very much remembers Julius even though he had his name eaten by Roy Alphard, one of the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony when the show previously led viewers to believe that Subaru was the only one who could remember such a victim when everybody else forgot, and conveniently, Foxidna also puts it into Subaru’s mind that it’d be a good idea to take Rem with him to the Pleiades Watchtower so that he could have the perk as being the first one she sees upon being cured, which is showing the same sort of manipulation skills as the original Echidna and Tea Party Echidna.

As a refresher to those who don’t remember all my theories or to segue those who have never read my theories before into the meat of my post, there is a basis to believe this given that everything up until Season 2 was planned at least partially by Echidna centuries ago and probably by Flugel too given he made Petelgeuse promise to not take in the Sloth Witch Factor, which was implied by Petelgeuse apologizing to Flugel, most likely so that Petelgeuse wouldn’t until Pandora and Regulus invaded Elior Forest when he had no other choice to protect the love of his life, Fortuna, and Emilia. A similar event involves how a special font was used in the Frozen Bond OVA to denote a female’s speech regarding a contract with Puck in which he would lose his memories and perhaps other aspects of himself if he entered into a contract with Emilia with that female’s speech being revealed to be that of Echidna based on Season 2 reusing that font. That both Echidna and Flugel both made someone promise not to do something only for them to do it when there was no other choice with Regulus and Pandora’s arrival for Petelgeuse and Melakuera’s assault against Emilia for Puck may indicate that one of Echidna and Flugel learned that sort of behaviour from the other, meaning there was an age difference between them. Alternatively, they could’ve just closely collaborated on things like I have speculated, but these things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

As Season 2 revealed through Roswaal and Season 3 reiterated, Echidna’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, however many there are given Echidna might’ve lied about how many copies she made, is the prototype for the Witch Cult Gospels, meaning that they are most likely at least partially made by some of the same materials, and given how Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was not meant to bring about the return of the Echidna Roswaal knew, the same could go for Gospels in not directing their holders to their goals. I don’t buy into the theory that the reason Otto wasn’t in Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom is ’cause he was meant to have died as Ram, Petra, and Emilia all died in Arc 3, and with that being the case, it can be argued that all three of them were meant to have died, so the true reason Otto wasn’t in the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom must have been something else. As a text that supposedly tells the future and can update itself based on current happenings, there’s no good reason why Otto was excluded unless the source of the knowledge of the Tome just didn’t want it to be included, and if that’s the case, Echidna may very well have been responsible for its contents with the common denominator between the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels possibly being that they are made at least partially from a body part or body fluid of hers much like her tea in the tea parties with these texts being connected by magic to her mind/soul since we know the soul is the seat of the mind in Re:Zero, which is why Subaru remembers his past lives even after Returning by Death ’cause his whole body resets to a prior point, but his mind/soul doesn’t.

This implies that the Echidna from four centuries ago, Tea Party Echidna (mostly her), Foxidna, Flugel, and others from that era were driving events from that timeframe until present-day Re:Zero with a common future in mind with examples being Puck being in a contract or oath with Echidna to not enter into a contract with Emilia or lose some of his memories should he choose to, Flugel conveniently planting the world tree known as Flugel’s Tree in the exact spot the White Whale extermination force needed to trap the White Whale’s main body, Petelgeuse apologizing to Flugel in making his decision to take in the Sloth Witch Factor, Roswaal saving Ram and Rem after allowing for their village to be wiped out, and the White Whale leaving Subaru alone in Episode 17 through someone’s order, probably Pandora’s, even though there appeared to be orders to not allow people to inferfere with Petelgeuse’s Ordeal to Emilia, meaning Subaru was allowed to escape from the White Whale so that he could learn about the White Whale’s Fog of Elimination, inadvertently kill Emilia, pushing him to the point of giving up, and see Petelgeuse’s Authority of Sloth: Unseen Hand, so that Rem could give him his From Zero moment and so that Subaru could plan his counterattack against the Witch Cult.

One big thing about mabeasts that we learned in Season 2 is that they were created by the Witch of Gluttony and that they find the scent of Satella and Subaru, irresistibly delicious, showing it’s probably the miasma of the Envy Witch Factor or the Envy Witch Factor itself that is irresistible to them. Thus, given that Subaru being pushed to his breaking point and finding out about Petelgeuse’s power was all conditional on the White Whale chasing after him, that the defeat of the White Whale was also conditional on Subaru being irresistible to the White Whale, and the defeat of the Great Rabbit was also conditional on Subaru being irresistible to that mass of rabbits, Daphne, the previous Witch of Gluttony, and her mabeasts might have specifically been drawn to one aspect of the Envy Witch Factor that I talked about, either partly due to experimentation (from herself or somebody else) given the weird coffin and restraints associated with her along with the weird shape of her arms, which perhaps suggests she is far more than just a normal human with the power of a Witch and that there’s more to the story of her true nature. If I’m right about this, Daphne may be a homunculus of sorts made specifically as part of an overarching grand plan from the group of heroes from four hundreds ago to bring the world to a free future, and she may be the first the host of a Witch Factor given the signs of experimentation on her that aren’t present on the other dead Witches of Sin from Season 2. Now I’ll have to take a detour before getting back to this point.

In my main theory, Satella and the hero group, which includes Satella and Flugel, from four hundred years ago started a grand plan to cause an intervention that would end the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed by forcibly ensuring that the Hero of the story at some point would be weak enough, as in Subaru, since that’d be the best way for the Hero to overcome his character flaws unlike the past Heroes of the story who I posit had everything come easy to them, and that means the heroes are the reason for the Witch Cult’s founding and even why Pandora took over the Witch Cult eventually, and yes, I do consider Pandora to be one of the heroes.

I expect the final boss to be someone with an Authority that allows him/her to control the story path. This would make Melakuera stating that he faced world-ending crises countless times makes sense if the world was continuously being destroyed and reconstructed before the age of Satella. Melakuera remarking about the world imbalance and Witch suggests that the world’s repeatedly destroyed by the Witch of Envy, likely due to the actions of selfish and overpowered heroes of the story of each iteration of the world who choose their women over the world due to never overcoming their character flaws with Subaru saying in Episode 29 only someone who hates the world would choose mayonnaise over the world being foreshadowing of the choice he’ll have to make.

If Satella actually had a contract in which she shares her field of vision with Echidna through a soul, similar to how Satella can read Subaru’s thoughts and can take action against Subaru for doing so, which would explain how Satella knows what should be Subaru’s save points given it’s unlikely for her to remember the exact details from four hundred years ago of the grand plan, meaning she should be getting direction from someone else. As a reminder why it’s literally impossible for Satella to be future Emilia, Satella told Subaru what he gave to her in Episode 38, and Episodes 18, 25, and 38, respectively show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella given that Puck revealed to Petelgeuse in Episode 18 that if he wants to kill him he needs to summon a thousand shadow hands, half of what Satella could (Half of 1,000 is 2,000), that Subaru used a number associated with Satella to express his affection for Emilia when he said that if Emily names ten things she hates about herself, he’d list two thousand things he loves about her, and after Satella requested to Subaru in Episode 38 that after he comes to love himself that he should one day come kill her, he suddenly had a positive upwelling of emotion for Satella and swore that he’d save her even though he had called her a monster he couldn’t understand shortly before that, which indicates that they used to have a close relationship and were probably lovers. Given Subaru literally has dormant memories of her, it therefore makes it 100% impossible for Satella to be future Emilia, so Emilia and Satella’s relationship is something different than that. This would explain how Subaru hasn’t been trapped in a bad loop that is inescapable, and that’d be due to Satella’s direct collaboration with Echidna.

Thus, I theorize that Daphne may have been part of, as a test subject, in the initial research from the group of heroes from four hundred years ago on how to create Witch Factors, and this is both why mabeasts and Daphne are attracted to Subaru’s scent and why both Subaru and Foxidna are protected from the aftereffects of Gluttony eating somebody’s name or both that person’s name and memories either due to having a Witch Factor or having a high amount of miasma because it was important for story purposes that Subaru be chased by mabeasts and also be able to remember Gluttony victims such as Rem and for Foxidna to also be able to remember those victims in order for Subaru to overcome the challenges he must face and to keep the world on the path the group from four hundred years ago is trying to bring about in which the world is saved and stops getting destroyed.

All of Arcs 1-5 so far (Seasons 1-3) have all developed Subaru’s character in a certain fashion with Arcs 4 and 5 (Seasons 2 and 3) being Subaru’s greedy arc where he tries to reject the type of person Roswaal tried to fashion him to be, and Emilia as well as other characters, whether they be part of the Emilia camp or not, have been developed in ways that may be crucial to the story with Foxidna being perhaps an important driver of this arc’s events in continuing the grand plan in suggesting that the group visit Shaula and for Subaru to take Rem with him with her selling the latter idea very well to Subaru, and I believe Subaru’s fatal character flaw will be dealt with by the end of the story so that he can bring about a future free from determinism.

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

Posted on April 10, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

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 under any circumstance.

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 48, 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 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.