Garfiel Tinzel – Thorough Watch

Re:Zero Episode 63 (Season 3 Episode 13) – Analysis + Important Details

Posted on March 7, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This episode has a number of interesting implications as well as good character work that had been set-up since the premiere of Season 3. Not going to lie, I enjoyed all of that stuff more the last part of the fight between Garfiel and Kurgan, which was animated by Vincent Chansard, who I am not a fan of due how hard he makes it to understand what’s happening on screen.

The episode starts with Garfiel emerging in beast form from the black mass Capella had left there to trick them into believing she was there. As I noted in one of my previous write-ups, it’s a good thing Capella wasn’t also there as both Wilhelm and Garfiel would die if she had been present. I know some people will believe this is plot armour, but if my theory that Gospels are meant to keep the world on a particular path rather than being true texts that show how the holder can attain their dreams, then this is all part of the grand plan from characters 400 years ago to shepherd the world to a good future. Garfiel sees some demibeasts, but as they prepare to strike him, he again sees his hallucination of Elsa, asking if he can really kill them since they bore no grudge to him and were once humans. If you recall from my write-up from Episode 51, Garfiel has trauma both from killing Elsa and from having a bit of imposter syndrome due to the circumstances in which he defeated her since he won due to luck to an extent. It’s no surprise that a teenager like Garfiel struggled with processing his first kill, and I applaud Re:Zero for going in this direction when a lot of series would not even dare broach this topic. Garfiel then backed off, only for Kurgan to kill the demibeasts. You would think since they are on the side of the Witch Cult that he’d leave them alone, but it seems Kurgan still has some sense of individuality despite being a corpse solider and wanted a fair fight, which is why he killed them for interfering. Garfiel flinched at seeing those demibeasts die, which is no surprise since he doesn’t want to see people die as he even gave Elsa a chance to repent after all in Season 2 before continuing his fight with her. He then rushed at Kurgan and got beat down badly with Kurgan knocking Garfiel down many floors of the control tower.

Then it flashed back to the Otto and Felt group against Lye Batenkaitos, and Otto got multiple water dragons to attack Lye after he did a particular step with his feet. The group didn’t know how Otto did that, so I’ll explain it now. It was revealed in Season 1 and reaffirmed in Season 2 that Otto has a Divine Protection, specifically the Divine Protection of the Soul of Language that lets him speak to and understand all living creatures, even those regular people can’t. If you recall from Episode 58, Otto took a day off from the rest of the Emilia camp to go to the man who can repair what was Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom. He probably spoke with water dragons during that time in case the city came under attack since it surely doesn’t take a whole day to speak with one man. I’m guessing he bribed the water dragons with food or something since there isn’t anything else he as a merchant can offer them. Otto then asks why Felt is here in particular and name-dropped Heinkel, and Felt immediately interjects that she left Camberley to watch Heinkel, and I’m guessing that is the the last of three thugs that attacked Subaru in the alley in Season 1 since Rachins is accounted for. Felt was on her way to retrieve something they left at the inn, a powerful metia that a sorcerer in her camp gave to her.

Otto then interrupted her, likely ’cause he heard one of the water dragons crying for help, and it almost escaped the building the water dragons had slammed Lye into but was dragged back into it, which would most likely end in its death eventually. Felt then reveals after some prodding from Otto that Old Man Rom believes the metia is so powerful that even Reinhard would take damage from it, which Otto believes is a good benchmark for what could turn the tides in this fight, leading to him proposing that they stay here while Felt retrieves the metia. Lye then finishes off the last of the water dragons that attacked, and he said that gourmands can be particular about their appetizers, which is again different from how Roy Alphard approaches things. Felt even decides to leave Gaston, the most brawny of three thugs that attacked Subaru in Season 1, who if you recall from a previous episode, has a pregnant wife, with them. Lye then attacks as Felt is running away, and Gaston takes a hit from Lye in place of Felt, using mana flow to strengthen his body to prevent Lye’s attack from doing damage to him. After seeing Gaston’s battle prowess, Lye realizes what sort of plan they actually have. He then notes that with Felt gone that there are three that Rui might like, Otto, Gaston, and the person I presume is the leader of the White Dragon’s Scales. Otto then makes a meta remark that he’s had to fight more this year than most low-level fighters, and he wonders what kind of merchant makes him.

Back to the Al and Capella fight, the beginning of the scene with Capella and Al showed their shadows fighting with each other. After Al does significant damage to Capella, and she starts regenerating, Al says that couldn’t be more disgusting since he isn’t into gore. Capella remarks that nobody likes boys who speak too bluntly and wonders aloud whether all people who scheme in the shadows are like that, accusing Al to be the one who opened the watergate right as everything looked doom for the heroes and the one who killed off the other nine members of the Council of Ten who knew where the remains of the Witch were one by one with no involvement whatsoever from her. Al motions as if he has no idea what she’s talking about even if he probably opened the watergate and factually killed the Council of Ten as Priscilla hinted at in Episode 59. Capella then says she’ll forgive Al for playing dumb if he’ll take off his helmet, take her to bed, and love her, which may be showing that Al is her type of guy, and he just brushes it off while speaking in a higher-pitched voice that he appreciates the sentiment but that they don’t know each other well enough and that he doesn’t want his friends spreading weird rumours. Capella with some snark indicates that she doesn’t believe she’s such a bad option for masochists who are into being strung along by women given she has a penchant for reading into people’s type of ideal woman which has Al protesting only for him to be cut off as Capella transforms into Priscilla after changing her hair colour and probably age as well multiple times to suit Al’s tastes.

Al says that’s a repulsive thing to do and asks where she has seen the princess before, and Capella says she has never seen or have been aware of her, but judging the gestures you give off, the reactions you give, and the bearing you prefer is what she does best. Capella says everything about her should be in line with Al’s tastes, and he just playfully dismisses that by saying that the human race isn’t ready for that sort of expression of love, which is irritating Capella, leading her to ask why he is resisting her and what about her he dislikes, and he just trolls her by saying he doesn’t care, only to confirm that he finds her disgusting, so he actually hates her, to inflict maximum pain on her since Capella seems into him for some reason. Al then uses earth magic to fight Capella, cuts her head off and explodes her body to pieces, thinking that was enough, but it clearly wasn’t. Capella says her opinion of him has skyrocketed for sharing his intent to keep going even when the going gets though, showing that she is still really into him, but Al just keeps resisting her by saying he is more afraid of Priscilla in a bad mood than anyone, even someone who keeps changing appearances, which really pisses Capella off for daring to speak about another woman in her presence, and so she says she’ll teach him some manners with the interaction ending with Al saying the stars sure are aligned against me today.

Regarding Al not knowing the extent of Capella’s regeneration, I think this directly calls into question the theory that Al is a future Subaru since he should know Capella’s powers if that were the case. Thus, I believe this blindspot in Al’s knowledge is due to him actually being born as Subaru’s younger brother by blood and the previous iteration of the hero of the story with Subaru being frozen in time for hundreds of years. Al notably said the stars are aligned against him today, which shows he also has an awareness that his true name, Aldebaran, is based on a star, meaning he probably is an astronomy nerd much like Subaru was, and may have been named specifically due to his relation to Subaru.

Now I will explain how Al factors into this. 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 certain stars hint at the powers of Sin Archbishops, perhaps it would be better to consider Al’s name in relation to Subaru since Aldebaran 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. For more on why I am partial to Al being Subaru’s brother and the immediate previous iteration of the hero, read this:

A Re:Zero theory: Why Subaru was summoned and Al, quite possibly the brother Subaru never knew and a previous iteration of the Hero

Assuming my assumption about Al is correct, this episode shows either that Al had minimal involvement in fights with Capella when he was the hero of the story or that Capella wasn’t the Archbishop of Lust when he was the hero of the story as otherwise he wouldn’t believe that cutting off her head and making her body explode would kill her. In my theory, it’s mostly the hero and the heroine of the story who are different when the world is reconstructed after its destruction, but there are perhaps other small differences as well, as part of the world’s attempt to break the cycle of being destroyed and reconstructed may involve changing a few things up with the hope that the next iteration of the world will be the key to the end, which would account for something such as Capella being the Sin Archbishop of Lust in the current world but not in the previous iteration of the world.

Back to the Garfiel and Kurgan fight, Kurgan is standing there waiting for Garfiel, who is back to his normal form, to be battle ready again, showing he wants not only a fair fight but also a good fight. We then get a flashback to Garfiel calling Kurgan a living legend. He says that demihumans typically have a high aptitude for magic but that the many-armed race is an exception with comparably low aptitude, so even in the Vollachia Empire (the subs said Volakia in an earlier episode, so I’ll be using Vollachia from now on) where demihumans are a protected class, the many-armed race faced discrimination. It was Kurgan who turned that around when the local lord’s soldiers tried to kill them, turning the tables on all of them by himself, getting his race the acknowledgement they needed. Wilhelm interjected that most members of the many-armed race have four or five arms, but Kurgan was abnormal with eight of them, making him an outcast even among his own tribe, and despite that, he will took up the sword to protect his people. Garfiel indicated that his swords were referred to as Devil Cleavers, and Wilhelm said that he only draws them all against opponents he deems worthy, bringing those opponents great honour. Basically, Garfiel realizes that Kurgan wasn’t treating him as a serious threat. Garfiel then also starts using mana flow to boost the power of his legs, and he was able to get a large scratch on one of Kurgan’s arms in exchange for several blows. He also chips the main sword Kurgan is using before getting pushed to the area close to where the water is flowing out since they’re in the sewers, and as Kurgan strangles him, Garfiel musters up the strength to use mana flow again to destroy the ground underneath him so that they both fall into the water.

Then there’s a rupture in the wall of one of the shelters where Garfiel’s half-sibling are, and a demibeast finds its way into the shelter. As the citizens run to the opposite end of the shelter, Garf’s half-siblings fall to the ground, and Garfiel’s trauma regarding killing rears its ugly head again. He looks toward his brother and sister and finally gets the courage to kill the demibeast and the hallucination of Elsa with the hallucination saying she loves Garfiel with Garf replying that he doesn’t love her since she isn’t her (Ram), the one he actually loves, a callback to Season 2 when Garf let Elsa know he loves Ram during his battle with her. This makes Kurgan a foil to Garfiel since while Garf wasn’t outright an outcast like Kurgan was, he still decided to fight those he wanted to protect, his brethren, even to kill others for the sake of them, while being somewhat of a third wheel since his mother doesn’t remember him and started another family without him. Tappei clearly loves writing Garfiel’s character, and I believe the characters who suffer the most will have the biggest payoff at the end with those characters being Subaru, Crusch, Rem, and Garfiel.

Kurgan then also arrived at the shelter, and after seeing the dead demibeast and the whole shelter cheering for Garfiel, he honours him as a worthy opponent by drawing the rest of his Devil Cleavers. During the fight, Garfiel uses mana flow to launch himself to the ceiling while using earth pillars to block Kurgan’s arms, and in doing so, he managed to ruin one of Kurgan’s eyes in exchange for a slice to his abdomen. Then the strange directing began, and Garfiel rushes up towards Kurgan again using earth pillars to block some of his arms, and he used all the strength he had to destroy two of Kurgan’s Devil Cleavers in exchange for breaking his arms in the process. Kurgan thought he was about to finish off Garfiel, but he didn’t notice that one of his left arms wasn’t working well due to the large scratch Garg had done to him earlier before they reached the shelter in the sewers since he is a corpse soldier and can’t feel pain, and Garfiel uses mana flow again to launch himself to the ceiling and use the earth pillars to block Kurgan’s arms and descend down to bite through one of Kurgan’s arteries in his neck by attacking Kurgan from his left side due to eye being disabled, which was really, really hard to see, and I had watch that more than once with me not understanding until I saw a piece of his neck gone later after the fight had concluded, and I blame the lackluster directing there on my gap in understanding. Kurgan commended Garf and then crumbled to pieces like stone, which I’m assuming is ’cause the corpse soldier magic involves earth magic. Garfiel also looked like he couldn’t believe that he won during that scene, so that plays into his trauma regarding imposter syndrome for feeling that he won against Elsa due to a fluke. After that, Garfiel said noble doesn’t even begin to describe it, probably ’cause Kurgan didn’t use to cheap tricks and just wanted a fair, and more importantly, a good fight. His younger sister than calls for a healer as Garf collapses.

I wonder why Kurgan retained some individuality while Theresia ended up being a killing machine. Kurgan obviously still understands the concepts of honour, respect, and glory given he notably killed the demibeasts that were going after Garfiel ’cause they interfered with his fight, showing he still understood the concept of honour and wanting a fair fight. Later on in the fight, when Garfiel was laying down on the ground, he waited until Garfiel was ready to get back up before fighting, which showed he not only wanted a fair fight but a good fight, which was again shown when he demonstrated respect for Garfiel by fighting will all his Devil Cleavers, but Theresia is just a one-note killer now.

We then flash back to the fight between Wilhelm and Theresia, and he gets a fresh wound from her with him saying he never expected to last long in this fight, which was implied to be due to the old wound he got from her, and he says that he will have plenty of time with his wife when he joins her on the other side but that he will not dream with her being beautiful being why she can’t exist now since she was middle-aged when she died.

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

Posted on February 8, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

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.

Re:Zero Episode 53 (Season 3 Episode 3) Analysis + Important Details

Posted on October 24, 2024 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This episode was quite a nice setup episode and introduced what sort of person Regulus Corneas is. He likes to talk a lot and dictate the pace of conversation. If he he feels his rights are violated as the very self-centered person he is, he may attack, but given that it was implied that his Gospel indicated to him that he shouldn’t cause a whole lot of bloodshed, he didn’t, which is why he told Subaru to be grateful that he adhered to his Gospel as the situation could have been a lot worse if Regulus had wanted it to be. He did attack Subaru after the bell tolled, stating that Subaru was quite rude to him, which showed he’s a vindictive type given his Gospel most likely didn’t tell him to cause a scene. Regulus’s remark that fate would bring them together again in Episode 1 of this season also has major implications for the story and is good fodder for my main theory on Re:Zero, but I’ll save that for a separate post.

Lye Batenkaitos again introduced himself as the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, and he again speaks as if he is part of a group much like he did at the start of Season 2 when he said that the White Whale was “our” pet, which shows that he is either part of a hive mind with others or that it’s just a speaking quirk of his. He doubted that the guy he ate would make much of an appetizer, which seems to indicate he can tell through some mechanism whether someone would make for a good meal. He said that he’d eat him anyway, but Lye clearly wasn’t particularly enthused about doing so, and he had an even worse remark for Otto in saying he wouldn’t even amount to an appetizer, but this could perhaps be a blessing in disguise if he doesn’t want to eat Otto.

Sirius has straight up proven to be insane once again. Seeing Subaru use his Authority, Invisible Providence, led to her thinking that Subaru must be Petelgeuse and that he had been hiding all along instead of having been killed. This episode does appear to confirm that she used to be part of the Sloth camp with how she talked about making eye contact with Petelgeuse several times a day, how when she stole something of his she wasn’t punished, how he forgave her for slurping up the last of her food, and how he didn’t say anything when she inhaled his exhaled breath. According to her, Petelgeuse is the one who gave her her name and was the one who gave her wrath, but this could very much be a delusion much like how Petelgeuse thought that Satella gave him his Unseen Hand when he willingly took it in himself to fight on Fortuna and Emilia’s behalf. It’s hard to say what the true extent of their relationship really is. Anyway, it seems that Sirius appears to be incompatible with her Wrath Witch Factor to an extent given she started bleeding from her eyes and apparently mouth as well, which is why the civilians under her control were bleeding from those areas. She has that in common with Petelgeuse, who was incompatible with the Sloth Witch Factor.

This episodes shows Garfiel and Otto having a walk and Garfiel thinking back to when he was over at his mom’s place after saving Fred. His mom knew what tea he liked despite having no recollection of him. He eventually left after Rafiel, his half-sister, indicated it was time for dinner, and learned from his mother’s husband that she forgot all her memories and was caught in a landslide. That she has no memories makes me believe that it was Lye Batenkaitos, the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony, that attacked her in the past, eating her memories in the process and causing the landslide. I have more to say on this in a separate post since my theory is only tangentially relevant to the episode. Garfiel bawled with Mimi comforting him due to how awful he felt after remembering that his mom loved him so much only for her to forget everything. Mimi never knew her parents and heard her mother gave her up ’cause she couldn’t afford to raise triplets.

Capella Emerada Lugunica, the Sin Archbishop of Lust, had taken over the area that made the broadcasts. This is later brought up when Subaru is brought up to speed when most of the camps are together when Wilhelm informs that the 4 control towers that control the water level have been captured by the Witch Cult. Apparently, Kiritaka is not just a big-shot merchant but also one of Priestella’s Council of 10, the ten most important people in the city, and that’s why they’re corresponding at a place he owns. Anastasia suspects that the Witch Cult is after the remains of a dead witch. Given that Satella was sealed and Echidna seemed to have successfully put her soul into one of the Ryuzu clones with how she spoke with her own voice, making her immortality experiment a success, this narrows down the list of possible witches down to Carmilla, Daphne, Minerva, Sekhmet, and Typhon.

The situation is bad with Subaru not being able to count on his partner, Beatrice, since she is in suspended animation, similar to Rem, due to exhausting her mana reserves to save Subaru and the entire crowd that was under Sirius’s control. This limits Subaru’s combat potential, which will make it all the more difficult for them to fight back the Witch Cult.

The episode concludes with Garfiel rushing to Subaru and Emilia ’cause of the broadcast, but he encountered his mom, who indicated that her kids are missing and that her husband worked at the government office where the broadcast by Capella happened, which showed how concerned she was about them despite seeing that Garfiel was rushing somewhere and had his own priorities, and of course, Garf said he’d find them for her. I’m sure she wasn’t trying to impose on him and was just concerned about those who were dear to her. This episode surely escalated things, and the next episode should be a treat.

Introduction + Re:Zero Episode 51 (Season 3 Episode 1) Analysis + Important details

Posted on October 5, 2024 | by anicritic | 1 Comment

I’m anicritic, and Re:zero was the first anime that got me feeling passionate enough to write about on other bloggers’ comment sections. I like thinking about how scenes connect with previous ones and enjoy diving into characters’ minds to interpret what scenes actually mean and whether there is more underneath the surface of what is immediately presented, and since Re:zero is a series with tons of small details (There is not a single filler moment in this series), hints of future events, and callbacks to previous character and plot moments, that makes it the perfect show for me to cover. As such, I won’t be covering everything in this premiere but just what interests me most and details I believe will need to be remembered. I’ll also be sharing my perspective on a number of things with a trauma-informed perspective since I forgot about the woman I wanted to marry for most of my life for a sustained period of time due to my trauma, which I believe is heavily relevant to this episode and perhaps the season in general.

After Joshua delivered his message to the Emilia camp, Subaru makes a good point that he’d hate to owe a debt to Anastasia knowing she’s a very shrewd businesswoman. Emilia mentions that Priestella would be underwater when it rains without the tall walls and watergates that control the water level, prompting Subaru to think of it more as a water prison. I can tell at this point that Crunchyroll’s translation is really bad at this point despite not knowing Japanese since the conversation there was mangled with Emilia saying that the city would be underwater when it rains, which cannot be true once you’ve seen how the city is set up. Given that once they arrive at Priestella Subaru again complains that he gets the sense that it’s a prison and Beatrice notes that the city was designed to be a trap, it’s clear that the setup of this arc involves Priestella being used as a trap as otherwise they wouldn’t be so heavy-handed about it.

Although Sirius’s whole introduction was the highlight of the episode for most fans of Re:zero, what most interested me was how Garfiel was written this episode. As we know from the Sanctuary Arc, Garfiel was proud to be the strongest person there and the defender of the Sanctuary. Here he saw just how much weaker he was compared to Reinhard, not to mention Reinhard unintentionally pissing Garf off by calling him impressive for his age, which rubbed more salt in the wound. Later on in the episode, Garfiel informs Subaru that he’s taking a step outside since he’s unhappy about not being the strongest. When outside, he has hallucinations of Elsa due to having killed her and also ’cause he came close to dying against her. And it is fantastic writing for Garfiel to be written like this since he clearly demonstrated a fear of death in his first season. I have to hand it to Tappei for being a master of writing his characters to be consistent with what came before. Given Garfiel originally stayed in the Sanctuary ’cause he became scared of the outside world due to seeing that his mother’s carriage had been caught in a landslide, it was clear he had a huge fear of death. This is further backed by how Garfiel backed off after Subaru said that he knows hell and looked at Subaru’s eyes, which shows Garfiel believed that that is indeed the case, a callback to Season 1 Episode 12 when Wilhelm said that Subaru’s eyes indicate that Subaru is well-versed with death. So it is very fitting that Garfiel, who fears death, is struggling with seeing hallucinations of Elsa when she is long dead since it was probably his first kill, which was traumatizing for him. If you’re confused about Garfiel showing no visible signs of being bothered by his killing of Elsa or his stoic behaviour in the Breaktime episode following that in Season 2 telling Maylie that it’s okay to cry, trauma does not always happen close to instantly and can take months to manifest.

In Episode 48 (Episode 24 of Season 2) Garfiel, while fighting Elsa, eventually got a lucky break when the ceiling fell down on Maylie, which distracted Elsa, allowing him to savagely bite into Elsa’s neck repeatedly and do enough damage to stop her regeneration, allowing him to deal the finishing blow. Garfiel who took pride in being the strongest of the Sanctuary, likely had some trauma over defeating Elsa in this way since it took Elsa being distracted rather than him winning a pure man to woman fight. The reality likely dawned on him that he wouldn’t have won a fair fight, leading to him thinking he isn’t the strongest, and hence, weak as the hallucination of Elsa said. If Garfiel only had these hallucinations rarely, he will likely have them more often now that Reinhard has shown how much he outclasses him. Garfiel wants to be the strongest ’cause he fears death and ’cause he’s a young teenager and who hasn’t developed a healthy self-esteem yet. Clearly from Subaru’s struggles with RBD and now Garfiel, Tappei has shown he has a very nuanced view of death with Garfiel in having both have trauma for killing Elsa and also being reminded of his mortality due to the circumstances of his victory over her, and this should be applauded.

I have also long believed that Episodes 12 and 13 contrasted Crusch and Priscilla’s approach to acquiring power with the context gleaned from Episode 16, and Episode 51 has given what I believe is more ammunition to support this thought. Before I bring up the relevant contrasts, I first need to state outright that I believe Priscilla is a lot less whimsical than she lets on. Every bit of Priscilla’s interaction with Subaru in Episode 16 was well thought out and cannot be simplified to Priscilla being a creature of her emotions or that she was looking for entertainment. On a lot of occasions Priscilla says that it’s for her entertainment or that it’s amusing, I suspect she just doesn’t want the people involved to know what she’s really thinking. You can’t always trust what a character says at face value.

This is backed by Priscilla calling Subaru her appa handler to Marcos and then following through with that by calling Subaru her manservant to Emilia. This sequence of actions shows that Priscilla saw significant value in Subaru after he dared to defy her and try to protect her anyway despite her needing no such assistance and how he taught her that appas have red skin, even considering him in some extent part of her camp due to some possessiveness.

Priscilla was notably the only Royal Selection candidate in Arc 3 to give Subaru help in the way of pointers after his outburst at the castle without asking for anything of monetary or strategic value in return. When she said that she appreciates Subaru’s desperation but that Subaru had not thought things through with how his actions amounted to cornering his ally, benefiting his enemy, and losing all control in the process, she basically straight up told Subaru that his actions weren’t helping Emilia and were unbecoming.

She specifically said that Subaru was better off dying for using the sort of approach he was using. Contrast this with Crusch wanting Emilia to withdraw from the Royal Selection as compensation for helping out and Anastasia wanting to see what sort of information she could learn from Subaru in his vulnerable state, Priscilla was basically being somewhat selfless and acting out of the goodness of her heart, however shocking that may be.

Priscilla basically gave Subaru a chance to redeem himself in her eyes after his outburst at the castle in Episode 16. That’s why she told him that his desperation wasn’t helping Emilia and then immediately posed a situation to him that would require for him to be disgustingly desperate with her asking for him to lick her foot. She was basically hoping for him to pass a test in which she had already clearly given him pointers, and Subaru still failed miserably, which Priscilla most likely saw as being extremely disgraceful after all the effort she put in to make the interaction favourable for him with her hinting at what she actually wanted to see from him.

I believe the reason Priscilla decided that SHE would strike down any camp Subaru was a part of, not that she would have any camp he was a part of be struck down, is that he did something that insulted her to the core, and for someone as extremely proud and confident in herself to the extreme as Priscilla is, it would be to show that she was wrong about her womanly instincts in some way, and that would be that Subaru showed that he was pathetic and not worth her time after she would go as far as to try and make Emilia jealous by grabbing his arm and suggesting that Subaru was her (Priscilla’s) manservant at the Royal Palace. Showing that she was wrong to think more of Subaru was shameful to her, so much that she beat the hell out of him, lectured him, and threatened him to strike down any camp he was a part of.

Her wanting to strike down any camp he is a part of shows she wants Subaru to be humiliated to the extreme because it was a personal humiliation for her that she misjudged Subaru, and for a guy who is struggling through his way in the world and acts as a white knight, what greater shame could he face than to have his ambitions be thwarted by Priscilla, the one who had him on his knees and asked him to savour the humiliation of licking her foot, every time he tried to make something of himself? It would be the ultimate humiliation.

This interpretation is backed by Priscilla saying, “Your careless behavior and attitude have lead me to that decision!” It shows that she thought that Subaru would think over the reason for that particular interaction leading to the way it did and that she expected a better response from him. I do note that Priscilla was likely also angry because Subaru abandoned his pride, and for someone who values her pride so much, seeing Subaru lower himself to that level probably disgusted her, but I believe the main source of her anger that bordered on rage was a sense of humiliation due to her pride being wounded, leading to her feeling significant shame.

If Subaru was just a little ant or clown to her, she would not have reacted the way she did in as deciding to strike down any camp he is a part of is far too punishing for just being disgusted at Subaru’s actions. Priscilla decided to personally see to Subaru’s attempts at achieving manhood in the future be denied, castrating him at every turn, most likely as a reminder to herself not to make the same mistake again in misjudging a man to avoid a similarly shameful moment from happening again.

In personally striking down any camp Subaru is a part of, Priscilla also gives Subaru a chance to redeem himself by defeating her, which would prove she was right that he is a man of significant worth. Any way the future goes if she carries out this threat to strike down any camp Subaru is a part of is thus a win for her no matter what the outcomes is, which shows Priscilla had very carefully thought out the entire interaction with Subaru, from her using her fan to hide her lips to hurling Subaru to the door so that Al could take him away, so it had nothing to do with entertainment but was meant to be a test for Subaru, and she had already thought about what she’d say if he failed it.

Given Priscilla had planned out the entire interaction with Subaru in Episode 16, it goes to show that is possibly the case in other scenarios too, not just that one moment. I’ll get back to this point later.

Crusch notably indicated in Episode 12 that she thought that the Royal Selection candidates for there at the castle for a drinking party where they get to know each other before they face each other as rivals. Although she was mistaken ’cause Felix knows how to get around her Divine Protection, I believe it still shows that Crusch is the type to value camaraderie due to how hyped up she sounded about it.

In contrast, Priscilla, if I am right about her being a lot less whimsical than she lets on, specifically is used to or grew up using a divide-and-conquer strategy. Emilia faces tons of discrimination for her half-elf heritage, so taking a shot at her by asking Emilia if she is sorry for being born would play well with a lot of the nobles and even much of Lugunica’s Imperial Knights since kids are raised on folktales of the horrifying Witch of Envy even if Priscilla does not necessarily have a hatred for demihumans and specifically half-elves herself. I’m not saying that Priscilla does or doesn’t fear half-elves since I genuinely don’t know but that there may have been a point to her hurtful words to Emilia.

Even with Priscilla’s interaction with Felt when the former moved to ‘strike’ the latter might not have been ’cause Priscilla lost control of her emotions. Priscilla heard very well that the nobles thought it was an insult that the knights brought a girl from the slums to participate in the Royal Selection with all the talk of her lack of grace and education. Priscilla knew full well that with Reinhard around that she would be unable to commit actual violence, especially towards Felt, and I believe she did what she did to look better in front of the nobles since many of them would like to strike Felt as well for daring to be there even though it wasn’t her own choice to be present. Thus, I believe Episodes 12 and 13 demonstrated two contrasting styles for attaining power, Crusch’s camaraderie and Priscilla’s divide-and-conquer strategy.

As for Episode 51, Season 3’s premiere, Priscilla brought out Heinkel to spoil a family reunion. She may have said that it’s amusing to do so, but I again put it out there that she just doesn’t want people to know what she’s really thinking. In all likelihood, Priscilla brought Heinkel to the gathering ’cause she knows that if the Astrea house were to be united in favour of one candidate that that candidate would be the favourite to win the Royal Selection. That would be why she sought to prevent Reinhard and Wilhelm from making up by allowing Heinkel to take a piss and ruin things for Reinhard and Wilhelm, which is continuing her divide-and-conquer strategy. I don’t believe that she was really going to strike Heinkel with the Yang sword, and that it was performative to prevent people from realizing what sort of person she actually is.

As for Crusch’s side of things, she implied in the premiere of Season 3 that the reason the Emilia camp was even invited to Priestella by Anastasia was ’cause Crusch knew how much Subaru cares about Rem and personally ensured that Anastasia invited the Emilia camp to the Watergate City. Crusch cares very much about camaraderie and building good will, and that is one of the reasons she’s my favourite character in Re:zero. I fully believe Episode 51 also contrasted Crusch and Priscilla’s approaches, much like I propose was the case for Episodes 12 and 13. Earlier on in the episode before Subaru left the mansion, we saw him talk to Rem even though she couldn’t hear a thing he said due to her being in suspended animation, so the episode did well to remind viewers how much Rem means to Subaru.

I have more to say about Priscilla, but now I’m going to bring up some of my own background. When I was in 6th grade, the girl who was a few years younger than me I had wanted to marry since I first met her at my school’s open house said that her family was moving away to a different province. The conversation eventually went to her discussing her university plans since she had planned it out from a young age with help from her mom. She suggested that we meet up again at a specific university, which led to me asking her if we’d get married in university. It’s unbelievable that I would say something like that now, and I wonder how I ever had the courage to do that as a young boy. Anyway, long story short, I forgot that girl’s face over the years even though she was so dear to me. I decided to go to university, not ’cause I had a strong desire for a particular career but ’cause I wanted to meet her again even though I’m not sure how that’d even happen since I no longer remembered her face. I followed a friend into Engineering even though I didn’t have an interest in it, and of course I didn’t do well since I was unmotivated and hadn’t picked up good study habits since school had come easy to me up until that point. At the first sign of struggle when it was clear I was not going to pass the second semester, I decided to drop out since I didn’t want to impact my GPA too badly. As I had it relatively easy up until then, my first schooling failure led to me feeling shame, and I felt I didn’t want that girl I fancied to know about that failure since it’d be ugly. Before I dropped out, I reasoned that I would never see her again since I couldn’t even remember her face, so it made it easier for me to do so. I wanted to think about this failure as little as possible instead of processing it like a normal healthy person, so I thought to myself that I’d forget as much of this incident and that university as possible and even transfer to a different university. As a result, I had some self-afflicted trauma about my worth as a person, and that trauma led to me repressing my memories of that girl since that university was the last tie to her in my memories since I could no longer remember her face, meaning that forgetting about as much as of that experience possible cut away the last connection to her in my mind.

At that different university I took a number of psychology courses, and I learned that shame is one of the most common emotions that can lead to memories being repressed although I didn’t come to realize that my own memories had been repressed until years later. Years later, I met that woman again at my workplace where I was a star employee. I didn’t recognize her since I had 0 recollection of her face even before I had repressed my memories. I was immediately drawn to her although after years of social isolation I couldn’t even have a proper conversation with her. Due to pent up unaddressed emotions I felt regarding her in my subconscious and my conscious mind, I eventually had a mental health crisis and ended up in the psych ward. After spending time there, one of the student nurses made me think back to my grade school days, and I was able to unlock my repressed memories of that woman, realizing that she was the same person from my youth. My point is that deep shame can cause one to repress your memories, and I will now get back to writing about Priscilla.

I know it might be a tough sell since Episode 16 is just one scene from a character that has only showed up in 3 episodes prior to Season 3, but Priscilla’s outrage along with her body language during the scene which included her playing with her hair as well as uncrossing and crossing her legs before she approached Subaru says to me that she thought of Subaru as being more than just a clown or jester and as someone she will make herself presentable for by showing off her feminine features. If that’s the case, perhaps her approaching Subaru with her fan actually doubled as a romantic overture alongside a test of Subaru’s dignity, and that scenario would mean that Subaru’s best response would be to say something along the lines of “Wait a minute. You really want me to lick your feet? I’d say somebody has a foot fetish.” It would be a clever way to turn the tables on Priscilla and take away the inordinate power she had over Subaru during this interaction by reframing the situation as being something Priscilla so desperately wants.

While it may not matter to Subaru whether or not Priscilla was attempting to demonstrate a power move against Emilia when she declared him as her manservant, what matters is Priscilla’s intent. If that was what she intended, Subaru’s loudly declaring himself to be Emilia’s knight at the Royal Selection would be seen as a rejection of her romantic overture. Depending on how badly she was impacted by this perceived rejection, there are 2 ways I suppose she was most likely to respond based on her always behaving as if she’s the most important woman/person in the world:

Priscilla will downplay Subaru’s achievements the next time they meet and possibly in the future as well as a way to make Subaru seem less of a catch so that it doesn’t seem that she missed out on much by being rejected by him since she felt so much shame about misjudging Subaru. This would be her overcompensating for her initial impression of him being soured by the horribly embarrassing outburst at the castle so as to preserve her ego by telling herself that Subaru was not really worth it. An extreme case of this would be pretending that she doesn’t even remember Subaru so as to outwardly project that Subaru isn’t worth remembering as a means of saving face for the perceived rejection regardless of Subaru not caring about or never having perceived that he rejected her in Episode 12.
Priscilla was affected so badly by Subaru’s humiliating display at the castle, which called into question her initial good impression of him as a potential lover, that she completely forgets memories related to that event due to the overwhelming shame she felt over her instincts as a woman leading to her settling on Subaru, meaning she forgets all memories about having met Subaru on that day. This is referred to as repression in psychology. Priscilla unconsciously pushes away thoughts about Subaru because of how much that incident traumatized her since it caused her to see that she had made a horrible mistake in judging Subaru to be a potential lover, which calls into question her absolute faith in her own judgement. Her mind thus represses the thoughts to preserve her ego. She would think about his outburst over and over until she subconsciously represses memories of him to get rid of the negative feelings she felt about how Subaru defied her expectations and turned out to be a complete and total loser. In this scenario, Priscilla was negatively impacted by Subaru’s outburst even moreso than Emilia herself despite how shocking that might be.

And after encountering Subaru again after forgetting him, she could still pretend to not remember him after she has actually recovered her memories to distance herself from him because his horrible outburst at the castle was still weighing on her and lowered his perceived value to her so she has to save face after Subaru so loudly declared himself to be Emilia’s knight after Priscilla introduced Subaru to Marcos as her appa handler and called Subaru her manservant to Emilia, rejecting her (Priscilla) so boldly in the process in favour of a silver-haired half elf who is the spitting image of Satella, which would be considered the ultimate rejection. If Subaru is a complete and utter loser, and he chose someone who looks like the biggest monster that has ever existed in that world over Priscilla, then that makes Priscilla the loser to end all losers by association, and she can’t have that, so she has to cope even harder by saying that she can’t remember Subaru until her perceived value of him is great enough that the perceived rejection is not so bad anymore because Subaru has become just too great of a catch.

I know some people will point to Al saying to Priscilla that she loves watching wicked beasts torment weak creatures and her affirming that she does love that as well as well as Episode 25’s title being “That’s All This Story Is About” and Priscilla’s claim of bringing Subaru along as entertainment as being things that directly refute my analysis, but I cannot believe that she took pleasure in watching Subaru get emasculated and was actually horrified. Her extreme reaction in Episode 16 that had her being outraged that Subaru didn’t think clearly about why she made the request for him to lick her feet and declare that she would strike down any camp he belonged to doesn’t jive with assertions that Priscilla thought of him as some lowly peon. If he was some gnat to her, she would not have been so outraged that she threatened to strike down any camp he was a part of, which is effectively castrating him and denying him in all his efforts to achieve manhood. And what’s more is that she said that SHE would strike down any camp he was a part of, not that she would have any camp he was part of be struck down. She made it clear that it was something she would do personally, which shows how much of an affront Subaru’s behaviour was to her. The purpose of personally striking down any camp Subaru is three-fold, to deliver him the utmost humiliation, to remind herself not to make the same mistake in wrongly choosing a man again, and to give Subaru a chance to defeat her, proving that her initial impression of him was right all along.

I personally lean towards Priscilla having genuinely forgot Subaru due to trauma due to my own experience, and now I’ll share how this is relevant to the Emilia situation. As we know from Season 3’s premiere, Emilia didn’t recognize Regulus even though she thought he seemed familiar. I’ve seen some casual Re:zero watchers say it makes no sense for Emilia to forget Regulus and that it was poor writing since she saw him attack Petelgeuse when she was younger, but given how traumatic that incident was for her, she could also have repressed some of her memories, especially since Regulus was only a small part of young Emilia’s memories with most of what was shown of Regulus being from the 1st Sanctuary trial. And that is before going into the entire context of Season 2. In Season 2, Puck broke his contract with Emilia so that she could regain access to her memories, allowing her to successfully take the trials, and it came with a flood of memories since her memories of her actual past had been sealed away at the time. Emilia notably wondered whether she is even the same person after getting them back, so she was having an identity crisis. The triple whammy of the trauma from her memories, her having an identity crisis, and Regulus’s relative insignificance in her memories since it was Pandora that caused her to lose everything likely all contributed to her not remembering Regulus. It is not poor writing but something that can feasibly happen given I forgot the one most dear to me, so why wouldn’t Emilia forget someone who wasn’t a big part of her life since she only saw him briefly attack Petelgeuse given that a year had passed with probably nothing violent happening during that time that could bring that incident to mind?

As an aside, during the scene when Subaru remarked that one of the canals was flowing in the other direction, and Emilia pointed out that a control tower that controls the flow of water throughout the city (probably not filler since Re:zero has no filler), it was revealed that both Garfiel and Subaru have a fear or perhaps trauma of masses of water although Garfiel was able to overcome that when he saved a group of kids without even thinking about it. This will likely seriously hinder Subaru and perhaps Garfiel as well as Subaru works to try to bring everybody to a good end this arc. One of the kids Garf saved named Fred has an older sister named Rafiel, and their mother is no other than the mother he thought was long dead given her carriage had been caught in a landslide. This should be an interesting development although the aftermath of that was skipped, so we viewers don’t know what happened, but this is surely not the last we’ve seen of this plot point, and it looks like Garfiel is set to get bucketloads of character development this arc.

When the Emilia camp arrives at the Wings on the Water inn, I made a mental note that I believe this is the first building in the anime which had its name focused on. Given that Re:zero has no filler, I believe it may have future relevance although I don’t know what that might be. When inside, Otto reveals that Hoshin, one of the founders of Kararagi, built Priestella, and Subaru reasons that due to the entire building structure and also how they have to take off their shoes that Hoshin must have been summoned from Japan like he was to build a city like this with all these Japanese customs and architecture. This is relevant ’cause I believe the anime in Season 1 danced around with clues of another character having been summoned.

As a refresher, in Episode 12, Subaru had no way of going to the Royal Castle since Emilia left without him. He thus decided to hitchhike, probably ’cause he thought of it as being a universally understood signal back on Earth. However, hitchhiking wasn’t invented until well past the Industrial Revolution when cars were invented, so it probably wouldn’t have been invented in Re:zero’s world despite them having dragons. That means at least one of the carriage driver, Priscilla, or Al knew what hitchhiking was and had come from Earth. Episode 13 had Al indicate he knew what Subaru was referring to when he was exasperated from hearing Anastasia speak in the Kansai dialect, a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, and that suggests that Al was summoned from Earth like Subaru had been since Al outright knew what the Kansai dialect is. This is further hinted at when Priscilla in Episode 16 used the English word “chance”, saying that the opportunity she gave to Subaru is what he would refer to as a chance, which shows she did this knowing that Al and Subaru are from the same world and that she likely learned the word from Al. To top it all off, later in that same episode, Mimi is shown eating cheeseburgers, which were invented from Earth, meaning in no uncertain terms at least one person from Earth had been summoned before Subaru to invent them. All of this along with Subaru’s realization that Hoshin had also been summoned show that Al was without a doubt also summoned from Earth.

I have less to say about this, but I wonder what the point of Liliana singing a song about Wilhelm was given Subaru’s reaction to hearing it. The details about their broadcasts will probably still be relevant later in this arc, but why sing a song about Wilhelm’s love life given his wife had died so many years ago? Clearly Wilhelm and Heinkel don’t believe that Reinhard literally killed Reinhard given she died in a White Whale expedition hunt, but we still don’t know all the details regarding what happened. After night fell, Subaru had a talk with Wilhelm, who had learned about himself through his wife since he was just a knucklehead who only cared about wielding a sword back in the day. He says he is the reason for the rift between him and Reinhard and doesn’t know how to approach Reinhard after all these years since he had neglected him, and Subaru just told him outright that Reinhard wanted to hear the story about the White Whale to reassure him that Reinhard wants to mend fences with him. And given Wilhelm had told Subaru he had three regrets in life and named one of them, his rift with Reinhard, I believe Subaru’s chat with Julius implied that the other two are that Wilhelm failed to find the member of the Royal Family that had been kidnapped and that he was away ’cause of that search, leading to his wife, Theresia, dying. It was interesting all three regrets were revealed in one episode. I’m wondering if there is a point to that.

Sirius Romanee-Conti then introduced herself close to the end of the episode as the Sin Archbishop of Wrath and clapped her hands after 30 seconds had gone by since she started talking, at which she had pointed out herself that they all went silent after 30 seconds, and it seemed the whole crowd, including, Subaru fell under her control. Sirius appears to be able to read the emotional state of the people in her crowd and herds them to one specific emotion so that the damage inflicted on her chosen victim’s body is transferred over to the whole crowd. If Sirius catching people in her spell with her talking is her power, Liliana is probably the counter to this by disrupting Sirius’s emotional manipulation, and that’s probably why Liliana was introduced this arc.

Subaru’s reaction after looping was great. He most likely felt sick to his stomach since it was the first time he had died in over a year and ’cause while he may have been under a trance/spell, he remembered everything that was happening and how absorbed he and the whole crowd was with Sirius’s performance, and how they clapped over Sirius throwing a boy to his death.

All in all this was quite a fun premiere, and I enjoyed writing this despite how much time it took for me to do so since the episode was filled with important connections to make from previous seasons and even from within this episode itself.