Re:Zero Season 3 – Thorough Watch

A Re:Zero Theory: If there’s a man who can cure Capella’s trauma of being unlovable, Otto would be the best choice from a narrative standpoint due to his being feared for his Divine Protection + having fallen for a cat

Posted on September 15, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

I’d written a preliminary Capella character analysis in 2024, and now I’m posting a revision of it with Season 4 content as well as positing that Otto’s the one best suited to curing her trauma of the characters in Re:Zero. I believe that since Otto had similar (Ep. 40) although not 1-to-1 issues as Capella in the past with being feared for his Divine Protection like Emerada Lugunica had been feared for her combination of beauty, intelligence, and cruelty, the last of which may not have always been a core trait of hers, Otto may be the man best suited to curing Capella’s trauma since he has high emotional intelligence, high intelligence in general, and was similarly feared for something he possessed, making him the person most able to relate to Capella on a personal level, in addition to his lived experience in how he’d actually fallen in love with an animal in the past in a cute white cat, which is something Subaru obviously couldn’t push back against when Capella said what she’d did to him regarding if he can still love Emilia if she were a fly whereas Otto can.

Of course, I know Otto has no way of beating Capella in a fight, but in a fight with many people, I believe Otto may be the only person in the world who can alleviate or get to the bottom of Capella’s trauma by talking her down and seeing her for the person she is rather than purely as a monster given Ep. 40 (Season 2 Ep. 15) showed that Otto had lived as a merchant for years and hadn’t really truly opened up to anybody until he decided he’d become best friends with Subaru, and Capella has obviously not opened up to anybody in years, making Otto the best person to cure her trauma from a narrative standpoint.

When Capella stepped on Crusch, which prompted Subaru to tell Capella to get her leg off of her, to which Capella responded whether he’s infatuated with her beautiful legs or just Crusch, who she referred to as female meat, saying she does have quite an erotic figure as she stepped on Crusch’s breasts, that remark about about being infatuated with her legs was clearly an instance of fishing for a compliment. After a bit of a fight, Capella sprouted a long tail and knocked Subaru to the side with it before asking if her beauty rendered him speechless. That was the second time Capella has tried to fish for a compliment, so this likely points to an insecurity she may have.

After she revealed to Subaru that the flies and the black dragon were the hostages, she then prodded him by asking if he found it disgusting, to which Subaru called it blood-curdling. Capella coolly says that it’s so disgusting and repulsive that it makes him hate her. She says seeing that made him hate her on a visceral level, and that’s the “right” answer. She said that no one could love creatures like those. Subaru then requests for her to kill him, to which she says she’d never do something so barbaric and throws out that she wants as many people as possible, for as long as possible, as deeply as possible to love her as being the reason she doesn’t kill him ’cause it’s her wish, which is very particular given she’s been pushing him to hate her, so I take it that she does have an insecurity or perhaps moreso trauma after all, probably about her own worth or ability to be loved.

My takeaway from these incidents is that Capella deeply desires to be loved and that she pushes others to hate her ’cause she fundamentally believes that no one can love her. Capella transformed other human beings into creatures she feels no one can possibly love ’cause that makes these creatures dependent on her to an extent and at her mercy, much like how she may have been treated as a piece of meat in the past by men, similarly at their mercy, and that’s why she refers to others as meat scraps, ’cause she’s projecting her own trauma onto others. Additionally, doing this also makes people hate her, reinforcing her belief that she’s unlovable.

After Subaru says that there’s already someone he likes as being the reason he isn’t into Crusch, Capella remarked that can he really swear he hasn’t had lewd thoughts about Crusch for even a second? She asked him if he didn’t think about stroking Crusch’s hair or kissing her supple lips. Capella then raged about how Subaru shouldn’t dare take his carnal desire for the one he fancies he can’t speak of in the open and call it love ’cause that’s her lived experience with men and projected it onto him. She then belittles Subaru by saying if Emilia were a fly, he wouldn’t still love her ’cause she believes love is not possible without physical attraction.

Wilhelm had noted in Ep. 54 that the Emerada Lugunica who existed over 50 years ago was beautiful and also ruthless, which matches the description of Capella, so whether Capella really was Capella or someone who saw her herself in Emerada Lugunica, both have trauma over seeing themselves as unlovable. Judging from that previous content of Capella, she doesn’t believe that having high sexual desire for someone is the same as having love for that person. When you couple that with her fishing for compliments, I fully believe Capella may have slept around a lot with tons of men, but none of them loved her or accepted her for who she is, which might be why she calls others meat scraps ’cause she personally feels that she herself is a piece of meat like in the manner she spoke degradingly about Crusch. Capella would call others meat scraps ’cause if everyone else is a meat scrap, then that elevates herself by bringing down everyone to her level. Thus, she still fishes for compliments and does all she does ’cause she still clings to the hope that somebody will love her even if nobody has in all her years of living.

Capella’s Authority may have manifested due to her desire to be loved that was tempered by her belief that she’s unlovable, and thus, it allowed her to transform herself and others, making them at her mercy ’cause she doesn’t believe anybody could really devote himself/herself or truly care about her unless she did this, which is how she molded someone like Meili as shown in the flashback of Ep. 76, and that’s why her Authority of Lust ended up being the way it did, as a means to reinforce her toxic belief about herself although I believe her trauma is curable with enough effort and investment in her given she keeps fishing for comments, which is a sign of her not having completely given up.

I may be wrong, but I believe Subaru will increasingly be pushed to make hard decisions in the last few arcs to up the stakes compared to what has already happened, and that may require Otto to be the guy who looks for alternatives or to be greedy, and he has to push through to reverse the transformations of Reala’s husband and the Priestella citizens by thinking of innovative solutions, such as befriending Capella.

A Re:Zero Theory: Who is Sirius Romanee-Conti? What’s her biggest regret? And how would it shape Subaru’s Authority of Wrath if the regrets of those in the dark world indeed impact Subaru’s Authorities?

Posted on September 3, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

A common theory from fans is that Fortuna is Sirius Romanee-Conti given Sirius in the Season 3 anime outside of the Break Time shorts has silver hair, elven ears, and purple eyes and loves Petelgeuse. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory since in the Re:Zero fandom it’s very common for fans to come up with the X character is EXACTLY Y character theory, whether it involves time travel or not, which I believe is most likely a result of many fans either not having read much fiction or reading poorly-written works.

I believe Sirius is the result of an impressionable lower-level spirit (lesser spirit or whatever the spirit level of Julius’s spirits are given they directly follow Julius’s instructions) that was in awe of Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love given Pandora told Regulus how he can look at them and feel nothing, which was likely her taunting him to bait him into killing her ’cause she knew Regulus has deep trauma over being a poor husband with the mere thought of Fortuna’s and Petelgeuse’s love reminding him of his personal failure. I believe she also said that for the lower-level spirits to hear, and one of them was strongly moved by Pandora’s words.

Thus, when Fortuna died, one of the lower-level spirits perhaps matured and fused with Fortuna’s soul, and that’s who Sirius is. Given in Re:Zero Break Time Ep. 79 Sirius said that her hometown was destroyed due to a witch hunt with witch hunts becoming common during that era, and she said that misfortune follows her wherever she goes, Sirius may have been the target of persecution repeatedly and repeatedly attacked for her silver-coloured hair and purple eyes despite her not being a half-elf.

And that’s probably part of the reason Sirius’s Authority manifested in an ability that lets her herd people into feeling the same thing since she’s seen so much hatred, and as a low-level spirit before she became Sirius, it may have thought that love is two people feeling the same thing since it felt Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love for each other, leading to it wanting their love to continue after Fortuna died, and that’s the second reason for her Authority of Wrath allowing for her to herd people into feeling the same emotion.

And so, Sirius’s biggest regret could be fusing with Fortuna’s soul in the first place ’cause doing so only led to her experiencing pain and suffering due to her past persecution and ’cause of Petelgeuse not reciprocating her love after she fused with Fortuna’s soul, which is why she asked Priscilla if she understood her pain, so if that’s indeed Sirius’s biggest regret, assuming my theory about Subaru’s Authorities being shaped in part by those in the dark world has any truth to it, one of Subaru’s Authority of Wrath abilities may be to split apart souls that have amalgamated with each other.

Now to share some relevant background info, for Ep. 79, I posted a theory that Subaru’s Authorities being shaped in part by those in the dark world (Relevant scenes of the dark world being when Subaru remembered being in the dark world with his heart caressed by Satella in Ep. 8 after Puck used Shamak on him, when Satella whispered, “Aishiteru” to Subaru during the White Whale fight in Ep. 20, and when Subaru saw both Petelgeuse and Regulus before seeing Satella in Ep. 70).

For example, I believe Petelgeuse deeply regretting having killed Fortuna is probably why Subaru gets recoil from using Invisible Providence offensively since that act hurt Petelgeuse so much and drove him insane after whatever Pandora told him to help him cope with what he’d done, and we know it did given Petelgeuse was talking about how Subaru killed Rem in Arc 3 with his (Petelgeuse’s) own hands with tears in his eyes, showing that the moment in which Petelgeuse killed Fortuna with his Authority hurt him to his core, and that’s what prompted him to project his biggest failing onto Subaru. This would be why Subaru wasn’t hurt when he merely entered Invisible Providence into Emilia’s body but was pained when he crushed Regulus’s heart and why he wasn’t pained when he rubbed Joseph’s neck with Invisible Providence.

Petelgeuse even killed Rem in the brutal fashion he did likely ’cause he deep down remembered how he killed Fortuna and since trauma survivors like to put themselves in situations that re-traumatize them, that’s why he was crying in that scene since he subconsciously tried to draw a connection between a man killing a woman he loved, mirroring what had happened to him since he saw Rem’s overwhelming love for Subaru, much like how Fortuna came back to Petelgeuse in the past ’cause she couldn’t take it for him to die all on his own, leaving her behind.

Much like I propose for Regulus Corneas with his remarks about how others are violating his rights and how he says that he never needed his wives to smile, which I believe were coping mechanisms due to avoid dealing with his negative self-worth centered around having failed his first wife, who he’d actually cared about, which is backed by his rambling to himself in Season 3, demonstrating that he had serious trauma over his wife smiling in her final moments even though by self-admission no matter what he’d done before that, she’d refused to smile, showing that her not smiling was not for a lack of trying on his part, Sirius justifies her actions of “spreading love” to avoid dealing with her negative self-esteem, meaning this coping mechanism has also allowed her to stay functional or alive up until this point as I believe was likely the case for Regulus up until Season 3. I believe on some level Regulus and Sirius know what they’ve been doing is wrong, but they stay in denial to avoid dealing with issues core to their being.

If you recall in Episode 13 of Re:Zero in Season 1, Emilia called Puck a Great Spirit of Fire, which shows that ice attacks can be formed through temperature manipulation in Re:Zero. Priscilla’s flames in Ep. 61 based on Yang magic are bright white, which shows that more than one type of magic can produce flames, and this suggests that it’s possible that Sirius’s black/purple flames are based on Yin magic. That’d make the Fortuna and Sirius situation an inverse of the Satella and Emilia situation with Satella’s natural magic affinity being Yin given the mass of shadows and the shadow hands which can be seen by all aren’t the Authority of Sloth while Emilia’s is Fire, which would be a nice contrast to how one who fell from grace in Sirius ended up having the Yin attribute, an attribute associated with darkness, while Emilia doing her best to live despite the prejudice she faces has the Fire attribute with fire often representing life.

My reasoning for this being a good story development would be that individuality and identity are core issues in Re:Zero with the exploration of twin issues in Arc 2 with Rem’s inferiority complex centered around Ram, of Emilia not being Satella in the Frozen Bond OVA, of Subaru being his own person rather than a knock-off of Roswaal, of Subaru having space to grow out of Kenichi’s shadow, and the Ryuzu clone stuff in Season 2/Arc 4, and of amnesiac Subaru being treated as his own person in Season 4/Arc 6 as well as whatever they’re doing with Reid overpowering Roy. I believe aside from the topic of growing to love oneself, there’s nothing more consistent in Re:Zero than the topic of individuality/identity, so a spirit amalgamating with someone else could be explored in the future with both Sirius and Subaru if I’m right about the defeated Sin Archbishops merging with Subaru’s soul. It’d be in line with how Tappei has written his story with further exploration of the topic of individuality and identity as the story progresses.

A Re:Zero Theory Follow-up: Regulus Corneas’s and Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti’s traumas led to them creating situations that would re-traumatize them, which backs up my read on Subaru’s Authorities likely being shaped by the biggest regret of each of those in the dark world

Posted on August 23, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

As I stated in my main write-up for Ep. 79, Subaru’s Authorities are shaped by the biggest regret of each of those who reside in the dark world (Relevant scenes of the dark world being when Subaru remembered being in the dark world with his heart caressed by Satella in Ep. 8 after Puck used Shamak on him, when Satella whispered, “Aishiteru” to Subaru during the White Whale fight in Ep. 20, and when Subaru saw both Petelgeuse and Regulus before seeing Satella in Ep. 70) with Regulus’s biggest regret being that his first wife smiled in her final moments, showing her unhappiness with being his wife, and therefore, he desired to be able to share how he felt about her with her ’cause she never knew that he genuinely cared for her even though he slaughtered her family and the village the two lived in, and since communication is a two-way street, and Regulus wouldn’t have known to think to tell his first wife about his love for her had he not known about his first wife’s dissatisfaction with him, Subaru’s power likely manifested in being able to take what others feel inside their heart and feel it for himself, which is how he felt the warmth of Rem’s love she imparted to him to stop him from spiraling, in addition to sharing what he feels with others (unconfirmed for now). All of this was due to Regulus deep down desiring human connection, which he ultimately failed to do with his wife.

This is not to say that Regulus is meant to be seen as a sympathetic character as he was a horrible guy who did many wretched things, but as can be seen by his rambling to himself in Season 3, the guy had serious trauma over his wife smiling in her final moments even though no matter what he’d done before that, she’d refused to smile, showing that her not smiling was not for a lack of trying on his part. That trauma’s why he forced his future wives to agree to never smile or face death ’cause his first wife actually meant something to him. I believe Regulus was coping in saying that he never needed for them to smile ’cause many people who have trauma create incidents that will re-traumatize them, meaning if Regulus lived long enough, he’d have another wife who smiled in her final moments.

There’s literally empirical evidence of trauma survivors creating incidents that re-traumatize them. Drawing on that knowledge, this is why Kana from Oshi no Ko is obsessed with Aqua, ’cause when he shined a light on her during the Sweet Today adaption arc, she replaced her mother, who used to be the one who validated her talent and feelings of competence, with Aqua, since he stepped into that role for her even though Aqua’s very emotionally distant to the point that her fixation with him led to a proximation of emotional abuse (not actual emotional abuse) when he started ghosting her. And also relevant is that Aqua’s mother, Hoshino Ai, the person he most wanted to support, was a popular idol who died, and he was subconsciously drawn to making this similar situation by having Kana, the one he most wanted to support, join her sister’s idol group, and when someone pointed out that connection, he was distressed about potentially reliving that and his own role in potentially re-traumatizing himself.

This is backed by Regulus stating Subaru violated his rights as an unselfish man who desires nothing but to settle for a tiny bit of simple, ordinary happiness, which shows Regulus most likely just wanted a wife who loved him even though he killed everyone his first wife knew, which is why she never showed emotion and wouldn’t smile no matter what he did with him coping by telling himself he never needed them to to since it makes their faces uglier after she died. He realized he was the reason she was unhappy, and he ragequit life after that and never decided to be a proper man due to subconsciously realizing how he fucked up, and his coping mechanism for this trauma is blaming everyone else for his issues and never take accountability for his first wife’s unhappiness to help him cope with his failure even if that appears to be an oxymoron ’cause the reality is, accepting that he did his first wife bad would mean that he was such a disaster who made the only person he held dear live a life of despair, and accepting that might’ve resulted in him deactivating his Authority and considering suicide, meaning his coping mechanism’s the only thing that kept him alive up until the end of Season 3.

Some people with deep psychological wounds/traumas are known to recall traumatizing things in their final moments, and this would explain why Regulus was haunted by his wives smiling at him when Reinhard sent him up into the sky and then remembered young Emilia and how she’d been protected by Fortuna and Regulus ’cause at the time seeing Fortuna and Petelgeuse, a real example of both romantic and familial love, reminded him of his own failure as a husband, which is why Regulus attacked Pandora when she told him to calm his anger ’cause just the thought of Fortuna and Petelguse incensed him by reminding him of how inadequate he is as a person.

As for Petelgeuse, his deeply regretting killing Fortuna is probably why Subaru gets recoil from using Invisible Providence offensively since that act hurt him so much and drove him insane after whatever Pandora told him to help him cope with what he did, and we know it did given Petelgeuse was talking about how Subaru killed Rem in Arc 3 with his own hands with tears in his eyes, showing that the moment in which Petelgeuse killed Fortuna with his Unseen Hand hurt him to his core. This would be why Subaru wasn’t hurt when he merely entered Invisible Providence into Emilia’s body but was pained when he crushed Regulus’s heart and why he wasn’t pained when he rubbed Joseph’s neck with Invisible Providence.

Even Petelgeuse killing Rem in the brutal fashion he did was likely ’cause he deep down remembered how he killed Fortuna and was driven, without intentionally doing so, to make that connection ’cause trauma survivors tend to put themselves in situations that re-traumatize them, which is why he was crying in that scene as he realized what he had did to Fortuna.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. I had neglected to delve into this completely for my main write-up, so I felt I needed to do this.

A Re:Zero Theory: Echidna saying that Carmilla gave non-human beings emotions could be Tappei incorporating an important real-world problem in Re:Zero

Posted on April 17, 2026 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

I see some people viewing Echidna as this honest person who is forthcoming about her intentions, but from what I saw of Season 2, that is not the case, and as for why I believe so:

Echidna said that Satella, the Witch of Envy, killed and devoured the other Witches of Sin, using them as sustenance, which is 100% false since if that were the case, there would be no corpse of Echidna at the Sanctuary. Echidna has almost certainly been spreading this lie deliberately to unite the world against Satella in the future, and she likely had Beatrice unknowingly cooperate with her by having her tell this to outsiders like she did with Subaru.
Ram previously indicated that folklore indicates that the great dragon that protects Lugunica lies beyond a Great Waterfall. Echidna said that Sekhmet, the Witch of Sloth, drove a dragon past the Great Waterfall all for a chance to rest, which is likely referring to the same dragon. I don’t dispute that Sekhmet may have wanted to catch a break, but as for why the info about the legendary dragon’s whereabouts is almost certainly false, if said dragon really were trapped beyond the Great Waterfall, how would the Royal Family have entered a covenant with it since it’d be beyond the end of the world? It doesn’t make sense and appears to be misdirection to keep common folk from seeking out this dragon.
Echidna outwardly made it seem like she really wanted Subaru to enter into a contract with her, but that just doesn’t pass the sniff test based on the entirety of her actions in Season 2, which had a heavy bent toward Subaru rejecting her contract. For one, Echidna hinted to Subaru that the path forward is to have Emilia take the trials when he was determined to take the trials himself by suggesting that he might be able to give the cowardly princess wings when she (Echidna) had no hope of breaking Emilia outside of her shell even after three days of trial and error, which shows Echidna varied up the trial in multiple ways to try to get Emilia to pass the trial. Does that sound like someone who is trying to trap Subaru in a contract to you when she outwardly helped Subaru get through the Sanctuary arc 3 times and by her own admission tried to specifically help Emilia?

The second and third times Echidna showed she wanted Subaru to help Emilia pass the trials is when Echidna said that she gave Beatrice a blank book because she had wanted to see who Beatrice would choose and her follow-up remark to Subaru rejecting her contract. Echidna fully knew that Subaru is the one who would free Beatrice, and she specifically chose to tell Subaru what she did was because she wanted to seem so outrageously evil so as to deter Subaru from accepting her contract. This is backed up by Echidna saying to Subaru after he rejected her contract that she didn’t want him to think she was the only one of the Witches of Sin who is evil, which led to her revoking Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb. Subaru was using his right to enter the tomb as a crutch at that point, and Echidna did him a major solid by taking it away so that he’d be forced to do all he could to help Emilia pass the trials. Thus, Echidna clearly knew how evil what she said about her motivations would sound. Echidna’s actions do not read as somebody who wanted to force Subaru to accept her contract no matter what. The true reason Beatrice’s book was empty was probably because Echidna needed Beatrice to stay in the library in case she died or something, and since all she did was stay in the library, there was no need for further instruction. If you’re still not convinced, think of it this way: A woman tells you she loves you. After this, she punches you in the face, asks the man who bullies you out on a date, and specifically calls you a wimp on social media. Can you agree that this woman does not love you?

Now for the real point of my post, Carmilla supposedly giving emotions to non-human beings is most likely not referring to insects or dragons but actually demihumans since the term non-human beings strikes me as being a term used to other people who aren’t pure-blood humans. And I believe it is highly likely that this information is completely and utterly false. Why that is the case is that it may have been a lie invented hundreds of years ago to discredit demihumans and eventually make them become second-class citizens. A hint to whether this was a lie may lie in which of demihumans or humans learned magic first. If demihumans knew magic first, humans may have learned magic from demihumans and then discredited the demihumans to supplant them as the dominant intelligent species of Re:Zero’s fantasy world. An example of this having previously happened in the real world is North American settlers weaponizing disinformation with the lie of the native peoples of the land being savages to justify the colonizing, displacing, and killing of Indigenous peoples even though the settlers were often the initiators of violence and savage acts against the native population. So demihumans being treated as second-class citizens may have been the reason for the Demihuman War, which was namedropped in Season 3.

This can be gleaned from context from the anime given there were demihuman-only businesses in Season 1 and how demihumans were drawn to the Sanctuary in Season 2 ’cause of the rumour of it being a safe place for demihumans despite it actually being a shoddy place that’s not very well-run, showing there is some underlying tension between humans and demihumans, if not across the whole world than just within Lugunica itself. And I do believe Tappei is savvy enough to include this sort of subject in Re:Zero given how there is so much unreliable narration in this series since it’s a storytelling technique that allows for a twist like this.

Given even insects in the real world can feel emotions, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that demihumans, whether pure-blood or not, couldn’t feel emotions at any point in history. It makes a lot more sense to me that Echidna spewed a lie, which Carmilla may or may not have been in on, to ensure that demihumans were discriminated against ’cause if people believed they only had emotions due to a Witch, they’d see demihumans as being inherently inferior, needing the help of a monstrous Witch they can’t understand to be on the same playing field as humans, and even then, the fact that they needed external help keeps them inferior in their eyes, especially if people have forgotten that the lie was originally about Carmilla and now attribute it to Satella, who’s the bogeyman for all the world’s evil. Even if the reason demihumans were discriminated against was forgotten over time, they’d still keep their second-class status ’cause of the lie even if it happened to take on another form. Specifically referring to them as “non-human beings” in the first place suggests an intent to undermine them from the beginning to me.

As for why Echidna would try to ensure that the Demihuman War happened when it did, the answer lies in Season 3. The primary reason Echidna would want the Demihuman War to happen would be to set up the current story with the troubles within the Astrea house. The Demihuman War hurt Theresia in having family members die ’cause she wouldn’t take up the sword, motivating her to truly take on her duties as the Sword Saint whereas it was just in name only previously due to her not wanting to fight. Theresia taking up her duties as the Sword Saint also saved Wilhelm from dying in that war, leading him to train hard so that he could surpass Theresia and relieve her of her duties as the Sword Saint so that he could marry into the family and relieve Theresia of the burden of doing something she never really wanted to but was forced into, resulting in the pair starting a family with the birth of Heinkel, who in turn would start of a family of his own with his wife who gave birth Reinhard. Thus, I see plenty of reason for Echidna to be involved in the start of the Demihuman War if one uses critical thinking given it was established that Echidna manipulated many events through Roswaal for hundreds of years, and causing the war that would eventually result in Reinhard’s grandparents getting married and herald the eventual birth of Reinhard would be fully in line with that.

As for why Echidna would want Reinhard to be born, Reinhard is one of the pieces needed to bring about the future in which the world stops being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed as hinted by Melakuera when he talked about the world imbalance and Witch and remarked about him facing world-ending crises countless times, showing that he has likely experienced the end of the world countless times. I believe Re:Zero’s fantasy world is a stuck in a cycle of the world being destroyed and constructed due to an Authority or curse that affects the story path the world is following based on a battle from eons ago when I speculate that the Hero of the story in Re:Zero’s fantasy world faced off against the Final Boss of the time that the Hero chose his lover, who would become the Witch of Envy, over the world when the Seal in Elior Forest was opened, and in that moment, the Final Boss of the time activated his Authority or cursed the world to be biased toward repeating this general story path for all time, leading to countless iterations of the world being destroyed before getting reconstructed by a prototypical overpowered but selfish hero, leading to the heroes in the age of Satella starting a grand plan to hijack the story path to give Subaru the best chance of ending this cycle after somehow finding out about this cycle with Subaru being weak compared to past Heroes of the story intentional to prevent him from becoming conceited since Subaru needs to overcome his character flaws unlike those who came before him who never did.

Reinhard is needed to kill Satella in the future when she returns, and Satella and Echidna are likely on the same side given that Satella told Subaru to love himself and then one day come kill her and that Echidna did so much to ensure that Subaru rejected her contract and to shape the world to her liking through Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and also the Witch Cult Gospels since if the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was the prototype of the Gospels, they may have been made partially by the same materials, such as hair, nails, or body fluid from Echidna, meaning the text from both may come from Echidna’s mind through magic, showing why Subaru’s being put through the wringer time after time again all to be the true hero that defies the dreaded fate of him allowing the world to be destroyed ’cause of his feelings for his lover.

A Re:Zero Theory: The Divine Dragon is on the side of multiple characters from 400 years ago, which includes Satella, Flugel, and Echidna

Posted on October 25, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

We’ve seen repeatedly through Re:Zero that many characters are acting with future knowledge or at least what they think is future knowledge, such as Satella with her setting Subaru’s savepoints, especially in light of Episode 13’s savepoint, which had extremely intentional timing, Roswaal with his not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, Echidna with her real Tome of Wisdom given how she set up Puck perfectly to be Emilia’s protector all while having lost his memories so that he wouldn’t recognize Roswaal as being the one he knew 400 years ago, which was crucial to the story in many ways, Petelgeuse having been implied to have promised Flugel not to take in the Sloth Witch Factor only to break that promise to protect the love of his life and Emilia, paralleling how Echidna deterred Puck from entering a contract with Emilia until there was no other choice, and with Witch cultists and their Gospels. The central question is what is the purpose for all of these characters having the knowledge they do or think they do?

Why I believe some of these texts, such as Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and Witch cultists’ Gospels, only delude their holders into thinking they provide actual future knowledge is due to the end result of some of the actions taken in the story so far, current up until the end of Season 3. We know Roswaal’s goal was to resurrect his dear teacher, Echidna, but I question whether the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom really was supposed to help him achieve that given the absence of Otto from its pages as a true future-telling text shouldn’t have that problem and should be able to account for everyone in the world, meaning Otto was excluded ’cause the source of the knowledge intended for that to happen. We know the tea party Echidna still had her Authority: Tome of Wisdom given her Sanctuary trials could fully replicate the past and show glimpses of possible futures, showing it truly was an extremely powerful Authority that could read the history of the world, so the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, if it really was based on the genuine article, shouldn’t have a problem with missing all the actions of a particular individual from its predictions, so that suggests Roswaal was basically strung along by a book to set up the story of Re:Zero with Subaru meeting Emilia and saving her and leading him down the path that he took to defeat Petelgeuse and sacrifice nobody in the Sanctuary Arc and allowing the tea party Echidna to revive herself given she spoke in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49. Thus, perhaps the source of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom’s knowledge is Echidna herself with her Authority, and she just makes whatever she wants to appear in the text due to a connection to her mind with her Authority’s guidance. I’ll delve more into why this may be important after the next item on the agenda, which is the Witch Cult Gospels, the apparently defective copies of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom..

I’ve always found the Witch Cult Gospels to be suspicious given how apparently no one can read them aside from the holder of an individual Gospel, which, on the surface, could be a good way of preventing any faction opposing the Witch Cult from learning about how the cult works, but based on what I observed of Season 3, I believe Gospels aren’t even intended to bring their holders to their desired future, much as is the case I proposed with the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom. I challenge you to think about a very important detail from Season 3 in that Regulus Corneas said in Episode 3 that Subaru should thank him for adhering to his Gospel when he only did heavy damage to Subaru’s leg and nothing else. If the Gospels are meant to bring their holders to their desired future, which in this case was Regulus making Emilia his wife, there shouldn’t be an order to limit casualties as that does nothing but play into Subaru’s hands. Since Subaru and the crowd was under the effect of Sirius’s Authority, everyone connected to Sirius took the same damage to their legs that Subaru received, forcing Beatrice to expend all her mana to heal everybody so that they wouldn’t be in critical condition, resulting in Beatrice ending up in a state of suspended animation similar to Rem. This suggests that Regulus Gospel’s main purpose in that scene was to put Beatrice in suspended animation so that Aldebaran would give her a healing crystal later, waking her up just in time to have Beatrice join the fight against Lye Batenkaitos close to the end of the arc. Of course I need not remind you of Capella’s retreat as ordained by her Gospel when she probably would’ve been able to kill one of Felix or whoever this Anastasia is before Reinhard arrived since Aldebaran is hardly some amazing fighter that can handle all the Demi-Beasts and Capella at the same time. Thus, Witch Cult Gospels likely aren’t future-telling texts either or defective for the matter but also texts connected to Echidna’s mind since the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom was their prototype, meaning they likely were made at least partially by the same materials, which may have been pieces of Echidna’s hair, fingernails or body fluids, which would be how the connection to Echidna’s mind I have proposed would be established.

I have long believed that multiple characters from 400 years ago, including Satella, Echidna, and Flugel, are pushing Subaru to end the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed, which was alluded to by Melakuera, who said that he faced world-ending crises countless times since the only way Melakuera’s words can actually be right is if in the world is constantly getting destroyed, and now I posit that the Divine Dragon is also one of the characters in on this plot. I have always found it suspicious that Subaru arrived in the world after Lugunica’s Royal Family had perished, setting up the perfect conditions for him to meet Emilia and for Reinhard discover that Felt was the final Royal Selection candidate, and the Divine Dragon and the other characters from 400 years ago may have planned out this scenario centuries ago. How this theory could be tested is if the Divine Dragon shows any hint of having future knowledge in the future, which would make such collusion between different characters possible and have a wide-reaching impact through Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels for the last 400 years.

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

Posted on October 3, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Re:Zero Theory: Two hidden mural birds from Re:Zero’s first key visual could point at how multiple forces are conspiring to save the world from its cycle of being destroyed and reconstructed

Posted on September 19, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

This is the first key visual for Re:Zero all the back in 2015, and I think it could highlight some important things. First, I’ve highlighted two depictions of things that are either birds or closely resemble them. Given this is Re:Zero, these two objects, which could very well be birds or were intended to be seen as birds, could be important to the plot. Of note is that two birds were also initially present right as the From Zero moment was about to begin at 17:22 of Episode 18 before tons of them emerged at the height of From Zero and also during Subaru’s speech in Episode 57 in Season 3 when they hung out where Emilia was held captive at 25:37 before flying over to the government office where Subaru had his speech at 25:45.

Here’s a link to the image of the birds in Episode 18:

Here’s the links to the images in Episode 57:

https://ibb.co/xK0sXz46

https://ibb.co/v4WgfzWQ

Birds were heavily featured even when Subaru was summoned to Re:Zero’s fantasy world:

So there may have been an unknown force observing Subaru since he was summoned through the birds in addition to Satella, who we know is always watching Subaru.

Given how important the number three is in Re:Zero, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were actually three forces watching Subaru from the moment he stepped out into Re:Zero’s fantasy world. Who could it be if such a thing is indeed happening?

I believe it is Echidna who is the third force that has been observing Subaru since the beginning. Echidna literally said at one point that she had watched Subaru every step of the way of his journey after he was killed by the Great Rabbit, and while it could’ve been a false statement since she has literally lied to Subaru three times already, I’ll share why I believe that she was telling the truth.

We’ve known since the beginning that Satella is choosing Subaru’s save points, which begs the question about how she knows at what point Subaru can make a difference. A lot of anime-onlies believe in the theory that Satella travelled back in time four hundred years to ensure that this current Subaru succeeds, and although I am adamant that this theory is false I will nonetheless use it to support my argument.

Let’s say that this is true and Satella actually is a future variant of Emilia. How would she know in the current day at what points Subaru can make a difference so that he succeeds this time? The answer is that she doesn’t. Even if she knew how the previous Subaru’s run through as the hero worked, that doesn’t mean Satella 100% has an ironclad way of knowing what’s the best point for him to still be able to make the most impact given what failed last time would obviously fail again while what would’ve worked last time may not this time. The only way to know for sure is with future knowledge for this current world, which is why I’m now proposing that Satella has a contract with Echidna in that Satella shares her field of vision with Echidna for some unknown price we viewers aren’t privy to.

If Satella did have this sort of arrangement with Echidna, it’d explain why she makes the save points she does, and it’d be ’cause she consults with Echidna beforehand, who we know to have future knowledge and acts with it in mind as shown when she turned Petra’s handkerchief into a spectral knife for Subaru to kill himself after he revealed RBD to her. Echidna also looked forward into the future hundreds of years ago given she made Puck with the express intention of defeating Melakuera only for Puck to lose his memories so that Roswaal could draw Emilia into his camp with Puck losing his memories of the Roswaal who co-existed with Echidna four hundred years ago, making him oblivious to Roswaal’s Soul Transcription. Evidence suggests that Echidna has been regularly using her Authority since at least hundreds of years ago.

Now I will draw your attention to the rest of the mural’s images, which show a city split in half with destruction to varying degrees all around it with the top right of the sky having cracks, similar to when Echidna’s Dream Castle shattered and when Beatrice’s Forbidden Library disappeared for good. Thus, I propose that the mural is depicting the beginning of the end of the world. I believe that Satella, Echidna, and the unknown force are probably working together to push Subaru to break the cycle of the world being constantly destroyed and reconstructed that has been alluded to by Melakuera in stating he has faced world-ending crises countless times that may be the result of an unrevealed Authority that affects the story path of the world. I believe hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago in the world’s history, an unidentified hero of the past chose his lover over the world in a moment of weakness, dooming it the destruction, and the big bad of the series used his Authority to keep the world biased towards repeating this general cycle, and it’s up to the characters from four hundred years ago to push Subaru to defy the unnatural story path so that this cursed cycle will end, bringing about an age of freedom from predetermination.

A Re:Zero theory: Sirius was right about Petelgeuse and Subaru’s souls fusing, and it’s ’cause she was speaking from experience

Posted on September 6, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

I retract what I had previously said when covering Season 3 given I was adamant that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls had not fused and that Sirius was delusional in uttering that. I had tunnel vision about one of my previous theories and didn’t see what Tappei was trying to tell in that moment. I now believe Sirius was speaking the truth when she said that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls amalgamated/fused, and I also believe Sirius, who happens to have elven ears, silver hair, and purple eyes, isn’t Fortuna but also an amalgamation of Fortuna and a spirit, which would allow Petelgeuse and Fortuna to parallel each other in how they continued to exist after they were supposed to die, and this would explain Sirius’s obsession with Petelgeuse given Fortuna said that she came back to ensure that she and Petelgeuse either both lived or that they died together due to her not being able to live on without him visiting her.

Why Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls likely amalgamated into one is that Sirius felt Petelgeuse’s presence when Subaru used Invisible Providence in Episode 53. Regulus was under the impression that Sirius thought that Petelgeuse had taken control of Subaru much like he did with his Fingers, but that was likely not correct given Sirius said in Episode 66 that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls had amalgamated into one, showing she never thought that it was what Regulus said in the first place.

This is backed by how Emilia in Episode 62 thought to herself that that’s where Geuse was all along after Subaru used Invisible Providence to have a shadow hand phase through Emilia’s chest, and only then was Emilia able to sense Petelgeuse. Emilia may have subconsciously recognized Petelgeuse in Episode 23 of Season 1 after she defeated him when he had possessed one of his Fingers, but Emilia has never known Unseen Hand to be able to phase through objects, so she shouldn’t have been able to intuit that it was Petelgeuse just by the hand phasing through, and thus I conclude that what she sensed was the genuine Petelgeuse.

Now on Sirius, I believe Sirius isn’t Fortuna but also an amalgamation of Fortuna and a spirit, which would allow Petelgeuse and Fortuna to parallel each other in how they both continued to live on despite what should have been their deaths.

I think one of the spirits who guided Emilia to the Seal may have matured into a full-fledged spirit and felt strong emotions from Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s feelings for each other, fusing with Fortuna’s soul in the process with the hope that their love would continue. Pandora may have planted the seed in a spirit similarly to how she asked Regulus if he felt nothing from seeing Petelgeuse and Fortuna. The spirit may have been emotionally affected in a positive way whereas it sent Regulus into a flying rage since he had come to make Fortuna his wife and was incensed to see that she already loved someone else.

We know spirits that aren’t full-fledged can ensure that they don’t physically materialize, so you never know when there might be a spirit nearby. What we do know is that there were spirits when Pandora and Regulus arrived, and there were spirits when they brought Emilia to the Seal, so it’s possible one spirit vibed very strongly with Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love and tried to ensure that it continued only for it to be all fucked up ’cause this is Tappei’s story.

Given Fortuna indicated she’d have nothing to look forward to if Petelgeuse stopped coming to the forest, and that’s why she came back to ensure that they either both lived or that they died together, Petelgeuse probably featured very heavily in Fortuna’s final thoughts, and said spirit I propose was there may have desired so much for Fortuna and Petelgeuse to be together that it amalgamated with Fortuna’s soul, hence becoming the entity we came to know as Sirius. This would be how she knows Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls fused ’cause it literally happened to her, and she was speaking from a position of experience.

A Re:Zero Theory: The information about the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony’s whereabouts was used as bait to gather the Royal Selection candidates in Priestella

Posted on July 11, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

For those who’ve been following my theories, I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe that Witch Cult Gospels direct their holders to their desired futures but actually serve to keep the world on a particular path that Pandora, Echidna, and Satella all desire.

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.

For Arcs 1, 2, 3 and 4, Subaru (and Emilia in Arc 4, which is the Sanctuary arc) was put through very specific ordeals that developed his character in a particular way, and this character development with his desire for as few casualties possible from Arc 4, the arc that pushed him to be as greedy as possible, culminated in his decision to make the speech that inspired the Priestella citizens in Arc 5.

Now as for more on why I believe there’s a grand plan to keep the world on a particular path, we know in Episode 17 that someone ordered the White Whale to leave Subaru alone, and given the Gluttony faction likely had specific instructions to not let anyone interfere with Petelgeuse’s Ordeal to Emilia, which is why Otto was attacked but managed to send his dragon carriage back to Subaru, the most likely person to have saved Subaru at that point would be Pandora since although Lye could’ve done it, I don’t see him directly opposing the Gluttony faction’s purpose for being there. Pandora’s goal may have been to teach Subaru about the White Whale’s Fog of Elimination and set him up for From Zero by having him be in complete despair after inadvertently getting Emilia killed.

As for why I believe the info on the whereabouts of the Sin Archbishop of Gluttony was leaked to Anastasia’s camp or merchant information network, we know from Arc 3 that the knights ignored Subaru’s warning about the Witch Cult attacking since they get a lot of false alarms that conditioned them to be skeptical. So it begs the question of why this info specifically made it to Anastasia’s ears and why she actually entertained it being true when it’s usually the case that no one has any info on the cult, and I believe it was to gather the Royal Selection candidates at Priestella in preparation for Subaru’s miraculous feat of making a plan to defeat/drive off four Sin Archbishops since there’s no reason for the Witch Cult to lure people to the city to defeat the cult. Priscilla may or may not have been leaked info by the same source that Anastasia got the info from, but I personally believe it’s likely as I don’t understand why Anastasia’s merchant network would go against her wishes to not let Priscilla know about her planned meeting.

Given we know from Season 3 that Witch cultists are very loyal to their Gospel with how Regulus specifically implied to Subaru that he should be grateful he adhered to his Gospel in not slaughtering a whole bunch of people en masse and how Anastasia implied that Capella follows her Gospel’s instructions to a tee even if Capella pushed back against describing it that way, the Witch Cult is known to follow their Gospels devotedly. Therefore, I put it out there that all the Royal Selection candidates were specifically gathered in Priestella for very specific things to be achieved in the story, such as Regulus’s death, Crusch being infected by black dragon blood, Subaru being infected by black dragon blood, Garfiel’s mom’s husband being turned into a black dragon, Otto restoring Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, Emilia acquiring a crystal that could bring back Puck, Sirius being captured by Priscilla, Joshua’s name and memories being eaten, Julius’s name being eaten, and so on. Cultists wouldn’t question why they are bringing their enemies to Priestella as they have complete faith in their Gospels.

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

Posted on March 28, 2025 | by anicritic | Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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