Re:Zero Episodes 78 + 79 (Season 4 Eps. 12 + 13) Analysis + Important Details

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I was late to posting Ep. 78 and given it didn’t actually have all that much to talk about, I decided to do a write-up on both Eps. 78 and 79 instead since I believe they’re better off written as a package. Combined, the two episodes have so many callbacks, which was a joy to watch and think about for me.

Ep. 78 opens with amnesiac Subaru looping and greeting Emilia right away as her having done so much for him in the loops after he had come into being coupled with her confession to him made him legit fall in love with her all over again. And of course since Beatrice was the one that did the most to protect him from physical harm in Ep. 77, he was of course crying over her for ever having doubted Beatrice in the first place given in Ep. 75 the ones he had suspected most were Emilia and Beatrice since he never found their bodies, which is impossible in the case for Beatrice since she dissipates into mana upon dying, and for Beatrice’s sacrifice to save him in Ep. 77 from the discarded piece of the scorpion mabeast (that was probably Shaula after she slowly became it in both mind and body as shown by how she went from standing upright to falling towards a more inhuman posture that was meant for viewers to fill in the gap later after watching Ep. 77) left behind that exploded as a defense mechanism to kill those who pursue her, and probably as a release for all of the suffering he’d gone through.

We then see much of the same happenings as before with Julius being disturbed of amnesiac Subaru having no memories of the previous night, probably ’cause Julius intended to mend their relationship the next day, which he could no longer do since Subaru doesn’t know what exactly happened between them that led to that rift, Meili thinking amnesiac Subaru is so much trouble, and Ram distressed ’cause she had believed strongly in Subaru being the one who’d save Rem, and amnesiac Subaru explained it away as having no episodic memories, meaning he retains knowledge of their names and how he’s connected to them and who he is but can’t remember the specifics of anything involved, which is a legitimate expression of how someone with no episodic memories can experience life.

After amnesiac Subaru revealed to Ram in private that he’d genuinely lost his memories and forgotten Rem, she was of course distraught since she believed he was the one person she believed would never forget about Rem even if everybody was destined to, showing her belief in how Subaru was Rem’s anchor to the world given her state of suspended animation and also how he was Ram’s anchor to her sister as Ram would have no idea that Rem was her sister if Subaru had not insisted on finding Rem among the pile of bodies after Regulus and Lye had attacked the camp heading back to Lugunica’s capital.

Given Ram had forgotten about Rem’s contributions to Arc 2 due to Lye’s Authority of Gluttony, she of course held Subaru in even higher regard than she otherwise would have, and Roswaal having been revealed to no longer allow Ram to bring him his underwear after having learned that Ram genuinely loves him in a Season 3 Break Time episode ultimately has resulted in Ram being in a state of much, much higher stress than normal given Roswaal isn’t here to restore her mana like he usually does and since she loves his presence in general, but she was able to push past that.

I can see why people are upset that Ram slapped amnesiac Subaru, but she had the grace to show him she believes the true him will return even after she took roasted him in saying he was bad at keeping promises, and it just shows Ram and Subaru had built a genuine friendship in this last year he’s been in the fantasy world. Yeah, Ram’s very prickly to most people, and I’m not excusing that, but she genuinely does have belief in Subaru as shown by Eps. 40 and 78, and I enjoy how far they’ve come. This isn’t to say some people can’t get triggered by this dynamic though as what would be seen as a sibling dynamic for some could be seen as a dynamic of abuse by others who had negative experiences in which they were gaslighted by a manipulative person.

Subaru then sets a trap/intervention for Meili ’cause he had realized from the height of the person who pushed him and Meili’s tendency to resort to killing to resolve her issues since she never learned how to deal with her emotions due to her upbringing as a feral child, as Elsa’s apprentice, and as Capella’s underling, and since Subaru believes in the innate goodness of children much like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Hans Christian Andersen as shown by how Subaru indicated in Season 2 that he doesn’t want to kill kids, he took it upon himself and for the entire group to raise Meili and give her a good example to live by that would be different than the example Elsa taught her.

I mention Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Hans Christian Andersen ’cause I’m also covering Sayonara Lara this season, and those two were both religious, and Re:Zero itself draws quite a bit from Christianity in believing in redemption for others, much like how the group forgave Roswaal after all he’d done in Season 2 and even in Season 1 with him having revealed himself in Season 2 to have hired Elsa to get Emilia’s insignia in Arc 1, which was centered around the loothouse, and also having allowed the Witch Cult to run rampant in Arc 3 (Eps. 12-25), by not intervening, which posed huge problems for everyone involved, and it also draws from Christianity in how Witches, warlocks, and Sin Archbishops of the Witch Cult are based on sins. Subaru also has at many points forgiven those who have wronged him, while part of it is ’cause he has a fear of abandonment, I believe part of it is ’cause Tappei also deliberately intended for his story to take the stance of God having unlimited grace for humans through Jesus Christ, covering all past and future shortcomings.

The end of Ep. 78 and the start of Ep. 79 have amnesiac Subaru talking about putting his memory loss aside ’cause something in the Pleiades Watchtower caused him to lose his memories, so facing the exams head-on will result in them uncovering the reason for his memory loss, and the group agrees that Reid Astrea’s Book of the Dead almost certainly exists since Reid isn’t the type of guy to stick around too long in one place from what they’ve seen of him based on his lively personality, he shouldn’t belong to that of an extremely long-lived species, and since the Astrea family probably consists of humans, the same should apply to him especially since it was stated in Ep. 70 that he’d died of old age even if a lot of info from four hundred years ago is questionable.

As they were headed to the archive, Subaru decided to have he and Julius stay put as Julius’s body language was negative, and Julius begrudgingly admitted that they they have no other alternatives and that Subaru’s plan is the best one, and Julius’s behaviour born from Julius’s inferiority complex to Reinhard from childhood when Reinhard easily defeated Julius’s swordplay instructor, leading to him having doubts about his own ability up to this current day, as shown by Ep. 72 with the flashback to that, and how Julius took great pride stepping into Reinhard’s role as the sword of the kingdom to defeat Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti in combat in Ep. 24, and Julius’s name having been eaten, resulting in most people in the world forgetting him is really triggering this insecurity, especially since he had a strong belief that the most capable fighters are also those with the best character, only for Reid to run afoul of that AND beat him down twice. Thus, amnesiac Subaru having no memories of that past and his humiliation at the hands of Reid allowed for Julius to regain some of his mojo since even this version of Subaru thinks highly of him just ’cause of his appearance when he had no other person in this world who remembered what he could do on the battlefield at his peak, with Subaru saying of, “That’s one thing, and this is another.” being very impactful for him ’cause amnesiac Subaru was basically telling him to forget whatever happened the other night and not to sweat it, leading to him deciding to treat his previous losses as a throwaway, throwing that same line back at amnesiac Subaru, which is excellent character writing and a good way to alleviate some of Julius’s current issues, and to top it all off, it’s something only this current version of Subaru could’ve done, and there’s a point to this as shown by later in this episode.

In the Great Pleiades Library itself, Beatrice and Emilia both show care for amnesiac Subaru after he declares his intent to read Reid Astrea’s Book of the Dead due to them having found him unconscious in the archive without his memories, and even Ram had shown concern before that by saying none of them have read it due to being concerned about potential memory loss when he asked a leading question. Before that, he also made it clear he intends to find Elsa’s Book of the Dead as he’d cut no corners in ensuring Meili grows up healthy in not just her body but also her mind given the strong connection she felt to Elsa after it was revealed that Meili had found the relevant book. Subaru got everyone to agree to him reading Reid’s Book of the Dead by playfully designating everyone a role, including calling Julius the fighter to lessen the blow to his currently wounded ego, designating himself to be the reader of any Books of the Dead.

However, instead of peering through Reid Astrea’s memories, amnesiac Subaru instead found himself in the Corridor of Memories with Rui, who tells him that it’s the cradle of Od Lagna (Crunchyroll screwed up the translation here with the comma after cradle since it turned the sentence into gibberish), making it sound like Od Lagna and the Corridor of Memories are the exact same thing. As for why Reid’s Book of the Dead led to the Corridor of Memories, I suspect it’s ’cause Echidna’s the one who made the Books of the Dead and can decide who can read them based on my previous speculation. Meili’s Book of the Dead appearing to this group of people so soon when the group had concluded initially that the books aren’t sorted by name or date of death in Ep. 71 suggests that there’s a will behind when and where Books of the Dead that can be read appear. This is backed by how in that relevant episode, both Subaru and Julius were able to find one they were able to read almost right away, suggesting a will or higher power is what allowed for that to happen.

We know from the anime there’s someone who has the power to see a perfect reconstruction of the past, and that’s Echidna with her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, and if my speculation about Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and the Witch Cult Gospels are correct, they may be made with pieces of Echidna’s hair, fingernails, toenails, eyelashes, eyebrows, other facial hair, dead skin, zits, dandruff, body hair, and/or her body fluids such as her saliva, sweat, and the enzymes from other fluids, meaning they are connected to Echidna’s mind through magic, and that’s why Otto didn’t appear in Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, and why Gospels don’t really tell the future, which is why Regulus thought that he’d see Emilia again in the first loop despite it not happening until the 4th loop in Ep. 53 with Regulus telling Subaru to thank him for adhering to his Gospel in not doing worse than shredding off a large chunk of his leg since he could’ve done much worse, and why Sirius indicated that they need to stop hostilities due to the toll of the tower, all of which very much went in Subaru’s favour, likely not by chance.

If Echidna decides what appears in the text of Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom, she can freely decide to omit Otto. That’s why I posit those texts are perhaps connected to Echidna’s mind through magic by being partially constructed with stuff from her body, possibly including her body fluids, meaning she 100% decides what shows up in them. Therefore, ’cause Echidna wanted Roswaal to lose and Subaru to win, Otto didn’t show up in his not-quite Tome of Wisdom. This is backed by Tea Party Echidna telling Subaru that even after 3 days of trial and error that she has no hope of breaking Emilia out of her shell, and maybe he could give the cowardly princess wings, showing she was telling him the way out of the situation was to do have Emilia do the Sanctuary trials. Tea Party Echidna also showed at that moment that she didn’t make the trials as hard as humanly possible but tried to coax Emilia out of her shell. Tea Party Echidna also said what was an evil as humanly possible regarding the reason she had Beatrice hole up in the Forbidden Library, knowing that it would push Subaru to take Beatrice’s hand instead of hers, and her saying that she doesn’t want Subaru to think that she’s the only evil one of the Witches of Sin, resulting in her taking away Subaru’s qualification for entering the tomb since he was using it as a crutch instead of supporting Emilia, was her doing good by Subaru in making sure he was victorious that loop.

Thus, archive’s filing system may be constructed in part from Echidna’s Authority and also magic from herself and possibly others such as Flügel, meaning she can possibly choose which books appear to certain people at any given opportunity based on future knowledge, which is how someone finds a Book of the Dead he/she can read at the lowest floor of the library so as to make it convenient.

Given Echidna’s Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom can show all of the past, present, and possible futures, and the Corridor of Memories is the Cradle of Od Lagna (Crunchyroll probably messed up the translation since Japanese doesn’t different from ‘l’ and ‘r’ since “Lagna” in Vedic astrology is the exact zodiac sign rising on the eastern horizon at the exact time and place of a person’s birth), which filters the souls of the dead and cleanses their memories so that they can be used again, making the Corridor of Memories the support system/cradle for Od Lagna, which probably shows that Od Lagna is actually the world’s memories whereas the Corridor of Memories is where the inaccessible memories are, such as the memories of someone whose names and memories had been eaten by Gluttony and the souls of the newly deceased. So it would make perfect sense if Echidna’s Authority drew its power from Od Lagna, and henceforth explains why Reid’s Book of the Dead connects to the Corridor of Memories since when a soul is ready to be reused again, it is ready for rebirth, thus Echidna’s Authority must capture the rebirth of anyone who’s ever lived, and that likely explains why amnesiac Subaru ended up at the Corridor of Memories.

Rui then reveals her background to amnesiac Subaru, and of course, he has no idea what many of the terms she talked about are, not realizing she’s an enemy, and during that conversation, he realizes that she keeps using the ‘we’ pronoun, which she explains as her having too many egos all in once place, so it’s not clear who’s in charge, and her saying all these egos are a gift from her two brothers suggests that Lye Batenkaitos and Roy Alphard are feeding to Rui some or all of their victims, possibly implying that they are all as one even if they are three entities and that Rui can somehow contain all these egos for whatever reason.

Rui then gives amnesiac Subaru a scare in showing they know about his past on Earth, which I’m assuming is ’cause his memories from Earth aren’t from this fantasy world, so they don’t stay eaten even though Rui and possibly the others can still remember them due to their recollection of his memories after consuming them, and this greatly unsettles him, causing him to push Rui down as she continues to use mind games on him, and she self-harmed by digging into her own skin, possibly ’cause of it being a habit she picked up from Subaru given Beatrice indicated he had a habit of getting scratches on himself as shown by Ep. 75, which I believe I didn’t pick up on at the time, and this interaction finally results in him realizing that Rui was the one who had eaten his memories.

Then it cuts back to those in the archive, and Shaula mentions that threats to the Pleaides Watchtower are approaching, telling them to protect her master, and Julius follows her while Ram and Emilia go get Rem. An enormous number of mabeasts were making a beeline to the tower, and Shaula used her Infinite Hell’s Snipe to snipe many of them, but that still wasn’t enough to stop them from breeching it. Ram and Emilia then see Lye Batenkaitos emerge out of the green room, and I’ll get back to this later.

As for why the mabeasts are storming the tower, I can think of three reasons:

1) Given that Lye and Roy are Sin Archbishops of Gluttony and that mabeasts had been created by the Authority of Gluttony, they have direct control over mabeasts.

2) Given Lye and Roy are supposedly both at the tower alongside Subaru, who all emit a ton of miasma, and since Subaru is currently connected to the Corridor of Memories, the miasma of all of Subaru, Rui, Lye, and Roy are at the Pleiades Watchtower, and mabeasts are drawn to large sources of miasma, which is why they are all gunning for the tower.

3) Since Subaru talked about returning and that this is the fifth version of him since Rui had eaten the original Subaru before he returned to the Corridor of Memories, Subaru’s amount of miasma is way high compared to normal, much like when he goaded the White Whale into pursuing him harder in Ep. 21 by talking about how he had suffered in the past, implying he can Return by Death, which is directly part of the Taboo as intentionally hinting about Return by Death is disallowed according to Subaru’s contract.

It’s probably some combination of all of these reasons for why this is happening.

Cutting back to Rui and amnesiac Subaru, she calls it amazing that he was able to come back to the Corridor of Memories once again and then asks him how many versions of him have come and gone since he had last been here (Crunchyroll screwed up the translation in rendering it as how many times had he died) with him replying five times to denote that he’d died four times with this current iteration being the fifth version of him since having his memories be eaten. She then says that she wants to eat him until her stomach bursts, pushing him down, saying that she believes she loves him as she considers appetite and lust to be similar before licking him provocatively to creep him out and make him consider killing her despite his belief that children should be forgiven ’cause they don’t know better.

Rui then continues her mind games against him, asking him if he really could wring the neck of a frail little girl such as her, suggesting he’s not capable of such a thing to basically dare him into doing it before attempting to mislead him in suggesting that if the original Natsuki Subaru came back that his current self would die since the old memories would erase this draft version of him, which is akin to dying. She asks him whether Natsuki Subaru really was worth all of that given memories are what shape a person, this current version of him and the relationships he has built (such as the current relationships with Julius and Meili). She then goes hard in attempting to sour amnesiac Subaru on the original Natsuki Subaru with false reasons for why he had relationships with Emilia (Crunchyroll may have screwed up the translation in saying Emilia had the same birth as Satella. Muse Asia said that it was ’cause of her looking like Satella, but I’m not 100% sure this is correct either given how incredibly different the translation are. I’m going to need someone who knows Japanese to clarify this later), Beatrice, and Rem, calling him drunk on playing the role of the saviour. Rui then goads him into killing her once again, directly placing his hand on her neck, and he starts sobbing about how he wants more time with everybody, implying he’s seriously considering killing the original Subaru now.

Then we get an update of events at the tower with Shaula still diligently spamming her needles, Julius tiring as he tries to prevent more mabeasts from advancing, and Ram having gotten Patrasche to carry her and Rem out of the green room while Emilia was fighting by herself against Lye, and given Lye had come out of the green room without hurting Rem and Patrasche before, this strongly implies as I’ve stated for over five years that Witch Cult Gospels don’t tell the future but are meant to guide the world to a specific future that develops Subaru and other characters in specific ways as an intervention against the world once again being destroyed by the Witch of Envy due to the character flaws of the Hero of the story with Echidna being highly likely to be the one controlling what appears in them as Rem being saved seems to be part of the grand plan.

Back to amnesiac Subaru and Rem, Rui goads him to declare that Natsuki Subaru’s nothing more than the stranger closest to him and to kill him so that he’s the one and only Natsuki Subaru. He then hears footsteps approaching him, and he thinks it’s the original Subaru coming to claim everything that’s his. And now comes a GIF to help explain everything about this scene:

In Ep. 37 (Season 2 Ep. 12) when Carmilla in the form of Rem was telling Subaru that he can rest and leave everything to her, Subaru protested, saying that the real Rem would tell him to stand up as she’s the one who wouldn’t let him shirk his responsibilities as someone who can’t give up halfway through something as her hero.

And now in Ep. 79 (Season 4 Ep. 13), when amnesiac Subaru was being led astray by Rui ’cause the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony wanted to lead him astray so that they could infinitely eat him by getting rid of the original Subaru’s memories through killing Rui, who had split herself into two exactly for the purpose of still being around after the Rui with Subaru’s memories was killed by amnesiac Subaru, Rem gave amnesiac Subaru the strength to be her hero once again.

That blue sphere Rui took out of her body was Rem’s existence/soul since having both your name and memories eaten is akin to your soul being eaten. Rem even as something that should’ve been immobile, used her force of will to give Subaru the strength he needed to prevail. It was a brilliant callback to that Season 2 moment and shows much planning Tappei put into the story.

This isn’t to say that Emilia didn’t also play a very nurturing role in Ep. 77 (Season 4 Ep. 11) and all the episodes she showed her care for amnesiac Subaru. She very much did, and her actions were what drove amnesiac Subaru decide to live up to the spirit of Natsuki Subaru, but amnesiac Subaru needed another push ’cause of Rui’s mindgame, which had seriously fucked him up and made him lose his resolve.

Subaru understood Rem so much in Ep. 37 ’cause Ep. 18 (From Zero) had Rem lay bare how she saw Subaru and how she felt about him ’cause of how he literally saved her repeatedly in the mansion arc by protecting her from danger and also allowing her to live for something other than being Ram’s replacement. I almost cried watching yesterday’s scene even though I’m not even a huge fan of Rem. I was choking up when I was talking about the scene as I watched. This is Re:Zero at its peak.

It’s surreal how amnesiac Subaru fell in love with both Emilia and Rem in a way that parallels how Subaru originally did in Season 1 with Emilia’s unlimited kindness for him, culminating in her giving him a lap pillow when he was struggling supremely due to his fear of abandonment in Ep. 8, and with Rem giving him the strength to not give up and see things through with Ep. 18, From Zero. Tappei loves writing parallels into the story, and it’s rewarding for big fans like myself to catch them.

And what’s more is that that scene foreshadows that Subaru awoke his Authority of Greed in that very moment, and I’ll use a GIF and an image comparison to help me explain this:

As you can see, the lights are meant to be a proximation of stars, and I highlighted in red the general shape of some stars with the one in amnesiac Subaru’s chest depicting the Regulus star, and given Regulus was the Sin Archbishop of Greed, it meant amnesiac Subaru awoke his Authority of Greed right at that moment ’cause of Rem urging him to stand up and save everyone to be as greedy as possible. As for the expression of the power, I believe Subaru can take in the emotions of someone else, who was in this case Rem, which allowed him to feel her overwhelming love for him, and that’s why Rem’s love took the form of a blue petal to depict that it was a part of her. I believe the entire confrontation with Rui is important since it legitimized amnesiac Subaru as his own distinct self, which is a big part of dissociation that many stories don’t get across right that another self is indeed a legitimate person in and of itself even as a part of a greater whole, and this is the reason Rui tried to make him feel completely distinct from the original Subaru so that he isn’t even considered the same guy so that after he killed her, the old Subaru would be lost forever, triggering her endlessly eating him even if it would never really actually satisfy her.

If you recall from my previous theory on Subaru’s Authorities, I believed that his Authorities are shaped by the biggest regret of each of those who reside in the dark world 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, meaning Subaru’s Authority of Greed might allow him to share what he feels with others. What I didn’t consider at the time since it was a rough draft of my theory is that 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 dissastisfaction with him, so Subaru’s power likely also 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 spiralling. All of this was due to Regulus deep down desiring connection with somebody, which he ultimately failed to do with his wife. For more on this theory and what I believe are the biggest regrets of the Sin Archbishops we know more about and how they impacted Subaru’s Authorities as I don’t want to rehash too much, read the relevant parts here: Re:Zero Episode 70 (Season 4 Episode) Analysis + Important Details – Thorough Watch

During that entire confrontation, Rui confirmed her plan to him, and very interestingly, she asks him about about life being unfair, how you can’t choose where you’re born, who your parents are, your environment, your future, or anything, and this is why she eats and eats and eats to search for the one rosy life that’ll make her life worth living. This makes me believe this is a hint to her biggest regret in life much like how Petelgeuse hinted in Ep. 15 that his biggest regret was killing the one he loved by his own hand, which he projected onto Subaru and Regulus’s biggest regret being what I said it was in Ep. 70. What’s relevant is that no matter how many memories Rui eats, she’ll never find one in which someone never experienced pain or suffering, so I think what she (and perhaps her brothers) are committing to a fruitless endeavor. So consequently, I believe Rui’s biggest regret is eating so many memories just to experience pain and suffering, that which she doesn’t enjoy, and if she could get a do over, she’d prefer to only eat a small piece of someone so that she could only eat a good part, such as someone’s shining moment, and that will have made her believe life was worth living instead of having that good part accompany negative memories/experiences, and how Subaru’s Authority of Gluttony could manifest with Rui’s biggest regret is that he only eats a piece of someone’s name or a piece of their memories, allowing him to perhaps eat the principal traumatizing event that caused great discomfort to somebody.

That portion about Rui about how you can’t choose anything is very particular. Given Rui only came into the physical world when she either swapped places or possessed Lye after he got hit by the powerful metia Felt and Beatrice had used, which knocked him unconscious, Rui may not have a physical body, and that’d mean she knows the Corridor of Memories filters souls and cleanses them of memories ’cause she has been there for the entirety of her existence with her soul somehow not having completed the cleansing process, leading to her not being born into the physical world. However, even if she strongly desires to live, as she had never been born in the first, assuming my theory is correct, I believe never being born wouldn’t count as a regret as being born or not is something you can only regret from a meta standpoint if you had actually been born, so I don’t consider that a legitimate expression for how Subaru’s Authority of Gluttony can manifest itself.

In any case, I now fully buy into Sirius Romanee-Conti’s comment about Petelgeuse’s soul having amalgamated with Subaru’s, and I believe Regulus’s has as well. If that’s the case, assuming my theory about Subaru’s Authorities being shaped by those in the dark world is true, one could look at it from the lens of Christianity and say that the Sin Archbishops would be getting their redemption through the expression of Subaru’s Authorities to be kinder versions of themselves that they couldn’t be in the past. I believe this would make for an excellent plot twist if I’m right about all of this.

All in all, I’m extremely satisfied with Ep. 79 and believe it was one of the best episodes of the season with excellent character writing, great subject matter, story beats, foreshadowing, as well as absolutely stupendous voice work from Rui’s seiyuu. Truly it is an example of the best of what Re:Zero has to offer, and I encourage any Re:Zero fan to sing its praises.

For the relevant Break Time shorts for Eps. 78 and 79 that delve more into Elsa and Meili’s relationship as well as provide more backstory for Sirius, here they are:

Sayonara Lara Analysis of Episodes 1-5: A Quintessential Christian Story Detailing the Importance of Loving Your Neighbours as You Love Yourself (Anti-bigotry) and of How Agape, Self-Sacrificial Love, is the Highest Form of Love in the New Testament

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Sayonara Lara Analysis of Episodes 1-5: A Quintessential Christian Story Detailing the Importance of Loving Your Neighbours as You Love Yourself (Anti-bigotry) and of How Agape, Self-Sacrificial Love, is the Highest Form of Love in the New Testament

Just to give one a brief background of this show, Sayonara Lara is a story that pays homage to Hans Christian Anderson’s, The Little Mermaid, with Lara also having five older sisters, a fascination with humans, and her turning into foam after her love was found to be unrequited. Other differences are that the mermaid kingdom in Sayonara Lara forbids contact with humans and even items made by humans instead of having a fascination with them, believing them to be vile, cursed beings who will taint the light that resides within the mermaids, which may or may not be their souls or at least what they have in place of souls with all mermaids having one rebirth in their individual lives. It appears that once every generation there’s a mermaid who possesses a spectacular light that powers the kingdom with Lara, Lisa, and Luna’s mother being the previous carrier of that light while Lara currently is the chosen princess that can bring forth that truly amazing light.

Although Lara was surely told not to think of humans often as a child, she nonetheless had a special hideout with all of the human items she collected when she ventured out on her own, and one of them was a disfigured statue of a man bearing some passing resemblance to Julius Caesar, who claimed to be a descendant of Venus of love and desire, and it’s fitting for the story of Sayonara Lara that Lara would fall in love with a human, showing that the director and writer of the story very much paid attention to the details of the story in choosing a statue of someone who claimed to have an association with Venus.

On to one of my main points, I very strongly doubt that the mermaid kingdom in this story always had the stance that humans are vile, cursed beings since the designs from some of the mermaid kingdom buildings weren’t so alien that they couldn’t have been inspired by human designs or the other way around, and more to backing this up is that at 2:08 in Ep. 1, the mermaid kingdom has deep-sea tramways, and aerial tramways may have been influenced by deep-sea tramways or vice-versa. Additionally, Lara after she’d taken Grace’s potion had also stepped foot on a human ship with one of said ships during 13:45 of Ep. 1 even being ordained with a mermaid at the bow of the ship, which suggests that mankind and merfolk didn’t always see the other as vile, as there were probably those in the royal family who had some degree of fascination and even intermingled with mermaids in the past. More to back this up is that in Ep. 1, the unnamed prince Lara fancied was able to see the fish-shaped dagger after Lara died, which I’m guessing is a divine instrument of some sort, and given no others aside from Lisa, Kouta (from Ep. 3), and Lara herself could see the fish-shaped dagger since not even Mari could, this possibly suggests that only those who are mermaids, their servants possessing their favour, or descendants of mermaids can see the fish-shaped dagger, and assuming this theory is correct, the unnamed prince could’ve been a legitimate descendant of mermaids, and that’s the reason he could see the divine instrument.

And I am going somewhere with this in that I believe much like how lepers were associated with sin and how the Western medieval Church heavily institutionalized the spiritual stigma during the 11th and 12th centuries, formally barring lepers from regular community gatherings, church gatherings, and marketplaces, deliberately targeting them for isolation due to the perception of them being sinners, the merfolk in Sayonara Lara may have associated humans with sin due to a bad experience in which their kingdom lost its light due to an instance of unrequited love from a chosen princess in the past, and as time passed, the merfolk forgot the reason they stayed away from humans, having come to associate humans with sin in general.

Thus, my point with this GIF is that I believe the director and the writer of this series are directly criticizing the Church for having done that, and they believe that Jesus teaching to love your neighbour as yourself, meaning love for others flows from love for God is second only to loving God, with Jesus having noted the basis of all Biblical scripture and thoughts prophets depend on are on these two commandments, yet so many people who proclaim themselves to be Christians today literally actively seek to hurt others and treat them as lesser ’cause they don’t fit into their worldview of what constitutes a person worthy of deserving God’s love despite it being characterized by boundless mercy and the forgiving of slights, an active sacrificial force prioritizing the redemption of humanity. Jesus defined a neighbour as anyone in need who has crossed your path, regardless of your differences, and it’s your responsibility to act with mercy and become a neighbour to others.

In Ep. 1, we see three (one of which was extremely notable) very notable instances of choosing to love one’s neighbour with Lara choosing not to react with anger to the prince she fancied when he rejected her and when Rowan chose to give the last of the light within him to Lara knowing she would one day be reborn. Lara still chose to look at the prince with kindness in trying to communicate what she felt for him through her face even though she did also try to through her words and couldn’t due to Grace having cut out her tongue before sending her to the surface world. Rowan still chose to give Lara the remaining light within him even though she broke the laws of the mermaid kingdom and was a sinner in his eyes, which is why he had intended for her to spend her time in a jail cell until one hundred mornings had passed, since he probably believed Lara would be very alone when she eventually experienced her rebirth. The last instance of the second greatest commandment in action in Ep. 1 is Lara feeling sorry for having wished to become human due to what happened to her family, saying that she’ll offer her very life and body to bring them back with her tears having a tinge of red at 19:51, which is the colour of Christ associated with his sacrifice, and given the significance of Lara offering her body to bring back her mermaid family, I doubt that this was a coincidence but something extremely intentional with Lara taking on a similar role that Jesus was said to have taken for mankind, only in a different manner.

For this GIF, I’m counting all the non-miniscule points on Rowan’s neck brooch that reach the end of the blue part of the brooch as points of an irregular-shaped star with all of the instances I’m referencing coming from Ep. 1. At the start of this GIF, we see Grace in disguise who seems to recognize a prophecy in action with Lara’s first trip outside the palace resulting in her coming across a human doll. At 2:40, Rowan’s brooch has 6 points, and the biblical significance of 6 is human imperfection in that it symbolizes falling short of God’s holy standard, meaning the scene intends to portray Grace as in the right for wanting to follow whatever prophecy she is following while Rowan forbids prophecies.

At 2:46 when recognizes it’s Grace instead of the wet nurse, his brooch has 7 points, and the biblical significance of 7 is spiritual perfection, which could mean that the mermaid kingdom’s laws are what’s lacking with Grace’s having sought human knowledge in the past, as shown by her allusion later in the episode to a quote of one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work in saying that we’re born twice, once to live and once to live, making her closer to God than those of the mermaid kingdom are. For those who don’t know, Hans Christian Andersen was a big fan of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his belief about the inherent goodness of human nature, so Kinema Citrus has clearly gone all-out in creating this story in a way that Andersen would be proud of if he’d still lived given he was a very religious man and also wrote The Little Mermaid after the man he loved at the time rejected him, and writing Sayonara Lara as a yuri story to pay homage to Andersen not being a straight man is a bold and honourable move. Andersen’s beliefs in the inherent goodness of human nature and that children before they are corrupted by society possessed a sacred, spiritually pure clarity that adults lose due to social conditioning are ultimately why I’m confident that the story is an allegory for the Church treating others who are different with contempt through the merfolk who subscribe to their antiquated beliefs about humans.

At 8:06, with his brooch having 8 points, Rowan asked Lara why she approaches humans the way she does since it goes against their laws, and Lara pushes back, asking if humans really are the vile creatures they believe them to be, and the biblical significance of 8 is new beginnings, which is apt in this situation since Lara finally outright defied Rowan’s authority in visiting the surface world and talked back to him, he who could be compared to a religious authority figure, which is backed by how he decides what is sinful and what isn’t.

At 8:41, Rowan’s brooch has 9 points with one of the biblical significances of 9 being finality, and much like how Jesus was said to have died during the 9th hour (3 PM in modern times), this perhaps marks the moment when Lara became an outcast during her first life as a mermaid even if there was no redemptive sacrifice.

At 17:16: Rowan angrily asks what Grace did to his daughter, and Grace merely replies that Lara chose to take the potion of her own will, and a biblical significance of 10 is that it represents divine order, perhaps showing that Rowan’s horrible teachings led to Lara hating herself, and Grace’s comment earlier in the episode that Lara’s light could become a blade that brings his palace to ruin may have been referencing that very happening with Grace being uninterested when Lara was rejected but very interested in the fish-shaped dagger appearing, which may have been a sign to her that the prophecy was on track.

Finally at 18:06, Rowan’s brooch has 11 points, and the biblical significance of 11 is chaos and disorder, which is relevant in that the merfolk were very unhappy about having to go on a long and arduous journey to find a new home, and even when they found a new home, their light still kept disappearing, leading to most of the merfolk in a state of deep sleep in the modern day with only Lara finding true love being able to reverse their kind’s decline.

More to back up my read about the second greatest commandment being central to Sayonara Lara is that in Ep. 2 Lara awoke to find herself in a place she had never seen before, a modern home, and when she saw Mari, the girl who punched her as she was falling from the sky in Ep. 1, she panicked in fear and jumped out of the window, leading to her seeing a church next to Mari’s house, remembering the prince she fancied two 200 hundred years ago mentioning that churches are the places closest to God’s love, which although isn’t explicitly given meaning in this episode, is a sacrificial love known as agape in the Bible, and what Lara thought of after entering this church is her father, Rowan, sending her the last of his light to her, very much a sacrificial love, which I believe is very much on the nose, showing I was absolutely correct.

Mari herself also adhered to the second greatest commandment given she took Lara in and had Lara sleep in her (Mari’s) room since the AI assistant in the room, Hal, talked about it being time for Mari’s morning exercise, confirming it was her room, so even though Grace prompted Mari to take her in as shown in the flashback later on, Mari didn’t really need to since she considers Grace her pet even though it’s highly likely that Grace has been manipulating Mari since childhood and knows that she will be Lara’s prince based on how at 2:54 in Ep. 2, a clam appeared on Lara’s head while showing her underwater as she thought about why she ended up at this unknown place, and at 6:55 in that same episode, we see Grace’s true form underwater for a brief time in water that’s not the fish tank, and we even see another magic mirror appear from seemingly nothing from within the fish tank, all of which suggests that Grace is far from helpless right now as a fish and is almost certainly still trying to make the prophecy come true with possibly neither Lara nor Grace’s bodies being their true bodies, meaning Grace may have created makeshift bodies for them, one to guide Mari, and one so that Lara could move about and find her true love, who will almost certainly be Mari given the first scene of Ep. 1 flash forwarded to after Mari had already won her championship title with Lara by her side. Mari genuinely saw somebody in need and decided to lend a hand.

Later on in the episode, Lara and Mari get in an argument, and when it really starts pouring, Mari takes Lara’s hand, and they run off to some building with a vending machine with Mari’s favourite hot chocolate brand. Despite their having been fighting not that long ago, Mari gets Lara some hot chocolate, teaching her how to drink it by example, and it was another genuinely kind moment to offer Lara a warm drink after they’d gotten out of the rain, which is the respectable thing to do, especially since it was not any drink but something that speaks to her, making it truly an example of the second greatest commandment in action.

Now, it’s time for the next part of what I want to talk about, which will include circles, including rings, given circles are important in Christianity ’cause they symbolize eternity and the endless nature of God due to having no beginning or end. The reason Lara and Mari had even gotten into an argument in Ep. 2 was ’cause Mari punching Lara in the first episode led to Lara losing the royal ring that was given to her by her father which was very precious to her given Lisa had told Lara that the ring carries the wish that they find true love, and since wedding rings in Christianity don’t just symbolize an unbreakable lifelong promise and sacred marriage covenant before God but also a reminder of Christ’s sacrificial love for the Church, I believe Lara is meant to break free from her affection for her royal ring due to Hans Christian Andersen rarely having attended formal church services in his life, believing the natural world to be the true “holy church”, often criticizing priests espousing eternal damnation over God’s boundless grace, and my position is backed by how Grace told Lara to just forget about the ring in this episode.

In Ep. 3, there are 3 ways rings factor into the story of the episode. The first being the boxing ring, which used to have circular rings but no longer does but keeps ring in its name partially as a reminder of how it started, since Mari is part of the boxing club at her school and has won a national championship in junior high. Although not strictly tied to Christianity, many actual boxers and analysts of the sport describe the boxing as the loneliest place on Earth given there aren’t any teammates or external shields they can use to hide, forcing them to confront their truest selves and to give their opponents their utmost respect. It’s also seen as more than just mere brutality by them but an artistic and possible even moral test of discipline and focus under pressure. Boxers themselves see the boxing as a sacred space and considering Sayonara Lara is a story with a lot of Christian symbolism and inspiration, I doubt that this was a coincidence in having Mari be an amateur boxer. Mari faltered in her fight against Nagahama ’cause she was distracted by the noise of the gong falling, which reminded her of her mother’s cross falling to the ground and when she lost the person she loved most in her life. It was Lara who came and intervened in the fight as Mari was headed to a loss, the one who uttered that she’d sacrifice her life and body to help others as Jesus did. And given Mari told Lara to keep her eyes on her as she fought, it was inviting Lara into her sacred space, the boxing ring, a metaphor for relying on Jesus to ground her against a hostile audience and also a lesson to Mari to be more considerate of those in the club after Lara asked her if everybody in the room hated her with the situation only getting to that point ’cause Mari would often space out when she was training at the club, leading to her not giving the others as much time to train even though she’s a first-year student and the other students have seniority although it was the club supervisor/coach that allowed for Mari to get the same treatment the older kids got, and Lara’s comment ultimately helped Mari develop better relationships with her club members.

The second way rings factored into the story of Ep. 3 is that Mari’s mom would give baumkuchen to the parents of kids Mari would get into fights with. Baumkuchen’s concentric rings are similar to the growth rings of trees, and baumkuchen was frequently eaten during Christmas to reflect celebration, God’s bounty, and hospitality during the darkest days of the year, and if you loosely apply this to Sayonara Lara, it makes sense why Mari’s mom gave out baumkuchen as an apology gift whenever Mari hurt a kid, making it a dark day, since she was a Christian.

The last way a ring factored into Ep. 3 was that the bag that Mari’s mom bought the baumkuchen in featured 4 concentric circles. While one might think it’s just referencing baumkuchen resembling the growth rings of trees, 4 concentric circles in Christianity refers to the expanded Theological Triage framework used to categorize doctrines by importance with the bull’s-eye/center ring being the Absolutes/Dogma, as in the core beliefs of Christianity, such as the Trinity, the deity and humanity of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and salvation by grace. The second ring denotes denominational convictions that separate major branches of the church, such as views on sacraments (infant baptism vs. believer’s baptism), church governance, and ordination with views on marriage and sexuality residing here, dividing affirming denominations from traditional ones. The third ring denotes opinions, such as specific views on creation or precise methods of biblical interpretation that aren’t considered worth dividing churches over, and the outer ring denotes questions, which are unsettled, speculative, or personal matters where Scripture is silent on or vague about that have very minimal impact on core faith.

Where I’m going with this is that given the gorgeous waterworks that appeared after Lara heard from Mari that she likes her, I view that as a sign of Lara overflowing with love in her heart for Mari although Lara doesn’t realize that due to almost certainly having been raised to believe that marriage is between man and woman by her father, and Ep. 5 showing the giant fish dagger, which I believe to be a divine instrument, either attacking or warning Kouta due to the perceived threat to her loved one that Lara felt as a result of Lisa insinuating that she’d have Kouta kill Mari and her family was a nod to that. That is to say that the director and the writer consciously chose to honour Hans Christian Andersen’s bisexuality and his indifference to the institution of the Church by daring to suggest that gay marriage isn’t dogma or a core belief of Christians. Mari deciding to keep Lara around even though her mother had wanted to kick Lara out due to all the trouble she caused ’cause Lara truly had nowhere to go was another example of the second greatest commandment being relevant.

How a circle was relevant in Ep. 4 was that Himeka and Ouji’s situation was somewhat of a mirror of Lara’s situation in the past with the prince she fancied. Lara was unable to tell him how she felt due to her tongue having been cut, and that weighed on her, and having grown as a person since her rebirth, she told Himeka to tell Ouji how she felt since Lara would’ve wanted that for herself 200 years ago, making it another example of that commandment being followed, which I believe was fully intentional from Kinema Citrus in giving her a full circle moment.

And the director and the writer even carefully crafted the original scene with Lara and the prince 200 years ago on the spiral staircase at 13:49 given in Christian architecture, a spiral staircase symbolizes a spiritual journey toward God, but the finite nature of that staircase ended up matching up with the end of Lara’s first life, and since she had been reborn since the end of Ep. 1, one can make the analogy that the staircase of life never ends in contrast to finite spiral staircases, meaning Lara will be able to use her past experience in her second life to reach for higher heights than she did before.

When Mari and Lara were shopping in Ep. 4 toward the end of the episode, Mari asked Lara to focus on finding the freshest oyster, and given the oyster represents female bodily autonomy, reclaiming it from its historical patriarchal framing, I doubt this is a coincidence and may be pointing to Lara having great taste in girls/women.

In Ep. 5, Lara and Mari got part-time jobs at the same cake shop, Andeken, which is a real cake shop in Japan in the Shiga Prefecture with the focus being entirely on Lara, and given how she was extremely eager to make cake, the manager allowed her to help him test out a new product, a peach tart, and it was a real grind across a period of over a week. Lara had considered quitting after all the hard, manual labour she had to go through, especially given she wanted to be paid enough so that she could fully repay the damages she’d caused to Mari’s house, but after snapping pictures as she’d learned to do at the start of the episode and remembering the memories she had with everyone, she came to work with a renewed sense of purpose and feeling of kinship with her co-workers since she got to see other sides of them and learn more about humanity, which she had wanted to do all her life. A spiritual metaphor for peaches is that the hard core represents the resilient core of a heart surrendered to God after undergoing life’s trials and pruning, and one can see how this applied to this episode in that Lara felt closer to reaching the true love she needs to in after allowing herself to be swept up by what came her way instead of insisting on needing to search for her true love immediately, having shared that with Mari on the train back home.

This also makes the shopping for oysters content in the previous salient in that much like the hard core of the peach, the oyster species humans consume for food rarely have pearls in them, and if they do, they’re rather unrefined, but nonetheless, like the species farmed to create pearls, pearls are created from foreign entities invading the oyster with the oyster’s handling the incursion with its defense system being what ultimately results in a pearl being formed, making oysters a metaphor for how hardships and trials in life are what build inner character in humans. Of note are that oyster shells have growth rings too, much as trees do, so one can see how an oyster grew over time and see when an oyster experienced hardship, such as during the winter.

At the end of the episode, Lara had an encounter with Lisa that was almost certainly planned given Lisa and Kouta had been stalking Lara, and Lisa reveals that the reason she took so long to reveal herself to Lara was that she was disgusted by her human form, and consequently, Lara’s as well even if Lisa didn’t outright say that, but the subtext was there. She declared that she wouldn’t allow Lara to love a human, hinting that she was sending Kouta to murder Mari and her family, and Lara heard the message loud and clear, showing deep concern for Mari’s well-being, resulting in the fish dagger/divine instrument descending to the bridge on which Kouta was driving with Kouta’s fate being unknown after that aside from his car being totalled.

Given Eps. 1 and 5, I believe the divine instrument reacts to threats against Lara’s loved one and her well-being, and that’s why the mermaid kingdom was damaged structurally along with the light fading from the palace ’cause the merfolk’s teachings led Lara to hate herself when she just had a basic curiosity with humans, and there was nothing wrong with that, but her father telling her that humans are vile led to Lara believing herself to be vile after the prince she fancied turned that back on her by calling her mermaid form vile, and thus, I posit that Ep. 1 was meant to portray that the mermaid kingdom and the prince, not Lara, sinned, and Lara choosing to give her body to revive the mermaid kingdom was meant to have her redeem them even though the last thing she’d remembered was being hated by a human, which she had lingering regrets and a trauma over given she shared with Mari that she was afraid of being hated by humans again in Ep. 3. And so, I believe one of the points of Sayonara Lara‘s story is the redeeming of the merfolk and even the prince through Lara if the mermaid heritage I propose the prince had results in him being revived due to their behaviour sullying the pure, childlike wonder of the chosen princess, Lara, 200 years ago.

I’ll conclude this post by pointing out something big which I believe nobody else on the Internet has realized, and that’s the reason for Kouta having a male body despite Lisa’s deep-sea anglerfish companion in the past having two moles to the left of her left eye and one lower and to the right of the same eye at 7:29 in Ep. 1 with the male Kouta also having those same moles as shown by Episodes 2 and 5. I believe it was a male deep-sea anglerfish that mated with that female deep-sea anglerfish companion that was revived due to male deep-sea angerfish biting female ones to mate with them having their mouths and skin dissolved with most of their internal organs wasting away, surviving purely as an entity dependent on the female for nutrients ultimately as a source of sperm. Why this is relevant is that it’s argued in the New Testament that nothing really points to men being the head of the household with kephale referring to “leader” or “source/origin” with Eve being seen as an equal partner to Adam despite Eve having come from Adam, and Paul indicating that husband and wife should equally submit to the other. This would explain why Kouta’s mouth is stitched together if his mouth had dissolved when he was a deep-sea anglerfish.

Where I’m going with this is that this series is likely taking agape, self-sacrificial love, seriously with the male deep-sea anglerfish being reborn over the due to the male sacrificing himself to provide sperm to the female, and that’s why I posit Kouta was chosen to be reborn over the female deep-sea anglerfish due to fish also having growth rings as trees do with male deep-sea anglerfish no longer having growth rings after fusing physically with female ones, which is akin to male ones being erased to serve females one, and that’s why Kinema Citrus possibly made the decision it did to make Kouta male albeit with the same moles as that of Lisa’s female deep-sea anglerfish companion to honour that before Kouta’s revival, the female one was the host fish, paying tribute to the female through Kouta’s design.

Suffice to say, I believe an extreme amount of care was put into creating Sayonara Lara, and I believe that based on all the themes and subject matter covered, it’s the series with the most ambitious story of the Summer 2026 season, and it’s pushing the envelope for what anime as an artform can be with its distinct artstyle for its era and the deep thematic exploration going beyond what other anime have covered this season presented in a lovely, amiable package that Christians and even non-religious folks can enjoy if they meaningfully engage with the subject matter.

Sayonara Lara Endgame Theory based on etymology: God is in the details

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What piqued my interest in Ep. 2 is Lara thought of “car” for the horse-drawn carriage she rode in with the prince she liked 200 years ago (This was supported by a clear flashback) and how she was bewildered by what being in a modern car actually entailed. The word, “car”, has been used since 1300 and referred to any carriages, wheeled carts, wagons, and other wheeled vehicles long before the automobile’s invention. Refer to this Reddit post that has sources for the relevant info: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/qona8j/car_isnt_short_for_carriage_its_a_longstanding/ This basically shows that Grace’s auto-translating magic allowing Lara to communicate with others and navigate this world is limited to translation only and doesn’t impart to one knowledge of things one doesn’t know, which explained why Lara was frantic about being in a car she didn’t recognize as something she knew. The long and short of it is that I believe Lara will end up with Mari at the end of this series.

Folks who believe the show’s yuribaiting missed some unsubtle references to Christianity with Lara searching for “true love” but now a ring supposedly important to that goal, is her priority, and wedding and promise rings are meant to show one’s bond with another. She in Ep. 2 ends up in a household with a church next to it belonging to the family there, and Mari’s the good samaritan who rescued a girl in dire straits from roaming around with 0 knowledge of the world. The kanji for Mari can mean “true home”, meaning Lara will likely have found her place at the story’s end with her.

More on this is Lara is in Russian the diminutive form of Laris(s)a, meaning “citadel”, and the Salvation Army uses military terms for its churches, sometimes referring to them as “citadels”, meaning the name Lara may have been on the nose in having her end up with a family w/ a church.

The romaji for Lara’s rara, and “ra” in Japanese can refer to “la”, the sixth note of a major scale, and Lara’s the sixth of a group of sisters, showing much deliberation in how her name was used for this story.

Rowan’s derived from the Irish name, Ruadhán, which means “red-haired”, and is extremely fitting for the Rowan in the show.

The katakana for Grace is グレース (gu-ree-su) with there not being an exact kanji combo for that name. “Gureru” means to stray from the right path, and “su” can mean “nest”, so Grace perhaps was meant to be a mashup of straying from the right path of her home, hinting how she became a witch.

The first anime I watched that really made me dive into the etymology and meanings of names/words is Re:Zero kara hajimeru isekai seikatsu with Episode 22, A Flash Of Sloth, really getting it on my radar in a big way with the number of ways it could apply to events of that episode. When I saw Lara think of a horse-drawn carriage when she thought of a car, I knew there’s a lot more to this series than what’s on the surface.

Re:Zero Scene Analysis: In defence of Ram, given how passionate oni/demons are, I see how she found Subaru forgetting Rem unacceptable given she was counting on him to restore her

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As can be seen with both Roswaal and Rem, Ram was very passionate about her love for the pair in wanting to bring Roswaal his underwear and in making sure Rem gets less work and gets validation from others. Rem herself falling so hard for Subaru and having previously done so much to be a stand-in for Ram due to having thought of how it’s great that Ram lost her horn also supports this read of oni/demons feeling great passion for what’s important to them.

As such, since it was revealed in a Break Time segment that Roswaal was no longer allowing Ram to bring him his underwear, after she revealed she loves him, more of her passion was directed to Rem, who shares the same oni blood in her veins as she did and could feel something was amiss in her life as Julius did when he fought Roy Alphard, leading to her reacting angrily to amnesiac Subaru saying that he’d lost his memories since she felt a sense of powerless due to not having memories of her and also ’cause her relationship with Roswaal wasn’t as great as it used to be, which increased the baseline stress she felt.

To Ram’s knowledge, Subaru’s the only one who remembered Rem and was her anchor to her sister, and given Rem’s contributions in Arc 2 and 3 were erased, and everything Rem had had prior to that was forgotten by her, of course Ram would flip out since Subaru was Rem’s greatest champion. To Ram, Subaru forgetting Rem is like having Rem’s greatest hope disappear, which she was personally hurt by as well as feeling hurt in place of Rem since she can’t feel anything right now and given the saying on how you only die when the world forgets you even if I believe that Foxidna remembers Rem since she’s given hints that she remembers Julius.

In a sense, Ram also kind of glazed Subaru hard in that scene since it showed she thought that if there’s one person in the world who would never forget Rem, it was Subaru, and that was part of the reason she reacted as strongly as she did given he had charged at her to attack her, so I believe this makes her reaction more justifiable given she thought that it was a possible imposter instead of the real Subaru.

I’m not saying people can’t dislike or hate Ram, but Tappei intends for his audience to see the perspectives of all the characters in his series, not just Subaru’s. Self-inserting into Subaru to mald against those who’ve hurt Subaru physically just hurts one’s ability to comprehend and enjoy the story as Tappei intended, which is to treat it as a serious work and not like generic male power fantasy isekai series and see how flawed characters would react and struggle much like everyday people do.

A Re:Zero Theory: Ep. 77 showing it’s Subaru’s nature to be kind bodes well for the ending of Re:Zero, in which I believe he’ll defy the biased story path to save the world

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With Subaru choosing to save Emilia, Felt, and Rom in Ep. 2, and amnesiac Subaru deciding to save Julius, instinctively save Foxidna, and refuse to end Foxidna’s misery, defying the environmental influence of the Meilibaru personality from having read Meili’s Book of the Dead, this shows that Subaru is inherently kind and that even though Re:Zero’s story focuses heavily on how one’s environment influences your personality and behaviour, Re:Zero doesn’t outright ignore the contribution of one’s genetics, showing Tappei believes that both nature and nurture influence one’s being.

I believe Subaru may be resistant to overcoming his self-esteem issues, so this turn of events with amnesiac Subaru may actually further Subaru along on that front by helping him see he’s an inherently good person, and this episode dramatically increases the chances of Re:Zero having a good ending.

Melakuera’s words about the Witch, the world imbalance, and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times suggests that the world is constantly destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed. Given Melakuera likely didn’t exist at the start of the time if Re:Zero’s fantasy world had ever been molten as lesser spirits take time to become Great Spirits, his words indicated that the world is constantly getting destroyed, and given Melakuera has retained his memories, it’s likely not an infinite loop as at least one entity is being re-summoned into the next iteration of the world with his memories, and that’s how I formed this theory.

In the distant past the final boss could very well have used his/her Authority to bias the story path of the world after the handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero of that era chose his lover over the world, and since then all iterations of the Hero of the story had to fit that mold of handsome, conceited, and overpowered until Flügel, Satella, and Echidna interrupted the story path of the world being destroyed for that iteration of the world/story to make artificial Heroes of the story in Al and Subaru. That could be why Flugel was such a bastard ’cause the final boss’s Authority forced him into that mold I mentioned, assuming my theory is sound.

I don’t believe Subaru is fully Flügel but moreso half of Flügel in the past given Naoko in Subaru’s first Sanctuary trial from Ep. 29 said that all Subaru needs to do is become half as cool as his dad, which is a strange thing to say to your son you know has an inferiority complexity centered around his dad, especially since he’s your husband, and thus, Naoko’s remark could have been foreshadowing of the situation from four hundred years ago given Kenichi means “wise man”, Subaru called Flügel a wise man who lived centuries ago in Ep. 16, and Shaula called her master, Flügel the Wise Man in Ep. 70.

While Flügel was the Hero of the story, his soul may have been indivisible since the story required for the Hero to make it to the end and repeat the cycle since dying due to soul eradication wouldn’t be permitted by the parameters of the story path, meaning he couldn’t split Subaru from himself then, but after returning to Earth and losing his Hero designation, he should freely be able to do that using whatever tool Echidna used to cut her soul off as part of her immortality experiment since he wouldn’t have that privilege he previously had as he’d have lost his Hero designation.

Anyway, assuming my theory has some truth to it, that crazy Authority could be bending reality and make it harder for Subaru to overcome his self-esteem issues to try and maintain the basic story path of the original turning point event eons ago, so having Subaru become whole again with amnesiac Subaru’s experiences may help him improve his self-esteem, even if only a bit, showing that a combination of nature and nurture will allow Subaru to do what Flügel couldn’t, which is truly save the world instead of letting the world burn for his lover and not just punt it down the road for a future Hero of the story as I believe Flügel did, and that may have been why Satella even became the Witch of Envy 400 years ago, both to serve as an example to Flügel four hundred years ago and influence Subaru in present-day Re:Zero as part of the grand plan from that time period with Subaru’s words in Ep. 29, Parent and Child, on how only someone who hates the world would choose mayonnaise over the world possibly being foreshadowing of Subaru’s main dilemma at the end of Re:Zero, choosing between Emilia and the world. I know it’d be painful for Subaru to part with Emilia, but I believe they’ll at least get married before that happens, and Subaru will be able to put aside his own strong inclination to choose Emilia over the world to end the cycle of the world being destroyed and reconstructed, culminating in him challenging and defeating the final boss of the series, whoever he/she is.

A Re:Zero Theory: Reid taught amnesiac Subaru to think critically rather than always receiving explanations since he’ll need this skill to restore his memories and be whole

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As alluded to in the title, I believe Reid was teaching amnesiac Subaru to think for himself in Ep. 77 since this version of Subaru was really used to having everything explained to him, much like how he’d get an explanation on everything after he’d initially lost his memories and immediately after the first time he fell to his death.

More on this front is that I also believe Reid saying, “Ah, finally.” is him potentially following Echidna’s instruction in waiting for a specific cue before going after Julius, which was that rumbling he heard, which may have been what prompted him saying that.

Of course, maybe this is just White Fox being lazy on details, but while the first part of the GIF has Reid saying that Subaru came too early in Ep. 74 may imply he’s aware of the passage of time, in all the instances Reid had screen time, there was zero indication of in which direction the sun was shining, and given how heavily Re:Zero focuses on details and how the area in the second exam may be a special sort of space like Echidna’s Dream Castle, Reid shouldn’t be able to perceive how much time had passed as getting exposure to sunlight is important in ensuring one has a normal circadian rhythm, and this space possibly has no sunlight but merely mimics daytime conditions, so even this Reid who apparently only remembers having swung a sword for 3 months may be on the same side as Satella, Echidna, and Flügel and is acting with future knowledge from Echidna through a soul link, contract, or oath with the assistance of her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom.

More to potentially back this up is that Reid basically said that amnesiac Subaru shouldn’t have ran and instead hashed things out with his people in the second and third parts of the GIF, which is very generous advice for someone who’s supposed to be an enemy, almost as if he’s guiding him in his own way, and this is especially notable since Reid is supposed to be someone who loves bullying the weak, so why did Reid seemingly give him any advice when the interaction could’ve been much shorter and even harsher (Yes, I know piercing his body was harsh)?

The words Reid said in the second and third cuts of the GIF may have been meant to highlight just how strange it was that amnesiac Subaru went to a higher floor, and particularly to him, even though amnesiac Subaru was told that the group was more interested in going to the higher floors ’cause they wanted to find out what happened to him and pass the exams so that they could leave, which suggests something’s up.

Thus, I conclude Reid may have told amnesiac Subaru that he’s early ’cause he knew that the poor guy wasn’t really ready and was in no condition to face him. Yes, Reid’s the type who likes to bully the weak as Shaula had said, but I suspect there was more to this interaction than what was on the surface.

I strongly believe the Freud reference in Episode 69 was meant to show that Subaru’s the type to act on hunches and subconscious thoughts given what Freud is known for (and yes, I as told that in the WN it was a Kurapika reference and was a different reference in the LN, but the point still stands given an extra loop was cut off in this episode according to LN viewers as the Freud reference makes great sense in the anime given Subaru chose the path on the right). That’d be why Subaru chose the path on the right, ’cause it led to Satella’s sealed body as shown by the ever increasing amounts of miasma, and Satella herself had asked Subaru to love himself and then someday come kill her in Episode 38, which could be indicative of a lovers’ promise to kill her four hundred years ago, which Subaru subconsciously tried to fulfill or fought against fulfilling (either could work).

Where I’m going with this is that I’ve extrapolated the Freud content from Subaru in Ep. 69 to Ep. 70 to show that Subaru wasn’t crazy or stupid to think he had Returned By Death at the start of the episode when he woke up on Emilia’s lap given he woke up in a new place, and it was ’cause he subconsciously realized that he’d been to the dark world where Satella lies within the vicinity of his soul, and since most visits to this dark world involve him dying, he instinctively thought that he’d died, not ’cause he has no brain or is a super irrational person, but ’cause he subconsciously linked dying with going to the dark world.

As such, I theorize Subaru thinking of Reid in Ep. 70 despite it having been explained earlier in the episode that Reid died of old age is also ’cause subconsciously he knows what’s in the tower much like he knew the path to the right in the cave/tunnel led to Satella, and he knows there’s a version of Reid on one of the higher floors due to his time in the world 400 hundred years ago, and that’s why Subaru thought about Reid in the moment Shaula said she gives no thought to who she’s killed, not ’cause he can’t remember basic details, but since he’s letting his subconscious thoughts and hunches drive him.

That’d be part of the reason why amnesiac Subaru asked Reid any questions at all in Ep. 77 despite his last memory of him being how he pierced his body and inflicted so much pain to him, ’cause Flügel, Volcanica, and Reid were part of the Hero’s party, and Reid was most likely his friend 400 years ago, and amnesiac Subaru felt an affinity with him despite the pain he made him suffer through him. For more on why amnesiac Subaru could have any subconscious memories of Reid at all despite likely having his memories eaten by the Authority of Gluttony due to the line in Ep. 74, “Memories are what shape a person.” from Rui Arneb’s VA, read this: https://thoroughwatch.org/?p=281

Thus, I believe that Reid may have given Subaru a very teachable moment that he’ll need to draw upon by thinking for himself instead of having everything answered for him, which will be crucial for dealing with the issues of this arc. And given Reid’s words in Ep. 74 basically stated what amnesiac Subaru had to do, which is not avoid his friends and face them honestly, which is what he resolved to do in Ep. 77, I’m leaning to Reid perhaps having intentionally given him a leg up this episode.

Reid doesn’t necessarily need to be a nice guy. This version of Reid and perhaps even the original may have been in on the plan of the original Echidna to save the world, which Tea Party Echidna herself may have been following.

As for Reid not recognizing Emilia’s appearance or Shaula’s, this could possibly be explained by this Reid being an artificial construct of the Pleiades Watchtower, which was hinted at in this episode given it was implied that since the tower was under attack that he no longer had to stay on the second floor. Thus, this Reid may have partially formed due to a Book of the Dead, specifically Reid’s, and not its entire contents, with the memories he did have forming the basis of this version of Reid’s soul, and if I’m right about Books of the Dead being partially a by-product of Echidna’s Authority, that may give Echidna some power over this version of Reid.

A Re:Zero Theory: Foxidna hinted at her own game to amnesiac Subaru, contradicting her stated reason for being at the tower, and he was none the wiser

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Again, as I stated in a previous write-up, I feel I didn’t do a good job doing Ep. 77 justice by not being thorough enough in my reasoning as I shouldn’t just assume that everyone remembers everything I’ve posted before, especially since it’s been four episodes since I last commented on Foxidna being suspicious, so I am again posting a supplementary write-up.

As seen from the content of the GIF, which I have brought up before previously, Foxidna stated that she didn’t share her secret with Julius ’cause he didn’t see through her act like Subaru did, but Subaru’s first glimpse of Foxidna not being Anastasia was when she said that she thinks that Reinhard and Felix were more than just friends to Julius, something Subaru found surprising due to the face he made since he had previously not known anyone who could remember someone whose name had been eaten by Gluttony.

That’s why Subaru said later on that something’s been off the whole time ’cause of that moment hinting that Foxidna remembers Julius before talking about how coldly Foxidna spoke about Ricardo, which I believe was Foxidna deliberately cluing in Subaru on her identity since she had already given him a hint, meaning that next hint would confirm his suspicions.

Then when the tower’s under attack, Foxidna said, “I should have listened to Ana’s intuition. I shouldn’t have brought anyone else here.” (which is in the GIF) meaning that she shouldn’t have brought anyone else to the tower, going with those from her own camp and listened to Anastasia. This calls into question pretty much everything she’s said this season given she said that Anastasia had been asleep in her od ever since the battle with the Witch Cult in Priestella, but apparently, she either had a talk with Anastasia sometime during the battle or pre-planned the Priestella visit with Anastasia’s consent, bringing into question her motives for gathering everyone to Priestella. Any way you slice it, Foxidna is a serial liar.

To top all of this off, Foxidna also says in the GIF that this pain is penance for Ana since if she were to give back control to her, Anastasia would feel the extreme pain and the horror of death, implying she had the power to give back her body to Anastasia the whole time but didn’t, flying in the face of her previous remarks about not being able to give back Anastasia’s body, showing she’s just very suss in general since she contradicted her statement about not being able to give Anastasia’s body back twice in the same episode.

I believe Foxidna was outright trolling/following the Tome of Wisdom when she said that she should’ve listened to Anastasia’s inuition, and that was to stay in character regarding her not trusting Subaru when she knows full well that he’s trustworthy. That would be why I propose she said it should’ve been Beatrice instead of her that Subaru was dragging along with him, highlighting that Beatrice is an unfortunate girl to draw sympathy to Beatrice from Subaru despite Foxidna not really even knowing Beatrice well to aid in learning to believe in himself. While it may just be survivor’s guilt, Foxidna is just so suspicious that this interpretation I’ve come up with just can’t be ruled out.

And I do believe Foxidna still remembers Julius given the content of Episodes 67, 70, and 72 with Episode 72 providing a further hint of Foxidna remembering Julius with how she aggressively used Jiwald to try to defend Julius when he was fighting Reid. Someone who barely knows him wouldn’t do that, and Subaru even pondered about why she’d go to such lengths, which means Tappei intended for viewers to think hard about that detail. After Episode 67 with Foxidna putting it out there that Reinhard and Felix were more than just friends to Julius, which Subaru notably reacted to with his face before later saying something’s been up the whole time after she talked coldly about Ricardo, which was a reference to that first scene, and her general gaze toward Julius along with her look of discomfort in Episode 70 when Shaula was shattering Julius’s fantasy about Reid Astrea being a man of great character ’cause of his sword skills when nobody else was paying him any heed, showing she knows that Reid had been Julius’s idol since childhood, there’s a clear pattern of Foxidna showing a level of connection with Julius no one else in the group has, not even Subaru.

As I said with my post from four weeks ago, I believe Foxidna staged the talk she had with Subaru and Julius following her Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom due to her being a soul clone of Echidna’s, not just an artificial spirit, so that Julius would feel insecure about his role as Anastasia’s first knight as well as cause a fight between Subaru and Julius right before Subaru loses his memories to bring Julius to a new low with the one person he believed to have remembered him also forgetting him and that she likely spammed Jiwald not for the reason she stated in Ep. 73 with being unsure about Reid having lethal intent but ’cause she wanted to direct Subaru’s thoughts to Julius instead of the exam so that she could prevent the bad future from Emilia’s third Sanctuary line in Episode 48, and Muse Asia’s translation was: “I have bent my knees and lost even my sword. Just what do I have left?” This line suggests that that depicted a future in which Julius had to bend his knees in deference to Reid while also having lost his sword, leading to him being crushed emotionally and possibly suicidal.

Why Foxidna would be able to psychologically prime Subaru to do this is that he’s the type to follow his hunches and subconscious thoughts, as seen by when he likely chose the path on the right in Episode 69, ’cause of the ever-so increasing miasma and the doors that he could open that may have been built or cast by himself, subconsciously remembering his promise to Satella to kill her as she’d requested for him to do in Episode 38, and when he thought he’d Returned by Death when he woke up in a new location without it being exactly warranted since he associated a visit to the dark world/shadow garden with death, and why he thought to Reid as an answer for the exam on the third floor even though he had learned that Reid died of old age not that long ago, ’cause he subconsciously knew that Reid is in the tower.

If she’s indeed a soul clone, Foxidna should also have the same Authority the original did. And given Satella wouldn’t know which savepoints to choose without future knowledge, she probably has either an oath or contract with at least one or more Echidna soul clone(s) given Satella wouldn’t know what would be the right future/path to follow based on Subaru’s previous time as the Hero and what worked then wouldn’t necessarily work now.

As for how Foxidna would remember Julius, the common denominator between Subaru and Echidna is that they were Witch Factor holders who emitted miasma, so I believe the mechanism by which Subaru and Foxidna would remember Julius would be either ’cause of their Witch Factors or their miasma.

I believe Foxidna stating in Episode 67 that she will choose the option that has the highest possibility of success, no more or less, may be low-key a consistent character trait of all of Echidna’s soul clones, and that’s why Tea Party Echidna pushed Subaru to reject her contract even if she would’ve liked for him to take her contract since the world continuing rather than being destroyed very much aligns with her goal of attaining more knowledge. This would be the reason I posit that all Echidna soul clones follow the plan of the original Echidna.

And as for Anastasia being pragmatic and someone who would follow the mindset Foxidna mentioned, plenty of merchants do not choose the option with the highest probability of success ’cause that option may yield the smallest margins, so they weigh their decisions against their personal risk tolerance to go for something that has a higher reward, and if Anastasia is indeed a skilled merchant, this would perhaps be moreso her mindset, not that of which Foxidna shared, and you know since it’s Tappei, he’s done his research and should know the type of reasoning merchants deal with with it not simply being going with the option with highest probability of success.

If Foxidna is a soul clone of Echidna and her Authority, I also posit that she wouldn’t grant Anastasia her every wish much like those who genuinely believe in Foxidna’s goodness believe. Tea Party Echidna followed the plan of the original Echidna in Season 2, and the original Echidna may have made her soul clones specifically ’cause she knew they’d follow her plan ’cause of the core personality trait I’ve proposed they all have, so if that means following one specific future, Foxidna would do it even if it wasn’t the optimal choice every time but the choices that helps Subaru learn important info and give the cast character development.

I acknowledge a possible counterpoint anyone in that anyone with adequate social awareness should realize that Reinhard and Felix were more than friends to Julius based on Julius’s reaction, and I I may have been reading too much into Foxidna’s apparent connection to Julius, but the attention she showed him in Ep. 70 when none of the others paid Julius any attention when he was going on about Reid makes me believe there’s something more to it as it would’ve been easy for her to treat Julius like all the others did, not acknowledging him at all, if she really doesn’t remember him, and given Re:Zero is a series with a ton of details while also being short on available time, showing Anastasia’s reaction at all appeared to be like a big thing to me given her previous attempt to distance herself from Julius in Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Ep. 6 even if I acknowledge she may have just figured out that Reid was his idol.

Re:Zero Scene Analysis – Episode 77 with the series name title drop is a callback to Episode 3, the Memory Snow OVA, Episode 18, From Zero, and Episode 40, A Reason To Believe

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This episode’s title, Re:Life Starts In Another World From Zero, which is also the title of the series, is a callback to Episode 3’s title, Life Starts In Another World From Zero, with both of them pointing to how Subaru and amnesiac Subaru were inspired by Emilia, someone he hardly knows, to do his best to live on in this fantasy world. Subaru seeing how Emilia was still gifted the flower on her outfit by the girl who was separated from her mother, the wife of the appa shop man, made him realize how consistent Emilia was a person regardless of him not having interacted with her in that loop until they were at the loot house. It was the turning point that resulted in Subaru joining the Emilia camp and finding a new home for himself in this world, much like how he has chosen the group at the tower in Ep. 77 to be his family. He also asked for Emilia’s name in Ep. 3 whereas Emilia asked for his name in Ep. 77.

As for the callback to the Memory Snow OVA, which took place after Ep. 11 but before Ep. 12, Puck said that Subaru has a lot of scars for doing all he could for Emilia and that she shouldn’t forget that, which was quite rude to Emilia. but nonetheless, it served a very important point in that it was one of the reasons Emilia decided to cut ties with Subaru in Episode 13 due to how he’d repeatedly get hurt/endure harsh things due to involving himself with her, such as getting humiliated at the ceremony for the initiation of the Royal Selection and his getting beaten badly by Julius, in addition to him saying those entitled, ugly remarks to her. While some people who are less informed may believe it was only ’cause of the entitled remarks, they’re wrong as Emilia literally said that Subaru had done enough, showing she was concerned about just what extent he’d put himself in harm’s way ’cause of her.

And how this this episode was a callback to that OVA is that Emilia noted herself all that Subaru had done before, showing she gives a lot of weight to how hard and how often Subaru has worked to save her, a thought Puck had ingrained into her. Even if she was trying to give Subaru confidence, I believe there’ll be more on this subject in the future of this series as part of the reason Emilia felt like she was useless in Ep. 40, A Reason To Believe, is likely not just ’cause she was unable to pass the first Sanctuary trial but ’cause she’d internalized all of Subaru’s achievements, including him having passed the first Sanctuary trial while she struggled, and compared her achievements to his, which is why she had such a strong negative reaction to Subaru approaching her in the tomb, requesting that he tell her how useless she is.

And despite Emilia becoming more and more capable in battle as time goes on, which we viewers have seen. she may in a future arc or spread out across multiple arcs perceive an increasing gap between her actual skills and Subaru’s achievements, which keep growing in number, in part due to her not knowing about Return by Death and how she serves as such a vital emotional support to Subaru, leading to her feeling increasingly insecure about Subaru’s accomplishments relative to her own, which could cause some friction between her and Subaru or at least result in Emilia eventually having an emotional breakdown, and I believe this is more likely to happen than not since Tappei is very skilled at planning for the long game of his story and usually doesn’t introduce ideas to be one-and-done content.

In Ep. 18, From Zero, Subaru had reached his then lowest point and considered giving up on everything due to how his failures had reinforced in his mind how he was a piece of trash who’d never accomplished anything, and pointedly, he was rejecting the version of himself Rem saw in her eyes, much like how he was rejecting the Natsuki Subaru Emilia and the others knew in Ep. 77.

Similarly, Rem and Emilia sharing their loves for the Subaru they saw were what snapped Subaru out of his spiralling, and for this episode in particular, Subaru having hoped that this would be the last life he ever had so that his misery would end. Even though Subaru was considering giving up on helping others he’d grown fond of completely in From Zero, it’s still an accurate parallel given he was considering giving up a core part of himself in abandoning the people close to him compared to him considering giving up on life entirely.

As for the callback to Ep. 40, A Reason To Believe, Emilia was struggling with her identity due to the flood of memories coming back to her as well as her failure in passing the first Sanctuary Trial, all of which were major blows to her self-esteem, and in Arc  6, amnesiac Subaru was struggling due to all the past issues he had on Earth, such as his inferiority complex centered around his dad (him calling himself a piece of shit was a callback to that even if we didn’t see him thinking back to being compared to his dad) in addition to his being a pale imitation of pre-amnesiac Subaru who everyone looked up to with high regard, and the situation was very similar in how both Subaru and Emilia helped give the other the strength to believe in herself/himself respectively.

While Emilia specifically needed a kiss in A Reason To Believe given she knew that people can lie with their words such as how Subaru had promised that he’d stay with her throughout the night and reneged on that, it still doesn’t change that Emilia requested that amnesiac Subaru use the name, Natsuki Subaru. Due to all the history they had together that led to her falling for him, in addition to all the kindness she showed him, such as in always being attentive of him after he’d lost his memories and even approaching him and encouraging him to confide in her in Ep. 76, showing that she wasn’t angry at him for being different, that name served as proof that Subaru is indeed loved, however much he tried to deny it, much like with his parents and the others that came to the tower, and it snapped him out of his newest low, similarly to how Emilia was snapped out of her lowest moment.

Re:Zero is at its best when it delivers on the emotional moments, and even though Emilia’s interaction with amnesiac Subaru was simpler compared to the scenarios for From Zero and A Reason To Believe in that she mainly focused on saying what Subaru did, asking for him to give her his name, and confess to him, sometimes simplicity can be very potent, and I can see why fans really enjoyed this scene/episode.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

Re:Zero Episode 77 (Season 4 Episode 11) – Analysis + Important Details

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This episode isn’t filled to the brim with content, so I’ll take a more standard approach and try not to recap as much as humanly possible. The episode leads with Ram calling amnesiac Subaru an imposter, so he charges right at her with the intent to kill, leading to Emilia trapping him in an ice cage with Ram threatening to kill him if he implies one more time that he forgot about Rem, having pushed Emilia out of the way when Ram had otherwise initially intended to torture him due to believing he might be a Sin Archbishop.

I don’t consider Ram’s anger at Subaru to be misplaced. Ram was really reliant on Subaru ’cause she can feel that Rem carries the same blood in her veins as she does, and given Rem’s feats in the mansion arc were adjusted in her mind, she has a higher opinion of Subaru than before Rem was erased by Lye Batenkaitos. To Ram, Subaru is the anchor tying her to Rem, and was the lone person, to her knowledge, who remembered her, and it just shows much she’s relying on Subaru that she’s lashing out in anger due to her own feeling of powerlessness since Subaru not remembering Rem means that Rem has lost her greatest champion. I feel calling Ram’s anger misplaced shows that one’s not being empathetic enough of the current situation as even though Julius had completely forgotten Joshua in Season 3, he still felt an emptiness and sense that something was missing, which is why Roy Alphard was able to mess with him, showing that Ram can also certainly feel that something was missing herself. It’s all the more understanding that Ram had the level of anger she did at amnesiac Subaru since to her Subaru’s possibly the only person in this world who’d never forget Rem even if everyone else did, so this man before her acting as suspiciously as he has would of course test her patience given she doesn’t know him to be the Subaru she put her faith in for restoring her sister, and we know how much she approved of Subaru’s relationship with Rem and his resolve to save her in Ep. 67 despite having no memory of it herself.

Amnesiac Subaru then blacks out and finds the ice cage destroyed with “Natsuki Subaru was here” carved into so much of the wall, and Reid comments on that with the scene change showing that it was almost certainly Rui Arneb, who could change into the form of somebody who’d previously been eaten, who made the carvings as there were carvings even above the door, which Subaru wouldn’t have the strength to carve into the wall himself given his height. He then asks Reid whether he didn’t previously say that he couldn’t leave the second floor, to which Reid says that the whole premise behind that is gone now, likely ’cause whatever mind manipulation magic or spatial loop that stopped him from leaving was no longer in effect due to one of the tower’s rules having been broken in that the tower was under attack, which of course comes with a flick to amnesiac Subaru’s head since amnesiac Subaru isn’t thinking things through, and I believe it’s a valuable lesson he needs to learn, possibly an intentional lesson from Reid given his cryptic remark at 3:22, “Ah, finally,” showing he may have been been waiting for that specific moment when the tower starts crumbling as a cue to when to engage Julius due to this version of him possibly still being on the side of Satella and Echidna with his mind being linked to Echidna’s, giving him future knowledge that can explain why he may have wanted to teach amnesiac Subaru a lesson.

Once they’ve made it to where Julius is, Julius is fighting a ton of those centaur/horse mabeasts, and when Julius is about to take a fireball at full strength, amnesiac Subaru warns him, saving him from certain death, much to Meilibaru’s chagrin, and Reid joins Julius and just shreds all the mabeasts to death while putting up a stink about how the exam is beginning again, forcing Julius to fight him once more, and Julius remarks that he leaves Foxidna and Anastasia to amnesiac Subaru, which stirred something in him given most of the group hadn’t been trusting him.

He then runs into Beatrice and Foxidna, the latter of whom “outwardly projected” that she believes he can’t be trusted, and Foxidna right then and there drops the most suspicious lines she’s had all season as if the previous stuff wasn’t already enough to make her suspect in that she believes she should’ve trusted Anastasia’s intuition and not have brought anyone else here aside from Subaru, showing she lied about Anastasia lying asleep deep within her od all this time, which is the container of her soul, since that comment shows she had talked to Anastasia about her plans to an extent, and given this is the linchpin of her arguments around having nothing to hide, I believe it calls into question pretty much everything she’s said this season. I believe Foxidna fully has the Authority of Greed: Tome of Wisdom, much like the original Echidna and also Tea Party Echidna, and that’s why she put it into Subaru’s head to bring Rem with him to the Pleiades Watchtower, ’cause Foxidna had been driving Subaru to one very specific future, which required Rem to be at the tower.

He then has an identity crisis and doesn’t care about Foxidna’s supposed blunder ’cause he’s not like the Subaru they know, retorting that it’s not an act since nobody would actually willingly choose to be Natsuki Subaru and the asshole that he is. As he’s breaking down due to how unfair the situation seems to him, he starts berating himself and asks to be forgiven and sent home due to this being too much for him. Foxidna says that that’s enough and that Beatrice can stay with him since she intends to find Julius, but amnesiac Subaru won’t let her go due to it being in his nature to help others and abide by Julius’s request. They then get attacked by a scorpion mabeast trying to snipe them, which is probably Shaula when she becomes a mindless killing machine when one of the tower’s rules are broken, and he saves Foxidna from falling to her death, leading to her asking him to stop being so unpredictable, and what he’d done was as much of a surprise to him as it was to her. She then blasted Shaula with El Jiwald, which tore off a piece of the scorpion mabeast.

Foxidna then asks him, “What in the world are you? Whose side are you on, and what is your goal?” probably to continue her ruse, and Beatrice finished his sentence in saying that he doesn’t remember, but she’s okay with that since she remembers that he brought her out of the Forbidden Library and always will, showing that Subaru’s words in Episode 49 were correct in that the time she spends with him would be so fun that he’ll forever be ingrained in her memories. Then Foxidna steps on a piece of Shaula’s body that was left behind, and it explodes, killing Beatrice, who took on the full brunt of the explosion so that her beloved contractor would survive. Later, even as Foxidna is getting dragged along the ground by him, asks him whether it should’ve been Beatrice over her that he took with him, which may have been survivor’s guilt or just really good acting, to make him think back to how Beatrice sacrificed herself for him and how he was loved. He then apologizes for Foxidna’s pain, and she merely retorts that her pain is penance for Anastasia given if she were to return her body now Anastasia would experience this pain and the horror of death, so she requests of him that she wouldn’t mind being put out of her misery, and once he again, he hears Meilibaru implying it’s a perfect opportunity to finish her off so that he can read her Book of the Dead, and he seriously considered doing so with a piece of rock but ultimately rejected Meili’s approach, showing he still had his own identity even if he’d taken in the Meili personality as his own, leading to Foxidna forgiving him and being sorry for having doubted him even if it’s potentially a ruse meant to give him the courage to believe in himself.

Then the Witch of Envy appears with her shadow hands from yin magic, not the Authority of Sloth, given Garfiel could see these hands in Season 2 ’cause yin magic can produce these hands, and the tell is that her vocabulary is limited to “I love you” as seen here or “Love me” from Season 2. Amnesiac Subaru is of course ranting that he doesn’t leave love himself, so how can anyone love him? This is despite knowing that his parents loved him deeply ’cause he’s rejecting other people’s love for him due to how much self-hatred he has for himself, much like in Season 1, when Rem had to put it so much effort for his From Zero moment. And he’d realized deep down that people who treated him so well couldn’t possibly be bad, so he wished that this could be his last life for ever having doubted them in the first place due to his doubt of them making him believe he was even more unlovable still, leading to the Witch of Envy enveloping him with her shadow hands before Emilia cuts the hands down and takes him away.

After they’d ran for a while, he then protests that that’s enough as he doesn’t understand why she and all the others trusted him and protected him, and after sharing the news of Beatrice and Foxidna’s death, he says that they’re all idiots for expecting anything of him. Emila then gives amnesiac Subaru a touching pep talk sharing all that he did for her, eventually resulting in her falling for him as he’s in complete despair, mirroring Ep. 40, A Reason To Believe, when she was the one with memory issues and at her breaking point, and as this happened, he ranted about how risking his life for somebody else, instinctively saving someone’s life, running around trying his best for someone else other than himself, and putting his life on the line to accomplish something for someone other than himself are things that Subaru couldn’t do as he believes he knows Subaru better than anyone and how pitiful, pathetic, and hopelessly rotten he really is due to his not having any of his memories from his time in the world prior to experiencing amnesia, emphasizing what a piece of trash he believes Subaru is, sounding so pained in admitting it, showing how great of a job his seiyuu is doing.

He then says that it doesn’t have to be him as surely there are others stronger and smarter out there who’s more capable of solving the issues here, and Emilia’s patient with him, merely requesting that he tell her his name even though she has so much she wants to say to him and ask him, and when he pleads to her to give him a reason, she says that she knows there are many people who are stronger and smarter than he is but that she wouldn’t want it to be anyone other than him ’cause rather than someone else doing it just ’cause they can or ’cause they happen to be there, it’s so much better when it’s the person she loves, a callback to when Subaru said in Ep. 40 that he realizes that Emilia isn’t perfect and causes him a lot of trouble but that he loves her regardless and also a callback to Ep. 18, From Zero, when Rem shared all that she loved about him he wouldn’t accept as being legitimately a part of himself, both great moments in the series that rejuvenated Emilia and Subaru respectively. As an aside, I don’t expect Emilia to realize that she’s in love with Subaru as readily as she did in this episode given it took amnesiac Subaru not acting like her Subaru for her to catch on to the fact that she does since that forced her to look inward and see what Subaru really meant to her. Without a catalyst like that, it’s possible there’s some stagnancy in this dynamic.

Amnesiac Subaru then decides he will accept that he’s Natsuki Subaru when prompted by Emilia once again, the one Julius relies on, the one Beatrice believes in, the one Foxidna forgave, and the one Emilia wishes for him to be, taking on the mantle/mask of someone he believes is greater to get him through this situation much like how he became Rem’s Hero in Ep. 18, and he does want to help her and the others and save her from the tower, and if Subaru can do that, he’ll be him, thanking her from the bottom of his heart for allowing him to believe in himself, and then the ground underneath Emilia crumbles, leading to her falling into a deep void with him following her and managing to take her hand before they end up in a pit of miasma that depicts his memories, which I’m guessing is a creative liberty rather than him actually falling into his own memories, and he resolves to remember them all and not to choose to see it as an end but a beginning even though the others will forget since he won’t.

While he says that he’s back after he’s looped, his hair is still in the same style as amnesiac Subaru, showing what he regained was his resolve and conviction, not his memories. From having watched Vivy: Fluorite’s Eye’s Song, which leaned hard into the message that autonomous AI who have a back-up of itself loaded isn’t exactly the same entity, I’m guessing Tappei has a message that’s not entirely the same in that it’s in Subaru’s core to be himself in wanting to help others even if it retains that same message in that memories and experiences shape who you are since amnesiac Subaru is taking on the mantle/mask of Natsuki Subaru rather than truly becoming him outright. Re:Zero seems to be supporting the belief that the nature and nurture approaches are intrinsically linked with its story across four seasons, and I welcome that instead of a hard nature vs. nurture approach. And where I’m going with my comment regarding the nature approach is that he resisted his mixing with Meilibaru, who had an inclination to solve problems through killing even though he’d taken in Meili’s memories, thoughts, and emotions, which was a huge environmental change, and given he’d experienced her whole life, he did really well to fight back that inner darkness in desiring to kill even though he only loosely associated with being Subaru.

Here’s the link to the relevant Break Time short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_YBFHSCVWA

Character Analysis: Elsa Granhiert was more than just a bloodthirsty killer but also a sister in some sense

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Character Analysis: Elsa Granhiert was more than just a bloodthirsty killer but also a sister in some sense

While I guess Season 1 might make one think of Elsa as being nothing but a vicious predator, Season 2 had Elsa deliberately save Meili, her little sister figure, and Elsa revealed in Episode 48 that owing to her having been abandoned as a child, she came to love disemboweling people when she’d nearly gotten sexually assaulted in Gusteko with its very cold climate that both served to ensure that she didn’t think about things such as living well or being happy while potentially numbing her emotions due to your body doing what it can to preserve heat and served to alter the regulation of serotonin and endorphins in her body, so when she killed for the first time and felt the warmth of blood and innards, she thought to herself that if there’s happiness in the world it’s the warmth that makes one forget the cold, in essence sharing how she became the Bowel Hunter. Maybe this was a twisted happiness, but her horrible life up until that point is what resulted in her becoming what she was, and Re:Zero has a big emphasis on nurture versus nature.

But the Bowel Hunter isn’t all Elsa is as she was kind to Meili when she taught her how to be civil, allowing Meili to bite into her without retaliating against her, and while it may have been on Capella’s orders, I believe Elsa felt for Meili on some level due to them having both been abandoned as children. I believe Episode 76 showed that Elsa wanted more for Meili than just being a killer as she said that for anyone other herself, no number of lives would be enough, implying that if Meili took on enough jobs she’d eventually find a job too tough for her, showing very much that Elsa cared about her well-being, which is why she told Meili not to be Capella’s puppet, and they were very much sisters as Garfiel had called them in the relevant episode. Elsa also protected Meili when part of the ceiling was about to fall on her, and Elsa stopped her assault on Garf when she’d been in a winning position, so she definitely cared about Meili and wanted her to live on to put herself in such a bad position with a reset of sorts when she’d otherwise have won against Garfiel.

Elsa and Meili was also shown having a sisterly relationship in the Re:Zero Break Time Season 2 shorts, and given one of them pointedly had Elsa talk about how she hates Subaru’s eyes ’cause they show that he believes that death isn’t the end for him, Elsa may have alluded to this in some way between the end of Arc 2 and the end of Arc 3 or even between the start of Season 2 and before the pair began their duties later, leading to Meili having a curiosity about Subaru dying, which may partially be why Meili mused about whether a Book of the Dead would spawn if Subaru were to drop dead in Episode 71. I believe that Break Time content actually shows that Elsa values life on some level given her hatred for Subaru’s eyes, which demonstrates that she believes that you should live life to your fullest, whereas at that point in the story in Season 2, Subaru had been treating his life as disposable and a means to an end, and it’d also be why she treated Meili well, highlighting that she’s not just some monster even if she developed an unhealthy fixation on blood and innards.

I don’t believe Meili really would feel sad about Elsa, which is why she was the most likely candidate for having pushed amnesiac Subaru to his death twice, and look at him in anger during the recollection of her life when her Book of the Dead had been being read while tiptoeing in anticipation of killing him, if she had never once thought Elsa had ever genuinely cared for her, showing Meili felt shame about being caught caring, frustration over caring at all, and anger towards Subaru since she was indeed sad, and given she had never really properly processed her emotions aside from killing what stood in her way, of course it likely ended up in her desiring to kill amnesiac Subaru since he was no longer her big brother figure but the one who killed her big sister figure, who she had affection for.