Re:Zero Episode 70 (Season 4 Episode) Analysis + Important Details

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This episode is huge with its lore implications if I’m interpreting the scenes correctly. The episode opens with Subaru being denigrated by Petelgeuse and Regulus in the dark world that we’ve seen Satella/the Witch of Envy in before, such as when Subaru remembered having his heart squeezed and the isolation of that dark world when Puck used Shamak, in the White Whale fight when Subaru was pulled into the dark world so that Satella/the Witch of Envy could say that she loves him, and during the moment when Subaru intended to reveal Return by Death to get Petelgeuse to give up on possessing his body in which Petelgeuse was also pulled into the dark world but rejected by Satella. Given when Subaru tries to reveal Return by Death, the stench of Satella intensifies much like after he has looped back, this suggests that the dark world is a pocket dimension located within the vicinity of Subaru’s soul. This would make both Sirius and Emilia sensing Petelgeuse when Subaru uses Invisible Providence make sense, and it’s ’cause they sense Petelgeuse from within the dark world, and Sirius mistakenly believed that Subaru and Petelgeuse’s souls merged (I had mistakenly taken Sirius’s side last year in a blog post and failed to account for everything that came before that when I believe I’d been on the mark before that) when it was the case that Petelgeuse’s soul is just in close proximity to Subaru’s, which shows that Subaru’s body was constructed with a pocket dimension within the vicinity of his soul, which is not the case for any ordinary human, and that’s probably also the case for Al.

As for why this needs to be the case. I see no reason for a random Joe to have a pocket dimension within the container of their soul. This is Re:Zero, where there are logical reasons for events happening, not random isekai slop where there’s no rhyme or reason for the events happening, so it makes me doubtful that this sort of thing would happen for some random person in Re:Zero’s world. Need I point out that the whole point of Re:Zero was to summon Subaru, not an ordinary person? Authorities from the Witch Factors of the Seven Deadly Sins tend to make you batshit insane if what we’ve seen of the Sin Archbishops is representative of what happens, while Subaru still desperately clings to his humanity with all his being while having multiple of them. That doesn’t seem normal and actually extraordinary to me, to the point of being more than just human.

Now for something really juicy. For years, I’ve wondered why Subaru has recoil from using Invisible Providence offensively, which we’ve seen when he punched Garfiel in Season 2, when he hit Regulus in Season 3, when he crushed Regulus’s heart when it was attached to Emilia’s in Season 3, when Subaru punched Ram and sent her flying given he was sweating hard, breathing heavily, almost kind of slurring his words while advancing slowly to Ram to begin choking her, showing that he was pushing through the pain ’cause he had gone insane, and when he used his Authority against the faceless centaur mabeast to make it lose its footing. And now I believe I’ve arrived at an answer in that I believe that the regrets of the people in the dark world shape some aspect of Subaru’s Authorities.

Regulus’s regret is probably that his first wife laughed at him when she died when she had never showed emotion to him before that given he randomly went on without naming anyone about why you dared to laugh in your final moments in Episode 62, and that incident traumatized him, which is why he forced his future wives to agree to never smile or face death. Although Regulus is a an inhuman monster, he probably regretted that he never found out why his wife felt that way, so I believe Subaru’s Greed Authority will allow him to feel what others are feeling so that Subaru can understand and build better relationships with others. This is backed by Regulus stating in Episode 70 that Subaru violated his rights as an unselfish man who desires nothing but to settle for a tiny bit of simple, ordinary happiness, which shows that Regulus most likely just wanted a wife who loved him even though he killed everyone his first wife knew, which is why she never showed emotion and wouldn’t smile or laugh no matter what he did with him coping by telling himself he never needed any of his wives to laugh since it makes their faces uglier during the scene Reinhard had launched him into the sky.

If you’ve seen my Capella character analysis, I believe Capella’s regret is sleeping around so much and not getting to know the one she truly thought she could love, resulting in him treating her like a piece of meat like everybody else. To refresh yourself on that analysis, read this post: https://thoroughwatch.org/?p=44

Suffice to say, I think when Subaru defeats Capella, his Authority might be one that helps him and others around him get to know people they are attracted to rather than rushing toward intimacy. I don’t know what form that Authority will take, but I believe the effect I described will be close to what his Lust Authority will be used for after Capella is no longer of this earth.

I wonder what Sirius’s regret would be. My theory is that Sirius is the combination of Fortuna and a lesser spirit that matured during the Elior Forest attack that was in awe of Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love for each other, and Sirius came into being when the spirit merged with Fortuna’s soul after Fortuna died, so if I’m right about Subaru’s Authorities being influenced by the regrets of those in the dark world, would it be Sirius’s regret that shapes Subaru’s Authority, or would it be Fortuna’s? I lean toward it being Sirius’s regret that would shape Subaru’s Wrath Authority since I believe Sirius is distinct from Fortuna. I remember in Season 3 during the fight against Priscilla, Sirius’s idea of love was everybody feeling the same thing, and that may have been born from when she was a lesser spirit who felt the intense emotions of Petelgeuse and Fortuna’s love for each other, and it may have misunderstood love as people feeling the same emotion for each other rather than grasping what love actually is.

I don’t know if Priscilla telling Sirius that real love is tolerantly accepting the differences of others would really be Sirius’s regret, but it could be possible if Sirius took it to heart given she seemed inspired by Liliana’s singing and started singing herself in a crude way, and she said that she’d try to drag Petelgeuse out of Subaru, so maybe she’s not all for making everyone feel the same emotion anymore if she wants Petelgeuse’s individuality to emerge from what she believes is Subaru’s and Petelgeuse’s souls amalgamating, so Sirius’s effect on Subaru’s Wrath Authority after Sirius gets killed one day may be an Authority that helps people shine by focusing on their own strengths instead of being worried about what areas they lack compared to others.

I surmise that if Subaru’s Authorities are indeed being shaped by those in the dark world, it’s to prevent Subaru from becoming a conceited person like previous Heroes of the story, forcing him to rely on others, even those he detested and defeated, which would be a great departure from the conceited and overpowered Heroes I believe came before him.

Back to the show, Subaru wakes up and wonders if he’s Returned by Death, which on the surface doesn’t really make the most sense given he wasn’t in the carriage before at his previous savepoint, and he passed out out after being saved by Shaula. But given the reason he believed this must be explainable, I’m thinking Subaru always spends some time in the dark world after dying before his soul loops back, and he just forgets everything about his time in the dark world although he subconsciously understands that he was there, and that’s why Subaru thought that he had Returned by Death, ’cause he subconsciously realized he was at the dark world deep down, meaning the Freud content from the previous episode may have come in handy. In the anime, Subaru hasn’t been to the dark world outside of after his body experiencing death since Season 1, so it’s been over a year since it’s last happened, making him thinking he Returned by Death the most plausible scenario to him given he’d just woken up and wasn’t thinking straight.

Subaru’s on Emilia’s lap, and that was intentional from Emilia given Beatrice said that Emilia gave up two nights of sleep for him, meaning Mr. Subaru was lying on Emilia’s lap a lot of the time, and he probably counts his lucky stars that that was the case. Subaru then exits the carriage and is told that they’re inside the Pleiades Watchtower. Shaula rushed to Subaru since he’s apparently her master, and she locks him in an extremely tight embrace that hurts him given how powerful she is, being distressed that her master doesn’t remember her, his student, and when Emilia wakes up and sees what’s happening, she gives Subaru a kick on the back rather than helping him out as he requested, showing her jealousy.

The whole group is surprised given Shaula barely said a word to any of them and is now clinging on to him for dear life and being very affectionate. Apparently, Shaula had been instructed by her master to never say more than she needs to no matter who asks her anything, and Subaru then tells her it’s okay to talk to the others given he knows Shaula believes him to be her master. Shaula then reveals when prompted that she’s not the Sage. Foxidna then throws Subaru three coins with her saying that the holy gold coin (the world’s word for platinum?) depicts the Divine Dragon, the gold coin depicts the first Sword Saint, and the silver one depicts the Sage, and of course the group remarks that it looks nothing like Subaru, prompting Shaula to say that she didn’t recognize Subaru by his looks but by his foul scent, showing that she can smell witch miasma. And Shaula knows the phrase, “No problem”, showing her master was someone who was originally from Earth. Shaula reveals that Reid was the first Sword Saint, calling him a stick swinger, and that Volcanica the sarcastic is the Divine Dragon. She hadn’t even realized just how much time had passed given Reid had passed long ago, showing Shaula isn’t an ordinary human given she doesn’t age and can smell Witch miasma. After Shaula insists that the group should know who the one she believes is her master, Ram said that her master hit her head on a chamber pot and forgot many things, leading to Shaula replying with “Again” to Subaru, showing that something is up here, revealing that her master is Flügel the Wise Man, the real Sage, the one who planted what was known as Flügel’s tree, the same tree the White Whale expedition force downed to trap the White Whale.

After that, it appears they group has been climbing the tower for a while, and Shaula is carrying Meili on her back with Meili complaining that it’s too bouncy of a ride, and Shaula says that a kid getting a free ride shouldn’t complain. Then Meili abruptly yanks Shaula’s ponytail, which is apparently a scorpion tail, not actual hair, and that fits the name Shaula given the name refers to a scorpion’s tail. When they arrive at the entrance, Beatrice says that Patrasche and Rem are a whole floor above this one, prompting Subaru to wonder aloud how they got Patrasche up that high, and Shaula revealed that she did it easily, which reinforces her incredible strength. I’m thinking the shot of Shaula carrying Patrasche may be a reference. The most famous Patrasche is a dog from A Dog of Flanders, a TV series depicting a story of a boy and his dog in a village within Belgium. Subaru’s ringtone in the White Whale fight was from A Dog of Flanders, clearing showing that he named Patrasche after the dog. The root of the name Patrasche is from Peter, derived from the Greek word, Petros, which means “stone”, with the author of A Dog of Flanders, likely adapting the name to invoke a sense of enduring strength, which may be why Tappei wrote Patrasche in one scene of Re:Zero Season 2 to fling Subaru with such force that he was launched back into a building after he had deliberately escaped the building to flee a very powerful mabeast, showing that Patrasche was thinking mainly of Subaru in that moment and did what she could to protect him even at the cost of her own life. I may be wrong, but I believe the shot of Shaula carrying Patrasche (stone) is an allusion to Atlas carrying a terrestrial globe, which is a misconception from a certain period about Atlas carrying the world since what Atlas was really doing in Greek mythology was carrying a celestial sphere which consists of the heavens and the night sky.

Subaru also reveals when they’re higher up the tower that he had previously heard that Flügel was the Sage and didn’t think his name would come up again, so I’m wondering where he heard it from given no one else in the group knew Flügel was the Sage. My best guess is that he heard the name Flügel from Liliana. As Liliana’s family was a travelling group of bards, the story of Flügel may have been passed down through the generations in her family. Even someone as long-lived as Beatrice didn’t know that Flügel was the Sage, so what was known about Flügel must’ve been lost due to time, possibly even ’cause of Echidna deliberately plotting to obscure knowledge of Flügel, much like how I am adamant she has been ensuring knowledge of past Witches of Sin has been lost so that the world blames everything on Satella, which is why Crusch and many others believed that mabeasts were created by Satella despite them actually having been created by Daphne, the Witch of Gluttony. As it started to hit Subaru about what it means to be climbing this tower, Shaula gives him 99 points out of 100, mostly ’cause of her affection for him, not ’cause of Subaru really realizing the gravity of what he’s doing since she says, revealing that the Pleiades Watchtower is a temporary name for a temporary role. To her Flügel being back means that it’ll return to its original role, which is that of the Pleiades Great Library where you can find everything you’ve ever wanted to know.

When the group reaches the floor where Patrasche and Rem are, Ram takes him into the dwelling of a spirit that has no will of its own that just heals the injuries and cures the sickness of those in it, and of course, Rem isn’t affected since she’s merely in suspended animation, and Subaru entrusts Ram with keeping Patrasche, who had been gravely injured, and Rem safe. He resolved himself to do what he needs to do and confirms sincerely that Ram looking over the two is more than enough, trusting that his not-really sister will do what she can.

Shaula then shares that this is floor basically functions as her den and is where she’s shooting intruders, referring to it as Hell’s snipe, another learned Earth phrase with the accompanying gun gestures along with it. Subaru finds out that Shaula was shooting people who approached the tower on her master’s orders all by herself for four hundred years, so he ordered her to not harm him or his friends. And given Shaula is the Keeper of the Pleiades Watchtower, and the tower is named after a star cluster, and Subaru is the term for Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, this may indicate that the decision to have Shaula be entrusted as its keeper was made by Subaru himself four hundred years ago, Shaula’s apparent master, much like how Zeus, the ruler of Olympus forced Atlas to hold the heavens/night sky up, and with regards to the tower’s association with the Pleiades star cluster, it could read as Shaula holding up the Seven Sisters in the night sky herself high up the tower similar to what Atlas did with the night sky in Greek mythology, a symbol of immense burden of responsibility, demonstrating the burden Shaula carried with her for four hundred years waiting for the return of her master, even to the point of forgetting that Reid was human. Maybe this is a pretty complex allusion, but I am adamant about its legitimacy nonetheless. Thus, this episode shows that Tappei had mapped out his story to this point with pinpoint accuracy having planned Patrasche to be used such in a way since at least Arc 3 of Season 1.

The third floor has a test that nobody in the group had been able to pass while Subaru had been sleeping. Touching the lone black monolith results in a very large amount of them emerging with the selection of the correct monolith being the test. A voice then emerges that states, “Hero slain by Shaula, touch upon his greatest splendor.” Touching the first monolith he touches ends the test, and touching it again reinitiates the test. The group in general has no idea what to do, and Meili then suggests that they ask Shaula, who doesn’t remember the names of people she killed outside of the first hundred, and she gives Subaru a thumbs up, also another thing not seen in this world. Subaru puts it out there that she killed Reid, which on the surface is strange given it was revealed earlier that Reid died of old age, but given the Sigmund Freud content last episode, maybe it’s not that strange, and Subaru used to know Reid. Given that Subaru almost certainly chose the path to the right in Episode 69 that led to Satella’s sealed body and that he thought he had Returned by Death due to subconsciously realizing he went to the dark world, Subaru may subconsciously realize that there’s a split-soul Reid in a vessel with everlasting youth that lies ahead on one of the higher floors since he knows what’s in this tower.

Of course, Subaru name-dropping Reid elicits pure terror in Shaula, resulting in her dropping Meili so that she could cower behind a monolith, and Meili referred to Subaru as “oni-san” as in “Big Brother” when he caught her, showing that Subaru has an easy time with making kids like him, meaning the Little Girl User is a fitting title for him. When Subaru asks if Shaula is that afraid of Reid, Shaula retreats to a monolith further away, and Julius follows that up by saying that Reid as the progenitor of Wilhelm and Reinhard must have been a man of great character, and he was crestfallen when Shaula mentioned that Reid was human scum who liked bullying those weaker than him, including herself. And Foxidna’s look of discomfort and gaze at Julius during that scene again shows again that she remembers Julius and was sad to see his reaction to learning that someone who may have been an idol to him was actually just a brat who never grew up.

It’s after Subaru heard about Reid’s strength that he gets some inspiration and realizes that the answer has to be something he’d know without asking Shaula since those who want to conquer the tower may have to defeat Shaula to enter it, so it has nothing to do with battle strength and somebody who Shaula has defeated in Re:Zero’s fantasy world, leading to him pondering of a different Shaula, and after he saw Shaula’s scorpion tail, that sealed the deal for him since Lambda Scorpii, formerly known as Shaula, is the second-brightest star in the constellation Scorpius and represents the stinger or raised tail of the scorpion.

Now for some more theorycrafting. Meili taking to Shaula so soon and basically clinging to Shaula seems surprising to me. Shaula also said that she has a scorpion tail, and maybe that was what she was using to snipe Subaru with in Episode 68. Given Ram saw a magic circle from Earth anime and manga, which shouldn’t exist in Re:Zero’s fantasy world, when she used her Clairvoyance, whatever Shaula was sniping with wasn’t a regular weapon powered by magic stones, which indicates she may be a being created by magic, specifically from someone who hailed from Earth.

Shaula having an affinity with Meili may also be why she didn’t create a huge scene out of Meili touching her tail and why Meili was clinging onto Shaula in the exam room when they no longer needed to climb further. Meili also never referred to Shaula by her action name, opting to call her “naked lady”, showing that Meili might see herself as Shaula’s superior, not requiring showing her the basic respect others get. A regular human even with eternal youth also wouldn’t be able to smell Subaru’s miasma. Thus, Shaula may either be a mabeast or a being similar in nature to a mabeast. And given her scorpion tail was key to Subaru gaining a hint he needed, this could be a part of the grand plan from four hundred years ago that I believe the heroes are enacting to bring about a free future. If Shaula is a mabeast, she had to have been created by Daphne, but if the scorpion tail hint for the test and Shaula’s outfit having Subaru’s tracksuit colours are pointing to anything, it’s also the case that she has a creator from Earth.

When Foxidna presses Subaru on how he figured out the answer, Subaru responds that it’s not a big deal and that it’s not their fault they couldn’t arrive at the solution since only someone from where he was from could know the answer since legends from his homeland talked about the hero, Orion, being killed by a scorpion, which resulted in Orion turning into stars, and that scorpion also becoming a star. When he had jumped up with Beatrice’s Murak before this, he had envisioned the constellations and saw both Rigel and Betelgeuse, the two stars of Orion that are said to shine the brightest, and Subaru chose Rigel since it shines consistently whereas Betelgeuse, which glows extra bright at times, and he took the test question with “touch upon his greatest splendor” as meaning he needed to choose the monolith representing the brightest star in Orion, and the Great Pleiades Library emerges. Subaru is of course dismayed by the enormous size of this library since as he said in Season 1, he’s the type to like to be rewarded for his efforts, indicating he doesn’t think working hard should be rewarded with even more work.

Now for my theory about how Subaru relates to Flügel. Of course it goes without saying that I believe that Re:Zero’s fantasy world is stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed as alluded to by Melakuera who talked about the Witch and the corresponding world imbalance and how he has faced world-ending crises countless times.

Subaru’s name is the Japanese term for Pleiades, which makes it fitting that the Seven Deadly Sins are used, and why since the brightest six of the stars are easily visible to the naked eye that there are six dead Witches of the Seven Deadly Sins in the story. The dullest star of the Seven Sisters is Asterope (Sterope I), which is part of the Sterope double star (Sterope I and Sterope II) in the Pleiades star cluster, and given the role Satella has in the story, it’s no surprise that Tappei made the Witch of Envy a separate personality from Satella, and had Satella sealed compared to dead like the others. And given Pandora and Hector exist, that’s 2 additional Witches of Sin outside of the main 7.

I am going somewhere with this beyond what I’ve usually posted. Michael Mästlin (anglicized as Maestlin) was documented to have mapped eleven stars in the Pleiades star cluster before the invention of the telescope in the 16th century. Michael Mästlin was German, much like how Flügel is a German name. Given Re:Zero’s fantasy world takes place in a medieval-ish setting, I theorize Tappei may have incorporated the number eleven in Re:Zero’s given, unless I’m mistaken, there shouldn’t be any telescopes in this world even though stars in the fantasy world aren’t like those from Earth, so Tappei may have decided to be Earth-accurate in making use of the number eleven. It is believed that 9 of these 11 were Alcyone (Eta Tauri), Atlas, (27 Tauri), Electra (17 Tauri), Maia (20 Tauri), Merope (23 Tauri), Taygeta (19 Tauri), Pleione (28 Tauri), Celaeno (16 Tauri), and Asterope (21 Tauri), which are known as the Seven Sisters and their parents.

I believe in the ancient past, an archetypal handsome, conceited, and overpowered hero typical of standard isekai slop in the moment in which he had to make the biggest decision of his life after the Seal in Elior Forest was opened, chose his lover, who had become the Witch of Envy, over the world, leading to the threat that came out of the Seal to be defeated, but the world was then destroyed following his choice to not strike down his lover, and when that hero made his choice, the final boss of the time activated his Authority to make the world extremely biased towards repeating the general path that archetypical hero followed on his journey. I don’t know the exact mechanism that the story can be biased toward following that path, but I nonetheless posit that it exists, and thousands or even millions of iterations of the story of the handsome, conceited and overpowered hero came and went as the world kept getting destroyed and reconstructed as the Hero of the story would have to fit that mold unless an intervention took place.

Thus, assuming the number eleven is important ’cause of Michael Mästlin, the Authority of the final boss in the ancient past was one that lets him/her control the story path to his/her liking, basically a super Authority if you will. I believe the ancient hero of the time also had a super Authority, although I won’t claim I know what it is assuming it’s real, and both the final boss and the protagonist having super Authorities would make the number eleven important.

Okay, after getting that out of the way, I still have more background content to cover, so bear with me. Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse to summon 1,000 shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (2,000), how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (2,000) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25 when he said that if Emilia named ten things she hated about herself he’d list 2,000 things he loves about her, which Emilia herself commenting on why he chose that number, and how Subaru suddenly had an upwelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together as lovers given just moments ago, Subaru had been calling her an unfathomable monster he could never hope to understand, showing they must’ve had a very positive relationship in the past.

Al, Priscilla’s knight, in Season 3 also referred to Beatrice as Beako much like Subaru does, and I don’t believe that this means that Subaru and Al are the same person. However, I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. As I have said before, I have been researching the names of Re:Zero characters since Episode 22, A Flash Of Sloth, since that title could’ve referred to multiple things in that episode, and what may be relevant is that Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flügel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flügel, and given Shaula referred to her master as Flugel the Wise Man, it’d be very fitting if Kenichi were him. Also of note is that Satella developed a separate personality in the Witch of Envy, who can barely talk, and the vocabulary we’ve seen from her so far is limited to “Love you” and “Love me”, and Subaru directly referred to her as the Witch of Envy in that Season 2 episode whereas when we saw Satella in Episode 38, the dead Witches of Sin were calling her Satella, which makes sense given Satella can speak in full sentences. Thus, Satella’s lover four hundred years ago may have also developed a split personality, who was Subaru, and that’s how Subaru can have a different appearance four hundred years ago given Shaula said that she recognized the current Subaru as her master by his scent, not anything else given she recognized the one depicted on the coin as her master, who didn’t look anything like Subaru.

Flügel itself means wing and can also be a nickname for someone with conspicuous sleeves at a time of dress regulations, so what this points to is that Flügel is a person not from Re:zero’s fantasy world who somehow came to be there given the nickname is for someone who dresses strangely, and this suggests that Flügel is from Earth. Perhaps Kenichi literally is Flügel, and it would make sense for Flügel to be Kenichi since I stress that Shaula didn’t recognize Subaru by his looks, which shows Subaru canonically had a different body four hundred years ago.

Satella most likely summoned the current Subaru to Re:zero’s fantasy world, but how did Kenichi get there if he is Flügel? Well, wings are symbolic of power, speed, and limitless freedom of motion, and maybe that’ss how Kenichi, if he is indeed Flügel, managed to make his way back to Earth after being in Re:zero’s fantasy world. Perhaps Kenichi has the power to freely travel between the two worlds because he has a limitless freedom of motion, and that would be how he ended up in Re:zero’s fantasy world in the first place. Given Kenichi is so badass and handsome and ripped as hell, he could’ve fit the mold of the handsome, conceited, and overpowered Hero of the story with the power to freely travel between worlds being his super Authority, and he likely gave himself the name Flügel when he arrived in Re:zero’s fantasy world to help himself fit into that world.

As for how Kenichi could split his soul, he likely couldn’t when he was the the Hero of the story of the fantasy world as 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 ’cause his soul was eradicated wouldn’t be permitted as one of the parameters of the story path requires him to make it to the end to bring about the next cycle, 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 had as he lost his Hero designation. Satella and this group of characters basically hijacked the path of the story in an attempt to save the world. The reason Kenichi couldn’t kill Satella himself was that he would always have a second personality that arose who couldn’t bear to kill Satella since his entire world was Satella, which is why he had to defer the task to someone else. Thus, Subaru being the protagonist of Re:Zero is to make up for him being why Satella couldn’t be killed in the past, making it a true redemption story unlike so many other stories billed as redemption stories when the characters don’t even have to address their character flaws, and thus, Subaru may be one half of Flügel, making Naoko telling Subaru to be half as cool as his dad in the first Sanctuary Trial potential foreshadowing of the situation four hundred years ago. Thus Flügel, the being I believe to be Kenichi and Subaru from four hundred years ago, may have been Shaula’s other creator who came from Earth.

Also of note regarding Michael Mästlin is that he was the first person to publish an account of Earthshine, the illumination of the moon by sunlight reflected from Earth. Given one of the kanji for Natsuki in Natsuki Subaru and Kenichi means “moon”, it could mean that Subaru and Kenichi are both associated with the Moon and that the Earth will always reflect on their fates and stories. Another name for Earthshine is The Da Vinci Glow, and there conveniently is the Da Vinci Crater on the Moon. And historically, Earthshine was referred to as “The old Moon in the new Moon’s arms”, and it may be an Easter egg on why Tappei has possibly set up Subaru inheriting the torch of saving the world from Kenichi.

Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49 and how Foxidna herself is almost certainly a soul cone of Echidna’s given Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 3 had Foxidna calling Beatrice a kindred soul, which could indicate that they’re not just similar in nature but also similar in origin, then it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flügel as I speculate, also did that as well, and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones with that explaining why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were originally from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time under normal circumstances and why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts much like Subaru does, all of which shows that Al isn’t Subaru but that his origins are likely similar, and that something is up with Subaru and Al that doesn’t involve time travel or straight up reincarnation, so Al and Subaru may be homunculi or artificial humans who were split off from Kenichi’s soul.

I believe Subaru, and previously Al, is being put through the wringer to fulfill the grand plan I believe the heroes from four hundred years ago implemented, which included Satella, Echidna, and probably Flügel, to save the world from being stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed as hinted by Melakuera in the Frozen Bond OVA due to the actions of an archetypal handsome, conceited, and overpowered Hero, and Satella destroying half the world four hundred years ago perhaps being a deliberate intervention that was needed to allow the heroes of that era to deviate from the archetypal story path to pave way for first Al and then Subaru with Al’s creation being a trial run in making the perfect Hero with Al’s failure being a necessary lesson for Subaru in the future and also ’cause Al’s future knowledge will be important in the future. I believe both Subaru and Al may be missing the super Authority that previous Heroes of the story had, in part to keep them honest unlike those that came before them although I don’t rule out that the super Authority is suppressed or sealed rather than being completely missing, meaning it could emerge later.

Why I say Al’s creation may have been a trial-run Hero is that he appeared to be the type of person Roswaal wanted Subaru to be. In Season 3, Al wanted Emilia to be dependent on Subaru and stay out of trouble instead of being her own person with her own contributions, which is exactly how Roswaal intended for things to go with Subaru with Subaru completing all three of the Sanctuary Trials and making Emilia dependent on him for the rest of his life. Al not having his gate shattered, which is why he can use the magic he does, may show that he likely didn’t save Beatrice when he was the Hero of the story and never entered into a contract with her. However, he may have acquired Beatrice’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom when he was the Hero, and that’s how he was able to conveniently time the opening of the Watergate in Season 3 when he did, conveniently kill the rest of Priestella’s Council of Ten, and conveniently wake up Beatrice when he did, and that’d be ’cause he was acting upon advice from Echidna.

I don’t believe that Roswaal’s not-quite-Tome of Wisdom truly did the tell the future as if it did, the omission of Otto simply wouldn’t happen. What that shows is that the source of the knowledge didn’t intend for Roswaal to be victorious over Subaru. For those of you who think Echidna was serious about Subaru accepting her contract, consider the following content from Season 2 from my blog post I posted this year: https://thoroughwatch.org/?p=223

Also of note is that in Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 4, Subaru was hugging Ram tight when they were both asleep. He must’ve been very worried for her given in Episode 69 they were both in poor shape and saved by a mystery person who they didn’t know was friend or foe, so it just shows how much Subaru cares for Ram. Ram being so embarrassed about that was hilarious. And here’s the link to it: Re:Zero, Break Time 70 – English Translated

Re:Zero Episode 69 (Season 4 Ep. 3) and Break Time Season 4 Ep. 3 Analysis + Important Details

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The episode starts with Ram waking up Subaru at an underground location and Subaru remarking why it’s just him and Ram around, and Ram turns back the question onto him since she’s very worried about Rem given Subaru had told her the reason he was bringing Rem with them is so that he wants to save her with his entire being and that he wants to be the one she sees first when she wakes. Judging from Subaru’s memory, the group was falling, and he was closest to Beatrice, but he still deliberately reached for Ram, and there’s a clear reason for this in that Subaru reached for the person he had the best access to who most needed it given that Rem was in a carriage, making her inaccessible even though he’s the one he wants to save most. Also of note that is that Ram drained a lot of her mana using her Clairvoyance repeatedly and was even bleeding from her eyes when she tapped into the their attacker’s field of vision, so Subaru, who is considerate of the situation of his friends, chose to grab hold of the one who’d need help the most since Ram cannot naturally replenish her mana since she lost her horn and can only fight for a short time, making her the next most vulnerable aside from Rem.

Subaru then gets frantic thinking how horrible the situation is for Rem since she’s effectively a vegetable right now, and after he asks whether Ram even cares about Rem being in danger ’cause Ram told him to calm down, Ram forces him to come back to his senses after grabbing onto what he’s wearing and letting him get a good look at her eyes, which showed the distress she was feeling. Ram then let him know that ’cause of her link with Rem she knows Rem’s still alive regardless of what her actual situation is like. Crunchyroll’s AI translator again spits out gibberish with the talk of the “synesthesia” that Rem and Ram have when “twin link” or “twin telepathy” would be by orders of magnitude much more more accurate. Foxidna and Patrasche then return to the area, and Ram remarks that she never confirmed with Subaru that it was just the two of them when he looked toward her, seemingly putting it out that that he deceived her. They are nowhere near an exit, and none of the others are around, but they must move forward.

After they’ve walked for a while, Ram asks Subaru whether he can call lesser spirits, and he says that his link with Beatrice is so strong it scares lesser spirits, which seems very strange given Emilia had such a strong contract with Puck and could still call lesser spirits, so this begs the question of why this difference between Emilia and Subaru exists. Maybe Echidna made Beatrice in such a manner such that Beatrice’s very essence/being deters lesser spirits from engaging with Subaru. As for a reason why Echidna would craft Beatrice to be like this, I’ve stated before in the past that in my main theory the prototypical ancient hero who lost to the final boss of that era may have fit the mold of a selfish, conceited, and overpowered hero that is typical of many fantasy stories, particular those of the isekai genre, and if that final boss activated his/her Authority or cursed the world to be biased toward repeating that general story path that hero tread upon, then a myriad of iterations of the world came by with the Hero of the story for each individual iteration fitting that mold of the conceited overpowered hero since they failed to overcome their character flaws, leading to each of those heroes choosing his lover over the world, dooming it to destruction.

Thus, Subaru being pushed onto a path in which he has a gate that doesn’t listen to his directive (the mana from his body rushed out uncontrollably in Season 1) and in which his gate had to be destroyed irreparably unless Minerva heals it so that he could win over Garfiel in Season 2, thereby forcing him to solely rely on Beatrice, hindering both his combat and support abilities, may be completely intentional to keep Subaru honest and humble, making his being unable to call lesser spirits when contracted with Beatrice a feature rather than a bug. As I’ve stated in my main theory, I believe Subaru used to be a part of his father, Kenichi, sharing the same body as him, and given how badass Kenichi was when viewers saw him in Episode 29, he could’ve fit the mold of a conceited but overpowered hero, and he split Subaru from himself to fashion a future Hero of Re:Zero’s story who wouldn’t fit the exact mold the previous Heroes of the story did since this would force Subaru to rely on his friends and be a team player instead of being the guy who is able to resolve most of the situations with minimal help.

Of course Ram then makes a jab at Subaru’s usefulness, which he is angry about given he still has insecurities about his self-worth, and he even audibly said, “Grr…” if it wasn’t clear how that made him feel, and Foxidna let him know that before he woke up, Ram was actually completely distraught about Rem and that the dynamic they have together keeps her emotionally stable, which reassures Subaru. It’s at this point that the path they were on splits into two separate tunnels. And based on Subaru’s “knowledge” about behavioural studies showing that people tend to choose left in these types of situations, citing Freud, who never said such a thing, I believe he was joking, but there’s potentially also more to it than that, which I will eventually get into in that I believe this is crucial foreshadowing.

As the group keeps walking, they come across what appears to be a completely sealed off stone slab obstructing any potential progress, but oddly enough, Subaru thinks it’s a door, and when he places his hand on it, it sparks a reaction, including a coloured, hand-shape mark growing outward from his hand, which leads to the slab dematerializing, indicating it was a construct of magic but not just any magic since only he could see it and only he could dematerialize it, which is very particular. Patrasche didn’t want to continue on though since she could smell the miasma, but she relented. They have no idea why what they witnessed just happened, but eventually they come across a second stone slab which meets the same fate as the first, and the whole group seems exhausted for some reason. Subaru is then at a fourth door with the third door vanishing offscreen with him not being able to get past this fourth one, leading to the group getting more and more irritated before they start killing each other with Foxidna and Anastasia being killed by Ram’s wind magic, and Ram being decapitated by Patrasche with Subaru suffering that very same fate shortly afterward after Patrasche appeared to laugh like an evil maniac. Ram’s wind magic actually destroyed the fox muffler that is Foxidna’s real body, and that would be when Anastasia regained control of her body and clung to Subaru with pure terror in her eyes, desperately crying out that she doesn’t want to die. The night filter which depicted the insanity was very effective and gave the chaos depicted a powerful cinematic feel, amplifying how the situation kept on escalating. Subaru then loops back and asks about what miasma really is, and it’s tainted mana that drives people insane if exposed to too much of it, which is why the best way to handle it is to avoid being where the miasma is thickest.

Now back to the content on Freud, I believe Subaru was fully aware about a lot of his work being discredited, and that’s why he specifically cited the many behavioural studies with his saying that his sense of justice is telling him to choose the path on the right being Subaru being silly and also probably going with a hunch based on the bulk of Freud’s work, but it’s nearly certain there’s powerful foreshadowing in a hidden message in citing Freud’s work, which suggested that acting on impulses or unintended thoughts is a way to access the unconscious mind with Freud believing the truest yet often most inconvenient information comes from the unexpected, suppressed parts of our psyche. Where I’m going with this is that the doors Subaru made vanish could only be perceived by him with everyone else seeing them as insurmountable obstacles, not to mention them responding to the touch of his hand. The miasma also grew stronger as they kept going further through the path, and that suggests there’s a very potent source of miasma at the end of it. Given that Episode 67 revealed that Satella’s sealed at the Auguria Dunes and that Witches of Sin are known to emit a great deal of miasma, it’s highly like that Satella’s sealed body is the source of the miasma. Why this is important is that Satella told Subaru to kill her someday in Episode 38, so given that’s the case, Subaru may be subconsciously trying to go to where Satella is to fulfill his end of the bargain in what may have been a lover’s promise in which Satella made Subaru promise to kill her one day, most likely to save the world, so this Freud content could very well be masterclass foreshadowing.

As for why I believe Subaru and Satella were lovers, Episodes 18, 25, and 38 all point to that likely being the case with Puck indicating in Ep. 18 that if Petelgeuse wants to kill him he’ll need to summon a thousand shadows, half of what Satella could, Subaru saying to Emilia in Ep. 25 that if she lists ten things she hates about herself, he’ll list two thousand things he loves about her (1,000×2=2,000), and Subaru swearing that he’ll save Satella in Ep. 38 after she requested that he kill her, showing a sudden upwelling of positive sentiment for Satella even though he had called her a monster he couldn’t understand not long before that, all of which show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella that cannot be explained by time travel or reincarnation since they both existed in the same time period. More fodder for them previously being lovers is that in Episode 29, the construct of Subaru’s past showed that he has a penchant for silver-haired heroines, which indicates that he may’ve been lovers with a silver-haired woman in the past. This is the main reason I believe Subaru chose the path to the right since he subconsciously remembered his prime objective that he may have burdened himself with due to being Satella’s lover.

Thus, perhaps the doors even requiring Subaru’s touch in the first place to dissipate could be that they were made specifically for him and even possibly by him given it’s his hand they react to, and nobody else can perceive them as doors. I believe Subaru being able to open three doors that only he could perceive shows that the Pleiades Watchtower was built specifically for him, which would make sense given Subaru’s the Japanese term for Pleiades, and it’s three doors for three Witch Factors (Either Envy or Pride, Sloth, and Greed from having killed Regulus).

However, even if Subaru had all the Witch Factors, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the end of the path ’cause he’d go insane before that. I believe he’d need either Reinhard to help them traverse the tunnel at full throttle and/or at least a powerful Yang magic user to buff his and Patrasche’s body so that they can go much faster than they are able to on their own. That there are doors only Subaru can perceive likely indicates that he is tasked with returning Satella to this world from the group of heroes from four hundred years ago, including Satella, Echidna, and probably Flugel/Kenichi since the doors are likely meant to ensure that nobody makes it there until Subaru is ready.

This would’ve been fully planned given Satella asked Subaru to love himself before someday killing her, showing the intent’s to raise Subaru as the world’s saviour, showing I may’ve been on the money when I predicted after Ep. 24 that Satella’s plan’s to possess Emilia at the end of the story much as Petelgeuse mused was the point of the Ordeals, to test Emilia for compatibility as Satella’s vessel, with this being the intervention against the cycle I believe the world’s stuck on as alluded to by Melakuera’s words about a Witch being a world imbalance and how he’d faced world-ending crises countless times, likely showing the world’s repeatedly destroyed by the Witch of Envy before being reconstructed.

As for a reason why I’ve thought that since Season 1, I can tell you that Subaru’s defining character trait in Season 1 was that he has very low self-esteem, and the thought I had is that if Satella really does “favour” Subaru as Beatrice said, which is likely given Satella indicated that Petelgeuse isn’t the one, and she’s supposedly unkillable in her regular body, then a good way for Satella to show her love for Subaru would be to have him be the one who kills her, making him the greatest hero the world has ever seen, and possess Emilia’s body in the process, which probably is easier to be killed in, which would be an excellent way for her to finally die. I like using macro-level “big picture” thinking. This is what I thought of after Petelgeuse revealed what the Ordeal was for in 2016.

And now back to the events of the episode, I loved Ram helping Subaru vomit due to his feeling nauseous about his previous loop’s events, and then after he was finally okay, Ram even fit in a joke about him being perverted with her saying that she’s glad he’s happy now, as if Subaru getting her fingers going down his throat is an exquisite experience any man would appreciate, a good taste of the sort of roasts Ram often gives Subaru, which is a cute dynamic they have. They then choose the path on the left this time, and Subaru’s extremely considerate this time, cognizant of how the miasma can make things spiral, which of course creeps the girls out since it’s unnatural compared to that behaviour being Julius’s natural inclinations.

They then notice a burning smell, and Subaru volunteers to check it out, leading to him falling to a different area with a faceless centaur mabeast that is killing Oiran Bears with fireballs. There’s excellent action showing just how outclassed the group is. While Ram may have said that they’d use Subaru as bait and such, she clearly cares for him so much in willing to sacrifice herself for him, implying that Rem would be hurt seeing him die, and it just shows that Ram sees Subaru like a brother-in-law already even though he and Rem aren’t actually together. It looks bleak before the great Shaula the Sage saves them by eradicating that mabeast with needles. I say this is Shaula since the title of the episode is “The Keeper of the Watchtower”.

Shaula’s outfit colours also highly suggest that her purpose involves Subaru in some way given they match his tracksuit’s colours. This would also explain why she has said, “I’ve found you.” once again this episode if there’s something more to their relationship. It would also explain why she has always had Subaru in sights in Episode 68 and only aimed at Subaru ’cause she was testing for someone worthy of the Pleiades Watchtower since it seems disrupting the magic of the distortion was necessary for making it to the next part/phase of conquering the tower, which is shown by how she was very much pleased to save Subaru and Ram.

It was a fantastic episode that had all of that which makes Re:Zero shine, good lore drops, powerful potential foreshadowing, great character interactions, truly unsettling moments, and even some sweet battle animation for good measure. I thought this episode was clearly better than any episode of Season 3 aside from Episode 65, which I consider the best episode of Season 3.

Now that I’ve talked about the entire episode, I’m now highlighting Re:Zero Break Time Season 4 Episode 3. Foxidna refers to herself and Beatrice as kindred souls, and this probably indicates not just that they’re artificial spirits but that they’re also creations of Echidna, potentially backing up my theory from Episode 67, showing that Foxidna lied about not remembering anything about herself since she knows that she and Beatrice have similar origins, and this may back up my previous speculation that Foxidna deliberately put it in Subaru’s head to take Rem with him to Pleiades Watchtower for an unknown (plot?) reason and that she remembers Julius. Here’s the link to the short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsCoAW9_Kxc

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re:Zero Episode 68 (Season 4 Episode 2) Analysis + Important Details

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There’s less to talk about regarding just this episode itself compared to Episode 67, but I still have some big things I want to emphasize here, so this will still be a long write-up since I’ll be highlighting how past content may apply heavily to the content of Season 4. The first of which is that names are very important in Re:Zero, which is why I have kept tabs on the names of Re:Zero characters since Episode 22 from Season 1, “A Flash Of Sloth”, since it could’ve referred to multiple things in the episode.

Based on Sin Archbishops having star names (Regulus’s name was a big plot point in Season 3) and Subaru revealing he was named after a star cluster in Memory Snow, it’s clear stellar names have significant importance in Re:Zero. Subaru is the Japanese term for “Pleiades”, a star cluster referred to as the Seven Sisters, the reason why the Seven Deadly Sins are a plot point, with six of the brightest stars in the Pleiades being visible to the naked eye under average conditions being why are there six dead Witches of Sin. Given Aldebaran means “follower of Pleiades”, this begs the question of why Al seemingly arrived in the world sooner than Subaru did given his name suggests he should’ve came after Subaru.

Thus, I theorize that Subaru was in suspended animation, the state Rem currently is in, within Flugel’s tree for hundreds of years, and that’s how Al seemingly arrived in the world sooner than Subaru did despite his name being follower of Pleiades, which should indicate that Subaru was summoned before Al was. This would be why I propose we see Flugel’s tree slowly grow from a sapling into a world tree before transitioning to the shot of Subaru since Subaru’s whereabouts were a mystery of sorts based on the connection between Al’s name and Subaru’s. And this is hardly a novel idea as other animanga have used the plot element of a person or multiple people being either in suspended animation or at least not aging inside a special tree.

Also of note is that in the OP, Subaru’s depicted as a hunk of flesh in clothes before his skin slowly surfaces when there were back-to-back shots of Echidna, Anastasia, Beatrice, and Subaru. This is very peculiar, and two things I can think of is that Subaru is either a homunculus or at least an artificial human, and both of the things I just mentioned merits raising the point about whether he was always a homunculus or artificial human or became one after being summoned, but now it’s time for a detour to remind readers of a previous theory of mine as my previous speculation actually supports Subaru being a homunculus or artificial human.

Al, Priscilla’s knight, in Season 3 also referred to Beatrice as Beako much like Subaru does, and I don’t believe that this means that Subaru and Al are the same person. However, I do believe that he and Subaru both originally came from the same soul. As I have said before, I have been researching the names of Re:Zero characters since Episode 22, and what’s very relevant is that Subaru’s dad is named Kenichi, which means ‘wise man’. Subaru said in Episode 16 that Flugel’s Tree was planted by a wise man centuries ago, and while this wouldn’t mean something in a different show, its presence in a show with Re:Zero’s long-term planning suggests that Kenichi himself might be Flugel. As for the time period in which Flugel existed, Petelgeuse apologized to Flugel-sama in Episode 43 for taking in the Sloth Witch Factor, which shows that Flugel was possibly from the same time period Satella was from since the sama honourific suggests Flugel was deeply respected by Petelgeuse. Liliana also knew of Flugel when she was in a travelling band with her parents, so it’s clear that whoever Flugel is he’s important to the lore of the series.

Episodes, 18, 25, and 38 show that Subaru has dormant memories of Satella as shown by how Puck indirectly revealed in Episode 18 the number of shadow hands Satella could generate to Subaru by asking Petelgeuse summon a thousand shadows if he truly wants to kill him, half of what Satella could (two thousand), how Subaru used a number associated with Satella (two thousand) to indicate his appreciation for Emilia in Episode 25 when he said that if Emilia named ten things she hated about herself he’d list two thousand things he loves about her, which Emilia herself commenting on why he chose that number, and how Subaru suddenly had an upwelling of positive emotion for Satella in Episode 38 that led him to say that he’d save Satella after she asked him to love himself and then some day come kill her, which shows that Subaru and Satella may have a past history together as lovers.

Given we know Echidna succeeded in creating a soul clone of herself with how Echidna spoke in her own voice in Ryuzu Shima’s body in Episode 49 and how Foxidna herself may also be a soul cone of Echidna’s, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kenichi, if he is Flugel as I speculate, also did that as well, and Subaru and Al were both split off from Kenichi’s soul, and Kenichi made his sons his soul clones with that explaining why Al and Subaru both call Beatrice ‘Beako’, not ’cause they are the same person but because they were originally from the same soul. It’d also explain why Subaru has dormant memories of Satella despite it not being possible for him to have lived at that time, why Al also likes being rewarded for his efforts much like Subaru does, and why Al didn’t know about Capella’s powers, all of which shows that Al isn’t Subaru but that his origins are likely similar, and that something is up with Subaru and Al that doesn’t involve time travel or straight up reincarnation, so Al and Subaru may be homunculi or artificial humans who were split off from Kenichi’s soul.

I believe Subaru, and previously Al, is being put through the wringer to fulfill the grand plan I believe the heroes from four hundred years ago implemented, which included Satella, Echidna, and probably Flugel, to save the world from being stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed as hinted by Melakuera in the Frozen Bond OVA due to the actions of prototypical overpowered generic fantasy Heroes of the Story who encountered and lost to the Final Boss of the story every time due to the story path that began when an ancient hero in a moment of weakness of weakness, chose his lover over the world when the Seal in Elior Forest was opened, resulting in Re:Zero’s fantasy world being inevitably destroyed with the final boss of the time either activating an Authority or cursing the world to be extremely biased toward following the trend of that story path for all time with Satella destroying half the world perhaps being a deliberate intervention that was needed to allow the heroes of that era to deviate from the archetypal story path to pave way for Subaru.

As for how Kenichi could split his soul when he was the Hero of the story in Re:Zero’s fantasy world, I believe that would be impossible. Given Kenichi would have to follow the general story path I propose is happening, the Hero wouldn’t be allowed to split his soul while in Re:Zero’s fantasy world as the Hero of the story would be pushed to make it to the end to repeat the cycle, so dying by having his soul destroyed by an enemy or by himself, accidentally or intentionally, wouldn’t be allowed, so I propose that Kenichi at some point somehow returned to Earth to cut parts of his soul when he no longer had the designation as the Hero of the story, and eventually made Subaru and Aldebaran, who would eventually become his sons, Aldebaran after Subaru was whisked away. I think after all that I’ve finally explained why I believe Subaru being a homunculus or artificial human is line with my main theory.

As for the last part of the OP, it also has audio saying, “Let the magic stitch you back together”, when depicting Subaru’s sense of self seeming fraying with that out-of-character expression he had on his face and all the weird colours as he’s climbing stairs, so there may be something really stressful or traumatizing that causes some sort of identity crisis.

The first important detail is probably that Emilia still considers Subaru to be someone that needs to be protected, which is sort of a reversal of before in Arcs 1 and 2 when Subaru was doing all he could to protect Emilia regardless of whether she wanted him to, which is why she wanted Subaru stay behind in Arc 3 ’cause of his damaged gate, which eventually ended up being destroyed in Season 2 (Arc 4). Even after Arc 5 when Subaru and Emilia fought together against Regulus, Emilia still considers Subaru to be one of those who need protecting, much like Anastasia and Rem, to Subaru’s chagrin. Thus, since Emilia doesn’t consider Subaru an equal, I’m glad that they aren’t yet together especially since Subaru still has serious abandonment issues that flare up when Emilia doesn’t react to him well.

After that, the ground dragons react badly to Meili since those many years of handling mabeasts means she smells of them, which results in Patrasche and Joseph both picking on her with Joseph having Meili’s cape in his mouth. Julius settles things down by revealing that most ground dragons calm down if you stroke their necks. Roswaal then makes an entrance and tells Emilia and Subaru something offscreen that based on content from Seasons 1 and 2 implies that since Ram lost her horn she can’t replenish her mana, examples being after she expended a lot of mana in the mansion arc and after Roswaal nearly killed her in a fit of rage, both scenarios requiring for Roswaal to tend to her since as Beatrice revealed in Episode 1 one’s mana is that organism’s lifeforce itself, which is why the subs talked about regulation, and I’m guessing it should’ve been rendered as mana regulation.

When the group arrives at Mirula, which seems to be a town close to the Auguria Dunes, Subaru and Emilia meet a man at a bar who tells them that nobody has reached the Pleiades Watchtower in four hundred years and that the place is crawling with mabeasts and miasma, urging them to not attempt the trip. Despite hearing that, the pair aren’t at all perturbed, and before they depart, the man calls out to them and tells them about how locals have always seen birds headed toward the tower, so if they get lost they should follow a bird since it may show them the way. Subaru sees his metal leg, and it’s clear why the man told them what he did as he was genuinely concerned for them as Emilia had said earlier and just wants them to live life and be healthy.

Once they’re out there, Subaru prods Julius about his spirits, and Julius replies that the situation is the same as it was since his name was eaten in that his contracted spirits stay by his side but are perplexed by the situation since they do not remember him. The contract he made with them is still intact, but he cannot use them in battle, probably until his name is recovered from Roy Alphard should that be possible. Thus, Julius shares in that moment that he’s weaker in combat now although Subaru’s reaction proves that he’s not great at keeping secrets, which Julius already knew from spending more and more time with him. And of course, Subaru banters with Julius in a somewhat sour way when he says he doesn’t want to have the title of the one who understands him the most in the world after Julius put that out there, showing that Julius considers Subaru, just like in the previous episode, a source of strength since Subaru’s the lone person proving that he exists.

Then the sand time arrives, and it’s just a huge sandstorm with the group continually headed toward the tower yet making no progress whatsoever. Subaru is wearing something over his nose and mouth to pretend him from breathing in the sand, and Anastasia tells Subaru after he opens the window of the carriage that she will keep her promise since they’re in the same boat here, and Subaru obviously is pretty close to Beatrice given he shared that it’s Foxidna rather than Anastasia operating right now in that body even though he said that he didn’t want to tell the others and cause a stir when they least needed it, but it also reinforced Julius’s earlier point that Subaru’s bad at keeping secrets. Subaru then goads Meili into showing that she has been keeping the mabeasts from acting up by commanding a gigantic sandworm into nearly attacking them before harmlessly sinking back into the sand since he didn’t realize that Meili could command mabeasts with her mind, and that’s a very powerful skill.

Finally, Foxidna chimes in that it’s clear that they might be going in circles ’cause the space here is warped with the sand here not connecting to the Pleiades Watchtower, which she calls a distortion, clearing showing Foxidna has at least some of Echidna’s knowledge on magic, and she says that the sand time when the wind picks up is the recoil from space twisting and returning to normal, meaning that the periods between the sand times are when the distortion is weakening, and that’s when they can find the real path to the tower with the one best suited to the job being Ram since she can use her Clairvoyance, which was revealed in Season 1, to guide them to the right path by tracking the mabeasts’ vision. Mabeasts that are still active obviously came from where the real tower is since Meili has already tamed the ones in their vicinity, but Ram is clearly struggling, and then Foxidna remarks that she saw a bird feather, prompting Subaru to look out and tell Ram to see through the birds based on what the man from earlier told them, which is successful.

They then arrive to what seems like an endless field of flowers, which Meili states are the hideout of Oiran Bears, leading her to quickly tell everyone to can it since this is a mabeast that is difficult to control as most mabeasts she can settle down just with her mind, but with this species of mabeast since she needs to also make eye contact with it and command it with verbal gestures and repeating a tch sound to express disapproval. However, Joseph gets unsettled, resulting in them being chased by a horde of Oiran Bears, and once they’ve nearly made it past the flower field, Subaru gets his head blasted straight to pieces by a light from the tower. Upon Returning by Death, Subaru has no idea what happened, and the same sequence happens again except Subaru tells the group they can’t run straight for the tower, leading to Subaru, Beatrice, and Ram being separated from the group. Then that same light is shot at Subaru again, only Patrasche knocks Subaru partially out of the way before being killed, and Beatrice seeing how hurt Subaru is, tells him with tears in her eyes and an expression of great sadness that he can’t die and leave her alone since before Season 2 all she had experienced time after time again was loss with losing Echidna, Roswaal, Ryuzu Meyer, Petelgeuse, and probably others given in Season 2 Beatrice remarked that Petelgeuse left her too, which was one of the reasons she was suicidal and needed to be persuaded by Subaru to leave the Forbidden Library, which was burning to the ground as part of Roswaal’s mansion, since she was waiting for a person who she thought might never come. Then that same light kills Beatrice before a final shot kills Subaru.

During the third loop of this scenario, Subaru, thinking back to Julius calming down Joseph by stroking his neck before they departed, decides to use his Invisible Providence to calm Joseph down so that he doesn’t make a ruckus, leading to the Oiran Bears attack not happening, and he thought back to Beatrice first, so his not wanting Beatrice to cry and be in despair may have given him the inspiration to dig deeper for a solution. He also put his hands over Beatrice’s mouth during that incident, likely ’cause Beatrice would feel the air current from the hand emerging and potentially get startled, so he couldn’t have her crying out in surprise. He then remarks about a hunch of his about a light from the tower, and the group takes him seriously with Ram pointing her Clairvoyance to the tower and seeing a living being looking at Subaru before shooting something at him, which took the combined efforts of Emilia and Julius to stop, and the light ended up being a needle supercharged by magic, probably yang magic since a lot of yin magic involves debuffs like Shamac, making something powered up like up most likely an application of yang magic. Ram then notes that another needle is coming, and Subaru and Beatrice use their combination technique E-M-T, most likely named after Emilia as in “Emilia, my Tenshi (as in angel)”, which nullifies all other magic from the field generated, which protects them from the needle, but E-M-T also resulted in the distortion in space coming undone, resulting in the group falling to who knows where, whether it be back to the disconnected sand or somewhere else entirely.

Now the rest of my post will be about names or tangentially related to them. I have to give Tappei props for coming with the name Oiran Bears. Oiran is a collective term for the highest-ranking courtesans in Japanese history. The highest-ranking oiran, the tayū, had the prestige of being able to refuse clients, and the kanji for oiran consist of two characters, 花, meaning “flower”, and 魁 meaning “leader”.

Thus, this is almost certainly why Oiran Bears hang out under what seems to be an endless field of flowers and why they are hard to control even for Meili, and this is why making moderate- to-loud noises makes oiran bears go berserk, making them the “leaders” among regular mabeasts in the difficulty to control them even for mabeast tamers.

Tappei has often shown that he carefully considers how he names characters, whether it be due to the star lore (Subaru is the Japanese term for Pleiades, which is also referred to as the Seven Sisters, which is why the seven deadly sins is an important part of the story), plot details (Otto refers to attar, which is a fragrant essential oil, and Otto bought a bunch of oil out of season that he desperately needed to sell), personality traits (Petra means ‘stone’, and she is fearless considering she told the others to abandon her when Elsa took hold of her), mabeast species traits (Guiltylowe has “lowe” in it referring to lion, which is why a Guiltylowe has the head of a lion), character roles (Wilhelm means “resolute protector”, and he did devote his life to ensuring Theresia fought as little as possible), character powers (Betelgeuse means Orion’s hand, which is why his power is Unseen Hand), and names in relation to others’ names (Frederica and Garfiel and Fred and Rafiel to show that Liara subconsciously remembers Garfiel and Frederia), so I’m sure this is another instance of that. Well done, Tappei, my man, in giving that species of mabeast an intriguing name that fits the traits it was given.

As for the name of the Sage, Shaula, it’s a name of Arabic origin translating as the raised tail of a scorpion. It’s also a star representing the stinger of the Scorpius constellation, which is likely how Shaula came to have that meaning. Let’s see whether this is referring to a power, lore, or something else. Tappei surely has cooked up something good for Shaula.

As a reminder from Seasons 2 and 3, Baten Kaitos meaning “belly of the whale”, Alphard meaning “the backbone of the serpent, and Arneb meaning “hare”, likely meant that each of them could control one of the Three Great Mabeasts, which is why Lye referred to the White Whale as our pet since the Sin Archbishops of Gluttony speak as if they are a unit. I’d hazard a guess that Meili cannot control any of the Three Great Mabeasts.

And since Subaru itself is the word for Pleiades in Japanese, the Pleaides Watchtower bearing his name is interesting. We’ll see what’s in store. It could indicate that the Pleiades Watchtower itself was planned to be built with Subaru’s arrival hundreds of years later in mind, meaning it may have been part of the plan the heroes from four hundred years ago I propose made to bring the world to a free future as alluded to Melakuera talking about the world imbalance and the Witch as well as him facing world ending crises countless times, suggesting that the world is stuck in a cycle of being destroyed by the Witch of Envy and reconstructed with Subaru being the one they hope will break this cycle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A trauma-informed analysis: How Episode 30 of Oshi Ko portrays the brilliance of Arima Kana and her resilience in the early stages of overcoming her trauma

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After all the negative thoughts Kana thought this episode after the reporter confronted her, when she thought of letting everyone involved with B-Komachi down after losing the guy, her thoughts on what the haters and online mob would say, and finally at the spot where Aqua found solace in Kana while playing a game of catch, Kana decided that she wouldn’t be a damsel in distress who turns to a guy, namely Aqua, for help only when she needs it, and that she didn’t become an idol only for Aqua but as a means to stay in the industry, and it’s brilliant for depicting a character in the early stages of overcoming her trauma.

This is significant as for much of Kana’s life, she turned to her mother for validation, which isn’t wrong as everyone needs validation to some extent growing up to develop normally, but Kana’s mother emotionally abusing Kana due to her popularity declining with the end result being that she abandoned Kana led to her daughter developing a huge inferiority complex as well as having abandonment issues. This is why Kana deciding that she doesn’t need to be saved by Aqua is an important moment for her.

Growing up, Kana’s acting career likely wouldn’t have started without her mom’s approval, so as a child growing up, Kana counted on her mother for validation and saw her mother as being the one to allow her to shine. When this arrangement ended, it was obviously a huge blow to her self-esteem, which led to the issues she currently has, and that’s why she fell head over heals in love with Aqua since he basically set her up to shine the Sweet Today live-action adaptation by increasing the level of acting from Melt and bringing about a high enough level of acting for Kana to deliver high-caliber acting, and in that moment, Aqua in a way stepped into the role Kana’s mother was in as the one who’d give Kana the feeling of validation she needed as she perceived him to be the one who saw her true talent, not Kaburagi Masaya, who only used Kana’s name recognition as a draw to promote male models. People with trauma often gravitate to people who will reactivate their trauma, and given Aqua is an emotionally distant person, the odds of him doing something similar to what her mother did to Kana was possible, and Aqua himself was drawn to Kana in a sense ’cause his self-conscious was also trying to recreate a familar situation with Kana becoming an idol much like his mother was, so the dynamic Kana and Aqua had was in a way toxic even despite what they feel for the other, so I’m glad there’s a bit of decoupling here regardless of whether it lasts.

This is why Aqua ghosting Kana for a year led to Kana being in such a poor headspace since she had a strong irrational emotional attachment to him and could only see that Aqua must hate her given he told her to shut up and struck her, not being able to see Aqua’s distress since her internal image of Aqua was the one who’d validate her for her talent like her mother used to, and seeing him act that way reactivated all of her trauma, leading to her asking whether he hates her even if Aqua was in poor shape himself. It’s not ’cause Kana’s a bad person who’s incapable of seeing that Aqua was not well as she likely concluded he was unwell, and that’s why she got out of the vehicle, but when someone’s trauma is reactivated, their mind shuts down, which much of the time leads to them being unable to think about anything else aside from their trauma. I know this as someone who’s had trauma and ’cause I know someone who gets triggered so often by his trauma. Kana still has a fierce desire to stay in the industry after all this time even after living by herself all these years, and that’s why she was so easily fooled by Mako, who gave a tip to the reporter about Kana being at Shima’s place, which is how the reporter knew there was nobody else at Shima’s place aside from Kana, and it was ’cause she was so desperate at the time ’cause of her source of validation was gone.

As a disclaimer, I am in no way saying that Kana is over Aqua now as I’m sure we’ll find out, maybe even in the coming weeks, that she isn’t, but Kana deciding not to rely on Aqua in her time of despair shows that she’s in the beginning stages of overcoming her trauma. I had to include that since I’m sure some Kana haters or Akasaka haters might say that this pivotal scene had no bearing on Kana’s development as a character at all, and they’d be wrong of course. Kana deciding not to rely on Aqua at this moment is most definitely a sign of growth from Kana as to recover from trauma a big step is to focus on self-validation rather than relying on external validation. It’s so important that Kana decided that she very much chose to become an idol for herself to stay in the industry since her acting career was going nowhere, not ’cause she was merely doing it as a favour to Aqua, who she saw as her knight in shining armour. She’s shown that her surviving for years in the industry without her mom wasn’t a fluke and that she can survive without Aqua either even if it’ll hurt her if he’s not around. I was so happy for Kana in that moment and do believe she’ll truly make it in the industry even if it’s not until long after the series ends.

Akasaka’s doing a great job writing such a realistic character in Kana, and it shows a deep understanding of people who have trauma for him to have chosen to write Kana this way with all of the highs and the lows, and it shows that he probably knows at least one person in the industry who has had issues such as Kana’s or has read a lot of credible works informed on trauma that he was able to include a character in his story that could conceivably have come straight from the real world, and the higher-ups at Doga Kobo obviously also see Kana’s character as a compelling one, which is why Doga Kobo nailed all of her scenes with all the care that’s put into adapting Kana’s content. I’ll say it if nobody else has: Episode 30 of Oshi no Ko was absolute cinema as the way it displayed Kana’s mental processes throughout the episode before having her defiantly scream that she’d be all right is just peak anime content. This is how you write someone who’s getting put through the wringer but still decides to push through anyway. Kana was very courageous in the face of adversity.

In defense of Akane in Oshi no Ko, who isn’t a perfect waifu, and why that’s a good thing

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on In defense of Akane in Oshi no Ko, who isn’t a perfect waifu, and why that’s a good thing

I’ve seen a lot of people call Akane a perfect waifu, and I don’t agree with this sentiment. A perfect waifu wouldn’t tell Aqua in Episode 29 that he needs to make his own decision on how he wants to live and that she’ll support whatever his decision is after he has made it. I get the sense that Akane has taken her psychological profiling that she uses to portray the characters she plays when acting too seriously and has read up too much on psychology to her detriment. Although that’s how she was able to step into Ai’s shoes so well for the Dating Reality Show arc and get Aqua curious about her, not everything can be understood just from reading about psychology.

While Akane is right that when one half of the couple leans too heavily upon the other to make decisions it can be a toxic dynamic/relationship, she clearly has no previous relationship experience before dating Aqua, and it shows. She should know that Aqua was doing better mentally when he wasn’t bothered with revenge, but she merely stated this season that she prefers that version of Aqua rather than fully realizing that Aqua was legitimately in a better headspace after giving up on revenge rather than it being a matter of opinion. She should’ve outright told him to continue letting go of what haunted him as it’s not wrong to encourage your partner to do what’s best for his mental health, and the one time Aqua needed Akane’s emotional support more than ever he didn’t get it.

Akane is clearly a kind girl who doesn’t mean any harm, but I see her naivety being horrible for Aqua. She has made it her goal to kill Hikaru in place of Aqua to keep him out of it, but she perhaps let out a freudian slip about that in Episode 29 when she mused about carrying his burdens with him, hinting to Aqua that she knew all along that his father still lived, and Aqua, with him being the intelligent guy he is, most likely caught onto the possible implications of that, making her attempt to safeguard him a failure, not to mention the potential damage to their relationship.

She just wants to be a supporting girlfriend, but she doesn’t know what’s the best approach of doing that. I’m thinking Akane may not have had a great childhood herself with something clearly missing as her idea of what a girlfriend/loving partner should do is somewhat amiss and moreso along the lines of what a teenage girl would read online about co-dependent relationships instead of following in the example of her parents. I’m glad that Akasaka had the courage to write Akane this way even if will be bad for Aqua’s mental health as he’s showing just what can go wrong as people struggle to grow into adults. She’s relentlessly trying to do what she believes is best for Aqua even if some of her beliefs are misguided, and she’s a well-written and flawed character, not a perfect waifu as some people claim her to be.

This will most likely put Aqua back on the path to revenge against Hikaru, and then they’ll go about it as a couple with Akane supporting him with all her heart. Unfortunately, I believe the direction Episodes 28 and 29 went in point to Oshi no Ko ending in a dark and bleak fashion. And while I can see why fans would be very upset with such an ending, if the first arc with Ai was a criticism of the industry and the last few arcs build up to a dreary ending, I can see Oshi no Ko being a story about the very significant mental health crisis in Japan and how underneath the entertaining aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry lies a message of a country deep in crisis with many of the people who engage with this industry, either directly as a part of it or as fans of it, having major issues.

Watching anime for perfect waifu is in my opinion not the ideal way to watch it. You may get solace from feeling close to such a character when watching anime primarily as an escape, but it will not motivate you to improve your life and meaningfully grow as a person or to diversify your perspectives on life and relationships. I hope anime-onlies such as myself can watch the entire series and not pre-judge the ending as terrible, instead focusing on what message Akasaka was trying to tell. There are big deep-seated issues in Japan that often show up in developed countries later, much like a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce, and reduced social interaction/withdrawal. The significant mental health crisis is probably a sleeper issue that will creep up on many countries.

A trauma-informed analysis: Why the bashing of Kana due to Oshi no Ko Episode 28 is unwarranted and is a refusal to engage with the story

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The biggest reason for the bashing of Kana is basically that people are self-inserting themselves into Aqua’s shoes and focusing on what a perfect waifu would do instead of engaging with Akasaka’s work in the way he intended for it to be consumed as Oshi no Ko is big on confronting the realities of the misogyny idols and people who work in the Japanese entertainment industry face regarding waifus, which includes idols, being seen as existing solely for all the lonely men out there who feel unfulfilled in their lives, not having their own agency outside of being emotional support for these men and thoughts that are their own.

As for how this relates to Kana, many people who have trauma have a hyperfixation on their own thoughts, actions, and behaviours due to how they’re scared to relive their trauma again, and I know this ’cause I was traumatized myself, and this is referred to as hypervigilance. This can lead to them being very focused on themselves since they had no one else to look out for them when they were younger, not ’cause Kana is an abnormally self-centered person. In the case of Kana, her mother emotionally abused Kana and abandoned her after her popularity decreased as a child actress, which led to her having an inferiority complex and having a fear of abandonment, a reason for her intense desire for validation and feeling needed, which Aqua exploited by roping Kana into joining his sister’s idol group.

Aqua imprinted on Kana since they were kids ’cause he knocked her off her high horse when she had an overinflated ego, and that moment led to her on some level viewing Aqua as this amazing guy since it was a good learning experience for her that changed her life, and she rightfully realized she needed to improve given her self-esteem was tied to her acting ability. Then Aqua did all he did in the Sweet Today arc just to make her shine, and she became obsessed him thinking of him as her Prince Charming and made him the one she would work to have her feelings of validation and of being needed be realized, which is why she was so easily pressured into joining B-Komachi. Kana basically replaced her desire for her mother’s validation for her desire for Aqua’s validation.

And so Aqua avoiding Kana despite her doing what she’s doing for Ruby to seek validation from Aqua led to a serious decline in her mental state as she is someone who seriously needs therapy. In Episode 28, Aqua doesn’t respond verbally to Kana, who deep down wants his validation even if she realized at the moment that he was in distress, and he physically injures her too, knocking her to the ground.

Thus, It actually makes 100% complete sense why Kana acted the way she did since she made it her life to seek Aqua’s validation, and him telling her to shut up and strike her is basically seen by her as Aqua reproaching her, triggering her heavily in the process. As she was basically reliving her trauma all over again, you can’t expect her to be in-tune with Aqua’s distress and react accordingly. When people engage with animanga or any story in general, they should try seeing the behaviour of the characters from their own viewpoints and not that of just the protagonist that they’ve grown attached to. Kana did nothing wrong in the way she handled the situation, and it was the best she could given how serious her issues are. For Kana, Aqua telling her to shut up and strike her is basically denying her entire existence, so of course she’d shut down mentally and hyperfocus and bring up something that is congruent with her trauma in that she believes she is someone who doesn’t deserve the affection of others due to the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. That she didn’t think of Aqua’s distress and focused on herself is ’cause instead of Aqua being her source of validation as she had intended for him to be, he’s now instead forcing her to relive her trauma, and her fight-or-flight response activated, a primal reaction to perceived danger. All of this shows that Akasaka understands trauma very well in how he has written his characters, and Kana should really not be getting any flack by people self-inserting themselves into Aqua’s shoes.

Kana acting in this way as an idol, prioritizing her own thoughts and well-being, led to people who see idols and anime waifus as having no value aside from being emotional support for themselves or the protagonists they self-insert themselves into being shocked as it’s a very un-idol or un-waifu thing to do, which is what led to the bashing even though it is not how Akasaka intended for people to view his story and Kana’s reaction.

As for why Kana doesn’t look for validation through friends, a lot of people with a bad childhood don’t have a secure attachment with at least one parent. To sum this up, attachment theory posits that humans are born with an innate need to form close emotional bonds with caregivers for survival and emotional security, and this influences childrens’ emotional regulation and relationship patterns, secure, anxious, or avoidment attachment styles even into adulthood. This is the reason it’s believed that many people with poor childhoods end up having problems with emotional regulation. People with anxious or avoidment attachment styles tend to look for partners who will trigger their trauma even if from the perspective of a normal person it seems insane since it’s an effort in part to gain mastery over their trauma by hoping they can change relationships with a similar pattern as that which initially hurt them.

Kana most likely got into acting in part due to her mother seeing her talent and wanting to validate her AND make money from her daughter’s talent, so Kana who ties her acting ability to her self-esteem, saw her mother as being the one who ensured that she got validation. But her mother emotionally abused her and abandoned her, resulting in Kana developing an anxious attachment in which she will look for a partner who will give her validation even if he isn’t attentive to her needs in general or will abandon her at some point just like her mother did.

Aqua giving Kana validation by putting a spotlight on her during the Sweet Today live action adaption made Aqua step into the role that her mother was in in that he was the one who recognized her talent and got her to shine. Even though she deep down knows that Aqua will not be good for her due to him being emotionally distant and not all that interested in acting, meaning there probably wouldn’t be too many opportunities for Aqua to put her in the spotlight given she deliberately avoids doing so after learning that people skills are more important to talent in the industry, showing that he’s the type who will trigger her trauma.

Many people with trauma such as this will focus on the person they want validation from, even if it goes against what they actually desire in their career. Kana’s primary focus may be her acting career, but she will be an idol for Aqua since it makes her feel needed by him since it’s for Aqua wanting his sister’s idol group to blossom. It is very common for people with an anxious attachment style to gravitate to a person with an avoidant attachment style like Aqua has even though the dynamic is toxic, but such is how things work.

Kana is incredibly well-written and is who I consider to be the best-written character in Oshi no Ko for being extremely consistent in the way she is written, and it should be the case that Akasaka either knows a person in real life much like Kana or he has read many stories from authors informed about trauma to depict her struggles so well in making her seem so much like a person from the real world. I applaud him for doing so well in making Oshi no Ko a compelling story with excellent characters such as Kana.

Analysis: Oshi no Ko’s portrayal of how the pursuit of revenge hurts those around you is brilliant and the possible implications of that for the story

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Analysis: Oshi no Ko’s portrayal of how the pursuit of revenge hurts those around you is brilliant and the possible implications of that for the story

For me personally, the ugly and unpleasant can make for great content even if not the most enjoyable, and I found this to be outright one of the best episodes of Oshi no Ko after the appalling episode from last week. This episode shows very well how the death of a character can ruin the dynamics between a family due to the ensuing trauma and how one’s pursuit of revenge can negatively affect those around you.

Ichigo basically abandoned his wife and Strawberry Productions due to being heartbroken over Ai’s murder, and given he considered Ai his daughter of sorts, he probably blamed himself on some level for not preparing Ai for something like that given his knowledge of the industry. Now, he’s using Ruby as a foot soldier for his revenge even though it keeps her on a bad path, the daughter of the one he considered a daughter to him. Ichigo was fucked up by Ai’s murder just as much as anybody else, and seeing his nonchalant telling to Aqua that it was just a theory and nothing confirmed after Aqua started having a panic attack while he continues fishing, doing nothing meaningful to calm Aqua, the son of the one he considered his daughter, shows just how much he has changed with him not caring about his wife, Miyako, and showing zero care for the well-being of Ai’s children.

Aqua’s pursuit of revenge himself was what kickstarted Ruby going off the deep end since she realized that the reason Aqua had gotten back into the industry despite for years saying he had no further interest in acting was so that he could find Ai’s murderer after her realization that Gorou had also been murdered just as Ai was and that it was orchestrated by the same person. Viewers should recall that Gorou was the person most important to Sarina before she reincarnated as Ruby as he spent the most meaningful time with her with her parents not even bothering to visit her, so Aqua being on the path of revenge directly led to Ruby going on this path, and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt to get her revenge whereas Aqua had more apparent limits to the lengths he would go. I can even understand why Ruby reacted the way she has given she lost both Ai and Gorou, but Gorou’s death was truly painful for her given she had wondered for so long what had happened to him with Gorou being the biggest thing tying her to this world.

In turn this came back to hurt Aqua himself seeing Ruby become the way she is after he did so much to protect her innocence and how Ruby’s pursuit of revenge led to him encountering Ichigo again, which shattered his illusion about him no longer having to kill his father, who was revealed to be Hikaru in Episode 28. And of course, Aqua had a one-track mind for revenge since he was 4 until recently after Taiki wrongly concluded that their father had already killed himself.

As for Kana, I’m somewhat miffed that she’s getting major flack for not being in-tune with Aqua’s emotional state when he was unresponsive to her due to him spiraling. I’m tired of so many people only watching anime so that they can self-insert into the protagonist’s shoes due to watching anime mainly as an escape. Despite Aqua having a ton of trauma, Kana herself has major trauma from her mother abandoning her when her career stalled, making her develop an inferiority complex and an intense fear of abandonment, making her deeply crave validation even though she goes out of her way not to stand out due to realizing that raw talent is less important than people skills in the industry, which is being triggered by Aqua’s treatment of her, so I believe it’s ridiculous that people are bashing Kana despite Aqua deliberately avoiding her for months and then physically hitting her upon their first meeting in a long while. Kana, with her own trauma, of course reacted in the way she did since the way Aqua is outwardly presenting himself as not wanting anything to do with her, and flaming Kana ’cause she isn’t perfectly in-tune with Aqua’s emotions like Akane is is a failure in media literacy as Kana being a self-absorbed girl is not the takeaway Akasaka wanted viewers to have from that scene. Kana does not and has never known about Aqua’s issues, and she cannot read minds. Not everyone is into psychologically profiling people like Akane is as that’s actually quite rare. The main takeaway Akasaka wanted viewers to get from this is Aqua’s spiraling and how the pursuit of revenge is not a healthy way to live since it pushes people away, much like how he never really got all the close to Ruby since he was 4 all the way up until now, which is probably one reason Ruby even decided to go on the path of revenge ’cause she never developed a relationship with anybody as meaningful as the one she had with Gorou.

As far as the implications for Oshi no Ko’s story, after I had watched Season 2, I thought that Oshi no Ko would have a happy ending, but I believe Episode 28 dramatically increased the chances of the story having a dark ending with the reason I believe this being ’cause Ichigo didn’t also need to be looped into the revenge story, and since he was, what Akasaka may be going for is showing how people get fucked over by something such as Ai’s death, first shown through Aqua, and then Ruby, and now Ichigo too. Another reason I believe this is that I think if Aqua hadn’t lashed out at Kana, she of all people might’ve been able to calm him down since she is the one he fancies, but maybe Akasaka’s deliberately keeping Kana out of the revenge plot to ensure that Aqua completes his revenge against his Hikaru after all with the only one who could talk him out of it never being looped into things. Akasaka was perhaps friends with an idol who was murdered and knew somewhat of the fallout of that girl’s murder and wants to preach about how a life in pursuit of revenge ends up ruining many people’s lives. This would make sense for a mangaka since Japan has a significant mental health crisis, and someone actively working in the industry like Aka does would be in a position to highlight how this is perhaps magnified for fans of and those working in the in the Japanese entertainment industry with how many fans latch onto idols due to something they lack in their own lives and considering the pressures those working in that industry face. In any case, it was an outstanding episode despite the ugliness of what it depicted. I don’t know Oshi no Ko’s ending, but I know western anime fans hated it, and this could possibly be a case of media illiteracy or a lack of understanding on a serious issue in Japanese culture.