What's the haps, weebs 'n' taks?!
This week's title has a lot of colons, doesn't it? Speaking of which, is anyone else disappointed in the English language for the semicolon being the one that looks like it's taking a full dump, while the punctuation mark called a colon looks like it's just having dingleberry issues? Or should I just be in awe of the brilliant, intended irony of grammar's most subversive poop joke? Should syntax be required to pay a sin tax for that? Why does a quartet suddenly have more than four things in it? Is math getting in on the joke, too? If so many people are getting killed and reincarnated into fantasy worlds (thus, isekai), why isn't there an anime about the surviving, murderous population of Japan yet? Do you Subaru? Am I asking too many questions?
If you have any answers to the above, or just want to share your opinion on my opinion, click those social media buttons down below and slide into my comments section. The algorithm will thank you. By the way, has anyone ever seen Al Gore dance? Does he even have rhythm? Okay, enough questions already! I feel like I'm caught in a loop or something. Oh, and SPOILER Warning! for this week's inaugural entry into the Isekai "Quartet" series.
Seriously, if you don't want it spoiled, get a VRV subscription, go to the Crunchyroll tab, and watch Re: ZER0 right now. Both seasons and a prequel movie are available in HD, subbed and dubbed in several languages, and VRV is bundled with a bunch of other services, including HiDIVE and RoosterTeeth, for less than you'd spend on each individual subscription. Don't make me repeat myself; go watch it, because I'm going to start talking about it right now....
Re:ZER0: Starting Life In Another World is, as previously hinted, a subversive
isekai series about Subaru Natsuki, a generic, stubborn, Japanese teenager who blinks himself to death in the
manga section at his local gas-mart and wakes up in a fantasy world run by rich sociopaths, overpowered witches, insane religious figures, sexy vampire assassins, and genocidal monster-animals. Armed with nothing but his douchebag tracksuit, bull-headedness, and endearingly stalkerish "charm" (and also Bill Murray powers that he can't tell anyone about without dying or getting his loved ones killed), Subaru uses his brutally ended
Happy Groundhog Death Day experiences to change fate, save his harem girls (a possible witch with amnesia named Amelia who has ice powers and is best friends with a giant murder-cat in disguise named Puck, twin
oni-maids named Ram and Rem, a loli librarian with spatial warping powers named Beatrice, a werecat maid named Frederica, and a young thief-turned-maid named Petra) and various groups of townsfolk, merchants (one such, named Otto, later becomes a faithful ally of Subaru), and knights from certain death. Two seasons have been adapted from the light novel source material so far, with the first detailing Subaru's developing relationships with Amelia and Rem, the conspiracy of a group called The Witches' Cult to capture Amelia and awaken her to her supposed Witch of Envy status, and Subaru's trial-and-error strategizing against a memory-eating whale and the twisted, body-hopping Archbishop of Sloth, Betelgeuse Romani-Conti, the most wickedly animated and enthusiastically acted character in the entire season. Roswaal, the owner of the mansion where the maids work and Amelia, Beatrice, and Subaru reside, is pretty charismatic and well-designed in his own right, though, with his lilting speech pattern (the reason for this will become evident in Season 2), flamboyant style, and asymmetrical theatrical makeup. Honestly, the longer the series goes on, the more developed and necessary
every character gets. The second season picks up right where the first left off, with everyone having defeated the Great Whale and Betelgeuse once and for all, the charge led by Subaru and his trusty ground-dragon mount, Patrache'. No sooner does everyone celebrate than two more Sin Archbishops crash the party. It's a total stomp that ends with a lot of people dead and Gluttony eating Rem's existence, such that only Subaru can remember her. Subaru's efforts to return her existence to her comatose body lead him deeper into the Cult conspiracy, where friends become enemies and unknown enemies become tenuous allies. While he navigates the contractual pitfalls of having an extradimensional tea party with the seven Witches (one of the best arcs in the season) and tries to turn a rigged game of wits and wills to his favor, Amelia must confront the lost memories of her childhood (this has some amazing lore bombs of its own to drop) to prove herself a worthy leader and free a magically trapped village before a ravenous, multiplying bunnicorn horde eats them all. That sounds ridiculously cute, but when it happens to Subaru, it's far more gruesome and Snydertacular as a visual than any description can convey. Subaru immediately learning to use magic perfectly in the finale because friendship was incredibly dumb and anticlimactic, but like I said, the character lore is dense, layered, and always developing, even in the slower episodes. And most importantly, with enough prep time, even teenaged Japanese Bill Murray can be Batman. Watch
Re: ZER0. It's good. And it isn't done with us yet. I mean, Amelia introduces herself as Satella (the Witch of Envy) the first time she meets Subaru before his first (is it
really his first, though?) death, and on all subsequent deaths, she insists he never call her that again, as if she hates the witch's name. That was in the
first episode. It's been
two seasons since then,
and they still haven't told us why she did that! I have asked
way too many questions and used
way too much italic font,
and I demand answers!!!Stay tuned, as next week, I continue my coverage of the Isekai "Quartet" anime collection with a look at Overlord! If you haven't yet, hit those social media buttons and leave your opinions down below.
As always, here's the list of links if you want to check out what these services have to offer:
And here's my updated list of anime that I'm watching and/or plan to review in the future, which I am including mostly for my own benefit as a dude who may be getting too old to watch anime, if such an age exists:
* Tower Of God, God Of High School, and Noblesse
(Anime-BAW, WebToon/Crunchyroll Originals)
* DanMachi/Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? franchise (Anime Spotlight)
* Single-entry (maybe) Anime Spotlight reviews:
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Black Clover
- Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
- What If A Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to A Starter Town?
- Fire Force
- Attack On Titan
- So I'm A Spider, So What?
- Dr. Stone
- Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War
- I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years And Maxed Out My Level
- To Your Eternity
- Tokyo Revengers
- Wonder Egg Priority
AniMeister,
Out!
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