Anime Spotlight #74: ReZER0 (2026 Update)
Article by Sean Wilkinson,
Re:AN1M315T3R.
It's April, the month of pranks thwarting a Lovecraftian apocalypse, pagan fertility symbolism that defies animal classification (rabbits laying eggs‽), Judeo-Christian rebirth (though whether that means the tomb is supposed to re-open for His Only Begotten Son to walk the Earth again like a magic zombie hippie or His soul is supposed to isekai into a newborn baby remains a subject up for secular debate), and getting stoned on Hitler's birthday. So these last three weeks will feature isekai anime, starting with today's series.
My original review of Re:ZER0 FROM June 7, 2021 (Isekai "Quartet" #1: Re: Zero: Starting Life In Another World:SD::SUV::)—but I forgot to make a reference to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie—asked a lot of relevant and stupid questions about number-words, poorly named punctuation, and other topics of existence, and was the beginning of my coverage of the series featured in the first season of Isekai Quartet. I've since fallen off of the chibi crossover and most of its series (and didn't feel compelled to show interest in any that were added later), but however you arrange its title, Re:ZER0 is of a different breed.
Re:ZER0 is 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, Patraché. 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 of The Power Of 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's nowhere near done with us yet (clearly, because I'm about to talk about the third season and a fourth one just started). 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 about to be four seasons since then, and they still haven't told us why she did that! I have way too many questions and I've used way too much italic font, and I demand answers!!!
with Subaru and his allies negotiating with the city's leadership for a spirit crystal that will help them bring back Amelia's guardian cat-monster, and having to figure out the Archbishops' weaknesses and defeat them before their demands can be met and the trapped Witch Of Envy is released.
Having gotten used to the first two seasons' "die, loop, learn" plot mechanic, I was kind of disappointed in how little it was used here and what it was used for (learning how Wrath's power works, only for it to amount to nothing in the moment because there are three other, "more interesting" villains, two more interesting supporting villains, a recurring vampire/witch ghost, and a bloated cast of heroes and plot-relevant extras to spend a premiere movie and fifteen episodes on). I guess I understand that it's because Subaru is growing as a socially intelligent protagonist with a loyal friend group and doesn't have to rely on his Tree Gelbman powers as much, but it still stuck out as a deviation from the norm, rather than the mind-blowing lore-bomb that was the Witches' Tea Party last season. The fights (while the majority of their outcomes scream that Season Three is just Season Four: Part One, and one in particular is a case of "character tries the same thing that didn't work before but it works now because screaming, animation, and friendship") are as spectacular and dynamic as in previous seasons thanks to White Fox. Maybe it's the result of my brain being too old to note everything of importance that is being referenced this time around (and the massive deviation from formula, and the bridge nature of the season as a whole, and all of the new plot stuff I'm supposed to keep track of like Garfiel finding his mother and younger siblings, Anastasia maybe being Lust in disguise, Satella being responsible for the drama in the Sword Saint family, Al maybe being Roswaal in disguise, Gluttony being three people, the mystery of the person who flooded Priestella going unsolved, the cliffhanger of Julius having his name eaten, and that's just what I can fractionally remember off the top of my head up my ass), but I wasn't as engaged with the story this time around, making the third time the opposite of the charm.
74
Animeister,
Re:0ut.
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