The 2016 isekai anime Re: Zero (Starting Life In Another World) was a large commercial success. The series became widely popular, prompting several side productions like OVA specials and the Director’s Cut remix. But it wasn’t until four years later that fans finally got to see a second season. Re: Zero Season 2 aired in two parts: the first half in Summer 2020, and the second half in Winter 2021. My purpose today is to provide a review of the first half of Season 2. There will eventually be a second post reviewing the second half.

This review will follow my general structure for covering anime, which is to look at five categories (audio, visuals, story, characters, and enjoyment) and give a score to each one. The scores range from 1 to 10. At the end of the review, I take the average of the five scores to arrive at the overall score. Let’s get on with the review.

Note: Please be aware that there may be spoilers in this article

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~Visuals: 7/10~

Re: Zero’s art-style has some distinct markers that I like, but it’s also still mainstream enough to not be off-putting to most viewers. The character designs are generally great, with special care put into this other world’s clothing designs. I liked the relatively simple but unique look of the new characters, such as Frederica, Garfiel, and Echidna. The level of detail in Re: Zero’s art doesn’t seem super high, but it’s good enough for me to appreciate. As for the colors used, they are generally lighter or more pastel than what you might see in other fantasy stories. Sometimes it’s nice when things aren’t overly vibrant or saturated.

Face expressions are one of the most important parts of the visual category to me, personally. The ones in Re:Zero do not seem especially powerful or memorable to me most of time, but they’re not bad or boring either. Occasionally, there will be a great expression too. Moving on, the scenery and backgrounds in this anime are usually excellent. The Clemaldy Sanctuary looks extra pretty to me. There is some CGI used on occasion, usually for the ground dragons pulling the carts. It’s subtle enough to not bother me.

There were not a lot of fighting or action scenes in this season. Those that happened didn’t really look impressive to me visually. Although the art and animation are good, I don’t think they deserve a score higher than 7. I might be too harsh, but there wasn’t much that impressed me. Final note: I loved seeing Roswaal without his makeup!

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~Story: 8/10~

The story category includes elements like plot concept, pacing, world-building, content balance, and effectiveness of writing. The general plot concept is good in Re: Zero. The writing is also quite effective, making for a thrilling story. The show succeeds in pulling you in and making you feel the appropriate emotions most of the time. Content balance was decent; there were lighthearted moments interspersed with serious events, and there was downtime mixed with action. The world-building wasn’t great, since this is more of a character-driven story. I would have liked to learn more about the Re: Zero world, personally. However, we did at least learn a lot about the seven Witches.

Now let’s talk about pacing. What you need to understand about Re: Zero season 2 is that both halves of it – a total of 26 episodes – only cover one “arc” of a story. This is quite different from the structure of the first season, where there were at least three or four distinct story arcs. As a consequence of spending so much time on the Sanctuary Arc, the pace is slowed down and the plot doesn’t seem as thrilling. That’s not to say it’s not interesting or that it’s badly crafted. It’s just slower-paced. As long as you understand that, I don’t think it reflects negatively on the story category.

In my anime reviews, “Story” is usually the longest section. So, I’m surprised that I don’t have as much to say in this review. The story category was excellent overall.

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~Audio: 9/10~

The music, sounds, and voice-acting in this season of Re: Zero were so amazing that I was tempted to give them a score of 10 at first. But now, I think 9 works better. I only give something a 10 if I regularly go back and listen to the instrumental OST. As it, I do sometimes go listen to the opening and ending songs of Re: Zero season 2, but not the rest of the OST. The opening song is “Realize” by Konomi Suzuki, and the ED is “Memento” by Nonoc. I absolutely love both songs.

Let me ramble about the Japanese voice-acting for a bit. It’s all-around excellent. Yuusuke Kobayashi plays protagonist Subaru Natsuki. I used to think his voice was annoying, but it’s just strong and distinct. He has a lot of talent using it for dialogue, laughing, crying, and screaming. Rie Takahashi, who has a beautiful singing voice and a soft speaking voice, did a great job voicing Emilia. It’s so calming to hear her high voice. A few old veteran seiyuus also make appearances, like Yui Horie as Felix and Akira Ishida as Corneas Regulus. Nobuhiko Okamoto, best known for playing Bakugo in MHA, lends his voice this season to Garfiel. As usual, he does an amazing job with this aggressive and brash character.

I have one last note to make about this topic. One of my top three favorite seiyuus of all time is Maaya Sakamoto. She’s both a great singer and a talented voice actress. She’s probably best known for playing Ciel in Black Butler, but she can do more than young boys’ voices. Sakamoto has a very sexy, mature, adult woman voice, too. In Re: Zero season 2, Maaya Sakamoto voices Echidna, the Witch of Greed, who is also my favorite of the new characters. She brings so much to this role, and it was a perfect casting choice.

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~Characters: 8/10~

For the characters category, I think an 8 is deserved. The new characters were interesting and many of the returning characters saw good development and growth. We learned more about Roswaal, saw the most fragile sides of Emilia, and dealt with Beatrice’s internalized anger and despair. It was also nice to have Otto around; I personally find him adorable. Ram’s presence served to strengthen and deepen what we already knew about her character. The occasional parallel between Roswaal and Subaru was fascinating. And speaking of Subaru, he was by far the one who saw the most character development this season.

I used to hate Subaru with a burning passion, and there are still a few things I detest about him (like his continued casual sexism). But this season really made me start to appreciate Subaru and feel sympathetic toward his pain. I believe the most important change is that Subaru has become humbler. He frequently acknowledges that he’s pathetic (even when he’s not), and he knows his limits more than before. At the same time, he puts his positive thinking skills into accepting himself without being too arrogant (most of the time). He is able to embrace his own weakness, and in my opinion, that makes him truly strong.

There were some issues with the character category. I won’t give it higher than an 8 because subjectively, I still have some trouble emotionally connecting to the characters; and more objectively, none of them were quite so well-written that they deserved 9s or 10s. Besides that, there are two specific issues to mention.

The first one is the problem with Garfiel. His impulsivity, unpredictability, and aggression are just too much to be believable. The main problem was when, in one timeline, he slaughtered a bunch of townspeople and civilians who tried to escape the sanctuary. That’s too evil, regardless of the circumstances in that timeline. It ruins the consistency of Garfiel’s character, since in all other cases, he shows redeeming qualities and the presence of a conscience.

As for the second issue, I often don’t like the presentation of the female characters. Little effort was made to challenge the underlying misogyny common to Japanese culture. It seems like every female character is dependent on a male character and is portrayed as weaker or gentler. For example, Emilia is rather pathetic and depends on Puck or Subaru. She’s also very timid and polite. Those like that are direct and do not pay lip service to the male characters, like Ram, are regarded as having personality problems. The strong female characters who have iron wills and interesting personalities are evil witches like Echidna or psychopaths like Elsa.

All that notwithstanding, the problem isn’t nearly as bad as it could be. There are reasonable counters to everything I wrote above. For example, Emilia’s lack of assertiveness realistically reflects her upbringing and severe trauma. An exception to what I said about evil female characters also exists. Crusch is a capable and dignified female warrior who is framed as admirable. And compared to many other anime series, Re: Zero did provide more variety for the female characters, and did not make them outright harem stereotypes.

The important thing here is a balanced viewpoint. It’s still important to point out issues, even if they are not as problematic as they could be. In turn, it’s important to give credit where due and point out exceptions to the rule. I’ve rambled for long enough, so let’s move on.

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~Personal Enjoyment: 7/10~

Compared to the first season of Re: Zero, my personal enjoyment level was much higher. Part of that is definitely due to the fact that Subaru isn’t quite as annoying. He’s starting to grow up. In addition, old man Wilhelm had very little part in this season. Since I hate that character’s guts, his absence meant better enjoyment for me. There are still a few things to mention, however, that I did not appreciate at all. I often found myself annoyed at Emilia and Garfiel for various reasons. At other times, I still felt mildly aggravated by Subaru. But the main source of my disgruntlement was the same as last season. Let me explain.

All over Re: Zero, there is a pervasive, underlying attitude of casual sexism and misogyny. You can see it in the way Subaru treats female characters, as well as in the overall attitude of the show. I wrote about this is in my review of the first season. Eventually, I might write a post detailing the best examples of this misogyny. For now, I just wanted to mention it because it took away from my overall enjoyment of the season. I guess I should give one example though. Emilia feels protective of Subaru, but every time she makes note of this, Subaru either teases her and calls her manly, or says that he, as a guy, doesn’t want to be protected by a girl. How infuriating.

Now, let’s look at some examples of what I actually enjoyed, since there was a fair amount of it. It was great to learn about and meet the Witches, watch Subaru become more mature, and see plenty of screen-time of my favorite character, Ram. I really liked the way all the characters were developed in this season. I’m intrigued by Satella and her insane “love” for Subaru. It’s still a mystery why she has Emilia’s face and voice. Is Emilia actually Satella somehow? I love thinking about that. Additionally, I enjoyed learning about Echidna’s experiments with Ryuzu. Echidna was a great character, and I can identify with her desire for knowledge. Clearly, there was a lot to enjoy in this season of Re: Zero.

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~Overall Score: 7.8/10.0~

The overall score is derived by taking the average of the five numbers in the categories explored above. My overall score for the first season of Re:Zero was only 6.8/10.0. So, as you can see, season 2 was a huge improvement. That’s how I feel, anyway. That wraps up the review for Re:Zero season 2 part 1. You can expect a review of part 2 soon.

Thanks for reading~

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PATREON

Note: This post first appeared on my Wix blog, Mono’s Anime Rants, on Oct 15, 2022. After republishing it here on WordPress, I’ll delete the original to avoid confusion.