Thanks for stopping by my blog. I’m still a few weeks behind on Re: Zero season 3, but I’ll get caught up eventually. These two episodes were both highly entertaining, with the first focused on Liliana and the next focused on Emilia and her group. I’ll go over some highlights from both installments.
Note:
Re: Zero Episode 61 is equal to Season 3 episode 11
Re: Zero Episode 62 is equal to Season 3 episode 12
Episode 61: Liliana Masquerade
Episode Rating: 9/10
This episode was excellent all around, but especially in terms of music and character development. Liliana was the main character of this installment, so we learned a lot about her. She grew up in a traveling entertainment troupe with her parents. Her mother was an amazing singer, which inspired Liliana, but also made her feel like she was in her mother’s shadow all the time. Early on, her music was pretty bad. She eventually ran away to start her own life as a lone bard.
As she grew up and maintained her independence, Liliana often struggled to survive. At one point, she nearly died while traveling between towns. When she finally found water to drink, it saved her life. Liliana watched the beautiful sunrise and basked in the pleasure of being alive. This was a deeply emotional experience in her life that made her understand music for the first time. After this revelation, Liliana’s singing became stunningly beautiful.
Back to the present, Priscilla was holding her own in the battle against Sirius. While the queen candidate fought using magic fire, Liliana’s job was to sing a song that would break Sirius’ hold on the hypnotized civilians. The songstress proved her determination and courage by running through a burning building to get to a high point where she could sing. She’s a tough girl. At the top of the tower, Liliana began her song.
The title of the song is, “The Sky that Overtakes the Dawn” and it was so beautiful that it moved me tears. The melody and the voice of Liliana were perfect together. Sadly, I haven’t been able to confirm the name of the seiyuu who sang this song in reality. I also have clue who wrote the music for it. Hopefully someone will fix this soon and upload song credits to MyAnimeList; but for now, all I know was the song was gorgeous.
Liliana’s song worked, breaking the influence of Sirius over the civilians. Even when Sirius nearly destroyed the whole tower, Liliana kept singing bravely. Priscilla defeated Sirius, but I’m not sure if she’s really dead. Meanwhile, Liliana fell into the canal. She was exhausted and in danger of drowning, but Kiritaka dived in and saved her. I would much rather ship Liliana with Priscilla, but I’ll admit that she works well with Kiritaka, too. In other news, Priscilla with her hair down is hot as hell.
Meanwhile, Subaru explained Regulus’ power, saying that he could stop time for his body alone. Regulus didn’t confirm this, but kept angrily attacking Subaru. He was unaware that, at the same moment, Emilia was running back toward the castle where Regulus’ wives were waiting. If Subaru is right, then Regulus’ power might be weakened by losing the loyalty of his wives. It was Emilia’s job to convince the women to betray Regulus. To be continued.
Episode 62: Corneas Regulus
Episode Rating: 9/10
This was an excellent episode with amazing music and important character moments for Emilia, Subaru, and the wives of Regulus. It started with Emilia reaching the cathedral where the women were waiting. She spoke with Number 184, who seemed to be the representative of the fifty-four wives present. At first, it was difficult to get through to her, but Emilia was patient. Thanks to her gentleness and love, the resistance of the wives began to crumble.
After Number 184 asked if anyone present loved Regulus, they all collectively realized that they hated him. With this new sense of unity, the enslaved women were determined enough to risk their lives to thwart him. It was exciting and encouraging to see the wives speaking their minds and beginning to have expressions again. “Number 184” finally gave Emilia her real name, which was Sylphy.
The spirit of hope in the room quickly fell apart once Emilia discovered the truth about Regulus’ Authority. His magical heart was hidden inside one of the women, attached to their heart like a black parasite. Anyone Regulus declared his wife was at risk to be the one carrying his heart at a given time. Basically, in order to stop Regulus’ power, the women would have to stop their hearts.
The surprisingly dark episode became even more grim as Sylphy decided she was going to kill herself. The other wives were all in agreement, too. I have a history of self-injury and suicidal ideation, so empathized with Sylphy, especially when she cut her hand on a piece of glass and said that scarring herself was her way of defying her abuser. Before the wives could slit their throats with glass shards, Emilia stopped all their hearts herself using ice magic.
(Side Note: I would have been pissed if the women were actually sacrificed for good, but I assumed from the start that Emilia knew how to freeze and unfreeze people without killing them. After all, she herself lived for a century in a magically induced state of cryogenesis. For once, I was correct.)
Emilia returned to Subaru and helped him keep fighting Regulus. However, the enemy was still invincible. That’s when Emilia realized that Regulus’ heart was actually inside her. She also realized she wouldn’t be able to use the ice trick again. Subaru saved the day by using his Authority of Sloth. He controlled the unseen hand – the eerie, tentacle-like arm and hand that once belonged to Petelgeuss. Using Geuss’ power, Subaru reached into Emilia’s chest, extracting and crushing Regulus’ heart.
Guess was depicted in his younger form, standing behind Subaru, while the unseen hand reached into Emilia. It’s not exactly clear how much Emilia remembers, but she can apparently recall Geuss, because she sounded relieved to know his soul still existed in some form. She realized by the end of the episode that she’d seen Regulus before, too. But she couldn’t place where. So, it seems her memories – which I thought Puck unlocked for good in season 2 – are still fairly vague.
Now that Regulus’ magic core was destroyed, his powers were severely limited. He could freeze time around his body by manually stopping his heart for a second when he took damage. But he wouldn’t last long trying to pull this off. Thus, first Emilia and then Reinhard beat the absolute shit out of Regulus until his heart finally stopped on its own. It was deeply gratifying to see Emilia smack the villain with a giant ice hammer. She also punched him fifty-four times for the sake of his wives.
After Reinhard threw Regulus into the ground, the crater he was in filled with water, and he finally drowned. Corneas Regulus died in absolute misery, which was very fitting for such a scummy character. The physical pain and existential fear of dying were not the only trials. He also suffered psychological agony, having visions of his wives laughing at him from the grave. After he had forced them for years not to smile, now they surrounded him with mocking grins. I loved the visuals for that scene.
There was a short after-credits scene that showed Emilia unfreezing the women, just as I predicted. When she woke up, Sylphy immediately knew that her abuser was finally dead. She embraced Emilia and cried like a little girl. This episode was great and I can hardly wait until someone uploads the instrumental OST for season 3. (I can only find unofficial covers on YouTube so far.) That wraps up my episode reviews for today.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke
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