A Flash of Sloth / Nefarious Sloth

Today, the 25th, is the release day for Re:Zero Volume 22, Yusuke Kobayashi-san's birthday as the voice of Natsuki Subaru, and the broadcast day for the new edited version! There's so much all piled together! The book commercial is airing too, so keep your eyes on the screen even if you're busy!

Also, Crimson Legend comes out today too! What is with March 25th!?

Now then, Julius, now going by Yuri, has appeared, and his blue ground dragon is named "Shaknar." He got the name from a famous ground dragon that appears in fairy tales.

When he says, "How is your condition?" he's not being sarcastic. He's genuinely worried.

Ah! Not good! That cut just now is not good! A part I liked got cut out!

I liked Kobayashi-san's ad-lib where Subaru and Julius smile at each other, and then at the end Subaru spits out a "Hah!" But it's been cleaned up to flow better!!

Mimi sounds super excited saying, "Next up, the Witch Cult!" In fact, she's not scared at all, but Mimi not being scared when she hears the Witch Cult's name is actually the rarer thing.

From the original author's perspective, Russell-san and Anastasia-san acting together is pretty nerve-racking☆

Yuri is thinking, "If we're going to make things official in a public setting, then I think it's exactly in the finer details that we should be thorough..."

Come to think of it, Subaru and Julius are bickering today, and in Volume 22 that came out today, and the previous Volume 21 too, Subaru and Julius are right in the middle of bickering as well, ma'am.

As you know, Petelgeuse can hold a fairly proper conversation as long as you go along with what he's saying. Compared to the other Sin Archbishops, that's overwhelmingly better.

The line about using the Gospel as a pot stand, getting it dirty, and throwing it away is a tribute to Master Roshi saying he threw away the Basho Fan because it got dirty.

Since he dies to surprise attacks, Petelgeuse-san is easy mode.

For what it's worth, Subaru does look through the contents of the Gospel, but when he says, "Can't read it," it's not just because Subaru can't understand the writing. It's also because the Gospel has the property that, for anyone other than its owner, the contents don't clearly register in their mind. Anyone other than the owner can't read it, and can't know the future from it either.

Conversely, because it accurately presents the owner's future, one reason the Witch Cult gains followers is that it shows the future so clearly that "defying the Gospel is scarier." That's not the only reason, though.

This is one of Ricardo's classic jokes, but originally the other Iron Fang kids besides Mimi were laughing too. Then we thought, wouldn't it be funnier if only Mimi laughed? As a result, now nobody laughs at the captain's joke.

Now then, let the Petelgeuse show begin!

Petelgeuse's "Fingers" doesn't just mean his subordinates. It refers to the ten spare bodies that Petelgeuse can transfer his mind into. To become a Finger, you have to meet the proper conditions, so not just anyone can be one.

The tiny red quasi-spirit that suddenly popped out from Subaru is called "Ia," and Julius had attached it to Subaru just in case. Think of it like putting a transmitter on the person acting as the decoy. For various reasons, Petelgeuse dislikes spirits and isn't good at dealing with them.

In the ranking of Re:Zero's non-human characters by how much they shine, Ia works hard enough that it could compete with Patrasche. If Ia gets promoted from a quasi-spirit to a full spirit in the future and becomes able to talk, I think it'd be a hard-working crybaby.

Ia's second big moment!

The reason Julius wakes up at the same time as Subaru is the side effect of Ia, who has a contract with Julius, waking Subaru up. It wouldn't be strange if Julius alone had managed to Reflect successfully, but still.

It was Ram who cast the subjugation force into that illusion, but if she had wanted to, Nee-sama is about the only one who could throw around a hundred people into complete disorientation all at once. If she hadn't been fixated on recovering Subaru, she could have wiped them out normally.

In the end, the ones who understand what they can do and then do their best within that are the strong ones... That's pretty much something I've been doing while writing Re:Zero. Reinhard is the exception, though.

To add to the whole illusion thing, she probably could have guided the subjugation force down a pathless route and made them fall off a cliff, but if she did that Subaru would have fallen to his death too, so I think that's why she didn't.

Petra's mom is super young and cute, but the way she won over her husband was incredibly aggressive and predatory, and her advice to her daughter is just as predatory.

There aren't that many spirit arts users in the Kingdom of Lugunica, so as a result there aren't many warriors who use spirits. The Holy Kingdom of Gusteko in the north has a lot more of them. There are tons of spirit arts users over there. It's subtly different from the idea of teaming up with spirits, though.

Well, spirits are inherently difficult to connect with emotionally, so spirit arts users are truly rare. I think you can see that in Memory Snow: even Puck, who's like family to Emilia, nearly ended up freezing the world, so the owner's responsibility is far too heavy.

In other words, even if they're quasi-spirits, Julius having six spirits with him is abnormal. He has to act in a way that suits the wishes of all six spirits at all times, but it works because Julius is just that attentive a man. Just think of it as being about as hard as dating six people at once. Most people would get stabbed to death.

The reason Ferris survived the explosion is a special ability that's basically like constant "auto-regen," with healing magic always applied at maximum strength, but if an explosion blows him to pieces, then it turns into a "can't show you this!" situation. I wonder if even Julius panicked at first when he came running over.

Also, I assume the cloth Ferris had wrapped around his body was something Julius picked up for him. Ferris can't exactly go walking around naked looking for cloth.

If you watch these two episodes back-to-back for a full hour, the Petelgeuse show really does feel nonstop, and it's wild.

Kyaah! Emilia-tan!

You can probably tell from Emilia-tan's fighting here, but she ranks pretty high in combat power even among the cast. She becomes Awakened Emilia from Arc 4 onward, and that version is even stronger. She throws hands immediately.

Even Emilia herself doesn't understand why she's crying after defeating Petelgeuse.

Number 11.

Kobayashi-san was amazing here, making Subarugius sound natural and nailing it in one take. I actually wondered if he had a switch built into his body.

Petelgeuse possessing Subaru's body here was loosely foreshadowed back in Episode 18, in that scene where Subaru was cackling while Puck killed him.

Ferris is crying when he knocks Subaru unconscious here, but he's not crying because he feels for Subaru. He's crying out of frustration at his own powerlessness. I think I wrote the true reason Ferris cries in EX1, The Dream the Lion King Saw. That's a Crusch-san and Ferris side story.

Also, if Ferris hadn't cut off their escape route like that, Julius absolutely wouldn't have been able to grant mercy, so Ferris was right. If they'd left him alone, Subarugius would have ravaged the village.

According to Kobayashi-san, at the time of this recording he still didn't have much data on Petelgeuse, so it took a lot of effort, but truly masterful skill.

This is information nobody asked for, but the name of the merchant Witch Cultist who exploded during the sponsor card is Kety Muttart. He's known Otto for quite a long time, and he's one piece of evidence that Witch Cultists are mixed into ordinary people's lives. Which means Otto had ties with someone who was half Petelgeuse. Scary.

Well then, thanks again for this week! The new edit version is already at its final episode next week! If there hadn't been a delay, Season 2 would have started the week after next, and that's seriously wild to think about. I was totally not mentally prepared for that! See you again next week! Check it out!