Reunion with the Witch / Starting Life from Zero in Another World

Re: Starting Life in Another World, new edit Episode 2, here we gooo!

Ah, it's an Unnamed Memory commercial!!

It's started!

It's tense right from the start, but after The Frozen Bond, I think this level of anger makes sense.

Looking back now, it's funny that this heroine-like flashback is about Felt, not Subaru.

Oh, it's the openinggg!!

Watching calmly, you can see all sorts of things scattered throughout this OP. An OP where the title appears right at the chorus feels pretty unusual, and it really gives that "Director Watanabe~~!" feeling, doesn't it!

Tonchinkan for the third time. For the record, the alley where he runs into these three is different every time, but he still runs into them because they were targeting Subaru in the first place.

For the first time here, while on the verge of death, he succeeds in acquiring the not-very-useful-to-most-people skill of gathering whatever information he can before he dies.

Subaru did kendo, so "the shame of swordsmen" works just fine!

The shopkeeper nearby is looking at Subaru muttering to himself with obvious discomfort, and honestly that reaction is the standard one. The fruit seller who tried to give water and ringa to a collapsed guy was just a good man.

The tomato falling and getting run over here symbolically represents the deaths so far, but I remember heated discussion over whether he should drop a ringa or a tomato, and what exactly should go rolling. By the way, in the world of Re:Zero, tomatoes are called "tometo."

The way she rather recklessly fires off attacks makes you feel like you're catching a glimpse of Emilia-tan's core nature.

Since he's heading for the slums as his destination in the first place, he has to end up going through back alleys, so running into Tonchinkan is unavoidable.

Oops, this is a major branching point.

"That's far enough." In Re:Zero, that's a line that gets deliberately used at quite a few memorable moments. Reinhard and Emilia use it a lot.

Since Reinhard looks unmistakably like a knight at a glance, Subaru tries to properly adopt a respectful attitude. Also, Reinhard's remarks basically never contain sarcasm or spite, so even against Tonchinkan, he was genuinely intending to fight without letting his guard down.

You could call him "sort of a guard-like thing."

The reason Subaru doesn't ask Reinhard for help here is that he isn't actually thinking about driving Elsa off in the first place. Subaru's goals are recovering the insignia and making sure Emilia, Felt, and Rom-jii are safe, so defeating Elsa comes second.

It's nice how Reinhard touches his sword here.

Wait, looking closely just now, didn't Subaru run into her chest?

Elsa lip-licking, part two! At the point of anime Season 1, Elsa-san is the tallest among the women. I think Crusch-san is second.

It's the self-defense ojisan! Uncle from Another World is seriously incredible, hilarious, highly recommended.

This is Felt's shabby little nest. She stopped living with Rom-jii in the stolen-goods store and started living here instead, so of course Rom-jii would want to tell her, "Come back anytime."

In the old version, this scene made Episode 2 feel like it had less movement, so this was added with the image of a Jackie Chan-style action scene with Felt. I feel like Subaru has watched every Jackie movie. My favorite is Wheels on Meals.

"And your enemy as well."

Felt doesn't particularly think of herself as beautiful or cute; it's just an extension of her casual trash talk. Still, just like last week, Felt is cute from every angle.

I don't know who first said “Live strong,” but the meaning of any words changes depending on the person saying them and the feelings behind them.

Last time, the loop changed at the point where Emilia talked with the lesser spirits, but this time it's an event with Felt. Also, Felt is probably biting him for real.

Subaru-kun thought that if he led the two of them outside in the course of all this, he could get them away from Elsa.

By the way, on the first run, Felt went to negotiate with Elsa before Subaru arrived. She probably started by trying to raise the price from 10 sacred gold coins, then pushed for more than 20, which caused the negotiations to break down and got her killed.

Watching Subaru start talking about doing things for someone else without compensation, Felt decides she doesn't like him. Trying to preach altruism to a kid raised in the slums doesn't exactly resonate.

Normally, Felt asks people in the slums to interfere so Emilia will arrive late to the stolen-goods store. But this time, because she came with Subaru, she didn't use those little tricks, and so Emilia ended up getting to the stolen-goods store unusually early.

Emilia knows people dislike her because of her origins, but when someone asks about them, she has no reason to lie, so if asked, she will always answer that she's a half-elf. She believes lying about her origins would be dishonest to both herself and others.

Elsa-san basically isn't very interested in whether she's at an advantage or disadvantage, so she never thinks, "There are too many of them, so I'd better not..." That's why she'll just charge in normally even if there are a lot of opponents.

"Remember me... as you die!"

The way Elsa-san moves, it's almost like her hands and feet have suction cups on them. I feel like this free-roaming, all-directions style really defined how Elsa-san fights from then on.

Not glass slippers, but ice slippers. Since they're shaving off the soles of your feet, they hurt a lot.

Spinning Elsa-san here is just incredibly satisfying to watch.

I really like this kind of scene where someone stands on top of the other person's weapon.

If Felt hadn't knocked the weapon aside here, Rom-jii's head would have been split clean in two.

The thought, "Should I 'Return by Death' one more time?" is only natural when you're dealing with 'Return by Death,' but I try not to let that reset mindset take root if I can help it. That's why Subaru has to suffer and die. I won't let him die easily.

"I don't want to die," and "Get away from the dangerous ones" are both ways of thinking from Subaru that I really like, and it's nice that they're already showing up as early as Arc 1.

This trump card here is a reference to "Frozen Bonds." If that came crashing out here with a bang, then of course no one but Emilia would be left standing.

The reason Subaru is able to fight at least a little here is the same as during his second death: Elsa is toying with him. Though Emilia is deflecting any slashes that aren't just play.

Kyaah! Reinhard-sama!!

Basically, if Reinhard shows up, victory is guaranteed, but the hard part is that no one except Reinhard is a guaranteed win.

The fact that no one responds when Felt asks for help here really says "slums." This is Felt and Reinhard's first meeting, and these two are Re:Zero's classic royal road route. Subaru's on the offbeat route, isn't he?

Felt and Reinhard's meeting feels like something out of a shoujo manga probably because I like shoujo manga... I was a Ribon reader.

The way Elsa-san moves from here on is great because it makes it obvious she was blatantly holding back when she was fighting Subaru and Emilia. Superhuman vs. superhuman really ought to look like this.

By the way, Elsa-san's combat ability is unquestionably among the top tier in the Re:Zero world. She'd put up a good fight against Wilhelm-san. So, well... yeah, she just had bad luck with her opponent.

"Bowel Hunter" Elsa Granhiert. Reinhard van Astrea, of the "Sword Saint" bloodline. In the Re:Zero world, it's customary for the strong to announce themselves to each other.

I think Reinhard probably really did just swing his sword kind of hard.

When Subaru's playing the fool properly, Emilia-tan steps in as the straight man.

Just now, the knife missed even without Reinhard doing anything because of Reinhard's Divine Protection of Arrow Evasion. Projectiles simply do not hit Reinhard.

I really love the fierce intensity of the camera here.

Elsa-san is usually composed and unshakable, so I think the only scene where she was genuinely irritated was this exact moment, when Subaru protected Emilia.

Rom-jii is sleeping with absurdly good posture here.

Way more blood comes out than the author imagined.

Healing magic can close wounds, but it can't replenish lost blood, so after suffering a serious injury, I think you'd fall into a pretty severe state of anemia. Even so, people in this world probably recover quickly, with things like mana in the body giving their blood production at least a bit of a boost.

The insignia glows, just faintly. It was fate that Reinhard was here.

By the way, Felt says she's 15, but she's fudging her age, so she's actually 14. In the setting, Felt's birthday is August 8, but that's actually the day Rom-jii found her.

The way Reinhard knocked Felt unconscious was basically by interfering with Felt's gate and rapidly draining her mana. Reinhard can't use magic, but instead he channels his vast reserves of mana into enhancing his physical abilities.

Styx Helix... what a great song...

Bondrewd-kyo...

Man, with an hour every week, even Arc 1 wraps up in two weeks! So fast! If you think of it as two episodes at a time, Re:Zero Season 1 divides up incredibly neatly... no way, did they plan for that...?

Well, obviously not, but anyway, thanks for joining me again this week! Starting next week, we're heading into Arc 2! The setting changes, the cast changes, and the atmosphere gets a complete refresh, so please keep enjoying Re:Zero! See you again next week!