The Sound of Chains / Natsuki Subaru's Restart

Alright! It's time for Re:Zero's new edited version again this week! Today covers episodes 6 and 7! Fast!

Last time, what happened to Subaru after that shocking eyeball-rolling scene? He died! And now we continue from there. Thanks in advance.

Out of all the ways he's died so far, that was by far the roughest one.

From Ram and Rem's point of view, the moment they came to check on the injured person, he suddenly screamed and writhed in agony, so yeah, that was pretty shocking.

"What day is it, and what time is it right now?" feels like an indispensable line in any time-related story. Having a convenience store and a newspaper would be ideal too, but obviously this world doesn't have those.

So there's an OP, but no commercials.

He backs away from Ram and Rem for the moment and heads to another room to calm down and organize his thoughts. I'm kind of like that too, but do you ever find yourself pacing around the room while thinking or talking on the phone?

It's true, they probably don't air out the books in the forbidden library or anything. That said, I imagine this is still a place where even bugs can't come and go without Beatrice's permission.

I get the feeling that "un ga tsuku" wasn't something Puck taught her, but rather one of those bits of old knowledge Emilia-tan picked up on her own.

Puck uses water magic here, but while Puck's affinity is as a fire spirit, he can use other kinds of magic reasonably well too. As you'll see later, he can use yin magic properly as well.

The only time Subaru almost killed Emilia here was when he nearly made her die laughing... ah, no, no, let's not talk about that this week.

The "Subaru" in "Natsuki Subaru" is the name of a star, so "my first star" is meant to be Subaru's best pickup line. For all that, the timing of it is... questionable.

Last time, he tried to do the exact same thing as in the first loop, but failed. The logic is that the moment he starts acting with the thought, "I'll do the same thing as last time," his behavior is already different from the first time, so a perfect reenactment is impossible.

Nee-sama reacts differently every time with a sneeze, a burp, or a yawn, but you can tell this isn't just a physiological response, it's Ram consciously doing it to change the subject at the breakfast table.

By choosing the position of a guest rather than that of a fellow servant, the sense of distance between him and Ram and Rem has grown considerably. It's ironic: compared to the first loop, he wants to help them more, yet their favorability toward him has gone down.

"Jujutsushi"

Beatrice says mana drain is easy, but only a limited number of people can actually do it, so it's not as simple as she makes it sound. It's not a difficult technique if you have the talent for it, though. It's a matter of aptitude.

I feel like I mentioned last time that healing magic doesn't restore lost blood. It's not quite right to say that Beatrice's healing magic is remarkable, but for the moment, Beatrice put the guts that were spilling out back in.

That Overlord game commercial has an incredible hellish feel when Ainz-sama and Petelgeuse are placed on either side.

When it comes strictly to Emilia's safety, Puck is surprisingly reasonable. On most other matters, he's usually just going along with the mood of the moment.

The tea Ram brews is one of the few household tasks where she is clearly better than Rem, but Subaru has a child's palate, so he doesn't really like tea in the first place. Even with coffee, he can't drink it unless it's as sweet as cafe au lait.

Of all folktales, the author likes “The Red Ogre Who Cried” best, but this caused quite a dispute in the script meetings. How well-known is it? How much do we need to explain for the story to be understood properly? It might have been the part of the first cour that required the most script-revision discussions.

At any rate, this is a story Ram is hearing for the first time, so it has to be explained in a way that even someone new to it can understand... That's Kobayashi-san's achievement, but listening to it like this, Subaru seems like he'd be good at dramatic readings.

On the other hand, I wonder how Rem would react if she were the one hearing "The Red Ogre Who Cried." Well, I think she'd probably end up with the opposite opinion from Ram after all.

The real reason Nee-sama rejects talk of the Witch is something for season 2.

Looking at it like this, I really did lay down foreshadowing for things way later on properly! What a needlessly complicated thing to do, author!

Come to think of it, I decided what to do with the cup ramen and the corn potage snacks, but what happened to that plastic bag... That's a valuable item in its own right, isn't it?

At this point, he's wearing the lifeline not so much because he's on guard against being attacked, but so that if something happens at the mansion, he can climb down the cliff and rush over immediately. It worked out in the end.

With that one dodge, Subaru used up all his luck...

Of course, if it turns into a contest of pulling on the chain, he doesn't stand a chance at all, but since she couldn't finish him in one blow, it created room to hear him out, so she properly shows herself. Very dutiful.

Of course, this is the true identity of the iron ball that hit Subaru directly at the mansion last time, along with the sound of the chain he heard. I wrote the story of how Rem came to meet this morning star in the season 1 BD bonus novel. It wasn't exactly a deeply moving encounter, though!

Considering it was useful in Arc 1, Arc 2, and Arc 3, maybe a cellphone really is indispensable overtechnology for isekai stories?

This is the most central question of all.

Ram's true intentions in how she treats Subaru aren't actually all that bloodthirsty. Because every time he goes through "Return by Death," the situation resets with Rem's initial favorability toward him lowered, Ram was basically standing between them so her little sister and Subaru wouldn't interact too much.

If you look closely, you can tell Rem isn't doing anything here, and that final line is pretty suggestive too. That last strike that gouged out Subaru's throat was Ram, who was watching the scene from a distance, putting him out of his misery. I guess this counts as a mercy killing too...

First penalty.

In many works, whether or not others will believe the looped character tends to be the main focus, but because Re:Zero's restart point changes from arc to arc, there was a possibility that same exchange would have to be repeated over and over, so I removed that condition from the setup.

I figured it would be a bit much to keep repeating, "I don't know if you'll believe me, but..." over and over. So instead, the condition is that he simply can't talk about "Return by Death." Why the Witch forbids it will come much later.

The Witch's scent is what this world calls miasma, but clearly sensing it for what it is also requires a certain degree of aptitude. At Roswaal's mansion, only Rem and Beatrice can tell.

Beatrice says she doesn't like being relied on, but she's exactly the type who gets relied on, so in that sense Subaru picked the best possible person to lean on.

Subaru wants to get through X-Day, the day the tragedy occurs, no matter what. This time he couldn't choose the servant route, so he's in the guest position... and not even by his own choice, but because things just drifted that way, which makes it harder for Emilia and the others to intervene too.

Thanks to Beatrice, Subaru has recovered quite a bit mentally. The light is back in his eyes.

At any rate, since Beatrice came and went, the door Subaru and Beatrice came out of should be the same place... in theory. Connecting it to a sunny hallway might have been Beatrice showing consideration, perhaps. At this point, even Betty still doesn't fully grasp what happened.

Subaru speaking so fast here is probably partly because he's happy to have gotten past X-Day, but also because Emilia's reaction is giving him a bad feeling.

I don't know what will happen going forward, but I doubt I'll ever write a scene where Ram is more shaken than she is here.

By the way, Roswaal is being fairly serious here.

From the wind magic that cleanly slashed his cheek here, Subaru became certain who it was that cleanly slashed his own neck in the forest last time.

If only he could have revealed “Return by Death,” he probably wouldn't have needed to run away. But cornered, with the pain of the penalty still vivid, Subaru ended up fleeing. If even Subaru, who had an arm torn off, is terrified of it, the penalty must be extremely painful. Well, even if your arm gets torn off, your heart would still hurt, though.

This cliff gets used again much later on too.

How bad do things have to get before it's acceptable to die in order to try again? That's not something I really want to think about, but at the very least, Subaru couldn't bring himself to commit suicide just to run away.

For all that, Beatrice and the Ram-Rem sisters have actually known each other for a long time. It's not like they interacted all that often, but the span of time itself was long.

Eek! It got me!

"STRAIGHT BET" is just too cool, and because of what the Japanese translation implies, I even brought it back into the original novel as a chapter title. Still, what a great insert song.

I think big sis is pushing herself pretty hard here, but if she'd gotten serious at this point, Subaru and Beatrice would have been taken out instantly...

Subaru's line here is still one of my all-time favorites, and I've written quite a lot of Re:Zero by now.

This is the branching point here.

Personally, I love how he flew off looking that cool, and then right at the end they mercilessly slapped on that SE while the subtitle card came up.

Hmm, that was fast. But the whole atmosphere changed!

From here begins Natsuki Subaru's comeback story! Whether it really turns out that way or not... stay tuned for next week!!