The Permafrost of Elior Forest

Alright, it's time for Re:Zero again this week! We've been in the past arc since the episode before last, but that looks like it's about to be settled too. Please don't miss it to the very end!

An, an opening...!?

Packed with spoilers, so this couldn't possibly have been shown from the start of the second cour.

But there are no commercials!!

Last time, Emilia was taken away to safety by Arch, but before leaving the forest, she chose to come back at the fork in the road, thinking that if she let Pandora and the others achieve their goal... The one who gave her that push was the lesser spirit that had been helping Emilia do things like break out all this time.

"Dig up the whole forest" (loaded phrasing)

Emilia desperately thinks about how she has to open it somehow. Naturally, she doesn't know how to open it, and she doesn't know where the key is either. But if she doesn't say she'll do it, she has no idea what will happen to Fortuna and Juice. Scary.

The promise with Fortuna not to open the seal. Emilia chose to keep that promise. This choice further engraves in Emilia how important the act of "keeping promises" is. Because what happened in this forest is the result of Emilia keeping her promise.

From Fortuna and Juice's perspective, it must have felt like Pandora said something like, "I have some business to attend to, so if you'll excuse me," in the middle of their fight, and then slipped away to the place of the seal. I suppose they split up and searched the forest for Pandora.

The Pandora-sama show.

Given the situation, it is what it is, but if you actually listen carefully to everything Pandora-sama says, only what she's saying is fairly reasonable. Regulus has a bit of that too.

The difference between what happened in Juice's field of vision and what actually happened. Because you merely "mistook what you saw."

Matsuoka-san's performance here is incredible, you can truly hear the signs of Juice changing into Petelgeuse. We got to see the beginning of him going mad. You all must have heard it too.

Fortuna's words, like delirious muttering. We won't learn the details of what Emilia's parents entrusted to her and what promise they made with her until much later, but her story ends here...

This is where it begins.

Pandora-sama does not understand the human heart.

This is the biggest reason why Emilia places such strong importance on "promises."

Forgetting these memories, remaining frozen while only her body grew, and then spending some time after being awakened by Puck, that's the story of "Frozen Bonds." Then Roswaal finds her there, and she leaves the forest in order to stand as a Royal Selection candidate... and that's the main story.

Echidna just really wants to be snide.

Looking at it like this, even though it's just doodling, it somehow looks like they did something incredibly romantic...

Otto-camp!

"Battle makeup for a battle you can't afford to lose." If Roswaal really followed that jinx, then Roswaal, who was always wearing makeup, was always prepared for battle. Because his lonely struggle is that he can never let his guard down in front of Subaru.

To begin with, Subaru brought Otto along under the pretense of "letting him meet Roswaal," and yet Subaru had cleanly and completely failed to tell him anything at all. If Subaru hadn't made that little blunder, Arc 4 might have been completely unwinnable, depending on how things went.

If you go along with the logic of, "Isn't it the main heroine's job to get the protagonist back on their feet when they're in a pinch?" then the protagonist of Re:Zero is Emilia, and the heroine is...

That "False Royal Selection Candidate" that aired during the commercial, the author actually supervised it pretty intensely, so I think it's turned into a really interesting story! If you'd like, send me your thoughts! I don't know how to abbreviate it, so I can't search for it!

So, with that, thank you for sticking with us again this week, even though there was an OP but still no commercials as usual. There was a lot this time: Emilia's past, Fortuna's end, and the reason Juice becomes Petelgeuse... but carrying all that with her, Emilia moves forward. Do your best, Emilia! Don't lose to Echidna's snide remarks!