Re:Zero - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating
 

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire 25 episodes of Re:Zero ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
• Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun :)

1st arc--B

Mansion arc--C+

Everything else--A-

Coasting between B+ and A- at the moment

Animation Quality: 8
Pretty decent althroughout. There were some exceptional scenes but there were also some that looked, eh, funny. An example would be the Betelguese fight at the end of ep 24.

Voice Actors: 10
Not much to say here, really. Voice acting has been amazing for the whole run. Most notably for Subaru, Rem, and Betelguese. Emilia too.

Script: 8
Some dialogue felt a bit too cheesy to me. Still works though.

Soundtrack: 10

Editing: 10

Enjoyment: 10
Definitely kept me entertained throughout.

Emotional Involvement: 10
Pretty much the primary reason I enjoyed the series so much.

Strong start, but towards the end it somewhow just fell flat.

Best show of the season for me, both from spring and summer

Well, this was a nice ride. I haven't felt such a connection to a series quite like this in a while. I've fallen in love with most of the characters, specially Subaru and Rem, but I can understand why he has such strong feelings for Emilia-tan. :D

The music and the editing were absolutely integral in keeping me engrossed - and the extra minutes we got from the episodes without the OP or ED were very nice, in that regard. In all, I'm gonna miss this little series - and I hope we get more (I'm buying the LNs, whenever they come out - and they're gonna take a while, won't they?), so, here's hoping!

10/10, from me! :D

I've said this before but overall Re:Zero was the AOTY imo.

Now if I go into details, the story starts as another Isekai generic one without much improvement or unique elements, and this was just by the first episode, but since then re:zero managed to change little by little into something expectacular with nice character development, interesting cliffhangers and what is even more important at least for me, a great story that leaves you with the hype at 1000%.

Subaru is a really good MC who literally shitted on every other generic MC out there just for one thing, the episode where he finally gave up and Rem "saved" him from all this despair. Everyone was thinking how despicable Subaru was all those episodes from arc 1 and arc 2 but suddenly the viewers realized Subaru itself already knew that and he hated himself for that, that's good writting right there. Another thing that makes him a good character is the fact that he's not an overpowered summoned character that can win anything just by moving a single finger, he's powerless, he's weak and he has nothing to gave in exchange, obviously this changed when the time comes but not after a lot of effort and sacrificing his own mental stability to the point that he was broken.

As for the female characters, everyone was gorgeous but for me Emilia and Rem were the best without a doubt, especially Rem who was at his side even when everyone else turned their backs to Subaru leaving him alone. Emilia on the other side is someone who learned how to be happy thanks to Subaru, she was alone and everyone hated her just for her looks (some kind of racism) but at least she was able to find someone who's willing to give his own life to save her, someone who really loves her.

It was a really good ride and for sure one of the best series in the last 2 years, I really hope White Fox keep in their minds the idea of a second season because Re:Zero deserves it.

I disagree on one point. Re:Zero distinguished itself from the generic isekai in the first episode. Guy was transported to another world without any cheats or purpose. The first episode was basically destroying any delusions he had.

Re:Zero was probably the first series in years that I enjoyed enough for it reach "must drop everything and watch" status on its air date. Initially scanning the season previews this was initially thought by me to be "mildly interesting, I'll give it a try and see if it'll do as a guilty fantasy fix pleasure." Wow was I wrong and lucky at the same time. This series was amazing and it hooked you in from the start.

The characters and plot left you consistently wanting more with excellent development, suspense, and intrigue. White Fox itself deserves extra praise because they truly went the extra mile in this production. Everything from the double length first episode to the constant opening cuts to squeeze in more content showed how well they did with this series. It's not just the extras either. The direction of episodes like Ep. 15 was amazing.

This was a 10/10 series for me. The only controversial point was how the last episode ended. After the ruckus caused by that thread I finally had to spoil myself to understand what the heck everyone was having a fit about, but in the end, I think it was done exactly the way it should have been given that particular limitation without knowing for sure about the potential for a Season 2. Here's to hoping there will be one in the future!

Animation Quality: 7
I've seen worse, I've seen better. I've definitely seen better from out of White Fox specifically. But overall, the visuals definitely leaned towards the good end of the spectrum. Props to them for making a handful of important scenes exceptionally beautiful and/or appropriately horrific.

Voice Actors: 10
Zero complaints. Everyone was fantastic is this department.

Script: 7
Other novel authors have done a much better job of weaving lots of seemingly unconnected plot treads together, in my opinion. However, Re:Zero did it much better than most. And the character development/drama, in most cases, was excellent.

Soundtrack: 8
Not amazing enough to make me want to own it, but still very fitting and nicely composed. A handful of songs are what I'd consider some of the best tracks of the year.

Editing: ???
I don't really have any strong feelings on this.

Enjoyment: 7
I was entertained enough to stick with it, impressed enough to keep paying attention.

Emotional Involvement: 5
A lot of my personal attachment to a series banks on how I feel about the protagonist. And despite everything I saw... I still hate Subaru at the end of the day. I don't care about how much he's grown. I don't care about how his motivations morphed over time. I don't care about his occasional moments of brilliance. I just can't stand the character. I solely watched this show for just about any and every other character besides him, and that tainted how emotionally invested I felt in the series as a whole.


Final Verdict: A strong 7

I thought it was superb. The pacing of it all was really great and even after the high point towards the middle, it still kept up the awesomeness. The cliff hangers were good and they get super bonus point from me for skipping the OP and ED as needed. The true victory comes from the source material, but they did a great job adapting it and all. The art and music was great and the voicework good. It's a shame it had to end, there was a time where I really disliked our protag, but that is what make it great for me at the same time. He was not perfect. No super power. No instant harem. I wish the series went on more so we can see Subaru shine more and put the bad parts of himself behind us. But... it was great. I really enjoyed it.

I give it a 10/10.

Let's go over the things I like about the Re:Zero anime.

1: Excellent pacing. Almost never is the show too slow or too fast. Probably helped how many eps didn't have an OP and ED sequence, but unlike many other LN animes, it doesn't suffer here thanks to that and clever editing.

2: Excellent characterization. There aren't any moeblobs, shallow tsunderes, one-note villains, and what have you. Some, especially Subaru, Rem and Wilhelm, have a surprising amount of depth to them. It also helps how Subaru is better than roughly 90 percent of all male leads of the last decade.

3: THAT MUSIC. Already better than certain overhyped composers which will remain anonymous. Suehiro Kenichiro is a name I'll remember in the future. The OST did a great job of selling whatever was happening on screen. It was never annoying nor out of place. The first ED was superb.

4: The voice acting. Just about everyone sounded excellent. There's no stuntcasting nor otaku baiting with the casting, and the performances themselves are about as good as I can determine for someone not fluent in Japanese. If there's an English dub, I fear it may not equal the Japanese, for it's that good.

5: The setting. It's a fantasy setting, but not another riff of The Lord of the Rings. Sure, there's epic battles to the death, but that's hardly the only thing going on. Political intrigue with the royal selection, the displacement of the poor outside the capitol city, the oni culture, the cult of the witch, it all adds up to impressive world building.

6: The romance. Show of hands; how many of you are tired of animes having two or more characters obviously attracted to one another, only to NEVER make ANY progress until the very last second? Not so here. Regardless of how you feel about the feelings of Subaru, Emilia and Rem, I have not seen an anime handle romance this well since.....shit, since Clannad? Probably not that far back, but yeah, another exception to the rule.

7: NO ONE COUR RUN!!!!!!!! This is perhaps the best thing about the Re:Zero anime. Unlike nearly every new anime of this decade, the runtime is not forced into 1 cour. This, perhaps more than anything else, gave the show time to develop its setting, characters, and a chance for the show's developments to appear naturally, instead of out of nowhere.

Now, things I'm iffy on.

1: Some of the dialog. Being based off a web/light novel, there's obviously going to be more chatting than most other animes. This is fine, as R:Z's dialog is above average, though some of it does come across as melodramatic. Then again, remember that most of the major characters are teenagers, and teens are more likely to be emotional (emo? Does anyone still say that?) than most others. It all depends on taste.

2: The art. It's about above average. Not a strikingly beautiful show most of the time. I like some of the character designs, and some of the fight scenes have good animation, but it's still a tv show, not a theatrical movie. At the very least, it looks better than that one episode of Psycho-Pass when it first aired.

And now the bad.

1: I HATE Elsa's design. Her character and voice are fine, but I don't care if it's make-believe; no woman with a torso that small could have knockers that huge. She's not human, I tell you! Uncanny valley in the chest!

2: Subaru, for all of his awesomeness, still has traces of the dreaded "self-insert" cliche in his character. What was his life back on Earth? Did he have friends? A love interest? Does he want to go back to Earth? Can he return to Earth? These are never mentioned in the anime. Maybe later in the LN, something is mentioned? I don't know, but I do think there was and still is potential for him to be even more detailed.

Mark this down as 9.5/10 for me. This needs a 2nd season. Best tv anime since Hunter X Hunter 2011, as far as I'm concerned.

Same for me.

And I have to say, when I heard about this show, didn't expect much... boy was I wrong.

Loved it !


Kiznaiver and Macross Delta were shows that I was anticipating & very excited about... both of them turned out to be real disappointments.

Kiznaiver was a disappointment for me because it felt rushed, if they only had 24 episodes... just like Kill la Kill.

As for Macross Delta, sure they had a 26 episodes streak... but really, even if they had 50, it would still be a lost cause for me.

It started strong but then it side pushed important plot points, went in never ending circles for too long and barely made progress. Not to mention forced romance with Emilia and lots of happy conclusions. I would say too happy especially for last arc that started so promising. The last redo should have never happened, it was at a good point.

And that Beetle guy was a disaster, could not stand him.

For me it's strong 6, weak 7.

If season 2 ever happens, I hope it focuses on more important stuff a bit more. And if author fancies romance with Emilia that much, he better focus on it more too.

started strong but sucked in the end, had some nice moments

Animation Quality: 8

Rather good. I have almost no complaints here. I like the Elsa vs Reinhard and Emilia vs one of the fingers battle.

Voice Actors: 8

Ah, my brain trembles... ahahaha.

Script: 8

Episode 18 with Rem

Soundtrack: 8

And almost all battles had good bgm.

Enjoyment: 8

I would not be posting here if I didn't enjoy this. And I would also be proposing to my cosplayer friends for an Emilia and Rem cosplay. Hopefully we have enough budget. >__<

Emotional Involvement: 8

Episode 18. :)

The Elsa VS everyone + Reinhardt fight was pretty amazing. Still my favorite episode of the series.

Agreed that those fight scenes are awesome. Too bad we did not see Elsa in later episodes. Maybe she would show up again if ever we have season 2. :)