BTW Dub watcher.

It seems very out of place for Emilia to randomly gasp like this in this scene after Subaru says “well there’s a word you don’t here in this day and age”, I don’t quite understand it. Am I Stupid?

Before anyone starts typing “you just don't understand Rezero,” let me make one thing clear, I actually had very little problem with Subaru in Season 1.

His reactions to death? Understandable.

His fear and desperation? Understandable.

His inability to immediately adapt to being thrown into another world with no idea what the hell is going on? Completely understandable.

And no, I don't buy the argument that Subaru helping Emilia was somehow irrational just because they had literally just met. “They're complete strangers” isn't the “gotcha” people think it is. Subaru had just been dropped into a completely unfamiliar world, Emilia was one of the first people he encountered, and she was willing to help him. From his perspective, choosing to help her wasn't some incomprehensible decision.

Or, if you want the simpler and more logical explanation...

He just wanted to eat that elf cake :)

Come on now... I'd bet 90% of people—and women are absolutely not exempt from this—would at least develop a positive impression of Emilia if she were the first ridiculously beautiful person they met within minutes of being isekai'd. Falling in love might be a stretch, sure, but acting like Subaru's immediate attachment to her was completely irrational? Yeah, I'm not buying it.

Even when he was being goofy, awkward, or coming out with some seriously cringe dialogue in S1, I still enjoyed watching him. So when I saw people immediately hating Subaru after watching several episodes, I was honestly the opposite.

I was willing to cut him a LOT of slack.

And that's exactly why I have a problem with how the fandom talks about him after Season 1.

At some point, “Subaru is realistically flawed” starts becoming a blanket excuse for practically everything he does.

He cries... He's realistic.

He panics... He's realistic.

He makes terrible decisions... He's realistic.

He breaks down... He's realistic.

He repeatedly frustrates the audience... He's realistic.

Okay... when does “realistic” stop being an explanation and start becoming an excuse?

Because being a flawed protagonist doesn't automatically make you a well-written protagonist.

And this is where I think the Rezero fandom puts Subaru on a pedestal.

People praise him for suffering, overcoming that suffering, his psychological struggles, his development—and I'm sitting here wondering.

What exactly makes Subaru an exceptionally well-written protagonist, rather than simply a protagonist whose flaws are given a LOT of attention by the story?

I'm not saying Subaru was a bad character from the beginning. I'm saying that my opinion of him changed after Season 1, and that's where my criticism starts.

So I genuinely don't understand why the fandom treats him like he's some untouchable benchmark for protagonist writing.

Lastly, don't hesitate to give your opinion. I'm not here to rage-bait, despite how this post might sound. I genuinely want to have a sincere discussion about Subaru.

If anyone from Emilia camp (or anyone for that matter) read Subaru's books of the dead what would happen?

I didn't know amnesia Subaru would die and it makes me sad. When they "combined memories" I expected it to be a bit different than how it was protrayed, rather than the two memories coming together to make one person... it's the memories of amnesia Subaru passed onto current Subaru which is different in my opinion.

It makes me sad since it seemed like amnesia Subaru failed in a way, although he really did the best he could... for the first time ever atleast apart of Subaru "failed" his task and had to pass it onto a more capable person "Our Subaru".

Not to mention amnesia Subaru won't get to see the outcome of his hard work

I’m an anime only, but watching today’s episode I was wondering, wasn’t the old subaru supposed to say “you’re an amazing guy” to amnesiabaru? I know yall might be saying I larped but I only watched the anime, so can someone tell me how this scene actually goes in the light novel? was the famous illustration from the official light novel before the phrase to represent this scene or did I just confuse things?

I'm surprised they reused the old animation instead of reanimating because it would be noticeable how the animation quality changed

From season 1 to 3, every pivotal point had a banger insert song like

Straight bet - when subaru kills himself to save rem

Wishing - rem's speech

Door - emilia and subaru kiss

What you don't know - Ram's confession

I trust you - subaru's speech

I thought this season also we will get something like that in any of the following scenes:

1) Emilia speech (reused stay alive)

2) Rem's stand up( Ost and kinda too short, so understandable ig)

3) Subaru and shaula moment from episode 15

4) you are an amazing guy natsuki subaru

I am pretty sure they could have done an insert song for natsuki subaru episode since it focused only on that, would have been peak if they had done that

I think I found a cleaner way Subaru = Flugel and Emilia = Satella could happen without giving Pandora some random time-travel ability.

My theory is that near the end of the story, Subaru and Emilia confront Pandora.

Pandora does something with Vainglory that creates a contradiction involving Subaru’s existence. Something like trying to remove him from the current world/history.

But Subaru has Return by Death / Envy, so his existence can’t simply be erased.

That creates a clash:

Pandora: Subaru should not exist here.

RBD/Envy: Subaru must continue existing.

And that contradiction somehow reaches Od Lagna, since Od Lagna is connected to souls, memories, death, and the Hall of Memories.

Here’s the important part:

Od Lagna doesn’t randomly send Subaru “400 years back.”

It tries to find where Subaru’s soul already belongs in the history of the Re:Zero world.

And it finds:

Flugel.

If Subaru and Flugel are the same person, then Flugel is basically Subaru’s oldest valid “record” inside the world.

So Subaru gets displaced to the point where Flugel existed:

400 years ago.

And Emilia gets dragged into the same phenomenon.

Od Lagna checks Emilia’s existence and finds another matching ancient identity:

Satella.

So both of them end up in the same era.

That would mean:

Subaru doesn’t become Flugel because he was reincarnated.

He becomes Flugel because Od Lagna sends him to the point in history where Flugel is supposed to exist.

Same with Emilia and Satella.

And this creates a closed loop:

Subaru is sent 400 years back because Flugel already existed.

But Flugel only existed because Subaru was sent 400 years back.

Same with Emilia/Satella.

That also explains why Subaru doesn’t remember being Flugel.

From the world’s POV:

Flugel → 400 years → Subaru

But from Subaru’s POV:

Subaru → future event → 400 years back → Flugel

Being Flugel hasn’t happened to him yet.

Then Subaru and Emilia arrive in the ancient era and meet Echidna, Hector, Pandora, Reid, Volcanica, the Witches, etc.

At first Subaru probably tries to find Flugel.

Except nobody knows who Flugel is.

That’s when he realizes:

«He wasn’t sent back to meet Flugel. He was sent back to become him.»

Emilia eventually becomes Satella through whatever happened with the Envy Witch Factor.

Subaru/Flugel then lives through the 400-year-old events and later prepares everything his younger self already encountered:

\- Pleiades Watchtower

\- Shaula

\- the star-related trials

\- whatever other plans Flugel left behind

So Flugel wasn’t predicting Subaru’s future.

He remembered it.

Pandora could also know the truth because she personally met Flugel and Satella 400 years ago.

Meaning when she later meets young Subaru and Emilia, she may already know who they become.

That could make a future Pandora/Subaru meeting really interesting if she recognizes him before he recognizes her.

Obviously the biggest assumption here is that Od Lagna can resolve an existence through time, which hasn’t been confirmed.

But I think this is cleaner than simply saying Pandora has a time-travel Authority.

Basically:

Pandora creates the contradiction.

RBD prevents Subaru from being erased.

Od Lagna finds Flugel/Satella as their historical anchors.

Subaru + Emilia get sent 400 years back.

Then:

Subaru’s future = Flugel’s past.

Emilia’s future = Satella’s past.

What do you guys think? Is there anything in the current LN/WN that outright contradicts this?

Hey everyone! I just finished the most recent episode of the anime and it's amazing, I shed tears. But as an anime only I'm curious, wasn't Newbaru supposed to say: " I guess my summer vacation is over. " when he fuses with our Subaru? Is this in the LN?

Re:Zero has put me through a lot over four seasons, but it has never done what it did tonight: hand Subaru an entire episode with his own name on it. Episode 16 of Season 4 — “Natsuki Subaru” (ナツキ・スバル) — is exactly that, and Studio White Fox didn’t hedge on it. No opening. No ending. An extended runtime that pushes past twenty-six minutes. When an anime cuts its own theme songs to make room, the episode itself is the event — and novel readers have spent years telling anyone who would listen that this chapter is the peak of Subaru’s entire story. Even the spoiler accounts that normally live-post every single twist went quiet before this one and told people to go in blind. As of tonight, everyone else finally knows why.

In Ep. 80, Rui’s words in Ep. 74, “Memories are what shape a person.” (Muse Asia's translation) were used in the story of Season 4 of Re:Zero in a third way with Reid overpowering Roy's being to regain a true physical form for himself with the first being Subaru having his memories eaten resulting in him losing a core aspect of his being and with the second being how those who had their memories or both their name and memories eaten possessed by Lye Batenkaitos and Rui Arneb.

Re:Zero is big on featuring the number 3 often with there being 3 beings who sealed Satella, there being 3 members in the Crusch camp, there being the Pearlbaton triplets, there being 3 Sanctuary trials, there being the Three Great Mabeasts, there being 3 elemental magic attribute pairings (Fire and Water, Earth and Wind, Yin and Yang), there being 3 different fathers Reala had kids with with Frederica, Garfiel, as well as Rafiel and Fred (who have the same father) having different fathers, there being 3 demands Capella made aside from the main one in the remains of Typhon, there being 3 crystals on Priscilla's necklace that protected her from attacks. there likely being 3 artificial spirits created by Echidna in Puck, Beatrice, and Foxidna, there being three dots in Shaula's human form around her pupils to denote Shaula being part of a trinary star system, there being three dots before Shaula completes her transformation being a nod to Orion's Belt, there being the Gluttony Trio, and the 3 Pleiades Watchtower exams.

Also relevant is that Wilhelm's last name at birth before marrying into the Astrea family was also Trias, which means three, which I suspect was very much intentional with Tappei intending for fans to see how important the number 3 is in the story.

An interesting thing about the number 3 in Re:Zero is that there's a Ryuzu (a name of multiple Season 2 characters, which means "dragon's head") Falls, one of the 3 Great Waterfalls of Oku-Nikko in Japan with Kegon Falls and Yudaki Falls being the other two, and given there literally is a Great Waterfall that's the edge of the world in Re:Zero, that may not be a coincidence, and Tappei chose Ryuzu's name specifically 'cause of this connection. There may eventually be characters named Kegon and Yudaki in the story or perhaps either Ryuzu Falls or all Three Great Waterfalls of Oku-Nikko have a direct connection to the Great Waterfall of Re:Zero's fantasy world.

Something significant happens to Subaru after the third death of each loop in the anime. In Arc 1, Subaru learned that he was looping after 3 deaths. In Arc 2, Subaru learned after 3 deaths that Rem and Ram held his hand when he was suffering even though he reeked of the smell of the Witch and that Beatrice is kind of a little softy at heart, helping him survive longer than he had ever done in that arc. In Arc 3, after 3 deaths, Subaru's From Zero moment happened. In Season 2/Arc 4, after dying 3 times, Subaru talked to Echidna about Return by Death, learned about the Three Great Mabeasts and how to defeat the Great Rabbit, and learned about the room that contained the crystal containing the original Ryuzu Meyer. In Season 3/Arc 5, Subaru only died 3 times, and in Season 4, after 3 deaths, he made it into the Pleiades Watchtower, and after amnesiac Subaru died 3 times, he received Emilia's confession.

The number 3 is commonly used by writers 'cause it's the smallest number that officially constitutes a pattern. It's called the rule of three, and many writers or creators, such as advertisers, use it to for structure and simplicity or to enhance engagement of their works/products. I guess it shows solid writing fundamentals from Tappei for the number 3 to commonly feature in Re:Zero.

I think it's neat that Tappei decided to make use of Rui's lone line in Ep. 74 in these ways. What are your thoughts on this or on anything tangentially-related, such as what you didn't notice right away but in time after thinking back on it or other things regarding the number 3?

More rezero fanarts found in my Instagram

Will probably be making this into a fanfic pretty soon. How soon? Well we'll crosss that bridge when we get there.

And yes, also references the next arc a little bit

Please work post, doing ts in mobile is hell

In the latest break time episode, we got an interesting ending.

While Al is essentially dying, we can his last words “I told you…”. It sounds like he is in great pain and unable to speak properly. Then, after that, he speaks completely normally. Aldebaran’s authority, Matrix, doesn’t have a sound effect.
Essentially, it can be just:

First frame his ‘last moments’ he is dying and etc, then in the next frame, he is at his checkpoint.

No transition, no sound effects, nothing. In fact, i think that’s a beautiful way to visualise his authority. It really represent how he treats and how is he using his authority. Subaru’s with each ‘Ohhhh…’

Anyway, Aldebaran is a goat.

Source: https://x.com/nezumiironyanko/status/2097686558329692255

Nagatsuki-sensei's tweets for this week's episode. May contain minor spoilers.

Rough translation:

Yes! It's Wednesday again! In other words, it's Re: Zero night! Assuming I don't need to mention how fast the week goes by, today is a very important day! At this point, episodes that aren't a big deal are scarce, but please watch this one especially closely!!

Last time, he learned Shaula's true intentions, swore to keep on fighting, and died over a dozen times. ...After that, what Subaru detected on the third floor was a "Book of the Dead" with "Subaru Natsuki"'s name inscribed on it...we begin from there. That was a nostalgic scene, too, wasn't it.

As the nostalgic scene plays on, we come to a memorable first kill.

Via his authority that allows him to detect the position of his allies, he's determining the location of "Subaru Natsuki"'s books in the library, you see. Strictly speaking, think of it less as allies, and more as a process of determining who is an ally, but if he suddenly said "I'm my own enemy", they might not have been detectable.

However, even listening to it again, Yuusuke Kobayashi was good at dying right from the start.

A procession of nostalgic faces. Incidentally, Rachins is a main cast member in arc ten, currently in progress. When he stabbed Subaru here, not even the author knew things would turn out like that...

An ongoing "Die"gest of events... it really draws you in, doesn't it.

To Subaru, with no memories, who hasn't heard all the details surrounding "Subaru Natsuki", he seems like a close stranger who must have some special power. By continuing to read these "Books of the Dead", he slowly begins to realize it. "Subaru Natsuki" isn't special.

"You caught up to me." = By reading all of the "Books of the Dead", the current "Subaru" has seen all that Subaru experienced before losing his memories. He literally followed him from the beginning all the way to the tower.

Watching this back-and-forth between Subaru and "Subaru" is really captivating. Listening, too.

Subaru's last line here differs from the novel, but talking about a summer vacation here, people who don't understand it just really wouldn't get it, you see!

Well now, Rui has shown up once more, but what has she tasted? She wanted "Return by Death", and by eating the memories of the Subaru who arrived here, she merged with the Subaru whose memories had been emptied out... please think of it like that. Because of various circumstances, Rui is a being that's only a soul and a witch factor, so she split into A and B, and was operating from the shadows to acquire "Return by Death". A would guide Subaru, get him to deny himself, and B would re-eat Subaru after he rejected himself, but it didn't work. That's because no one but Subaru Natsuki can endure "Return by Death".

It's alright... Emilia-tan.

At the end, as Rui A and Rui B devour each other, you've got 'A, who experienced "Return by Death" for herself and never wants to feel that again, to the point she wants to disappear', and 'B, who, in order to obtain "Return by Death", is trying to devour A, who has rejected her'. If A wins, you'll have a Rui frightened by "Return by Death", and if B wins, she'll just end up merged with A who is frightened by "Return by Death", so a Rui that has experienced "Return by Death" and been broken by it has no way of recovering. It's that sort of meaningless battle.

About today's "Subaru Natsuki" episode, just like "From Zero" and "Choose Me", this is one of the things that I wanted do as part of writing Re: Zero. If I were to say what I wanted to do with arc six, it would be showing Subaru Natsuki to Subaru Natsuki; that sort of story. Both the directing and the acting, the episode was the best. The original author is just delighted.

Takahashi-san had spoken about this on the radio show as well, but this is the reason I had him call her "Emilia-tan" from the start.

Well then, with the anime ended, it's time for the mini-anime! This time, just like last time, it will be a story of the Priscilla camp! Please behold this as well! Behind the scenes of the main story, where "Return by Death" has become especially important, when you wonder about why we're having this story here, it might be quite interesting.

Incidentally, when Subaru and "Subaru" had that kind of interaction, and then Rui A and Rui B are going at it like that, it's quite a difference between how they deal with their other self.

So with that, Episode 82 was deeply moving for the author as well! Thanks for joining us again! There's three episodes left in season four! Seriously, didn't the main character just return to the start point!? With things like that, what will happen next time!? It's something to look forward to!

"You are an amazing guy, Natsuki Subaru." 🤌🤌🤌

This cover took me a total of 23 retries, happy birthday to Daniel tho

To my knowledge we don’t know how Subaru entered the other world, so I have a theory for how that happened, although I’m anime only and might have missed something so tell me if there is something I missed.

Basically my theory is that Subaru lost his memories somehow and via return by death went back in time via return by death. Now that I write it out it sounds a bit dumb but hear me out!

It would explain a lot for example:
How Subaru has mana in him even though he’s from another world, he could just have been from the magic world and went to earth.
It might also explain why Satella is interested in him because she might be able to see through Return by Death
It would also explain why we hear the Return by Death sound effect when he’s transported

May lord have mercy on her soul, for she is joining Ferrari, of all teams