"Re: ZERO -Starting Life in Another World" is a psychological and dark anime packed with emotions and tells a meaningful story where some quotes rise to the surface, still remarking nostalgic feelings to watch again.
As I was watching Youtube I found some abstracts- "All I do is talk a big game, and make myself sound like a big shot when I can't do anything, I never do anything yet I can complain like a pro. Who do I think I am? It's amazing that I can live like this and not feel ashamed."
It is a dialogue by Natsuki Subaru; the main character in the anime "Re: ZERO" to Rem when he failed to save people he cared for. This sentence deeply touched me as I feel it is relatable to my life of failure. I had been failing in my study for the last two years but I always complained about the environment instead of acknowledging my own mistake. The abstract triggered my mind to scan my condition. Thus, it is a relatable anime for me and is on my favourite list as I learned "Correcting myself is better than complaining to others. "
The anime starts off exactly like it's going to be a painful cliche, boring, moe piece of stereotypical fantasy series. But as we continue watching, every episode ends on a cliffhanger making it thrilling and exciting at the same time. Every character is given time to progress and develop. Opposite of typical anime where every hero is a superhero, it has an average human being as the main character, Subaru, who is sucked into a fantasy world. He is woefully weak, useless, and pathetic compared to most people around him. Subaru is a self-proclaimed otaku who is living a real-life in-game type world like respawning.
Multiple traumatic events make Subaru slowly transform from the bright optimistic person he was original to a full-on-mental breakdown. He is mentally and physically beaten down repeatedly. The extreme circumstances make Subaru adapt and get stronger. Re: ZERO is primarily about the character flow of Subaru growing and learning. In some episodes, the audience complains about his childish and annoying behaviour, but with every failure, there is the character development of Subaru, making him the finest character in anime.
I don't want to spoil the intense plot of the anime. However, to shorten the plot, Subaru gets killed, he ends up seeing others die around him going through all of that pain and at the end of the day, he just ploughs back to a checkpoint after dying. It shows that act of dying is not a pretty thing. It is reflected in his words - "I wish people who say 'I'd rather die' would actually die before they say it so that they'll know how I feel." The story keeps on moving because Subaru is forced to find a way to fix things so that he won't die and the people he cares about won't die either- "I guess as long as I have life, all I can do is the fight will all my might." Through repeated testing, he learns the value of group work- "Rely on those around you instead of thinking about stuff alone."
Apart from Subaru, Rem is my second favourite character in the anime. She is a true lover, warrior and motivator. Her word - "When you said that you hate yourself, it made me want to tell you all wonderful things I know about you" is an inspiration to Subaru who had started hating himself.
To conclude, Season 1 was a banger, Season 2 got weird but ended strong. This intense anime gives you a roller coaster ride of emotion. Bright colours, magic, and humanoid beings at the beginning would want you to guess this anime as a stereotypical fantasy but watch out for how ironically it proves you wrong.
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