笑@NotNikSmh
So... I watched the Re:Zero Season 4 Episodes 1 & 2.
After watching this, I can confidently say that, the episodes were absolutely insane and episode 2 gave me lots of goosebumps. My heart was racing and I felt so engrossed in the episode, that I felt the same fear that Subaru was feeling. It was awesome.
There was no Opening nor Ending, but the pacing was veryyyy good. I didn't feel as if anything was rushed, nor did anything feel slow. It is perfect so far.
Current rating: ∞/10
I will go into spoilers from here on out, so please be wary if you are an anime only.
So episode 1 started out with the rebuilding of Priestella. Everyone helping out and the shots were great, just like season 3. This episode was, for the majority of it, exposition and closing Arc 5.
There was talk about trying to save the victims of Gluttony and Lust. Anastasia talked about Shaula, and said that talking to her, can lead to helping the victims. They also mention that they need to head to the Augria Sand Dunes to reach the Watchtower that Shaula is in, and that Reinhardt tried to go there once for a mission, and was unable to approach the Watchtower.
Then, they split up groups and have Sirius be sent to the Royal Guard (the shot of Sirius tied up was SO cool. She looked badass being chained up in the cage.) And then the main group head to Roswaal's mansion. On the way there, we see the reveal of Eridna. It's a nice and well-made scene, with Subaru thinking of Echidna and getting the Microwave Echidna Evil Smile Jumpscare lol. Also the Season 2 sanctuary OST was playing and it was very nice. Great misunderstand with Subaru thinking it was Eridna's fault of Arc 5 and thinking it was the Witch of Greed. The overall scene was awesome and I loved it.
Then, they meet Meili at the mansion, because they need her help with her divine protection that can manipulate Mabeasts. The talk with Meili was very cute and it was rather short. It was a short talk so I didn't feel like it was rushed or anything. It was cute that they had Subaru trying to ask Meili to help them, but Meili was like "just spit it out already" while Subaru was mumbling over his words to ask for her help. Also, there was some subtle foreshadowing in the way that Meili, who decided to lock herself up in the mansion to stay safe from Mama (Capella), was suddenly completely OK with leaving to help Subaru and co. (which im guessing is foreshadowing for the revenge she wants to transpire on Subaru for what he did to Elsa).
Next we see some interactions with Julius and his feelings about being forgotten + losing Julius. We see Subaru helping him out and being all serious and cool and telling him how shitty Gluttony is and that they'll save everyone. Afterword, we get some nighttime shots with Subaru and Ram and Ram insults Subaru as usual. Then she also asks why Subaru is going to the Augria Sand Dunes and he just says that he wants to be there when Rem wakes up, to be the first person she sees. Great moment, with the scene ending with Subaru entering Rem's room and swearing he'll get her back.
Lastly, we have GTR (Gorgeous Tiger Reloaded). I love seeing this be adapted. I read the WN so I didn't actually know what was going to happen. Seeing Garfiel break down and reveal himself to his mom was such a great, moving moment that I was tearing up. The moment was beautiful, with it ending on a lighthearted moment as Garfiel realizes that the 2 younger siblings he has are named Fred and Rafiel (and how it is just like Frederica and Garfiel). The anime makes this coincidence really obvious and its a cute moment.
Now..... here comes episode 2!
The episode starts with us seeing Subaru in his Aura Monster outfit, and Emilia in her sexy Fortuna outfit. Great ways to showcase them, and also show Julius and Meili shortly after. We see Meili getting eaten up by Yosef (the ground dragon) and Julius teaches Subaru that you can stroke the bottom chin/neck of the ground dragon in order to get him to calm down. We also see more foreshadowing when Meili says to Subaru, "Don't leave me alone with Patrasche, she'll eat me!" and Subaru replies with, "Eat you? She won't eat you! Patrasche is a vegetarian!" which is a great foreshadowing scene for the cave scene which will probably be next episode. We finish off the scene with showing Rem in her wheelchair, and Ram. And everyone sets off with their goodbyes to Petra and Frederica and Roswaal.
Right when they leave the mansion on the ground dragon cart, it cuts to a sandy environment, showing the area of the first trailer of Season 4. Where Subaru and Emilia enter the pub and order milk. They talk to the bartender and he warns them to not go to the Watchtower. Subaru and Emilia are obviously set on going, but they take the bartender advice on how dangerous it is, and we see a later shot of the bartender who lost his leg to the Mabeasts. He also gives important advice that if they are lost, look for a bird in the sky. If they are lucky, the bird will guide them.
The scene moves on with the group getting together in the ground dragon cart, and they have some banter and witty humor. Julius also mentions that his connections to his spirits through contracts are now all wack because they have forgotten Julius. So he's basically nerfed in combat now.
Subaru and co. enter the harsh sandstorms when they continue their journey on getting closer to the Watchtower. While in the sandstorms, Subaru wonders if there are no Mabeasts because they haven't seen one yet and asks Meili. Meili replies that yes, there is but she is keeping them at bay. She shows proof by having a giant Sand Worm appear out of nowhere and show itself in front of everyone. Very cool mogging and flexing moment by Meili. She is indeed better than all the rest (lol).
The journey continues as it becomes nighttime and they take a campfire on the sand, with Emilia making a dome of ice to protect them. We see Emilia helping Ram with her broken horn.
The next day comes as they get closer to the Watchtower, but they get to the point where now, no matter how far further they continue, the Watchtower doesn't get any closer. Eridna explains this with her fingers and basically explains Gojo's infinity, that we can't approach the tower.
We see Ram use her Clairvoyance to help the group out, so they can find the birds in order to follow it to escape the space-time warping magic trick that is happening with the Watchtower. They find it and they are able to Break Through Sand Time (Title Card!)! Right onto some flowers.....
We see Subaru get excited that they are on out of the space-time warping magic trick and he even makes Beako lift up her arms and say "Banzai" which was sooooo freaking cute, i loved it. Subaru also realizes how odd that they are on a flower bed....
Meili hushes the group as an Oiranguma appears from the flower bed. She is able to use her power to start heading away slowly, but it looks like she can't easily manipulate them, only a little bit.... But then, emergency strikes when Yosef senses the Mabeasts in front of him and goes berserk. He screams and the Oiranguma retaliates by screaming and waking the other Oiranguma up. Now, the group are on a sprint away to run towards the Watchtower.
While on the sprint towards the tower, Ram tells Subaru to head toward the front to lead the way and help guide them towards the tower since they need to go straight. Subaru does this, and then he faces his first death. A sniped shot right through the forehead. His head just immediately explodes like a cherry. The moment before, we see the needle through his eyeball's reflection and see it as a white light. It was super cool, and right when it connects to his head, we get another shot from behind him, as if we were a passenger on Patrasche, and see Subaru's head pop from that angle. The blood splatter and gore was TOP NOTCH!! I loved how sudden and epic that first death was!
Subaru respawns right when they left the Sand Time and approach the first Oiranguma. Meili hushes him again and he starts freaking out, since he didn't even realize he died. It happened so fast that he wasn't sure what even happened. At the moment of his death, we see the iconic respawn sound effect of RBD that we heard in Season 3 ep 2. But this time, it's followed by Re:Zero OST 08 Reverse. That OST from Season 1 was soooooo good that I got goosebumps! It truly put us in Subaru's mind and his mental state. He was like... "WTF just happened? What?!?"
He later locks in once Yosef screams and alerts the first Oiranguma and makes it scream for the other Oiranguma again. Some of the same scenes occur with it being different angles and different shots from the first loop, but its the same events. We also saw Meili use her Sand Worm like she did in the trailer to fight the Oiranguma army. Subaru also helps out more by using Beako to create Minya and attack some Oiranguma. Subaru changes things by telling Ram that he isn't going to go front, and that going straight is super dangerous. Ram is confronting him, and asking why, but Emilia cuts in and says to just Believe in Subaru and that his intuition is always perfect. It's a really nice and wholesome moment as Emilia sticks up for Subaru and basically tells off Ram to listen to Subaru. They end up turning left towards the tower instead of straight. After this, we get an abrupt and a REALLY cool shot, of a needle hitting the Sand Worm and making it explode completely. The head is completely obliterated and the body falls down on Subaru and co.
Because of this, Subaru & Beako are seperated from the group, and they start to worry because the group are heading straight to the tower and they are left behind. Subaru also mentions Regulus here and shit-talks him and says that his attacks were much easier to dodge. While Subaru and Beako are freaking out about behind left behind, and trying to think of a plan, we can hear Subaru already sounding more harsh and his tone shift to be more anger-prone. We know this is because of the miasma although anime onlys won't know this. Shortly after Subaru tells Beako "I know! I'm thinking!! (in response on a way reconnect with the others)" We see another white light as it narrows onto Subaru and tries to shoot him down. But, Patrasche aka best girl comes in and tries to tank it for Subaru (just like the scene from the trailer). There is TONS of gore as we see Patrasche's innards and intestines start seeping out and her ribcage/skeleton is mushed up and exposed. The bleeding to just stack onto that. IT'S FUCKED UP! We also see the Beatrice crying scene as she calls for Subaru and she starts sobbing uncontrollably because Subaru was still fatally hit. We see Subaru's innards start seeping out and bleeding uncontrollably, but no bones this time. Beako is crying profusely, saying "Don't die! Don't die! Don't leave me all alone! Don't leave Betty all alone!" which honestly breaks my heart to hear. But we don't have much time to take in the emotional scene, because we see an outer shot, showcasing the environment around them, and see another white light come from the Watchtower, and it pierces through, hitting Beako and causing quite a bit explosion. Then we see Beako laying on Subaru's body, as her body dissipates like it did when she died in Season 2. It was very sudden and gives you goosebumps. Subaru's eye moves in the same cut that we see in the latest trailer, and we see one last ray of light as it aims for Subaru's head and shoots him again while he's laying there. (Note: there was no invisible providence usage to stop Beako's tears like in the WN. I'm not sure if this is in the LN or if it was only removed from the anime, but that kinda makes me sad)
Subaru returns by death again, while the Call of the Witch OST is playing and we truly feel despair. We see Meili again say "tsk tsk tsk" to the Oiranguma to get it to go away silently. Subaru locks the fuck in immediately, and tells Beako, "愛してる (aishiteru/I love you)" and then covers her mouth and he hugs her and uses Invisible Providence to stroke Yosef underneath his chin/neck to calm him down, assuring he doesn't scream and cause havoc to occur again.
This time around, they can safely gauge the Watchtower and Subaru mentions the white light to the group. He says its dangerous and they have to be extra cautious. Ram brings up his intuition again and asks him, "is this from your intuition?" which Subaru replies, "Uh... yeah" solemnly. Ram replies to Subaru with, "了解 (Ryokai/Got it)" and Subaru is surprised because this time, she's listening to him with upmost confidence and not questioning his intuition like she did last loop. Emilia backs up Ram and is like, "It's your intuition right? Then it's best to be extra cautious I think!" (W EMT!!!)
This scene gets kinda bloody afterword, when Ram suddenly closes her eyes and her Clairvoyance kicks in and her eye starts bleeding profusely. We see what Ram sees, and its a lock-on sight to Subaru's head. (More foreshadowing since it's Shaula's POV and Shaula is a Mabeast and that isn't stated until later on.)
We see a bright light fly through the air again, as Emilia retaliates immediately with her putting up barriers of Ice to block it, but it breaks through and we see the worry on Emilia's face..... It's so good! The character acting this season is sooo good that I just can't get enough. The needle is ABOUT to hit Subaru, but Julius locks TF in and hits the needle to the ground before it touches Subaru (JuliSuba?).
Ram warns that there will be more, and Subaru n Beako lock in and use EMT to make a magic-nullifying barrier so that Julius can easily swat the magic-less needles as if it's nothing.
The episode approaches it's end as while the magic-nullifying barrier is up, the ground starts shaking beneath them, and they all get spleefed as they start falling. The last shot is of the area around them starts to close the crater that was open, and we see a pan-up to the Watchtower, then a close-up of Shaula's mouth as she smirks and says "Found you" (this is the same scene from the trailer)
Episode name: 「砂時間を超えろ」"Break through Sand Time"
Final thoughts:
These first two episodes to welcome us back into the season were PERFECT. We had the rest of Arc 5 wrapped up in episode 1, and gave us the reasoning and exposition for Arc 6, then episode 2 got us into the flow of what Season 4 will be like, with the vibe and everything. First starting off lighthearted, then as we reach the sand environment, things get more irritable and off-putting. And now we're in the deep-end, and are in some serious shit. The gore and animation were just PERFECT, and the CGI was sooo well-done (the Oiranguma had quite a bit of CGI but it felt really nice and clean when I watched it. It wasn't out of place or anything.) The character acting was just out of this WORLD. Garfiel with his mom and spilling out his feelings, Subaru and his fear that transcended the screen and made us feel fear with him, Beako and her sadness when Subaru was hit. The tears were beautifully animated. Emilia and her acting when she was backing up Subaru as well as her protective face when Subaru was about to get shot. Julius when he was locked in so he can protect Subaru and when he was feeling sorrow bc of Gluttony, Eridna when she exposed herself to Subaru since Subaru found out that she isn't Anastasia. And Meili's smug expressions when on the dragon cart, protecting everyone from the Mabeasts. It was all so well made and I just absolutely loved this start to Season 4. I can't wait to see how this progresses. Anyways, thanks for reading this long ass thread.
Final rating: ∞^∞/10
