There are very few modern franchises of which I think fondly other than Re:Zero, which started, as many of its kind do, in the Japanese web-novel circle back in 2012. It turned into regular light novels, then anime, then manga. The anime itself is tremendously popular, with its excellent adaptation of the sixth arc now ongoing on the fourth season of the anime. Opening for the fourth season below:

The author struck gold from the start: an isekai story, which tend to be power fantasies, in which the protagonist is one of the weakest characters by far. Personality-wise, he starts out as awkward, embarrassing, performative, and with a you-owe-me mentality that became one of the first major conflicts in the story, when he gets himself beaten to a pulp by a flashy knight, then rejected by his love interest. Subaru, which is the protagonist’s name, is a flawed kid with a lot of growing up to do. And grow up he does, until we come to see him as mostly admirable.

In the beginning, the protagonist’s sole power is a curse: time resets whenever he dies. But he suffers each death, which takes a tremendous toll on his psyche. At one point early on, he completely breaks down mentally and intends to flee, only for one of the bonds he made in this new world to convince him otherwise. As if his curse wasn’t enough, he’s also prohibited from telling anyone about it, lest his own or other people’s hearts burst.

I find the worldbuilding of this series fascinating. It’s, of course, a sword & sorcery universe based loosely around high-medieval Europe. But there are contrasting or even contradicting elements that make the characters and plots unique. You have your run-of-the-mill elemental magic. Then you have spirit contracts, in which spirits, created or not, can be contracted to serve a human being. Then you have the witch factors: supernatural powers above all magic and spirit powers, which can rewrite reality; the whole notion of characters able to eat people’s memories, not only those people’s own memories but other people’s memories of the victim, is absolutely brilliant, and used to great effect in the series. Finally, we get bug-level powers like those carried by a single person at a time through heredity, which are in-story treated as a universal break in logic.

Plenty of the situations presented in this story could only happen here. Like the hunt for the White Whale, an ancient creature created by a godlike being; the whale flies around seemingly without aim, and is treated as a natural disaster that casually can erase people from other people’s memories, even rewriting reality to retroactively remove them from their past. The battle against it involves a whole army as well as loads of supernatural bullshit. The worldbuilding and story are the kind of uniquely strange and absurd, yet played straight, that only the Japanese seem to know how to do it anymore.

I love the colorful cast of characters. Apart from the protagonist, we have the half-elf, half-witch Emilia, who could have been played as a simple romantic interest; instead, she’s awkward, sheltered, naïve, and treats Subaru more like her own child than a love interest. Ram, an abrasive child prodigy who had her power stolen, her kin slaughtered, and is often the sole person keeping it together under pressure. Rem, a vicious, flail-wielding demon who is as likely to crush someone’s head as to pour her whole reserves of empathy into you. Beatrice, a solitary, reserved bookish type with a speech tic whom, I suppose, spent hundreds of years in a library because nobody would come for her. Julius, a kid raised in poverty who decided to become the best knight in the kingdom, and for whom the straightjacket of that position has become an inevitable way of life. Priscilla, a gorgeous, arrogant bastard of a woman who is nonetheless extraordinarily competent and is as likely as to call you a commoner and chop your head off than to instantly slice a bunch of demonic beasts into pieces. I could go on and on. This series is notorious for creating memorable characters.

I have my gripes with the series. I love the colorful, distinct visual style in general, although it clashes with the inherent darkness of the story. But at times, particularly during the second season of the anime by the end, as far as I recall, it sinks into a childishness that took be a bit out of it. I’m remembering now Emilia believing that she got pregnant out of a simple kiss. Echoing a certain stick swinger from a later arc, don’t let her go outside. I must also admit that I find the sin archbishops a bit grating at times.

Speaking of inherent darkness, this clip from the fourth season is a great recent example of how fucking dark it can get. Of which I can remember now, it’s my favorite of those dark moments. And you should absolutely not watch it if you intend to watch the whole series. Not that it will make much sense even if you do.

Due to autism, I have a peculiar relationship with shows. In real life, looking at human faces disturbs me. Whatever part of my brain should process them properly doesn’t. I can’t properly put it into words; all I know is that real human faces look wrong, I can’t interpret them properly, and the whole thing makes me want to look away. Very common for autists. It also happens when I watch movies or TV shows featuring regular humans. Getting into a series for me involves getting over my intense dislike of watching human beings interacting with each other as well as emoting. But that doesn’t happen with anime.

Anyway, if you like anime, particularly the genuinely, uncompromisingly Japanese anime, you should likely be watching Re:Zero already. Or reading the light novels. I’m already at volume 28.

I’ll have to mention that, for whatever reason, back in 2020-2021, I wrote a lot of Re:Zero fanfiction. I quit when the narrative neared the end of the second season of the anime, because my take had diverged significantly from the original. Here’s my interpretation of when Subaru met the godlike Witch of Greed, Echidna (a favorite character of mine). The video below is how that meeting played out in the original.