Tag: light novels

Some thoughts on Re:Zero

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

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.

Review: Mushoku Tensei, Vol. 12, by Rifujin na Magonote

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

Three-and-a-half stars.

I love me some isekai. If you pay any attention to my words, you know this already. It’s the quintessential boys’ fantasy: explore some fantastic places cut off from this repulsive Earth; exploit newly-gained, generally undeserved powers; meet cool people mostly of the attractive, female persuasion then have sex with them; possibly marry one or more of those gals before or after impregnating them; enjoy the fact that you will never, ever have to deal with Earth and its people again.

This time, our hero starts at the lowest point of his life: after two decades of parasitizing his parents as a hikikomori due to relentless bullying in high school, his parents died. Instead of attending the funeral, he spent that day jerking off to child porn (or loli hentai), a fact that bothered his siblings enough to beat him up and throw him into the streets. As he wandered in a daze, the mythical creature known as Truck-kun deigned to make a visit and transport the protagonist, along with a couple of people nearby, to death, and later on to a fantasy world.

Our protagonist gets reincarnated as a baby that retains the memories of his harrowing past life. In this new one he’s Rudeus Greyrat, son of a horny swordfighter and a lively mage, who had retired from adventuring to start a family together. Rudeus is overjoyed by the fact that he’s been given a second chance at life, but mainly that he’s able to suck on a hottie’s tits on a regular basis, and that the grown-ups around him forgive him for his relentless perversion. The anime adaptation did a good job rendering this, as seen below:

Anyway, lots of shit happens, as it tends to do. I read this volume of the light novel to catch up with the anime adaptation, that has just finished its second season. I’m discussing spoilers from now on, so read on only if you already know what happens, or you don’t care to find out this way.

<spoilers>That whole magic displacement incident that teleported Rudeus’ family, as well as the redheaded terror and his childhood elvish friend, to random corners of the world, has led him to organize a spelunking raid to a teleporter labyrinth where his mother is supposed to be trapped. We accompany Rudeus along with his scumbag father Paul, blue-haired loli and magician Roxy Migurdia, their monkey-man scout, a gay dwarf, and a promiscuous grandma as they bond with each other and fight monsters. First they rescue Roxy, who falls in love with adult Rudeus because he saved her from the brink of death. Finally they face a hydra, and although they defeat it, they suffer a devastating loss. Rudeus also ends up maimed.

The biggest difference from the anime adaptation happens when they’re nursing their wounds back at the inn. Rudeus is depressed in a similar way as he’s been in the past (for example during his episode of erectile dysfunction). This time, Rudeus’ grandma-in-law suggests Roxy that she should fuck Rudeus to get him out of his funk. In the anime, Roxy drags Rudeus to bed and mounts him. In the original, she’s about to stand up when Rudeus pulls her down and fucks her roughly. He barely considers the fact that he’s cheating on his pregnant wife. Later on, his grandma-in-law deceives our protagonist by stating that he’s impregnated the blue-haired magician, in order for him to take responsibility, as the Japanese love to say, and make Roxy his second wife. Other than those significant changes that made me lose some respect for both characters, the anime adaptation is faithful to the rest, even verbatim for plenty of the dialogue. The author is involved with the adaptation, so maybe those changes are a very late revision of the original work.</spoilers>

What else can I say? If you like Mushoku Tensei, you’ve likely watched the anime, so you knew what to expect from this volume. This is a story about the pains and struggles of growing up, rising from rock bottom to becoming a more or less respectable family man, processed through the Japanese charm you know and love (if you know and love it), and free from the politics that have corrupted every aspect of Western culture. This story also makes polygamy quite appetizing.