Re:Zero Review – Starting Life in Another World

Re Zero Complete Review

Are you bored of always watching the same sensationalist series released by Netflix? Do you feel like escaping from the real world for a few hours and enjoy a good dose of entertainment? Have you been looking for years for a good anime series that will make you love this genre again and get you hooked to the screen from beginning to end?

Then maybe what you need is to start watching one of the most famous anime series of recent years and that is already available on Netflix causing real furor: Re: Zero Starting Life in another world.

This anime, despite having been officially launched in Japan in 2016, has not become known worldwide until just under a year ago, at which time the streaming platform bet on it and managed to make it a resounding success in just a few weeks.

The reason for its success? Its great plot, along with an exquisite combination of audiovisual resources that manage to tell us an extremely tragic story with elegance and optimism. Rarely can you see anime series so well crafted artistically and with a realistic plot that manages to make all viewers connect with it and get excited with each new event.

Re: Zero Starting Life in another world tells a story that at first will sound familiar, as there are thousands of movies and books that refer to the power to return from the dead again and again, but how we are told, the quality of all its characters and side stories and the visual and sound work that its director Tappei Nagatsuki has created around the whole plot, get that a common argument is transformed into something unique that captivates all who end up giving it a chance.

Do you want to immerse yourself in a world of fantasy, tragedy, love, and self-improvement? Do you want to see up close how the human being is capable of making mistakes over and over again without giving up and how all those attempts make him grow and improve as a person? Then you have to watch Re: Zero Starting Life in another world and accompany Subaru throughout the 25 episodes in which he will face his worst fears.

Next, to convince you of this and to give you a better idea of everything you will find with this anime, we are going to make a complete review in which we will carefully evaluate its plot, its characters, the general dynamics of the series, the animation and the soundtrack.

Let’s get started!

General synopsis

Our story begins with the introduction of the main protagonist of the series Subaru Natsuki, a shy and sweet young man with a little character who lives locked up and that after leaving a convenience store is dragged into a new and unknown world, a place that later we would know with the name of Lugnica.

However, his arrival in this enigmatic place full of fantasy would not take long to give him his first scare when he is attacked by a violent gang of thugs. Luckily, before the gang brutally ends his life, Subaru is rescued by an enigmatic and attractive silver-haired woman who calls herself Satella (although he later discovers that her identity is different).

After this miraculous appearance and after a brief introduction between the two characters, Satella explains to him that she is on a mission to find an insignia of great power that was stolen from her and that it is of great importance to find it again to safeguard the welfare of the entire kingdom.

Subaru, impressed by the young woman’s rescue and deeply grateful for it, quickly offers to accompany her on her mission to recover this mysterious insignia; after all, he is also lost in this new world and will need the company to avoid falling into the trap of other thugs.

Satella accepts the help of the young man she has just met and they both set off in search of the badge, which does not take them too long and they manage to quickly reach the place where the object is supposedly located, preparing to have to face those who are guarding it.

However, all that will not happen because our two protagonists will be suddenly attacked by a mysterious shadow that has been following him throughout his journey and that kills them without regard.

And it is at that moment that the plot of the series comes to life, as Subaru Natsuki who has just been brutally murdered wakes up, opens his eyes, and realizes that he is not dead, that he remembers everything that has happened to him and that he is in the same place as he was at the beginning of the day.

However, there is a small problem: although he is safe and sound and remembers everything that happens to him before he dies, the rest of the people he has met do not remember anything, so every time he dies and wakes up it will be like starting all over again but being able to remember exactly everything that has led him to that moment.

The moment our protagonist realizes what is happening and that he has the power to “come back from the dead”, he sets out to change his destiny and that of those around him, his main objective being to save Satella (Emilia) from death and help her fight those who are after her and have stolen her precious insignia.

Throughout the 25 episodes that make up this exciting anime the protagonist will not stop facing death, sometimes in really tragic and unpleasant ways, but he will also learn to live and improve with each failure, gradually becoming a much stronger and mature young man.

Will he succeed? Will he be able to use his gift of coming back from the dead, again and again, to save the rest and put an end to the evil that lurks in this new realm he has reached? Enter Subaru’s adventure through the kingdom of Lugnica and find out!

Overall Rating

In general terms this series perfectly fulfills what it sets out to do from the beginning: captivate the viewer and make him stay attentive to everything that is happening to our protagonist through each of his deaths.

The producers of the series manage to give a fast pace to a plot that sometimes seems somewhat predictable and flat while introducing other visual and sound elements that make each of the scenes and key moments of the chapters are much more exciting.

The best part? Undoubtedly the personal growth through which our young and at first mediocre protagonist knows the bitter face of life and death, having to push himself many times to the limit for the love of others and enduring really painful events that will change him and make him be someone different in each chapter that passes.

Of course, this anime is not suitable for people too young whose personal intelligence is still developing. It is harsh, sometimes even sadistic and unpleasant to watch, but with a rich psychological background full of wisdom.

With each death and resurrection of our protagonist, the story arc changes and brings viewers new elements and plots that increasingly complicate the characters’ story, while also pushing Subaru’s strength further to the limit and making him face death in increasingly harsh ways.

Although the whole plot is very dramatic and with an uninterrupted halo of mystery, the producers of this anime have managed to perfectly introduce fantasy, love, and even humor among its chapters, creating a sublime mise-en-scene that makes you want to keep watching more and more without a break.

The continuous-time jumps, how the plot keeps reinventing itself and generating more and more interesting plot twists, the exquisite soundtrack, and the careful and full of fantasy atmosphere of a fairy tale, make this tragic story one of the best releases of the genre in the last decade.

We could not define Re: Zero Starting Life in another world with a single adjective because that would always be an understatement: love, tragedy, horror, terror, gore, intrigue, action, and fantasy. All these terms are adequate to summarize what this short but powerful series of time jumps and self-improvement can offer us. Not to be missed!

Art and animation

On the artistic level, this anime is simply beautiful, with very well crafted characters, full of details, and that manage to convey all kinds of emotions at the right moments of the action.

The color palette chosen for this anime is sublime, leaving us all spellbound in some scenes, especially in those where there are more emotional moments and the characters express themselves more clearly and need to connect and with the viewer.

The realization of all those intimate scenes between Satella and Subaru is probably the best of the anime, authentic jewels of realism, beauty, and good taste that make you can’t stop watching them.

While, at the beginning of the anime all the scenes and characters are very well developed artistically, as the plot progresses that level goes down (especially in the battle moments) and the overall quality of all the scenes is noticeably worse.

However, it is not something to which we should pay too much attention, since the logical thing in an anime of these characteristics is that in the first episodes the level of animation and characterization is much higher and that as the series progresses that level decreases; which does not imply that the series loses quality, nor that in the key moments the scenes lose the dynamics or the emotion they need.

In conclusion, the artistic part of Re:Zero Starting Life in another world is outstanding, since, despite its ups and downs in some episodes of the plot, it gives us authentic marvels of animation with scenes as beautiful as the ones shared by its two main characters as the end approaches.

A beautiful series that enters through the eyes and that will make you fall in love with each of its characters from beginning to end.

The Sound

Generally speaking, most anime always give us very good soundtracks and dubbing, and in the case of Re:Zero Starting Life in another world it happens again: beautiful and catchy main and secondary openings, while giving us a beautiful original soundtrack that will highlight each scene and will bring the right dose of drama, tension or emotion to perfection.

For their part, the voices of the characters are very well executed and manage to create the right atmosphere in each situation and give emotion and personality to each of them.

The soundtracks are a key element for a series that in itself is already good to be exceptional, because no matter how good the plot and the characterization of each character is, without a piece of good background music that enhances everything that is happening at that moment and fills each silence with personality and feelings, no series could ever be considered a masterpiece.

And that’s just what happens with Re: Zero Starting Life in another world, its soundtrack raises, even more, the level of a great series and turns each of its key scenes into unforgettable moments for the viewer.

The Characters

In terms of characters, this anime has the same problem as most problems nowadays: a large number of characters that often do not end up having the importance expected of them and end up appearing and disappearing from the action without attracting attention and without doing anything worth remembering.

Although Re: Zero Starting life in another world has a very extensive cast of secondary characters, in the second part of the anime and especially when the end is near, many of these characters that seem to be filler characters gain prominence and end up having one or another function in the story, although that does not make them stand out as it should.

Subaru, our main character, is not exactly the ideal protagonist you would expect from an anime, as he has no special ability that makes him stand out from the rest, except for the fact that he can resurrect with his memory intact over and over again.

Apart from this, our young protagonist is not a character with too many things to highlight, being a person of introverted character, clumsy, somewhat ignorant and puerile at times and with limited emotional skills, Subaru does not meet the profile of the hero you would expect for this type of story, and possibly that’s why you end up getting so fond of him.

And we must not forget that this character is dying and coming back to life throughout 25 episodes, in many of which he gets to experience really painful deaths that make him face his greatest fears being just a kid who is still in high school and who knows nothing about life.

These extreme situations will also make the viewer on many occasions not empathize with Subaru and sometimes even reject him and believe that he is cowardly or cruel, but the truth is that it is a very understandable attitude given the circumstances and that as the plot progresses is corrected, getting the viewer to quickly take pity on him.

As for Satella (Emilia) the main female character, many say that there are secondary characters, such as the maids, who get to have more minutes and dialogues than her, making a character that should be just as important as the main one fall many times into oblivion and not end up shining as expected.

However, despite the little prominence she is given throughout the series, Emilia is a nice, beautiful, and delicate character that will make any scene beautiful while serving to counterbalance the love-hate relationship we have with Subaru and his continuous mistakes.

It could be said that Emilia’s main function is to make the plot lighter, filling it with a sweet touch that we often miss with so much tragedy.

As for the rest of the secondary characters that appear throughout the plot, such as Ram or Loli Beatrice, along with the main antagonist Petelgeuse, they are very solid, with very clear personalities and functions in the series and that will make each chapter more entertaining and easy to watch.

So it could be said that this series fulfills one of the basic aspects that any manga should have: a very varied cast of characters with well-defined roles.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, this light novel is highly recommended to watch and will guarantee you long hours of thrilling entertainment.

However, being honest, not everything we see in this anime is positive, since the lack of development of some characters, the open ending, and the progressive loss of quality and development in some key scenes of the plot, make a very good series with a lot of potential to be much weaker than expected.

Even so, and despite all these negative aspects, with Re:Zero Starting Life in another world you will enjoy a lot (and also suffer) following very closely all the adventures of its main character and his friends.

Give it a chance!