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Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 [Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu] #9
Re：ゼロから始める異世界生活 9 [Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu, Vol. 9]
ペテルギウス・ロマネコンティとの死闘に敗れ、再び時を遡ったナツキ・スバル。激戦の余韻も尽きぬまま、舞い戻った世界でスバルは仲間たちと共に大罪司教攻略のための作戦を練る。他者の肉体を乗っ取る邪悪、その目論みを打ち砕くために。一方、ロズワール邸に残るエミリアも、屋敷周辺に潜む異変の存在に気付き、領民の安全のために言葉を尽くしていた。しかし、ここでも出自は壁となり、無力さに打ちひしがれるエミリア。そんな彼女の下を訪れたのは、『剣鬼』のもたらす光明で――。「君が自分の嫌いなところを十個言うなら、俺は君の好きなところを二千個言う」大人気Web小説、別れと再会の第九幕。第三章、王都再来編決着――!!
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 23, 2016
60 people are currently reading
488 people want to read
About the author
Tappei Nagatsuki
162 books264 followersAssociated Names:
Tappei Nagatsuki
長月 達平 (Japanese)
長月達平 (Traditional Chinese) / 长月达平 (Simplified Chinese)
Tappei Nagatsuki
長月 達平 (Japanese)
長月達平 (Traditional Chinese) / 长月达平 (Simplified Chinese)
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
September 15, 2019
3.5/5.
At last the 4th arc ends!
Subaru and Co. finally kill the Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult known as Sloth, aka Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti. And we found out that he was a Spirit! Who would have thought, right?
But despite the fact that we have a lovely, heart-warming scene where Subaru confesses his love for Emilia, things are not that well back in the City.
The 9th volume ends with a cliffhanger! Greed and Gluttony made their first appearance and one of them slices Crusch left arm off, and erases her memory, whilst Rem is being erased from other's memories as well, except for Subaru, of course.
So, at the end of the novel, Subaru promises that he will make things right again, somehow.
Now, in my opinion, the first half was almost boring. Honestly I was getting tired of Petelgeuse because he seemed indestructible. But when Subaru discovered that he was a Spirit it all made sense. I didn't see that coming.
What I loved the most about this volume it was, like I said, the lovely scene between Subaru and Emilia. I've been waiting for it since the first one. And man, they had been through all kinds of struggles. I've seen them cry and hurt and die. But they've grown and become better characters. They have their own flaws and fears and all things that make them more real, more human, that's it's obvious for me to root for them.
All the pain and suffering they experience is all worth those 5 minutes of pure happiness and joy.
We can truly see how much Subaru loves Emilia, and even though she hasn't given an answer to his feelings, if you have read the light novels, you know that she loves him too.
That's why the spin-off where Subaru and Rem are married and have kids, was so cringy. I was rolling my eyes the entire time and it felt like the author only wrote it for the sake of the fandom.
I mean, I accept and encourage that Rem is an important person for Subaru, and yes, she is amazing and he loves her, but not in the romantic way he loves Emilia.
Anyway, I am waiting for the next volume to come since it will be he first one where we don't have a clue of what will happen.
Also, they recently announced that there will be an animated season 2 and I'm so happy about it! I love the staff and I still listen to the soundtrack on a daily basis.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS:
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8
At last the 4th arc ends!
Subaru and Co. finally kill the Sin Archbishop of the Witch Cult known as Sloth, aka Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti. And we found out that he was a Spirit! Who would have thought, right?
But despite the fact that we have a lovely, heart-warming scene where Subaru confesses his love for Emilia, things are not that well back in the City.
The 9th volume ends with a cliffhanger! Greed and Gluttony made their first appearance and one of them slices Crusch left arm off, and erases her memory, whilst Rem is being erased from other's memories as well, except for Subaru, of course.
So, at the end of the novel, Subaru promises that he will make things right again, somehow.
Now, in my opinion, the first half was almost boring. Honestly I was getting tired of Petelgeuse because he seemed indestructible. But when Subaru discovered that he was a Spirit it all made sense. I didn't see that coming.
What I loved the most about this volume it was, like I said, the lovely scene between Subaru and Emilia. I've been waiting for it since the first one. And man, they had been through all kinds of struggles. I've seen them cry and hurt and die. But they've grown and become better characters. They have their own flaws and fears and all things that make them more real, more human, that's it's obvious for me to root for them.
All the pain and suffering they experience is all worth those 5 minutes of pure happiness and joy.
We can truly see how much Subaru loves Emilia, and even though she hasn't given an answer to his feelings, if you have read the light novels, you know that she loves him too.
That's why the spin-off where Subaru and Rem are married and have kids, was so cringy. I was rolling my eyes the entire time and it felt like the author only wrote it for the sake of the fandom.
I mean, I accept and encourage that Rem is an important person for Subaru, and yes, she is amazing and he loves her, but not in the romantic way he loves Emilia.
Anyway, I am waiting for the next volume to come since it will be he first one where we don't have a clue of what will happen.
Also, they recently announced that there will be an animated season 2 and I'm so happy about it! I love the staff and I still listen to the soundtrack on a daily basis.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS:
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8
May 5, 2022
*Fan Love Video*
March 14, 2019
Deathnitivamente emocionante /sob
September 25, 2020
In the last run of this long tale, our protagonist, who got snatched from Earth into a fantasy world, and who due to being cursed by a witch for some unknown reason he automatically travels back in time whenever he dies, found out the wrong way that the enemy they were facing, an Archbishop of the malignant group named Witch Cult (I had been naming it Witch's Cult until now, because I can't read), isn't actually a person, but some spirit that can divide itself into different bodies, possessing them and overwriting their souls. Faced with its destruction the Archbishop jumped into the protagonist's body. To the despair of his close allies he decided that this run of the demented roguelike was a bust, and asked them to end his life.
When his soul descended into the blackness of the purgatory of sorts that awaits him when he dies, he meets again the Witch of Jealousy, a black cloud obsessed with the protagonist for some reason, and he feels a tug between choosing oblivion, or the embrace of that seemingly loving witch, and returning to life and trying to save his loved ones this time.
He goes back. The protagonist had feared that he would have returned to the checkpoint five days before they ended up fighting and defeating the White Whale; although having to repeat huge boss battles, and the damage to the protagonist's brain that would cause, could be interesting, the author choose to slide the checkpoint forward to the moment after the big boss fight in which he's explaining to his posse how they are going to take on the Witch Cult. He knows he needs to take advantage of the stuff they've learned in the last run: it won't do good to Leeroy Jenkins their way towards the leader of the Witch Cult to take him out, if he also possesses nine other subservient bodies in the corresponding platoons who will realize that something is off. In addition, they know now that there's a spy among the merchants they contracted to move the villagers and the people remaining in Roswaal's mansion out of the way. He's the person who exchanged the letter the protagonist wrote, that should have smoothed things out with the people in the mansion so they wouldn't take an armed force rushing towards them as a declaration of war. They know that some Witch Cult members, including that spy, have some explosive means to avenge having been discovered. And more importantly, the protagonist knows that the Archbishop will jump into his mind in order to take it over. They need to prepare a plan that counteracts all those factors.
They decide that they'll feed false information to some merchants to pretend that everybody will be delayed for a couple of hours. The spy will likely relay that information somehow (they don't yet know their means of communication), which will give the good guys two hours to move the villagers and the people in the mansion out of danger. In addition, hunting the isolated Witch Cult camps hidden in the forest will take precedence over assaulting the main Archbishop guy, the location of whose main hideout is known. The good guys arrive at the village while some separated groups deal with ambushing the Witch Cult platoons. The protagonist, clad in a magical robe that hides the owner's identity, accompanies some of his allies to get the heroine, who as usual doesn't have much of a clue of what's going on, into a carriage and far away.
The last time the heroine saw the protagonist was back at the capital, after he had made an ass of himself and got beaten to a pulp by a knight. The heroine had wanted some apology after the protagonist broke the promise to stay put and out of danger; above any promise he might make, he's the kind of guy who'd take a bullet for the woman he's obsessed with, so he had gleefully tramped over her feelings. Their meeting ended up with the heroine pretty much telling him that their relationship was over, and that he shouldn't go back to the mansion. As soon as she had returned, though, she fell into a depression. The protagonist had been the only person from the outside of the isolated group at the mansion who had been there for her and who had accepted a cooky, goody-two-shoes girl like her; she happened to have been born a silver-haired half-elf in a world where a silver-haired half-elf had killed half of the world's population four hundred years before. Noticing that something was wrong in the surrounding forest, she decided to descend undisguised to the village in order to figure out how to protect them, to tell them to just stay indoors while she reinforces some magical barriers, but all the villagers had repudiated her. She spent the last couple of days barely getting out of bed, hating herself.
As some other reviewers put it somewhere, this is a series with a main theme of dealing with self-hate: how that affects a person, how to grow out of it, etc. The protagonist had hated himself because he couldn't measure up to his family's expectations; as a result he had grown into the class clown for a few years, only for the maturing people his age to leave him behind. By the time he reached high school he found himself alone, unable to connect with anybody, which had caused him to drop out and become something close to a hikikomori. As mentioned, the main heroine in the fantasy world hates having been born as a member of a hated race, and most of the time she feels she doesn't have the right to enjoy or achieve anything. Best girl Rem, demon servant of the mansion, hates herself for having been born second to her vastly more talented sister, but above it she hates having partially caused, and even wanted, her sister to lose her demonic horn, the source of her powers, which rendered her into a sort of cripple as far as her race are concerned. Beatrice, the child-like guardian of the mansion's library, has lived for centuries and experienced untold suffering, pain and fear to the extent that she wishes for anyone to kill her; she can't even kill herself due to her physical nature and the rules of this world. The protagonist experienced his biggest Dark Night of the Soul so far back in volume six, when he put in the open his many limitations borne out of his miserable character, and he understood that the way he had been overcompensating was preventing him from moving forward. This being Re:ZERO, though, an ode to masochism to the extent that many fans lovingly refer to its protagonist as "Suffaru", having learned how to overcome many of his limitations doesn't turn his experience in this fantasy world into a smooth ride.
In any case, the protagonist and a few of his closest allies manipulate the heroine into following them to safety by disguising the fact that the Witch Cult is coming for her sweet ass. Furthermore, the protagonist convinced the local children to travel with the heroine in a carriage while clinging to her, in order for the heroine to understand that at least those little buggers appreciate her. Merely the kids wanting to share a carriage with her turns on the waterworks on the gal. She's made of thin ice, which is somewhat appropriate for an ice-based spirit mage.
In any case, the good guys prepare an ambush on the Witch Cult spy acting as a merchant. They learn that they use magical artifacts to communicate between platoons, but due to the scarcity of those things they might only have two of them. Taking this guy out prevents the numerous platoons from expecting attacks. The protagonist tells the spy that "now the Witch Cult will experience the terror of facing an enemy always two steps ahead of them."
Ambushing the isolated platoons goes smoothly, or at least smooth enough that there's no trouble with the embedded superpowered bad guys. The protagonist then heads on towards the memorable Archbishop. He pretends to be eager to join his ranks, which brings genuine joy to the madman. However, when the moment comes to present the holy book the protagonist should have received to join, he shows him the magical artifact they snatched, proof that they took the embedded spy out. The protagonist's land dragon (this world's horse proxies) charges into the Archbishop, which sends him flying, and simultaneously the cat-person siblings collapse the hideout, burying alive the remaining members of this platoon. The protagonist forces the madman to follow him through the forest as the Archbishop loudly demand to know who the hell he is, how he figured out so many things about their plans. Seeing the guy who caused the torture back in volume five in a panic was very satisfying.
Turns out the protagonist had intended to drive the madman into the setting for a showdown. The good guys had figured out the nature of the Archbishop: it's a spirit that hates its own kind (self-hate again), that had rejected the usual methods of mingling with humans, something common in this world (certain people can form pacts with spirits; the heroine himself formed one with one of the spirits of the Apocalypse, as they are named), and instead decided to possess human bodies by overwriting their souls. This malevolent spirit had fallen into a one-sided, obsessive love for the main witch, which must be this fantasy world's equivalent of the groupies that serial killers get.
In a touching display of teamwork between antagonists, the protagonist and the knight who had beaten him up join their senses through a magic spell, which allows the knight to follow the madman's invisible hands in order to destroy them and draw closer to cutting the Archbishop down with his sword. They end up skewering the madman's body, but at the last second the spirit jumps into the protagonist's brain. In one of my favorite scenes of this arc, the protagonist figures that he'll give the malevolent spirit the chance to meet his beloved; after all, whenever the protagonist attempts to explain his ability to travel back in time, the witch's spirit had interrupted him to shut him up. This time the witch comes to interrupt the declaration only to find the madman waiting for her. She rejects the malevolent spirit violently, evicting him from the protagonist's mind. The last coherent moments of the Archbishop are spent crying and wondering why the witch would reject his earnest love. Lashing out with his Unseen Hands ability, he ends up collapsing the cliff face on his own body, crushing it.
The suffering hasn't ended, though. They receive a communication through the cellphone-like magical artifact: they have realized that one of the carriages was hiding explosives, and it's likely the one that carries the heroine and the village's children. The protagonist makes a pact with a merchant who had helped him in previous failed runs, and they depart in a mad rush to intercept the heroine's carriage. Midway through they end up being pursued by the crazed remains of the Archbishop's spirit, that now only wants to kill the protagonist. The protagonist, calm, douses the pursuing, crushed corpse of the Archbishop with the merchant's oil, sets in on fire, and with his own blood writes in the madman's holy book that the end of his story has come, which somehow causes the Archbishop to believe it and dissipate in the wind.
When he finally gets close to the main group of carriages, they find Old Man Wilhelm fighting a Witch Cult platoon they had found along the way. He points to the heroine's carriage. The protagonist reaches it and gets to act like a hero by prying open the floorboards, picking up the sack of explosives, riding to the frozen White Whale's corpse, stuffing it with the explosives, and fleeing far enough that the explosion doesn't kill him. When he comes back to his senses, the heroine is cradling him, distraught at the possibility of losing him. He opens up about loving her, at which she answers something to the effect that no one should love someone of her filthy race. He retorts that no matter how anybody else sees her, he will love her anyway, and that from now on he'll tirelessly work his way into her cursed half-elven heart. She has a good cry. All's well that ends well.
The happiness lasted for a scene: as they were travelling to the capital to meet the other royal candidates involved in this mission, the protagonist attempted to explain to the heroine that Rem, the unrealistically loyal demon maid, had pleged her love for him, so things would be a bit awkward. However, the heroine has no clue who he's talking about. In this world it can only mean one thing: the memories of the person have been erased through magical means, which likely means that she's been killed as well.
This is where the first season of the anime adaptation ends. Although I already put this link in a previous review, internet anime guy Gigguk's Re:ZERO in 8 MINUTES is a humorous summary of the entire first season of this series, so all the volumes until now, that I've watched quite a few times.
However, this volume goes a bit further right at the end. We see what happened on Rem's end. As she was exchanging pleasantries with military gal and royal candidate Crusch Karsten, the caravan got ambushed. Half of the wounded died. The attackers weren't simple Witch Cult platoons, though, but two Archbishops, from the branches of Greed and Gluttony respectively. Their superpowers bested Crusch's and Rem's abilities: Crusch lost her entire left arm and somehow all her memories, while Rem got put into a seemingly permanent coma, with all memories of her existence having been erased from everybody else's memories. They managed to escape to the capital. The protagonist and his crew meet them at Crusch's mansion; although Crusch doesn't remember herself, her diligent and honest nature remains, and she catches up to everything that's going on.
After the protagonist sees Rem in a coma, when left alone his first choice is to stab himself in the throat, committing suicide. However, the checkpoint has moved forward again, right after they beat the Archbishop of Sloth. There's no way to prevent Rem from having fallen into a coma nor having been erased from everybody else's memories.
At this point one wonders: is there a world in which the heroine, to whom the protagonist had pledged undying love just a few hours before, got to stumble upon the protagonist's corpse after he committed suicide, and ended up having to live the rest of her life with that burden? Turns out that this is answered, in a painful sequence, in the twelfth episode of the second season.
This volume and arc end with a tearful protagonist promising that he'll save best girl somehow.
As usual, this series is such good fun. I love the pain, the masochism, the self-hate. Feels like home.
When his soul descended into the blackness of the purgatory of sorts that awaits him when he dies, he meets again the Witch of Jealousy, a black cloud obsessed with the protagonist for some reason, and he feels a tug between choosing oblivion, or the embrace of that seemingly loving witch, and returning to life and trying to save his loved ones this time.
He goes back. The protagonist had feared that he would have returned to the checkpoint five days before they ended up fighting and defeating the White Whale; although having to repeat huge boss battles, and the damage to the protagonist's brain that would cause, could be interesting, the author choose to slide the checkpoint forward to the moment after the big boss fight in which he's explaining to his posse how they are going to take on the Witch Cult. He knows he needs to take advantage of the stuff they've learned in the last run: it won't do good to Leeroy Jenkins their way towards the leader of the Witch Cult to take him out, if he also possesses nine other subservient bodies in the corresponding platoons who will realize that something is off. In addition, they know now that there's a spy among the merchants they contracted to move the villagers and the people remaining in Roswaal's mansion out of the way. He's the person who exchanged the letter the protagonist wrote, that should have smoothed things out with the people in the mansion so they wouldn't take an armed force rushing towards them as a declaration of war. They know that some Witch Cult members, including that spy, have some explosive means to avenge having been discovered. And more importantly, the protagonist knows that the Archbishop will jump into his mind in order to take it over. They need to prepare a plan that counteracts all those factors.
They decide that they'll feed false information to some merchants to pretend that everybody will be delayed for a couple of hours. The spy will likely relay that information somehow (they don't yet know their means of communication), which will give the good guys two hours to move the villagers and the people in the mansion out of danger. In addition, hunting the isolated Witch Cult camps hidden in the forest will take precedence over assaulting the main Archbishop guy, the location of whose main hideout is known. The good guys arrive at the village while some separated groups deal with ambushing the Witch Cult platoons. The protagonist, clad in a magical robe that hides the owner's identity, accompanies some of his allies to get the heroine, who as usual doesn't have much of a clue of what's going on, into a carriage and far away.
The last time the heroine saw the protagonist was back at the capital, after he had made an ass of himself and got beaten to a pulp by a knight. The heroine had wanted some apology after the protagonist broke the promise to stay put and out of danger; above any promise he might make, he's the kind of guy who'd take a bullet for the woman he's obsessed with, so he had gleefully tramped over her feelings. Their meeting ended up with the heroine pretty much telling him that their relationship was over, and that he shouldn't go back to the mansion. As soon as she had returned, though, she fell into a depression. The protagonist had been the only person from the outside of the isolated group at the mansion who had been there for her and who had accepted a cooky, goody-two-shoes girl like her; she happened to have been born a silver-haired half-elf in a world where a silver-haired half-elf had killed half of the world's population four hundred years before. Noticing that something was wrong in the surrounding forest, she decided to descend undisguised to the village in order to figure out how to protect them, to tell them to just stay indoors while she reinforces some magical barriers, but all the villagers had repudiated her. She spent the last couple of days barely getting out of bed, hating herself.
As some other reviewers put it somewhere, this is a series with a main theme of dealing with self-hate: how that affects a person, how to grow out of it, etc. The protagonist had hated himself because he couldn't measure up to his family's expectations; as a result he had grown into the class clown for a few years, only for the maturing people his age to leave him behind. By the time he reached high school he found himself alone, unable to connect with anybody, which had caused him to drop out and become something close to a hikikomori. As mentioned, the main heroine in the fantasy world hates having been born as a member of a hated race, and most of the time she feels she doesn't have the right to enjoy or achieve anything. Best girl Rem, demon servant of the mansion, hates herself for having been born second to her vastly more talented sister, but above it she hates having partially caused, and even wanted, her sister to lose her demonic horn, the source of her powers, which rendered her into a sort of cripple as far as her race are concerned. Beatrice, the child-like guardian of the mansion's library, has lived for centuries and experienced untold suffering, pain and fear to the extent that she wishes for anyone to kill her; she can't even kill herself due to her physical nature and the rules of this world. The protagonist experienced his biggest Dark Night of the Soul so far back in volume six, when he put in the open his many limitations borne out of his miserable character, and he understood that the way he had been overcompensating was preventing him from moving forward. This being Re:ZERO, though, an ode to masochism to the extent that many fans lovingly refer to its protagonist as "Suffaru", having learned how to overcome many of his limitations doesn't turn his experience in this fantasy world into a smooth ride.
In any case, the protagonist and a few of his closest allies manipulate the heroine into following them to safety by disguising the fact that the Witch Cult is coming for her sweet ass. Furthermore, the protagonist convinced the local children to travel with the heroine in a carriage while clinging to her, in order for the heroine to understand that at least those little buggers appreciate her. Merely the kids wanting to share a carriage with her turns on the waterworks on the gal. She's made of thin ice, which is somewhat appropriate for an ice-based spirit mage.
In any case, the good guys prepare an ambush on the Witch Cult spy acting as a merchant. They learn that they use magical artifacts to communicate between platoons, but due to the scarcity of those things they might only have two of them. Taking this guy out prevents the numerous platoons from expecting attacks. The protagonist tells the spy that "now the Witch Cult will experience the terror of facing an enemy always two steps ahead of them."
Ambushing the isolated platoons goes smoothly, or at least smooth enough that there's no trouble with the embedded superpowered bad guys. The protagonist then heads on towards the memorable Archbishop. He pretends to be eager to join his ranks, which brings genuine joy to the madman. However, when the moment comes to present the holy book the protagonist should have received to join, he shows him the magical artifact they snatched, proof that they took the embedded spy out. The protagonist's land dragon (this world's horse proxies) charges into the Archbishop, which sends him flying, and simultaneously the cat-person siblings collapse the hideout, burying alive the remaining members of this platoon. The protagonist forces the madman to follow him through the forest as the Archbishop loudly demand to know who the hell he is, how he figured out so many things about their plans. Seeing the guy who caused the torture back in volume five in a panic was very satisfying.
Turns out the protagonist had intended to drive the madman into the setting for a showdown. The good guys had figured out the nature of the Archbishop: it's a spirit that hates its own kind (self-hate again), that had rejected the usual methods of mingling with humans, something common in this world (certain people can form pacts with spirits; the heroine himself formed one with one of the spirits of the Apocalypse, as they are named), and instead decided to possess human bodies by overwriting their souls. This malevolent spirit had fallen into a one-sided, obsessive love for the main witch, which must be this fantasy world's equivalent of the groupies that serial killers get.
In a touching display of teamwork between antagonists, the protagonist and the knight who had beaten him up join their senses through a magic spell, which allows the knight to follow the madman's invisible hands in order to destroy them and draw closer to cutting the Archbishop down with his sword. They end up skewering the madman's body, but at the last second the spirit jumps into the protagonist's brain. In one of my favorite scenes of this arc, the protagonist figures that he'll give the malevolent spirit the chance to meet his beloved; after all, whenever the protagonist attempts to explain his ability to travel back in time, the witch's spirit had interrupted him to shut him up. This time the witch comes to interrupt the declaration only to find the madman waiting for her. She rejects the malevolent spirit violently, evicting him from the protagonist's mind. The last coherent moments of the Archbishop are spent crying and wondering why the witch would reject his earnest love. Lashing out with his Unseen Hands ability, he ends up collapsing the cliff face on his own body, crushing it.
The suffering hasn't ended, though. They receive a communication through the cellphone-like magical artifact: they have realized that one of the carriages was hiding explosives, and it's likely the one that carries the heroine and the village's children. The protagonist makes a pact with a merchant who had helped him in previous failed runs, and they depart in a mad rush to intercept the heroine's carriage. Midway through they end up being pursued by the crazed remains of the Archbishop's spirit, that now only wants to kill the protagonist. The protagonist, calm, douses the pursuing, crushed corpse of the Archbishop with the merchant's oil, sets in on fire, and with his own blood writes in the madman's holy book that the end of his story has come, which somehow causes the Archbishop to believe it and dissipate in the wind.
When he finally gets close to the main group of carriages, they find Old Man Wilhelm fighting a Witch Cult platoon they had found along the way. He points to the heroine's carriage. The protagonist reaches it and gets to act like a hero by prying open the floorboards, picking up the sack of explosives, riding to the frozen White Whale's corpse, stuffing it with the explosives, and fleeing far enough that the explosion doesn't kill him. When he comes back to his senses, the heroine is cradling him, distraught at the possibility of losing him. He opens up about loving her, at which she answers something to the effect that no one should love someone of her filthy race. He retorts that no matter how anybody else sees her, he will love her anyway, and that from now on he'll tirelessly work his way into her cursed half-elven heart. She has a good cry. All's well that ends well.
The happiness lasted for a scene: as they were travelling to the capital to meet the other royal candidates involved in this mission, the protagonist attempted to explain to the heroine that Rem, the unrealistically loyal demon maid, had pleged her love for him, so things would be a bit awkward. However, the heroine has no clue who he's talking about. In this world it can only mean one thing: the memories of the person have been erased through magical means, which likely means that she's been killed as well.
This is where the first season of the anime adaptation ends. Although I already put this link in a previous review, internet anime guy Gigguk's Re:ZERO in 8 MINUTES is a humorous summary of the entire first season of this series, so all the volumes until now, that I've watched quite a few times.
However, this volume goes a bit further right at the end. We see what happened on Rem's end. As she was exchanging pleasantries with military gal and royal candidate Crusch Karsten, the caravan got ambushed. Half of the wounded died. The attackers weren't simple Witch Cult platoons, though, but two Archbishops, from the branches of Greed and Gluttony respectively. Their superpowers bested Crusch's and Rem's abilities: Crusch lost her entire left arm and somehow all her memories, while Rem got put into a seemingly permanent coma, with all memories of her existence having been erased from everybody else's memories. They managed to escape to the capital. The protagonist and his crew meet them at Crusch's mansion; although Crusch doesn't remember herself, her diligent and honest nature remains, and she catches up to everything that's going on.
After the protagonist sees Rem in a coma, when left alone his first choice is to stab himself in the throat, committing suicide. However, the checkpoint has moved forward again, right after they beat the Archbishop of Sloth. There's no way to prevent Rem from having fallen into a coma nor having been erased from everybody else's memories.
At this point one wonders: is there a world in which the heroine, to whom the protagonist had pledged undying love just a few hours before, got to stumble upon the protagonist's corpse after he committed suicide, and ended up having to live the rest of her life with that burden? Turns out that this is answered, in a painful sequence, in the twelfth episode of the second season.
This volume and arc end with a tearful protagonist promising that he'll save best girl somehow.
As usual, this series is such good fun. I love the pain, the masochism, the self-hate. Feels like home.
September 23, 2020
We're finally done with this cycle and it was fulfilling and exiting, tons of action and unexpected events, confessions and devastating facts. I totally loved the extra Rem Natsuki short story.
March 6, 2020
An outstanding book ! This volume takes readers to the end of the anime and slightly beyond. It explains in detail many small episodes within the anime and fleshes out many of the characters, notably Otto. Although the “ ending” was superb, with Subaru and Emilia finding each other, the story line then takes a sharp turn with a of a series of disasters caused by the Witch Cult. Archbishop Conti actually was not the worst villain in the story. Many pieces are in play by the end of the volume: the Witch Cult and Satella’s return, the Royal selection and the candidates’ political maneuvering - and in the background- something else lurks.
Included is a small alternate universe episode where Subaru and Rem were married, had kids and lived as a happy family 8 years in the future.
I think this is the best volume in the series so far and the ending sets up the next arc in the story- which promises to be dark indeed. But at least Emilia and Subaru are now together.
Included is a small alternate universe episode where Subaru and Rem were married, had kids and lived as a happy family 8 years in the future.
I think this is the best volume in the series so far and the ending sets up the next arc in the story- which promises to be dark indeed. But at least Emilia and Subaru are now together.
August 15, 2020
After watching and reading the novel and the tv series adaption. I got to say, Re: zero has got to be my best read novel of all time. Without a doubt, this novel has stolen the special spot I've placed Evangelion on. In this novel and the rest of them introduces a cast of characters that blew my mind away, although it wasn't something I've never seen before, but the way the story makes them interact with each other just blows my mind. This is my biased review on the current state of Re:zero 2020.
October 26, 2024
Having finally finished the 9th volume and Arcs 1-3, I'm excited to move onto the web novel. The English light novels have been rough, like watching dubbed anime for 5th graders. Everything is told and not shown, and the writing is plagued by awkward vocabulary and wordy sentences.
Translation issues aside, the author constantly babies the reader, explaining the most obvious plot points with redundancy. Tappei likes to do this thing in which he shows you a scene from the future to build intrigue, then goes into detail of how that situation arose. It's an ok idea, but the explanation segments have this bombastic tone of revelation which could be trimmed down, ie the Petelgeuse plans. I started rewatching S1 of the anime while reading Vols 8-9, and it is a much better experience. You lose almost nothing to cut content.
Re:Zero as a story is good, but also dated. Emilia and Rem aren't interesting characters on their own, with the former being a damsel in distress and Rem having so little going for her that she heavily falls for Subaru. During his first loop after the White Whale, Ferris actually urges Subaru to give Emilia combat agency which he concedes to giving. But in his following loop Subaru forgoes this and sends her off on a carriage, with Wilhem seeming admirable of his chivalry. The tone of the book justified Subaru's overprotection of Emilia, and the way the author writes his women is super "2010 isekai" which makes sense. I think this is point of growth Subaru experiences in the future, but as a reader right now the supporting cast is so weak compared to other modern animes/LNs.
Speaking of Subaru, my only real complaint is that I wish they showed more of his past life in these early arcs the way Mushoku Tensei did, so we could empathize with his self hatred more, but it's fine. I don't hate him. I like the bit he has with Emilia when he chastises her for using outdated idioms.
The best part of Re:Zero so far is its world. The candidates and witch cult, lore of the dragon and Satella. I look forward to getting there.
Translation issues aside, the author constantly babies the reader, explaining the most obvious plot points with redundancy. Tappei likes to do this thing in which he shows you a scene from the future to build intrigue, then goes into detail of how that situation arose. It's an ok idea, but the explanation segments have this bombastic tone of revelation which could be trimmed down, ie the Petelgeuse plans. I started rewatching S1 of the anime while reading Vols 8-9, and it is a much better experience. You lose almost nothing to cut content.
Re:Zero as a story is good, but also dated. Emilia and Rem aren't interesting characters on their own, with the former being a damsel in distress and Rem having so little going for her that she heavily falls for Subaru. During his first loop after the White Whale, Ferris actually urges Subaru to give Emilia combat agency which he concedes to giving. But in his following loop Subaru forgoes this and sends her off on a carriage, with Wilhem seeming admirable of his chivalry. The tone of the book justified Subaru's overprotection of Emilia, and the way the author writes his women is super "2010 isekai" which makes sense. I think this is point of growth Subaru experiences in the future, but as a reader right now the supporting cast is so weak compared to other modern animes/LNs.
Speaking of Subaru, my only real complaint is that I wish they showed more of his past life in these early arcs the way Mushoku Tensei did, so we could empathize with his self hatred more, but it's fine. I don't hate him. I like the bit he has with Emilia when he chastises her for using outdated idioms.
The best part of Re:Zero so far is its world. The candidates and witch cult, lore of the dragon and Satella. I look forward to getting there.
October 31, 2021
Holy freaking God this was amazing! The fight, the rush, the ENDING of all things, this is by far the biggest emotional roller coaster that Re:Zero has been on in a long time.
There's so much I want to talk about that is amazing here. ALL the references to things being just a teeny bit different because of what happens with Lye, there's the stuff that points to more about Wilhelm that I'm massively annoyed they cut out of the Anime, there's the added details with Ferris and the conversation with Emilia.
And of course there's the "Happy Ending" that hasn't been shown in anything other than a small set of flashes while Rem is fighting.
This gave everything to do with a resolution for an arc and it hit like a freight train, for instance Subaru doesn't kill himself while at Rem's body in the aftermath of the fight, he does it after the talk with Crusch and at Rem's bedside. The signs that they give in the anime where the knife is always at the front of the scene were meant to be a hint for this as Subaru thought about redoing the whole Sloth fight, but did it in Rem's room and restarted right back in Rem's room right as he's about to kill himself again.
That in my view is a far harder punch than the one we get in the anime, that's crueller and worse than the one we've seen, Subaru could've been in an eternal loop of suffering and death for that and it'd be a bit of psychotic punishment by Satella for not "loving her" earlier.
Jesus Tappei is evilly genius in this series, I love this series so much!
(and why does it take so long for you to read these if you Love them so much HardLight?) well I read them while cooking dinner so I have less time to read them. I'm just up at 1 am and thought I wanted a good cry with the ending this time, that's all)
Phew this was a good continuation, holy hell no wonder the fans have been begging for a continuation since season 1 ended.
There's so much I want to talk about that is amazing here. ALL the references to things being just a teeny bit different because of what happens with Lye, there's the stuff that points to more about Wilhelm that I'm massively annoyed they cut out of the Anime, there's the added details with Ferris and the conversation with Emilia.
And of course there's the "Happy Ending" that hasn't been shown in anything other than a small set of flashes while Rem is fighting.
This gave everything to do with a resolution for an arc and it hit like a freight train, for instance Subaru doesn't kill himself while at Rem's body in the aftermath of the fight, he does it after the talk with Crusch and at Rem's bedside. The signs that they give in the anime where the knife is always at the front of the scene were meant to be a hint for this as Subaru thought about redoing the whole Sloth fight, but did it in Rem's room and restarted right back in Rem's room right as he's about to kill himself again.
That in my view is a far harder punch than the one we get in the anime, that's crueller and worse than the one we've seen, Subaru could've been in an eternal loop of suffering and death for that and it'd be a bit of psychotic punishment by Satella for not "loving her" earlier.
Jesus Tappei is evilly genius in this series, I love this series so much!
(and why does it take so long for you to read these if you Love them so much HardLight?) well I read them while cooking dinner so I have less time to read them. I'm just up at 1 am and thought I wanted a good cry with the ending this time, that's all)
Phew this was a good continuation, holy hell no wonder the fans have been begging for a continuation since season 1 ended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 14, 2020
Finally finished this! Two days ago I picked this book up and forced myself to finish it! There was a lot of skimming, then the last two chapters came and they were exciting and made me contemplate reading the next vol even though I still wasn't in the mood for this series. Then I opened the next vol and quietly closed it a few minutes later, satisficed in waiting for a later date to read it. Something tells me the next arc will be pretty long too.
But back to this vol! The arc started in vol 4 is finally finally finally over! It was a long 5/6 books. Despite the author splitting it into parts it felt like it went on too long. But it's finally over.
On a completely random note, the more I look at the artwork for this series the more I feel irritated. I don't like it. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just too round I think, but every time I'd get to an illustration I could feel myself feeling a bit more irritated. Definitely a sign I should continue taking a break from this series.
But back to this vol! The arc started in vol 4 is finally finally finally over! It was a long 5/6 books. Despite the author splitting it into parts it felt like it went on too long. But it's finally over.
On a completely random note, the more I look at the artwork for this series the more I feel irritated. I don't like it. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just too round I think, but every time I'd get to an illustration I could feel myself feeling a bit more irritated. Definitely a sign I should continue taking a break from this series.
January 23, 2025
Es ist beeindruckend, wie dieser Band sowohl ein perfekter Abschluss für Arc 3 ist, als auch den nächsten bereits vorbereitet. Nicht nur das Forshadowing, sondern vor allem Subarus Charakter zeigt das. Ja, wir sehen wie er sich über die letzten Bände entwickelt hat, aber gleichzeitig sehen wir bereits die Schwächen, an denen er im nächsten Arc arbeiten wird. Und die Cliffhanger (Ja, mehrzahl) sind einfach grausam.
(+)
- Die Dynamik von Protagonist und Antagonist findet ihren thematischen Höhepunkt und es ist der Hammer
- Absolut überragender Twist und das ganze Ende hat die Spannung hoch katapultiert
- Viele kleine Charakterentwicklungen
(-)
- Ich mochte das Fragments Kapitel, aber es hätte nach dem zweiten Interlude sein sollen
Mein Booktube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWsL...
Mein Bookstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nico_fantas...
(+)
- Die Dynamik von Protagonist und Antagonist findet ihren thematischen Höhepunkt und es ist der Hammer
- Absolut überragender Twist und das ganze Ende hat die Spannung hoch katapultiert
- Viele kleine Charakterentwicklungen
(-)
- Ich mochte das Fragments Kapitel, aber es hätte nach dem zweiten Interlude sein sollen
Mein Booktube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWsL...
Mein Bookstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nico_fantas...
April 16, 2023
This is a fantastic volume and a great end to Re:Zero's 3rd arc. This was a tale about love, and nothing more. 9/10
April 17, 2025
Subaru Gets another crack at beating the Witch Cult attacking the village and the Manor. He now knows a secret or two from the last go-around and will use it. But as always with this series, there will be one or two, if not three complications during the trial, and afterwards.
I find this series, gets a little hard to read. The writing, or maybe the translation, doesn't always seem that well done. It's a slower read than most books I read. That said it's an interesting series. But using return by death to fix past screw-ups seems like a cop-out. But it does include a favorite line "Fine, I will arrange a meeting between you and the perverted clown, so you can sell him, your special oil." It's not as creepy a line as you would think.
I find this series, gets a little hard to read. The writing, or maybe the translation, doesn't always seem that well done. It's a slower read than most books I read. That said it's an interesting series. But using return by death to fix past screw-ups seems like a cop-out. But it does include a favorite line "Fine, I will arrange a meeting between you and the perverted clown, so you can sell him, your special oil." It's not as creepy a line as you would think.
October 19, 2022
"Ciúmes, porque é tudo que sinto pelo mundo que te envolve"
Não sei se há uma frase melhor pra definir esse volume e as descobertas que vamos fazendo para compreender a história principal da obra. Esse também é o volume que encerra o terceiro arco e ele abre uma série de questões e suspeitas que vão ser trabalhadas nos próximos volumes. Estou ansioso para ler os próximos! Aliás, claramente recomendo a obra. Teve momentos emocionantes e estratégias decisivas. E a forma como o autor joga com os elementos da história é muito cativante.
Não sei se há uma frase melhor pra definir esse volume e as descobertas que vamos fazendo para compreender a história principal da obra. Esse também é o volume que encerra o terceiro arco e ele abre uma série de questões e suspeitas que vão ser trabalhadas nos próximos volumes. Estou ansioso para ler os próximos! Aliás, claramente recomendo a obra. Teve momentos emocionantes e estratégias decisivas. E a forma como o autor joga com os elementos da história é muito cativante.
January 5, 2020
Simplesmente incrível, finalmente terminou um arco de 6 volumes, que eu diria que tem 3 sub arcos na história. A história com acontecimento atras de acontecimento sem tempo para os personagens respirar, ainda mais esse gancho no final os personagens não tem descanso mesmo. Você consegue se envolver e sentir que os sentimentos e emoções não são forçadas, você se comove, com a felicidade, tristeza, raiva, frustração, eu diria que esse volume é um bolo de emoções.
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June 1, 2025En vue de la saison 3, je me suis motivé à acheter et lire les tomes qui me manquaient et qui couvrent la S2 que j'ai beaucoup aimée.
Le T9 termine l'arc précédent et commence le nouveau, donc c'était un peu particulier comme tome de retour haha. Mais ça reste des moments de la série que j'aime bien donc c'était pas désagréable à lire.
Le T9 termine l'arc précédent et commence le nouveau, donc c'était un peu particulier comme tome de retour haha. Mais ça reste des moments de la série que j'aime bien donc c'était pas désagréable à lire.
March 3, 2019
Wow! This was good! This was epic! The ending was a sucker punch to the gut! Can't say good enough things about Re.Zero.
PS: loads and loads of grammar errors, missing words and weird english. Yen must have rushed this volume!
PS: loads and loads of grammar errors, missing words and weird english. Yen must have rushed this volume!
August 16, 2022
Sad, yet so good.
I loved the reunions in this volume. Each event was so wholesome. I can't wait to see Subaru become the hero that some expect him to be. As always, my thanks to the author, illustrator, and translator.
I loved the reunions in this volume. Each event was so wholesome. I can't wait to see Subaru become the hero that some expect him to be. As always, my thanks to the author, illustrator, and translator.
September 7, 2024
um arco perfeito, o volume entrega até um bônus para o público levemente decepcionado por certos acontecimentos com um personagem que muitos gostam (rsrs). Ilustrações maravilhosas, como sempre. Cliffhanger absurdo também.
January 22, 2020
1.5 stars.
May 29, 2020
Welp I don't hate Emilia anymore so that's a start
June 14, 2020
Finally wrapped up arc 3, which was long and eventful. Scared to see what happens next, as the anime has yet to go this far, but hoping to see some new, interesting characters added to the world.
October 26, 2020
It was probably the strongest book so far and sets up quite a lot for future books up to this point. All I know is that I can start to read what season 2 covered now!
April 11, 2021
Its Re:zero, if you've read this far your here to stay.
September 30, 2022
The end of the third arc. Well, The story this far still have many filler, The main story was so minimum. The story progressing slowly.
August 30, 2023
Una carta de amor al arte... Ta potente el final.
November 7, 2024
“My-brain-TREEEMBLEEESSS” No more!!! I will always remember you Rem!
June 8, 2025
una buena finalizacion de arco aunque esté arco es más estresante
August 10, 2025
great ending to an arc with an amazing fight and the start of the psychological aspect
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews