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Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 [Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu] #11
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 11
What's the point of having a save if nothing stays the same?
The first person ever to kill Subaru is back and she's ready to make good on her bloody promise! Even though he's managed to overcome the Trial, reaffirming his resolve to support Emilia and save Rem, nothing is going to be simple if the Bowel Hunter, Elsa, has anything to say about it. Still, Subaru knows there's no need to panic even after she butchers him again. In the end, no matter how strong the enemy, Subaru can just use all he's learned before his death to make a foolproof plan...unless his second visit to the Sanctuary and Roswaal Manor changes everything he knows!
The first person ever to kill Subaru is back and she's ready to make good on her bloody promise! Even though he's managed to overcome the Trial, reaffirming his resolve to support Emilia and save Rem, nothing is going to be simple if the Bowel Hunter, Elsa, has anything to say about it. Still, Subaru knows there's no need to panic even after she butchers him again. In the end, no matter how strong the enemy, Subaru can just use all he's learned before his death to make a foolproof plan...unless his second visit to the Sanctuary and Roswaal Manor changes everything he knows!
296 pages, Paperback
First published December 23, 2016
52 people are currently reading
476 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 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 21, 2020
In this volume, Subaru meets with several witches: Typhon (Witch of Pride), Daphne (Witch of Gluttony) and Minerva (Witch of Wrath). They all look young and cute but the truth is that they held a powerful aura, even when death fall upon them, so they can only communicate via Echidna (Witch of Greed) in her Tea Party.
There is a lot of information that at times it feels like it just brings more questions to the table but the highlights of this are:
-Beatrice has a completed gospel, just like Petelgeuse, so she might actually have something to do with the Witch of Jealousy/Envy.
-Roswaal is helding information from Subaru, so we cannot trust him, even when he says he supports Emilia as a candidate for the throne.
-Garfiel and Frederica are half-brothers and half-breeds who can turn into powerful beasts.
-Garfield holds a grudge against Subaru because of the strong scent of the Witch (kind of like what happened with Rem in the previous arcs) and attacks him several times in order to protect the people inside the Sanctuary.
-Emilia is trying to pass the Trial but she always fails, and though Subaru tries his best to help her, she can only overcome her past by herself.
And, the cherry on top: never trust creatures that look cute and tiny. They’re always powerful enough to beat you down in the cruelest ways.
Now, to me this has been the darkest volume I’ve read because everybody is suffering and there comes a time when Subaru is about to go completely mad. That is until he meets with Echidna, and he reveals that he can Return from Death without feeling like he’s choking (this again, brings more questions). They make a deal and they share information about the situation but nothing feels right, you know?
I hope the next volume gets better and I’m honestly wondering how is this going to be adapted to the anime –there are a lot of gore and explicit scenes that might come off as disgusting to some viewers/readers.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS:
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10
There is a lot of information that at times it feels like it just brings more questions to the table but the highlights of this are:
-Beatrice has a completed gospel, just like Petelgeuse, so she might actually have something to do with the Witch of Jealousy/Envy.
-Roswaal is helding information from Subaru, so we cannot trust him, even when he says he supports Emilia as a candidate for the throne.
-Garfiel and Frederica are half-brothers and half-breeds who can turn into powerful beasts.
-Garfield holds a grudge against Subaru because of the strong scent of the Witch (kind of like what happened with Rem in the previous arcs) and attacks him several times in order to protect the people inside the Sanctuary.
-Emilia is trying to pass the Trial but she always fails, and though Subaru tries his best to help her, she can only overcome her past by herself.
And, the cherry on top: never trust creatures that look cute and tiny. They’re always powerful enough to beat you down in the cruelest ways.
Now, to me this has been the darkest volume I’ve read because everybody is suffering and there comes a time when Subaru is about to go completely mad. That is until he meets with Echidna, and he reveals that he can Return from Death without feeling like he’s choking (this again, brings more questions). They make a deal and they share information about the situation but nothing feels right, you know?
I hope the next volume gets better and I’m honestly wondering how is this going to be adapted to the anime –there are a lot of gore and explicit scenes that might come off as disgusting to some viewers/readers.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS:
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10
September 3, 2020
well, what can i say other than great light novel, great anime? 🤷🏻♀️❤️
December 27, 2020
Four stars in general and four and a half for this series.
One thicc volume. It twisted the concept further, it pushed the protagonist towards interesting personal developments, and whenever dangerous and creative plot points weren't coming one after the other, we attended interesting conversations.
I must say, though, this is one odd arc. The main two motivations for the protagonist (the half-devil heroine and the demon maid Rem) were either subdued by despair or by a magical coma. However, I didn't feel their absence that much, given how other characters stepped up. Amongst them the most memorable was by far current best girl Echidna, Witch of Greed, who combined wisdom and intelligence in a charming and sexy package. That sweet 2D.
We left our suffering protagonist, a guy who got snatched from Earth and who due to having been cursed by a witch (a different one) is able to go back in time whenever he dies, after having died; the guy had raced back to the mansion where they live, only to find out that everybody he cared about that had stayed behind had likely been killed, and that the murderer was no other than big boobed bitch Elsa Granhiert. She ambushed the protagonist without any effort, although to be fair he isn't the most observant fellow.
When the protagonist goes back to the past, we get the first surprise: Garfiel, the major antagonist in the secluded arena this loop starts in, makes different decisions and even contradicts himself regarding his behavior in the protagonist's last "life". At the end of the last volume, as the protagonist was leaving for the mansion, Garfiel had suggested that the protagonist should pass the trial of Sanctuary (a psychological gauntlet set up by the Witch of Greed) instead of the heroine; the trial is making the heroine face her past, and likely her traumatic past is not one she can overcome. The protagonist thought about it, and in this new opportunity he offered the heroine the chance to pass the trial in her stead. The heroine, hurt at being coddled like that, claimed that it was her responsibility to pass it, or else she wouldn't be able to face much harder, less explicit trials in the future. Apart from that, Garfiel, who had suggested that very choice before, now vehemently opposed it. The protagonist is confused, and although he pursues both Garfiel and local "elder" Ryuzu (who is an elf of sorts far older than she looks), both argue against the protagonist's suggestion: the heroine should pass the trial on her own because that'll put their lord in a favorable position in regards to his wish to make the heroine into the kingdom's ruler (this shit is getting too complicated to summarize); after all, whenever Sanctuary ceases to be a cage, it'll be reabsorbed into the lord's domains. They want to remain in good terms with the very powerful lord.
In any case, the protagonist knows he needs to go back to the mansion in order to prevent the slaughter about to happen there. When he speaks to his lord about the necessity to go back and confront the previously absent maid Frederica, who seemingly had given them a trapped magical artifact back in the previous volume, the lord offers his senior servant to go along with him. She happens to be Ram, a hornless demon who only opens her mouth to demean people.
Pictured: An acquired taste
As they were travelling back to the mansion, the protagonist takes the opportunity to reveal to the servant that her little sister had been erased from her memories, and from everybody else's memories but the protagonist's, due to some magical bullshit. The little sister rests in a magical coma back at the mansion, and the protagonist hopes that when Ram meets her little sister it will awaken some sisterly love that will erase some of the bitch out of her.
Back at the mansion they meet a twelve year old villager who's taken an internship as a servant. She happens to be some girl whose life the protagonist saved some volumes ago, so she developed a crush on him. Entering dangerous territory, bro. In any case, when they get inside, while Ram is busy dealing with her comatose little sister she entirely forgot, the protagonist decides to confront half-beast servant Frederica on his own. He lays it a bit thick, but the girl has no clue what she's being accused of. She seems genuinely innocent. As they were planning anyway how to bring her to Sanctuary to be interrogated, contract killer Elsa appears with a knife to the twelve year old's throat. Chaos ensues: the protagonist damages his magic-producing organ to set off a smoke bomb-like spell that barely works. Elsa throws a knife at his back and several at Frederica's as they jump out of a window. They decide to confront the contract killer. Frederica turns into her bestial form, that in the anime adaptation looks rather lame and has female eyelashes. As the two superpowered maids fight, with the protagonist on the level of the twelve year old whose hand he holds, he tries to keep her safe while he figures out how to get the comatose Rem and librarian Beatrice out of the mansion.
They realize too late that they are facing two enemies: the second one is the beast master who had created the demon dogs situation back in volume three. Mutated beasts swarm the mansion, and a big one falls on the protagonist and the twelve year old girl as they were preparing for the dangerous task ahead. The injuries in this sequence are far more hardcore in the original novel version than in the anime (which is a constant in the adaptation); one of the protagonist's legs snaps in two places, one of his arms gets rendered unusable, and he likely has internal injuries. As he regains his senses he understands that his beloved ground dragon (the local horse proxies) is dragging him out of danger, and that he's still hanging on to the twelve year old's hand, but that hand now ends at a detached elbow. At that point he already decided that this run of his life was a bust, but the decision gets solidified when he comes across contract killer Elsa, who seemingly had murdered the adult servants as well. In a meaningless act of defiance, the protagonist decided to at least try to save comatose Rem, if by saving her I mean killing her and then himself. However, when he pushed open the door to Rem's room, he ended up entering the secret library through the passage spell that the librarian maintains. Realizing that the mansion was being attacked and everybody in it murdered, she decided to act to save the only person in it she cared about.
The librarian Beatrice is one of my favorite characters, despite being depicted with a silly haircut and an incongruously festive outfit straight out of Christmas; as usual, the Japanese integrate foreign influences in the manner most appropriate for them.
Pictured: the real meaning of Christianity
Beatrice was abandoned as a child four hundred years ago and either became a spirit or was a spirit to begin with, and due to a pact she was tasked to protect that library until something came to be; that something is unknown as of this volume. During four hundred years she came close to humans only for them to end up abandoning her, to the extent that she grew tired of suffering, pain, fear and everything else. Against her intentions, she had grown to care for the protagonist. Her internal conflict between her rational mind, her subconscious mind, and in the middle of it her role as a "minion" of sorts that is supposed to be just following a set path, along with her verbal tics and great voice acting in the adaptation, make her fascinating for me.
As I mentioned, she had decided to shelter the protagonist, but the protagonist is pissed: she had prevented him from saving Rem, and apparently is going to work against him dying. He runs against the clock to die before the checkpoint gets moved forward, as he risks the current present overwriting the previous "savepoint". Beatrice doesn't understand why he's berating her, and when he goes as far as breaking her chair and attempting to kill himself with one of the pieces, she tries to stop him. Through that he discovers that she was hiding a gospel, which in this story's world is attached to the Witch Cult; their Archbishops claim to only operate based on what those books say. Beatrice having one, and acting so dicey about it, could mean that she had been a cultist all along. In the end Beatrice, in tears, ends up breaking the bridge between her spirit existence and the lesser existence of a mere human, but when the contract killer finally finds them and guts the protagonist, the last thing he sees is the librarian in tears for him.
After this unfair death, like playing a mission in nightmare difficulty, the protagonist wakes up back at the tomb in Sanctuary, next to his beloved heroine, who is writhing in anguish from the trial she's being subjected to. The protagonist realizes how relieved he is next to someone he loves suffering, and begins to wonder if he's becoming less than human himself. Once he gets the heroine outside, local guardian Garfiel acts even more standoffish towards him; this guy seems to act differently each run. The protagonist's pal and terrible merchant Otto wants to know if he's doing fine: after all, he seems way too calm given how much the heroine is suffering. He understands that his growth as a person in regards to the horrors he's gone through makes him suspicious to others.
The protagonist, attempting to learn if there's a loophole for escaping Sanctuary given that the heroine is unlikely to pass the trial, meets in the forest with Garfiel and elder Ryuzu. However, it was an ambush: they render him unconscious, and when he wakes up, he's tied up in some dungeon. Garfiel, who is a big cat inside, smelled the stench of the curse that emanates from the protagonist, and that gets far smellier the more he returns back in time to the same spot. As it's a smell characteristic of the baddest witch, that makes the protagonist a Witch Cultist in Garfiel's nose. Unfortunately the protagonist knows that he won't be able to clear this misunderstanding at this point. After a few days of miserable imprisonment, Otto sneaks in to save him. When the protagonist tries to get out of the guy why on Earth did he go to such lengths for the protagonist's sake, Otto simply says that he was helping out a friend. The protagonist is baffled at how the possibility of befriending others had been erased out of his mind in this world in which he had known little else than agonizing deaths after agonizing deaths. Another example of how he's drifting out of regular people's comprehension. This is that scene from the adaptation.
They know they can't stay around; the protagonist going missing turned the place into a powder keg, with the villagers wanting to confront their jailers, and the heroine despairing at him having disappeared. But the protagonist feels he needs to risk speaking to his lord to figure out if Beatrice is on their side or not. In an interesting conversation, the lord assures him that Beatrice's Gospel is the real deal, a book that tells the future, and not the wannabe artifacts that the Witch Cultists carry with them. The librarian is therefore not an enemy. As the protagonist, Otto and senior servant attempt to escape, turns out that Garfiel had figured out the protagonist had escaped. Turned into a gigantic tiger, he kills everything in his way to detain or at this point murder the protagonist. The protagonist has to witness how everybody (senior servant Ram, Otto, some villagers, his beloved ground dragon) sacrifice themselves to save his life, although he knows that he should just die and restart the loop. However, his magical artifact comes in contact with the barrier, which teleports him. For some reason it's some time later now: snow has blanketed Sanctuary, and when the protagonist comes out of the tomb, there's nobody around. The only sign of life is a weird rabbit. As the protagonist attempts to pet it, the bunny eats his hand. A horde of rabbits surround the protagonist and devour him. The novel is very explicit in how he's devoured from every orifice of his body while remaining alive until the very last moment. That scene.
Although he restarts the loop back at the tomb, next to the heroine, this death finally was going to break his mind. He proceeds to hit his head against the ground while yelling why, only for the witch Echidna to bring his soul into her death dream, which restores his broken mind. What follows is a great sequence, one of my favorites of this volume, in which the protagonist wants to overwrite the vow that made him forget Echidna every time he exited her death dream. He has realized that he needs her wisdom and intelligence to get over his living nightmares, and she doesn't seem that bad for a witch anyway. As they are conversing, he realizes something: from her perspective, she had convoked him just after their previous talk ended. If she doesn't see it as weird, it means that she must know that he's cursed and that he can go back in time whenever he dies. She goads him into testing her, and he's reluctant because every previous time he had attempted to tell anybody about his curse, he had suffered untold pain, or else the person he was telling it to had been killed instantly. But he does tell this time, as shown in this great moment in which the voice actors get to shine.
With the witch having solidified as best girl material for the protagonist, they get to hypothesize on the extent of his ability (likely no limit, and was given to him by the baddest witch, whose mind is incomprehensible). As they move towards figuring out how to erase from the world the Great Rabbit, which is the horde that just ate him, and which is another demon beast created by the Witch of Gluttony (like the White Whale that they killed back in volume seven), Echidna offers him the opportunity to speak to the Witch of Gluttony herself; after all, her spirit rests in that tomb.
[continues on the comments]
One thicc volume. It twisted the concept further, it pushed the protagonist towards interesting personal developments, and whenever dangerous and creative plot points weren't coming one after the other, we attended interesting conversations.
I must say, though, this is one odd arc. The main two motivations for the protagonist (the half-devil heroine and the demon maid Rem) were either subdued by despair or by a magical coma. However, I didn't feel their absence that much, given how other characters stepped up. Amongst them the most memorable was by far current best girl Echidna, Witch of Greed, who combined wisdom and intelligence in a charming and sexy package. That sweet 2D.
We left our suffering protagonist, a guy who got snatched from Earth and who due to having been cursed by a witch (a different one) is able to go back in time whenever he dies, after having died; the guy had raced back to the mansion where they live, only to find out that everybody he cared about that had stayed behind had likely been killed, and that the murderer was no other than big boobed bitch Elsa Granhiert. She ambushed the protagonist without any effort, although to be fair he isn't the most observant fellow.
When the protagonist goes back to the past, we get the first surprise: Garfiel, the major antagonist in the secluded arena this loop starts in, makes different decisions and even contradicts himself regarding his behavior in the protagonist's last "life". At the end of the last volume, as the protagonist was leaving for the mansion, Garfiel had suggested that the protagonist should pass the trial of Sanctuary (a psychological gauntlet set up by the Witch of Greed) instead of the heroine; the trial is making the heroine face her past, and likely her traumatic past is not one she can overcome. The protagonist thought about it, and in this new opportunity he offered the heroine the chance to pass the trial in her stead. The heroine, hurt at being coddled like that, claimed that it was her responsibility to pass it, or else she wouldn't be able to face much harder, less explicit trials in the future. Apart from that, Garfiel, who had suggested that very choice before, now vehemently opposed it. The protagonist is confused, and although he pursues both Garfiel and local "elder" Ryuzu (who is an elf of sorts far older than she looks), both argue against the protagonist's suggestion: the heroine should pass the trial on her own because that'll put their lord in a favorable position in regards to his wish to make the heroine into the kingdom's ruler (this shit is getting too complicated to summarize); after all, whenever Sanctuary ceases to be a cage, it'll be reabsorbed into the lord's domains. They want to remain in good terms with the very powerful lord.
In any case, the protagonist knows he needs to go back to the mansion in order to prevent the slaughter about to happen there. When he speaks to his lord about the necessity to go back and confront the previously absent maid Frederica, who seemingly had given them a trapped magical artifact back in the previous volume, the lord offers his senior servant to go along with him. She happens to be Ram, a hornless demon who only opens her mouth to demean people.
Pictured: An acquired taste
As they were travelling back to the mansion, the protagonist takes the opportunity to reveal to the servant that her little sister had been erased from her memories, and from everybody else's memories but the protagonist's, due to some magical bullshit. The little sister rests in a magical coma back at the mansion, and the protagonist hopes that when Ram meets her little sister it will awaken some sisterly love that will erase some of the bitch out of her.
Back at the mansion they meet a twelve year old villager who's taken an internship as a servant. She happens to be some girl whose life the protagonist saved some volumes ago, so she developed a crush on him. Entering dangerous territory, bro. In any case, when they get inside, while Ram is busy dealing with her comatose little sister she entirely forgot, the protagonist decides to confront half-beast servant Frederica on his own. He lays it a bit thick, but the girl has no clue what she's being accused of. She seems genuinely innocent. As they were planning anyway how to bring her to Sanctuary to be interrogated, contract killer Elsa appears with a knife to the twelve year old's throat. Chaos ensues: the protagonist damages his magic-producing organ to set off a smoke bomb-like spell that barely works. Elsa throws a knife at his back and several at Frederica's as they jump out of a window. They decide to confront the contract killer. Frederica turns into her bestial form, that in the anime adaptation looks rather lame and has female eyelashes. As the two superpowered maids fight, with the protagonist on the level of the twelve year old whose hand he holds, he tries to keep her safe while he figures out how to get the comatose Rem and librarian Beatrice out of the mansion.
They realize too late that they are facing two enemies: the second one is the beast master who had created the demon dogs situation back in volume three. Mutated beasts swarm the mansion, and a big one falls on the protagonist and the twelve year old girl as they were preparing for the dangerous task ahead. The injuries in this sequence are far more hardcore in the original novel version than in the anime (which is a constant in the adaptation); one of the protagonist's legs snaps in two places, one of his arms gets rendered unusable, and he likely has internal injuries. As he regains his senses he understands that his beloved ground dragon (the local horse proxies) is dragging him out of danger, and that he's still hanging on to the twelve year old's hand, but that hand now ends at a detached elbow. At that point he already decided that this run of his life was a bust, but the decision gets solidified when he comes across contract killer Elsa, who seemingly had murdered the adult servants as well. In a meaningless act of defiance, the protagonist decided to at least try to save comatose Rem, if by saving her I mean killing her and then himself. However, when he pushed open the door to Rem's room, he ended up entering the secret library through the passage spell that the librarian maintains. Realizing that the mansion was being attacked and everybody in it murdered, she decided to act to save the only person in it she cared about.
The librarian Beatrice is one of my favorite characters, despite being depicted with a silly haircut and an incongruously festive outfit straight out of Christmas; as usual, the Japanese integrate foreign influences in the manner most appropriate for them.
Pictured: the real meaning of Christianity
Beatrice was abandoned as a child four hundred years ago and either became a spirit or was a spirit to begin with, and due to a pact she was tasked to protect that library until something came to be; that something is unknown as of this volume. During four hundred years she came close to humans only for them to end up abandoning her, to the extent that she grew tired of suffering, pain, fear and everything else. Against her intentions, she had grown to care for the protagonist. Her internal conflict between her rational mind, her subconscious mind, and in the middle of it her role as a "minion" of sorts that is supposed to be just following a set path, along with her verbal tics and great voice acting in the adaptation, make her fascinating for me.
As I mentioned, she had decided to shelter the protagonist, but the protagonist is pissed: she had prevented him from saving Rem, and apparently is going to work against him dying. He runs against the clock to die before the checkpoint gets moved forward, as he risks the current present overwriting the previous "savepoint". Beatrice doesn't understand why he's berating her, and when he goes as far as breaking her chair and attempting to kill himself with one of the pieces, she tries to stop him. Through that he discovers that she was hiding a gospel, which in this story's world is attached to the Witch Cult; their Archbishops claim to only operate based on what those books say. Beatrice having one, and acting so dicey about it, could mean that she had been a cultist all along. In the end Beatrice, in tears, ends up breaking the bridge between her spirit existence and the lesser existence of a mere human, but when the contract killer finally finds them and guts the protagonist, the last thing he sees is the librarian in tears for him.
After this unfair death, like playing a mission in nightmare difficulty, the protagonist wakes up back at the tomb in Sanctuary, next to his beloved heroine, who is writhing in anguish from the trial she's being subjected to. The protagonist realizes how relieved he is next to someone he loves suffering, and begins to wonder if he's becoming less than human himself. Once he gets the heroine outside, local guardian Garfiel acts even more standoffish towards him; this guy seems to act differently each run. The protagonist's pal and terrible merchant Otto wants to know if he's doing fine: after all, he seems way too calm given how much the heroine is suffering. He understands that his growth as a person in regards to the horrors he's gone through makes him suspicious to others.
The protagonist, attempting to learn if there's a loophole for escaping Sanctuary given that the heroine is unlikely to pass the trial, meets in the forest with Garfiel and elder Ryuzu. However, it was an ambush: they render him unconscious, and when he wakes up, he's tied up in some dungeon. Garfiel, who is a big cat inside, smelled the stench of the curse that emanates from the protagonist, and that gets far smellier the more he returns back in time to the same spot. As it's a smell characteristic of the baddest witch, that makes the protagonist a Witch Cultist in Garfiel's nose. Unfortunately the protagonist knows that he won't be able to clear this misunderstanding at this point. After a few days of miserable imprisonment, Otto sneaks in to save him. When the protagonist tries to get out of the guy why on Earth did he go to such lengths for the protagonist's sake, Otto simply says that he was helping out a friend. The protagonist is baffled at how the possibility of befriending others had been erased out of his mind in this world in which he had known little else than agonizing deaths after agonizing deaths. Another example of how he's drifting out of regular people's comprehension. This is that scene from the adaptation.
They know they can't stay around; the protagonist going missing turned the place into a powder keg, with the villagers wanting to confront their jailers, and the heroine despairing at him having disappeared. But the protagonist feels he needs to risk speaking to his lord to figure out if Beatrice is on their side or not. In an interesting conversation, the lord assures him that Beatrice's Gospel is the real deal, a book that tells the future, and not the wannabe artifacts that the Witch Cultists carry with them. The librarian is therefore not an enemy. As the protagonist, Otto and senior servant attempt to escape, turns out that Garfiel had figured out the protagonist had escaped. Turned into a gigantic tiger, he kills everything in his way to detain or at this point murder the protagonist. The protagonist has to witness how everybody (senior servant Ram, Otto, some villagers, his beloved ground dragon) sacrifice themselves to save his life, although he knows that he should just die and restart the loop. However, his magical artifact comes in contact with the barrier, which teleports him. For some reason it's some time later now: snow has blanketed Sanctuary, and when the protagonist comes out of the tomb, there's nobody around. The only sign of life is a weird rabbit. As the protagonist attempts to pet it, the bunny eats his hand. A horde of rabbits surround the protagonist and devour him. The novel is very explicit in how he's devoured from every orifice of his body while remaining alive until the very last moment. That scene.
Although he restarts the loop back at the tomb, next to the heroine, this death finally was going to break his mind. He proceeds to hit his head against the ground while yelling why, only for the witch Echidna to bring his soul into her death dream, which restores his broken mind. What follows is a great sequence, one of my favorites of this volume, in which the protagonist wants to overwrite the vow that made him forget Echidna every time he exited her death dream. He has realized that he needs her wisdom and intelligence to get over his living nightmares, and she doesn't seem that bad for a witch anyway. As they are conversing, he realizes something: from her perspective, she had convoked him just after their previous talk ended. If she doesn't see it as weird, it means that she must know that he's cursed and that he can go back in time whenever he dies. She goads him into testing her, and he's reluctant because every previous time he had attempted to tell anybody about his curse, he had suffered untold pain, or else the person he was telling it to had been killed instantly. But he does tell this time, as shown in this great moment in which the voice actors get to shine.
With the witch having solidified as best girl material for the protagonist, they get to hypothesize on the extent of his ability (likely no limit, and was given to him by the baddest witch, whose mind is incomprehensible). As they move towards figuring out how to erase from the world the Great Rabbit, which is the horde that just ate him, and which is another demon beast created by the Witch of Gluttony (like the White Whale that they killed back in volume seven), Echidna offers him the opportunity to speak to the Witch of Gluttony herself; after all, her spirit rests in that tomb.
[continues on the comments]
January 14, 2022
I think there's two parts to this book that need to be shouted at the top of my lungs.
the first one is the fun part, the endless suffering life of Subaru Natsuki and his ways of dying. Holy god did the anime not go into enough detail about this, we get descriptions of the White Rabbit eating Subaru from the Ass through to the front and him still being alive during it.
Then there's the endless amounts of mental torture he goes through, from the multiple loops at trying to stop death at the mansion, to seeing the people he loves die over and over along with them acting like they don't care while he knows they love each. The Rem/Ram stuff was pitch perfect and horrific in this where Ram is just cold and calculated towards leaving the shell of Rem behind and the mountaing pressures OH MY GOD the pressures on Subaru, all of them building to that horrific reveal of Roswall and his plans. Damn that's cold!
All of this does amazing things and I LOVE IT for that.
I don't like the massive amount of introspection in-between the endless amounts of conversations that go into larger detail than they need that I felt just dragged in places, it's needed I know but I'm suspecting that the type of language used in the Japanese doesn't translate well into English as there are likely subtle threats in what they're saying to Subaru over his dumb ass convos with them.
It's still some of the best fantasy I've read in ages and I still love every second of it, its just...a "tiny" bit of a struggle at times to get through.
the first one is the fun part, the endless suffering life of Subaru Natsuki and his ways of dying. Holy god did the anime not go into enough detail about this, we get descriptions of the White Rabbit eating Subaru from the Ass through to the front and him still being alive during it.
Then there's the endless amounts of mental torture he goes through, from the multiple loops at trying to stop death at the mansion, to seeing the people he loves die over and over along with them acting like they don't care while he knows they love each. The Rem/Ram stuff was pitch perfect and horrific in this where Ram is just cold and calculated towards leaving the shell of Rem behind and the mountaing pressures OH MY GOD the pressures on Subaru, all of them building to that horrific reveal of Roswall and his plans. Damn that's cold!
All of this does amazing things and I LOVE IT for that.
I don't like the massive amount of introspection in-between the endless amounts of conversations that go into larger detail than they need that I felt just dragged in places, it's needed I know but I'm suspecting that the type of language used in the Japanese doesn't translate well into English as there are likely subtle threats in what they're saying to Subaru over his dumb ass convos with them.
It's still some of the best fantasy I've read in ages and I still love every second of it, its just...a "tiny" bit of a struggle at times to get through.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2023
Really Good!
My favorite chapter in the volume was "friend." Love arc 4!
My favorite chapter in the volume was "friend." Love arc 4!
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.
November 13, 2024
“-Next time, make no mistakes, yes, Subaru Natsuki?” YOOOOOOOOOOHDBAO HE KNOWSSSSS!!! Insane developments with this volume ! Meeting the witches was pretty cool though we didn’t meet all of them. Still freaking love Echidna, I don’t rly like Garfiel much anymore although I don’t hate him. Otto you’re the goat! Again Rooswaal is kinda weird, from coconspirators to “you’re all my ally’s”. Can’t tell if he’s good or bad but that’s probably the whole point. Ending with that quote from above went so crazy I can’t wait for volume 12.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2025
The Problems Subaru faces with the various witches and trying to get the villagers out of the village keep piling up. Previously when he has died, he has been able to return by Death and solve the issue. The problem this time, is there lots of changes each time he goes around.
There are interesting issues brought up in this volume. But in the end the story is about where is was in the begining, but with more knowledge.
There are interesting issues brought up in this volume. But in the end the story is about where is was in the begining, but with more knowledge.
March 1, 2020
Another amazing volume! This series just keeps on delivering! :D
Subaru is developing into this awesome character which has gone insane... but it’s the functional type.... He knows and admits he is insane, so it’s alright.
Plotwise, definitely hands down the best light novel translated to English.
Subaru is developing into this awesome character which has gone insane... but it’s the functional type.... He knows and admits he is insane, so it’s alright.
Plotwise, definitely hands down the best light novel translated to English.
July 16, 2025
this one took me a little longer to finish, I feel this volume is not as strong as the ones that came before it, but the second half has some great world building and we and Suburu finally get some much needed answers. the middle part of the book is a bit of a drag sadly and that's what let's this book down for me. 4 and half stars out of 5.
August 31, 2020
enthralling
My first rezero LN (just shifted from the anime) and it was an exciting journey. I absolutely loved every part of it. Gotta end the review quickly as I'm super excited to start reading volume 12.
My first rezero LN (just shifted from the anime) and it was an exciting journey. I absolutely loved every part of it. Gotta end the review quickly as I'm super excited to start reading volume 12.
November 14, 2024
Continuing arc 4 this volume really really captures the literal shit show Subaru is about to be trapped in and I think it handles it really well from the mansion to the sanctuary everything feels urgent while also lots of lore heavy parts are getting dropped
June 24, 2020
Couldn't put it down, so good yet so frustrating at times.
Read
September 2, 2020really good continuation of volume 10.
subaru endures a lot of suffering, like a lot a lot
but there's also some really happy moments for him when talking to echidna
subaru endures a lot of suffering, like a lot a lot
but there's also some really happy moments for him when talking to echidna
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 25, 2020
Loved it to no end. Favourite chapters are Friend, Value of Life and Witches tea party. Friend chapter made me so emotional that I wanted to cry on the bus.
May 24, 2022
Otto is a chad
June 27, 2022
Web Novel additions are so good and it makes me wonder why Yen Press wound up cutting so much. Echidna might be best girl as well...
October 8, 2023
En pocas palabras, ta potente
June 8, 2025
esté arco fue el peak de re Zero en el anime y tiene sus motivos
August 10, 2025
the introduction of the witches and the rabbit death was pure cinema and also so many great moments in general
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 19, 2020
No sé por donde empezar, en realidad fue una cosa tremenda lo del conejo, de las muertes más traumáticas y que más ganas de vomitar me han dado.
/* Esto para la web novel
Fue tanta información que sigo sin entender como es que Subaru no se desquició más. Definitivamente siento que maduró mucho, inclusive su proceso de pensamiento se hacía más rápido y me hacía decir "Hey, ¿cuándo te hiciste tan suspicaz?".
AHORA, ADORÉ PROFUNDAMENTE COMO SE LLEVABA CON EMILIA. Fue tan dulce que a pesar de que estaba molesta con él por querer tener dos personas a la vez, no pude evitar sonreírle a mi pantalla y suspirar de amor <3
En cuanto a Emilia fue simplemente hermoso leerla. No quiero que sea malentendido como que me guste verla sufrir, porque en realidad me destrozaba el corazón. Si no que, desde el punto de vista de Subaru ella era una persona súper fuerte que no dejaba ver su debilidad a otros, desde el mío podía entender lo sola que se sentía y lo mucho que se esforzaba, es por esto que verla tan frágil, esos pequeños gestos como tomar la manga de Subaru me gustaron, porque pude observar como le abría su corazón a alguien más aparte de Puck.
Es de los libros que más me han gustado y que me hizo leerlo en un día.
*/
/* Esto para la web novel
Fue tanta información que sigo sin entender como es que Subaru no se desquició más. Definitivamente siento que maduró mucho, inclusive su proceso de pensamiento se hacía más rápido y me hacía decir "Hey, ¿cuándo te hiciste tan suspicaz?".
AHORA, ADORÉ PROFUNDAMENTE COMO SE LLEVABA CON EMILIA. Fue tan dulce que a pesar de que estaba molesta con él por querer tener dos personas a la vez, no pude evitar sonreírle a mi pantalla y suspirar de amor <3
En cuanto a Emilia fue simplemente hermoso leerla. No quiero que sea malentendido como que me guste verla sufrir, porque en realidad me destrozaba el corazón. Si no que, desde el punto de vista de Subaru ella era una persona súper fuerte que no dejaba ver su debilidad a otros, desde el mío podía entender lo sola que se sentía y lo mucho que se esforzaba, es por esto que verla tan frágil, esos pequeños gestos como tomar la manga de Subaru me gustaron, porque pude observar como le abría su corazón a alguien más aparte de Puck.
Es de los libros que más me han gustado y que me hizo leerlo en un día.
*/
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