English Dub Review: Re:ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~ “The Value of Life”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Subaru, Ram, and Otto take a minor detour to Roswaal who answers a few of Subaru’s questions like on Beatrice. When they make preparations to leave the barrier Garfiel appears menacingly. They attempt to persuade him but he’s unwilling to listen and transforms. Ram tries to stop him while Otto and Subaru escape with the help of the villagers lighting the way. However, they don’t get far as Garfiel reaches them and commences his slaughter even to Subaru’s pleas. Then Subaru ends up in a snowy place devoid of any people where he is killed by an army of devouring horned rabbits.

Subaru wakes up at the graveyard still reeling from that horrifying experience. When he bangs his head onto the ground repeatedly, he hears a voice and is brought back to Echidna and her tea party. Upon being brought back there he feels strangely calm and questions it. Echidna replies that it’s because of the tea he drank which is stabilizing his soul. He asks her not to make him forget her and she agrees. Subaru comes to a realization and confesses that he returns by death. He breaks down having found relief that he can finally tell someone about his ability.

Our Take:

Now Roswaal confirming that Beatrice isn’t in the Witch’s Cult is a huge relief, but in that conversation, he brings up a few things that have garnered curiosity such as the Witch’s Cult Gospels are apparently incomplete versions of the one that Beatrice holds and that there are two of them. If Beatrice has one then does Roswaal have the other? He’s pretty informed about the books and about getting Beatrice to help with the question and the answer that he provides to Subaru. I don’t think Beatrice would be forthcoming with answers since she doesn’t deviate from the book at all as we’ve seen in the last episode.

Subaru can’t catch a break with his friends trying to kill him in these loops. This is the third time that someone he knows has tried to kill him. From Rem, Ram, and now Garfiel granted they were all suspicious and angry at him for various reasons including the witch’s scent on him. Garfiel’s anger, in this case, was more damaging because he didn’t give a damn about the villagers, Ram, or Otto when going after Subaru. Even his plea for Garfiel to stop while Otto and the others sacrificed themselves was a good move on how Subaru has impacted them to that extent of facing off against a very angry tiger that towers over them.

That last scene with Echidna was powerful because Subaru is able to reveal that he can return by death without any repercussions from it on him or her. Sean Chiplock does a nice job in that scene conveying Subaru’s unease before telling Echidna. His broken confession is accompanied by the euphoric music that emphasizes on how that moment was his salvation essentially. It’s ironic how holy the music sounds considering how Subaru confesses his greatest secret to a witch. Furthermore, when she asks him to tell her everything despite having claimed that she saw it is a little weird, but she does desire to know his thoughts and emotions which fits her identity as the Witch of Greed. Hopefully, that conversation would be Subaru’s price for getting Echidna to allow him to keep his memories of her.

I look forward to how their conversation will go in the next episode. Now that Subaru has returned once more, there’s bound to be a change in how he approaches Garfiel. Hopefully, Subaru can convince him that he’s not an enemy even with the witch’s scent on him.