English Dub Review: Re:ZERO ~Starting Life in Another World~ “The Maiden’s Gospel”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Subaru returns to the ruins as his new save point in this second-time loop. He comforts Emilia before suggesting to the group back at the village that he take the trials in Emilia’s place as he reveals that he passed his trial. Garfiel and Ryuzu reject his offer and Emilia asks if he doesn’t trust her. Later Garfiel and Ryuzu explain that Roswaal was insistent on the matter. After that, he talks with Roswaal about the villagers leaving the barrier and going back to the mansion.

He arrives at the mansion with Ram and they’re greeted by Petra. Subaru gives Ram time alone with Rem as he confronts Frederica about the crystal she gave to Emilia before Ram enters the conversation. Then they get attacked by Elsa and then escape outside of the room. After making a judgment call to go back for Rem and Beatrice, Frederica transforms and battles Elsa while the trio gets to Rem. Unfortunately, malbeasts appear and Ram fends them off while Subaru and Petra advance to Rem’s room. Suddenly the ceiling collapses, Subaru bloodied and bruised makes his way to Rem only to stop when Elsa appears. Subaru reaches the door, opens it, and closes it quickly only to find himself in Beatrice’s library.

 

Our Take:

In this time loop, there are noticeable changes with everyone’s decisions. For starters, when Emilia is awake for meeting this time and Garfiel’s anger at Subaru’s suggestion. The reason why she’s able to calm down so quickly was because of Subaru, and it’s clear that he’s an emotional support anchor for her. Furthermore when Subaru suggests that he take the trials in Emilia’s place Garfiel and Ryuzu refuse his offer.

It makes sense for them to reject it as they are in Roswaal’s domain and anything he insists on should be taken seriously. The man may look like a clown and be injured at the moment, but he can certainly rain fire down on anyone like the mallbeasts in the first season. Plus there isn’t time for Garfiel to empathize with Emilia’s turmoil because he’s only seen it once rather than multiple times like in the last episode. On top of that, there’s also Emilia’s thoughts as she’s hurt by the lack of trust Subaru appears to have in her to proceed with the trials. She can’t just let him do the trials and run away, by then she’d have nothing to say to the villagers who put their trust in her. In the long term, if she can’t get through the trials herself, how can she go through with the royal selection?

Then there’s Frederica and her oath which keeps her from revealing vital information to Subaru and Ram, and the fact that she didn’t know about the transport spell on the necklace is definitely making me suspicious. At this point, I can only assume that her oath is to Roswaal seeing as how he is her boss and the fact that he instructed her in a letter to tell Subaru and Emilia on how to get to the Sanctuary. Then there’s her transformation which was pretty epic to see with that tidbit of Garfiel imitating her. Even though we don’t see her in action in that form, her fight allowed Subaru and the others to get back inside, fend off malbeasts, and make their way to Rem’s room.

Lastly, there’s Elsa and her entrance with a blade at Petra’s throat which gets the rest to go on the offensive then escape out the window. Once outside Ram makes the logical decision to head to Saunctary without Beatrice and Rem which Subaru and Frederica halt that choice saying that they can’t just leave them to die. Even though Ram admits that the blood running through Rem’s veins is similar to her, Ram makes the cold choice to leave her twin behind. It’s what she believes Rem would want. Subaru doesn’t like it, but he has to remind himself that people don’t have his memories and experiences because of Return by Death. Additionally, Ram doesn’t remember Rem because of the Sin Archbishop, so there’s not much any of them can do.

When the camera switches to Subaru’s perspective with his eyes closing and opening after the ceiling collapses with the brief glimpses of Ram and Patrasche. Then when he comes to his vision is red thanks to the blood from the injury of the collapse. It places the audience in Subaru’s shoes once more as he’s injured and not quite clear on what happened.

The episode leaves on a brutal cliffhanger with Subaru in Beatrice’s library and Elsa waiting outside. He demands to know why she saved him and it’s a good question. She could have easily just continued on reading in her library. Hopefully, we get answers to her intentions in the next episode.

 

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