Attention! This review of Chapter 12 of Re: Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2 It's full of spoilers. We recommend that you watch the episodes first, and then read again. You can also read the previous review.
Chapter 12: The Witches Tea Party
Subaru returns from the dead one more time. Although this new beginning is quieter, the boy knows that what to expect is much more complicated than he thought. You need all the help you can get to keep moving forward and you seek that help from the only person who understood. So begins chapter 12 of Subject: Zero 2when the boy decides his best option is to seek advice from a witch.
Our protagonist enters the temple and screams for Echidna to invite him to her tea party again. Inadvertently, however, Subaru is trapped in the "sanctuary" second trial and must see what her death did to those around him on each of the routes he failed. Consider this unimaginable gift.
Once the process is over, Carmilla, The Witch of Lust, helps Subaru not break with her strength, albeit in a way the boys did not like. Then Echidna invites him to her tea party, ready to make an important proposal to the young man who returns from the dead. Then the boy, surrounded by the six witches of sin, faces an important decision: to give Echidna everything he has in return for everything that belongs to her. However, the party is disturbed by the presence of someone who was not invited.
opinion
We are far from the end of this first part of the second season of Re: zeroand the tension is already through the roof. The upcoming reunion of the seven witches of sin, including the infamous Satella, has put Subaru under tremendous pressure, having become the object of desire for at least two of them. How will Echidna and Satella resolve their differences?
The protagonist is in trouble. And not only because he has to force himself to be surrounded by real monsters, but also because he cannot find a way out of the problems that have killed him several times. In desperation, he turned to the person who has helped him the most so far, only to realize it could cost him more than he is willing to pay.
What would happen if ...?
After being transported into a new world, with magic, half-humans and everything that characterizes those kind of stories, Subaru got quite excited. Would i be a hero Would it have incredible powers? Was he surrounded by girls he had once saved? Well, maybe in some ways the young man has all of that, it's just not what he expected it to be. His new life was filled with shadows rather than bright lights and colors.
Among the details that did not match his isekai fantasy is his own power that makes him unique, as he was reminded in chapter 12 of Subject: Zero 2. "The Return of Death" is a really useful force, but it is not used for fighting or for physical (or magical) deeds that would gain the admiration of those around her. And besides being unable to share his existence with other people, it doesn't help much with the trauma that the cruelest deaths can cause him.
But something our protagonist didn't think about is that his death affects other people as well. The boy died and immediately returned to Saved Point, but he never thought that the people he left behind, or rather the versions of those people he left behind, would have to live in a world without Subaru. In other words, Subaru never thought its "return from the dead" would create parallel realities.
Perhaps the name "return from the dead" is not the most accurate when describing the power of Subaru. There is no such resurrection, although it is caused by the death of the bearer. What he really does is travel back in time, to a point in time when Subaru's death has not occurred and all of his memories are intact. Its power is actually the ability to travel through time.
Time travel, from a strictly scientific point of view, causes too much inconvenience. We talk about the paradoxes a famous "doc" feared with a teenage friend. However, there are many suggestions from dozens of physicists trying to solve these paradoxes and one of them is the existence of parallel universes. Did Subaru never consider this option, or did he just ignore it to protect his sanity?
Is that love?
Echidna has been very interested in Subaru since the character was introduced to us. During this arc he helped the protagonist a couple of times thanks to his great knowledge and experience. The witch never doubted the boy's requests whether they were within her reach. It was clear from the start that Subaru Echidna was very impressive.
However, we must not forget that she is a witch, and as Echidna said, these beings do evil. Echidna's intentions were made clear in chapter 12 of Subject: Zero 2: He wants Subaru's Death Return, and the only way to get it is to share it with the boy. So she uses herself as a bargaining chip to achieve the same life as Subaru.
Echidna offered Subaru her own life in exchange for the boy's life. He wants everything, so he offers everything. This form of statement could work for other classes of characters and other genres of anime. You would even hear it romantically. Echidna doesn't do it out of sheer attraction to Subaru, but out of the madness of its power. And don't care about the boy's feelings.
Anyway, I don't think witches are bad in the strict sense of the word. They are simply beings who have achieved very high levels of power and this makes it difficult for them to see and understand those who look at them from below. At the same time, I don't think a proposal like Echidna's is bad for Subaru. The problem is that it was made by Echidna, who lacks empathy and therefore would be inconsistent with Subaru's methods.
Conclusions
Chapter 12 of Subject: Zero 2 it brought many surprises. We saw what could have been of the realities Subaru died in as well as the unexpected reunion of the seven "sin witches," including Satella, whom we will hopefully talk about in the next episode. Faced with a difficult decision, Subaru chose not to take Echidna's hand, but someone he trusts much more.
We almost went out Re: zero For this year, enjoy the next episode to the full. But first a question, what do you think of Chapter 12 of Re: Zero 2?
