Re Zero – Starting Life in Another World is a Japanese novel series that was written by Tappei Nagatsuki. The story revolves around Subaru Natusuki who while on his way from the convenience store going home is transported to a completely different world. The series is illustrated by Shinichirou Otsuka and Media Factory is its publisher. Re Zero has got a total of twenty five episodes and the company that is behind it is the Studio Whitefox company.
Re Zero: Synopsis and Analysis Of Novels One and Two
The Synopsis
Subaru Natusuki is an ordinary high school student who finds himself thrown into a fantasy world unexpectedly. While still trying to adapt to the new world, he is attacked by attacked by some thugs and a beautiful lady who has got silvery hair is the one that comes to his rescue. It happens that the beautiful girl is searching for a stolen insignia. As a form of appreciation to the kindness that the girl showed him, Subaru decides to stay close to her and offers his assistance in searching for the stolen item. The two are however got unaware by the enemy and they are killed.
Surprisingly, Natusuki awakens sometimes in the past and discovers an ability to rewind death. He cannot tell what this extra-ordinary thing means and he therefore confronts this inexplicable scenario in which only he is in a position to remember what happened. He finds out the hard way that indeed he has a very special ability. When he dies, he loops back to a set point in time where he finds that there are a lot of things that can kill him; sexy female assassins and a group of common street thugs being examples of the same.
After breaking the cycle of his time in the capital city, he wakes up in the guest room of a mansion in the countryside. The mansion belongs to an eccentric nobleman known as Roswaal who declares his support Emilia in her quest for the throne. Emilia is one of the several candidates contesting to be queen after the death of the royal family. Roswaal is however hr only one who is backing her. As Natusuki is trying to himself a fitting place in this new world and in the life of Emilia, the world itself is trying by all means possible to see to t that he is gotten rid of.
Novel One Review
The first print volume of this series comes across as a fairly typical light novel fare of the Isekia genre which means transported to another world. The novel consists of danger, magic, beautiful girls and a protagonist who is destined to do something great. The protagonist operates on what he believes to be a Meta understanding of the situation he is in. despite his notions to the contrary however, he is repeatedly and rudely reminded that he is not fit to be a hero. This is what makes this series different from the rest of its genre.
In the first few seasons of the anime version, anime directly adapts this novel into its first three episodes. It follows the novel closely and a significant deviation is witnessed at a scene where the spirit mage shows off her power. There is a crucial scene in the novels epilogue which shows the reason for one character’s behavior. The anime also trims down some of Natusuki’s prattle. As a matter of fact, all of the characters show a greater predilection to prattling in the novel than they do in the anime.
The main weakness of the novel, however, is that its author is not that good at managing the timing and flow of character dialect. This is because of the too many exchanges that run overly long like the ones taking place in the middle of the flight scenes. The author also has got a bad tendency towards redundancy. Furthermore, the writing style generally comes across too casually which seems to be a common characteristic of light novels. Throughout this novel, hints are dropped suggesting that a much bigger and beefier story is getting underway which brings us to the second novel.
Novel Two Review
At the beginning of this novel, Natusuki wakes up at a new place. Emilia then takes him to her patron’s home in the countryside. Even though he recognizes that the world he finds himself is a real world in that he lives around with people, he still thinks about is actions as if he was in a game. This makes him a fish out of water and a uniquely well informed protagonist. He knows how things generally play out n fiction and acknowledges the similarities. At the same time, he is aware of the genre pitfalls and is on the look-out for them.
The cast of characters in this novel is completely revamped due to the change of setting. The first volume went to some dark places. This volume however is where the story really gets into the more frightening and alarming aspects of Natusuki’s return to death power. Re Zero knows how to poke its genre’s tropes while still telling a story that pulls you in deeper with each subsequent volume. The resulting character growth and drama is extremely compelling. Its biggest actions set pieces together with the climaxes would be nowhere near as effectual otherwise.
Conclusion
Re Zero may not be a deep show with any real meaningful message at the end of the day but it is clearly the best of all its competitors as an isekai show. In weekly basis, it provides top notch entertainment that is quality with several gripping and impactful moments that you are not going to forget for a long time. Furthermore, it not only swats away any reason to doubt its set up but also blows your way with meticulously crafted and scenes that are cinematic. Almost every episode leaves you with the suspense of wanting to know what goes on in the next right away and for this reason, you can hardly ask for much more. It is therefore advisable that you try it for the best of entertainment.
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