Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 4

Episode 13

It's important to remember that starting from zero doesn't magically make Subaru an incorruptible hero. Rather, it's the first step on a long journey filled with pitfalls. With this episode, we run into one of them.

Now that Subaru has come to accept his companions as true friends—people he trusts and loves that trust and love him in return—he's able to support them. He comes up with the plan to read Reid's book and even elects to take the information into his mind—even after what happened with Meili's book. He wants to do his part if nothing else.

However, his new positive feelings are a double-edged sword. While memory loss Subaru has only existed for five days in the fantasy world (by his own subjective viewpoint), he's already made far greater personal growth than the original Subaru did in his first few months. It's no surprise he doesn't want to lose that progress—doesn't want to go back to the lonely blowhard he was before entering the fantasy world.

And along those same lines, he doesn't want to be overwritten should his original memories return. Basically, Subaru is facing a death of personality. It's why brain damage or even mind altering medicines can cause such visceral fear in people. It's a chilling thought: What happens when you're not you anymore?

Rui, of course, is playing on these existential fears. Not only does she point out that the current Subaru may “die,” she not-so-subtly also plays with the idea that the previous Subaru was a worse person than the current one. Because of this, it's probably safe to say that Rui is the one who has been causing Subaru's blackouts—temporarily taking control of him, doing horrible things, and then blaming it on the previous Natsuki Subaru. She's giving him every reason she can think of to make him want to reject his previous incarnation—to view himself as a wholly different person from that Natsuki Subaru.

Her motivations are as simple as the sin she represents. Rui eats memories. In the moment, they are exquisite but they do nothing to satiate in the long term. Thus, Rui is driven to constantly devour more memories—which means finding an endless stream of victims. However, with Subaru, she has found the ultimate all-you-can-eat buffet. She eats his memories, he goes through several loops gaining more memories, and, due tot he nature of the trial, inevitably returns to The Corridor of Memories after opening a book. Along the way, she does everything she can to make him want to reject that he and the previous Subaru are one in the same—thus insuring she can get around the pesky rule that makes it so she can only eat each person once. It's an infinite feeding cycle.

What Rui didn't expect was, in this place of memories, nothing seems to be truly forgotten. While Emilia may have taken her spot in Subaru's second restart from zero, Rem still had an impact on Subaru. He may not remember it but he can still feel it. Rem is able to remind him of his potential—of what he can become (and already is in her eyes). And in the end, Subaru returns to help his friends in their time of need. He's still afraid of being erased—terrified even. But as he says, this is this, and that is that.

Rating:

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Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.