#plot review

I love DIU..however, I consider it one of the post flawed of the JJBA Parts. Honestly, I feel like Araki didn't fully know where he was going with it til halfway, which is why the plot can be so janky. No matter what, let's dive into it. First, characters.

(also quick disclaimer: this is all my opinion and i am biased for MANY things.)

if u diagree w me dont tell me i think it would crush me

This quite possibly could be my favourite episode of this particular series so far. It was packed with storytelling both visual and written down and it successfully managed to leave me stumped as to what would happen next. Thing about that is, this show normally does have me guessing a lot but that’s kind of what it’s all about. I’m always thinking about what could happen next and that is a good thing for a show to do but what I would argue is one step better is to leave me glued to the show and basking in it’s storytelling. This is what this episode did.

It’s revealed that the Gospel doesn’t actually have anything written in it at all. It’s just dirty old pages and Beatrice was just pretending this whole time. It turns out that Echidna created her and she has been effectively waiting to die this whole time and demands that Subaru put her out of her misery but before their heated conversation can go any further, Elsa barges in because of course she does. What is funny is that she actually explained how they found Beatrice which is the exact thing I put in a previous blog post but I passed it off as a joke but she actually says she went through every door and leaving it open. I guess she figured out that Beatrice could move with the door closed but her proclaiming that it was some brilliant strategem was kind of funny.

Beatrice uses Chamac (the “shadow” magic) which Elsa is weak to before Subaru has a chance to do it because she knows he’ll waste it. A good self-conscious bit of writing that I like because the logical and sensible thing happened there rather than just Subaru using it and putting himself at a disadvantage again when it could’ve easily been prevented. It’s small bits like this that make me like the show because it doesn’t pick a stupid path for the story just for the sake of forced melodrama. I know it’s weird to say you like a show for something it doesn’t do but it gives an animé like this a bit more credence in my books.

They escape up the road to the village to seek refuge to find Elsa’s assistant who is an actual child.

Meili Portroute is her name apparently, according to Google anyway. I don’t remember her being called that but I think her name is too silly for her to be a bad guy but maybe that’s the thing about her being the child. The twist with her is that she was one of the children in the village. Whether or not she was a plant in the village the whole time or she was brainwashed by Elsa later is unclear (I think?). I’m not sure I’m down with the super evil child trope because it doesn’t really do anything for me. I find that these characters just exist to be edgy and a cheap way to create something to make the viewer uncomfortable just by concept alone. I’ll let it go because she doesn’t seem to be that important here really. She killed Petra which Subaru deems to be the last straw but Elsa shows up and Beatrice actually makes short work of her, turning her body into amethyst.

Beatrice goes to kill the small blue child but Subaru doesn’t allow her because it’s a child which is kind of frustrating but you would never not get that scenario. It’s hard to imagine that Subaru’s character would let child slaughter go off in cold blood. Ruh-roh though because Elsa is just fine I guess and stabs Beatrice through her gut and her dead body begins disintegrating like the aurora borealis. Elsa basically kicks him to death and laughs at Beatrice for risking her life for a sub-8 male then Beatrice saves Subaru by transporting him back to Sanctuary. We can assume that he didn’t actually die because he still has the eye injury Elsa insists on giving him every life.

He wakes up in the jail cell where Garfiel and Ryuzu threw him in earlier and it’s snowing so ya know. That’s probably bad news. He drags himself all the way over to the trial grounds to find Emilia and Emilia is significantly different in a way that upsets and confuses Subaru. Emilia is suddenly very attached to Subaru in a way that is kind of a reflection of how Subaru behaves towards her. There is definitely something that I can compare that to, I just don’t know what is. Sorry that I’m not cultured enough.

It’s obvious that Subaru knows that something is wrong and he has a back-and-forth with the suspicious Garfiel. You get a cool animation sequence with Garfiel slowly turning into his animal form and I don’t think I mention the animation enough because it’s patently obvious that it’s improved significantly in all departments. If you compare even medial environments like Roswaal’s manor in the first series, there is more going on in the second series and that’s highlighted in Frederica’s fight with Elsa earlier in the series with a lot more thought put into how the layout could be used for interesting battle set-pieces. Despite it being just hallways, there’s, not imagination rather, the budget to accelerate the animators imaginations and it is a big plus for the second series.

ANYWAY...

Subaru demands to see Roswaal.

Garfiel questions him about the snow and all the chaos that is happening because he is the big talky man but Ram doesn’t let him and stands in the way of his advances only for Roswaal to cut straight through Ram’s body with his bare hands, killing her instantly. Before Garfiel can transform into his feline form, Roswaal kills him as well and they’re just left to bleed out on top of each other. Subaru doesn’t really react because he’s still in shock and Roswaal concludes that Subaru has numbed to the fear of consequences and that he must be able to go through with it again. I don’t want to be that guy, and I don’t know if I actually wrote it in my blogpost, but I called that Roswaal knew about Subaru’s respawn ability pretty early on in at least the first couple of episodes that he featured in. But that is only because my mind was drawn to thinking about there being a character who knows his secret. I thought it was only sensible to think that and Roswaal does seem keenly interested in Subaru from the beginning on a pretty baseless reason that he is just fun to be around.

Nonetheless though, just because one sees something coming doesn’t mean it’s bad. I can’t stress that enough because i was still pleased and satisfied that this development in the story happened because it made it interesting. Roswaal is one of my favourite characters in this whole shebang because of how mysterious and weird he is. He is always jetting off doing mysterious business and is slightly aloof towards Rem and Ram. A lot of fingers are pointed towards Echidna as well because of what we’ve recently found out about her involved roles behind the scenes and that Roswaal is pally with Echidna although I don’t think they’re on texting terms.

I like where this is going and I liked that Roswaal just walked into the sea of rabbits and accepted that this was the end. He seems blanket certain that there is nothing Subaru can do. Before he leaves, he makes sure to beat the everloving fuck out of him because he knows he can’t kill him and it would be a waste of time. It’s getting pretty good now. Hopefully something stupid doesn’t happen in the next few episodes...

Subaru crawls over to Emilia covered in wounds to seek her synthetic comfort and the show just ends uncomfortably with him bleeding out and rotting in her arms. That’s pretty cool. I like when they make deaths like more of an event

Story in a nutshell: Lady doesn’t want to be a slave. Becomes a slave. Fights to not be a slave. Gets raped. Constantly raped. Develops stockholm syndrome. Gets pregnant. Wants to leave rapist/kidnapper/owner. Ends up being stuck due to weather conditions. Ends up staying because it would be mean to take baby away. 

Very information-heavy this one. A lot going on. Predominantly, looking at the concept of Ryuzu Meyer and more at the idea of Echidna and what she is actually up to. An intriguing plotline and one more similar to the shape and structure found in the first series of the show. I find it unlikely that I’ll be able to recall all the information with 100% accuracy because there was so much of it but I think I pretty much got the gist of it.

The episode continues from the last with Garfiel and Subaru running away from Satella whose long black shadow is just ruining everyones fun. Garfiel has revealed that the shadow has pretty much consumed everyone which marks the only egregious part of the whole episode where Subaru and Garfiel stop running away from the black hurricane to then deliver emotionally nuanced dialogue which is just a trope I fucking hate. It’s pace-halting and tedious every time it happens in any show of any kind never mind Re:ZERO.

Garfiel calls upon his big tiger boy fursona to fight Satella but not much is done to combat her at all really despite the lemming Ryuzus battering into her shadow body. Satella consumes Subaru and he proceeds to go on a pretty bad trip where all these memories of his and seemingly of hers are transposed in his brain. Utlimately though, he dies.

He wakes up and is freaked out by Emilia being there because A) she wasn’t there before and B) because she looks quite a bit like Satella (as already established in the very first episode). So Subaru Natsuki is having a Catherine-like existential crisis. The same order of events happens again except this time Subaru asks Ram to go and distract Garfiel whilst he goes and investigates something he saw in a memory.

This generally feels more like the episodes from the first series of the show because it’s like there is a puzzle to be figured out and that Subaru is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Watching the main character figure these things out is what makes him even vaguely likeable for me. Information is being chased after constantly and this episode is a good example of fantasy exploration and good storytelling.

Anyway, he goes into this temple type place which has a slot for the blue diamond thing which activates a secret lab that has a Ryuzu in embryo. It’s essentially revealed that Echidna was here experimenting and researching immortality like Doctor Octopus. It’s ascertained that Echidna is probably interested in Subaru’s mentality so I guess she doesn’t love him for his winning personality.

Subaru then bumps into Emilia in the forest whilst he is on a thinking trip I guess. They have a bit of a heart-to-heart about the trials and there isn’t much to this dialogue section really. It’s largely lamenting on the mystery of where Puck is and that Emilia feels incomplete without him. I assume it’s going to be something to do with Emilia crossing into Sanctuary and Puck isn’t allowed to go with her into it.

Subaru leaves a letter for the people in Sanctuary saying that he is jetting off to the mansion to get them to evacuate and laments that all these steps are pointless if he’s going to die but I get the impression that he is doing it to keep his humanity which I think is an interesting angle to take on this whole scenario and I feel like my intrigue is up on this show again. About time really.

This wasn’t as action-packed with moments of great tensions like the previous gambit of episodes were in this series but it was a fun pause for air despite the inherent tragedy of the undertones which is an excellence of this show.

The first part of the episode is all about the new character of Gugu whom we saw briefly at the end of the last episode who came off as just an odd child with an unknown identity. But it begins with quite a good sequence of a small window into his life and it’s all very cosy and welcoming. Him and his brother are fruit traders who are just trying to get money to live which is nice, simple and relatable. I really like their designs as well and they do really stand out in the universe so far despite their simplicity. The character of Gugu is transfixed with this posh-looking girl who he sees in the market.

That’s all fine but I must address the elephant in the room which is how he has his accident that causes him to wear the weird hawk helmet in the first place. He’s just wondering around on the hill and thinking about edgy faux-philosophical stuff like pre-pubescent boys do when confronted with feelings of attraction to someone else when a lumber carriage comes by on rails. He openly wonders about what would happen if he jumped in front of it but decides against it and then a log falls off and just misses him by inches. It’s stuck on a branch so the man runs to get help and tells Gugu to watch it. It eventually falls and there’s a woman down at the end of the hill and we get the classic theatrical cliché we’ve seen a thousand times. Gugu is shouting at her to get out of the way but she is obviously oblivious to all her senses and he jumps out to save her.

This is a bit of a kerfuffle visually because it comes off like he falls off the side of the edge and the log trips up on some small rocks and then lands squarely on his face. I can’t deny that this was sloppily executed and the actual logistics of the nature of his injury is something that can be called into question as well as he only suffers facial injuries that don’t impair his speech or his brain activity. He’s just laying there with this heavy object that a grown, heavy set man couldn’t budge but is somehow saved by an old drunk who runs a brewery/bottle shop. I don’t want to be that guy who cries that a fantasy product is unrealistic and impossible but I can only suspend my disbelief so far. I’ll tell you what I’ll do though. For this arc, I will give this the benefit of the doubt as I don’t know what lies ahead for Gugu and if there will be any more consequences.

Moving on, the halfway point resumes where the previous episode left off as Fushi and the old lady who I can’t remember the name of strolled through the door. Gugu and Fushi quickly become good pals and it’s implicit that Gugu is replacing the brother figure in his life but treats Fushi as a younger brother which is a bit of a different prescribed relationship dynamic than March acting as a mother figure for Fu. I enjoyed a lot of the shenanigans here and everything was fun and warm.

There is quite a touching scene but also a disgusting scene in which Gugu attempts to bathe Fushi but all of his clothes are stuck to his body and the visuals for this are wonderfully foul as usual. The sound design is great at exemplifiying the gross stickiness. Then though, Fushi attempts to remove his helmet and Gugu is ashamed of his appearance but he doesn’t have any concept of what appearances are. Fushi is mainly interested in the weird helmet. I like scenes like this in this animé because they’re very explorative of the possibilities of the concept and I get frustrated when there’s a great premise that becomes squandered.

The conflict is set up near to the end of this episode as the girl that Gugu fancied in the market turns up at the brewery but it isn’t at all interested in him but is more into Fushi which, fair enough, he is a handsome boy. It’s all very wacky and delightful and I’m especially fond of the visual emotives on Gugu’s helmet. They really had fun with the concept of the helmet in the animation here from treating the little circles on his helmet like eyes and playing with the shutter as though it were a mouth. You can tell that the animation direction was charged with playfully imaginative ideas so it’s a lot of fun to watch.

Gugu then proceeds to cockblock Fushi by telling the girl - Rean - that Fushi can't do anything for himself but she doesn't really care and would actually see that as the challenge. Yes - Rean is a "I could change him" girl. It's worth mentioning that Gugu found Rean's lost dog earlier and she rewarded him with a cheap ring that she didn't have any use for which Gugu didn't bring up at all which is what is interesting isn't it. Gugu won't be willing to prove it by taking off his helmet and it's questionable if he would even be recognized.

Then the old man recommends he start drinking or do something about his sadness because, Gugu being a young teenager, he’s in a sour mood. To which he responds by deciding to begin working out to try and get something over Fushi. It’s all very silly and light-hearted and I just know that this animé as something horribly depressing coming around the corner because that’s what To Your Eternity is all about.

This was a short post but I have to say that there wasn’t a great deal to analyze or go over. It was a fine old episode in the end but it’s all in the name of getting us acquainted with all the new characters in a new setting which it did do as well. I hope they turn around the contrived log incident as a plot device because that sticks out of this episode like a sore thumb unfortunately. I’d like to excuse it somehow but I don’t want to effect a soppy bias into my writing about this animé because I love it too much.

I was utterly lost by a lot of what goes on in this episode. I found a lot of the content extremely irritating and tedious on all fronts as well as a lot of it being just nothing.

Basically, the premise is that there is some kind of royal collision between Roswaal and Emilia and some other committee. The first half of the episode is a lot of slow development of protagonist/love interest dynamic mixed in with some callbacks on the first episode. They return to the town in which Subaru fell into where all the demi-humans live. He finally pays the fruit seller for his produce (THANK GOD THAT LOOSE END WAS TIED UP) and is told to wait outside whilst Emilia does her official queen business.

Then a bizarre and annoying sequence ensues where he follows a random lady into an alleyway who just happens to be confronted by the thugs from the inaugural episode. He sticks his nose in their business for no reason at all, declares that he knows Reinhard and they all believe it immediately and get sent packing. A completely ridiculous dialogue then ensues between this other woman who just pitches up with this knight dude and Subaru to which the point of chat is that she doesn’t know what Apples are but it just goes on for ages and leads absolutely nowhere. Subaru drops the- sorry, Appas all over the floor and then has them back in the bag unscathed in the next scene I swear to God. Then... Old Man Rom shows up and the scene kind of peters out. I don’t know what purpose the scene served other than to fill time and introduce the Priscilla character in the image below.

Okay the details don’t really matter but the whole point of this episode is that Emilia has stuff she has to be getting on with so she heads back up the road to this committee and tells Subaru that he needs to stay away if he wants her to trust him properly. Subaru accepts but immediately begins stewing on the fact that she might be in danger so goes after her anyway. Conveniently she picks up a lift from the same girl from earlier who also happens to be involved in this committee meeting who lets him in because she think it will be funny. OKAY THEN.

Subaru obviously spends the entire time annoying anyone and everyone and passing judgement on these newly introduced characters that he doesn’t know whilst this big societal info dump is going on and it’s so hard to keep track of absolutely everything here so do forgive me.

Felix is an actual catboy character who is chucked in for no reason other than for comic relief as far as this episode goes. He doesn’t say much except makes cat puns that are somehow worse than Teddie’s bear puns in Persona 4. Priscilla lets everyone know she is the token catty character who both serves ridiculous and unbelievable antagonistic purposes whilst satisfying the domme fetish for the horny masses. You gather that they are deciding who gets to rule the joint and it’s between Priscilla, Emilia, a girl called Anastasia Hoshin who barely says anything, and... Felt?

Reinhard bursts through the door like in a telenovela to declare a last-minute objection and he proposes Felt who he arrested earlier in the series. His point being that this insignia glows her in her hand when she holds it and in this society that is apparently mega-important despite their later disgust when Reinhard reveals she found her on the street, directly ripping off the plot of My Fair Lady. So I guess it doesn’t mean that much about the dragon badge?

This entire scene in the committee more closely resembled the chaos of a town hall meeting in The Simpsons than a believable diplomatic meeting of minds. I know it’s a silly fantasy setting but it’s like none of the characters were remotely prepared for any of this and, especially Priscillia, are interrupting the entire process with their inane banter that this society would deem unprofessional surely because they deem the same thing about Subaru when he interrupts?

Anyway, Emilia demands the floor, clears the air that she is a half-elf to which they are all seemingly uncomfortable because they are racist against elves I guess. She demands equality for all and Subaru is forever sticking his nose in through the whole thing trying to big her up but is obviously dropping her right in the shit and being rude to her contempories into the bargain. He declares himself her knight because he is obviously jealous of Reinhard and has been throughout the series, effectively trying to mirror his can-do attitude in a lot of ways. He is also jealous of this other knight who simply greeted Emilia politely, This same knight calls him out on his bullshit in the most polite and honest way possible. Emilia disowns him in front of anybody and drags him out back because he embarrassed her in front of the cool kids.

Felt demands the floor and outright says she wants to dismantle the government system in favour of either anarchy or socialism. I was cheering for her but I don’t think I was meant to be. Then, out of nowhere, Old Man Rom is underneath the floorboards and, in a brazen act of terrorism and treason tries to blow up the floor with a dynamite of sorts and is arrested immediately with promises of execution as... you know, it is treason which is punishable by death in 99% of societies; real or fictional. But don’t worry though because this is rectified by Felt saying Old Man Rom is her father so it’s fine... TO WHICH THEY AGREE.

Remember that terrorism is fine as long as you keep it in the family. Aside from the fact that Rom and Felt don’t look anything alike, they don’t even look like the same species. This was by far and away the most stupid thing in this series so far and it is so stupid in fact, that I’ll just leave it because it’s not worth it. NOW, Subaru is confronted by the reasonable knight in the back and reacts like a teenage boy who’s crush and kissed someone else in front of him so the knight demands a scrap because, to be fair, Natsuki slagged the entire knighthood off, declaring them all to be old-money pretty boys despite himself practically crushing on Reinhard.

Subaru is then battered within an inch of his life by this knight with a wooden sword and he barely gets any offence in. AH! An important plot device was that Emilia needed Subaru to rest up because he had been pushing himself so hard lately and she specifically said “no magic” to which he disobeys here and shows himself up here.

Look, I know the point of this is that Subaru is way in over his head and doesn’t understand how the world works but fancies himself as the answer to all the problems. But it is frustrating when I can’t get behind the motivations of a main character when he demonstrates being capable and genuinely being in the right on some cases. If he is just an idiot then I’m annoyed as a viewer when the outcome is obvious. I was not on his side the whole way through this, not like it was a character change, I just felt like watching a train derail - except the train is full of people who come back to a prior point in time after dying. It’s been a while since I’ve been a jealous teenager so maybe I find it hard to relate to him on that level. That’s on me for growing up.

Right okay, we’re nearly there (thank the lord).

Subaru gets his ass beat and Emilia arrives in the knick of time to save him again as soon as she hears this fight going down. She is understandably furious with the little scrote for getting her into trouble with the council. This bit is the only real noteworthy bit of the whole episode. Subaru reveals himself to Emilia as an arrogant dick with main-character syndrome. He lists off all the things she’s done for him but then lists off all the things that he has done to which Emilia calls him out on his bullshit because most of it was done for himself and his own survival. It’s about time really because he needs taken down a peg or two. Obviously because he can’t talk about the Return by Death special feature, he can’t provide proof to back himself up.

I’m interested in this because it’s now apparent that the main character is being tested in some way. He obviously suffers from a pride complex and it’s as though his apparent advantage has come back to haunt him and deservedly so. The reality of the situation is that he demands respect and phsyically can’t wait to learn the tools of the trade before declaring himself the master of anything really. I like this dynamic but I am annoyed that it has taken this long for his behaviour to be bought to light by a character on screen.

Hopefully now, he stops being quite so unlikeable because I don’t feel sorry for him if that’s the intended effect.

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