I’ve only been a big fan of anime for less than a decade, but for the entire time I’ve been watching anime, Re:Zero has been a huge part of it. For as long as I’ve been watching, it’s been hailed as one of the greatest Isekai anime of all time. When I first watched it back in 2021, I could tell why. When season four aired a few weeks ago, I went back and watched the first three seasons all over again. It immediately reminded me why Re:Zero is my favorite fantasy anime ever.
Subaru Natsuki is summoned to another world and immediately thinks he’s become the protagonist of an epic adventure. But things don’t go his way at all. Ever since he lands in the Kingdom of Lugunica, he’s thrown into one brutal situation after another. The show can be silly and wholesome at times, but it’s incredibly dark.
If you haven’t seen the show or read the manga, I don’t want to spoil it much. That’s because a lot of the impact comes from raw shock value. All I’m going to say is that when he dies, he wakes up at a previous point in time so that he can rewrite everything. He dies a lot… And in some of the most brutal ways possible.
The first arc is just an introduction that lasts a few episodes, but it caught my attention right away. Then the second arc blew my mind with its story, characters, and deaths. By the end of the first season, Re:Zero was comfortably sitting as my number one anime of all time. It held that spot for more than a year, and the show only got better with the second and third seasons.
There’s so much to love about the anime. Re:Zero has some great characters that you’re going to fall in love with. Subaru, Emilia, Rem, and Ram were some of my favorites right from the start. A bunch of interesting characters began popping up later on like Otto and Echidna. There’s so many great characters that I have a wall of figures and prints because of how much I love them. Even though it’s a psychological thriller at its core and you’ll watch everyone go through hell and back, the characters bring me so much joy.
Re:Zero might be a bit much for some people to handle, but it genuinely has so much greatness going on. The characters are great, but the story is on a whole other level too. It’s interesting, but the sheer size of how much content there is boggles my mind. The animation is fun too. I honestly can’t wait for more.
10/10