If there is one thing that ties these two episodes of Re:Zero together, it is that they are character pieces. Episode 17, is centered around Julius—and why Reid dislikes him so much. Unsurprisingly, this is because Reid sees himself in Julius. Reid is an uncultured man with a talent for fighting. He may be one of the strongest people of his era, but he knows exactly what he is and what he isn’t. He doesn’t pretend to be noble or proper—and it annoys him when others do.

Like Reid, Julius came from nothing. He was an orphan brought into a noble family and trained to be a knight. However, at that point, he was already old enough to have his own personality, so all the noble trappings—everything from his clothes and self-grooming to his way of speaking and carrying himself—are like a mask he wears rather than an expression of his true self.

Reid sees this as something that is holding Julius back and wants him to discard the facade. However, Reid is only half-right. Julius’ real issue is not the mask he wears but the fact that he is clinging to it. In a world where everyone has forgotten him, Julius is afraid to give anything else up. He’s afraid he will lose even more of who he was.

But during the fight, thanks to Anastasia being physically present, he has to go all out if he wants to keep her safe. He has to be willing to let go to reach his goal—not of his facade but of his fear. Thus, he releases his spirits while trusting them to form a new contract with him. He doubles down on who he has made himself to be and is able to fight Reid toe-to-toe because of this.

And, in the end, it’s revealed that Anastasia was facing the same problem. She was too afraid of letting go of her memories of Julius. It’s only the fact that clinging to the past is preventing her from seeing him at his most resplendent that allows her to let go—to trust that, like Julius’ spirits, she will be able to form a new connection with him.

The second episode, episode 18, is centered around the fight between Ram and Lye. As far as fights go, this is the best animation of the season—if not the entire series. The choreography is fluid and clear, while the directing gives us any number of creative camera angles (with Lye’s first-person perspective as Rem blocks each of his blows being my personal favorite).

On the story side of things, this is Ram finally having a target for her rage. Ram’s anger comes from the fact that she was robbed of something as precious as sisterly love. As a person who has already lost so much, this hurts her more than any physical wound.

But as we see in this episode, while Ram may not remember Rem, that doesn’t mean there is no connection. Memories may have been tampered with, but their biological and spiritual connection remains. And so, just as Subaru takes on Ram’s pain to allow her to fight unencumbered, she is able to take Rem’s oni power into her own body and defeat the Archbishop of Sin handily.

However, this also highlights this episode’s biggest issue: too much was left underexplained. As far as Subaru’s Authority of Greed goes, we’ve seen how Subaru stumbled upon using it. Up to this point, we’ve seen that it would allow him to locate the souls of his companions—giving him a kind of radar. The issue is that suddenly, Subaru knows how to use it to take on other people’s pain—and no explanation is given as to how he figures this out.

Likewise, Lye’s final actions are confusing. It’s apparent that he has fallen in love with Ram over the course of their battle—that he throws away all the memories of those he has eaten just so he can focus on his memories of her exclusively. But why? We don’t know enough about Lye or his past to see why he made this choice. If it was simply her power, there are more powerful people out there (like Reinhard and Satella). And, even beyond that, we don’t even know what love means to Lye—it could just mean eating her memories and nothing more. Not understanding the full context robs the scene of some of its impact—just like Subaru suddenly having the perfect Deus Ex Machina power for the current situation.

Next week, it looks like we’ll be finishing the season. I hope that there’s enough time left to wrap things up and make sure it’s all explained well.

Episode 17 Rating:

Episode 18 Rating:

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

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.