Now for more positive media I do actually like:

Re: Zero starting Life in Another Genre

Re: Zero is finally reaching season 4 in the anime, which means arc 6. This is so far my favorite one in the text, so I'm excited to see what the anime will do with this particular mindfuck. Each arc follows a slightly different set of main characters, sometimes with Emilia not even present in the cases of 3 and 7, and to compare the two more psychological arcs so far:

Arc 4: Subaru, Emilia, Beatrice, Otto, Garfield, Ram, Roswaal, Echidna
Arc 6: Subaru, Emilia, Julius, Ram, possessedfoxscarf!Anastasia, Beatrice, Meili, Shaula, one of the 3 fragments of Gluttony

As you can see, I consider it my favorite despite how my favorite character isn't even core in it! And it has Shaula, who is admittedly somewhat annoying, but also easy to ignore when reading it in any case.

It deals heavily with memory, death, and often combines the two in fascinating ways. One of the more interesting fantasy concepts it introduces, without giving too much way, are the "Books of the Dead." These chronicle anyone who has ever lived and died, and if you read them, it temporarily places you into their life and into their psyche. This, however, has massive impacts on the reader as it can make it difficult to separate their own self from what they absorbed within the book.

Less seriously, I was laughing because, almost immediately after this announcement, they did this:



Now, this looks far more like a low risks school-based otome than an isekai! Much less one known for it's brutality!

This is smart on their behalf, because while Rem largely made the series it's money, I'm convinced the author is a massive troll and kept on her comatose on purpose afterward.

Indeed, when she does wake up in the arc after this, she's still lacking her memories, and that means she's no longer codependent since she's missing the trauma that made her that way. As such, she is immediately annoyed by Subaru's fawning and has grown into a much more confident and independent individual. Her attachment wasn't healthy, and the text makes that apparent, but... you know, waifu-obsessed anime fans.


So, Arc 6 doesn't have Rem yet, and it doesn't really focus much on Emilia's relationship to Subaru either like Arc 4 did. What does it have? A significant focus on Julius, who undergoes a character arc involving addressing his own insecurities and repressed emotions due to living as a knight who shut such concepts down. It also, due to the level of history in the tower, makes him address the true history of the country he has dedicated himself to. Turns out, history taught to students if often embellished and cuts out the negative parts, how realistic!

And Julius has hilarious become a fujo magnet, something I'm going to guess male-based isekai generally don't have. I will say he is the starting point of when the series fully takes off, as prior to that I was uncertain what it's intentions were. Then, Subaru decides, due to Julius being the polite and elegant person he always is, that he must be a rival for Emilia. Now, this is frankly ridiculous even by first impressions, but the resulting aftermath ends in a duel where Julius easily defeats Subaru without lifting a finger and humiliates the whole Emilia Camp. (Important lore note: These camps are actually political factions and Julius belongs to the capitalist Anastasia's) After that, Emilia effectively tells Subaru to get lost because he's embarrassing them and keeps on trying to force his emotions on her despite how she doesn't even know what he's talking about, which rightfully feels invasive.

Everything after that forces him to grow as a person, and I was almost internally cheering at the end of season 1 when Subaru ends up having to join up with Julius, and even lets him borrow his eyesight. This wasn't for shipping reasons, but just the sheer amount of change it displayed combined with the "fuck you" it was to the toxic type of archetype of the rival guy who exists to make the protagonist look better in these things.

But that + rivals to allies + how Julius literally fights with rainbow lights and internally seems to like Reinhard as an idol to multiple degrees makes it easy to see how he's fujo bait.



And I do agree this one would be shocking for that reason!

It also occurs to me that, none of this will be helped in this arc by how Julius is under a similar condition to those swallowed by the White Whale in Arc 3. (i.e. the infamous "Who is Rem?" memes at the time) As such, Subaru is the only one who remembers him.

I've long given up looking at the reactions to the anime as it goes on, so I am a little curious how the Rem obsessed people have been taking all of this, but... it's probably the same as NGE fans obsessed with Rei who ignore all other context and prefer to think Kaworu doesn't exist.

Ngl, I would play that ridiculous otome game. I'm sure it would have some hidden darkness in there somewhere. (I note that Ferris is includes as Ferris, and given a trans flag colored phone? Well, that one is a completely different landmine. I keep on wondering how close we are to Brisket pt II. Both given a lore reason for why they're female-presenting, but also... Ferris canonly wishes in front of a mirror to be a girl every day and gets quite upset if you use the dead name. Things I just file under cultural differences. More importantly, who let Otto bring his dragon to school?! ... and I guess just ignore how Subaru is the only one of these characters who should still be in school, lol, they're adults.)

Finally, the song I am obsessed with at the moment:



"House of the Rising Sun," contrary to the rest of this post and what it might sound like, has nothing to do with Japan. It's actually an American (English?) folk song of sorts, of unknown origin. The Animal produced the most popular version of it, but honestly... I like this one more, the voice of the female vocalist is incredibly powerful!