Re:Zero Season 3 had its world premiere at Anime Expo 2024. The first episode of the upcoming third season debuted at the convention with a feature-length first episode. Given how impressive the initial episode of the series felt and how solid The Frozen Bond movie was, I looked forward to this lengthier episode. However, it fell flat for the most part.
The Re:Zero Season 3 premiere is the anime equivalent of “this could’ve been an email.” Without diving too much into spoilers, it starts off with a quick catchup with the main characters. We see a little bit of the aftermath of Season 2 and the return of some fan-favorite characters. For the most part, it feels like light recap material, though.
The real problem with this episode comes from how it feels like filler. The characters gather together and then go on a trip to a faraway city they’ve never been to. So much of the story focuses on the city itself and how interesting it seems, giving off these serious filler vibes.
There are the occasional worthy moments throughout the episode, especially when it comes to the return of Wilhelm to the plot. That said, they are super few and far between. Outside of a couple of scenes with Wilhelm and the actual very end of the episode, nothing feels too necessary to the plot.
For this reason, I was left wondering why this episode was essentially the length of a movie. It very well could have been a typical 23-minute anime episode and landed much better overall. The pacing, more emotional moments, and new character introductions would’ve felt more interesting this way.
Instead, my mind started to wander quite a bit throughout the movie. This especially happened when it came to the new songstress character in the city and her particular storyline. Subaru and the others stumble upon her in the midst of her singing in the streets. It all feels so non-canon anime movie style and it drags on much longer than necessary.
This plethora of comedic moments overwhelm and overshadow the more heartfelt and darker scenes in the film. Overall, I’d say there is a huge disconnect in the tone of the first episode of Season 3. This problem largely comes from the drawn out length of everything.
It might be fine if this was the first time checking out this series but this is the third season and we mostly know where Subaru’s battle against the Witch’s Cult is going. So, when it finally gets to that point, it almost feels like an afterthought instead of the main event it should be.
Fortunately, the ending is as abrupt and horrifying as you might come to expect from the series. It holds nothing back and once again provides some neat gruesome action for shock value. From here, it looks like Season 3 might get pretty interesting, but it shouldn’t have taken that long to arrive at that destination. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until the Fall 2024 anime season to see the series continue on Crunchyroll.
Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World Season 3 will air on Crunchyroll in October 2024.
Published: Jul 14, 2024 03:00 pm