If you heard "Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World" and someone told you to instantly name something emblematic of the show, I bet most people would name Rem. She's a famous enough character that even people who've never seen Re:Zero would look at her design and go, "Oh, I think I've seen her somewhere," and she's one of the most popular characters in the whole series, so I imagine that's true for a lot of people. And in Season 3, Rem probably won't appear.
In the original novels' fourth arc, which is the previous Season 2, Rem falls into a state where her name and memories have been stolen, and she's brought back in the sixth arc. But Season 3 is expected to cover the original's fifth arc.
Before it started, plenty of voices on social media worried about the popularity of a Season 3 without its single most popular character, but once the lid came off, well, it's a hugely popular work after all. As if to say such worries were unnecessary, all I see is high praise.
It's an anime that's gotten as far as a third season and one of the leading candidates of the season, so I don't think I need to say much about the show itself.
For instance, if you asked someone who'd seen it, "What defines Re:Zero?" I bet most of them would answer "despair." Both Season 1 and Season 2 had terrifying scenes, gruesome scenes, and the low-register strings that play in those moments, stoking a primal sense of dread, get stuck in your ears and won't let go. That image is incredibly strong with this work.
Which Is Exactly Why the Score Stands Out
In the first episode, at the start, the score is so calm it's almost anticlimactic. The music is so light and breezy it could be used in a slice-of-life anime. Once again, Re:Zero is an anime with a lot of score. That's surely because this is the kind of anime where incidents happen one after another, your emotions get jerked around each time, and there are repeated time loops. And then, later, there's the scene where Sirius Romanee-Conti, the Archbishop of the Sin of Wrath, appears, with its unsettling chord progressions, low-register strings, and unfamiliar tracks. At this point, if you haven't read the original, the abruptness of the anime's developments comes across as eerie. And the fact that the music is so highly polished as a composition is, in another sense, also frightening.
The score that plays at the opening of the next episode, Episode 2, is similarly ominous, starting with a low-pitched, chord-less piece that stirs up dread and anxiety. Then, after protagonist Subaru Natsuki fails again, the next scene features a piece with an impressive riff that stokes a sense of urgency. And from Reinhard's appearance comes a cool, hope-filled piece, with music suited to each situation playing on and on as the circumstances change one after another.
I keep saying this, but the fact that every single one of those pieces is so incredibly polished is, in another sense, frightening too.
The Composer Is the Genius Kenichiro Suehiro
Re:Zero's developments are a roller coaster, so there are few scenes without score playing. The animation is amazing, and the voice actors' performances often sound downright painful, like they're putting a huge strain on their throats. What a calorie-burning work this must be to make…
The person scoring this work is Kenichiro Suehiro. He also handled the score for that genre-grab-bag of a work, Golden Kamuy, so maybe the idea is to just leave the scores for quirky works to this guy.
Even so, whether it's a calm piece or a grand one, an eerie piece or a terrifying one, they all share one thing in common: the melodies are striking and stick in your ears. And they're easy on the ears too. You could say a score's proper role is, fundamentally, to blend into the work and hide in the background, but Suehiro's pieces assert themselves strongly, in the best sense.
And maybe that's exactly why they hold their own against, and suit, works with strong personalities.
With this season of Re:Zero too, the thought that we'll get to hear all kinds of new masterpieces as the story progresses from here has me really looking forward to it!
