A lot of things have been said about what I'm going to refer to as Re:Zero. The purpose of this post is for me to try to articulate my thoughts on it, recently after finishing the first season. There are spoilers for Re:Zero's first season here, plus discussion of Steins;Gate and Code Lyoko, if either of those are important.
For starters, I have spent the best of 10 years avoiding Re:Zero. I watched the first episode and dropped it when it started airing, but reluctantly, I've been drawn back in for two reasons.
So, against all odds, I watched all of the first season in about two weeks. Note, however, that when I did this, I switched to the Director's Cut version partway through (after the 'murder mystery' plot where we learn about Rem/Ram not trusting Subaru and murdering him repeatedly). The Director's Cut version actually feels like the optimal way to watch the first season, so I'm happy I switched to it. It basically cuts the show into 13 50ish minute episodes, which ends up being really well-paced.
Anyways, onto my actual thoughts.
I think the main problem I have with time travel shows is just how terrible time travel is for dramatic tension. If you can simply reset at the last save, so to speak, you end up being able to retry every scenario indefinitely. You can make mistakes, and in the case of Re:Zero, Subaru literally does just kill himself to reset a few times. Now, I've watched my fair share of time travel shows, and in the shows I like, this is usually subverted somehow.
In Code Lyoko, the main characters use a supercomputer to rollback changes to the real world after a computer virus that can control electricity and manifest physical form in some ways causes mayhem. The first season is episodic, so “Return To The Past” is the show's get-out-of-jail card for putting the main characters in mortal danger. This mechanic is abused heavily, with the caveat that the main characters all retain their memories of the past versions of reality, and that death cannot be cheated. Anyone who dies when this mechanic is used will stay dead. So, it's a very powerful rollback tool, but it basically is not used in a way that ruins character development. If a person does something stupid to another character, the main cast is not affected. Side characters are, but this is a show for children, so we can spare the show for not having dramatic stakes about the school gym teacher or bullies. The dramatic tension comes from making sure that the mechanic can be used before someone dies, and making sure that the main cast continues to have character development from season 2 onwards, where the show stops being episodic.
In Steins;Gate, people's memories *are* reset through time travel. However, because it is known to the main cast that time travel is possible, and they accept the time travel when it occurs at face value, dramatic tension is not lost. However, there are definitely elements of the show that are made worse with time travel and sacrificed as a result of the mechanic. However, I'll give it a pass because it generally speaking has a good answer for everything.
In Re:Zero, the show comes very close to ruining all dramatic tension by making sure that time travel is used liberally, can be self-initiated, and all memories are erased. In addition, Subaru is effectively prevented from explaining time travel to anyone. Because of this, Subaru is the only one with knowledge of the mechanic, and Subaru plays his resets pretty badly.
My initial reaction to this show is that Subaru is an extremely irritating character. This is because, quite frankly, he does really stupid things and gets himself killed for basically no reason multiple times. Only near the end of the first season does he realize that having perfect knowledge of the future and, you know, formulating a plan can actually lead to a quite reasonable degree of success. While Subaru does the typical things you would expect in time travel, like causing characters to hate him, or confessing his love to others, it's possible to forgive these things as he basically does all of the same things in the “final version” of the timeline he's on. So, even though he *does* basically abuse the mechanic and get away with doing incredibly stupid things, he eventually does similar-enough things in the final timeline for it to be not that bad.
In terms of writing and quality of the story, the white whale arc onwards in the first season has a reasonable enemy and reasonably well-designed payoff for defeating it. It feels tangibly good to watch this show and have these characters interacting in a way that is reminiscent of Slime Isekai. The show is notable for having actual-love introduced, which, for a show that originally aired in 2016 is quite good. Emilia is refreshing for not being a tsundere. Rem and Ram are notably likeable, and Rem is a very nice cinnamon bun character.
Skipping around a bit, I think that many of the other characters introduced thus-far are…wildly inconsistent, and perhaps not as good as I would expect. My expectations for shows are relatively high, but in one of the reset timelines, Subaru is basically turned down and mocked by every other king-candidate for various reasons. In the “final timeline” in season 1, Subaru convinces many of them to work with him, which seems kind of absurd. Some of these characters seem outright useless or evil. While the final timeline does a good job of building them back up, the initial timeline makes me dislike them, or at least question if it was lazy/bad writing. Again, I feel like I shouldn't have to ask these questions, but time travel as a concept is very hard to sell to me.
The Director's Cut version of the first season ends slightly differently than the broadcast version. Broadcast ends with Subaru confessing his love to Emilia. The Director's Cut version ends with him telling Emilia that also, Rem loves him, to which she replies “Who is Rem?” – implying that Rem was erased by the fog of the white whale. This is…interesting. I did switch to the Director's Cut version because supposedly, it segues better into the second season, as this scene basically happens in the start of that season, too. I'm mixed on this decision. On one hand, I feel as though it's natural to create this type of segue for the Director's Cut, which was aired and designed to go directly into Season 2. On the other hand, I feel like Season 1 was a nice, closed show, which had a finite ending.
Redo isn't a very good OP to me, but Paradisus-Paradoxum and STYX HELIX by MYTH & ROID as OP2 and ED are basically perfect to me. I'm a complete sucker for MYTH & ROID though. STYX HELIX -KIHOW Style edition- is one of my single favorite songs in the world, which admittedly was one of the reasons why I was intrigued by the Director's Cut (looking and hoping to find it in the anime). The first opening animation is not interesting to me, but again, Paradisus-Paradoxum is great. Having been exposed to these songs far before the anime, I was very excited to see them in their actual show.