Blog 3 Prompt 4: The Hero's Journey In Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World

(MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING!!!!!! THIS WHOLE BLOG IS A SPOILER)

Content warning for blood

Also very long blog

My Favorite rendition of the Hero's/heroine's journey in an anime is in Re: Zero. This anime is relatively popular however it's one of my favorites. After we started learning about the monomyth I was fascinated by how it would apply to every story I could think of. I don't watch plenty of anime, but with the five or so I have watched this one takes the cake. Animes like JoJos Bizarre Adventures or Hunter x Hunter, also follow this path really well.

The Hero's Journey is something that is very widely applicable, it's hard to find perfect matches that can hit every step and not only hit every step but be actually good, providing an enthralling watch or showing me something totally unique. I chose this story due to the focal point being cyclical like the monomyth. This story can be applied to all characters via heroes or heroines' journeys. So much so that every episode/many part episodes have their own unique journey and story. 

The story starts off with a 17-year-old Subaru Natsuki. He is in a normal world, with no special powers, and no fanatical enemies...yet. He knows nothing about what is about to happen. He knows only that it's midnight and he is going to purchase some chips and other assorted items. In the next moments, we see flashing scenes where he collapsed to the floor dying covered in blood. This awful, eerie and terrifying scene will be explained soon. To the watcher, it's nothing but a dream. As he exits the convenience store he approaches the street, as he gets closer he stops and a massive aura seems to flash over the scene. He rubs his eyes justifying that being cooped up in his room playing video games made him have a small hallucination. In the next moment, we hear a soon-to-be infamous sound of an angelic single high note. The viewer sees his eyes close as if he is blinking and he is seemingly teleported into a new world. This world is centuries behind the modern world, he finds himself in some sort of marketplace.

Confused and dazed he realizes this is all real, one really notices him. Shortly we are cut to a scene of a very cunning and speedy girl holding a sort of small item and running on rooftops clearly away from someone. Back to Subaru. He is, to say the least, excited about being in this world, only mere minutes have passed and he is trying to see if he has any special ability. He is definitely energetic and excited about being in a world he would only expect to see in a video game. Awkwardly he tests his possible powers. He walks over to a man selling apples, however, the man gets mad at him for not having any money that he can accept. All Subaru has is some normal world coins, clothes, and his purchases from the store. After a series of unfortunate events, he ends up resting in an alleyway to get his bearings. He however comes across some thieves who try to rob him. We see the young girl from before again as she accidentally runs into this alley, however she is unrelated. Subaru is still under the impression that this is a video game world and shortly believes he has strength and powers however he does manage to fight off the thieves until one pulls a knife and he cowers away. That is when the second most important character comes into the frame. Her name is Emilia, to make a long story short the young girl from before, named Felt, had stolen something VERY important from her. The young girl is running away from Emilia to pawn off this item for a few dollars, which she doesn't know how absurdly valuable it is, Felt is a professional pickpocket known in the slums of the city, she has no family besides a tavern keep who is the person who she goes to for everything as her family has died.

Emelia has this almost love-at-first-sight semi-cliche encounter with Subaru, but she was glowing with extravagant lighting, etc, she has an obvious connection to Subaru, and this is a very important thing to remember. However, this encounter will have a very interesting twist. 

Background: Emelia is her real name however, shortly she told Subaru her name was Satela, this is the name of a witch, there are many witches all being truly evil or powerful all feared greatly. Emelia for "some reason" looks shockingly similar to Satela, the name of the most feared, "Witch of Envy". Emelia is shunned from a lot of things due to this resemblance. Saying "Satela" is basically like saying "Voldemort" in Harry Potter. Emelia is a candidate to rule the Dragon Kingdom of Lugnica and has a connection to the very powerful Roswell family. There is some stuff the watcher doesn't learn for a while however there is an election... sort of. A bunch of different high-class women vie for leadership. However, they aren't predisposed to be princesses and this a very unnatural circumstance, however, Emelia is one of few to have this crest shown above. Out of 50 million people checked, 5 were found to have a special relation to the crest, e.g. glowing red when you hold it. However, 5 women, almost all of the different high-class descent, received it. This isn't the main part of the story for a while though. There are people who want to steal and sell this crest, the crest being so valuable due to it allowing for one to become a leader or stop others from becoming leaders. Emelia herself has a crazy amount of lore revealed in a 3rd season only about her, however, I cannot physically can't describe it all.

Felt stole this crest, and Emelia wants it back, or else she will lose everything! She doesn't care about Subaru, however, due to her angelic nature, she helps him out. She shows the first magic to ever be displayed in the story. She does a small volley of ice shots, however, the theives proclaim that it's unfair to fight 2v1, so seemingly out of nowhere a small floating cat creature named Puck comes to her side. We learn of Puck as a Spirit, Puck is very special and will do anything to keep Emelia alive. This small cat could fit in your hand and do some insane things as you will see later on if you watch the show. Very few people in this universe are even able to do magic, it requires a special connection to the spirit world, of which people gifted with the spirit art are born with. However, it can be learned. Puck also has truly extensive lore and is one of my favorite characters because of that. Emelia and Puck's connection allows them to have healing capabilities however since Subaru was sort of bashed up by the thieves some bickering between Puck and Emelia leads to them healing him. They question the whereabouts of this crest yet he knows nothing. Emelia and Subaru have an obvious future relationship shown with some light flirting.

Fast forwarding a little bit, They walk around questioning people if they know anything about our thief, Felt. Eventually, they realized they don't even know each other's names! Subaru proclaims his name proudly. Emelia is dubious of Subaru's intentions, she just met him and he seems to love her which is very not normal for her due to her resemblance and her being ostracized from everything. She says her name is Satela. Puck gasped as this was something truly not good to say. However, Subaru says "hi Satela" as if it was her name since he doesn't know the connotation. She also mentions being half-elf which is supposed to be an undesirable trait however Subaru sees her as beautiful, it truly is love at first sight, she met someone who doesn't care (doesn't know) about her issues. 

They find themselves in the slums after gaining the information that this Felt person has the crest. Of course, they go there looking all over the slums learning that she lives there. Nevertheless, it was late, Puck is a spirit and has lost a lot of energy and goes to "sleep" meaning Emelias powers are massively reduced. Subaru walks into "Felts residence" and out of chivalry he tells Emelia "Satela '' to wait outside. After a few steps into the dark room, he sees the tavern keep sliced open on the floor dead in a pool of blood. Seemingly too late for whatever they missed. Upon seeing this blood the soon-to-be\ iconic angelic note plays. A figure with a female voice, clearly the killer, remarks that he is now a witness and must be dealt with. Within moments he is sliced open at the bowels, and the note plays again. Subaru is dying on the floor coughing up blood while Emelia wanders in to investigate the noise. The scenes we saw at the beginning are replaying however these are the same eerie scenes from before. Emelia is sliced open the same way he is by our first enemy. The Bowel Hunter.

He dies... Just kidding to the readers suprise he opens his eyes, we hear the angelic voice, he wakes up in the middle of the market with the man angered at him from before. He realizes that he has just gone back in time after dying. After retracing his steps he ignores Emelia doesn't waste time and goes straight to the tavern before dark. He meets Felt trying to get the crest back before the Bowel Hunter gets there. However, this is the main dilemma in the story:

He must encounter a situation where he doesn't die, no one he loves dies, and can set sort of checkpoints to revive and fix these situations that slowly spiral, being harder and more mentally taxing. Even if the situation is not ideal, this also slowly becomes a focal point.

Eventually, after a few tries, he learns his opponent and finds a way to get rid of the Bowel Hunter for now. He claims the crest and gets it back to Emelia. However, since he has been dying and reviving so many times he could never retrace his steps perfectly to forge that same relationship with her without dying. 

He wakes up in Emelia's mansion, better known as the Roswall mansion as Emelia wanted to heal him due to him "returning" the crest. This sets a checkpoint, we don't know how they are set but we know they are set at certain times, and he can infinitely die until he fixes the dilemma. Small issue, he can't tell anyone about the power he has come across. Time will stop, the words can't exit his mouth and this ominous dark hand grabs his heart, however not agressivly, but in a "kiss of death" way. This forces him to stop talking about the power.

Throughout the day, he is introduced to the people of the house. First awoken by 2 maids who take care of the house, both with magical powers which are not to be mistaken to be similar to Emelia's. The house is full of 5 vastly important characters. Roswall is the owner, who has taken in Emelia, and the 2 maids Rem and Ram are twin sisters, Beatrice and now Subaru. This living situation isn't supposed to be permanent and only till Subaru is healed will he be released. After the day passes of him acting sort of obnoxious. He goes to sleep happy with this new situation knowing he needs to rekindle his flame with Emelia. He goes to sleep, not without our angelic note and foreboding scenes of his next death. This time he gets violently sick and dies in his sleep. This a truly perplexing issue Subaru has to overcome this time around. 

This is only the first episode! And I have excluded so much information. This show builds so much background and depth to these characters. Every episode is completely unique and we see very out-of-the-box responses to certain circumstances Subaru comes across. The Hero's Journey is followed not as a requiem but as a canvas to paint on. The authors go out of the box and really do make some very enthralling content. Of course, it's almost impossible to summarize this 100-episode show but I could probably write a book on this if I was to summarize it. The story is perfect, it goes to niches you would never expect. And has a sad but good ending.

I tried to explain most of the parts traced by the monomyth however like I said almost all episodes follow the monomyth.