The beginning of the end.
Impression
It’s happening. A hell of a lot of things can still go wrong at this point, but I think Subaru has finally started going down the path that will help him protect the smiles he wants to protect. I didn’t think this episode had as much impact as the last one did, but it was always going to be near-impossible to top last week anyway – instead, it raised some interesting questions that I hope will be answered by the end of the arc, and achieved the important task of setting some groundwork for the future. It also confirmed once again that Rem is so precious and so best that none of the other girls can even get anywhere close to comparing.
I really wanted to see him negotiating with Anastasia, she doesn’t get enough screentime for how cute she is. To both her and Russell Fellow the White Whale is a hinderance to business – losing shipments of goods to random attacks must be devastating, and I bet it’s enough of a risk to have suppliers specifically contract out of assuming any liabilities should groups of merchants all get eaten en route to delivery. With that in mind, and given the fact that both of them pledged their assistance on the basis that Subaru knew when and where the White Whale was going to appear, in hindsight it turned out that the previous failed route (when he was disparaged by all the king candidates and ended up inadvertently killing Emilia) was of crucial importance. If he hadn’t stormed out of the capital in a rage, he would never have learned as much as he did. Who’d have thought, huh? I’ve also got a little more sympathy for Crusch now – she presented a well-reasoned argument as to why she refused Subaru before when he asked for help against the Witch Cult, but it now appears that she wouldn’t have been able to help even if she’d wanted to. Even if he’d negotiated well enough, Crusch wouldn’t have had any manpower to spare as she’d be investing it all into exterminating the White Whale.
I do have some questions about that scene with Crusch, though. Firstly, what was she going to do if Subaru hadn’t proposed an alliance when he did? Even if she had no Subaru she was evidently making preparations to kill the White Whale, but how would she have done it? We know that it’s blocking one of the major roads away from the capital, but we also know that it moves around a lot – was she just going to wait and lead her army around until it appeared? It evidently doesn’t stay put – otherwise Subaru’s intel wouldn’t have been as valuable as both Ana and Crusch believed it was. To be honest, if he’d pitched well enough then just that intel would have probably been enough to convince them. Second, how can Subaru propose mining rights within Roswaal’s domain? His endgame is to obviously save Emilia’s life, and that’s definitely worth a mine or two’s worth of resources, but it’s only ever going to be retrospectively authorised. I think there was actually a similar issue during his past attempt with Crusch, when she said something about how he didn’t have the authority to speak on Emilia’s behalf. She also questioned on how he knew the stuff he did both last time and this time, but of course he’s now been healed by Rem and was able to come up with a more innovative answer using his Keit-Ai. Allow me to go completely off-topic for just a little bit here, before I forget to mention it somewhere – Crusch looks fantastic in a ponytail.
Anyway. I also don’t think it was revealed why Crusch was even making preparations to kill the Hakugei to begin with – or if they did, I wasn’t paying enough attention. Is it just because it’s a scourge? Because she’s realised it’s in the area and wants to capitalise on that opportunity? Because it would serve as good PR for her campaign if she successfully killed it? Because of Wilhelm and his deceased wife? Why do some people like Wilhelm and the retired soldiers remember the deaths it caused, when both Rem and the other merchants back when it was chasing Subaru were all forgotten by Otto? Is it the case that only some deaths end up with people’s existences being erased, and which ones? I’m so glad it actually ended up coming, by the way. It would have been super awkward if it didn’t appear. Crusch was totally doubting her divine ability when that goddamn ringtone started playing and nothing was happening. Then it appeared, Subaru shot off like a fool and Crusch puts on this wonderful expression filled with hype and anticipation. Apparently the staff put a lot of effort into the ringtone, and were arguing over which one to use. It was a composed melody, but it was put onto an old flip phone similar to Subaru’s and recorded the ringtone by placing it at a microphone. All in a day’s work at White Fox. It was actually really creepy yet hilarious at the same time, just because it felt so jarring considering the situation – you have an entire medieval army sitting on wolves and ground dragons listening to a jingle that sounds like it could have come from a cheap advert.
Now, the last point I wanted to make is that this is all technically just the prelude, despite what it felt like. The real battle is between Subaru and Betelgeuse, and stopping the KKK is his true goal as he mentioned to Rem at the start of the episode. The KKK never appeared when he was being chased before, and he spent at least an entire day at the mansion – it was daytime when he was talking to Ram, and it was around afternoon when he killed Emilia. Beatrice sent him away to the forest after it’d gotten dark. So even if the Hakugei is killed, it doesn’t change the fact that the Witch Cult will be attacking soon after – he’ll be able to get there in time, but what next? And also it’s really bothering me that Flugel’s Tree looks like the exact same tree that Emilia is standing next to at the end of the OP. Everything in the OP so far has happened in some form or another in the story – so what’s going to happen to Emilia in future episodes? Will Subaru manage to save her from Betelgeuse’s slothful hands?
P.S. Weekly reminder to download more Rem!
“Second, how can Subaru propose mining rights within Roswaal’s domain? ”
Because of Rem who is serving as Roswaal’s rep to Crusch while Subaru is in her custody. One of little tidbits that was in LN but was left out of adaptation due to time constraints was that Roswaal had already authorized the trade of the stones to Crusch as part of Emilia’s deal with her to have Felix heal Subaru’s mana gate. So Rem has has the authority to extend those to Anna as par Subaru’s request.
Oh I see! That makes a lot of sense, thanks! I wonder whether his negotiations with Ana and Russell Fellow were left out as well, I really would have liked to see those. I guess this is the price for having ‘From Zero’ last an entire episode. After this is all over I need to take a look at the WN/LN.
Finallly Subaru is learning so much just from that fail run. Calming down instead of running like a madman and asking for help.
About the mining rights: Emilia offered parts of the mining rights in exchange for healing Subaru. Roswaal has Rem the rights to decide such things if necessary while she is away.
The usage of his metia was clever as well this time. If not for that idea, he would just end up like last time beeing suspicious as fck.
I am not sure about this one but considering how the white whale is [Gluttony]: maybe people only forget the existence when the white whale is eating them along with their time, history.. existence. In case where people only die by getting crushed or smashed, it is considered as “natural death” and not as literally getting eaten whole.
Subaru can actually do it! And he was in a far better position this loop in terms of what he had to bargain with. As for the metia, it was interesting how he managed to get past Crusch’s divine blessing based on the way he phrased things – technically the reason he knows when the White Whale is going to come isn’t because of the metia itself, but rather because of him being able to predict the future. Using the metia to explain it off really was clever.