This episode felt really fast paced— I wouldn’t say rushed, but it was pretty close to it. I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it because it was almost though I felt like we were missing stuff in between…. Though maybe we didn’t… but yeah its kind of weird. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it though. I feel like I’m probably going to have to read the first volume to see if it’ll flow better. I was kind of hoping to put it off because I wasn’t able to get volume 2 because it was out of stock, but we’ll see.
It was expected of Rishe to initially turn down Arnold’s proposal, because who wouldn’t? However in the end she did accept after laying out a number of conditions and hearing why he wanted her hand in marriage– to which he was surprisingly agreeable about. And among the few conditions, Rishe declared she will be lazing around the castle doing absolutely nothing! Spoiler alert: Joke’s on her, she probably stick her nose into everything because she can’t turn a blind eye to it. And lo and behold that’s exactly what we saw her do today, but I digress.
Rishe’s resolution for this life is to live long and comfortably without care. So when Arnold explained his country required having an empress from another country to serve as a “hostage”, that was music to her ears. It basically served as an excuse to not get involved in royal activities one would otherwise be subjected to attend. Rishe desires the freedom to do what she wishes, and Arnold’s proposal and acceptance to her conditions for her hand in marriage is what offers the best opportunity to do get just that. We saw how growing up, she was pressured to give up her interests and focus on becoming a proper lady fit to marry into the royal family and give birth to their heir. She was essentially a caged bird, but thanks to the idiot-prince’s calling off their marriage, she was able to obtain the key to the freedom to do what she wanted all her life: Explore the world! And as fate would have it, Arnold’s country was one of the places she hadn’t had a chance to visit in her past lives. But now that she has agreed to marry him, she has finally been able to step afoot the nation.
This week we also saw how Rishe’s old habits kicked in, such as of sleeping with a sword (though to her horror, it was the same one that was responsible for killing her in her last life, a chilling thought), gathering herbs to make medicine (which she ended up making an antidote for a poison), picking the lock of the carriage she learned when she was a maid to get herself out after Arnold locked her in for her own safety. There was no shortage of things she was doing to amaze those around her, and of course Arnold who is rather stunned– despite having been the one to propose to her in the first place, for how much she knows. Certainly she is one to be full of surprises. There will never be a dull moment.
There’s a few things that Rishe doesn’t know however: Why the war started in the first place. The only things she does know is that in a few years from now: Arnold will kill his father (the current emperor) and that was supposed to have been the trigger for the war. So she believes that in order to prevent it from happening (as it was what killed her in every lifespan thus far), she thinks she’ll need to somehow keep Arnold distanced from his father enough so he can’t kill him. However the bigger mystery she should be trying to uncover is why Arnold killed his father in the first place. This is becomes a bigger question when we see that Arnold at this point anyways, was surprisingly merciful when dealing with the brigand that attacked them. She thought he had killed them (and truth to be told, I honestly thought he did too with the wounds they had), but no one was killed and instead had them arrested. Curious though he mentioned they weren’t good enough to stave off his boredom, but I’m under the impression that they were boring in the respect of how they didn’t offer much of a challenge for a group who (mostly likely) came to assassinate him.
The other interesting observation to be had with Arnold today is that he cares deeply about his retainers to the point he knows them like the back of his own hand. But at the same time, the way he doesn’t seem to harbour much love or pride to his country considering he, the crown prince claims it doesn’t posses anything worth Rishe’ admiration or longing. Perhaps it might have to do with the treatment of its people, injustices and corruption that Rishe has yet to see, which may all have something to do with why Arnold decided to forcibly remove his father from the throne. Either way, there’s much left to be seen and to learn as Rishe has quite literally only just arrived.
And finally, it can’t go unnoticed that Arnold has been rather soft around Rishe today. He seems content to being around her, waiting to see what she will surprise him with next. Despite having agreed to her conditions that he cannot lay a single finger on her, he didn’t bat an eye to caress her cheek at the end of the episode, and even owned up to the fact by saying he’ll be waiting for what she requests in compensation of that. But most importantly, and this is where the OP and ED seems to come into play… Arnold seems to know Rishe better than she thinks he does, which leads me to my next and final point: Bruh, was it just me or the OP and ED themes just felt like huge spoilers?!?!?!?
Ah man, I honestly hate it when they do this, especially if this has may have significant plot teasers because laksjdalskdjaslkdja I LIKE TO SPECULATE MAN! THAT’S PART OF THE FUN OF WATCHING! AND NOW I’M LIKE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! A part of me wished I didn’t watch them, which is a shame, because they were so pretty and so cute (SMOL RISHE AND ARNOLD!!!!! SO PRECIOUS!) and the song’s really nice, and I’m just here reeling about the possibilities of it being crazy spoilers, but it also may not be— I don’t know, and if you do know, then it’s probably best to not tell me or specify my suspicions that’s already in overdrive at the moment.
But anyways, what done is done, so going back to what I had started to say earlier, the main thing that struck me this episode was that the way Arnold talks and looks at Rische seems to suggest he might know he better than we thought he did. However, if so: Rishe does not appear to have any recollection of such relationship. So what could that mean? Well there’s a few possibilities. One is an obvious memory loss, but another would be perhaps there was a timeline at some point (well before Rische became self-aware of being trapped in this vicious cycle) that she and Arnold were childhood friends as the ED seemingly suggests they could’ve been at some point, making Rishe’s Arnold’s first love. This would somewhat explain why he was so amendment to marrying her. However there are some holes, so still take this all in with a grain of salt!
“the main thing that struck me this episode was that the way Arnold talks and looks at Rische seems to suggest he might know he better than we thought he did.”
How did you come to this conclusion? For me personally having not read the light novels, Arnold is enthralled by Rishe because she is so mysterious and unlike any other woman he has come across. I did not get the vibe that he knows her better than we thought he did.
I don’t think the OP and ED are necessarily spoilers unless Rishe is unable to solve things in the 7th loop and needs an 8th loop where she befriends Arnold in childhood as there is no conceivable way it is possible that she was friends with him in childhood up until now because Arnold said that it was his first time in Rishe’s country in Episode 1.
What I find chilling is that in both the OP and ED, Rishe disappears at the end, suggesting that if she can prevent Arnold from being the savage who starts a world war that her purpose for looping will be fulfilled, and she’ll finally abruptedly die. I really wonder how that would affect Arnold just as his love for her has been reciprocated.
I think this episode may have hinted at why Arnold starts a world war though. He shared that he didn’t like how people are judged by status, potentially putting him at odds with his father, the Emperor. Maybe his father does something so heinous that he makes the decision to kill him and destroy every monarchy since all of them judge people by status.
As I said, take what I’m saying about that bit with a grain of salt. It’s all purely speculations, which is part of the fun (for me anyways) even if I’m totally wrong about it.
Also, I didn’t get the sense the sense that this episode was fast-paced. What I did feel was fast-paced was Jaku Chara’s second episode where it seemed like there might have been many things that were skipped, like how the group decided on baseball and how Fumiya narrated what Erika did repeatedly.
Notice: Ep 3 entry will be released as a double-post with ep 4 next week!