Hi everyone it’s Berry! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been here but hello! Shadow is currently on a trip and can’t make it for this week and next week’s episodes so I’ll be here to temporarily take charge of the Re:zero posts until she gets back. Thanks for understanding! She’s been doing a great job taking over my stead for Re:zero but I will admit it’s kinda nice coming back to it with my posts haha.
Anywho, I’ve been enjoying this season of Re:zero a lot and Liliana while random is a pretty fun character. I wouldn’t say I love her but she’s cute to have around. I did not expect this episode to be about her or for us to get her whole backstory. Did I think getting all this randomly was the best? Hmm…not sure about that. But I do like backstory episodes and I’d say this was a good one.
The second Liliana’s mother started singing I just went “Nana Mizuki?!” Any anime with even a little bit of singing always manages to get her, even if she plays a small role. It’s actually kind of hilarious. Anyways, the feelings I took from Liliana’s backstory was lots of determination from Liliana but also sadness and just great concern from me. Liliana grew up in the Masquerade troupe, traveling with her family. Her mother was the songstress and they traveled to perform as part of their livelihood. This is how Liliana’s love for singing started and she dreamed of performing in the city at such a younge age and becoming the greatest bard. I will say, I did not expect to see a very young Liliana to up and leave her family. When she made that declaration I thought we would have gotten to see her hone her skills more with her mother but to see her tiny child self with zero talent making her way to the city was shocking. Even more shocking that it didn’t seem like her parents were too worried about her to even look for her. Especially when we saw all the times she was close to death and starvation, I was just wondering “Hello?! Where is the mom?!” It was even more heartbreaking when Liliana almost ran into her parents on the street, with her parents looking happy with their new bundle of joy essentially replacing her. Liliana hiding her face with tears in her eyes made me so sad for her, it really cemented that the path she decided to take would be a truly painful one. I have to say I can respect the determination but I would think things could have gone a little differently.
I might have forgotten a detail (I most likely very did after the long break), but did they ever mention that Liliana had abilities? As she sings atop the flaming tower her body glows green. She probably doesn’t even know it herself that her singing is somehow able to counter Wrath’s Authority but through an ability and not just because. The song itself and the moment that led to that inspiration was lovely and I won’t lie it was pretty funny seeing her still singing on the side of the tower when it was falling. Determination at its finest. Something I didn’t expect was the romance with Kiritaka and Liliana was kind of real. I always thought it was a selfish one-sided love from Kiritaka but it seems to me that Liliana at least has some feelings for the guy. The last line she says at the end of the episode sort of implies that for me. Kiritaka does have an obsessive love for her I won’t lie, but at least he genuinely respects her talents and wishes and wants her music to be heard by everyone. After such a tough and arduous journey to be where she wanted to be, sacrificing comfort and the love of her family, those words were probably really validating for Liliana and made her extremely happy. And I admit it was pretty cute but also funny that Kiritaka came to rescue her at the end seemingly out of nowhere. I guess I’ll be silently rooting for them lol
While this episode did seem to take away from the Regulus fight, I will say that I do like that we’re seemingly getting the most out of each battle. My fear going into this season was them showcasing a little bit of each fight in every episode, which would have been terrible. Maybe because I was really absorbed into the Regulus fight and the secret to what his Authority was that maybe I was slightly let down by this episode. But it was a fine episode, and I’m excited to see how they’ll truly figure out Regulus’ Authority and I’m worried it’s going to have to do with the wives. I don’t want anything bad happening to them but…this is Re:zero so I really shouldn’t have my hopes too high for their safety. My guess is that we’ll move on to a different fight after this one with Wrath because the Regulus fight seems to be the biggest one.
And special shoutout to Priscilla, I never thought I would say that. I will admit that I was not a fan of Priscilla for the longest time. I’ve never been into the ruthless “I’m so much better than you” type of character so I just never cared for Priscilla. But these episodes have brought a lot of intrigue and actually some respect because she was giving Wrath a lot of hell. The fight between them was pretty simple and not as flashy as last week’s episode with Regulus, but there were a lot of good moments. Priscilla’s weapons and abilities seem pretty overpowered but I’m glad there’s a balance to all of them. Her sword only being able to cut down the things she wants to attack is pretty amazing, and seeing that in action with Wrath’s flames and cutting through Wrath and the saving the little girl from the beginning of the season was fun to watch. This ability sounds insanely OP until we saw in the end that her Sun Sword like its name only really works during the day. Once the day is over it seems like its abilities are just done until the start of the new day, rendering it into just a normal sword. The biggest thing though it Priscilla’s many health bars essentially. She took on some blows from Wrath that should have been fatal but instead of dying, an item on her would break instead. Priscilla changing her dress and look going into this fight makes a lot more sense (other than providing some fanservice). In Harry Potter terms, Priscilla’s items are kind of like Horcruxes. Each of them contains a little bit of her life and when each one breaks, she’s a lot closer to actually dying. At first, I thought that she would be able to imbue this ability to any item on her that she deems precious, but after talking about her eight husbands and her saying that they all left her with something valuable, I wonder if that is actually the limit of her items. We saw the jewels and the necklace itself and then the hair accessory, so does that mean three of the eight are down already?
I would love a bigger explanation on all of this, especially the Iris and the Thorn King we never got to hear more about. If Liliana got a backstory, Priscilla absolutely needs to get one too. I never thought I could see myself become a bit of a Priscilla fan but seeing her body annoying Wrath was fun to watch.
See you all next week!
Berry, welcome back!
Liliana has the Divine Protection of Telepathy (revealed in Episode 58 or Season 3 Episode 8), which allows her to share what she’s feeling with others. Reinhard himself wished for this Divine Protection offscreen, which is how he could beam his thoughts to Subaru when he was fighting Regulus. I think her glowing green was just a special effect meant to show her music resonating, not an actual power. We’ve seen in Episode 56 that Liliana’s singing can break people from Sirius’s control, so she has done so before, and that’s how Priscilla knew to demand that Liliana accompany her.
Also, there’s two shorts that are a mandatory watch:
Re:Zero Breaktime Season 3 Ep. 5: https://twitter.com/i/status/1851218364317761852
Re:Zero Breaktime Season 3 Ep. 6: https://youtu.be/VvXaWBb_aRg
One thing I took away from this episode is that Priscilla’s remark about a fool having no right to live might be hinting that Priscilla knows that Subaru and Al do not stay dead when they die, which would be why she refers to both of them as fools. Given Al hinted in last week’s episode that death is not the end for him with how he warned Capella to get out of there before he dies, perhaps with Al you can physically observe him being unable to die unlike with Return By Death, and that’s how Priscilla may know what Al’s power is and intuited something about the nature of Subaru’s power. That would explain why she cut open a wound on Subaru’s leg in Episode 56 and poked a hole through his neck in that same episode, and that’s ’cause she doesn’t believe he will remain dead if he did in fact die due to blood loss. Priscilla should believe that Subaru has SOMETHING given how weak he is, and that would be one of the reasons she came to believe that he doesn’t stay dead.
Given Al uses the Japanese term “kyoudai”, which means “brother” to address Subaru, and Al and Subaru were talking about having come from the same hometown in Re:Zero Breaktime Season 3 Episode 5 to avoid talking about being from a different world, Priscilla may have outright been told by Al that Subaru is in a similar position to him with how he was originally from a different place (Earth) and that they’re in fact from the same hometown from beyond the Great Waterfall, which is the edge of the world in the fantasy world in Re:Zero Breaktime Season 3 Episode 6. Although I literally believe Subaru and Al are actually brothers, I wonder what Priscilla herself believes about their relationship. Episode 60 introduced the concept of noble blood perhaps having special properties with Capella remarking about how Crusch’s blood couldn’t overcome hers despite being quite noble itself, and maybe Priscilla believes a special magic runs in Subaru and Al’s family that allows them to defy death.