A week passed, and the army of people making jokes and memes about the Re:Zero anime online only kept growing.
The forums were overflowing with it. Memes, theories, sarcasm, dramatic breakdowns disguised as humor. But the moment eight o'clock came around, all of that would vanish at once. As if summoned by some silent signal, everyone disappeared from the discussions and planted themselves in front of their TVs.
Episode fifteen of Re:Zero was yet another chapter in which Subaru Natsuki completely humiliated himself.
In this episode, Subaru goes to visit the other four candidates of the Royal Selection.
After learning that Emilia would be attacked by Petelgeuse of the Witch Cult in just two days, and realizing that neither he nor Rem could possibly stop it on their own, only one path remained: ask for help.
So he tells each of them where and when the Witch Cult will strike, desperately trying to secure reinforcements.
And what he gets in return is contempt.
Cold refusals. Mocking glances. Words that crushed whatever dignity he still had left.
When designing the script for this episode, Sora had actually held back a little.
The previous loops had already been cruel enough to the protagonist. If, on top of all that, he had to suffer an even more degrading humiliation in front of Emilia's rivals, the viewing experience for ordinary audiences would have become downright unbearable.
Of course, there would always be a certain peculiar type of viewer who would find the original version even more delicious for precisely that reason.
But Sora definitely wasn't one of them.
So he cut those harsher parts without hesitation. A few scenes that served no purpose other than dragging Subaru even lower than necessary were left out.
In the end, though, the core of the episode stayed the same: Subaru's every attempt to persuade someone to help him amounts to nothing. And with no other choice, he and Rem once again set out alone to save Emilia.
Only this time, in this new loop, the two of them once again board the dragon carriage of the green-haired merchant boy whom Re:Zero fans had already begun calling a god of war: Otto.
But on the road back to Roswaal's domain, they encounter the thing Subaru had only ever heard about in previous loops.
The White Whale.
A monstrous creature so immense it looked like a floating island in the sky.
It descends upon them without leaving the slightest room to react. The carriage, the ground dragon, Otto, Subaru, Rem. All of it seemed about to be swallowed by that absurd white mass.
And then, once again, Rem did the very thing that shattered the entire country's heart.
With that same gentle voice of hers, she says to Subaru, with a tenderness that only made it hurt more in that moment:
It's okay. Rem will always stay by your side.
In the next instant, she leaps from the carriage.
With the fragile body of a young girl, she places herself alone before the White Whale.
And right in front of Subaru's eyes -
she is devoured.
That scene made an untold number of viewers nearly hurl chairs at their televisions.
That night, for Re:Zero fans all across Japan, sleep once again became an impossible luxury.
The terror that had consumed everyone the week before, when Rem died, came roaring back with full force.
And, as expected, NatsuYume exploded all over again.
"What kind of human being can keep watching this? Seriously, who can endure this? It's been three weeks already. Rem has died three times, and not once was it quick or merciful."
"The first time, she got pierced by a bunch of swords. The second time, every bone in her body was shattered. The third time, that bastard Sora decided to have her swallowed alive. That guy is way too creative when it comes to torture. I hope one day he gets thrown into another world and goes through the same thing."
"She died again. Great. Is Kantoku Sora an idiot? Why does Rem have to die again? Can't you show even a shred of compassion for the kindest girl you created yourself?"
"Rem… my Rem…"
"Has my heart frozen over already? I watched Rem die again this week. I'm sad, but I don't even feel like screaming anymore."
"It's not that your heart froze. It's gone numb. For those of us on Team Rem, this anime has become one long torture session. And that damned Sora is still going to drag this hellish cycle out for several more episodes before he kills Petelgeuse and lets Rem walk toward tomorrow with a smile."
"The only reason I'm still watching this anime is because I want to see a loop where Rem doesn't die. But that old devil seems determined to kill her in every single one."
"The difference between slaughter and surgery is precision. I'll admit it: that old demon Sora's scalpel is terrifyingly precise. Every strike lands right on the softest part of my heart. And somehow he still won't let me drop the series. Hah... hahaha…"
"Anyway, see you all next week. Tonight's going to be another sleepless one."
"I can't take this anymore. If anyone knows where that old bastard lives in Tokushima, post the address. I'm going over there and confronting him in person."
"Wait until next week. If he keeps tormenting the story like this, I'm going with you."
"At least this time, even though it was horrible, since Rem got swallowed by the White Whale, the pain probably only lasted an instant... Does that count as some kind of progress in Sora's humanity?"
"Progress? What are you talking about? In the first two loops, there was at least still a body left. This time there isn't even that. She got swallowed whole. Not only does she die, she becomes food for the White Whale. And you want to call that progress?"
"..."
"Why are Re:Zero fans' thought processes so bizarre?"
"I truly never expected anyone to reinterpret Rem's death in the third loop from that angle."
"Sora, I swear I'll never forgive you."
In the end, that week's episode still concluded with Subaru, a protagonist too weak to overcome his fate, suffering total defeat, and with yet another brutal death for Rem.
But compared to the previous episode, it still felt just a little less devastating.
So the fans only vented their anger symbolically before falling quiet again.
All that remained was to sink back into that endless seven-day wait.
Each new death Rem suffered made the audience's resentment build in silence.
Everyone was waiting for the decisive loop.
The loop where the protagonist would finally save everything.
The loop where he would finally slam the brakes on that spiral of despair and overturn fate itself.
At noon the next day, two pieces of information about Re:Zero were made public.
The first: episode fifteen's viewership had climbed once again, reaching 5.31%.
The second: the first-week sales data for volume 1 of the BD had finally been finalized. Across the country's twenty-one sales regions, the total came to 102,147 copies.
The first number, impressive as it was, still fell within what many had already expected.
Ever since its premiere, Re:Zero had been climbing in ratings every single week. Breaking past the 5.3% mark was something many people had already begun to treat as a matter of time.
But volume 1 of the BD also surpassing one hundred thousand copies -
that was a different story.
That made no sense.
What the hell was that supposed to be?
There was no way a simple bonus Rem figure alone could push sales to that level.
It had to be a joke.
It could only be a joke.
"How is that even possible?"
Inside Seiun TV, Shiori tore the sheet containing Re:Zero's performance data in half and threw it onto the floor.
The 5.31% viewership number alone was already frightening enough.
Week after week, that series was drawing closer to the results of Breath of the Dragon's Flames. In just two weeks, the gap that had once been 0.2 had fallen to 0.1.
Even so, Shiori had still managed to cling to the only comfort left to her: the debut BD volume of Breath of the Dragon's Flames had sold extraordinarily well. It was the only anime in the last four years to break one hundred thousand copies in its first week.
But now, that "only one" was about to become "one of two."
"Why? Why that series? It aired on a regional southern network alliance, and its merchandising support was far weaker than Breath of the Dragon's Flames. In every backstage comparison, in commercial support, in reach... Re:Zero should have been at a disadvantage. There's no way it should've passed one hundred thousand copies in its first week."
Ratings measured popularity.
BD sales measured commercial value.
That was how the industry saw things.
The better Sora performed in the anime market, the more money his work made, the more ridiculous Shiori's blindness would look in the eyes of the industry.
After all, back in the beginning, only the southern regional alliance and Seiun TV had approached Sora for cooperation.
If he had been given a normal range of choices, he never would have chosen Seiun TV.
And the person who had shut the door on a talent of that level -
someone with creativity, commercial appeal, and nearly limitless potential -
was her.
The blame would land squarely on her shoulders.
Even if, in the end, Re:Zero failed to surpass Breath of the Dragon's Flames in ratings and she avoided having to step down, that stain would remain.
With that mistake branded onto her name, how could she still dream of being promoted to vice Kantoku of the station next year?
Just thinking about it made Shiori's chest tighten.
And the hatred she felt toward Sora deepened even further.
But the thing she couldn't understand most was something else.
How had an anime broadcast in only fourteen regions managed to reach the same national BD sales level as a work aired across twenty-one?
Then, suddenly, something clicked in her mind.
Re:Zero had only aired through that southern regional alliance. Which meant that, all this time, there had been seven regions of the country where fans simply had no access to the anime on television.
For months, those viewers could do nothing but watch Breath of the Dragon's Flames shining on their own screens while, online, fans of the two series waged endless wars over which one was truly the anime of the summer-autumn season.
Their curiosity grew.
Their desire grew.
But without local broadcasts, all they could do was wait for the BD release and pay to finally see with their own eyes what kind of anime this was.
For that audience, Re:Zero's BD didn't just hold collector's value.
It was the only way to watch the series at all.
It was the same mechanism that causes certain works to build hunger before they ever reach the broader public. When a title becomes the center of discussion everywhere, when it dominates rankings, forums, comment sections, and weekly debates, the lack of direct access does not kill interest -
it intensifies it.
And for those seven regions, Re:Zero had become exactly that.
An anime that only existed in other people's comments.
A series that lived on NatsuYume's trending charts.
A work capable of standing shoulder to shoulder, in prestige and buzz, with the phenomenon that was Breath of the Dragon's Flames.
So the moment the BD hit the shelves, the explosion was inevitable.
"So that's it... Volume 1 of Re:Zero also broke one hundred thousand copies because viewers from those seven regions came out in force…"
The moment she fully understood it, Shiori's vision darkened.
The dizziness came hand in hand with fury.
Who could possibly have imagined that a regional network alliance would release an anime with that much explosive power?
And that, as a result, it would accidentally create a scarcity effect across seven entire regions of the country, turning a distribution weakness into a commercial advantage?
At noon, when Re:Zero's newest ratings and first-volume BD sales figures became public, the entire industry fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Mainly because nothing like this had ever happened before.
A work outside the central four major networks surpassing 5% in ratings already sounded absurd enough.
But once people looked at the situation calmly, the explanation for the BD's performance started to make sense.
Japan's anime market had always been brutally simple.
Only results mattered.
And after lunch, dozens of media outlets began reporting on the matter all at once.
Two anime in the same season achieving feats of this scale.
And, more importantly, after episode fifteen aired, the gap between Re:Zero and Breath of the Dragon's Flames no longer seemed all that large in either viewership or commercial performance.
Only then did many people in the industry, far too late, begin to feel an unsettling thought form in the back of their minds.
The autumn season had only just entered its third week.
There were still nearly two months left.
Could it be...
that before the end of the year, Re:Zero might actually overtake Breath of the Dragon's Flames?
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