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[REVIEW] Tappei Nagatsuki - Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World- (Vol. 1-15 LN)
(cdn.myanimelist.net)
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56619187
More than meets the eye, again and again.
At first, things seem quiet and unremarkable. A cliché premise, cliché developments, cliché characters... Actually, things didn't seem quiet and unremarkable at all; Re:Zero seemed boring and uninteresting. More of that ever-pouring slop Japanese webnovels insist on becoming, more of that persistent stench of mediocrity and the unbridled numbness of barren creativity.
Re:Zero is just more of the same old, same old.
At first...
But, at first, even the normal is strange. Even as we're born, we cry. We're confused, lost, terrified as the world that we now take for granted assaults our senses and wrecks our mind and body alike. Voices endless, smells, feelings, all of it is so much---too much! What makes life beautiful aren't the large pieces that we all have in common, but the small distinctions that make us unique. One would assume death is the same, of course.
All one can do is assume death is the same. That is, of course, except for Natsuki Subaru.
Re:Zero throws us into the typical isekai fantasy world---it even tricks us for a bit!---but pretty soon we understand that that's not the case at all. Natsuki Subaru doesn't die. Or rather, he dies and is then reborn. He gets to try again. That's what Re:Zero is about.
What if you could try again? What if your biggest failures were erased and you had a do-over?
As a premise, this is brilliant. It's not the first time I've read a time-travel story with a somewhat similar outline---shout-out to Mother of Learning---but Re:Zero is unique enough from within what I've read to trigger that novelty factor.
The cast is extensive and varied, including several of the traditional isekai tropes while continuously subverting them in some of the most creative ways possible. Even Subaru himself, the MC, is a subversion of the typical isekai MC. He reminds me of Kazuma from KonoSuba, actually, at first.
That's always the point, isn't it? At first, at first, at first... There's always more than meets the eye.
If that was all that Re:Zero was, it would be enough to make for a good story. However, Subaru is faced with the flip-side of his condition: he loses all the good parts too. The pain, the suffering, the despair that dripped from the pages when he loses everything was at times so overwhelming I actually had to take a breather. It's like the Witch's miasma bled through the screen and seeped into my eyes---that's the only reason I cried, of course...
What if you had to choose? What if you could try again, but even then you failed?
The ever-growing pressure of his mistakes digs into your heart and crushes your very soul, I'm telling you. Seeing him come to terms with how much he's lost and watching him gather the courage to keep going... It's beyond fantastic.
My biggest gripes with the novel are the following:
- The translation is mediocre and littered with errors;
- Subaru does too much talk no jutsu.
Still, it's not a big deal. I'm used to reading webnovels, so reading a poor translation isn't a significant problem; I just expected more. Subaru's incessant yapping can get frustrating at times, but I can rationalize it by saying that, well, if he dies, he can just try something else. When it works, it's hard to say that that wasn't the best option so... I can't really complain... I just don't like it that much. Let it be known, though, Re:Zero isn't just Subaru's yapsesh; he very much works! He tries, and fails, and tries, and fails, and he tries again. He tries everything he can think of. What I love most, perhaps, is that he doesn't get random power-ups like you see in other series. He gets stronger by failing and learning. He improves slowly by trial and error. It's really satisfying to see him figure things out!
The world is getting more and more complex by the volume, by the chapter, by the page really. By Volume 15, it felt like the world had grown ten-fold, both geographically and lore-wise. It's so complex and enticing with so many mysteries to dive into. I can't wait to learn more.
I mentioned the extensive cast already, but there's really no reason not to bring it up again. There isn't a single character I dislike in this whole thing. There are characters that are very much despicable, yes, but there aren't any of those cliché "bad because they're bad" or "good no matter what" characters. Every character is either extremely complex, with believable and deeply emotional motivations, or simply not developed enough to tell just yet. After all, there's so many characters but only so many pages to talk about them. I don't think that's to the detriment of the narrative in the slightest, though.
Really, the only character I actually have sincere gripes with is Subaru himself! Specifically in regards to his choice of heroine. He's wrong, and I'll stand by that. He's the only character in the whole series whose motivation I question. You'd think this would be a big deal, but it really isn't. He's an idiot, an irredeemable moron. That's what makes his story so compelling: we get to see an irredeemable moron turn into a somewhat redeemable moron, little by little, life by life, death by death.
Is this the greatest masterpiece of the 21st century? The century isn't over just yet, but it's in the running; I'll tell you that much.
What do you think?
Rating: 5/5
Read on Witch Cult Translations!
Disclaimer: I read the Light Novel version of Re:Zero, not the WCT webnovel translation.
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Mason & Dixon is classified as a “postmodernist” novel. I was intrigued by what the usage of the word here entailed. Postmodernism in literature refers to an abandonment of “absolute meaning” that is seen in modernist and realist literature and espousal of fragmentation, playfulness and incertitude, as well as the usage of literary methods such as metafiction and intertextuality.
This then makes of M&D a postmodernist literary work. The narrator, a certain Rev. Cherrycoke, who tells the adventures of two (historically real) astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, arouses one too many times the suspicion and doubt of his audience in regards to the veracity of what he is narrating. Throughout the novel, Cherrycoke's authority is put into question time after time, as he mixes historical accounts with speculation, fabrication or, indeed, mere fantasy. From talking animals to conversing clocks and a flying, mechanical (quasi-omnipotent) duck; fiction and reality intermingle. Pinchon/Cherrycoke takes liberty in designing actual historical figures as either he or the circumstances please. Another thing that caught my attention was the capitalisation of words mid sentence; as I found out, besides highlighting the importance of a words, it serves as reference to the practice of randomly capitalising words in old print.
As for the content itself, the novel critically presents several serious themes, some of which it demystifies. The two protagonists come to realize the grim reality of the colonial ventures and their exploitative consequences which they find themselves in the midst of:
Slaves. Ev’ry day at the Cape, we lived with Slavery in our faces,— more of it at St. Helena,— and now here we are again, in another Colony, this time having drawn them a Line between their Slave-Keepers, and their Wage-Payers, as if doom’d to re-encounter thro’ the World this public Secret, this shameful Core. . . . Pretending it to be ever somewhere else, with the Turks, the Russians, the Companies, down there, down where it smells like warm Brine and Gunpowder fumes, they’re murdering and dispossessing thousands untallied, the innocent of the World, passing daily into the Hands of Slave-owners and Torturers, but oh, never in Holland, nor in England, that Garden of Fools . . . (Ch. 71)
‘Sir, an hundred twenty lives were lost!’ “I reply, ‘British lives. What think you the overnight Harvest of Death is, in Calcutta alone, in Indian lives?— not only upon that one Night, but ev’ry Night, in Streets that few could even tell you how to get to,— Street upon desperate Street, till the smoke of the Pyres takes it all into the Invisible, yet, invisible, doth it go on. All of which greatly suiteth the Company, and to whatever Share it has negotiated, His Majesty’s Government as well.’ (Ch. 14)
“Sooner or later,” Dixon far too brightly, “— a Slave must kill his Master. It is one of the Laws of Springs.” (Ch. 72)
On the other hand, the book is not free of an incessant mystification which M&D battle with as the self-proclaimed “men of Science” they are. For instance, during their encounter, the Learnèd English Dog informs Mason, somewhat mockingly: “I may be præternatural, but I am not supernatural. ’Tis the Age of Reason, rrrf? There is ever an Explanation at hand, and no such thing as a Talking Dog,— Talking Dogs belong with Dragons and Unicorns. What there are, however, are Provisions for Survival in a World less fantastick.” (Ch. 3)
And again, after Mason perceives the ghost of his deceased wife:
He tries to joke with himself. Isn’t this suppos’d to be the Age of Reason? To believe in the cold light of this all-business world that Rebekah haunts him is to slip, to stagger in a crowd, into the embrace of the Painted Italian removed herself, and the Air to fill with suffocating incense, and the radiant Deity to go dim forever. But if Reason be also Permission at last to believe in the evidence of our Earthly Senses, then how can he not concede to her some Resurrection?— to deny her, how cruel! (Ch. 15).
“Get a grip on yerrself, man,” mutters Mason, “what happen’d to ‘We’re men of Science’?” “And Men of Science,” cries Dixon, “may be but the simple Tools of others, with no more idea of what they are about, than a Hammer knows of a House.” (Ch. 69).
I assume Pynchon expresses a disenchantment of sorts with the supposed “Age of Reason” which had been forcefully detached of its earlier, seemingly mystical, origins; perceived as a revolution that ineradicably changed the ways of logic, and which must be indiscriminately embraced, regardless of the cruel exploitation it may cause. In fact, M&D parallels what Pynchon had previously expressed in his 1984 essay “Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?”, in which he wrote:
THE word "Luddite" continues to be applied with contempt to anyone with doubts about technology, especially the nuclear kind. Luddites today are no longer faced with human factory owners and vulnerable machines [...] there is now a permanent power establishment of admirals, generals and corporate CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are completely outclassed [...]. We are all supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because of the data revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any of the people any of the time.
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