The anger inside Shoumei rose before he even realized it.
In truth, every Re:Zero fan already understood the series' pattern. Whenever the story entered a loop where the protagonist died, it used the sacrifice of other characters to stoke hatred, grief, and helpless rage. Knowing that, however, did nothing to soften the blow. When those moments came, people still lost their minds over them.
And Natsuki Subaru truly lived up to his role as the story's chosen protagonist.
Even though his emotions were on the verge of collapse, he still knew he couldn't let Petra's death be meaningless. After only two seconds of grief, he forced himself forward and headed for the room where Rem lay sleeping.
But the instant he found it, Elsa caught up to him.
Her attack came with unmistakable killing intent, ruthless and direct.
Subaru gambled everything in a single desperate move. He threw open the door, hoping that before he died, he could at least find Rem. See her. Protect her.
And then came the most dramatic moment of the episode.
Instead of falling into Rem's room, Subaru stumbled straight into Beatrice's forbidden library.
That room was a separate space hidden within Roswaal's mansion, a place detached from normal logic, one that any door could potentially lead to if Beatrice allowed it. Which made the answer obvious. This hadn't happened by chance. At the very moment Subaru was about to die, she had pulled him into that refuge.
Subaru lifted an enraged gaze toward the little blonde girl seated by the doorway, a book resting in her arms.
Why did you save me?
The ending theme began to play.
Shoumei stared blankly at the screen, motionless, barely even blinking. Only when the ED had fully started did he finally let out the breath he had been holding.
That episode had twisted the knife so many times his brain could hardly keep up.
And once it truly sank in that it had ended there, of all places, the discomfort that rose inside him was unbearable. It felt like being kicked out of the bathroom halfway through.
How could they cut it off there?
What happened to Ram and Frederica?
And Rem?
If Beatrice's power had diverted the door and sent Subaru into the forbidden library... then Elsa was still outside.
Shoumei liked the Bowel Hunter. He really did. Her dark charm was undeniable. But liking her as a character was one thing. Wanting her to personally kill Rem was something else entirely.
Because deep down, Shoumei was one of Rem's people too.
Damn it.
After spending ten full seconds savoring that ending, the nausea that surged inside him was ten times worse than the humiliation of his failed blind date that morning.
"I really should've let more episodes pile up. I shouldn't have started watching at episode six. What the hell am I supposed to do now?"
The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. He wanted to slap himself twice.
Because Re:Zero was exactly that kind of anime. The moment Subaru truly stepped into a storyline and the wheel of death began to turn, every single episode became the kind of cliffhanger that felt almost criminal.
The second season hadn't exactly enjoyed the best reputation up to that point. The first five episodes had struck many viewers as slow, even tedious. But episode six told Shoumei one thing loud and clear.
It was back.
All of it was back.
That vicious, merciless cut that left people gasping for air after the credits rolled... that was the unmistakable signature of Sora.
And no matter how he looked at it, this Sanctuary Arc felt even harder, even more hopeless, than the Royal Selection Arc from season one.
First there was Garfiel, who practically radiated danger. It was hard to believe someone like him wouldn't end up as an enemy.
Then there was Roswaal.
That man was no ordinary eccentric mage. He was a monster. Someone who could stand on equal footing with Puck, Emilia's contracted great spirit, the icy beast that had taken its true form and brought ruin to the world every time she died in season one.
From the way the story was shaping up, Roswaal looked exactly like the kind of villain being kept in reserve for the perfect moment.
And not just any villain.
Possibly someone even worse than Petelgeuse.
Across the first six episodes, every word out of his mouth had sounded like a test. Every smile had carried the smell of a trap. The aura of a schemer around him was so thick it almost spilled out of the screen.
And on top of that, there was Lewes, that mysterious little old lady in a child's body whose depths no one could measure, along with Elsa and the accomplice she still hadn't brought out in this second loop.
If Subaru really had to defeat all of them to break through this arc, then the situation was hopeless to a ridiculous degree.
How was he supposed to get out of that?
Their protagonist was just an ordinary boy.
At the same time, over on NatsuYume, the volume of discussion surrounding episode six of Re:Zero exploded. Within only two hours, three related topics had already climbed into the top ten trending searches.
Fans began gathering clues, sorting details, and piecing together every bit of information the anime had revealed so far.
"I thought Ram's line would be the highlight of this episode, but in the end it was Beatrice who saved Subaru. So does that mean the Sanctuary Arc is finally going to give Beatrice more screentime?"
"I'm finished. My brain is complete mush. I can't think of any way out of this mess."
"I always joke that anyone could do what the protagonist does, but after watching this far... no. Not at all. If it were me, I would've gone insane the first time Petelgeuse broke him."
"Exactly. Return by Death resets the body, not the mind. The trauma stays. Subaru's mental strength is unreal. Ten versions of me together still wouldn't compare."
"That familiar protagonist-suffering pain is back. My stomach already hurts. I can feel Sora sharpening the knife from episode six onward."
"What knife? Who else is there left to torment? Rem is already basically a vegetable, Petra dies in this loop and probably dies in the next one too, and Emilia is in the Sanctuary, where Elsa can't even get in. Sure, the Sanctuary traps them there, but it also keeps outside danger away. I'm totally calm. Not worried at all."
"The problem is the sunglasses emoji in that comment."
"Take the sunglasses off that emoji right now."
"But seriously... aside from those people, has anyone thought about the possibility that the old bastard might go after Beatrice too?"
"He can do whatever he wants to Beatrice. I can live with that. She barely had any screentime in season one anyway. Besides, I'm not into blonde loli characters. Elsa is my type."
"I'd be upset, but I could accept it if he really did that to Beatrice. What I can't accept is him going after Rem again. If that happens, I'm going after him myself."
"As long as Emilia and Rem are safe, I can live with anything else. Ever since Rem ended up like that, my heart has turned to steel. There's no room left in it for anyone else."
"Guys, don't fool yourselves. Season two of Re:Zero has twenty-five episodes, and people are saying the entire season is going to cover the Sanctuary Arc. So get mentally prepared. There's no way this arc is that simple."
"He actually posted that himself?"
"Of course. Since the start of the year, he's been seriously managing his creator account. With nearly nine million followers, it's a huge promotional tool."
"You guys really don't follow him? Lately he seems to be doing location scouting for his new film, Five Centimeters per Second. Earlier photos were taken in front of a sloped street with train tracks, and more recently it looks like he went to some small town about five or six hundred kilometers from Tokyo. What's weird is that he also visited a satellite launch base that's been abandoned for twenty years. I have no idea what that has to do with a romance film."
"And in his latest post, he even told Re:Zero fans to prepare themselves, saying that season two would be an even more stirring, emotional, and healing masterpiece than season one."
"Stirring?"
"Emotional?"
"Healing masterpiece?"
After a month and a half on air, Re:Zero's second season had finally entered the dramatic rhythm audiences had been waiting for.
Subaru had returned to his familiar routine: getting brutally killed, rewinding, getting brutally killed again, then rewinding once more.
Every death in every loop, every piece of information he dragged back with him, every bit of growth forged through suffering, was like a tiny gear.
And once enough gears had been gathered, they would lock into place and become the machine that could finally carry everyone toward a future where they could all live happily.
That was what Re:Zero had always been, at its core: the story of an ordinary-looking protagonist who kept suffering alone so everyone else could one day be saved.
And with that sixth episode, season two's ratings surged yet again, reaching 5.72%.
It wasn't just the best rating the season had seen so far.
It was the highest-rated single episode across both seasons combined.
When that number came out, a large part of Japan's television industry felt the atmosphere shift.
Especially the four major stations in the capital.
Everyone accepted that Re:Zero would remain strong after dominating two consecutive cours the previous year. The first season had been too popular. Even if season two wasn't quite as strong, it was never going to collapse.
What no one had dared imagine was that season two might actually rise above the first season's already massive ratings.
That was what pushed things into absurd territory.
The anime was already operating in the five-percent range. If it climbed any higher, then maybe, just maybe, it could touch six.
And that was a territory no televised anime in Japan had reached in thirteen years.
Just the possibility of Re:Zero doing that was enough to make the four major stations deeply uneasy.
A true phenomenon had emerged in the anime industry.
And the worst part was that it didn't belong to any of them.
The side taking the hardest hit was Seiun TV.
Inside its production department, everyone's year-end bonus had been cut in half the previous year.
Of course, the chain of disaster had started with the blunders of an executive who had already been fired. But more than anyone else, the man who had overturned the entire landscape was Sora, the sudden disruptor who had appeared out of nowhere.
And once resentment had already begun to build, it was only natural for that bitterness to turn toward Yume Animation.
If Re:Zero really went on to break a record the anime industry hadn't seen in thirteen years, their anger would become unbearable.
Sometimes crushing a rival doesn't bring immediate profit.
But letting a rival grow unchecked almost always comes back to hurt you.
To the four major stations, Re:Zero was exactly that kind of threat.
If its influence kept rising, then the Southern Network really might ride Sora's momentum and establish itself as the industry's fifth major force.
At that point, the four big stations could no longer pretend not to care.
Of course, the Southern Network wasn't the sort to sit there and take a beating either.
Meanwhile, Sora had led his team to a small town more than five hundred kilometers from Tokyo.
Their main purpose there was to research the satellite launch base that would appear in the second part of Five Centimeters per Second, "Cosmonaut." But alongside the work, the trip also served as a kind of unusual vacation.
It was still February, and winter had buried all of Japan in snow and ice.
During the day, the group spent their time traveling, inspecting locations, and gathering reference material. At night, once exhaustion finally caught up with them, they would gather together to celebrate Re:Zero's latest ratings breakthrough.
"Kantoku, that was incredible."
"At this rate, season two of Re:Zero might really break the six-percent barrier."
"And the more popular Re:Zero gets, the more those fans are going to show up in theaters to support Five Centimeters per Second because of your name."
"Enough, stop making fun of me," Sora said after taking a sip of warm sake. His cheeks were faintly flushed, but his eyes remained clear.
Then he let out a quiet breath.
"You all know I spent this entire past month outdoors gathering materials for the film. The actual production and directing work on Re:Zero season two was handled by Sumire. If you really want to praise someone, you should call her and say it to her directly."
"Kantoku Sumire doesn't need encouragement," one of the staff members said drunkenly from the side. "She looks like the strong, capable type. Always serious, never smiling much, and with an aura that's kind of intimidating."
"You'd need to know her better before making that call," Sora replied.
Only in front of him did Sumire occasionally show traces of uncertainty.
In front of the staff, however, she had to project confidence no matter what. Even if she had to fake it, she still had to look like she had everything under control. Otherwise, the entire team's nerves would start to unravel.
Still, most of the work on the first half of Re:Zero's second season had indeed fallen on her shoulders. Sora had only stepped in for the final calls and approvals.
If the reception to that portion of the anime kept getting better, then her confidence would likely grow with it. And in the future, if he really wanted to produce more works at the same time, he would be able to leave even more of the process in her hands and focus only on final review and confirmation.
There was no shortage of work at the company, so Sora only stayed in that small town for a few days before returning to Tokyo.
By then, it was already time to speed up discussions with Noriko Animation regarding the later stages of Five Centimeters per Second's promotional campaign, along with the question of further investment.
And so, in late February, another Friday arrived.
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