Re:Zero - Episode 41 Review - Garfiel’s Origin and Emilia’s Confidence

This is a review of Ep 41 of Re:Zero aka Ep 16 of Season 2. Warning: This review contains spoilers for the series up to and including episode 41!

As I complained about in my review of the previous episode, we now get Garfiel’s origin story. Overall, the story of Garfiel is more satisfactory and expected than Otto’s, but I still don’t like him. I’ll never forget that he lost control and killed so many people, including Otto and Patrasche, during one of Subaru’s death loops.

We finally learn what happened in Garfiel’s tragic past. He’s not trying to stop Sanctuary from opening to the outside world because he hated his mother for leaving. On the contrary, he loved his mother. He was traumatized by her dying in a freak landslide, and he doesn’t want anyone else in Sanctuary to be hurt like that.

Garfiel did want to hate his mother for leaving, but after the trial showed him her death, he couldn’t help but feel guilt for her loss. And now he considers himself the only one who can be “the wall” for Sanctuary. We can see parallels between Subaru and him now. Both were unwilling to rely on others and tried to take all the burden by themselves.

It takes a harsh confrontation by Subaru and Emilia for Garfiel to finally snap out of his trauma. Emilia relates with Garfiel’s fear of the past, and Subaru yells at Garfiel to rely on him. But words aren’t enough for Garfiel - he needs to have a fist fight to see which philosophy should come out on top. Good thing Subaru cleverly hides Puck in Frederica’s crystal (so that’s where he was!). After Subaru uses Shamak to disorient Garfiel, he attacks Garfiel with the crystal. And I guess that weakens Garfiel’s punch, with Subaru’s tooth the only casualty.

But the cool new technique we see in this ep is what Subaru calls “Invisible Providence.” It’s a manifestation of the Sloth Witch Factor, that literally packs a punch! I loved seeing Garfiel get hit, but Patrasche got the best hit with a headbutt! Sweet revenge for killing her in previous life, and also body slamming her in this one.

Garfiel ends up taking the trial again and learns that his mother left Sanctuary but had planned to return, with Garfiel’s father. See? You weren’t abandoned! And now you have friends like Subaru and Ram, so you can stop being a jerk that gets in the way of things.

Emilia has also built up the confidence to take the trial again. It was super cute how she and Subaru embarrassingly muttered about their kiss and that they would talk about it soon. Young love’s so sweet. And what made it even sweeter was learning that the reason Subaru left Emilia was to spend the whole night writing messages of encouragement in the Graveyard for her. It’s good she’s fired up, because she has to face Echidna in the next episode!

(image source: Amazon)