Re:Zero Reed vs Julius Fight Review — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] I'm probably going to get into a lot of trouble for even making this video, but I'm still going to always just, uh, says it like it is. I tell you my personal feelings and thoughts on a given episode, and that's exactly what I'm going to do today.

[00:12] So, this fight between Reed versus Julius is something that, honestly, personally, I've been looking forward to for a very long time, because, within Art6, Julius is, hands down, one of my favorite characters.

[00:24] Like, I absolutely love his growth and what he goes through throughout the entire event, from, like, for instance, like, uh, Arc 5 to where we're at now with Arc 6, or Season 4. He's been through quite a long journey, trying to rediscover himself and, you know, be able to pick himself back up again and claim what he once was.

[00:42] It's a very beautiful character-building and, like, driven moment for him, and this entire fight just harbors so much beauty for the writing of Reed Zero. Like, it showcases how amazing Tophie is as a writer when it comes to even writing support characters.

[00:57] Like, it's not always just Natsuki Subaru stealing the show and being, like, hands down the best thing of the show, which he's an amazing character. Love him every time he's on screen. But one of the big things that, like, this entire exchange between Reed and Julius shows is that Hoppy is also very good at writing side characters.

[01:15] I mean, he's always shown this already, but I just, I love Julius' story because he's a character that starts off as kind of like an antagonist or kind of like a, someone that's kind of a rival or an enemy to Subaru at the beginning in Season 1, and seeing his gradual growth and journey, it's been absolutely breathtaking.

[01:33] breathtaking. And so this fight really is a huge moment for the story, and I feel like a lot of people, especially when they heard that a very famous animator called Vincent Charizard was working on this episode, hype exploded to the roof. For those that have no idea, Vincent, the animator

[01:50] that worked on this entire segment, he is very well known for a variety of scenes, like, for instance, working on One Piece, but he's also worked on ReZero in the past. A very iconic moment that he worked on was the Garfield

[02:03] scene where he fought against his opponent at the end of season 3 in arc 5. We basically have that entire exchange rate segment that was just amazing. And it was a great fight sequence, probably hands down one of the best fighting

[02:15] sequences of the entire season. And basically when people, myself included, heard that he was going to be coming into this episode animating Reed vs. Julius, myself and so many others

[02:27] were like blown away. We were excited to see absolute cinema. And so I sat down and obviously I watched this episode and I left it honestly, I was happy. I'm

[02:39] really happy with the episode. For instance, it got the point across with, for instance, the character development and motivations and just overall like what Julius has been fighting for. It's a very good

[02:51] sequence of events showcasing him still wanting to be a knight, remaining to be a knight, but he rediscovers himself. He reforms a new contract with his spirits. It's just everything about this is beautiful. I mean, he becomes Anesthesia's knight again, you know,

[03:06] reaffirms that with her. It's just, it's a very beautiful episode, and in terms of story, hands down, 10 out of 10 Just straight up 10 out of 10 episodes in terms of story content Animation as well even this segment is really beautiful There a lot of good impact frames There like just great fluid animation and movement

[03:25] It looks really great, but then you're probably wondering yourself, okay, so I said when I opened up this video that I was going to get into a lot of trouble. Well, that's where I need to talk about some of the negatives of this episode, because honestly, I'm a little bit conflicted with this

[03:40] entire fight scene, and I'm going to explain why. So, first off, this fight is, I'm not going to say that the animation of this is bad. I want to make sure I start off by saying that the art and

[03:52] animation of this is not bad. Obviously, some of the frames look a little bit dull here, like for the other facial expressions on Julius. It's because, obviously, it's simplistic for the flow of the animation. It doesn't mean that this is a bad sequence. It's just all for flow. It's kind of

[04:05] like the iconic pain versus urgency scene that everybody kind of tries to meme on sometimes, but the art is simplified to be able to have fluid animation, and that's exactly what you see going on here with the movement and all that,

[04:17] so there's nothing inherently wrong with it. But my issue here is, is that this sequence is probably something that is going to cause everybody to get upset with me for what I'm about to say, and that's, it feels very sluggish, very slow.

[04:31] It feels, it feels like it doesn't demonstrate what you really should get from this fight, from what Reed is as a person. And let me elaborate. So first off, it is established already today

[04:46] that the animator that worked on this, he even admits himself in a post today that time was quite rough for this and received the last second correction on the day of the deadline. But happy we still managed to finish it.

[04:58] There were some issues because of time, but we will work towards cleaning it up a bit. Basically, this entire segment that Vincent worked on, you know, he even admits himself that it was rushed and not fully complete like he wanted.

[05:11] He didn't have enough time to fully realize exactly what he wanted, but he did manage to at least get it presentable for it could be shown to the entire world. But this entire segment obviously was not able to be fully realized.

[05:26] I mean, the animator himself even realized his time was quite rough for this. He was literally working her up to the very deadline of the episode. So that's honestly insane. So basically, this gets into the foundation of my argument.

[05:40] It also doesn't help that throughout the entire sequence, if you pay close attention to Julius' cloak, you'll see that there is a demo that is written right on there as a texture, showcasing once again just how incomplete this sequence is,

[05:52] that they were definitely rushed for time, and they weren't able to fully complete everything that they wanted and do a lot of finishing touch-ups. So yeah, I wanted to point this one out too, to give a little bit more foundation to my argument.

[06:04] So now that I've gotten into the foundation of my argument that the animator himself even admitted that this episode was rushed, or this very segment was rushed, I think I can finally explain it a little bit more in detail. Something about this exchange with Reed and Julius is off.

[06:17] It feels slow and sluggish. And what I mean by that is, is like, it is a very readable sequence, like, look at the fight, you can definitely see, like, the movement and all that, you can understand what's going on in this given scene, which out of every scene that I think Vincent has ever worked

[06:30] on over the years. I think that this is his most readable fight and choreography with his character acting and stuff I think that hands down probably the best showcasing of just readability of a fight sequence but I think that there

[06:44] is a point here that, because of the movement of it, it actually just doesn't feel, it feels too slow, it feels like it's way too slow for someone that is the pinnacle of swordsmanship himself, right? Reed is

[06:56] literally, he is the, he is a, he's reached the heavens in terms of swordsmanship, okay? Like, he is incredibly powerful. And now, yes, you can argue that gluttony is controlling

[07:08] the body and all that, like, for instance, his gluttony body, so it's holding him back to a degree and he can't utilize all the strength. That is definitely established at the end of the episode, or at least at the end of the fight. We get that. I get that. But

[07:20] even then, gluttony isn't necessarily slow. Gluttony is not a completely slow person, and when you look at this exchange, it just looks like Reed gives off this aura of an average swordsman. He doesn't look like he is an incredible swordsman, which we know he is,

[07:34] but it just, the very movement of the scene feels like it's counter to what you should be getting, an overwhelming obstacle, someone that is literally, might as well be the embodiment of a dragon itself in human form, and I think this scene right here is actually an accurate depiction on

[07:50] how I think Ree should be presented in terms of how his movement is. I mean, look at how fast he looks, but also it's still a readable sequence. I mean, he gives off this menacing vibe that he is someone that has reached the heights,

[08:03] the peak of swordsmanship itself, and I feel like just the sword drawing scene feels just more accurate to the way his character should be presented instead of the action sequence that we actually got. For instance, what I said with it being slow and flogged.

[08:15] There's definitely, you can just see the contrast here, like the slowdown of it and all that to with the sword drawing scene is just a massive difference it's a rift lash of just movement honestly that you can easily see when you look at both scenes back to back but that's

[08:29] just my personal opinion I mean the very exchange with the ability here where he's like charging up and all that like when you actually see the moment and he like gets really strong there's an exchange where you see like a dragon silhouette appear beside him he's supposed to be like this demon

[08:44] slash dragon that is just so overwhelmingly powerful, but you don't really get that impression. Obviously, Julius's character development is what started here, showcasing him being able to stand

[08:56] up and be a knight and all that, not throwing away what he once was, but also reconfirming what he once was. It just, there's a lot here, but like I said, the art and animation feels so slow and sluggish that it just, it doesn't fit so well it's supposed to be the pinnacle. I'm not saying it

[09:10] should be nothing but impact frames and flashy lights or anything like that, I'm not saying that, and like I said, I'm no animator, and I definitely don't think I can articulate my thoughts properly or fully say what I want to say here, but I feel like a lot of people

[09:25] do agree with what I'm saying here, like, I feel like a lot of people are not, like, completely against what I'm saying, like, there is something off about this sequence, it's not animated poorly, like, it doesn't, like, the animation's good, but it just, it

[09:39] doesn't fit the vibe. I hope we have explained it that way. I really do. I hope that I'm not coming across as someone that's just not making any sense. I'm not saying this episode is terrible.

[09:51] I not saying it badly animated I not saying that It just the very shift of the movement feels a little bit weird and off like just too slow at moments and it just feels like it just like like I said it it sluggish Um but with that being said though I I

[10:06] do want to talk about other things of this episode. I think, in general, the big reason that we now know Anastasia was, uh, not coming out is because she didn't want to forget about

[10:18] Julius. That was one big thing that was revealed in this segment, is that the reason why she was hiding within her odd is that she didn't want to, um, forget her knight, but obviously she made the

[10:30] choice to basically, uh, leave and all that to come on out and see her knight meet him for the first time. It's a very beautiful moment. It's cute, it's adorable, and it, you know, gives Julius another reason to fight once again. There's a lot of things here, because, like, one of the big things is that

[10:46] Julius, he's lost a lot. Like, you know, he lost his brother. You know, he lost everybody that knew him, his very name. People didn't even know him anymore. But at the same time, he, like, has now re-found himself

[10:58] by remaking a contract with his spirit. You know, he's now talked with Anastasia like out of your night. This is great. Great character development all around that has been building up for a very long time.

[11:10] He really redeemed himself. Now, with that also being said, we have another little plot going on. Amelia has been completely forgotten, nobody even knows her, which complicates a lot of things. You're left wondering, okay, Amelia's forgotten, how are we going to fix that?

[11:26] Obviously, we're dealing with Gluttony right now, Gluttony's a big fight in this entire arc, but will Gluttony give up the memories of Amelia and allow Amelia to be, you know, back to who she is? Who really freaking knows?

[11:38] But the last little tidbit I do want to talk about is this finale of this episode, and we finally get to see the dragon himself. For those that have no idea,

[11:50] this is a very important character that has been name-dropped literally since Season 1 in the myths and the origin of the very country itself because the country that Amelia never fight over for the Royal Collection is like, you know,

[12:03] it's like a dragon country. And meeting this individual is a legendary moment. Like, this is a character that has been name-dropped since the beginning. So you have to wonder to yourself, like, how much does this man know?

[12:17] Like, obviously, he was around the time of, like, the witches, Sosla, Reed, and all that. So you have to wonder to yourself, okay, what are we about to find out lore-wise? What is Amelia about to find out? Because this is a massive lore drop and big character to finally be presented within the story.

[12:34] So I'm not going to elaborate any further because spoiler reasons, but yeah, I really, I love his design, honestly. He's a really freaking cool design. He has this majestic presence of like a dragon that just seems very wise and ancient, and I think that is super freaking cool looking at it like this. But I'll leave it at that. Tell me your honest thoughts. Like I said, I know this video might get me in trouble. People are probably going to be upset with my opinion on the fight, but it's good. I just, I think that it is, there's something off about it.

[13:09] I will leave it at that though tell me your thoughts in the comments below be safe, stay healthy, Chibi out