Title: Re:Zero, Chapter 4: The Sanctuary and the Witch of Greed Vol. 4
Author: Tappei Nagatsuki (Story), Haruno Atori (Art), Yu Aikawa (Adaption), Shinichirou Otsuka (Characters)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 164
Genre: Shounen, Battle, Fantasy
Publication Date: July 5, 2022
The Story
Here in the fourth volume, Subaru confronts Elsa at the mansion and, much as one would expect, she’s way too powerful so they have no choice but to escape. Subaru, Ram, and Frederica all make it out; however, Subaru doesn’t want to leave without Rem and Beatrice. After some convincing, they decide to go back in after her.
Frederica transforms into full beast mode and tries to keep Elsa at bay while Subaru looks for Rem. Right when he finds her, he also finds the severed hand of Petra and has to take cover in Beatrice’s library. While in there, Beatrice reveals something rather odd about herself but it’s too late. Elsa finds the secret library and kills Subaru right in front of Beatrice!
After going through the typical revival process, he’s right back next to Emilia in Sanctuary while she’s in a passed out state from the trial. Subaru wonders what he can do but this time, things don’t go his way. While he tries to find a way to alter the events, Garfiel ends up tying him up and subduing him, claiming he is a witch cultist due to the amount of miasma leaking from his body. Subaru, bound and powerless to try and change the events that are to come is rescued by the most unlikely of people and that brings our volume to a close.
Characters
In the last volume, Garfiel was softening up as a character… here, he’s back to being completely stubborn and hard-headed. I know that the whole back-and-forth thing through time has its effects based on the path Subaru chooses but because as such, Garfiel as a character has been all over the place. I can’t even count the number of mood swings he’s gone through in this series so far! We’ll have to see just how he acts next volume.
Beatrice was given the main focal point of attention here. While I won’t spoil anything, the fact that she has been living her life by a certain thing this whole time is very puzzling. When that thing is revealed, it really begins to raise questions about her and, indirectly, about Roswaal as well. Given everything we’ve seen from Roswaal in this arc and the reveal with Beatrice, you have to truly wonder just what in the hell is going on between the two of them and why Roswaal would allow Beatrice to remain as-is with this new revelation. There’s a lot to unpack with this one!
Final Thoughts
Elsa just seems way too powerful. For someone like Subaru, there is a less than 0% chance of him beating her… like ever. This means he is going to have to rely on Frederica and Ram to do all of the heavy lifting should he even make it back to the mansion to fight her. With the way things are going, Garfiel is really putting a monkey wrench into those efforts.
We still have the whole trial, getting the residents out of Sanctuary, the mystery behind Roswaal, and not to mention Echidna. This arc is really throwing a LOT at the reader but by segmenting things as they have, it makes all of it digestible. The thing with Beatrice just adds, yet, another new layer to this already deeply-layered story arc. I don’t even think we’ll get to it all here anyway. I don’t know if there will be a “Chapter 5” in this series but if there is, I’m sure some of the stories here are going to carry over.
I still don’t understand why they had to create multiple series for ReZERO’s manga adaptation. Overall, this would have been the 21st volume had this just called the whole thing ReZERO. Dividing into chapters and making each chapter its own “series” just feels weird.
But cest le vie. That’s how it goes sometimes!
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