First off before I begin: I was finally able to secure volume 2 and 4 after they were freaking cancelled on me three times. Q v Q Ultimately I had to take a chance with Amazon to not destroy them before they even arrive (95.5% of the time, which is why I typically steer clear of ordering books from there) because they were the only one who had any in-stock. Thankfully they both arrived safely, intact and didn’t look like they’ve been run over by a truck for an exchange! When the show began, I had only been able secure vol 1, 3 and preordered vol 5. Naturally I didn’t want to dive into them since there was not way of knowing how long I’d have to wait for the restock (and sometimes it can take MONTHS), so I held off until I secured the volumes, hahaha. Though as soon as Vol 2 and 4 arrived, I ended up binge reading nonstop within two days ahahahahaha. Self-restraint? What’s that? The books were so good, I couldn’t put them down, and I’m so excited for the next one! I definitely recommend reading them! There’s a lot that’s not included in the anime, and believe me there’s so much that it got my brain buzzing likes a bee with so many theories!!!
So the one who helped Rishe get into the knights training was of course Theodore. He wasn’t about it at first, but once he got the idea it’d be fun to see his brother’s surprised face, he was on board– hahaha! Thanks to that, Rishe now has very busy mornings to attend to. Fortunately she has Elsie around to help her sneak in and out.
The so–called “town date” was cute, especially with how Elsie made it her mission to make dress Rishe appropriately for the occasion. Rishe’s idea was to just wear a plain brown dress, but Elsie wasn’t about to have any of that. Thankfully Elsie’s intervention, she actually made her match Arnold. She earned a well deserved praise from him, because he had expected Rishe to wear exactly what she was initially planning to go with. And yes, Rishe looked exceptionally lovely today.
That said, it’s a real a shame that the town “date” was pretty much glossed over. There were a couple of interactions that were cut out that could’ve made it a bit more charming and fun to watch (such as the joke to have Rishe leashed to stop her from wandering all over the place). At least they included the bit of Arnold’s hesitancy to eat a dragon-fruit due to its appearance. He only took a bite after Rishe insisted him to, which was really cute since one wouldn’t really expect him to give in to something like that.
As suspected last week: Arnold’s invitation to town wasn’t really so much of an ‘official’ date– or at least I wouldn’t really call it one, especially when it involves sneaking out and Arnold is constantly keeping tabs on the time with his pocket-watch. The reason why they went into town together was for two reasons. The first was for Rishe to pick out what jewels she’d like to have on her wedding ring. Although wedding rings are not part of Galkhein’s custom, Arnold sought to get one because he felt it’d be suitable for someone like Rishe who works with her hands, and most importantly, he wanted to see it on her.
Thanks to that, we were able to get an endearing scene where Rishe was asked to pick her favourite color, she ended up asking for a jewel that resembled Arnold’s eyes. She has always found them to be incredibly beautiful,but she certainly didn’t intend to actually verbalize that out loud, and was absolutely a flustered mess after that. Arnold on the other hand, was definitely not expecting her to use his eyes as reference.
Unfortunately the Jeweller’s scene was actually another instance that had suffered a cuts, to the point that the guy (who’s supposed to be the jeweller’s grandson) who was supposed to shown to have feared/been intimidated by Arnold wasn’t even introduced, let alone shown.
The second reason for Arnold to go into town was really to keep track of the arrival of Prince Kyle from the nation of Coyolles. They are known for producing gold, jewels and wealth, but most of the year they are cut off by snow, so their livelihood depends on trade. But most importantly, Coyolles was a country that had been destroyed by the war Arnold instigates in Rishe’s past lives.
Prince Kyle was the one who had sent Arnold the letter the other day, where he insisted that he will come to the capital for the wedding celebrations since he supposedly would not be able to attend the actual event. This was why Arnold kept on checking the time. Of course he doesn’t buy Prince’s Kyle’s reasoning, and understandably so, when you consider the guy didn’t give him a chance to turn him down, as he set out before he could even receive a reply.
Needless to say, Arnold was less than pleased to see him when he finally showed up. Prince Kyle had a very extravagant way of speaking of Rishe’s beauty to the point he was essentially worshipping her. Something along the lines struck a nerve with Arnold, be it jealousy or how he referred to Rishe as a ‘Goddess’ that making look like was ready to kill him at any moment. Meanwhile, Rishe wasn’t paying attention to what Prince Kyle was saying at all, as she was far too preoccupied worrying about his poor complexion. Hilariously, Rishe had even planned to sneak medicine into Prince Kyle’s food if she failed to get permission to treat his illness. She tried to play it off as a joke, but we and Arnold, all know that she would seriously do it.
In all, this ended up being a fairly simplistic episode, which I felt wasn’t the case in the book. It’s hard to say whether reading in advance was for the better or for worse, because this was one of those episode where it was very apparent how much had been cut out. I know that even if I hadn’t been able to read Volume 2 before this episode, I still would have felt the same. Hopefully this is going to be a situation where they are merely rearranging some crucial information to be shared later on, but if they don’t, I’ll try to fill in the blanks when the time comes. Either way, there’s only four episodes left, so now begins the time crunch to fit as much as possible. Sadly that meant sacrificing the cute scenes between Rishe and Arnold when they were going around the marketplace. I just hope the decision to leave out certain details don’t come back to bite them.
Next week, another they’ll be attending another gala. This time Rishe is going to have to try and make sure she doesn’t blow her cover as Lucius since Count Lawvine, (who was called down by Arnold to participate in whatever Prince Kyle wishes to discuss, under the guise to oversee the knights training) will also be in attendance.
My main takeaway from this episode is that Arnold probably has connections to the mafia or a criminal network, and that is how he has set the stage for a world war in all of the previous 6 lives Rishe lived before making it to this loop. That criminal network would be how he has spread his name as being one of a ruthless terror on the battlefield to foreign countries while keeping his policies that benefit commoners unnoticed.
That would be why the proprietor of the jewelry in this episode doesn’t visit the palace, and the entrance to her property is in a back alley. I suspect that Arnold ensured that he and Rishe were wearing hoods to prevent people from noticing that they were looking to do business with an unbecoming establishment.
In the book, the proprietor claims she runs this place on the side, while her son runs the main shop, but you raise a really good point of it potentially being connected to the black market. That could explain why there were even counterfeit jewels in the shop to begin with (not to mention a freaking door code to enter), and why Rishe was given the opportunity to be tested. It’s unclear whether Arnold may have had a hand in arranging that quiz, but it’s still interesting for it to have been brought up all the same. The only thing that might throw all of that off though is that: Since Rishe had mentioned they were very beautiful, and well done, that they might have been designed to market it for the lower class so that they could be sold at more affordable price. That said, I lean more towards the black market theory since it can be used to gather funds off the record for Arnold’s war. XD
No, Mihaela definitely doesn’t sell her merchandise to the working poor. She said that they only sell their wares to a select few, so her clients are the extremely wealthy. If this business is being used to fund Arnold’s future war, that would be interesting.
From the looks of this episode though, I suspect that Rishe somehow didn’t find anything amiss about the circumstances, so Arnold might have been testing Rishe for something, whether because he is considering having her be an accomplice in his war or whether she might be able to foil his plans, but Rishe not noticing is probably bad since this could prevent her from stopping the war.
I’m reasonably sure all of the “Arnold has some secret purpose for Rishe” is all a red herring and he really did just fall in love with her at first sight. The fact that Rishe doesn’t believe it is kinda the biggest point for it being true. She’s her own biggest blind spot. Another thing this episode cut out was that she had trouble picking out a jewel because she could only think of them in terms of what she’d be able to sell to the people she knew, and had no idea what she herself would actually want.
The dialogue in this show tends to be very purposeful, much like how Rishe deduced that something was up when Arnold says that she does not need to have any resolve to be his wife. A person can genuinely be in love with a person while also having an ulterior motive for keeping them around. I do not doubt for a moment that Arnold is truly in love with Rishe, and I see no reason to not believe that he intends to use her as he stated during the church scene since Arnold’s word has proven very reliable so far.
The anime is leaving out a LOT of the details. She only sells to a select few. That select few being people who pass her little test and therefor show appreciation for the jewels, because the ones SHE sells are her private collection. The actual store is run by her son is and elsewhere. She’s not running an organized crime ring, she’s just super picky about her clients.
Even if Mihaela is not part of an organized crime ring, there is a possibility that Arnold is working with an organization on the down low considering how his reputation of being a terror on the battlefield can spread to other countries without him ever stepping foot in one of those countries before. Arnold is most likely not starting a world war on his own, and there are people, who he might already be aligned with, who are starting to get the pieces in place.
I mean no disrespect, but people who know me know that I don’t take novel readers’ input as gospel. In Re:zero, most novel readers believe something about a character that was literally debunked by that same character in the same scene. I, for one, believe that Pandora does not have the power to undo her death given she stated that that’s not what happened.