Hello! Justin here and welcome to the Otaku Mind. So, Re:Zero, it’s considered by many to be one of the best isekai stories out. With it’s dark moments, mature content, violence, and intriguing story it quickly won fans over and rose to success. However, the author decided one day to pull a prank on the readers that resulted in a spinoff series known as the IF stories. These stories show us what would happen if Subaru took a different route than the one we’re currently seeing. They were great stories that build on the world, develop characters, added lore, and gave us a better appreciation of Re:Zero and the world Tappei has created. So in honor of the holiday, we’re going to take a look at these IF stories and see what they tell us about Subaru and the world of Re:Zero. Warning, there will be spoilers for these stories. If you don’t want that, go read another blog.
What IF Lust: Harem King
So this is the first one. In an effort to have fun with the fans, Tappei uploaded this story on April 1st 2015 and then took it down on April 2nd. The joke was to make them question if what they read was real or just a figment of their imagination and they were going insane. Out of all the IF stories this is the weakest and shortest of the bunch, but keep in mind this was written as a joke and Tappei hadn’t exactly decided on what these stories would be about. Anyway, in this IF scenario Subaru becomes the king and makes Emilia along with Rem, Petra, and the other royal candidates his wives thus creating his own harem. I mean it, they are seriously in love with him, he openly French kisses them, Rem is pregnant, and he has no problems sleeping with or waking up next to a 12-year old girl or groping a 15-year old girl later on. This story is laugh out loud insane. There is no way in Hell this would happen. Priscilla alone would have killed the others and kept Subaru for herself. She does not like sharing. Despite being seen as the weakest story of the bunch it did receive good reviews overall by everyone and inspired Tappei to continue this series. After a few tweaks and reworking his idea for the IF series was officially born and Tappei would release a chapter of it every year on April 1st aka Subaru’s birthday.
What IF Wrath: Oboreru
So remember when Rem dies in the second arc and Ram tries to kill Subaru but he willingly plunges to his death to save Rem and everyone else? Well in this route, Subaru kills Ram by smashing her head with a rock and spirals down the path of wrath. He creates his own criminal organization with two of the strongest characters in Re:Zero under his control and has earned the nickname the Purge King who has killed over 100,000 people and often decides the fate of others with the flip of a coin (Two-Face would be proud). Emilia dropped out of the royal selection after Ram and Rem died and stays at the mansion depressed. Puck, believing that the mansion isn’t a safe place for Emilia and upset with Roswaal works out a deal with Subaru to protect Emilia. Subaru and his men invade the mansion where they kill Roswaal and Beatrice, then take Emilia and Frederica as hostages to live in the base of Subaru’s organization. Frederica is forced to be the maid preparing meals and cleaning up Subaru’s messes while constantly fearing for her family’s safety. Emilia is kept in a locked room where Subaru visits her every 10 days to use her lap as a pillow and sob to her about the stress of his job. Once news of Roswaal’s death spread, the knights were deployed to end Subaru once and for all. Reinhard attacks the base directly, fighting and beating one of Subaru’s top guys, and then fighting Emilia who refuses to leave Subaru’s side. Even when she finds out all the awful things he’s done she still chooses to forgive and stay with him. Puck fights against Reinhard while Emilia reunites with Subaru saying she forgives him, but he doesn’t believe her. He’s done so many awful things and has become so traumatized that he doesn’t trust anyone or anything. It’s gotten so bad that he’s gone color blind. He pushes Emilia away and goes to a secret room within his office to reveal a chained-up Ram still alive and wanting to kill him. The last moment of the story sees her wrapping her hands around his neck, smiling with hatred in her eyes, and her being the only thing Subaru sees in color.
What IF Pride: Ayamatsu
Probably the darkest of the IF stories. When Subaru first gets isekai’d he thinks that he’s the invincible hero with a hidden power who can’t be defeated. However, he quickly realizes how weak he is and accepts that he needs help from others who are much stronger or smarter than him in order to save himself and others. In this story he doesn’t accept that. He continuously dies at the hands of Elsa losing his mind and becoming a completely different person. When he finally does cave-in and asks the city guards for help, they get slaughtered as well but Reinhard shows up and deals with Elsa. Instead of going to Emilia, Subaru instead goes to an injured Elsa and teams up with her vowing to one day kill her himself. Subaru then joins the Witch Cult and befriends Betelgeuse only to kill him after 400 loops in order to protect Emilia who he becomes obsessed with. He passes on Betelgeuse’s death to Roswaal’s camp and the two form a partnership agreeing to work together. Crusch gets defeated by the White Whale and erased from the minds of everyone. This causes Felis to have a mental breakdown so Subaru reprograms him to be his slave. Subaru eventually starts to kill the other archbishops while giving credit to Emilia but that wasn’t enough to win her the throne. Subaru decides to stop playing and become the ultimate villain that Emilia would defeat. He killed the innocent, heroes, villains, and other candidates until after over 10,000 loops the capital is burning and he comes face to face with Emilia who kills him for the last time because he reached his ideal ending. An ending he selfishly forced upon Emilia because of his stupid pride.
What IF Sloth: Rem’s Dream
Considered by many to be the best of the IF stories. In this scenario, Subaru and Rem run away together leaving Emilia to die. The two get married and move to Kararagi a neighboring nation that takes inspiration from Edo Japan. Once there, Rem gets pregnant with Subaru’s child and while they wait for the child’s birth, they befriend two new characters while dealing with another character trying to kill Subaru because of the witch’s scent. It’s a great story overall. In fact, the new characters are the most fascinating of the bunch and really make this story worth checking out. The stuff with Subaru and Rem having their first child is wholesome and ends the story on a happy note despite the people they sacrificed in order to reach it.
What IF Greed: Kasaneru
Hands down the most depressing of the IF stories in my opinion. In this scenario Subaru accepts Echidna’s offer and she’s able to speak to him. With her help Subaru is able to pass the trials and protect everyone at the Sanctuary but not without paying a high price. Subaru had to die 100 million times in order to get the perfect ending leaving him in a desensitized state that he no longer fears death and abuses his ability instead of using it as a last resort all while Echidna watches in amusement in her quest for knowledge. We see Subaru tricked Felt into dropping out of the race and bringing Reinhard to Emilia’s camp. Garfiel never resolved his issues in the Sanctuary so he walks around angry and insecure all the time and Subaru forced Beatrice to break her contract leaving her a former shell of herself. As for Emilia, she’s now become dependent on Subaru as she wasn’t able to face her trauma at the Sanctuary. Because of this, she’ll have moments where her powers go crazy and Reinhard vowing to kill her as a last resort should they not be able to stop her. Subaru even employs Elsa as a mercenary to track down the archbishops. Subaru now lives a life where his only purpose is to sate the curiosity of Echidna which leads to endless pain and suffering on his part.
What IF Gluttony: Tsugihagu
Slight spoiler for this one. Taking place after the events of season 3, Subaru loses his memories. In an effort to get them back he desperately goes on a journey of self-discovery seeking forbidden knowledge in the process and forsaking everyone he cares about. Subaru gains access to a library which houses a Book of the Dead, a detailed book that talks about a person’s life up until their death. Everything a person has done or thought about is written in that book. Including what they think of people they’ve met in their life. This new Subaru kills people in the hopes of finding missing fragments of who the old Subaru is and using that as the blueprint to complete him. This results in Subaru killing multiple people close to him and across the nation in the hopes of finding anyone who knows him and reading their book to complete his blueprint.
Other IF Stories
There are other IF stories that slightly alter events. For example, there’s one IF story that explores Reinhard joining up with Subaru earlier. There’s another one where Priscilla actually helps Subaru more. These stories are okay but really don’t see a major change in Subaru’s character and just make previous scenarios and events easier.
What Do These Stories Tell Us
So what do these non-canon stories tells us about Re:Zero? Well they give us an idea of how the story would have played out had Subaru chosen a different path. Second, it provides us lore, world building and introduces us to characters who will show up and play a major role in the story later on. Third, it shows us how powerful and dangerous Subaru can be. When he puts his mind to something he can accomplish just about anything. Hell, he killed thousands of people in three of these stories and had two of the strongest characters under his command despite him still being so weak physically. Fourth, they show us that at the core of this series there’s always been this battle between sin and virtue. Throughout multiple points in the series Subaru has been presented with following a sin but instead he chooses to follow a virtue, rejecting a sin entirely and becoming stronger from it. He showed humility over pride, patience over wrath, diligence over sloth, charity over greed, and temperance over gluttony. These stories show us what would have happened had Subaru not been strong mentally and gave into sin. We see how the end result is the death of multiple people and the mental breakdown of Subaru. Essentially, we get the bad ending. Even the Sloth story can be considered a bad ending. While Subaru in the end chooses a virtue it took him a while to accept it and, in the process, sacrificed a number of people to get to this point
Where’s What IF Envy
That’s the story we’re currently reading or we haven’t reached it yet. In my honest opinion we haven’t reached that point yet in the story where Subaru has to choose between envy or gratitude. Something tells me we won’t reach that point until the final arc of the story and it will ultimately decide the fate of everyone. Maybe Subaru will reach a death that he has to decide if he’s content with that leads to everyone’s happiness except his or choose to redo everything to get an ending where he’s the only one who’s happy in the end. Or maybe it’ll be a story involving Reinhard and his jealousy over him. I do find it interesting that in Wrath, Pride, and Gluttony, Reinhard is the one who ultimately faces Subaru and has to kill him to save everyone. Maybe deep down Subaru is jealous of him because he’s everything Subaru wishes he could be. In the Pride story he admits he was jealous of Reinhard to the point that he hated him. We could probably see Subaru be presented with an option to steal Reinhard’s power for himself but at a cost. It’s hard to say what will happen in the end but Tappei has shown us that he’s thought about it a number of times and not afraid to explore other routes and show the different scenarios that play out. In the end, these stories give you a better appreciation of Subaru’s character, what he’s faced, what he’s overcome, and how different the story would have been if he gave in.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.