DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionRe:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu
MANGA AdventureRe:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu: Hyouketsu no Kizuna

REVIEWS

• 

  heychrisfox

  99/100
  Frozen Bond offers an exciting and welcome change of pace from the central premise of Re:Zero.

  The Frozen Bond, a Re:Zero OVA/film, is criminally underrated! Coming off the heels of Re:Zero's first-half of its first season, everything that Frozen Bond has to offer is a huge change of pace from the central premise of the series, and in all of the best ways possible.

  

  This prequel to Re:Zero focuses on further developing Emilia and Puck as central characters. It gives the essentials of both of their backstories, as well as what their lives were like predating Emilia's inclusion into a more noble, refined life. The emphasis here is focusing on the discrimination Emilia suffers due to her being seen as a terrible witch, and for the terrible magic that she holds within her.

  Such a long, dedicated runtime allows for good introspection, and the film makes sure that any topic they touch on is with a deft hand. They reveal just enough to keep the viewer intrigued, without giving firm explanations, making things both clear while leaving a layer of mystery yet to be uncovered. Rather than just dumping backstory and lore, this film is more about contextualizing the relationship that has already been developed in the main series.

  

  What makes this stand out above its own source material, as well as other anime of a similar caliber, is that its self-contained narrative holds on its own. Not only is little context needed from the main series, but instead, the context given in the film only enhances your knowledge of the main series. Because of its deliberate separation from the main narrative, it's free to flex its narrative muscles and explore in any direction it wants, telling a fantastic fantasy story, tinged with levity and heartache.

  The main series is always mired in its edgy tone, and Subaru's ignorant perspective, and his never-ending cycle of fail and repeat until success comes his way. Emilia takes the reins of protagonist quite deftly, having full ownership, character depth, and character development, perhaps even deeper than her original presentation.

  

  It is not without faults. The art and animation is fantastic throughout, as is expected of a series of its stature. But because of its simple setting - snowy forest with little variation - the backgrounds can be a bit dull. The OST features some unique music as well, but a lot of it is largely forgettable, and struggles to stand out in any way, especially compared to the absolute bangers in the series' soundtrack.

  Also, don't you dare watch the other OVA included as a part of this: Memory Snow. It's a straight-up fanservice episode, with some goofy scenes and memes of light comedy. But while Frozen Bond is edging just shy of a masterpiece, Memory Snow is criminally stupid, should be avoided if you value your time, and has almost no redeeming qualities.

  

  Any criticisms offered, however, are demonstrably nitpicks on what is clearly a stellar display of storytelling within the Re:Zero world. This is an easy recommendation for anyone already interested in the Re:Zero franchise - much watch material! - but also a good recommendation for those who may be intrigued by the series overall, but are a bit put off by Subaru as a protagonist, or the darker themes of the mainline series. Frozen Bond captures all the best aspects of the Re:Zero worldbuilding, with essentially none of the faults or lag that comes with its source.

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• 

  ArlanKels

  64/100
  The highest of highs and the lowest of lows

  This review will contain spoilers for the Re:Zero OVA's Memory Snow and Frozen Bonds.
  It will also contain spoilers for Season 1.
  For those who want to know my overall rating without digging deep:
  Memory Snow: 85/100
  Frozen Bonds: 42/100
  (Combined Rating: 64)

  tl;dr ~ Why does anyone even bother reading Arlan's reviews?

  Memory Snow

  _How to make Re:Zero enjoyable_

  For those who've read my first season review they know that, while I had some good times with the first season, I also had a lot of bad times. A lot of it didn't resonate well with me, and the way some characters were treated left me feeling quite disconcerted for the future.

  So when I tackled Memory Snow I had low expectations, especially since those who'd encouraged me to watch it didn't consider it the better of the two OVA.

  I was very surprised to find an overabundance of good humor, great comedic timing, interesting character interactions, and an overall plot that had a start, middle, and end.

  What we have with Memory Snow is a sort of microcosm within which we could see the most pleasant potential of Re:Zero. This is the type of fantasy world that the whole series could be, if it'd only abandon the author's need to placate his urge for self-inserted masochism.

  Memory Snow deals with a Subaru who has begun to earn the trust of those in the mansion, it shows us more about the way everyone in the mansion perceives him, it showcases more about the magic system, it builds on how Emilia is still hesitant to trust Subaru with everything, and even more.

  The way the townsfolk look at Subaru and Roswaal, the way that Emilia's guilt over Subaru's injuries still haunts her, everything adds to the overall world of Re:Zero and the characters themselves.

  We're even given hints about Emilia's past, how she was in the forest with Puck alone, and how nobody was near them since they were able to freely release magic that froze things nearby without concern.

  Yes, this is not the perfect OVA, it goes on for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes too long and some of the humor is a bit too outlandish. But all in all this was a highly enjoyable time that helped me to relax, think better of the series, and leave me with heightened hopes for the future.

  Frozen Bonds

  _Butchered tedious drek_

  Right off the bat I'll be honest with you. I did not like Emilia at this point of the series. Any time she was shown to have some capability as a potentially great character, she was instead shunted into a secondary or even tertiary position. Her ability to ignore or forgive Subaru, her almost seeming need to have him in her life, and the over reliance on him struck a sour chord with me.

  So here I go, a person who doesn't care much for Emilia, and I'm forced to watch an Emilia focused OVA and it's absurdly long.

  You can slice out over half of this OVA and still retain every major important aspect of it, every major dialogue line, even a bunch of the more important secondary stuff. This is an over inflated OVA that drags on well past its welcome.

  The story itself also didn't matter to me. I knew that Emilia had been in the forest with Puck, I knew she had a contract with Puck, I knew that people perceived her as evil or a monster. I knew all of this going into Frozen Bonds.

  Frozen Bonds, in turn, gave me a few new hints of information(Including a mysterious voice...hello mysterious voice lady), some cute Puck moments, a few beautiful shots that made me want to clap, and that's about it.

  When I watched Frozen Bonds there were a lot of moments when I laughed, and it wasn't for a good reason. This is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the worst production for an Re:Zero "Episode" in existence. There are a ton of cheap looking and awful techniques utilized.

  A lot of bad choices were made by whoever animated this OVA, or perhaps they simply had no money or time to work on it. The end result was disgusting animation that made me want to smack the crap out of whoever gave this the okay. Also whoever did those stupid frost crystal flower borders for the flashback/dream sequences needs to be excommunicated from Earth.

  So not only is this an overly long and bloated OVA, but it's also the worst animated stuff in Re:Zero. Tack on that it's predominately old information, and doesn't really do much except remind us that Emilia is a half-elf and Puck is god damned cute, and it's a miracle I'm giving this a rating as high as I am. Even now, as I type this out, I want to dump the rating down lower.

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• 

  TK8878

  48/100
  Re:Zero’s OVAs might say a few things about the anime as a whole.

  

  Spoiler-free review

  Preface:

  This review is part of an expanded post regarding Re:Zero's unusual viewership trends. However, the viewership analysis had to be removed per moderator request. The full post can be read on MAL if you happen to be interested in weird statistical quirks.

  On Memory Snow:

  Offering a nice comedic break after the more serious climax of Arc 2, Memory Snow is a well-timed lighthearted departure from within Re:Zero’s first season. Granted, there were already a few in its original run (primarily in its first half as is typical for psychological thrillers) but the shift from the ultimately positive ending of Arc 2 into the darkest portion of season 1 was too drastic in the minds of some viewers. Originally premiering in theaters after season 1, sold as an OVA, and later aired on TV as a part of season 1’s director’s cut rebroadcast in 2020, there’s a good reason why it ended up becoming so prolific.

  Taking place in between arcs 2 and 3, Memory Snow provides that much needed break with a light, comedy-oriented little story and some extra moments with many characters whose roles were mostly locked to Arc 2. Is it filler? Yes. Is it fanservicey? Fairly. While such terms often carry a negative connotation, they aren’t inherently bad traits. In this case, some lighthearted filler makes for an excellent buffer between serious portions, and that’s a sentiment that holds up if one were to watch it later than “intended” as well.

  _Too much suffering in Arc 3? Try interspersing some silliness into the mix!_

  With a simple plot and a happy-go-lucky tone, Memory Snow delivers most of its humor by having the characters bounce off of each other in silly little interactions. This more character-oriented focus does some interesting things that the main anime struggles with, including adding little sprinkles of character definition via implied intent through their actions and putting them in situations where they can act looser (and therefore more honestly). The goofiness of the jokes and the ship-bait elements of some of the situations are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but as what is essentially a collection of connected skits, Memory Snow manages to have a fair share of slice-of-life-esque fuzzy moments thanks to its simplicity and delicacy.

  The production values of this solitary episode don’t particularly stand out from the rest of the season, which isn’t a bad thing either. There isn’t a lot of action to encourage grand animation scenes or tense moments to put dramatic music into, yet there are scattered spurts of visual creativity at play and plenty of opportunities happily taken by the vocal cast to act out the characters in ways they rarely got to during the main anime. The whole package comes off as something of a fun process for the production crew and not just some tacked-on cash grab in the wake of Re:Zero’s popularity.

  Overall, Memory Snow is good filler, the sort that holds its own and makes you appreciate the rest of the story more. Unless you seriously hate the characters or Re:Zero’s humor in general, it fits right into its spot in the director’s cut (i.e. after episode 11 of the original broadcast), though one doesn't need to watch it at any particular point after Arc 2 to get the intended effect either.

  On The Frozen Bond:

  The Frozen Bond, a prequel project which appeared to promise some backstory and answers surrounding two of Re:Zero’s more ambiguous characters, is the serious side of this dual-story coin. However, when it struggles to do just that and doesn’t appear to serve much more purpose than as padding between seasons, it becomes challenging to justify it as anything other than a hollow holdover.

  Framed as an inner reflection Emilia has after the events of Memory Snow, The Frozen Bond centers around the relationship between herself and her guardian spirit Puck, and how it came to be that way for Emilia. One wouldn’t be blamed for thinking this would go on to expand Emilia’s character, yet it doesn’t so much as attempt to. The Frozen Bond is unquestionably about Emilia, and yet refuses to answer any real questions about her, and the main series had left many by this point. Despite spending a lot of time beating around the bush on the circumstances surrounding Emilia’s isolation in the Elior Forest, none of it offers any new perspective on who exactly Emilia is. This orbiting issue wouldn’t be so disappointing if it wasn’t the event the entire story revolves around and continually brings up to offer as an explanation for most of the story’s other events. By displaying so little character when given the spotlight for so long, Emilia only ends up appearing shallower.

  _It’s easy to predict how Emilia’s interactions with the town will play out the moment the very idea is pushed out. What makes it boring is how none of it ends up mattering._

  The only other character to speak of is Puck, who does end up getting fleshed out over the course of this largely Emilia-centric story. The mystery surrounding him works much better not just because there’s some answers provided as payoff to the inevitable questions, but because of how much more dynamic Puck ends up being than anything else The Frozen Bond offers. His wit appears to be backed by experience, his motivations pondered over, and his side of the relationship with Emilia (unlike Emilia’s side which can be chalked up to pure circumstance) organically developed. Sadly, his role in all of this is treated as a secondary concern, often getting brushed aside and inevitably left much less complete than it could have been.

  Instead, The Frozen Bond devotes much of the time it isn’t vaguely and fruitlessly hinting at Emilia’s backstory on attempting to make the antagonists look like actual characters. Chap is a one-dimensional thug whose ill-defined drive of “revenge” fails to justify why anger is his sole trait. Meanwhile, Melakuera is just a spirit automaton, yet there is an ample yet pointless attempt at making it seem to be more than that. It follows reasoning that falls apart with just a handful of questions and rules that Puck quickly dismantles the validity of (and yet it still follows them). Perhaps Melakuera exists to point to the unfairness of Emilia’s situation, but Chap already bumbled his way into proving that, as shallow as he is, long before Melakuera even became relevant.

  The whole product suffers the effects of being stretched out much further than it had any right to be. The full extent of Emilia’s backstory that was covered could have been the side plot of a regular anime episode, yet it encompasses the majority of this feature-length entry. Chap & Melakuera’s situations add nothing substantial to the story as a whole either, and while more time could have been spent on Puck, that’s ultimately a separate story from the one being told here. Even the production quality takes a hit, with soundwork that (unusually for Re:Zero) struggles to even have one decent, memorable aspect, and visuals that slowly degrade from pretty, fluid, & clear to rough slideshows that can’t even bother to show (what would have been) the climatic final action scene. Why build up to it in the first place if the result is obvious and the production is too burnt out to do it justice anyhow? Unfortunately, it would only be fair to ask that of nearly every other element of The Frozen Bond, as none of it justifies itself any better.

  Presented with an opportunity to build upon some of the lesser aspects of Re:Zero, The Frozen Bond instead dilutes them. Stretching this half-baked backstory to twice the length needed to tell it only serves to make its pointlessness more apparent, especially at the point of the main story it suggests itself to be relevant. Viewers who would level similar complaints towards season 1 are bound to be disappointed, and all but the most devoted of fans are unlikely to be amazed as well.

  Conclusion:

  At a glance, these entries don’t appear to have much to do with each other aside from their parent series. One is silly & lighthearted, the other is serious & drab. However, what they both are is fanservice, released in the lengthy four-year gap between seasons 1 & 2. While Memory Snow’s goofy charm adds something to the anime experience, The Frozen Bond’s stagnant dreariness only manages to fruitlessly draw it out. Interestingly, only Memory Snow was included in the Director’s Cut rebroadcast, even though both titles are framed in a way such that they could seamlessly follow each other.

  There happens to be a parallel between these side stories and the reception of the main series from those who have seen both seasons so far. Even a cursory glance at complaints for season 2 will pick up on a familiar trend: it’s slower, there’s less action, there’s less showing through present events and more telling through flashbacks… strangely similar to the contrasts between the two movies. Now this is all predictive of course, but if you primarily seek action, easy fun, and a fast pace, then many signs (reception, side story focus, and even the focus on psychological drama in general) point to Re:Zero moving away from those things in season 2. Plenty of people will and have enjoyed season 2 for its shifts of course, but it would not be the first time a long-running series changed what audience it most appeals to over time. That said, I still recommend doing as the Director's Cut did and only watch Memory Snow, preferably after Arc 2 in season 1. The Frozen Bond lacks in both psychology & drama and is unlikely to impress unless Re:Zero is a particular favorite of yours.

  Related reviews:

  # [Re:Zero (Season 1)](https://anilist.co/review/7099)
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