Re:Zero delivers record-breaking episode and announces release for season 4 part 2

While there’s no shortage of isekai anime, few continue to resonate with audiences quite like Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World. To put it into numbers, the latest episode of the series just became one of the highest-rated episodes of all time on IMDB. It currently has a perfect 10/10 rating after 23K reviews. According to AniTV, it is the first episode of a show to achieve this in nine years, and the first isekai and light-novel-to-anime series to do so.

The record-breaking 11th episode was the finale of the show’s current arc, ending the first cour of its fourth season. Shortly after the episode aired, Kadokawa announced that the final eight episodes of the season, dubbed “The Recapture Arc,” will begin August 12. The following teaser image was released alongside the announcement.

Image: Kadokawa

Re:Zero’s fourth season is its highest-rated on IMDB, with a 9.4 average rating that’s well over the series’ overall score of 8.2. Fans on other user-led platforms have been similarly ecstatic, with season 4 currently at a 9.14 rating on the anime database MyAnimeList. That puts it as the number two ranked season of all time on the platform, behind only the first season of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. While MyAnimeList scores have a measurable recency bias, with four of the five top-rated shows having been released in the last three years, Re:Zero is the only isekai series in the top 100, putting it head and shoulders above its peers.

For those unfamiliar with Re:Zero, the story follows Subaru Natsuki, a former NEET who dies and is reborn in a fantasy world. Shortly after this very familiar setup, Subaru finds that he has the power to rewind time after dying, an ability that leads to no shortage of self-sacrifice and pain. The light novels began on the (in)famous self-publishing site Shōsetsuka ni Narō — many anime with absurdly long names originate here — and have run for a whopping 44 volumes and counting. The anime is currently roughly halfway through adapting these volumes.

Many fans are hopeful that the show will maintain the relatively quick turnaround time between seasons 3 and 4, as opposed to the brutal four-year wait between the first and second seasons. Considering the series' popularity, we'll likely hear news about season 5 when its current run wraps up later this year.

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After trying to move away from its gimmick, Re:Zero goes back to the start in season 4