Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World- was one of the most popular isekai anime released in the 2010s, but after the first season wrapped back in 2016 there was no real word on a second season until much, much later. It turns out that it was a bumpy road getting to the full second season of the series, and that’s why we even saw two different OVA specials released in theaters in the years since. In an interview included with the home video release of Memory Snow in Japan, the producers revealed that they just wanted a break.
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Kadokawa producer Sho Tanaka, WHITE FOX producer Tsunaki Yoshikawa, and Kadokawa MF Bunko J magazine editor Masahito Ikemoto revealed in the interview (with translations provided by SA10-kun and WintryOne on Reddit) why it took two years for a new release for the series, and even longer for the actual second season of the series. The staff was exhausted after the first run of the series came to an end.
As Tanaka explained, Re:Zero wasn’t quite seen as the hit series it is today, “It’s a story that no one thought would be a big enough hit to make a sequel, aside from the people working directly on it…After the TV series ended, and we started to see the numbers, a lot of people started to claim ‘I thought from the start that it would sell.’, and it was a truly refreshing turn of events.”
Yoshikawa revealed that talk of some kind of follow up didn’t begin until at least 2017, a year after the anime ended, and Tanaka revealed that they couldn’t move forward with any new material until it was confirmed, “…if there hasn’t been a decision in advance to produce a sequel, then no matter how much confidence I have in it, I can’t go ahead and arrange things with the studio…So due to that, two years passed by from the end of broadcast to the OVA.”
Yoshikawa then was pretty blunt about the situation and noted how tired the team at WHITE FOX was after that first season, “…[E]ven without that sort of situation, after producing all 25 episodes of the main story, it’s true that we were pretty exhausted. We were in a state where we didn’t want to think about Re:Zero for a little while.”
They also explain that’s why the first OVA has such a light story in terms of mood. Working on the “Return by Death” saga had worn the team down, and the resting period was necessary before more could be picked up! Unfortunately, the wait for Season 2’s going to last just a bit long as the second season (originally scheduled to debut this month) is now slated to debut later this Summer.
What did you think of Re:Zero‘s first season? Did you need a long break after it ended too? Excited to see what the second season holds later thus year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!
