Notes:

• This is a chronological summary of important events we learned about in this season, in addition to a few other events included for context. Events that needed to be revised or changed after new knowledge from this season are also included.
• Breaktime is considered a required watch.
• Events in the same time frame may not be accurately ordered as we don't know the exact chronology. The further we go back, the longer a time span each section may cover (i.e. ~400 years ago section could represent a span of tens of years).
• Events here are what we know right now, not necessarily the actual in universe truth. Keep that in mind so as not to unintentionally spoil.

If you have a question or find a mistake, feel free to leave a comment.

I recommend checking the previous summary for S3 first if you need a refresher.

TOC:

• Summary
• Important context
  • Rui's plan and Subaru's memories
  • Ram, Rem, and horns
• Extra: Asterism
  • Shaula
  • Cor Leonis
  • The Gluttony Siblings
  • Betelgeuse

Summary

~400 years before summoning

• Typhon massacres the people of her hometown, marking the beginning of the Witch of Pride.
• Hoshin of the Wilderness founds Kararagi in the west, one of the four great nations.
• Hoshin builds the watergate city of Priestella designed to be a trap for a witch.
• During the Witches Era, the ruler of Lugunica at the time Farsale Lugunica forms the covenant with the Divine Dragon Volcanica and shapes the nation into the Dragon-Friend Kingdom of Lugunica.
• The Great Calamity is traditionally said to have ended with the Witch of Envy devouring half the world and the other six witches. Typhon's actual fate, however, appears to have been death by drowning in Priestella.
• Flugel the Sage, Volcanica the Divine Dragon, and Reid Astrea the first Sword Saint seal the Witch of Envy in an undisclosed location in the Augria Sand Dunes, at the far eastern edge of Lugunica. The region is filled with thick miasma, severe sandstorms, warped spatial barriers, and rampant, deadly mabeasts.
• Flugel plants the Flugel Tree on Lifaus Highway in Lugunica.
• Flugel establishes the Great Pleiades Library. It later serves as the Pleiades Watchtower, keeping watch over the Witch of Envy's seal.
• Flugel names Shaula the Watchtower's Star Keeper and orders her to kill anything that approaches. She remains there in seclusion for roughly 400 years waiting for his return.
• Over the centuries, Shaula's name becomes widely known as the sage and one of the three great heroes. Some of Flugel's achievements are mistakenly credited to her, including the sealing of the witch and the building of the Watchtower.

~100 years before summoning

• The Witch of Vainglory Pandora and Regulus Corneas attack a hidden community of elves in Elior Forest in an attempt to open a mysterious seal.

~18 years before summoning

• [Major info revealed in S3 breaktime] Aldebaran is summoned from Japan to the Re:Zero world.

~9 years before summoning

• The Witch Cult attacks an oni village. Ram loses her horn while protecting Rem, and Roswaal rescues the twins. Roswaal later acknowledges that he was one cause of the oni village's destruction.
• An artificial spirit in the form of a fox called Echidna (will be referred to as Scarfdona at times), who remembers nothing beyond her name, joins Anastasia Hoshin.

~5 years before summoning

• Meili becomes an assassin after Elsa brings her in on Capella's orders. Meili calls her "Mama".

~1 year before summoning

• Reinhard seeks out the Sage in the Pleiades Watchtower in search of a cure for the royal family but fails to reach it.
• The Lugunica royal family mysteriously dies out from an unknown disease, dissolving the covenant with the Divine Dragon Volcanica and leaving the Council of Elders in management of the Kingdom of Lugunica.

Coming out of the convenience store, there was a wondrous world.

Between arcs 2 and 3

• Memory Snow OVA: Subaru tries to show off his knowledge of the stars in the night sky to everyone in the mansion, only to realize they look completely different from those in his world.

Arc 3: Return to the Capital (S1E12 -> S1E25 + S2E01)

• Before the battle with the White Whale, Subaru chooses a black land dragon from those supplied by Crusch's household. Her breed is known for its pride, but she takes to him immediately. He names her Patrasche, and Crusch later gives her to him as a reward.
• After the victory against the White Whale and Sloth, Anastasia investigates Subaru's past and finds very little.

Arc 4: The Everlasting Contract (S2E02 -> S2E25)

• After Garfiel kills Elsa, Meili is imprisoned in the dungeon of Roswaal's new manor. Since then, she has refused to leave it for fear that her "Mama" will find her.

Arc 5: The Stars that Engrave History (S3 + S4E01) - ~over a year after summoning

• The Witch Cult demands the artificial spirit present in the city.
• After Anastasia confirms with Subaru that Beatrice is an artificial spirit, and Subaru notes that keeping it a secret would only benefit the enemy, she hesitates and touches her scarf.
• Priscilla appears to know that Anastasia is concealing something significant from Julius that is making her feel guilty.
• In the fight against the Witch Cult, Anastasia retreats into her Od and gives control of her body to Scarfdona who can use magic.
• Roy eats Julius' name.
• Learning that Anastasia used magic, Al immediately realizes she is not Anastasia.
• Rui Arneb saves Lye Batenkaitos by taking over his physical body.
• Sirius warns Subaru about the three Sin Archbishops of Gluttony.
• Reinhard escorts the captured Sirius, the Sin Archbishop of Wrath, alongside Felt to the royal capital.
• After being exposed by Subaru, Scarfdona reveals herself. Having introduced herself as an artificial spirit, [minor cut content] Subaru realizes that the Witch Cult's demand might not have been Beatrice, and Scarfdona replies that this is a possibility. She then explains that Anastasia had felt guilty about concealing this possibility, especially after Subaru called withholding such information tantamount to helping the enemy. Scarfdona says she was the one who stopped Anastasia from revealing her existence.

Arc 6: Corridor of Memories (S4E02 -> S4E19) - ~over a year after summoning

• After a suggestion from Scarfdona, several members of the Emilia camp, along with Meili, Scarfdona, and Julius, head for the Pleiades Watchtower in hopes of asking the Sage about a cure for the victims of Lust and Gluttony, and for Anastasia's condition. After a journey that took more than a month, they reach Mirula, a village near the Augria Sand Dunes.
• Using Meili and Ram's abilities, and guided by birds that started appearing in the last year, the party manages to cross the Sand Time and reach the Watchtower.
• After getting attacked by Shaula and falling into the cave system underneath the dunes, Subaru passes through three doors and fails to pass through the fourth.
• The party is the first to reach the Watchtower in 400 years.
• Shaula says Flugel is the Sage, yet calls Subaru her returned master based on smell.
• Subaru passes the first test by using his knowledge of the stars from his old world.
• Subaru reads the Book of the Dead belonging to the Witch of Pride Typhon.
• Julius reads the Book of the Dead belonging to a general of the Sacred Vollachia Empire called Balleroy Temeglyph who Julius had fought before.
• Julius fails to defeat Reid Astrea in the second test. Scarfdona panics and uses magic but ends up fainting.
• Emilia passes the second test.
• The same birds that led the party to the Watchtower lead Subaru to the balcony where Scarfdona is. Julius overhears the conversation and learns the truth about Anastasia's situation.
• Subaru goes to the archive to find Reid's Book of the Dead. He enters the Corridor of Memories and meets Rui Arneb for the first time.
• When Subaru first appears, a memory her brother had eaten gives her strong feelings toward him. She approaches Subaru with that borrowed affection and eats his memories.
• After discovering Return by Death and realizing simply eating his memories won't let her obtain the authority, Rui devises a plan to take over Subaru by forcing him to dissociate from "Natsuki Subaru". Even after eating him, Rui still feels the affection. Irritated by that, she discards the relevant memories in the shape of a small blue pearl, splits herself and attaches a part to Subaru in an attempt to wreak havoc to induce that psychological state.
• Subaru loses his memories from after he was summoned.
• Meili secretly goes to the archive to look for Elsa's book, but encounters Rui controlling Subaru's body.
• Unsettled by his behavior, Meili puts on her usual fake smile, but Rui sees through it and calls her fawning disgusting. Rui then urges Meili to recognize her own desires and act more like herself, calling her a "doll". This encounter with Rui and her unresolved feelings for Elsa push Meili into falling back on habits. She kills Subaru twice in front of the main staircase.
• As Subaru falls towards his first death he loses consciousness just before hitting the floor. He ends up mistaking Return by Death for a prophetic dream. This is when he starts having doubts about "Natsuki Subaru" for keeping this power a secret.
• As Subaru falls towards his second death, and as both his physical body and mind are breaking apart, he hears the voice of Rui who's attached to him: "It is our memories that make us what we are."
• After trying to escape and almost getting eaten by a sandworm, Subaru falls into the cave system underneath the dunes. He blacks out for a moment, during which Rui takes over to kill the mabeasts before Subaru takes back control.
• Subaru this time is able to cross one more door compared to last time, and so he crosses four doors in total and then gets blocked by the fifth, after which he gets transported back to the entrance of the Watchtower where he finds everyone killed.
• After trying to run away from the black shadows engulfing the Watchtower, an unidentified person beheads Subaru on the balcony.
• In one loop where Meili was able to be alone with Subaru, she references the late night conversation in the archive to him directly, so Rui takes over and chokes Meili to death stating that it's against the rules. She scratches "Natsuki Subaru was here" into his arm right after she kills Meili in an attempt to further drive a psychological wedge between the amnesiac Subaru and the person he called "Natsuki Subaru".
• After reading Meili's book and covering up her death, Subaru begins to consider killing as a way out of further problems, even contemplating killing someone to obtain their Book of the Dead.
• After being cornered in a cage, Subaru blacks out as Rui takes over. This is when the group definitively realized that something is taking over Subaru's body. Beatrice remains on his side.
• After a conversation with Emilia as the Watchtower is being engulfed with the miasma and falling apart due to the mabeast stampede, Subaru regains his determination.
• Subaru gains the trust of Ram, and convinces Meili to let go of her habit. The group goes on to find Reid's book in order to try and find his weakness.
• Subaru tries to read Reid's book again, enters the Corridor of Memories and meets Rui for the second time.
• Rui further pushes Subaru toward dissociating from "Natsuki Subaru" when their struggle happens to recreate the situation of Meili's death. [minor cut content] Subaru realizes he can't choke her. Rui notices his reaction and exploits it. For Subaru, this points toward the conclusion Rui wants: "Natsuki Subaru is the stranger closest to me." At that exact moment, Rem appears.
• Urged by Rem to save everyone and everything, Subaru chooses to abandon neither his current nor his old self and awakens his Greed Authority, Cor Leonis.
• From this point forward, the Rui attached to Subaru seemingly stops being able to visibly take control. Stuck inside, she's forced to helplessly live through every death that follows.
• The mabeast stampede happens. Shaula and Julius attempt to stop it.
• While picking up Rem from the green room, Emilia and Ram encounter Lye.
• Subaru starts using his Greed Authority to gain info about the other party members and how they're doing.
• The five obstacles:
  • A stampede of a massive horde of mabeasts filling the dunes as far as the eye can see.
  • The Sin Archbishops of Gluttony launching an attack on the tower.
  • A vicious giant scorpion roaming the tower.
  • Reid Astrea, beginning to wander freely through the tower as he pleased.
  • An immense black shadow threatening to swallow the whole tower.
• Roy Alphard fights Reid and tries to eat him. By letting Roy do so, Reid gains control of Roy's physical body and can leave the test floor.
• After gaining Roy's body, Reid starts seeking Subaru to kill him in each loop if left alone.
• Subaru learns about the fifth rule from Shaula.
• Subaru dies 15 times while testing the conditions of the obstacles, learning which actions lead to which outcomes, and confirming whom he can trust and whom he wants to save.
• Having experienced all of Subaru's deaths, Rui is severely traumatized.
• Using Cor Leonis, he finds a new light for the first time when looking inside the archive. Seeking the source, Subaru finds a Book of the Dead titled "Natsuki Subaru" in Japanese. He keeps going through the books, one death at a time until he reaches a book that makes him enter the Corridor of Memories.
• The amnesiac Subaru meets his earlier self at the point where their histories intersect. The two acknowledge each other and merge, retaining both old and new memories. The 2nd part of Rui that attached herself to Subaru is kicked out. Subaru proclaims he won't save her.
• Lye eats Emilia's name.
• Subaru, Beatrice, and Meili keep Shaula's scorpion form occupied while Emilia attempts the final test. Subaru reasons that a successful challenger might be able to change the tower's rules and release Shaula from her command.
• Julius renews his contracts with his six spirits and unleashes Al Cranvel to confront Reid.
• Scarfdona convinces Anastasia to wake up from her Od, forgetting Julius in that instant just after giving him one final push in his fight against Reid.
• Roy's body cannot sustain Reid's soul so Reid vanishes during their clash. Julius acknowledges Reid as the winner. Roy survives and Julius seals him using the same method as the seal on the Witch of Envy.
• Emilia reaches the first floor where she meets the Divine Dragon Volcanica. Volcanica seems to have lost much of his awareness and mechanically repeats the first floor's challenge.
• Subaru uses Cor Leonis to ease the burden of Ram. He immediately takes the constant backlash caused by Ram's missing horn, allowing her to remove some of her self-imposed restraints.
• Subaru uses Cor Leonis to save a severely wounded Meili.
• Ram uses her synesthesia with Rem to regain a part of her oni strength.
• In his newly gained obsession with Ram, Lye seemingly discards all other memories to make room for only Ram.
• Having seen the air blades technique once, Ram reproduces it and uses it to trap Lye. She finishes him off with one last Fura. Reuniting with Rem, Ram can finally move her lips now without doubting her own feelings any longer. She speaks the very same words as the twisted Sin Archbishop's final words, and yet, even if they are the same sounds, they do not carry the same resonance.
• Volcanica recognizes Emilia as Satella, recognizes Patrasche, and a handprint on the tower's monument matches Emilia's. After Emilia completes the test a sandstorm suddenly appears around the watchtower and sweeps away the clouds surrounding it.
• Shaula is briefly thrown off, which leads Subaru to think the rules binding her had been broken, but her next attack showed that was not the case.
• Shaula continues to fight until the group subdues her, and her giant scorpion body crumbles. A tiny red scorpion emerges and approaches Subaru.
• Emilia regains her name. Julius cautions that Emilia's recovery does not prove killing Roy would restore others. The party agrees to take him back to the capital for questioning.
• Rui suddenly physically appears in the Green Room, and the black shadows immediately invade the tower. Volcanica's attack disperses the darkness.
• Subaru and Rem get transported away from the watchtower to an unknown place.
• Rem wakes up with no memories of Subaru.

Important context

This is some added context which only covers minor cut content. Feel free to read if you thought some parts in the summary didn't make full sense.

Rui's plan and Subaru's memories

The anime showed this in a misleading way, and didn't show enough, so it's nearly impossible to fully understand it from that alone.

The series of events:

1. Rui was initially interested in Subaru because of a memory her brother Lye had eaten, apparently Rem's exceptionally powerful feelings toward him.

2. She ate Subaru's memories in the Corridor of Memories, but she realized that he retained his memories for an unexplained reason, even though she indeed succeeded in eating them.

3. While examining those newly obtained memories, she discovered scenes from after his deaths and recognized Return by Death, and found that she can only access memories from the past year. Seeing it from the memories she stole is like watching a movie, but attaching to his soul allows her to actually experience it herself.

4. She realized that merely eating him would not transfer Return by Death. A Witch Factor is not attached to a person's name or memories. Names and memories belong to the soul system associated with Od Lagna, whereas a Witch Factor is something foreign to it. So she thought up a way to "become Subaru".

5. She divided her soul: One half entered Subaru to erode and replace him from within, thus making him an actual empty vessel without his post summon memories. The other half remained in the Corridor of Memories so it could eat the resulting Subaru from outside later and complete the integration.

To summarize, the plan was simply for the Rui inside Subaru to wreak havoc while he was unconscious, driving a psychological wedge between the amnesiac Subaru and the person he called "Natsuki Subaru". Once he regarded that identity as someone other than himself, the Rui waiting in the Corridor hoped to eat him again and completely acquire Return by Death.

In addition, as far as we've seen, Rui originally did not possess an independent physical body. She existed within the Corridor of Memories as a soul connected to the Gluttony Witch Factor. In S3, she saves Lye by using his own physical body as a vessel, using Solar Eclipse to change that body first into a stolen man's form and then into her own preferred appearance. This is why she simply walks away.

This bodylessness appears to also be why she could divide her soul into two copies and why she used Solar Eclipse without the same fear of losing her identity that Lye and Roy had.

Ram, Rem, and horns

Ram does not physically regain her horn.

An oni horn is a physical magical organ. As it emerges from the forehead, it gathers atmospheric mana and channels it through the oni's body, dramatically increasing physical and magical power. This is what we've seen with Rem's horn before.

Ram places her severed horn in Rem's hand as a catalyst while, through synesthesia, Rem's activated horn supplies mana and shares the strain. The anime chose to make this connection visually clearer by showing a horn like shape (it does look cooler). You can probably understand it as a visual cue for Ram borrowing Rem's horn power and gathering mana as if Ram had a horn. This happens to be what the novel illustration supports: Rem with a glowing horn, while Ram has a glowing spot where hers used to be, signaling that she is possibly receiving mana but not through a physical horn. LN Illustration

Extra: Asterism

This is an extra trivia section about stars from a linguistic point of view, mainly Arabic, as it relates to name references in Re:Zero, mostly what I find interesting. This will only contain things that are safe for anime only viewers.

Shaula

First, Shaula is a triple star system, so it's nice that this is incorporated into her eye design. As for the name, the anime directly mentions the origin, but "raised tail" captures its literal meaning a bit better than "stinger" or "needle", even though it's still not accurate.

Shaula comes from the Arabic الشولاء Al-Shawlā, which in traditional Arabic means "the [scorpion] tail when it is raised".

Something interesting about classical Arabic is its tendency toward descriptive naming, often emphasizing a particular quality or situation, leading to a myriad of synonym names of the same thing (e.g. number of Lion names in Arabic). This quality is sometimes lost in translation as is the case here. Other transliterated stars also often lose parts of the original name, as is the case with Betelgeuse and Rigel (more on them later).

Lastly, I find it quite fitting that Shaula's VA, Fairouz Ai, also has an Arabic name. She was named after the famous Lebanese singer Fairuz. In one of the after recording sessions she revealed that she didn't audition, but was directly requested for Shaula's role.

Cor Leonis

The star Regulus has another name in Latin, Cor Leonis meaning "Heart of the Lion", while Regulus itself is Latin for "Little King" and only came into wide use later.

The original Latin phrase Cor Leonis is older than the Arabic name. However, the reason the name survived into the modern era is because scholars used it to translate Qalb al-Asad back into Latin during the Middle Ages. So in away Cor Leonis existed both before AND after the Arabic name.

Regulus names his authority the same but uses a direct Japanese translation of "Heart of the Lion". Different names of the same concept, and different interpretation of what the name means.

While Regulus interprets a king's role as one who's protected by his subjects and uses their hearts to do so, Subaru interprets it as standing while carrying his people's burdens and being able to see their "hearts".

The Gluttony Siblings

There isn't much to add about these three beyond what I talked about in my S3 summary. It's interesting if you want to check it out.

Betelgeuse

I talked about this in my S3 summary alongside an interesting tidbit about how a transcription mistake from Arabic to Latin led to the first letter being a mistake. Check that section if interested.

Here, I have an addendum about Rigel. As mentioned in episode four, Rigel is usually the brightest star of the Orion constellation, but Betelgeuse can surpass it when it's near the bright end of its variability cycle.

Rigel comes from the Arabic رِجْل (rijl, "foot"). The full name is رِجْل الجبار (Rijl al-Jabbār, "the Giant's foot"), with al-Jabbār referring to Orion. An older name is رِجْل الجوزاء (Rijl al-Jawzā', "the foot of al-Jawzā'"), referring to an older Arabic sky figure overlapping Orion. That's the same al-Jawzā' in Betelgeuse's source name, يد الجوزاء (Yad al-Jawzā', "the hand of al-Jawzā'"). Had the full name made it into English the way Betelgeuse did, we might have ended up with something like "Rigelgeuse".

I find it funny that we could've had a Rigel version of Petelgeuse who uses an unseen foot instead of an unseen hand.

End.

Koori no Jouheki Season 2, episode 1

Alternative names: Koori no Jouheki 2nd Season

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FX Senshi Kurumi-chan, episode 1

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Tsuihou sareta Tensei Juukishi wa Game Chishiki de Musou suru, episode 14

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And now it's time to start our Summer 2026 bracket with 64 girls!!!

Here is a screenshot of the full results

We have to delete 18 characters: (Shows with a * can only have 3 girls in due to the new rules)

• Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Kenshuu Kou

• Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia: Möge, Boraqchin

• Chainsmoker Cat: Shizue Satou, Yomuko Kaku, Hameko Yurufuwa＊Tenshi, Saori Tatsuno, Aruko Sakai

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You*: Meme Kakure, Mei Meido, Yaku Yakuzen, Momiji Momi, Yamame Yasashiki

• Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation*:Sylvaril

• Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games: Arisa Fujimiya

• I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day: Omi

• Draw This, Then Die!: Sachi Akafuku, Nana Teramura

Here is a screenshot after the 18 deletions.

Vote For Seasonal Salt Summer 2026 Here!

Bracket here!

Happy Voting!

Have fun voting and don't forget to upvote the post if you love the seasonal salt!

Mini Challenge:

• Comment on the seeding.
• Who was your favorite girl that didn't make it into the bracket?

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu Season 4, episode 19

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Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita Season 2, episode 1

Alternative names: Reincarnated as a Sword II, Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita II

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