Emilia is a horrible character and a result of pedo and rape fantasy " born sexy yesterday " and male gaze (potential man)
Im anime only dont spoil me novel stuff exept how characters evolve mentally and old stuff/side stories.
Every character from re zero is a trope and the goal is to kinda break the mold, they all did it exept emilia, she is the disgusting personnification of the born sexy yesterday trope.
My breakdown:
Definition/ criterias : this trope is born from pure pedo rape culture especially in japan
• 1. An attractive adult body: Physical maturity and conventional sex appeal (no visual traits of a child).
• 2. The mind of a kid: Total innocence, zero social grace, and complete ignorance of human or sexual norms.
• 3. Total dependency on the hero: The male lead acts as her sole guide and authority, eliminating any possibility of rejection.
• 4 Arrives as a blank slate: She is often an AI, an alien, a recently created magical creature, or someone with total amnesia/complete isolation.
If u need more info check my pics or read the full article its extremely good : https://www.filminquiry.com/born-sexy-yesterday/?amp=1
Its pretty self explanatory how she fits these criterias.
About s1/s2:
• They are here to destroy the cliché n3, "im not an object bla bla i wanna emancipate from the look of subaru roswaal and the cult ect", which was alright + with ram respecting her at the end.
The OVA with her backstory gives her more depth.
I let the kiss = baby go because you would think it would be a one time thing and that there would be further development about that but well.
• After such an important conclusion you'd expect her to actually grow (mental age), the only thing that stopped is her self hatred and depression, she is more unapologetically herself.
Which is not a bad thing, i didnt expect her to act her age directly but there's limits.
Why do this whole thing about ram respecting her as a candidate if nothing happens after?
• Ram thought of emilia as a naive stupid girl before and you're telling me she cant teach her what sexual assault and virginity means??
however she can do administrative stuff🙄, this is such an obvious decision to keep her dumb like a kid and sexy like an adult.
(No a good backstory doesnt make a character great so dont bring up how she was frozen and puck being a bum thats irrelevant, im talking about her forced stunted growth after these events)
About s3:
• There was no reason to add this weird scene of her naked asking where her clothes are and regulus demanding if she was a virgin, this is pure rape culture and male gaze fantasy.
• Emilia vs regulus was very painful to watch, i get that he was supposed to look ridiculous but you seriously think the only way of doing it, is by making emilia look like a cute plushy ?🙄"oh omg look she is so innocent and strong but also super hot what a perfect waifu".
(Thats pretty much an admission of failure "i wanna show that this character is ridiculous so i will use emilia for that")
• When emilia fought there was like 0 stakes/risks for her, even with reinhard you felt some tension
(Im talking about physical fight not him claiming her as a wife + unseen hand moment).
About s4:
• You can clearly see a pattern where the 2 first criterias are getting worse especially in s4 after cliché 3 was addressed in s2, its like tappei finished the arc and was like "alright now i can go full fan service".
• In s4 she wears fortuna's outfit, a skin-tight suit which is a GROWN woman outfit, a symbol of her proud elf origins and her growing as a woman, exept theres a clear dissonance between what the story is trying to tell you (she matured) and whats really happening, this is cliché n1getting worse.
• She is genuinely used as a comic relief all the time. Her battle with regulus, what came out from it is "wow she had great boobs" and it was funny. S4 had a hyped moment with her VS Reid and she won the fight by getting groped???
And she doesnt even realize it bcs of her kid-like ignorance, it was so anticlimactic and played off as a joke despite her putting a lot of effort in her ice magic, it is utterly disgusting, this is cliché 2 getting worse.
• Even shaula who is a walking fan service character didnt get disrespected like that, how can you seriously do this and expect me to treat her as nothing but a pretty face and a joke?
How can you build a whole arc about not being an object and existing outside of a cliché and actively ruin it right after?
• A lot of people saw her being more useful especially with volcanica and decided that it was character growth, no pal thats just the bare minimum, its not because she is useful and sometimes looks cool that it removes all that weird infantilization, this is a facade to make you feel like she is an adult so you can freely simp.
• Obviously im not an emilia hater, i resent her character and tappei for giving me false hopes, she is a genuine potential man.
Emisuba (side note cuz i only wanna talk about her)
• Obviously it affects emisuba, it feels like she barely has any agency since she doesnt even react to being groped; everyone follows subaru as a leader but it doesnt make them look like stupid puppets since they have other feats exept emilia. All her feats are just a result of following subaru, its making her look retarded as hell even tho thats what everyone does.
• Main thing is over now, thats more my opinion and observations/rant especially about the fandom, u can skip that.
- On a side note BSY is bad but i fw some of them, its pretty well done in Pirates of the Caribbean but well they are side characters so its fine to not flesh them out unlike emisuba. Even Raphtalia in The Rising of the Shield Hero feels less pedo than emilia even tho he raised her.
- I finished s4 and its so much worse i cant stand her, i didnt like ep 11 at all, i get the parallels with subaru/rem (and that subaru is her inspo) but it genuinely felt like such a cheap ass copy of rem's previous confession, it doesnt work, you dont feel like she's a real character because she didnt manage to leave the dehumanizing "born sexy yesterday" trope.
I dont like waifu wars but god emilia fans are insufferable, they will try to bring rem into the conversation for everything and blame her fans for any critiques, i deadass got called slurs and a rem simp for saying "ep 11 didnt deserve 10/10".
Also the emilia fanbase is mostly men compared to the rem fanbase who is extremely diverse, wonder why lol, all they glaze is her appearence or her being retarded its frying me
- If im being honest only men and stupid young women can have emilia as their fav character, anyone who has a brain would never place her remotely close to even crusch.
Emilia fans like to comfort themselves with rem only being a waifu product used for marketing bcs emilia is tappei's reason for creating re zero, therefore she is a better character. They are extremely bitter about everything, its very painful and delusional.
Im aware that all of this is a result of tappei being a simp for his fav perfect lil wife but well, at least if he didnt give me hope i would be alright.
Anytime i see emilia fan service i feel like a predator, it makes me gag im deadass, Mimi is more mature than her, its genuinely disgusting to me how the fandom glazes this nothing burger poorly executed pedo fantasy and then go trash Mushoku Tensei, you guys are cousins at this point.
Rezero fans lack media litteracy and have a tendency to gloss over these things to glaze re zero the hardest possible bcs the bar is in hell, they only consume isekai targeted towards men so ofc when they see a mediocre character like emilia they will glaze it, its just patethic.
Honestly hope im not the only one who noticed this, dont argue with me if u wont read the whole thing.