Re:Zero Break Time Episode 78: A Bodyguard Took Elsa's Arm — What Japan Said

Re:Zero Season 4's second cour opened in Japan on August 12, and the same night the official Japanese channel put up the Break Time short for Episode 78, 「裏稼業姉妹暗躍日報」 — a look back at one of the jobs Elsa and Meili pulled together, back when Meili was still new to the work. The short has a bodyguard take Elsa's arm off. She shrugs it off, tells Meili the arm was cheap next to her sister being safe, and the arm simply grows back. That's the whole thing, and it sent the Japanese comment section somewhere nobody planned for.

Because the part everyone latched onto wasn't the sisters. It was the guy who managed to do that to Elsa in the first place, and he barely gets any screen time. Across 290 comments, the single loudest thread is people quietly doing the power-scaling math.

• “Cutting off Elsa’s arm? That guy has to be seriously strong.”👍293
• “Whoever takes Elsa’s arm off is pretty damn strong, no?”👍148
• “Severing Elsa’s arm — calling that bodyguard “skilled” doesn’t even cover it…”👍66

And then, inevitably, One Piece showed up. Losing an arm to protect someone younger is a very specific image in Japan, and the jokes wrote themselves — except Elsa's arm grows back, which the comments decided makes her the upgrade.

• “It’s Shanks, except a monster…”👍113
• “So what you’re saying is "Shanks < Elsa"…”👍25

Where it actually splits is how strong that bodyguard really was. One camp says nobody below Wilhelm-tier could pull it off. The reply is where it gets interesting, because it argues from what the author has said outside the anime.

The other thread running under all of it is the box. Elsa is carrying something in the short, and Japanese viewers who read ahead in the light novels are treating it as a possible plant rather than set dressing.

And then there's the part that's just affection. Elsa died two seasons ago; Meili is the one currently at the center of the main story. New material with the two of them together isn't something anyone expected to get in Season 4.

• “Genuinely grateful that we’re still getting new Elsa content in Season 4.”👍20
• “Meili and Elsa’s stock has been skyrocketing lately.”👍15
• “You can never have too many entries in the shady-sisters series.”👍202

None of that is what pulled the biggest numbers, though. Two of the three highest-liked comments on the video are this one and the reply under it.

Elsa's catchphrase in Japanese is 「癖になる」 — roughly "it becomes a habit," the line she purrs while gutting people. Which is why one of the most-liked comments on a short about a severed arm is somebody typing 「メ　ィ　リ　ィ　は　癖　に　な　る」, one full-width space between every character, about a little girl. Japan spent the night of the cour premiere power-scaling a nameless bodyguard and adopting an assassin. Next episode is in a week.