Re:Zero - Subaru Natsuki / Characters

Subaru Natsuki

Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Japanese), Sean Chiplock (English)^{Foreign VAs}

The protagonist. On the way home from the convenience store, he suddenly finds himself teleported into another world. He has an ability that he calls "Return by Death" to go back in time when he dies. Despite being a hikikomori and gamer in his real world, Subaru does a bit of workout and seems to know basic hand-to-hand combat, making him not completely weak.

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A — C

Accidental Murder: Subaru accidentally gets Emilia killed in one of the loops by successfully spelling out the nature of Return by Death.
Action Survivor: Subaru is just a hikikomori with no supernatural powers or fighting skills who suddenly finds himself involved in several deadly situations after getting transported to another world. He does have the power to get revived after dying, but his lack of any other real skills forces Subaru to learn how to get out of the messes he gets himself into and save his allies.
Adaptational Intelligence: Compared to the original Web Novel, Light Novel version of Subaru is far more composed as well as being more inclined to take advantage of offers of information than Web Novel Subaru.
Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. While he did break his promise with Emilia and lash out against her, he was far less negative and less explicitly pathetic in the original light novel. Also played in the scene of the royal elections. Although Subaru is still too emotional, his conflict with Julius has a more realistic reason in the novel.
Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Following the 2nd arc, Subaru begins petting Rem's head when he praises her, showing their now close relationship.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg:
- In direct contrast to his prideful nature, Subaru is willing to lick Priscilla's feet in order to gain allies to save Emillia. It doesn't take, and all it does is disgust her.
- In Arc 4, he begs Roswaal to call off Elsa's and Meili's assassination mission at the mansion. Roswaal coldly refuses as he's going to do whatever it takes to push Subaru into the deep end.
All-Loving Hero: Becomes this as part of Subaru's character development. Subaru becomes this after resolving to learn about and understand those around him, going as far as turning back time to bring about a better future.
Always Save the Girl: Deconstructed. His efforts to always help Emilia often get him into far greater trouble than before, and while he does succeed in saving her most of the time, he developed an ego that would make him think that it's due to this trope that Emilia should be indebted to him. It gets reconstructed later after much angst ensued.
Amateur Sleuth: Steadily becomes this as he increasingly requires information to understand and prevent the dangers happening around him.
Animals Hate Him: One side effect of Return by Death is to attract mabeasts to Subaru. In fact, whenever Subaru attempts to tell someone of Return by Death, the mabeast in question will ignore all other targets and chases him.
Anti-Magic: EMM, one of the spells developed by him and Beatrice, creates a field that negates all sorts of magic.
An Arm and a Leg: Suffers this fate briefly in arc 4, courtesy of Typhon.
Attention Whore: Many of Subaru's early actions were driven by his desire for attention, given that he received very little outside of his parents back in his original world.
Attractive Bent-Gender: His female disguise as Natsumi is very convincing. Apparently back in his old world, he'd crossdress a few times to stand out and draw attention to himself, so little wonder he has experience there.
Audience Surrogate: Being new to Emilia's magical world and having no magical abilities to his name aside from Return By Death, Subaru is meant to be the relatable view-point character.
Awesomeness by Analysis: Even from Arc 1, Subaru has been a master of this skill. Just from paying attention to his opponents, Subaru has been able to recognize critical weakpoints in fights allowing for surprise upsets. Add in Return by Death, he is the one of Re:Zero's most terrifying characters to alienate if given enough information to screw over someone.
- In Arc 1, Subaru managed to memorize Elsa's attack pattern well enough that he was able to stall her long enough to get support it the form of Reinhard.
- In Arc 2, after being killed by Rem's flail, he manages to make a defense by using his tracksuit to distribute the weight, allowing him to survive a few hits that would have killed him in any other circumstance.
- Also in Arc 2, Subaru notices that creatures that have relation to the Witches of Sin become aggressive in response to his scent. As a result, he abuses this to draw aggro from the mabeasts in order to figure out where Rem is.
- In Arc 3, Subaru notices that several merchants leave to and from the Karsten Manor. He realizes that these merchants are peddling weapons with Crusch Camp in order to fight mabeasts based on comments made by Anastasia. He leverages this information to gain an army to fight the White Whale.
- Also in Arc 3, Subaru figures out how to counteract Petelgeuse's possession by intentionally calling upon his curse to inflict damage on both of them.
- In Arc 4, Subaru deducts that Roswaal is doing a power play simply based on knowledge that he should know what happens if unqualified people attempt the Sanctuary's Trial and went with it anyway.
Back from the Dead: Subaru's main ability is to revive after suffering any type of death.
Badass Boast: "Having an enemy a step ahead, ready to destroy you... You're about to learn how terrifying that is."
Badass in a Nice Suit: Becomes this when wearing his butler outfit.
Badass Longcoat: Gets one temporarily from Emilia which allows him to avoid recognition. He later gets a permanent coat after Arc 4.
Badass Normal: Not having much other hobbies, he regularly worked out, so he's in good shape and can hold his own in a fist fight. Unfortunately, he's usually up against people who are way stronger and skilled than him, so he can't overcome those things with brute strength alone.
Bad Powers, Good People: In direct contrast to his personality, most of Subaru's abilities involve dark-themed abilities, especially Return By Death, which uses the strongest dark magic to turn back time.
The Bait: More often than not, Subaru is used as monster bait as his smell enrages Mabeasts.
Be Careful What You Wish For: In the third arc, Emilia leaves him after a pretty big argument and he wishes that something bad would happen to Emilia so he could be useful to her and she would come to appreciate him again. What comes next is a terrible amount of tragedy, bloodshed, multiple failures and deaths for Subaru, who is left so exhausted and traumatized that he almost ends up giving up.
Beautiful Dreamer: Rem "recharges energy for the day" by admiring Subaru's sleeping face early in the morning.
Because You Were Nice to Me:
- Emilia was the first person to show him kindness and help him out when he was alone and lost in an unknown world. Even though Emilia can't remember their meeting in the first loop, Subaru still remains devoted to her for how she helped him.
- Subaru becomes very attached to Rem after she repeatedly showed him unconditional love and devotion during his lowest point in the third arc. Subaru confesses to himself that Rem is the only person who will always support him and believe in him, which causes the development of his feelings for her and the desire to bring her back from a coma, even if it can be practically impossible.
Belated Love Epiphany: If he was still embarrassed by his feelings for Rem, when she was healthy, he fully recognizes his feelings for her and firmly spoke about it, after she fell into a coma and his attempts to return her are useless.
Big Good: Becomes one after his Character Development, resulting in him being the one that everyone relies on, knowingly or not, to solve the problem of the arc.
Birds of a Feather: With Rem. Just like Rem grew up in the shadow of her more powerful twin sister, Subaru had an inferiority complex over his father being so popular and well-liked by the people of his hometown. This drove Subaru to put up a front to cope with feeling he would never be cool like his father much like the way Rem forced herself into being the more serious and responsible sister to overcompensate for Ram losing her horn while protecting her. Subaru and Rem become so close because it's the first time they have found someone who makes them feel valued and cared for who they are and not for how amazing their family is.
Blessed with Suck: Time looping is a very useful ability. However, the fact that Subaru has to die, often in extremely painful ways balances it. In addition to this, Subaru has no real strength or connections to change outcomes very easily, making it a struggle to prevent everyone from getting killed.
Boisterous Weakling: Subaru likes to talk big and show off when he's by far the most psychically weak character in the cast. This gets him in big trouble when he lashes out at everyone in the royal elections, proclaims himself a knight and gets a massive beatdown from Julius in retribution. From then, Subaru retains his boasty attitude, but learns to acknowledge his limits and weaknesses.
Broken Tears: Several times, with increasing regularity after every loop. It eventually comes to a point where Subaru's stress and anguish will cause him to cry without even realizing it.
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Rem is always sweet and supportive to Subaru when he's feeling troubled and anguished. Emilia seems like she can play the Gentle Girl part too, but it soon becomes clear she isn't patient or understanding enough to give proper emotional support to Subaru and Subaru explicitly doesn't want to be comforted by Emilia, as he wants to always look strong in front of her to protect her.
Came Back Strong: Heavily averted. Subaru can barely gain any skills regardless of how many times he loops. He is unable to strengthen his body to become a melee fighter and his aptitude with magic is so bad that he can only use one spell before being paralyzed. Even worse, he breaks his mana gate, thus ruining any potential he had to cast any spells. However, due to him being a compatible vessel, he is able to absorb the essence of the Archbishops and gain their skills after they die. Unfortunately, he can barely use a fraction of those powers without losing his sanity, making them almost completely useless.
Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: A subtle example. Subaru believes he is in a generic fantasy light novel and acts accordingly. It is not helped by the fact he does have an extremely powerful ability that, while not very useful in combat, makes him special like the heroes of such stories. He grows out of it as he realizes that the fantasy world he has been summoned to and the people in it have much more depth to them than he had anticipated.
Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He pulls this on Melli in the main story as he needs her help to get across the desert while preventing the mabeasts from killing their group.
The Cassandra: Due to his ability Subaru often has information about the future. Unfortunately, people don't believe the information he has and as a result, he must manipulate other people to achieve his goals.
Cast from Sanity: Subaru abstains from using the Authorities of Sloth and Greed he takes after defeating the respective Archbishops because he feels he loses a bit of his sanity each time he uses those powers.
Casting a Shadow: Subaru gains access to dark magic which allows him to blind opponents. Unfortunately, it doesn't help him much in a fight. In addition, he can only cast this spell once before he runs out of mana.
Cathartic Crying: Subaru has to constantly repress his feelings of angst and trauma because he's forbidden from sharing the truth of his Return by Death ability with anyone. When it is made clear that Echidna is aware of his Return by Death, Subaru ends up collapsed on all fours while sobbing at the top of his lungs, overwhelmed by the realization that he can finally share everything that he had suffered with another person.
The Champion: To Emilia. It's deconstructed as several times Subaru ends up putting himself in danger by doing stupidly reckless things for Emilia's sake, thinking that Emilia should be indebted to him for what he does for her. This only ends up damaging his relationship with Emilia because she doesn't want him to get hurt for her sake and she even accuses him of doing it all for himself and only using her as an excuse for his actions. After much angst ensued, it gets reconstructed later as Subaru keeps striving to be Emilia's knight, but learns to take better consideration of her feelings.
Character Development: Boy howdy. He starts off as a typical 17 year old who, due to genre savviness, expects the world he was summoned to to cater to him conveniently because of his protagonist status. Then he is murdered in the first episode. As the world continually takes a massive shit on his person, he gradually becomes more aware of his faults and insecurities and actively strives to become someone worthy of being Emilia's knight.
The Charmer: When he isn't freaking out over what happened in his last death, Subaru is this by being a lovable idiot who gets people to like him. It is also his best tool to get stuff done as he is too weak to solve any problem that requires fighting ability.
The Chessmaster: Forced to become a brutally effective one in order to allow everyone to survive and escape a loop. From an outside perspective, he has the planning skills worthy of a Magnificent Bastard. Best exemplified in the main story when Subaru disobeys Roswaal's predictions and rewrites fate by managing to gain the allegiance of Garfiel, someone who has outright tried to kill him, and overturning the events of arc 4 without entering into a contract with the Witch of Greed, thus forcing Roswaal to truly support Emilia if he wants Subaru's aid in restoring his master.
Chick Magnet: Over time, Subaru earns the affections of Rem, Emilia, Satella, Echidna, and Petra. Crusch later admits to him that had her heart not been focused on the throne, she'd have likely fallen for him too, something he admits he'd reciprocate had he not fallen for Emilia and Rem.
Classical Anti-Hero: Subaru is a perfectly normal, unremarkable human in a world where people need to be powerful to survive. He gets frightened, makes critical judgement errors, and works very hard to garner any respect at all.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Tends to wear black underneath his tracksuit as well as his butler outfit and cloak.
Combat Clairvoyance: Thanks to Subaru's Return by Death, he can predict his opponents' moves in battle because said moves killed him before, such as dodging Elsa's knife knowing from experience that she always aims for the abdomen. During Arc 5, Subaru is able to direct his allies to fend off an attack from 4 Archbishops of Sin.
Combat Pragmatist: Due to lacking any talent in combat, Subaru uses a variety of tricks to take down enemies. Best exemplified when he kills Petelgeuse by knocking him out of an earth dragon carriage by throwing Petelgeuse's gospel.
Conditioned to Accept Horror: As he experiences several horrifying loops and deaths, Subaru starts to become unfazed going through things others would find terrifying. Beatrice comments on how calm and unafraid he is even after telling him that he has been cursed and will die, finding his calmness about it unnatural (though he immediately tells her that he is in fact very afraid of dying).
Consummate Liar: Manages to convince Crusch that his cellphone is a Metia that can help track the White Whale using a mixture of Exact Words and distracting her with other information.
Converse with the Unconscious: Subaru goes to visit the comatose Rem in her room almost every night to tell her everything about his day. Sometimes he can keep talking throughout the entire night.
Cosmic Plaything: Subaru seems to find himself in a series of horrific events each resulting in his death multiple times over.
Crazy Jealous Guy: He can't stand to see Emilia with other men. One of the reasons why he hates Julius right away is because Julius kissed Emilia's hand in front of him.
Crazy-Prepared: On the outside, Subaru looks to be this with him being equipped exactly for the situation about to occur, but in actuality, it is because Return by Death forces him to prepare correctly if he wants to survive.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
- Normally Subaru acts like an idiot and gets killed easily, but when things get serious he relies upon a staggering amount of determination and gumption to defeat enemies and steal victory from the jaws of defeat. On the physical and magical side of things, however, most the main cast is stronger than him in every way possible.
- The general viewpoint his allies have of him. Because he must keep Return by Death a secret, and Subaru has no detectable Divine Protection or significant natural abilities, he appears as ordinary as a human can be. However his role in several world changing heroic events cannot be understated. He is able to be at the right place at the right time, know the correct course of action, and predict what will happen next. One moment he's quoting silly things, the next he's defeating powerful opponents who could ruin entire kingdoms. Of course knowing that Subaru is just doing things over and over again until he gets it right, would easily answer his amazing knowledge... but they don't know this. Thus Subaru seems like a goofy underdog who can suddenly pull off the impossible when you become his enemy.
Cruel and Unusual Death: His deaths are never pretty. Rem especially gives him a couple when she thought he was working for Satella. The first time she slices off his arm, allowing him to writhe and bleed on the floor and finishing him off by crushing his skull. The second time, Ram slices off a leg, Rem breaks his ribs with her chain, and is mercy killed by Ram's wind blades slicing his neck.
Cry into Chest: Lap Pillow variation. After learning that Rem was the one who killed him, Subaru is left desperate to gain both her and Ram's trust. Puck clues Emilia in on how distressed Subaru is behind his facade. In an attempt to comfort Subaru, Emilia allows him to rest his head in her lap and finally relax. Something Emilia says prompts everything that Subaru had been through up until that point to hit him all at once. He dissolves into tears and ends up crying himself to sleep on Emilia's lap.

D — I

Dangerous Forbidden Technique: After breaking his mana gate, using magic essentially becomes this for Subaru. Eventually he completely collapses his gate, and ends up unable to use magic at all. Fortunately for him, his contract with Beatrice allows him access to magic similarly to Emilia, but with more drawbacks.
Dark Is Not Evil: A majority of Subaru's skills are related to darkness, either in nature or effect. His magic causes temporary blindness, while his magic abilities all require some measure of his sanity.
David Versus Goliath: Many of his fights are like this, seeing that many of his opponents have far better powers and abilities than him.
Death-Activated Superpower: His ability is called Return by Death because it sends his consciousness back in time whenever he dies. It doubles as Auto-Revive.
Death Glare: Sports one in episode 15.◊
Death Is Cheap: Given his ability, Subaru doesn't have to worry about being Killed Off for Real. It's deconstructed here in that he remembers all the pain that comes with dying, leading to much trauma and angst.
- Aside from requiring the agony of death, he prefers not to use the ability if possible because he fears that it might suddenly stop working. It's heavily implied that the ability will fade for good once his goals have been completed, though those 'goals' continue to evolve as the series progresses. The Re:IF Ayamatsu ('Pride' alternate timeline) story shows that successfully getting Emilia on the royal throne immediately qualifies, though whether that holds true in the main story is debatable.
Declaration of Protection: Gives one to Ram after Rem's death and then proceeds to jump off a cliff to activate his ability.
Deconstructed Character Archetype:
- Of the Stock Light-Novel Hero protagonists. Subaru goes through a lot of pain and suffering whereas many protagonists of the same genre would be more adaptable and in control and thus have little need to develop. Rather than be rewarded for his heroic acts, much of Subaru's sacrifices go unnoticed due to looping, and he also develops a bit of an ego when he accomplishes something, whereas typical protagonists would remain modest. Also note that his personality flaws that made him a recluse in his past life have kept haunting him and holding him back. Whatever pushed other hikkikomori protagonists into seclusion is not that often a factor in isekai stories.
- Subaru also deconstructs Groundhog Peggy Sue. While in most stories such an ability allows a character to solve problems with ease, either by using the loops to become strong enough to defeat any foe or using foreknowledge to foil any enemy plans, here several shortcomings are presented.
  - First the 'save points' are set automatically, and usually within a few hours to a few days to the event that kills him, leaving him little time to train, since his physical abilities also reset. What's more, while he may learn some details of their plans, he can still be blindsided by things he wasn't present for in the last loop, and villains are unlikely to gloat about their plans to a random victim they kill.
  - That's not even going into the psychological impact from dying has on him, and as a result rather than doing so deliberately to learn new information like in most cases of the trope, he's even more scared of dying since it's just pain with the promise of more pain in the aftermath.
  - While he does strive to save his friends, more often than not he fails and has to watch them die horribly, and at the start of several loops has to deal with people he considers good friends treating him like a stranger. This leads to a sense of isolation, since he knows when people's lives are in danger, but has to be careful about how he tells them for fear of them just ignoring him, or worse, suspect him of being the cause.
  - All of the above results in him becoming a psychological and emotional wreck as early as the second arc, and spends an entire loop in the third in a state of catatonia.
The Defroster:
- When Subaru meets Rem, she's a very cold girl who is depressed due to her traumatic past and is so distrustful of Subaru for his Witch scent that she kills him in one loop. Despite that, Subaru is determined to earn Rem's trust. After Subaru saves her life and helps her see her self-worth with his kind words, Rem melts into a lovestruck sweetheart.
- Despite Beatrice's aloof attitude towards him, Subaru never stops trying to befriend the lonely girl at the library. Eventually, Beatrice does open up to him and becomes his contracted spirit.
Demonic Possession: In arc 3, he gets his body taken over by Petelgeuse after Emilia kills his last Finger.
- In Arc 6, after Subaru got amnesia, the unknown culprit takes over Subaru's body when he falls to unconsciousness. Then said culprit kills Meili by strangling to death.
Despair Event Horizon: After failing to save the village for the third time, Subaru falls to the depth of his despair and considers leaving the country with Rem. However, he is convinced by Rem to try again once more because unlike everyone else, she expects that Subaru is great and is able to do anything. As he breaks away from his despair, he delivers the Title Drop and tries once again using everything he has learned to fuel him.
Despair Speech: Tells Rem he gives up and is a worthless person after failing countless times to save everyone in the 3rd arc. Rem counters with her own speech of love and encouragement, bringing him out of it.
Desperately Craves Affection: Whenever he helps others, he does it out of a desire to gain attention and recognition for his actions. This is because he did nothing with his life in the previous world and felt utterly worthless because of it.
Determinator: Despite being killed many times over, each more horrible than the last, Subaru never stops in seeing his way to a happy ending.
Devoted to You: He becomes completely devoted to Emilia shortly after meeting her. After the third arc, he becomes this to Rem as well.
Devoured by the Horde: During arc 4, he gets eaten by the Sizable Hare multiple times.
Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Manages to worm his way out of entering a contract with the Witch of Greed as well as defeating her future predicting gospel.
Discard and Draw: Subaru gains skills in dark magic early in Arc 2, but loses access to it after overusing his magic and breaking his mana gate. Later in series, he gains the abilities of the Archbishops after killing them as well as contracting with Beatrice to restore his dark magic to a certain point.
Disguised in Drag: In Arc 7, Subaru disguises himself as a female musician during the siege of Guaral.
Distressed Dude: He spends the majority of Arc 4's third loop Bound and Gagged and locked up inside a secret room in the Sanctuary due to Garfiel and Ryuzu Shima capturing him under the suspicion he's a member of the Witch Cult. Worst of all, they stop him from killing himself so Subaru can't activate Return by Death. He can only escape his prison thanks to Otto saving him.
Dogged Nice Guy: To Emilia. He's very open about his love for her, but when he confesses to her, he tells her he will patiently wait until she's ready to love him back while he's going to work hard and become a man who can be her loyal knight.
Don't Make Me Destroy You: Subaru says this to Garfiel, during one of the latter's attempts to interrupt the former's plans. The only reason Subaru's threat is actually credible is that Return By Death has made Subaru privy to multiple secrets that Garfiel would rather be kept in the dark.
Doom Magnet: Subaru has a tendency to go from one deadly situation to another, often getting himself or others killed in the process. He also has the Witch of Envy's scent, which literally makes him a magnet for enemies and mabeasts. The ending of Arc 6/beginning of Arc 7 implies this is apparently being somewhat Invoked. After Subaru and his allies finally manage to resolve the crisis situation in the Pleiades watchtower, the black shadow mass that Satella manifests through unexpectedly appears, even after Louis, whose knowledge of Return By Death had been summoning it in prior loops, has been rendered amnesiac from eating her own name. The shadow apparently abducts Subaru, Rem and Louis and dumps them inside the borders of the neighbouring Volakia empire, right in the middle of an ongoing coup, and in a location nearby where Subaru can run into Vincent Volakia, the current emperor on the run from his treasonous underlings, and Subaru's aid proves vital in both saving Vincent's life from a forest fire by his pursuers and gaining him the aid he requires from the Suderach tribe. However, this also means that Subaru is considered allied with Vincent by his enemies, and thus Subaru is effectively trapped into helping Vincent reclaim his throne if he wants to return back to Lugunica and his allies. The coincidental timing greatly implies the shadow wanted Subaru to get involved in events this way, for its own unspecified purpose.
Draw Aggro: Upon trying to explain his ability to anyone, Subaru's scent of Satella's power spikes, ands this attraction attention. However, this only works on Mabeasts, and people who irrationally hate the Witch of Envy, due to their hate of people who carry their scent.
Driven to Madness: After watching everyone he knows die multiple times, Subaru goes insane for an entire loop until he breaks out of it from the rage he feels for being unable to stop Petelgeuse from killing Rem.
The Dulcinea Effect: Despite meeting and being saved by Emilia in one day, Subaru is willing to die to save her life.
Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Has these in the first episode from staying up all night gaming. Reappears in episode 18 after being so broken down by the events of the arc that he wants to flee the country with Rem.
Dumbass Has a Point: Yelling at the King's stand-ins is not something one should do on a whim, but given one of them was throwing out racial slurs and sexist comments at an heir to the throne, not to mention accusing Emilia of being the devil incarnate, he had every right to be furious. Hell, the man's actions bordered on treason.
Dumbass No More: He did show signs of intelligence in the earlier arcs, but Subaru comes into being one of the smarter characters in the middle of Arc 3, the events of which force him to pay more attention to the motivations of other people if he wants to make them do anything. As a result, he is able to make deductions of other people's motivations based solely on their reactions to events, screwing over their plans or making use of them to further his.
Earn Your Happy Ending: In the most literal sense, thanks to his Return by Death. If he is to move on from a certain "checkpoint", he must not only solve and survive a certain crisis, but must also make sure all of his friends and allies live as well. Arc 3 can be a major example of this until he realizes that Rem got erased and Return by Death won't reset far enough.
Empathic Healer: He can perform this role specifically for victims of the Dragon Blood poison by taking the poison into himself and suffer no apparent injuries outside of darkened splotches of skin.
- He later gains the ability for all wounds in Arc 6 where he gains access to his version of the Authority of Greed, drawing upon the Little King version of the myth. However, he does actually suffer from the wounds he takes this time.
Empty Shell: For an entire loop in arc 3, before being broken out of it by a series of horrific events that finally gave him a new purpose.
Enigmatic Minion: To everyone, Subaru is a complete wild card that has access to valuable information that no person should reasonably have, has the unexpected allies positioned in high places, knows exactly what to do in unexpected situations, and carries an extremely dense miasma of Lugunica's devil.
Entitled to Have You: Deconstructed. Since Subaru knows he's the protagonist in a Summon Everyman Hero story and Emilia is his love interest, Subaru quickly develops an entitled attitude towards her. Subaru assumes that him helping her, risking his own life for her sake and without her knowledge, dying to protect her multiple times should make Emilia "owe" him to love him back and be dependent of him for everything while actively ignoring her wishes. This comes to a head when Subaru makes a fool of himself and embarrasses Emilia in front of everyone in the royal elections by claiming to be her knight and accepting a challenge from Julius only to be beaten to a pulp in front of Emilia and make her feel guilty over him being hurt again. This all leads to Emilia trying to cut ties with Subaru and Subaru going through a major Trauma Conga Line that humbles him. Afterwards, Subaru acknowledges that Emilia is a person with thoughts of her own and promises to treat her with proper respect while waiting for her to reciprocate his feelings on her own accord.
Et Tu, Brute?: He's devastated when he finds out that Rem has hated him from the beginning and has now killed him for the second time. In fact, he's reduced to a sobbing wreck.
Evil Smells Bad: Since Subaru's Return by Death ability is given to him by the Witch of Envy, he's tainted with her scent. While Subaru himself is not evil, this makes other characters having a hard time trusting him and the scent can attract mabeasts that want to kill him.
Expert in Underwater Basket Weaving: The author notes in his Q&As that Subaru has studied a bit of a wide range of very minor things which are not really useful in his new life, such as doing a cat's cradle, making bamboo dragonflies, musical accompaniment (and singing), sculptures, bed-making, ironing, sewing, cooking, sign language, tongue-twisters, and so on. He's also ridiculously good at othello (reversi). See also Wholesome Crossdresser, below.
- The one skill he does possess which ends up having relevance to his life in Lugunica is his knowledge in stars and constellations, as for some reason many important characters in the story happen to be named after such. See Suddenly Always Knew That, below.
Exploited Immunity: Downplayed. Subaru and Petelgeuse are both clad in extremely dense witch miasma. As a result, this makes them prime targets for mabeasts. Knowing this, Subaru draws him into a mabeast breeding ground while carrying a protection crystal that prevents him from getting attacked while leaving Petelgeuse to get mauled.
Eye Scream: He gets an eyepatch during a loop in Arc 4 after losing one of his eyes.
Face Death with Dignity: He smiles right before he jumps off a cliff in order to turn back time.
Face of a Thug: Noted by others to look like an idiot at best to a thug at worst. Unfortunately Rigel, his son in the IF chapters, gains this trait along with Rem's blue hair and horn.
Faking Amnesia: Inverted. In Arc 6, Subaru hides the fact that he got amnesia by pretending and convincing everyone that he is "their Subaru".
Family Eye Resemblance: He has his mother's eyes.
Family-Unfriendly Death: He gets subjected to very cruel deaths, although he does come back alive.
Fan of Underdog: Nobody in Lugnica supports Emilia becoming the ruler because she's a half-elf with an uncanny resemblance to the feared witch Satella. Since Subaru doesn't have any of the prejudices in this world, he can only see Emilia for the good person she is and has sworn to make her the ruler out of love and loyalty for her.
Fatal Flaw: Pride, whether it be having too much pride or having too little. This is especially fitting since many characters speculate that Subaru is the missing Archbishop of Pride.
Fighting from the Inside: Does this by sheer force of will after he gets possessed by Petelgeuse to beg Felix and Julius to kill him.
First Friend: To Emilia. He's the first human who has ever befriended her and treated her as a person instead of a scary monster since he doesn't share her world's prejudice against silver-haired half-elves.
The Fool: Starts off as one, minus any luck. Thankfully, he has a time loop ability to keep him alive.
Forced to Watch: After being kidnapped by the Witches' Cult in one loop, Subaru is made to watch Rem being torn apart by Petelgeuse while being chained to a wall.
Forced Transformation: In the crossover event featured in Last Cloudia, he finds himself turned into a leafy creature called a Pokkle.
Freak Out: Subaru does this quite often as a result of his PTSD from multiple deaths and the tragedies he has seen.
Friendless Background: In his original world, Subaru was unable to live up the expectations of being the son to amazing parents in his school and life. As a result, he actively avoided people and eventually became a shut in, leaving him with no friends and a contact list so bare that the only people in it are his parents, city hall, and the local pizza place.
- The author's Q&As mercilessly point out many of the factors that led this situation:
Q: With above average reflexes, a face that's not terrible, and without a stuttering problem, I can't understand why Subaru is isolated!
A: Although his reflexes are better than the guys over there from the physical activity club, he mercilessly agitates anyone he defeats; his face isn't bad, but the look of his eyes is bad enough to die from, and he's superficial, so girls don't like him; he's pushy, his voice is loud and he just won't stop talking all the time; for you to want to be friends with a person like that, you must have a big heart, a big soul, and a compassionate personality; there aren't that many people like you. Please always be just the way you are.
Friend to All Children: Children love him, with Subaru always playing up his goofiness around them.
Genre Savvy: He's very familiar with video game and movie tropes and often makes assumptions based on those cliches. While he is sometimes right, he is just as often wrong. Of particular note, he recognized and accepted that he had been pulled into another world practically instantly. But oddly, it took him quite a while to cotton on to the Groundhog Peggy Sue nature of his power.
Girl on Girl Is Hot: Watching a drunk Emilia and Rem cuddling is so enticing that he would like to take a picture.
Glory Seeker: Despite his initially modest personality, his rash actions reflect his desire to be the hero who saves the day.
Groundhog Peggy Sue: Each time he dies in one of the loops, he is sent back to the beginning of the loop and forced to re-live the same events until he gets it right.
Guile Hero: Due to being extremely underpowered compared to the rest of cast, Subaru is forced to win fights through tactics and knowledge from previous loops.
Guilt Complex: Subaru has an extreme case of this due to his ability. He views that any tragedy that has happened is his fault because he should have known ahead of time due to his ability.
Gutted Like a Fish: Whenever he has to face Elsa, he has his belly slashed open and his guts spilled all over the floor.
Harmful Healing: Downplayed. Subaru gets his cut off foot regenerated by the corrupting dragon blood in Arc 5. However, this is not what was expected to happen as the other person who got exposed to it, suffered debilitating pain.
Has a Type: In his old room in the old world, he had many posters of white-haired girls all over the place. This might have contributed to his infatuation with Emilia.
The Hero: From the beginning of the story, Subaru believes this is meant to be his role in this fantasy world because of how that type of stories usually work. However, he comes to understand that the world isn't expecting him to be a hero and he cannot save the day on his own which leads to him getting allies on his side to fight the major threats while he focuses on giving information and act as a decoy. Subaru is still the hero of this story thanks to his actions being the ones that guide everyone to a happy ending.
Heroic BSoD: After he sees the slaughter of an entire village and all of his friends, when he returns to the previous save point before his death Subaru has suffered such a shock that he's left in a near-catatonic state during most of the loop. It takes witnessing Petelgeuse brutally torturing and killing Rem to snap him out of it.
Heroic RRoD: After overusing his magic and abusing a mana recovery drug, Subaru's gate breaks, wrecking any chance he has of being able to use magic to fight.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: Subaru sees himself as a complete and utter failure as a human being after realizing that he can save no one and every attempt has backfired spectacularly. However, Rem reminds him that he saved her and considers him to be a hero. Notably, Subaru still has issues with this afterwards, since self-hatred is something that can be hard to let go of.
- Outright becomes a plot point in arc 6: The amnesiac Subaru without any memories of his time in Lugunica has a very hard time believing he could have managed the heroic things he is told about, and starts thinking that his other self must have been amazingly superhuman - in other words, someone completely different. It takes him a good chunk of the arc to realize that he is capable of amazing things while still not being that different from who he used to be.
Heroic Suicide:
- In Arc 2, he chooses to throw himself off a cliff in order to save Rem from a curse in his next revival.
- He stabs himself in the throat when he finds out Rem got attacked by the Archbishop of Gluttony and fell into a coma, intending to undo his victory over Petelgeuse and try as many times it takes to save both of the girls he loves. Unfortunately, his save point got updated to after his battle with Petelgeuse and thus he can do nothing to help Rem at the moment.
Heroic Willpower: During arc 3, he manages to regain control of his body after being possessed in order to ask Julius to put him down.
Hikikomori: He lived as a shut-in before being teleported into another world. The circumstances that lead to this are later expanded; Subaru wanted to be a popular guy like his father, but someone else always surpassed him at anything he tried. Trying to overcompensate, he made a fool of himself in his first day at high school, making it so that no one would want to get near him. Subaru then didn't want to go to school anymore and stayed lazing around at home all day, somehow wanting his parents to get sick of him and throw him out.
Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Despite being 17, Subaru has one after he realizes that he has no skills that can help his allies and wasted most of his life doing nothing but sit at home playing games.
Hope Bringer: Subaru's most redeeming quality is that he is able to reverse the tide of any situation due to his optimism and determination. Lampshaded by Echidna who states that in any situation that Subaru does not participate in is always going to result in a tragedy.
Horrifying the Horror:
- Downplayed as Subaru manages to increasingly unnerve the Witches of Sin in regards to his increasingly casual attitude death and mortal injury.
- Also does this during arc 6 to Louis Arneb after she experiences Return by Death personally and breaks down from the sheer trauma and considers Subaru a monster from being able to push forwards through multiple deaths.
Humble Hero: Eventually becomes this during his character development when he doesn't let being the hero who helped take down massive threats get to his head. This is in direct contrast to his Fatal Flaw.
Hypocrite: Downplayed - Subaru is occasionally inconsistent in his ideals, but ultimately he always works to correct them.
- Notably in arc 3, Subaru's desire to be special and unique clashes with his actions. As he ends up pointing out to Rem, he has no strength yet always tries to reach beyond his means, and he boasts far beyond anything he can do. He is even inconsistent in his pride: when seeking to secure aid for Emilia, Priscilla tells him to lick her foot - he hesitates, but when he tries to actually do it, Priscilla kicks him away for actually having so little dignity that he would do it (which would by extension reflect badly on Emilia).
- Early in arc 4, when it becomes clear Emilia has to take Sanctuary's Trial, Subaru tells her that he trusts that she can do it, and that it would have no meaning if she didn't do it herself. However, when Roswaal tells Subaru he trusted him to deal with the Witch Cult in the previous arc, he gets mad when being told almost exactly the same thing. At least in this case, Subaru is angry at Roswaal and distrusts him because they have spent practically no time together to generate trust in one another, but there's a clear parallel, with the implication that that 'trust' is a burden being thrust upon them.
I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: How he feels about Rem as he never expected any girl to be as devoted to a worthless guy like him as she is. For example, Rem repeatedly gives him to understand how pathetic and silly he looks, and Subaru, even in the IF chapters, cannot understand what such an "ideal girl" saw in such a loser like him.
I Gave My Word: The main reason Subaru tries so hard is his promise to Emilia to save her.
I Just Want to Be Loved: Back in Japan, Subaru never could make lasting friendships and any recognition he got from the people in his town was accredited to being his father's son instead of his own person. After being transported to the fantasy world, Subaru's main motivation for about everything he does is to be valued and loved by others, especially Emilia. His desperate attempts at making Emilia love him only end up in Emilia pushing him away so he stops hurting himself for her, making Subaru realize that his repellent personality traits still drive others away no matter what world he is in. What keeps him from giving up again is Rem confessing that she loves him more than anything despite his flaws because she sees the good in him. From this point on, Subaru strives to become a better person who seeks to save Emilia and others because he cares about them instead of making himself feel they "owe" him to love him.
I Just Want to Be Special: This is the source of his problems ever since he lived in Japan. Subaru always wanted to stand out at everything and be the best in all he did, but he eventually realized that there was Always Someone Better. He ended up becoming a troublemaker with a gang of kids until they left him and he was finally forced to admit there was nothing special about him and would probably never be someone cool like his father. When he was transported to the fantasy world, Subaru thought he would automatically get special treatment and get all he wanted because he's the "hero". Then he's made understand that being sent to another world doesn't instantly make him better or important as he needs to work into improving himself to get the recognition he wants.
I Let Gwen Stacy Die: After Rem's memories and name are eaten by the Archbishop of Gluttony and she falls into a coma as a result, Subaru blames himself for it, thinking that if he had realized it sooner he could have done something to save her with Return by Death instead of solely focusing on saving Emilia. Now Subaru can only hope that killing the Archbishop of Gluttony will do something to bring Rem back.
I'll Kill You!: He proclaims this to Petelgeuse after he brutally kills Rem right in front of him and slaughters everyone in the village. Also doubles as a Madness Mantra.
Immortality Hurts: Even though he won't permanently die, it's still dreadful to be constantly killed in very painful ways.
Inelegant Blubbering: Reduced to this after finding out Rem was the one who killed him in an earlier loop and secretly hates him.
Impossibly Delicious Food: Is this to Louis as he is the only person who has the experience of "death".
Inferiority Superiority Complex: His overconfident bravado and Large Ham attitude is meant to hide his dreadfully low self-esteem and lack of confidence.
Innocently Insensitive: At one point, Subaru tells Ram a story about a red demon who gave up their horn for the sake of a blue demon who was close to them. Ram doesn't take the story very well. Of course, Subaru didn't know that's exactly what happened to her and Rem.
Insecure Love Interest: Generally he loves both Emilia and Rem, but he feels guilt over it. With how devoted Rem is to him, Subaru feels like he's not good enough for her. At the same time, he feels guilty in front of Emilia, because he wants to marry both of them, after already confessed his love for her.
In-Series Nickname: Called "Barusu" by Ram.
Interrogated for Nothing:
- In one of the loops, Rem attacks him and tortures him for information because she's convinced he's a member of the Witch's Cult sent as a spy and refuses to believe Subaru when he proclaims his innocence.
- Happens again in Arc 4 where Garfiel suspects Subaru is a member of the Witch Cult because of his Witch's Scent and brutally beats him to get him to spill the beans even though Subaru is innocent.
Interrupted Suicide:
- In the second loop of Arc 4, Subaru knows that timeline is doomed when Elsa and Meili attack the mansion. He tries to stab his own throat with a piece of broken glass to activate Return by Death only to be stopped by Beatrice who doesn't know about his power and doesn't want to see him kill himself. He's killed by Elsa shortly after, though.
- In the next loop of the same arc, Subaru is taken prisoner by Garfiel and Ryuzu Shima because his Witch's Scent makes him suspicious to them. The moment he's being tortured for information, Subaru attempts to bite his own tongue off, but Garfiel doesn't let him kill himself.
Interspecies Romance: Subaru (human) holds romantic feelings for both Emilia (half-elf) and Rem (Oni).
Invincible Hero: Thanks to Return by Death, Subaru cannot be permanently killed, and each death only provides him with more information to work with on the next try. As a result, he is able achieve incredible upsets and major victories regardless of the chances of them occurring as long he has the will to keep going. In other words, while the out-of-universe audience sees him die over and over again (not invincible) someone unaware of his loops only sees the outcome where he wins (or least doesn't die).
I Shall Taunt You: Trolls the living hell out of Petelgeuse in order to drag him over to an ambush site.
Keeping Secrets Sucks: Because revealing his "Return by Death" can lead to Satella killing him, or anyone who hears his confession, he is unable to tell a soul how he was able to figure a problem out by dying more than once. It often make him suspicious and his mental state tends to suffer hard from it. There are a few exceptions, however, like exploiting this in front of his enemies.

L — S

Lady and Knight: He's Emilia's White Knight, often going through hardships and dying several times to protect her and help her achieve her goal of becoming the next ruler.
Large Ham: Subaru starts off very theatrical and outgoing since he believes that he is in a generic transported-to-another-world story. However, his experiences and deaths quickly humble him.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the sixth arc, he suddenly loses his memory, all the way to the point when he first entered the fantasy world It turns out the reason for this is that the Authority of Gluttony can only 'eat' one person's memory and existence once, but due to the immense Character Development Subaru's gone through since being transported to Lugunica, erasing his memories and effectively 'resetting' him to a blank slate would allow Louis to create a 'new' Subaru, with a different existence she could eat, over and over, and over again, until she finds her perfect life. The only catch is that the 'new' Subaru has to consider himself a separate identity from the 'Natsuki Subaru' that Emilia and the others talk about, which Louis almost pushes the 'new' Subaru into doing before the spirit of Rem appears to pull him back from the brink. He manages to get all his memories back by the end, though.
Laughing Mad: He becomes this temporarily after he realizes how much he hates himself and how he has become that same thing he hates. Doubles as hidden foreshadowing as it was actually Petelgeuse possessing Subaru that was the one laughing as they both died.
Lazy Bum: It's implied he used to be like this when he lived in our world, since his father would always try to get him to do something with his life.
Le Parkour: Learns this at the same time of his training in whips during the one year time-skip later on in the series.
The Leader: Later in the series, Subaru becomes a headstrong type and uses his experiences in the loops in order to lead his friends to victory.
Like Brother and Sister: He becomes an older brother figure to Beatrice after she becomes his contracted spirit in the fourth arc.
Limited Wardrobe: Due to transferring over from his home world, Subaru's only piece of clothing is his tracksuit. He eventually gets a robe to go along with the tracksuit.
Living Emotional Crutch: After the Mabeasts incident, Subaru tells Rem the words she needed to hear to move on from her past as Ram's inferior sister and stop beating herself up for Ram losing her horn while protecting her. As Rem says so herself, Subaru made her stopped time move again and thanks to him, she can think happily about a future with him.
Living with the Villain: He lives with Roswaal, the person who orchestrated the events of the the first 2 arcs and majorly affected Arcs 3 and 4.
The Load: Starts off as this since Subaru has no combat-useful powers and can only serve as a distraction to enemies.
Loser Protagonist: Before being brought from his world, Subaru was a hikikomori and spent his days gaming. This trope is deconstructed especially hard as someone who was like this in his original world would not magically become competent as soon as he switches worlds. As a result, Subaru dies multiple times, each in excruciating ways that highlight his flaws.
Love at First Sight: He fell for Emilia the moment he first saw her.
Love Makes You Dumb: His crush on Emilia leads him to do many stupid things in order to win her affections. The worst case is when he goes as far as to insult the Knights of Lugunica and challenge Julius just so he could show off in front of Emilia. Needless to say, Emilia wasn't happy with him afterwards.
Love Revelation Epiphany: Subaru started to develop feelings for Rem after she professed her deep love to him several times throughout the third arc. He was still reluctant to admit it in part because of his love for Emilia, in part because he didn't feel he deserved Rem's unconditional love. He finally was able to admit it to himself when Rem sort of tricked him into confessing his feelings for her and let him know she was open to the polygamy option. Subaru was then ready to tell Emilia he wants to have both her and Rem, but Rem falling into a coma complicates Subaru's plans.
Loving a Shadow: Early on, Subaru's feelings for Emilia are based on a shallow and idealized impression he has of her since he barely really knows anything about her beyond her being a nice and pretty girl. Emilia outright calls him out on this during their quarrel after he made a fuss in front of everyone in the royal elections, claiming that he doesn't know anything about her real self and the perfect version of Emilia in his mind is one she could never live up to. Eventually, Subaru acknowledges this and as his relationship with Emilia starts getting more development from the fourth arc onward, he learns to love and respect Emilia as a regular and flawed individual.
Loving Details: Much like with Rem did to him no matter how much Emilia points out the things negative things about herself, Subaru will tell her all the things he likes appreciates and about her down small details.
Lust Object: To Rem. There were subtle hints at her sexual desire for Subaru early on, but the sixth arc has Louis channel Rem's memories as she talks to Subaru, and almost immediately gets aroused by him and his fighting style. At last, she attempts to have her way with him due to Rem's overwhelming love. It rather blatantly implies that Rem's been holding back for most of their relationship.
MacGuffin Super-Person: To anyone who knows about Return by Death, Subaru is this as he has access to infinite possibilities and trials. Both Echidna and Louis want him as Return by Death is the only thing that can sate them, while Petelgeuse notes that Subaru is the best body he's possessed in a very long time.
Made of Iron: Shows shades of this throughout the story by surviving many injuries that have killed him in other loops.
Madness Mantra: "Someone...someone...someone...someone...someone..."
Mad Oracle: The nature of his powers allow him to experience future disasters before inevitably dying and returning to the last "checkpoint" of his life. While this erases his injuries, it does not erase his mental trauma, and as result any anger or despair he feels from his past life is projected in his next life much to the surprise of the people around him. The fact that he can predict the future but can't explain why as well as how he can suddenly shift emotions to extremes when he doesn't get his way often makes people think he's insane.
Major Injury Underreaction: He barely even winces in response to having his organs being crushed by Garfiel, but it's slightly Played With, in that he's mentally long since gotten used to severe pain, but dehabilitating injuries or particularly violent deaths will still break through his toughened mentality and having him appropriately Freak Out from the pain, such as painfully experiencing what it's like to be Eaten Alive by a horde of carnivorous rabbits..
Manipulative Bastard: Subaru has increasingly become this throughout the series. He mildly manipulates people in the first few arcs, either by providing solutions to their group goal or taunting people to take action. In Arc 4, this taken up a notch as Subaru becomes increasingly desperate to find a way out of complex web intrigue and near-certain fated tragedy of the Sanctuary.
The Many Deaths of You: Some of Subaru's deaths through the loops include being stabbed to death, decapitated, eviscerated, cursed, and amputated.
Marry Them All: He wants this solution with Emilia and Rem as he has come to love them both equally and wants to take both of them as his wives if they are okay with sharing. However, Rem falling into a coma gets in the way of his plans.
The Mentally Disturbed: Becomes this after the slaughter of literally almost everyone he has met. Debatable if this was true madness or a defense mechanism, based on Petelgeuse's comments.
Meta Guy: Tends to lampshade all of the isekai genre tropes and expectations. He drops this aspect of his personality as he realizes that Lugunica isn't a generic fantasy world and everyone around him is far more complicated than they look.
Misery Builds Character: All of Subaru's traumatic experiences turn him from a stereotypical "isekai" protagonist into a true hero. However, its also deconstructed to an extent, as a significant portion of arc 4 is Subaru having to learn that misery is not the only thing that can improve his character, and he needs to learn how to love himself for who he is and not treat his life and existence as a disposable tool for the sake of everyone's happiness.
Mistaken for Foreigner: People assume that Subaru is either a refugee from the south due to his black hair, while others assume that he is from Kararagi for his trivial manner of speaking. In reality, he is from another world.
Mood-Swinger: Particularly when he is near a checkpoint. He can go from speaking to a salesman or waking up from bed to suddenly screaming in terror and what's worse is he cannot explain that he just died from some upcoming disaster.
My Greatest Failure: At the end of the third arc, Rem has her name and memory erased by the Archbishop of Gluttony and he is unable to save her even with Return by Death. Subaru blames himself for Rem's condition and vows to kill Ley with hopes that Rem can be saved.
Mysterious Stranger: Subaru is an example of this trope when it's applied to the protagonist. From an outside perspective, Subaru's actions and behavior lack sense without context. Actions such as randomly showing up to buy Emilia's insignia just after it was stolen, finding the resident Magic Librarian and asking her about curses, only to return cursed and reveal there are monster wolves in the forest, and undergoing a complete 180 from a fool that antagonized an entire courtroom of nobles to being privvy to information that he literally shouldn't have such as the location of a monster that has avoided death for 400 years as well as information about the Witch's Cult that is only rumored to be true. It doesn't help that he makes offhand remarks about a connection to the Witch of Envy.
Naïve Newcomer: Subaru entered a deadly game of political intrigue after recovering Emilia's emblem. As result, many of his deaths are caused by not understanding what he has gotten into.
Nerf: All of Subaru's magic based abilities, save Return by Death, are weaker than they would be in another individual. The Authorities of Sin cannot be used to their fullest extent as Subaru has to pay in his sanity to use or has some unethical requirement to use. In addition, his contract with Beatrice is stunted as Subaru's magic gate is broken, making him unable to produce enough mana to use spells more than once a day.
Nerves of Steel: Gradually gains these due to dealing with too many deaths. It increasingly disturbs the people around him as Subaru continues to ignore the occasions that he has almost died or suffered extreme injury. Even Echidna who knows about Return by Death, is off put by his lack of reaction to eating his own arm.
Nervous Wreck: All of the deaths from the time loops have left Subaru an almost gibbering mess when it comes to dealing with anything remotely lethal.
Nice Guy: Subaru is easily one of the nicest characters in the show, earning him various allies due to his earnest nature.
The Nicknamer: Emilia-tan for Emilia, Remu-rin for Rem, Ram-chi for Ram, Bea-ko for Beatrice, and Ros-chi for Roswaal.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Rather than a perfect, happy ending, Subaru's desire to save others often come at the cost of himself, or even losing something of equal or greater value in the process.
Non-Action Guy: Explicitly stated by Word of God that the only other character Subaru could ever beat in a straight up physical fight is Petra, an 11-year-old girl.
No-Sell: Actually Downplayed. Subaru can be affected by the negative powers of the Authorities of the Witch Cult and the powers of the Witches themselves just like any other, but has showing a complete immunity to the indirect side-effects of those powers, not enough to make him completely ignore them, but enough to give him an edge against them that often proves crucial to aiding in their defeat.
- Petelgeuse's "Invisible Hands" offer him a distinct combat advantage, as their unseen nature and immense strength allow him to launch confusing sneak attacks on enemies that can leave deep gouges in their flesh should even a single finger graze them. Subaru eventually gains the ability to see the shadowy tendril arms emerging from him and can react or warn others about them, but he himself still can't contend directly with the arms and can only barely dodge one or two under his own power. During the Final Battle against Petelgeuse, Subaru used Julius' Spirit arts technique to share his vision with the knight, allowing him to directly apply his swordplay in combat with Petelgeuse and eventually land a mortal blow. Subaru also thwarts his possession by Petelgeuse by directly invoking the penalty for speaking of Return By Death, resulting in Petelgeuse's spirit getting kicked back into his fatally-wounded body.
- This is Subverted with Regulus' Authority of Greed, as it only works in direct means of protecting the Sin Archbishop from harm or allowing him to launch immensely destructive attacks on the world around him, befitting the user's self-centred personality. However, having absorbed Petelgeuse's Witch Factor following his death and assimilated it into his "Invisible Providence" ability, Subaru is able to counter Regulus' secondary ability "Lion's Heart", which allows him to use the heart of another to substitute for his own when his time is frozen whilst using his ability to make himself impervious to harm. Having used Emilia's heart as his last measure of protection, Subaru being able to directly destroy the secondary black heart of Regulus' ability without harming her effectively broke his invincible authority and forced him under a time limitation when freezing his own time, risking death should his heart be stopped for too long, which ultimately resulted in Regulus' death.
- Subaru is utterly unaffected by the Authority of Gluttony's power to erase the existence of others from the minds of those who know them should the victim's name be devoured by them, oftentimes only discovering somebody's been erased when discussing them in casual conversation and the other party reacting in confusion at him mentioning a stranger. This, and thus his ability to retain personal animosity towards the Gluttony siblings directly rather than them being part of the Witch's Cult, stokes Lye Batenkaitos' interest in Subaru, followed by the rest of his siblings. This ultimately leads them to attack the Pleiades Watchtower because Subaru is there, eventually resulting in Subaru formulating a counterattack that results in Lye's death and his siblings being incapacitated in various means.
- A side chapter from the perspective of the revived Echidna possessing the body of Omega following the completion of the Sanctuaries' trials reveals that the Witches naturally emit a miasma from their bodies that drives those who experience it insane or worse the longer they get exposed to it. Echidna demonstrates by releasing her Witches' Miasma for 30 seconds against a group of bandits threatening her as a "test", resulting in them all uniformly dying before her countdown is finished. Echidna then thinks back to Subaru, who was not only unaffected by prolonged contact with her spirit, but stood in the presence of all seven witches at once without noticing a thing, unaware of how abnormal that feat was.
Not Afraid to Die: After dying for multiple times, Subaru has started to grow less scared of the prospect of death. Subverted as Subaru actually is trying his best to hide his fear and even after dozens of loops, he is always shown to retain his human fear of death. However, it starts to be played straight in Arc 4, where he starts to lose any emotional response to being killed and instead focuses on what he needs to do, no matter how many times he has to die to get things right. He doesn't even hesitate to kill himself when he finds himself in a dead end.
Oh, Crap!: He has this reaction at the end of the third arc; he tries to persuade Emilia into letting him keep Rem as a second wife, but Emilia asks who Rem is. That's when Subaru realizes that Rem's existence was erased by the Archbishop of Gluttony.
Outside-Context Problem: To the Witch's Cult, Subaru is someone who appeared out of nowhere, can summon allies far above his power level, steals the powers of their leaders, is extremely "loved" by their object of worship, and literally everything they do is predicted and countered.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Literally every character (other than the thugs in the beginning of the series) is stronger than Subaru by either being more knowledgeable in magic or more physically skilled.
The Pollyanna: Despite crushing despair and multiple deaths, Subaru remains ever the optimist. Subverted as Subaru fakes his emotions throughout the story.
Power at a Price: Subaru notes that every time he uses the Authority of Sloth something, implied to be his sanity, is lost. As a result he tries to minimize his use of the ability.
Protectorate: To Rem. If anyone, especially the Witch Cult, even tries to lay a finger on Subaru, Rem will fly into a murderous rage. Out of any of his allies, Subaru knows Rem is the one who will fight the hardest and even die in order to protect him.
Real Men Wear Pink: One of Subaru's talents is sewing. He even made a great Puck embroidery!
Red Eyes, Take Warning: After Petelgeuse kills Rem and slaughters the village.
Red Shirt: Dies an average of once per episode.
Rescue Romance: Shortly after arriving at the fantasy world, Subaru gets beaten up by a gang of thugs. Emilia goes out of her way to drive the thugs away and heals Subaru with magic. Emilia's kindness and readiness to save him without asking anything in return are the main reason Subaru falls so hard for her.
- After experiencing multiple failed loops in Arc 3 where Rem sacrificed her life to save him, Subaru starts developing feelings for her beyond friendship to the point that he begs her to run away with him after his Trauma Conga Line. fter the battle with the White Whale, he eventually confesses his love for her.
Resurrection/Death Loop: Subaru is cursed with going back in time whenever he dies, keeping his memories. And, being a completely mundane human with no special talents in fighting or magic, he dies quite often. He has been killed in a variety of ways since leaving his world that have significantly affected his psyche.
Retroactive Precognition: Subaru often takes advantage of information gained from previous timelines, effectively letting him predict what will happen.
Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Subaru is the only one able to remember all the previous timelines whenever things get reset after his deaths. He also can remember the victims of the Archbishop of Gluttony who are erased from the memory of everyone they have met. This is a double-edged sword because it's useful in solving problems, but is deadly to his state of mind because he remembers all of the times, and every gruesome detail, how he died.
Sad Clown: Hides his desperation and fear under a facade of humor and optimism. Noted by Priscilla that Subaru uses his facade to hide his weakness.
Save Scumming: He has the ability that he calls "Return by Death" which allows him to go back in time to a "save point" when he dies, with only himself remembering what happened. However, he cannot control when save points are created or changed.
Say My Name: Petelgeuse manages to get this reaction out of him after killing Rem and slaughtering the village. He manages to return the favor.
Scars Are Forever: Gets heavily scarred after being mauled by mabeasts in Arc 2.
Screw Destiny: When Subaru manages to solve the events of arc 4 by his own will and not follow the machinations of both Echidna and Roswaal who has a book that literally knows the future and was written by the former. Needless to say, the effect it had on Roswaal was not pretty.
Selective Obliviousness: Especially early on where Subaru blocks out his deaths and pretends they are dreams.
Self-Harm: In Arc 6, it is implied by Beatrice that Subaru has developed a bad habit of scratching his arms to the extent of bleeding.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Subaru's sanity has been greatly damaged after multiple deaths and suffers from PTSD as a result.
Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Gender-Inverted; Subaru greatly admires and loves the good personality traits in Emilia and Rem. With Emilia, Subaru quickly falls for her kindness, selflessness, and willingness to help others even when it doesn't benefit her. With Rem, her hardworking nature as well as extreme devotion and protectiveness of her loved ones, especially him, make Subaru love her just as much as Emilia.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Is this with Julius as he rubs Subaru the wrong way. Even at their best, they can never honestly talk to each other.
Sixth Ranger Traitor: Implied to be this for the Witch's Cult, as it is implied that Subaru is the missing Pride Archbishop (and it is all but confirmed in Ayamatsu If).
Small Name, Big Ego: A subtle example. Due to his successes in saving Emilia and a village, Subaru believes that he is the main character in a stereotypical light novel plot. As a result, he provokes the knights of Lugunica by both proclaiming himself to be a knight as well as saying that their status is because of nepotism. This leads to Julius beating the living shit out of him in a duel that he accepted as well as Emilia abandoning him.
Smarter Than You Look: Subaru is smarter than he lets on as once he gets over his neuroses, he is an incredibly competent chessmaster even without using Return by Death. For example, he tricks a bunch of muggers into letting him go based on how they acted in a previous loop. As well as the time he outgambits Roswaal into relying on him to revive Echidna.
Sobriquet Sex Switch: When passing off as a girl, Subaru goes by Natsumi, which is a play on his surname Natsuki.
The Social Expert: The main weapon Subaru has is his personality which allows him to gain and command allies to carry out tasks that he is too weak to carry out.
Spanner in the Works: Is a master of this trope due to both his detailed foreknowledge of the future, which he uses to ruin the plans of characters like Elsa, Roswaal, and the Archbishops as well his sheer force of will, which ruins Echidna's plans,
Stellar Name: Subaru's name is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the Seven Sisters. It is hinted that Subaru has a connection to the Archbishops of Witches' Cult who are all named after groups of stars.
Stepford Smiler: Becomes one after facing multiple deaths to hide his desperation, fear, anguish, and self-hate.
Stock Light-Novel Hero: Subaru is a deconstruction of the trope. When he first arrives in his new world, he assumes he's gained powerful magic or some other talent, but initially has none. The only unique ability he gained is to start over from a "save point" after he dies, which is only a blessing considering the horrible ways he constantly meets his end. Subaru quickly learns that the world he's been sent into isn't as forgiving as most fantasy lands, and that whatever respect and strength he gets from that world, he has to earn, because his only cheat is coming back from the dead at random intervals. Gaining a harem means that he has more people to protect (thus meaning he often has to kill himself to save them by trial-and-error) and if he advances his relationship in any way and then dies, said advancement can be completely undone.
Story-Breaker Power:
- Return by Death is the most broken ability in the show, regardless of how trivial it seems at first, due to Subaru being able to maximize his ability to analyze the abilities of extremely deadly enemies as well as giving him the time to gather information and prepare countermeasures to any threat. This is Lampshaded by Roswaal who states that the only reason Emilia has a chance of becoming king in a country that outright hates her is because she has the loyalty of Subaru, the "strongest card in the deck". To not let Subaru depend too much on this and overcome every obstacle easily, Return by Death has a traumatic cost to use, limiting its use to only dire situations. He also doesn't have control of the point in time his Save Points send him back to, so he usually has limited time to deal with major threats and there'll be problems he won't be able to undo if his save point updates against his will.
- Later, during arcs 4 and 6, in addition to Return by Death, Subaru gets access to both the Authority of Sloth and Authority of Greed. The former being hundreds of invisible, intangible hands that can rip people to shreds, and the latter being weaponized time control resulting in invincibility and unblockable, unresisted severing attacks. To prevent the story from breaking, Subaru only obtains essentially weakened versions of these powers. He cannot use the former without risking his sanity, and the latter becomes a different ability entirely.
The Strategist: Becomes this in the 3rd and later arcs as a result of his detailed foreknowledge and being the only one to know the abilities of his enemies through personal experience.
Stress Vomit: Does this in episode 8 while trying to balance his tasks of getting the residents of the mansion to trust him and find the one who attacks the mansion.
Strong Family Resemblance: When we get see Subaru's parents in the fourth arc, it's shown Subaru looks like a younger clone of his father.
Suddenly Always Knew That: Subaru has extensive knowledge about constellations as well as space in general. Justified considering that his parents were into astrology and named him after the Pleiades, a constellation called the Seven Sisters.
Suicide by Cop: Asks Julius and Felix to kill him after being possessed by Petelgeuse.
Summon Everyman Hero: Subaru is a fairly unremarkable high school dropout walking home from the convenience store when he suddenly gets pulled into an archaic fantasy world, and has to undergo a lot of Character Development before he's anything more than a Loser Protagonist. However, in an unusual variation, he was summoned by a villain.

T — Z

The Team Normal: Amongst the array of magic users and seasoned warriors that surround him, Subaru has no standout abilities or talents under normal circumstances, save for Return by Death. He later becomes more versed in using his Shadow magic attribute and tries to bulk up on sword fighting.
Temporal Mutability: Subaru's Return by Death is able to turn back time with only him retaining his memories. This gives him the chance to prevent the disasters in which he died and the outcome can change without negative consequences as long as Subaru takes the necessary precautions for every factor that might go wrong. However, it's not clear what exactly happens to the timeline once Subaru rewinds everything. In the fourth arc, the Sanctuary shows Subaru visions of what happened in every bad scenario so far after his deaths. The implications of it give Subaru a Heroic BSoD because now he's aware that it's possible he really hasn't been changing the past, but creating new timelines where those he cares about stayed dead.
This Loser Is You: With his knowledge of cliche anime/video game tropes, Subaru is meant to represent the typical Japanese media fan who would enjoy this series.
Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: Is this to Shaula, who assumes that Subaru is her master, Flugel, due to his extremely dense witch miasma.
- Is this to Sirius as well who thinks Subaru is Petelgeuse. However, this isn't as much of a leap in logic since Petelgeuse has possessed Subaru before and Subaru can use Petelgeuse's powers.
Thousand-Yard Stare: Noted by Wilhelm to have eyes akin to someone who has returned from the dead and many times at that. It is also the reason he is interested in who Subaru is, as he has never seen anyone with eyes like him.
Time Loop Fatigue: Return by Death causes endless physical and emotional agony for Subaru. He experiences painful deaths over and over again along with watching the people he cares about being killed in gruesome ways. Early on, his interactions with his love interest and friends are undone every time the loop restarts and he must gain their trust once again while trying to not look too suspicious or crazy, otherwise his own friends could kill him. Subaru does his best to look stable and calm, but the massive stress of living through several traumatic loops that always end in his own death reduces him to a sobbing mess whenever he lets his guard down.
Time Rewind Mechanic: His "Return by Death" is effectively this, allowing him to reset time to a certain point each time he dies, wher he gets another chance to relive the events and try to prevent his death.
Tongue-Tied: He literally cannot tell anyone about Return by Death; if he tries a witch's hand coming from the dark will grab his heart, causing him to feel extreme pain and preventing him from talking. To make it worse, even if he tries to ignore the pain the hand will just kill the listener instead.
Too Dumb to Live: Some of Subaru's deaths can be chalked up to making horrible decisions, like not listening to his friends' advice about taking help or, while he didn't get killed thanks to Julius, insulting the Lugunican knights' honor in front of their liege.
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Louis tries consuming Subaru after finding out about Return by Death to live as him and live the "perfect life". However, Subaru's own memories consuming her personality making her actually think she is Subaru leads to her being broken down by the trauma of death and Subaru's own incessant determination to keep going even in the face of multiple deaths breaks her down and leaves her a gibbering wreck, especially in the presence of Subaru, whom she considers a madman for being able to keep going.
Took a Level in Cynic: Becomes more suspicious of the people around him, save for Rem and Emilia. In addition, he becomes more liable to manipulating the people around him to achieve his goals.
Trademark Favorite Food: Mayonnaise, to the point where not having it for a week causes him to withdrawal symptoms. Apparently it runs in Subaru's family.
Tragic Hero: Eventually evolves into one these, especially after his Humiliation Conga and eventual snapping as a result of the time loop he spent at Petelgeuse's Lair in Arc 3.
Trapped in Another World: The start of the story is his arrival to Lugunica. Unlike other protagonists in these types of stories, he takes it extremely well. At first, anyway.
Trauma Button: Any reminder or mention of Rem's coma makes Subaru feel deeply sad and guilty over not being able to do anything to save Rem right now.
Troll: Subaru is extremely good at trolling people he hates. Be it making fun of Petelguese's verbal tics to the point that they ignore everything else trying to kill them in an attempt to murder Subaru or pushing the the Witch of Envy past her rage breaking point in one sentence despite not responding to nothing else.
True Sight: As a result of being cursed or blessed by the Witch of Envy. Subaru has the ability to see the Authority of Sloth as well as having immunity to the secondary effects of the other Authorities. In addition, he has the ability to see lesser spirits, something noted to be very rare.
Tsurime Eyes: His eyes are considered intimidating because they're upturned. In terms of personality, they represent his strong will and stubbornness.
Two First Names: His family name Natsuki can also be used as a unisex Japanese given name.
Undying Loyalty: In a literal sense for Emilia.
Unluckily Lucky: To almost everyone around him, Subaru has been caught up in some sort of incident that he somehow manages to survive, believing luck to be the reason he survived, but in actuality was his hard work and foreknowledge.
Unstoppable Rage: Deconstructed and averted. Unlike in other shows, Subaru's anger doesn't make him stronger or more effective, but rather makes him prone to mistakes and poor decisions that a calmer version of him wouldn't make while trying to convince people to help him out.
Unwanted Rescue: In one of the loops of the fourth arc, Subaru finds himself in a dead-end after Elsa begins killing everyone in the mansion. He then plans to commit a Murder-Suicide with the comatose Rem in order to activate Return by Death. Unexpectedly, Beatrice brings him into her library where she can hide him from Elsa and heal his wounds. Subaru blows up at Beatrice for (unknowingly) ruining his chance to return in time with his death since he's afraid the Save Point could change against his will and make everything irreversible like what happened when Rem was attacked by the Archbishop of Gluttony.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Does this by accident when he manages to tell Emilia about Return by Death, causing the Witch of Envy to kill her in cold blood. Does this again in the same way by mentioning Return by Death to Echidna and the other Witches of Sin. Since Satella couldn't kill them as easily or quickly or stop Subaru, she shows up as a fragment of herself to slaughter the entire cast save Subaru.
Vagueness Is Coming: Every time Subaru dies, a shadow of the Witch of Envy appears. The more deaths he has faced, the more apparent the shadow is. Subaru speculates that once he dies enough times, the shadow will do something to him, be it taking him forever or some other unknown fate.
Vicariously Ambitious: Subaru isn't very ambitious in his desires, but his main goal in Lugunica is to make Emilia the new king.
Victor Gains Loser's Powers: If Subaru is in the vicinity of an Archbishop's death, he absorbs their essence and gains access to a fraction of their powers. It is notable because this phenomenon only happens to Subaru because he's compatible with the essence and received the Witch Genes from Echidna.
The Watson: Due to being from another world, Subaru needs a lot of explanation to get caught up. His looping ability greatly helps in this.
What the Hell Are You?: Elicits this reaction out of Petelgeuse and other people by having knowledge of things he shouldn't as well as having perfect counters, especially since he does by literally going by a record of future events that has been 100% accurate until now.
Wholesome Crossdresser: In the Arc 5, Subaru revealed he can do crossdressing. Based on Tappei's Q&As, no one can defeat Subaru's crossdressing talent, not even Reinhard.
Willfully Weak: Surprisingly becomes this as he could use the Authority of Sloth to the same degree as Petelgeuse at the risk of his sanity.
Wrong Genre Savvy: A strange case of being this and Genre Savvy at the same time. After arriving in the new world, Subaru instantly assumes that he's the hero destined to save the world and get the girl and expects himself to be blessed with amazing talents and be able to steamroll through his problems. He's technically right about being the hero and special power, but he's nowhere near as capable as he thinks he is, at all.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After countless failed loops, Subaru nearly gives up if not for Rem reminding him of everything he's done for her, and that to her, he is a hero.
You Are the New Trend: Introduces Radio Calisthenics, Halloween, and Valentine's to the Mather's territory and has those activities become incredibly popular.
You're Insane!: Subaru calls Roswaal out as being insane when first witnessing the depths of his callousness, to which Roswaal wholly agrees with unashamedly.

Tropes in Ayamatsu IF

Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Deconstructed. In this timeline, Subaru gives in to temptation and abuses Return by Death, drastically changing the outcome of his story in rather horrifying ways.
Big Bad: Subaru becomes the Archbishop of Pride and destroys Lugunica, city and country as well as eliminating all of the other Archbishops of Sin as well as all of the Royal Candidates, save Emilia.
Break the Badass: He winds up trying to do this to Reinhard simply out of spite, after every method he tries to take the latter out with fails.
Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He pulls this on Elsa when he helps her escape from Reinhard as he needs pawns despite wanting to kill her on the spot.
Despair Event Horizon: He crosses it after seeing Reinhard effortlessly succeed in defeating Elsa - after Subaru himself failed to do so 88 times.
Driven by Envy: In the Ayamatsu If, Subaru gets fueled by jealousy toward Reinhard being able to defeat Elsa after dying 87 times and proceeds to systematically destroy Reinhard's life by destroying everything he cares about, e.g. destroying the country.
Dying Declaration of Love: After he's killed by Emilia to make her a hero, Subaru declares his love for her and accepts his final death.
Even Evil Has Standards: Despite killing people in cold blood and joining the Witch Cult, Ayamatsu Subaru still finds the actions of Regulus disgusting enough that he sets Regulus on fire after getting Elsa to chop off his limbs.
Evil Is Petty: The main reason why Subaru goes evil in the Ayamatsu If route is because he's jealous of how Reinhard is able to do everything by himself unlike Subaru who has to solve all of his problems by relying on others.
Love Makes You Crazy: His obsessive feelings towards Emilia combined with his incredibly fragile psyche eventually warp him into an insane Villain Protagonist.
Love Makes You Evil: Subaru destroys every obstacle in Emilia's path to becoming king, from killing all of the Archbishops of Sin as well as eliminating almost every other Royal Candidate and Knight, save Reinhard. He got rid of Crusche by getting her Ret-Gone by the White Whale and Mind Rapes Felix into becoming his servant. He then proceeds to kill Julius using his trust of Felix and assassinates all of the other candidates using both the Witch Cult and as well as Elsa and her assassin group. Upon his latest failure to kill Reinhard resulting in Lugunica being set ablaze, he decides to forgo directly killing Reinhard and plans to destroy his status and reputation as a knight. He then escapes with Elsa to meet Emilia who does not know him in this timeline. After being asked why he destroyed everything, Subaru replies because he loves her and asks her to kill him to give her the privilege of killing the Archbishop of Pride.
Manipulative Bastard: He convinces all of Regulus' wives to kill themselves out of spite and set themselves on fire as well as using the after effects of the White Whale to control Felix and make him into a puppet.
Murder Is the Best Solution: His method of beating Regulus in the Ayamatsu If is to convince all his wives to commit suicide, thus causing his heart to return back to him and making him vulnerable to being sliced apart and set aflame.
Non Sequitur: He often does this in the Ayamatsu If, since he constantly references events which happened in previous loops.
Point of Divergence: This timeline is the result of Subaru not getting Reinhard's help to defeat Elsa in an early loop, causing Subaru to go insane after failing 88 times.
The Resenter: He hates and resents Reinhard for being able to solve all his problems so easily. So much so that Subaru sets out to ruin Reinhard's life simply out of spite.
Sanity Slippage: Ayamatsu If chronicles his slow descent into madness.
Sixth Ranger Traitor: In Ayamatsu If, Subaru ends up embracing his role as Archbishop of Pride, and thus gets to know the other Archbishops of the Witch's Cult, almost being friends with them, but even then he goes ahead and kills them because he wants Emilia to live.
Story-Breaker Power: In Ayamatsu If, the true limits of Return by Death are shown, as Subaru essentially wrecks anything in his path by a) eliminating almost all of the other king candidates, b) eliminating many of the Archbishops of Sin, and c) destroying Lugunica in an attempt to destroy Reinhard. Though of course, the whole point of the route is to show just how far Subaru can fall if he abuses his power and lets go of his sanity.
The Unfettered: This Subaru is willing to sacrifice everything he has, as well as everything around him to achieve his goal of getting Emilia on the throne.
Villain Cred: Ayamatsu Subaru is the only version of Subaru to get complete and utter respect from Roswaal for the sheer determination and willingness to complete his goals.
Villain Protagonist: He is still the main character but has become a villain by letting go of his sanity.
Visionary Villain: Similiarly to his canon counterpart, his main goal in Ayamatsu If is to get Emilia on the throne. It's the way which he goes about it which places him firmly into the category of 'villain'.

Tropes in Oboreru IF

Despair Event Horizon: He's finally completely consumed by his maddening paranoia after he loses the ability to see Emilia's colors, driving him to let himself be killed by Ram.
The Don: In this timeline, Subaru becomes the leader of the criminal underground.
Heads or Tails?: Since his extreme paranoia makes him unable to trust anything but fate, Subaru decides whether or not to kill someone with the flip of a coin. If it's heads, they die, but it's tails, they're spared.
The Insomniac: He's so paranoid that he can't sleep at all unless he rests on Emilia's lap, which he only does once a week.
The Paranoiac: His death at Rem's hands destroys his ability to trust in people and can only see them as colorless entities. The only exceptions are Emilia and Beatrice who protected him, and Ram, whose hate for him is the only thing Subaru can believe in.
Point of Divergence: This timeline happens if Subaru doesn't choose to trust that Rem and Ram are good people despite how they brutally killed him. The result being that Subaru didn't throw himself off a cliff to save them and let himself be driven mad by paranoia.
Red Baron: He becomes known as the Purge King.
Villain Protagonist: This timeline's Subaru is a criminal boss with 126,702 deaths at his hands.

Tropes in Rem Natsuki IF

Babies Ever After: He and Rem have two children, Rigel Natsuki and Spica Natsuki, together.
Elopement: In this timeline, he marries Rem after she accepted his offer to run away from Lugunica with him.
Point of Divergence: This timeline shows what would have happened if Rem hadn't talked Subaru out of giving up on saving everyone at Roswaal's domain from Petelgeuse.

Tropes in Kasaneru IF

Break Them by Talking: He presumably does this to Felt in order to convince her to run away from the royal election.
Broken Ace: He continuously uses Return by Death to become inhumanely perfect in the eyes of his friends. This comes at the cost of Subaru losing any sense of self-worth in order to achieve the perfect outcome where all his friends are safe with no concern for how much they don't want him to hurt himself.
Clock King: Subaru knows the exact movements of everyone in the Mathers territory.
Manipulative Bastard: He manipulates Felt into running away from the election to get Reinhard on his side.
The Perfectionist: In this universe, Subaru becomes so obsessed with achieving a perfect result, right down to giving the right answer of what the weather is going to be like, that he turned to abusing Return by Death. He becomes inhumanely perfect at the behest of Echidna as part of their contract.
Point of Divergence: This timeline is what would have happened if Subaru had accepted making a deal with Echidna and became a mere puppet to satisfy her curiosity.
Stepford Smiler: Nobody can tell what is hidden behind Subaru's smile as he has mastered faking emotions to a new level.
The Strategist: Exaggerated after he accepts a deal with Echidna and dies to get absolutely everything down to the daily weather.
Suicide by Assassin: He has Elsa working for him, usually to order her to kill him at the end of a loop.

Tropes in Tsugihagu IF

Disease Bleach: Subaru's hair has become white, presumably from the stress of reading so many "Books of the Dead".
Dramatic Irony: With the knowledge of six arcs, the audience knows that Subaru's goal is clearly doomed from the start. The "Book of the Dead" plan is meaningless because he will only know what other people think of him. He cannot remember any of his previous loops or important things that defined his existence, including Rem, because only the old Subaru has those memories. He has also forgotten that his save points are uncontrollable, meaning that he will most likely be stuck in this timeline with everyone dead.
Flaw Exploitation: This is how Subaru is able to get away from Reinhard. He escapes his first encounter by ordering Shaula to attack the shelter where Felt was hiding, causing Reinhard to rush to protect Felt instead of just killing Subaru immediately. Subaru also takes advantage of Reinhard's Chronic Hero Syndrome by leaving a child behind after burning down her entire village. This forces Reinhard to prioritize leading the orphan girl to safety over chasing Subaru down.
Loss of Identity: An amnesiac Subaru begins viewing himself as worthless and fake so much that he becomes obsessively insane. He is willing to do anything to bring back the original Subaru.
Murder Is the Best Solution: Subaru believes that he can fix himself by reading the "Book of the Dead" of everyone that knows about him. Since this book only appears when a person dies...
Necessarily Evil: He does not want to kill innocent people, but he believes that he has no other choice because he needs to read their Books of the Dead to learn about the former Subaru. Once he gets the "real Subaru" back, he plans to Return by Death back to when everyone is alive and solve all the problems.
Point of Divergence: This timeline's version of Subaru chooses to follow his "Book of the Dead" plan and is able to get Shaula's help before his friends could stop him.
Red Right Hand: After hitting himself too many times in the head, Subaru's left eye has become clouded and lightless.
Talking to Themself: After acquiring his friends' memories, Subaru has happy conversations with hallucinations of the very people he murdered.
Villain Protagonist: He uses Shaula to kill his own friends and to slaughter anyone else that know about him. He even floods and destroys the city of Priestella; the same city he had previously saved from the Sin Archbishops in the fifth arc.

Characters / Re:Zero - Subaru Natsuki

Subaru Natsuki

Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Japanese), Sean Chiplock (English)^{Foreign VAs}

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Characters / Re:Zero - Subaru Natsuki

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Subaru Natsuki

Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Japanese), Sean Chiplock (English) Foreign VAsRicardo Bautista (Latin American Spanish), Xavier Castañer (European Spanish), Grégory Laisné (French), Tim Schwarzmaier (German), Pedro Crispim (Portuguese)

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Voiced by: Yūsuke Kobayashi (Japanese), Sean Chiplock (English)^{Foreign VAs}