I'm never going to be good enough.
I'll never live up to their expectations.
Who am I?
And why does anything I do even matter?
I should just give up.
You know, honestly, if you've been alive long enough,
you've asked yourself one, if not several
of these questions before,
because what people don't really tell you
is that being yourself can be considered
the hardest job ever, you know, depending on who you ask.
And if you ask this character for this episode,
he say that it's close to impossible to just be himself.
And of course, the character I'm talking about
is the star of ReZero, Subaru, Naski.
["Ring of the Bells"]
Hey, what's going on guys?
My name is Nate, and you're listening
to the Otaku Liberation,
the show where we help you break free from the chains
that are holding you back in your life
by connecting some biblical principles
with things from your favorite anime.
And without further ado, let's get into it.
So the first one I want to go over today
in regards to Subaru and his kind of journey
of self-discovery, right, is Romans chapter 14, verse eight.
It says, if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord.
Therefore, whether we live or die,
we belong to the Lord.
And what I want to kind of break down
and kind of dissect from the verse
in how it applies to Subaru and ourselves
is that one, knowing we are God's is paramount.
And in knowing that, you know who you are as well, right?
You know that you were created for a purpose,
you're here for a purpose,
and you're still here for a purpose, right?
And the fact that you wake up each and every day
means your role isn't over yet.
You're not done.
And I don't know about you, that feels good to me,
knowing that I get to wake up another day, right?
And for now, for Subaru to discover that,
because he doesn't just know that innately, right?
None of us do.
We don't know that even if we're told,
we have to eventually believe it,
even once we see it for ourselves.
And for Subaru, from the longest time,
he was, honestly just grew up in his dad's shadow.
And from what we understand, his dad was super likable,
kind of a every man, so to speak, right?
You know, athletic, super smart,
he helped out around the town that Subaru grew up in.
So everyone knew him, everyone loves him, and all of that.
And because of that, every time they saw Subaru,
it was always, oh, you're so-so son, right?
Forgive me, his Subaru dad's name escapes me right now,
but essentially they never saw Subaru, not Skidish,
they saw him as his dad's son.
And that kind of developed a sort of inferiority complex
to him.
Now, for those of you who have older siblings,
or even in this same scenario, have parents who,
maybe you grew up in the same town that they grew up in,
and everyone just loves them to death.
They're super awesome.
They're just best names to slice bread.
And you come up behind them, and all they see is,
basically you being that person's younger sibling, child,
whatever the case may be,
instead of seeing you as your own person, right?
So that can develop a lot of different things.
You can be resentment towards the person
you're being compared to, because, you know,
how dare they be this good, or this great,
or whatever the case may be.
And now no one sees me for me.
And what ultimately ends up happening for a lot of the time
is what Subaru ends up doing is,
you become so desperate for attention,
attention for who you are and not who you're related to,
who you're being compared to, right?
To get people to understand you're not that person,
you're your own person.
And, like I said, in Subaru's case,
he tried to become essentially the class clown.
Always, he never took anything serious,
or he never took a serious situation serious,
a lot of seriousness.
But no matter what would happen,
he'd always try to crack a joke and make people laugh,
just do outrageous things,
just to get that type of attention and validation.
And so for me, in my own personal life,
it's a similar situation,
but not the exact same, for the same reasons.
The other guy with episode,
well I know I talked about before,
how for the longest time, I felt like I had to be perfect,
and I had to just be perfect at every single thing that I do,
no matter what it was, school, sports, work,
any extra side thing I decided to do,
I felt like I had to be perfect and the best at.
Otherwise, I felt like I was letting everyone down.
And part of that, the reason is because,
again, I have an older sibling who wasn't,
she wasn't just the best thing since I was bred,
she's more along the other side,
on the opposite way.
Now, again, this was just in the past, she's grown up,
she's 10 times better than what it was.
But at that time, she wasn't, right?
And there's a lot of personal baggage there,
let me just put it that way.
And for me, being the younger sibling,
coming up and seeing all of that,
seeing how it affected my parents,
how it affected my relationship with her,
how it affected her relationship with everybody,
you know, seeing it at a young age,
it made me decide to try to never be like that,
and to do everything in my power
to not come out of that way,
to not put my parents through that, to not just,
when people say my name, not to have that type of look,
not to have that type of, here you go, you know what I'm saying?
And it wasn't too like recently,
maybe last two, three years,
where I finally came to terms with that,
because for the longest time,
for me, it wasn't so much a desperate for attention
type thing, it was just I was carrying around this burden
that I didn't need to carry, right?
And this is the burden I gave myself.
And again, the cause of that,
I mean, the cause, the result of that was,
you know, just a lot of just anger and pent up frustration
just throughout my life.
Again, until two, maybe three years ago,
when I came to the realization
that's where it was coming from,
because for the longest time,
I didn't know where it was coming from.
I didn't realize that that was doing something
to my mental state, my emotions and things like that.
But when I got older and started doing the self work,
started reflecting and just really trying to get
to the root of why am I so angry all the time?
And lo and behold, that's what it was.
Now, in Subaru's case, again,
it wasn't so much an anger type thing.
It was just he was desperate to have people see him for him
and not to not see his father.
But that backfired, and all his horse playing
and things like that, he ended up pushing people away.
People never got to know who he was
and he never knew how to build genuine relationships
like the ones that are, you know,
the true ride or die is, right?
Because yeah, we've all had that one person.
You may be that one person who is the class clown,
who's always joking, who can never take anything serious
and no one can ever take that person serious, right?
So that was Subaru.
That was Subaru.
He was that person you can never take serious,
so no one ever did.
And again, that caused him to not really understand
what true companionship, true friendship
and stuff like that was until he ended up in Laguna Gah,
in the place where 3-0 takes place.
And through all of this,
it's caused a serious case of self-loathing.
He feels that no matter what he does,
he's never good enough.
Again, back to the whole being compared to other people,
right?
It doesn't have to be family.
It doesn't, yeah, I know it hits a home for a lot of people
because it typically is your family
as you're being compared to, for better or for worse.
But any comparison to your peers at school, right?
You may not be the top of the class,
maybe you're just kind of mid-level in the,
you know, you're just average, right?
Which is okay.
I mean, again, they,
B's and C's go past classes, right?
But that doesn't mean you don't try your best
and try to go for the A's.
But it's just the, when you compare your,
either way you compare yourself to somebody else
or somebody else is comparing you to another person,
it creates this type of pressure, right?
Like I said earlier, in my case, right?
It raises pressure and just baggage of something
that you don't have to carry, right?
Because you're unique, you're uniquely made,
you're made with love and there's never gonna be
anyone else like you ever again, right?
You're one of a kind.
And trying to compare yourself to somebody else
or being compared to somebody else just diminishes that.
It diminishes the greatness of your uniqueness, right?
I mean, I want everyone to embrace who they are
and embrace what makes us unique, what makes us different,
what makes us strong, what makes us weak, right?
And again, like I said earlier,
I know being yourself is the hardest job
that we, any of us can do.
Because in the society where,
because in order to live in a society and a community,
we have to conform to understand, right?
I mean, there's rules for a reason, right?
We have to, you know, we have to follow the guidelines.
But again, where does that stop, right?
When does that, where does, you know, you begin, right?
I know some people, they take everything just seriously.
Like their personality is whatever society says, right?
And that's not, I mean, that's not true.
You weren't always like that, right?
You look at a bunch of little kids, you just believe
they don't care about what any of the rules are, right?
They don't care about, you know,
if you're big, tall, you know, skinny, short,
and they don't care, they just don't.
You're gonna get talked about just the same
and you're gonna have fun with them just the same too.
You know, it's just the beauty of being a child, right?
You're not exposed to all the craziness
that as an adult or as a teenager,
as you know, young adult, older, stuff like that,
they're not exposed to that type of thing,
which as it should be.
So I think the beginning of us finding who we are
and really embracing who we are,
just is going back to that time,
going back to when we were kids
and we were just playing on the playground,
playing in the yard and things like that.
And really just exploring, right?
Explore who you are, who you are,
by looking at who you were, right?
You know, could do their self-reflection
because I know a lot of these episodes,
a lot of the things I go over is about self-reflection,
but it doesn't always have to be the negative side, right?
You know, the causes of, you know,
the traumas that you might experience in your life.
And just go back to the beautiful times too,
the joyous times, the things that really get you going,
the things that at one point in time,
it's the only thing you can think about
when you got up in the morning
to when you went to bed at night, right?
And, or the next morning, you know,
I'm looking at you gamers.
But go back to that time,
go back to when, you know,
we were living life and not just living through it.
And I do think that as we get older,
as we start getting kind of, you know,
bogged down with, you know,
the pressures of being a functioning,
contributing citizen in society,
that we forget what it means to actually live
and to actually enjoy our lives
instead of just going through it,
trying to survive it, right?
Because there is a difference between trying to survive
and trying in living.
And, you know, I just don't want us to get lost in that,
right?
So whatever that means to you,
whatever that speaks to you,
I'm hoping to raise a name for somebody.
Because honestly, that's been my quest
in my young life so far is just to live
and not just survive.
And that's kind of the real kind of big point
I kind of want to drive home.
And, you know, honestly, it's,
again, all this is easier said than done, right?
Nothing in life is free and nothing good
is ever going to come without a little hard work, right?
Sometimes a lot of hard work.
So let me go back to Subaru.
So in Subaru's case, you know, he's been self-loathing,
he's been living in his ass shadow,
doing everything he can to stand out,
even if it's not good stuff, right?
And again, like I said, all that really doesn't change
until he goes to, or he is brought to Lugunica,
which again is the town or main city of Re Zero.
It's where most of the stuff takes place.
And the people in Lugunica accept him for him, right?
They accept Subaru for Subaru because guess what?
They don't know his dad.
They don't even know who he is, right?
Until he shows up just randomly on one day.
And it's because they only see him.
He gets to be himself in full totality,
all the weak sorryness that he displays at times
to the brave, courageous courage that he displays
when the going gets tough.
And just to blame the honesty that he provides him, right?
I mean, Subaru, he just like, look,
he's a very objective outlook on life
and honestly, I can respect it.
And for, but there's two, yeah, yeah, I can say, yeah,
two main characters on there who just happen to be
the two main love interests for him are Rem and Amelia
who truly see him for him.
They allow him to open his eyes to who he was, right?
To realize that he's Subaru Natsuki.
He's not his dad.
He's not just his dad's kid, right?
He's his own person.
And for him, he didn't really realize that
until he got there, until they blatantly just told him,
you know, they fell in love with him because he's him.
He's Subaru.
No one else, they're not comparing to anybody else.
He's not, you know, whatever the case,
whatever you want to say, but he's just Subaru.
And I want to just bring that up and say,
who do we have to pull us out of our hole, right?
When we get into the hole of self-loathing,
when we get in our own heads and our own space
and just start really tearing ourselves down or start,
when we start comparing ourselves to other people,
who do we have, who do you have that can, you know,
knock some sense into you, give you a couple of slaps
and then hug you and say, you know what?
Nope, I just love you for you.
I don't want you to be you.
I don't want you to be anybody else.
And, you know, just give you, honestly,
that boost that you need, right?
Because we all need it, right?
Even the biggest, toughest, strongest person,
whether physically or mentally,
they need a break.
They need help.
You know, we all need help.
They didn't get there just because of their own strength.
Somebody helped them along the way,
whether directly or not.
And it's important to have those type of people
close to you, you know, not just for in times of need,
when your need is on the line,
but really those are just genuine people
who are going to make your life better, right?
I mean, like I always say, life is hard.
Going through it is tough, it's difficult.
We got to learn how to navigate it.
You know, our parents, if you're blessed enough
to have your parents in your life
who guide you and show you to their best of their ability,
because one, they're not perfect.
Two, the world has changed since they were kids, right?
Not everything's the same.
So, but they're doing their best.
And then after a while,
you have to figure it out for yourself, right?
Take what you've learned and then move forward
and then you adapt to what the world is.
And then once you get out there,
that's where, you know, the community and village mindset
comes into play for reals when you have other
like-minded people who just come together
and, you know, just look out for each other, you know?
Flaws and all, they just see you for you.
And that's why I want you guys to really,
if you don't have that person, be that person first,
and then they'll come to you.
I truly believe that you are what you attract, right?
If you attract, if you find yourself surrounded
by negative people all the time, then the problem
might be you, in all honesty.
Maybe try to work on your own outlook
and find things that just bring joy and positivity
into your life, then naturally those people
are gonna start coming to you too.
So, like I said, again, to create who we want to be,
we must first face who we used to be
and accept who we are.
So, again, I'm not saying to ignore all the bad
so that's happened.
I'm not saying to only focus on all the bad.
I'm not saying to focus on all the things
that we wish we hadn't done,
things that may have been done to us.
I'm not saying don't forget it.
I'm saying to forgive it and let it be in the past, right?
Because, again, like I always say,
I sound like a broken record on these episodes sometimes,
but just if you look in the past,
you're gonna stay in the past, right?
If you look too far into the future and start idolizing it,
you're never gonna be in the present.
You're never in the past, plan your present,
and then move towards your future.
That's pretty much it.
And then again, it all starts with you.
It starts with us.
It starts internally.
We have to put in the work to reap the rewards.
And for Subaru, he didn't really quite get that
because, again, his power in Re Zero
is what he calls return by death.
And it does exactly what it sounds like.
When he dies, he returns to a previous save point
that he doesn't choose now.
It's random.
It's randomly set at whatever interval it's set at.
And then he basically gets a redo,
he gets a do-over from that point on.
And it was given to him by the Witch of Envy,
which we still don't know why she gave it to him
because she's infatuated with Subaru for some reason,
but she gave it to him as to keep him safe, right?
If he ends up dead for whatever reason,
she can just redo it so he's living.
But for instance, in Subaru's case,
he uses it to avoid disasters coming his way
and not just for his own sake,
but for the sake of the people around him,
which is very noble.
But the issue is that even though he has future knowledge,
he rarely uses it the first time around,
like even so they, excluding the first couple of loops
when he realized he had this power, right?
Again, you die and next thing you know,
you wake up like a day or a couple of hours before
you're not knowing what happened, right?
I get that.
But as the series goes on,
even when he first starts looping in a new loop,
he never really takes the knowledge
of what he had going into the next loop.
He just still kind of flies by the seat of his pants.
And as a sidebar, as a viewer, it kind of annoys me,
but it's part of his charm, I guess.
But for our sakes, right, it just goes to show you
even if you could change that moment in time,
if you really could go back in the past
and make a different decision,
you know, the end result very well
still might be the same thing, right?
Because there's no guarantee that if we change
something about our past, something that we didn't like,
that we would rather not have happen,
it doesn't mean that the outcome
is gonna be any different.
It could be or it could not be.
I mean, I guess that's the beauty of the unknown, right?
Because we don't know anything,
only God knows everything, right?
We just gotta move forward, we just gotta keep going.
And honestly, the biggest kind of takeaway
I wanna take from this, because in Tsuru's case,
even though he knows pretty much what's going to happen,
he still lets his emotions get the best of him.
And it causes him to make some rash decisions,
which ends up with him dying again,
until he finally gets to write five or six loops
down the road.
But it just really goes to show that if we don't learn
from our experience and learn from our mistakes,
then we're gonna be doomed to repeat them, right?
We've all heard the cliche saying,
I know, I hear your boos, but there's some truth to it,
right, there's some truth.
If we don't learn, we're gonna do the same thing
over and over and over and over again.
It's kind of funny, because in my house,
we have a saying for people like that,
we call them habituals.
Like again, you're being habitual,
means you're doing the same thing over and over again
in getting the same result,
but you're still gonna try to do it anyway.
And it's always funny.
And because if we say to our dog about our dog,
meaning again, it's his instinct,
even though he gets the same discipline,
every time he does something he's not supposed to,
he's still gonna do it anyway.
And a lot of us go through life like that, right?
Just being habitual.
A lot of us just go through life,
even though it isn't a workout for me the last 1500 times,
I'm still gonna do the same, the exact same thing
and this time, this 1500th in one time
is gonna be the different one.
No, no, that's not the case.
That's not the case, man.
If you're doing the exact same thing over and over again,
expecting a different result, then you're insane.
And so instead of doing the same thing over and over again,
why not just tweak it a little bit?
Why not try to improve upon it?
Whatever it is, whether it's a skill, task, relationships,
going to the gym, trying to look for a job,
whatever it is, whatever it is, you know what it is,
I don't know, but whatever it is
that you're trying to improve upon,
whatever it is that, or whatever opportunity
that you're trying to seek,
instead of looking to change opportunities in the past,
learn from those so you can create your own in the future.
Or better yet, just be ready
when those opportunities do come in the future
so that way you have the knowledge
for how it turned out the first time
going into the second time.
So yeah, that's pretty much it.
So that's all I got for you guys today.
Just wanna thank you for tuning in to today's episode
and I pray that you got what you needed out of it
and that you learned something new about yourself.
And I mean, at this point,
you would think you know everything about yourself,
but you don't, trust me, you don't.
Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
I would love reading you guys' comments
and it helps me improve each and every episode.
And always remember, you are the main character
of your story and that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right, be blessed.
And I'll see you guys next time.