ReZero Fans Criticize Julius vs. Reid Fight Animation

And there goes another episode of ReZero Season 4, which has been receiving plenty of criticism over its animation.

In Episode 16, fans complained about how the anime failed to properly convey an important scene involving Subaru. Now, the discussion has shifted to the animation of the fight between Julius and Reid.

Many viewers weren’t happy with the work from animator Chansard Vincent, who is known for working on several highly praised anime fight scenes. This time, however, it seems he didn’t win everyone over.

Watch Julius vs. Reid in ReZero

You can watch the full fight between Julius and Reid below:

When discussing the fight’s animation on his Twitter, Vincent said he had very little time to work on the scene.

According to him, he only received the material to work on the day of the deadline. The animator also revealed that there are parts of the fight that didn’t turn out exactly the way he wanted.

Even so, several fans congratulated him on his work in his Twitter post, saying the fight’s animation looked great and that they hope to see him return for a possible ReZero Season 5.

Re Fans Criticize the Fight Animation

But, obviously, not everyone was happy with the fight’s animation.

Some viewers heavily criticized the episode, while others said they simply couldn’t understand what was happening during certain parts of the battle.

One fan even edited the opening scene of Julius running and added the sound effect of Mr. Krabs’ footsteps from SpongeBob SquarePants:

Here are some reactions from Japanese fans:

• You can tell they put a lot of effort into the animation, but honestly, it was hard to understand.
• I heard they brought in a really good animator, so I had high expectations, but it wasn’t all that. Maybe I’m also just numb from watching too many anime with amazing animation.
• I’m not really a fan of these fight scenes where the lines get all warped and distorted. I felt the same way during Garf’s fight in Season 3.
• Defeating Reid was so easy and quick that there was no sense of catharsis at all.
• I was really looking forward to this episode, but it wasn’t what I expected. Honestly, the animation was kind of disappointing.
• They complained that it was too fast, and now they made this episode way too slow. It felt like they were fighting underwater. As far as movement goes, Garf vs. Elsa in Season 2 was the best.
• So everyone else thought it was too slow too? Couldn’t they have made it just a little faster?
• I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but… the animation in the Julius vs. Reid fight is pretty weak.
• A lot of people are praising the animation, but there are also plenty of people who don’t think it was anything special.
• These heavily distorted fight scenes show up every now and then, but do people actually like this style? It happens in some Naruto and Mushoku Tensei fights too.
• The fight animation was kind of funny to watch. They clearly worked hard on it, but it feels like it was seriously lacking in artistic direction and budget.
• At some points, it looked like everything melted into something a grade-school kid had drawn lol.
• I couldn’t understand anything anymore.
• It was a fight I couldn’t understand, followed by a finishing move I couldn’t understand either. What even was that? Was it some kind of reality-altering ability that made it count as him being hit?
• A lot of people don’t understand why Julius won.
• The movements really were weird lol.

As for my own opinion, I’ve already made this clear since a certain episode of Heavenly Delusion: I don’t like these “distorted” or “stylized” animation techniques in fights or certain scenes.

And yes, I didn’t like the animation in this fight.

While watching it, I had that really bad feeling of “not this again.” I completely understand why some people love this kind of animation, but personally, I prefer anime that maintain a more consistent visual language throughout the entire series.

In the end, I think this is one of those situations where you can recognize the animators’ skill and effort, but the style simply isn’t going to work for everyone.

Tell me what you thought about the animation in the Julius vs. Reid fight.