Re:ZERO's Priestella: The Watergate City is a Beautiful Setting for Season 3 (2024)

The third season of Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World takes place one year after the events of the second season, with Subaru now officially recognized as Emilia’s knight during the Royal Selection and contracted with Beatrice. A new visitor arrives to extend an invitation from Anastasia to Emilia, asking her to meet in the Watergate City of Priestella for a meeting. In exchange, Anastasia promises to connect Emilia with someone who has a magic crystal capable of serving as a catalyst for recalling the feline Puck.

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As the intrepid adventures set off on this new adventure, the scene of Priestella features heavily within the story, making a unique backdrop for Subaru and his companions. From its enigmatic history as a trap for an unknown beast to its elements of Japanese (or Kararagi) influences, the lake city of Priestella serves as a beautiful stage for this next season of Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World.

Priestella Sits Within a Massive Crater in the Middle of a Lake

It was Originally Meant to be a Trap for an Unknown Creature

Re:ZERO's Priestella: The Watergate City is a Beautiful Setting for Season 3 (1)

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The movie-length third season opener starts with Joshua, the younger brother of Julius, extending an invitation to Emilia on behalf of Anastasia. She requests Emailia's attendance at a meeting in the Watergate City of Priestella, and in exchange, she'll connect Emilia with someone who might have a magic crystal needed to restore Puck. Having never heard of the place before, Subaru learns from the others that the water gates used in the name of the city help regulate the flow of water into and out of the city, as it resides in the center of a lake. High walls keep the water out, with the gates serving to manage the flow of the canals within the city, thus allowing it to thrive in such an odd location.

Having accepted the offer, Subaru, Emilia, Beatrice, Otto and Garf arrive at the outskirts of the Watergate City of Priestella. Various bridges stretch out from the surrounding land’s shorelines to reach the city located in the middle of the lake, with strict checkpoints and security regulating the flow of people entering and leaving the city. As Subaru jokes, the hard-to-reach location of the city and the strict security make the place feel more like a water prison as opposed to a water city, but when the steel doors rise, Subaru and his friends receive their first look inside the stunning Priestella, a city with heavily Venetian vibes.

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As the city sits within a crater, the rim of the city sits higher than the center, with Subaru and the group able to see across the vast and picturesque cityscape before venturing inside. Built on a lake with 400-year-old technology, Beatrice explains that the intricate water canals threading throughout the entire city of Priestella might make for a strange choice, but they were meant to be part of a trap. In a mysterious and perhaps foreboding twist, she further explains that no records remain outlining what the trap was used for. The lack of knowledge leaves an ominous feeling with the viewer, with the audience now considering that Subaru might encounter the beast this elaborate trap was built for.

Dragon-Drawn Boats Provide Easier Transportation than Dragon-Drawn Carriages

The Solid Land Pathways Make for a Complex Maze

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With the canals featuring prominently and liberally throughout the city, the stretches of land within the city were built around the waterways, making the footpaths through the buildings a complicated maze. The labyrinth of Priestella could easily make it so that people new to the city get lost easily, with the swaths of land organized in complicated ways. The force with which the characters describe the complex networks of walkways could hint at them cropping up again later on in the season, but whether in a manner to help or hinder the main characters remains to be seen.

As the waterways serve as the primary pathways, dragon-drawn boats have become the optimal form of transportation in Priestella. The blue-skinned swimmers mirror the earth dragons greatly, with Patrasche — Suabru's own dragon companion and one of the best things to happen to him — even calling out to a water dragon as they first enter the city. Their ease of use and importance to the city is highlighted when Anastasia arranges for Emilia and the others to take a dragon-drawn boat to a meeting she has set up for them, and Otto explains that even getting the water dirty is a severely penalized crime.

The confusing layout of the city is teased both when the group arrives and again when Subaru and Beatrice decide to walk to a meeting instead of riding in a boat, with the pair growing lost and needing a guide to navigate the twisty routes. After growing lost, Subaru and Beatrice meet the traveling bard Liliana, who possesses a beautiful singing voice but makes up songs with some odd lyrics. Once she learns who Subaru is, she offers to guide them to the meeting place with Emilia's magic crystal seller, though the meeting unfortunately goes south before Emilia can seal the deal on what she needs.

Elements of the Japanese-Inspired Kararagi Bleed Into the City

This is due to the Close Proximity of the Two Lands

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As Subaru, Emilia and the rest of their camp arrive at the meeting place selected by Anastasia, Subaru is delightfully surprised to find the place resembles a Japanese Inn. The low tables, the tatami mats, the zen garden in the back — nearly all the elements of the Inn take inspiration from the nearby Kararagi country. Even the customs remain the same, with people needing to remove their shoes before entering the interior of the house, sitting on the floor, using futons instead of beds and expected to wear yakata indoors as well. In a funny twist, Anastasia explains to Subaru that the architecture style is known as Wafuu architecture and is a traditional style in Kararagi, which could be a tongue-in-cheek play on words with waifus, of which the anime world has quite a few waifus.

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Priestella, as Otto further explains, was built by Hoshin of the Wilderness, one of the same men who also founded Kararagi, which would explain the similarities between the architectural styles in Kararagi and some of the locations in Priestella. While Hoshin lived more than four hundred years ago, his innovative ideas and creative applications made him well-known, and most likely assisted with the Hoshin Company — the most influential and an exceedingly wealthy company in Kararagi — securing such a strong foothold in commerce. Given the strong similarities between Japanese design and Wafuu architecture and Kararagi customs, Subaru suspects that he came from another world, probably Japan, just like himself.

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The Inn features heavily in that first episode, with many of the characters spending time getting to know each other and engaging in Kararagi culture and cuisine. Subaru takes the opportunity to chat with Wilhelm van Astrea while they're both admiring the zen garden at night, urging him to reconcile with Reinhard after learning the two are grandfather and gradson. And the audience is given a special treat, seeing all their fan-favorite characters dressed in traditional yukata clothing, something that might not have been possible given the isekai nature of the series.

Re:ZERO's Priestella: The Watergate City is a Beautiful Setting for Season 3 (5)

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World-

TV-14

Animation

Comedy

Action

Fantasy

Release Date
April 3, 2016

Cast
Yûsuke Kobayashi , Rie Takahashi , Yumi Uchiyama , Chinatsu Akasaki , Yuichi Nakamura , Inori Minase , Rie Murakawa , Takehito Koyasu , Satomi Arai , Kōhei Amasaki , Nobuhiko Okamoto , Kaori Nazuka , Aimi Tanaka , Maaya Sakamoto , Marika Kouno , Mugihito , Kenta Miyake , Hibiku Yamamura , Koki Koyasu
Main Genre
Animation

Seasons
1
Streaming Service(s)
Crunchyroll
Re:ZERO's Priestella: The Watergate City is a Beautiful Setting for Season 3 (2024)
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