Spring’s Isekai Quartet was one of my favorites of the season–and I will eternally be disappointed that it can’t be canon.
Isekai Quartet follows the characters of popular series Overlord, KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World, Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World and The Saga of Tanya the Evil, as they are kidnapped from their respective fantasy worlds and are forced to interact in an absurdist high school setting.
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
Despite this comical premise, the characterization and reactions of our characters are played straight–i.e., they act just as they would in their own respective anime. But better still, through their interactions with each other, we gain a deeper and more meaningful impression of our heroes.
Honestly, it’s great–far beyond what I would expect from a gag-based short-form anime. Because of this, I longed for the possibility that it could have happened–that it would fit with the already established canon of each related anime. At the very least, I hoped to find proof that there was a time in each respective source material where each series’ characters could have been transported to the high school world. And it looked good… at first, anyway.
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
Nothing in Isekai Quartet contradicts The Saga of Tanya the Evil, technically, the characters could have been pulled out of their series from any time after Tanya’s squad was first spent to war in episode 5 and were near the capitol. While most of her commanders serve as the school’s administration, none of her enemies appear–be that Anson Sue, his daughter Mary, or the mysterious Being X–so there’s no easy way to narrow down the timeline.
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
As for Overlord, the timeline can be narrowed down much more precisely. In the first episode of Isekai Quartet, Ainz, Albedo and the rest of the generals have a meeting about their plans going forward in respect towards the Kingdom, the Empire, and their own Sorcerer’s Kingdom. As the Sorcerer’s Kingdom was founded in the closing minutes of Overlord III, it’s safe to say that Isekai Quartet takes place immediately after the end of that series.
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
On the Konosuba side of things, Isekai Quartet begins with Kazuma and the girls living in their mansion, discussing what to do with the mysterious button they found. As they float the idea of taking it to Vanir, this dates the events as happening after episode 6 of Konosuba 2 at least.
So with the first three series, everything looks good. If nothing else, the events of Isekai Quartet could at least potentially take place. Unfortunately, it’s the events of Re:Zero that mess everything up.
There are four special trailers for Isekai Quartet. Each one serves as a prequel short of sorts, showing what was happening in the four fantasy worlds just before the mysterious button showed up. The Re:Zero short follows Emilia and Subaru working out outside Roswaal’s mansion and then discussing how Rem and Ram in as they found a mysterious button. From there, we can assume that someone pushed the button and Rem, Ram, Betty, Subaru, and Emilia were all pulled into the school world.
There’s just one problem with this: in the back half of Re:Zero, there are no occasions where the group mentioned above are at Roswaal’s mansion–the last time that happens is in the opening minutes of episode 12. Logically, this would suggest that Isekai Quartet takes place before this time–perhaps around the same time as the Memory Snow OVA.
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
Unfortunately, in episode 10 of Isekai Quartet we learn of the existence of Class 1–a second group of characters taken from each of the four fantasy worlds. Among them is Re:Zero’s Julius, a man both enemy and ally to Subaru over several timelines. Subaru and Julius are no stranger to each other in Isekai Quartet–and therein lies the problem. Subaru and Julius meet for the first time in episode 12 of Re:Zero–but only after Subaru and Emilia depart the mansion and arrive in the capital. There is simply no time in the series where A) Subaru has met Julius and B) Rem, Ram, Betty, Subaru, and Emilia are in the mansion.
“But Richard,” I hear you say, “what about Isekai Quartet taking place after the end of the anime like with Overlord?”
Yeah… about that…
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
**MAJOR SPOILERS BEGIN FOR RE:ZERO’S UPCOMING SECOND SEASON**
Assuming the anime follows the plot of the novels, the happy ending we got at the end of Re:Zero’s first season is a bit of a lie. Before Subaru was enjoying his Emilia lap pillow–even before he fought Betelgeuse and the witch’s cult, actually–Rem was attacked by two other Sin Archbishops and left in a perpetual coma. And given the other events that happen in the fourth set of loops, there’s no way Rem, Ram, Betty, Subaru, and Emilia will all be happy and hale in Roswaal’s mansion anytime soon.
**MAJOR SPOILERS END FOR RE:ZERO’S UPCOMING SECOND SEASON**
Image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
So there you have it. There’s not a single time when Isekai Quartet could take place in the Re:Zero anime timeline. While Isekai Quartet is, in the end, just a gag anime, it’s just a bit of a shame that there’s no possibility that it actually happened.
And that saddens me far more than it probably should.
Isekai Quartet can be seen in English on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Aniplus.
Top image source: 『異世界かるてっと』公式 on Twitter
I’ve been thinking about this article for a while, and I’m here to say you’ve overlooked a solution that absolutely works. In the cases of Tanya, Konosuba, and Overlord, we have confirmation of the button was pressed in each of their worlds. BUT with Re:Zero, strangely we never did get to see how the button was pressed, or who pressed it. What we do know is that Rem and Ram found it, and that Subaru hit the nail right on the head, saying not to press it because they’d get warped to another world. He said not to push it, and despite Ram’s likelihood of wanting to defy Subaru, what’s the most likely thing that would be done? The button would be given to Roswaal! Roswal isn’t the type to press a button like that randomly or without research. Most likely, he studied the button and was able to figure something or other out. He does seem to be the most knowledgeable about the school themed world that everyone is warped in to. So again to reiterate; Roswaal likely took the button and did NOT press it at the same time period that it was found. It could have been pressed at any time afterwards, regardless of who found it. It should be clear from Quartet that many characters are warped who likely didn’t press their own buttons, and got warped by association, so there is no need for all the characters in Re:Zero to be together whenever it does eventually get pressed. Perhaps we will learn more about everything soon, but the fact that we were never shown the button being pressed by the Re:Zero crew is clearly intentional. Beatrice is one of the recent episodes is very curious about how Mare got to that world, and seems to be on to something in general. Who controls the buttons, we don’t know yet, but clearly somebody wanted Ainz there, and used trickery to get him to sit upon the button. Tanya pushing the button makes enough sense I suppose, and obviously the Konosuba crew were gonna press it. But interestingly enough, they found their button on a quest. So that may have been the true start to all of it. And time likely doesnt function linearly in the Quartet world, so once the events are over, characters will likely be sent back to the same time they left, and it’s likely that most memories of it will be wiped. But I’m hoping that Ainz, Subaru, Kazuma, and Tanya all remember it. Thus explaining why they won’t talk about it again. You can’t talk about an experience forever that nobody else remembers right? 😉