YMMV / Dies Irae

• Audience-Alienating Premise: The mere fact that this novel's Nazi villains, including Reinhard Heydrich of all people, are given quite a lot of character and humanizaton to the point that some aren't even portrayed as evil (in a work of fiction made by the Japanese, no less), is enough for it to be a turn-off for many. This was even lampshaded by one of the producers in a Crunchyroll interview, who justified it as an artistic, not political, decision.
• Awesome Art: While the art of the VN is in general of exceptional quality, those on display during conclusion of Rea's route are just on another level and are absolutely stunning.
• Crack Pairing: Some of the choices in the official pairing poll are... interesting, to say the least.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Reinhard. Suffice to say that he is one of the novel's most popular characters and, even disregarding his historical connotations, people tend to forget all his actions throughout the story all of which would have lead to a world of endless warfare and undeath, all just so that he could get a feeling of satisfaction in his life.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kei Sakurai, who got her own route in the ~Acta est Fabula~ version and -Scharlachrot Grun- append disc for the -die Wiederkunft- version. Her precedessor Beatrice Kircheisen also shares this status with her.
  • Rusalka is also a beloved LDO character. She and Lotus even managed to snatch the first position in the official pairing poll!
  • Wilhelm. His design, personality, and powers won him some fans. He even got his own prequel spin-off.
  • Wilhelm and Schreiber, both so much so in Acta Est Fabula they have a huge fight sequence that was sorely missing from the earlier versions. Amantes amentes also adds a flashback fight scene that perpetuated the forming of LDO!
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: In general, those saying that this Visual Novel glorifies Nazism simply based to preview material and the like while having Reinhard as its main antagonist tend to really draw the ire of its fans.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Fate/stay night, especially after its anime came out. The fact that Dies irae managed to get an official localization before F/SN certainly did not help.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Reinhard is sometimes called Kemono-dono (Sir Beast) by fans, the same way Karl adresses him now and then.
  • The final battle in Rea's route tends to be referred to as the Battle of the Three Colors by fans. This came about from an early mistranslation that ended up sticking thanks to the characters Laws being referred to as colors by the narrative, thus making it fit regardless.
• Funny Moments:
  • Kasumi's sudden Angrish after she finds Marie in Ren's bed is certain to bring a smile to the reader.
  • This exchange from Kasumi's/Kei's route:
    Ren: Listen, Marie and I are...
    Marie: ...one in body.
    Ren: Jesus Christ...
    Shirou: So in other words, you're fuck buddies?
    Ren: (Thinking) That's it. Hit list priority change. Him first, Nazi freaks second.
  • After Ren saved Kei from her curse at the Bottomless Pit, Shirou ask him to turn the power back on now that it should have been fixed. Que the monitor showing a naked Kei in the shower followed by a Beat before Ren utterly explodes on Shirou in a rather hilarious fashion while Marie is as clueless as ever. And then Shirou being Shirou decides to connect their phones to the clubs speakers causing everyone left in the building to hear him blurt out about the incident, including Kei in the shower.
• Growing the Beard: While the anime adaptation is largely considered to be a pretty bad adaptation, many agree that its quality improved significantly with the last 6 episodes.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • After Ren's harrowing encounter with Spinne he arrives home and finds Kasumi safe and sound at which point he finally breaks and embraces her, so glad over the fact that she is okay. Although he falls asleep moments later with Kasumi still in his embrace, she decides to stay by his side for the remainder of the night.
  • The end of Marie's epilogue is sure to melt some hearts as Ren meets and is reunited with Marie in her human avatar.
  • The first ending of Rea's route have a surprisingly tender moment with Rea and Marie dancing with Reinhard and Mercurius respectively. Reinhard decides to finally acknowledge Rea as his great granddaughter while Mercurius wholeheartedly admits defeat.
• Ho Yay:
  • By God, Reinhard and Mercurius. So much that they're a major Fan-Preferred Couple.
  • Shirou and Ren has a fair share of this as well. Not helping that Masada had likened their second rooftop fight scene to a sex scene.
  • In a lesser extent, Machina and Lotus's friendship sometimes seen as 'more than a friend' territory. Their focus on the Dies irae GM comics helps this.
  • In general, the hotblooded-ness and the seriousness of many of the fight scenes involving two male characters is ripe for shippy moments.
  • The women aren't exempt either, as Beatrice and Eleanor's duel can attest.
• Memetic Badass: Spinne sometimes tends to jokingly be treated by the fandom (and recently, Masada himself) as secretly the most powerful member of the cast. It's to the point that when Harumitsu and Ayumi played a Dies Irae fighting game in Soushuu Senshinkan Gakuen Hachimyoujin, Ayumi used Spinne to win over Harumitsu who was using Reinhard.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Angry Day^ExplanationA mistranslation of the title by Crunchyroll. Fans had a field day over this
  • In extension, "Sakurai Hotaru"^ExplanationA misreading of Kei's name
  • "You need to read Faust and Friedrich Nietzsche to understand Dies irae more than the surface level!"^ExplanationThis visual novel features a lot of references and Genius Bonus to many works of literature and mythology, but especially Faust and Nietzsche. Understanding of those works aren't exactly required, but a little knowledge helps one to enjoy this work more.
• Narm: The attempts of German accents in the English dub of the anime. Most of them just sound absolutely ridiculous.
• Narm Charm: The novel is often considered the most unapologetically chunni visual novel out there, but to be fair, it does warn that it's an Opera. And with its extensive prose and ridiculous premise it would be considered unbearably cheesy if it wasn't for the fact that it is so unabashedly honest with itself. In addition, its mixture of fantastic music, strong character writing and general Rule of Cool mentality helps make what could have been a cliche ridden bore into something genuinely engaging and entertaining.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The meeting between Trifa and Reinhard after the former had tried to flee from the LDO. Trifa is forced to pick ten of the children he has been caring for to be killed, all while Reinhard coldly counts the number of them killed. This scene then comes back with a vengeance in Rea's route where Rea is Mind Raped and has to witness it all play out before her, all while she is forced into the role as one of the children.
  • The School Massacre. Ren can only stand and watch by the sidelines as he sees all of his schoolmates get slaughtered, with scattered body-parts getting splattered all over the walls.
• Obvious Beta: Also Sprach Zarathustra, due to Executive Meddling.
• Periphery Demographic: While Dies irae technically is a Bishoujo Game, a significant portion of the Japanese fandom overlaps with Boys Love fans, and the novel's playerbase sometimes crosses with the playerbase of Boys Love games, possibly due to the surprising amount of Ho Yay for a male-oriented visual novel.
• Polished Port: Amantes Amentes, to the point where it is known as the best edition of the game by fans. Helps that side stories involving a large screentime of Ensemble Dark Horse characters were added in this version.
  • However, this version had the unfortunate of having cropped CGs in order to accommodate the 16:9 aspect ratio. The HD release addressed this by having aspect ratio options, opting players to switch between 4:3 and 16:9.
• Sequel Displacement: Dies Irae is not the first in its series, but it is the most well known. One novel came before it called Paradise Lost and suffice to say, few people know that it even exists, let alone what it is about.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The novel can take a while to get going. Even more so if one follows the recommended route order. The story starts to pick up the pace roughly after Ren's confrontation with Reinhard on the bridge.
• Squick: Part of Schreiber's backstory includes a patron that screwed him through his eye socket all while digging up his gender identity issues. Suffice to say, this was the moment that completely broke him.
• Tear Jerker:
  • As awesome as the final battle against Shirou and Wilhelm is in Kasumi's route, the aftermath sure leaves things on a bitter note. Shirou is killed alongside Wilhelm while Kei breaks down completely after having been spared by Ren and have now lost everything she found worth living for with the weight and hypocrisy of her crimes now truly sinking in. And then there is Ellies reaction, her unwavering attitude is nowhere to be seen as she lights a cigarette for the now dead Shirou while clearly sounding struggling with sadness yet unable to cry. And the final nail is that the Déjà Vu is still there and stronger than ever, causing her to claim that even though they won the fight, they technically failed to achieve their goals.
  • The end of Kasumi's route. Ren manages to beat Trifa, but not without getting hit by the holy lance, stripping him of Marie which leaves him comatose after the battle. Additionally, Rea get's skewered by her holding Trifa in place for Ren to finish him off. And then as Kasumi is crying over the comatose Ren at the hospital, she meets Kei and get's a taste of everything that Ren had to endure. But instead of Kei killing Kasumi she commits suicide instead, opening the final Swastika while Kasumi cries over her and remises of the short time they spent together. And although the summoning of Reinhard was halted, it was nothing more than a speed bump as the souls of everyone, Kei included, are now part of his Valhalla. And it is a fate that Kasumi herself will one day suffer as well as a Sonnenkind. Suffice to say, there are no winners and no happy endings in this this route.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Reinhard Heydrich is the Big Bad who was the leader of the Gestapo, wants to destroy the world and had Kick the Dog moments like ordering Trifa's kids dead and using the Stigmatas to cause the LDO physical pain. However, the fact that he exists only thanks to being Mercurius's apoptosis has fridge logic the story never really acknowledges - how much of his villainy is on him and not just thanks to Mercurius's influence and encouragement, that even in Marie's world he's the only one of the cast to remain truly unfulfilled thanks to his nature, and finally the story itself never showing the actual Nazi atrocities he caused, led to some people feeling like he was mishandled as a character.
• Values Dissonance: The story have some very clear views on gender roles, following with traditional Japanese thinking. A heavy focus is put on the various females wanting to be subservient housewives to their loved ones. Additionally, characters such as Eleonore are portrayed as vulgar for having abandoned the "woman's battlefield" a.k.a. choosing the war over the concept of family and children.