Category: Steins;Gate 0

Hello again everyone! For those few that actually read these, apologies for missing a week. You’ll soon see why I couldn’t muster up a full post for it in just a moment. Steins;Gate 0 has been rocky for me lately, but this week atleast has started it onto an upswing. Lets jump in and see why!

So general basic stuff first. Steins;Gate 0 once again makes it clear its not an action series. Don’t get me wrong, the apartment scene with Suzuha was better than Mr.Braun’s, but it’s hardly the high point of the episode for me. Part of that might be because of the characters involved, which we will get to. Other than that, this week mostly focused on getting us up to speed for the 2nd Cour. It was almost like a first episode again in a lot of ways, reintroducing characters and laying down starting plot threads. Im glad, because the last 2 episodes of almost nothing relevant have been painful to say the least. And I know the exact cause of that pain, for me at least.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 13/14” →

Hello everyone and welcome to the midpoint of the season! This week we have the weirdest game of anime telephone I have ever seen. Lets jump in!

So first off, the big thing, Steins;Gate 0 this week is a B-plot. A side-story almost irrelevant to the main story. Its cute, its fluffy, it gets a little dark at the end and it all wraps up in a single episode. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Its pretty clear that Steins;Gate 0 is going for a time-skip, we already skipped 2 weeks. Instead of jumping straight there it looks like they are taking the chance to tell some side stories. Considering how “finale” episode 11 was, the timing works out. Its just… it wasn’t the best episode. The problem with B-plots like this is they don’t really push the story forward. We get context and moments of certain relationships which we really needed, we will talk about some of those later. But what really happened this week? A glorified game of telephone, that’s what.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 12 [Mother Goose of Mutual Recursion -Recursive Mother Goose-]” →

Welcome to Steins;Gate 0, this week with the most “final” middle of a series episode ever. We have drama, we have guns, we even have probable time skips! Lets jump in.

This was an overall solid episode. It tried to wrap up, or tie together, a lot of plot threads and resolve character arcs before jumping into its second half. None of the drama really felt forced, though I do think Maho’s bathroom scene shouldn’t have been played for comedy. In general it was just a solid wrap before things start to get crazy. I say start to because episode 12 is when the original Steins;Gate really kicked into gear, so I expect White Fox to be going for a similar pace here. Now, on to specifics!

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 11 [Pandora of Forgotten Existence -Sealed Reliquary-]” →

Welcome one and all to another week of Steins;Gate 0! This week we have fluffy, lovable dates, awkward fan service and terrible revelations. Lets jump in!

So overall this week felt mostly like a filler episode. I understand that some of the contents were necessary for relationship building and such. That it was a sort of “Calm before the storm” as things begin in earnest. That doesn’t change the fact that, outside of Okabe’s “date” with Maho, nothing much really mattered this episode. The contents ranged from lovable cute character moments to terribly awkward fan service, which I will get into in a moment. My hope is that this is the slowest Steins;Gate 0 gets. That after this, with Okabe outing himself to Maho and her revelations with the laptop, the central conflict will come back into play. We will have to wait and see. Now though, lets get into specifics.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 10 [Pandora of Provable Existence -Forbidden Cubicle-]” →

Welcome, another week another dose of Steins;Gate 0. This week is a very relaxed, calm episode for the most part so we can wind down from last weeks tragic drama. Lets jump in!

This week was, compared to last, a slow one and that’s a good thing. The main plot with Amadeus is laid out and Okabe now has his motivation, so letting everything stew for a while should help us reconnect with all the characters. This episode really seemed like a general role call sort of thing. Here are the ones that matter, here’s all of our plot threads like Suzuha’s desperation and Kagari’s amnesia or Maho’s secrecy. It was a good change of pace after the packed drama of last week. Steins;Gate 0 also took the opportunity, the quiet moments, to explore Okabe’s mental condition and the general state of the world. Because of this not much actually happened, but it was a good check-in sort of episode before things no doubt really get going.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 9 [Pandora of Eternal Return -Pandora’s Box-]” →

Hello everyone! Another week, another ridiculously pretentious episode name for Steins;Gate 0! This week we have suffering, lots and lots of suffering, spread around our characters liberally. Lets jump in!

So before we get into specifics, lets talk general notes. Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It didn’t spend the whole time being a downer, sprinkling some amusing or hopeful moments in there. It showed us shots of Okabe’s life if he made another choice, making it clear he couldn’t keep on the way he has. Some would call it melodrama, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but for me it works here. Melodrama lives or dies based on how much the audience cares for its characters. And with how Steins;Gate 0 is formatted and its character focus, only the ones who care would make it this far, so I think it worked out. As a Steins;Gate fan, its character focused episodes like with all of the references to earlier episodes and events that I love the most.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 8 [Dual of Antinomy -Antinomic Dual-]” →

Oh boy, Steins;Gate 0 was definitely a thing this week, whatever that means. This time we have clashing styles, interesting plot twists and one hell of a cliffhanger. Lets jump in!

To start off, lets get the obvious out of the way. Steins;Gate 0 is not an action series and it shows. The opening “combat” scenes of this episode were… weak, to be kind. Animation was stunted and in general it just wasn’t great. This isn’t unexpected though. Steins;Gate’s design/style doesn’t lend itself well to smooth, fluid fights. It has always been a series focused on its characters, not the action. That said, the actual narrative portion of the “combat” was pretty interesting. We have no idea who the leather-clad women is, though I have suspicions, and Mr.Braun’s entrance was both unexpected and exciting. I have always wanted to see more of his character, get a deeper look into our landlord ever since Steins;Gate, and we finally have the chance. And boy did this week spend a lot of time with him.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 7 [Eclipse of Vibronic Transition -Vibronic Transition-]” →

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, Steins;Gate 0 has stomped the throttle and cut the breaks. Lets skip the intro and just get right to it. Early on I thought this episode was going to be slow, we were going to focus on our characters and relax a bit. I thought it would be drama free. Apparently however this was just the calm before the storm. Far earlier than I predicted, I was assuming ~episode 12, the shoe drops and our plot begins in earnest. I am so happy. This means, hopefully, that there are no more additional characters and that no more additional world building is necessary. For this shoe to drop, it means all of our relevant actors are in play. Now onto drama and theorizing!

First off, triggers. In the original Steins;Gate, as seen by the flashback, Mayurii’s watch stopping was the signal that she was about to die. However we know in this timeline that Mayurii lives. So the question becomes, who dies next episode? My money is on Maho. Shes gotten a lot of screen time, everyone loves her, and she clearly likes Okabe. Add to that the fact that Amadeus’ server gets shut off, and I think we have a new death-flag/dead friend combo. Maho also already had the foreshadowed stalkers/Dr.Reyes “mugging” incident, so the signs are already there. The only real hole to this I see is there is no D-Mail, so no easy time travel, at the moment. Killing off anyone here is a big commitment, taking them out of the series for awhile most likely. I legitimately cannot wait to see how this shakes out.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 6 [Eclipse of Orbital Ordering -The Orbital Eclipse-]” →

Another week another new character added to Steins;Gate 0’s roster. This time we have a new scientist lady, more lovable “English” and answers to already obvious mysteries. Lets dive in!

So right off the bat there are some small things to mention. Like how Moeka clearly suspects Daru for his time travel work, or the clear connection she still has with Mr.Braun. She wouldn’t be introduced so early, nor would the camera frame her and Braun the way it does, if she wasn’t going to be trouble in the future. Viewers who have not seen the original Steins;Gate may be confused, so let me once again recommend you just binge the original and come back to S;G 0 once your done. We also have Judy Reyes, another new character. Based on how she was introduced, I am convinced she is a villain of some kind. Her intro started with a creepy stalker sequence and panicked phone call to Okabe. If nothing else I need her to be evil because we have to many lovable good guys already.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 5 [Solitude of the Astigmatism -Entangled Sheep-]” →

Welcome to week four of Steins;Gate 0, now with more time travel! This week we have dystopian futures, new characters and the first hints of darker tidings. Lets jump in!

Now, I don’t know what it is about the 4th episode of anime, but just like Megalo Box this is Steins;Gate’s first stumble. The world line jumps/flash forwards/back had issues this week. Not only was it occasionally difficult to tell just when we switched, but they came at odd times. The opening world line jumps for instance somehow turned into a dream sequence and then we popped back to the rooftop of last week. It was difficult to follow and, at least for now, doesn’t add much or make sense. PTSD alone would have worked better there. The reason time travel worked in the original Steins;Gate was we followed Okabe through it chronologically, so everything still fit and had an order to it. Here however, perhaps because of route format, the world line jumps simply feel out of place. I hope this is a one-off problem.

Continue reading “Steins;Gate 0 – 4 [Solitude of the Mournful Flow -A Stray Sheep-]” →