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.
The answer is Kagari. I hate Kagari. This is going to be the last time, until the final review, I even mention Kagari. She is either the cause or indication of almost every single problem in Steins;Gate 0. To put it simply, she has very little character, and I see no reason for her to exist. She feels completely like an insert character. She didn’t exist in the original Steins;Gate, Suzuha never mentioned her, there was no concern over her. Its like she was thrown in, and made to look like Kurisu, purely to fill a waifu slot. Then her place in the story was figured out afterwords. That much is obvious by how… extra, her story-lines are. We didn’t need another suited assassin, the long-term time travel brainwashing story is just painful and simply put, I find it difficult to care for her. But wait, there’s more!
Because you see, even if the stories that involve her weren’t bad, Kagari herself is just so… passive. She never actually does anything herself. Her “personality” consists of an obsession with Mayurii and sitting around waiting for others to solve her amnesia problem. She sits in the shrine, or the Lab, until Okabe or Moeka come up with something new. The most active we have ever seen her was just this week, mid brainwashing , when Suzuha was actively trying to upset her. And the problem is, she means it. Okabe puts on a blank face, a calm mask at all times, because he is trying to hide all the pain and guilt he feels all the time. Kagari simply has amnesia. She is, to sum it up, a filler character designed to up the waifu count and make up for Kurisu’s absence. Steins;Gate 0 would be better without her.
Back to the interesting characters people actually like, Best Girl Leskinen comes back this week! Coincidentally we first see him talking with a hospital director, the same episode where a brainwashed Kagari has reappeared. Coincidence? Probably not, lets face it, Leskinen is probably evil and I can’t wait to see what he does. And that’s because, unlike Kagari, Leskinen has personality and is clearly actually moving and doing things behind the scenes. He has personality, a goofy one, but he hides a lot behind it and deflects with it. He avoids answering why hes in Japan by bringing up his OTP of Maho and Okabe. And even with all this, Steins;Gate 0 is still playing Red Herring with who this “professor” is, by maybe hinting it could be the Hospital Director (We all know its Leskinen though right?). The man has layers, however goofy, and I love him.
We also get our favorite scientist Maho back this week, going all the way to reintroduce her to Japan. I have to admit, I was expecting us to go to America at some point, but I suppose this works to. After All this is where Suzuha’s time machine is. What I liked the most about her coming back though is the continued exploration of her relationship with Kurisu. I already figured she had some kind of complex in regards to her, but this episode makes it clear she did exactly what she told Okabe not to. To me, whether by choice or not because of her job, Maho is torturing herself with Amadeus consciously, where Okabe did it unconsciously. Looks like she’s starting to get over that though, just like Okabe seemed to finally “let go” of Kurisu earlier in the season. Its nice.
So all in all, probably the best Steins;Gate episode in awhile. I’m glad we are focusing back onto our main cast/Maho instead of the pointless Kagari side-plots. She isn’t interesting, the others are. I want to hope that we will continue to focus on the time machine plot and such, but I fear that Kagari is just to entrenched at this point to be left behind. At best Steins;Gate can hope to minimize her, I suppose. Guess we will have to see.
What about you though? Am I alone in my distaste for Kagari? I really hope not. See you next week!
I have not been watching this, waiting for it to finish to see if people say its worth it… is it really that bad
Its not bad, per se. It simply has a good bit of filler in it. So far, I would say it hasnt been worth it. Whether thats nostalgia of the original putting to high a bar, or if 0 is just falling short im not sure yet.
But I love this series, so I will be extra hard on it. You can count on me there when the series is over.
I may have to watch these in twos or threes.
I haven’t seen episode 14 yet, but I am still enjoying, even though it hasn’t lived up to the first couple of episodes, I like individual moments of it but I wish the pace will pick up or something will actually happen or go somewhere with kagari’s story.
And of course, the character interaction still cover over the weaker spots for me.
But when Liskenen starts doing something and fully embracing the villain role we all know/expect him to, I’ll be fully back on board with the series I’m sure.
Leskinen and Rayes are really going to have to work to pull up the 2nd half. I like Leskinen, the dudes of lovable goof and can make a great villain. He just needs to actually… do something.
Your comment about Kagari being useless as a second assassin really sinks in for me, especially when the show explicitly points that out.
Why not focus on the other hitmen guys instead of Kagari?
All the build around her now is starting to feel underwhelming to me.
Granted I am still enjoying.
Kagari was one of the main weak links of the VN and the show has done nothing to remedy that thus far. I was pleased with the adaptation at first but unless my memory serves me wrong they’re skipping a lot of the content related to that one “war” dream Okabe had at the start of an earlier episode and keeping a lot of the filler content including this borderline useless Kagari plot.
It eventually leads to something rather interesting and ties into the actual important character and story elements but the show is running out of episodes to show the high points that were in the VN.
I had forgotten about that “war” dream! Damn, now im even more annoyed. I wanted to see where that lead.
I mentioned it in my episode 15 post just now, but it really does feel like a Slice-Of-Life, side-story filled series. The plot just… isnt moving.