Reviews for Steins;Gate 0 (5.66) 5r2p5t

This series is essentially the hidden story contained within (what appears to be) only a few moments of the end of the original Steins;Gate series. Even with its flaws, it's a very clever idea that gives the audience more Steins;Gate without really spoiling the original story at all.

WARNING: Do not watch Steins;Gate 0 or read this review without first watching the original Steins;Gate. Also, read my review of the original series, as this is basically a continuation of the review and a comparison.

Visuals - 6
This series is noticeably worse in the visuals department compared to the first. At best, it feels as though the visual standard hasn't moved on past what the first series did 7 years ago. But even then, it somehow manages to be visually less ambitious and never pulls off much within the series that makes you think highly of it. As it stands, everything is adequate, but that's about it.

Sound - 6
Again nothing decent from the opening and closing themes, and the musical score seems extremely lacking compared to the atmospheric nature of the first series. The voice acting however is still spot on and reflects the characters well.

Story - 7
This is the story behind the slap. By which I mean in Episode 23 of the original series, when Okabe comes back to the present from his failed attempt to save Kurisu in the past, his friend Mayushii gives him a slap to motivate him into trying again. Steins;Gate 0 however, is a divergent precursor story where Mayushii does NOT slap Okabe, and instead comforts him in his grief as he decides to abandon all attempts to save Kurisu and stop trying to alter time.

At first I thought this was a "what if" alternate story line, so I was never as excited about the idea as I was the original series. HOWEVER... by the end you realise that what you're watching is actually canon to the original. I won't go into more detail in case of spoiling it.

The main part of the series was incredibly somber. You feel this immediately by seeing how "normal" the character of Okabe is. He has given up his charismatic alter ego and just gone back to what you presume is his previous boring self. The contrast from the original series to this was extremely jarring for me. I felt pretty much how the character of Okabe did - sad that I had all these memories of this grand adventure but that it had a painful conclusion. And the bulk of the series focuses on him dwelling on his pain, whilst giving hints that perhaps the World's Super Powers are making progress on time travel. You can feel throughout the episodes that some event or events are to come which will cause the world to plunge into chaos, but they are suitably unclear and unfold slowly as the series progresses.

I was engrossed in the series despite the dramatic shift in atmosphere. Mainly because I loved the original so much that any excuse to see these characters again is welcome. All throughout though, I kept wishing for it to more like the original and give me some intrigue. But for at least the first half, it explored slow themes of grief and hopelessness. I didn't think these were bad, but it really made me quite melancholy. But then, much like the darkness before the dawn, the second half of the series started giving you some jolts of hope, and luckily, this momentum built up and up.

The series features a complex back-and-forth of rewriting time, and to some degree it's even more complicated in theory to the original series, because it all ties in to it eventually. There are certainly some plot holes - the character Kagari is shoe-horned into the series horrendously, and there's a notable time paradox featuring the origin of a song, but even this is so cleverly presented that I actually loved it.

Character - 6
Rintarō Okabe is again the beating heart of the show, and when he's feeling low, you feel low. If he somehow manages to feel high though... you feel through the roof. Some of the series was a little hard to watch with him dwelling in sadness, but thankfully it picked up.

The ing cast this time around are very mediocre or even sub par. You have the same collection of characters from the original, but this time around they get little to no development. Instead you have a small selection of new characters that make up the fundamentals of the new plot. A couple of them bring with them a connection to Kurisu, which I always felt was very contrived. In the end you realise they were essentially a plot piece to expand the involvement of Kurisu into this series with the development of time travel, and the characters themselves don't really leave lasting impressions.

A couple of character issues though were just not resolved at all. Like the original series failing to give any closure to Moeka, this series gave a confusing outlook to the Yuki character, where I still don't quite understand her involvement in events to the degree it hints at. As mentioned earlier however, the character Kagari ends up being the biggest disappointment - being a rather major character who's obviously just a plot point shoved into this series to give a pitiful reason to some of the causality. And yet she has a (sorely needed) lack of backstory to justify her actions.

There are also some very subtle but clear signs of romantic affection from one of the new characters to Okabe, but this never gets fully explored or receives closure. In fact, the series could easily be classified into the "harem" genre of anime with the amount of girls in it that have feelings for the main protagonist.

Value - 2
Realistically I wouldn't watch this series again really, because it's essentially an unnecessary in-depth explanation of Episode 23 of the original series. And the original is all I need. But it was definitely nice to see it once, and maybe in the distant future... who knows.

Enjoyment - 7
There are numerous flaws with the characters, and some plot holes and plot gimmicks that will make you roll your eyes, but in the end I found myself very engrossed and enjoying my time with this series. In a way, this is the perfect companion piece to the original series, because it takes you on a journey that's both completely original and yet still a continuation, and also simultaneously doesn't change the story of the original whilst giving you additional insight on the events that end up being quite satisfying and remarkably clever.