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Steins;Gate 0 - Episode 4 [Review]
Now that it's set up its new cast members and reestablished the repartee of our more familiar faces, it's time for Steins;Gate 0 to get down to brass tacks and dive into its plot. Okabe's slowly evolving relationship with Amadeus is definitely a good place to start, but it wouldn't be Steins;Gate if Okabe was the only one with something to do. The whole Future Gadget Lab needs to be involved too, and episode 4's primary job is giving us an idea of just what their mission will be.
As a result, this week's story feels somewhat interstitial, dropping many tantalizing breadcrumbs without moving the plot too far in any one direction. We open on a view that may well be a flash-forward to the dire, war-torn future that Okabe has been warned about – bodies litter the streets as our tattered scientist is dragged around by a cadre of soldiers, though before long he finds himself in front of a faceless general, who bids him to pick up his ringing phone. Okabe wakes afterward, unsure if this is merely a dream or a sign that he is travelling to new world lines yet again. The latter possibility suggests something quite disturbing: someone else has developed a time machine capable of changing the course of reality.
However, the main development this week is Suzuha revealing a side operation she's been working on ever since she landed in the past. It turns out she wasn't alone when she made the trip; for years, Suzuha has been searching for Mayuri's adopted daughter, a war orphan named Kagari Shiina who went missing ten years in the past. This is understandably a lot for Okabe to take in, and he hasn't even seen that Kagari looks eerily similar to Makise Kurisu. It's way too early to unpack the implications of this resemblance, though I do have some theories. Heck, Okabe is already being treated to an unwelcome surprise, as Daru's contact turns out to be Moeka, who viewers will remember as the woman responsible for murdering Mayuri hundreds of times back in the original series. Combine that with the brief glimpse we get of Rukako's mysterious visitor, who I would bet is a grown-up Kagari, and it seems like S;G 0's story is gearing up for a ton of twists in the coming weeks.
For now though, the Kagari stuff is still in setup mode; it's gotten Suzuha, Daru, Okabe, and even Rukako and Faris working together again, though how all this relates to the Amadeus plot (if at all) remains a mystery. Alexis has revealed that his ultimate goal is to prove that Amadeus can fall in love with Okabe, though Maho is quick to point out that Amadeus' love could never replace a relationship with a real human being. Her prickliness regarding Amadeus/Kurisu's relationship with Okabe seems to imply that she's going to be fighting with her own AI for Okabe's affections, though it's also possible that Maho's feelings are more focused on Kurisu herself. I'm personally not interested in seeing Maho set up as yet another love interest for Okabe, especially since S;G 0 is so rooted in Okabe and Kurisu's relationship, but we'll just have to see where things go from here.
All in all, this was a solid episode of S;G 0. The direction and animation continue to be somewhat underwhelming, but the characters and their dynamic remain as compelling as ever, and though we may still be in the phase of the story where we're getting more questions than answers, Steins;Gate has proven that it's more than capable of playing the long game. Even with unnecessary love triangles looming on the horizon, I'm excited to see where the story will go from here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWodpqSAC7E
Steins;Gate 0 - Episode 3 [Review]
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Steins;Gate 0 - Episode 3 [Review]
After last week zeroed in on Steins;Gate 0's new cast of characters and the emotional bombshell of the Amadeus system, episode 3 takes us back to a place that feels much closer to the original Steins;Gate's vibe. Things aren't exactly the same, of course, but how could they be, given everything Okabe and his lab members have been through? Despite some unfortunate aesthetic hiccups, one thing this episode of S;G0 does exceptionally well is balance its nostalgia for the good old days of the Future Gadget Lab while still taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by this more somber new version of their Akihabara.
It's clear from the get-go that Okabe is failing to heed Maho's advice when it comes to Amadeus. As he uses his phone camera to guide the AI around the streets of Akihabara, it's impossible not to notice an old rapport building up between the two, complete with the gentle teasing and constant inquiries that came to define Makise and Okabe's relationship. Amadeus is also saddled with the requisite naivety that comes with being a burgeoning artificial intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking when Not Makise casually mentions how much she would love to share a lab like Okabe's with friends of her own and personalized utensils. For Okabe and the audience, this one moment is enough to spark a maelstrom of other memories, the kind that are terribly dangerous for a man in Okabe's position to indulge.
Thankfully, all of this fraught territory has a counterweight, which is the increased focus on the other Future Gadget Lab members, who fell more to the wayside in S;G0's opening episodes. The scenes where Mayuri and friends plan a Christmas Cosplay Party feel right at home with the more upbeat, slice-of-life feel that Steins;Gate accomplished so well in its first half. What's more, these scenes do a great job of showing how the group as a whole has grown up; Faris and Suzuha have bonded more than they ever did in the original series, Yūgo and his daughter Nae are interacting with the Lab Members more, and Mayuri's social life seems much healthier than it did before. Her cosplay friends were occasionally mentioned before, but it's still nice to actually see her interact with friends her own age who haven't had their lives upended by time travel shenanigans and government conspiracies (yet). Maho and the Professor's interaction with the group at this Christmas party further cement them as welcome additions to the Steins;Gate world. I'm especially loving Yōji Ueda's performance as Alexis; he nails the Westernized accent in Japanese and gives the character an earnest charm, though I'm still not sure I trust his ostensibly altruistic intentions toward Amadeus and Okabe.
If there's anything that brings this episode down, it would have to be the art and animation. While I understand that little changes in style will come about with a shift in directors and seven years of time having passed, this is the first episode where I couldn't chalk up the sketchy artwork and inconsistent animation as by-products of this series' tone shift. The overall direction this week was sloppy enough to be distracting, with pedestrian camera work standing out even more against awkward editing. One scene in particular that lacked the necessary punch was Mayuri eavesdropping on Okabe's conversation with Amadeus – it works well enough to get the point across, but the messy transition between Mayuri silently fleeing and Maho intervening robbed Mayuri of the power that should have been afforded to her biggest character moment so far.
On the plus side, this was largely a table-setting episode, so the lapses in directorial quality didn't harm the overall impact much. Like Okabe himself, we're still getting used to being back in the Lab again, and some of the readjustments are going to hurt more than others. It's one thing to be confronted by the ghosts of a troubling past, but our poor mad scientist has to carry a painfully familiar voice in his pocket and be repeatedly asked why he called her “Christina”. The chemistry between Okabe and Makise is so on-point that I relish seeing them interact in any context, but I can't help but feel bad for taking so much pleasure from seeing Okabe relive the most harrowing moments of his life. His relationship with this computer program is bound to only become more troubling as the season continues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrURrNwkOX0
Steins;Gate 0 - Episodes 1 & 2 [Review]
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Steins;Gate 0 - Episodes 1 & 2 [Review]
Steins;Gate 0 occupies the wonderfully weird kind of space that only time-travel stories can, in that it is both an alternate universe what-if story that diverts from the original series' ending and and a precursor to the events of Steins;Gate Prime. So on the one hand, S;G0's place in the grand scheme of franchise continuity is a foregone conclusion. Eventually, Steins;Gate 0's version of Rintaro Okabe is going to be the one that reaches out to the Okabe of Steins;Gate episode 23 and convinces his past self to take the necessary steps to save the life of Kurisu Makise. On the other hand, Steins;Gate 0 seeks to sidestep the pitfalls that stymie other series' prequels and AU spinoffs by establishing a story that feels fresh and exciting, even to fans that have watched through the original series multiple times.
In the season premiere, the show took the time to catch viewers up on the world line where Kurisu was never rescued from her bloody fate, and Okabe has grown as weary and cold as we've ever seen him. He's abandoned his old mad scientist moniker of “Hououin Kyouma”, and he never stops by the Future Gadget Lab anymore. The show has really run with Okabe's grim new perspective, employing a slower pace and dynamic camera angles to reflect its protagonist's inner torment in a manner that feels appropriately muted without crossing the line into suffocating dourness.
While the first episode did an excellent job of reorienting viewers to this new Kurisu-less reality, the second episode ironically sets the main plot into motion by bringing Kurisu back – or rather, a simulacrum of Kurisu brought to life by the Amadeus AI system that Alexis Leskinen and Maho Hiyajō introduced last week. What I especially enjoyed about this turn of events is that S;G0 never plays coy about what a bombshell this would be for Okabe; after spending some time developing a rapport between Maho and Okabe, the diminutive researcher takes our wary hero to meet a program that has the face, voice, and memories of the woman he watched die in his arms. For anyone who was invested in the original Steins;Gate's primary romance, the moments leading up to Okabe's pseudo-reunion with his lost love contain a palpable sense of dread. Even Maho can feel it, despite only being able to guess at the true depths of the relationship she's helping to reanimate.
Leading up to Okabe's fateful meeting with Amadeus, S;G0 does an excellent job of establishing these new characters, who slide comfortably into Steins;Gate's universe. Maho is especially likable in these episodes, and I'm glad to see that the show doesn't lean too much on her stature to characterize her, instead setting her apart from Kurisu as a whip-smart scientist in her own right; I hope to see her interact with the rest of the Future Gadget Laboratory as the series continues. Aleksis is also an interesting addition to the roster; these episodes establish him as an affable man who just wants to see the late Kurisu's work flourish, but this being Steins;Gate, I'm sure there's more to him than meets the eye.
Ultimately, the highlight of episode two is Amadeus Kurisu's big introduction, which immediately recaptures memories of the original character's effortless likability and tsundere charm, while still sowing the seeds for the digital doppelganger's place in the larger story. While the production values are rough around the edges compared to Steins;Gate, S;G0's writing is in top form, and this one scene captures the skillful character chemistry and intriguing sci-fi themes that made this series successful to begin with. All of the big emotions and big ideas are present, from Maho and Amadeus Kurisu's cute back-and-forth to Okabe's frazzled attempt to separate the Kurisu on the computer screen from the one who helped him survive his eternal summer.
This is where I got the most excited to see where Steins;Gate 0 is headed, as Maho warns Okabe: “She's not the girl you became friends with, and she's not alive.” Many science-fiction stories in the past have dealt with the ramifications of replicating a real human's consciousness in the form of an AI, and it's reassuring that S;G0 has the wherewithal to address those tropes head-on. Maho and Okabe are both all too aware of how dangerous it could be for Okabe to start treating this virtual copy of Kurisu as the real deal. “The more you talk with Amadeus, the more that truth will sting,” Maho says. “You'll realize that she's gone forever, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
Except for Okabe, and those of us who followed his journeys across time, that isn't true at all. If the scientist formerly known as Hououin Kyouma has learned anything, it's that there are an infinite number of ways to potentially bring Kurisu back. Even knowing this, it's the deeper cost of time travel that Okabe is no longer willing to tamper with. While the Okabe of Steins;Gate 0 will eventually change his mind, we don't yet know what must happen to get him to that point. If the brief glimpse of this future we got back in 2011 is any indication, things are about to become much more complicated for the members of the Future Gadget Laboratory, and I can't wait to watch it all play out.