About a year ago, I did a video I didn’t think I wanted to do. I made a video, not
about Steins;Gate Zero the anime, but of Steins;Gate Zero the visual novel. I wanted to cover it
in advance of the series because as a game it was quite a bit different in a lot of ways
from the original Steins;Gate. And not just with its narrative. Its tone became far darker,
the lighthearted antics and references of the original still existed, but were fewer and further between.
Ultimately, I left the novel with a full recommendation, but mostly only for fans of the series. As
a qusi-sequel to the first novel it wasn’t really newcomer friendly, and most people
who would be interested this many years since the original came out would be people like
me who qualify for die hard fan status. I did briefly touch on the, at the time, upcoming
anime series and some of my concerns. Unlike the original series, the visual novel for
Zero was far less linier, making the changeover from visual novel to anime that much more difficult
as you coulden’t just straight up storyboard the show from the game like they could have
before. Adapting Zero would require a little more finesse, melding plotlines and hard narrative paths
into some semblance of a linear narrative while still making sense to the audience.
They needed to keep the integrity of zero’s visual novel while still keeping many of the
things that made the experience playing it great, even if less interactive. This is not
an easy feat when a very large portion of the Novels story could easily become cut content
that doesn’t flow with the rest of it. But now the anime is out, completed... how
did it go? Well, short version is that it’s a fantastic continuation to the original plot
for people who either can’t or choose not to play the visual novels. But as an adaption
of said novels, it leaves a lot of things out. For the longer version, well that’s
what this video is for. Ladies, Gentlemen and others My name is Arkada
and today on Glass Reflection we are going to be discussing the sequel to the 2011 anime that
has remanded one of my favorite anime of all time. Steins;Gate Zero. Let’s Jam.
Zero starts off a little bit differently than the traditional sequel, mostly because it
isn’t one. This does not take place after the events of the previous series, but during
said events. Something only possible when time travel and world lines are involved. At the
end of Steins;Gate, Okabe with the help future soldier Suzuha uses a time machine to travel
back several weeks to the events of the story’s first few hours, in an attempt to save the
life of the character Makise Kurisu. After his first attempt failed horribly he and Suzuha
return to the roof of the radio building that they set off from to take a reprieve. During
which time Okabe, disheartened, gets a pep talk from his childhood friend Miyuri as well
as a video file from his future self. Congratulating him on his failed attempt and giving him the
solution to the problem of how to save Kurisu. Okabe then proceeds to make a second attempt
and the story continues to its true ending. Steins Gate 0 is the story of the Future Okabe
from that message, the one who fails to save Makise Kurisu and then spends the rest of
his life trying to find the route to Steins;Gate. Or rather this is the story of an Okabe who
has given up, and is the tale of what convinces him to take up the lab coat once again in
search of Steins;Gate. In this timeline Makise Kirusu is dead, has been for months now. Okabe
has given up the mantle of Mad Scientist and has instead begun to focus on his studies.
This is an Okabe that suffers from anxiety, depression, undiagnosed PTSD probably, An
Okabe who is constantly confronted by the past he left behind, but chooses to ignore
it and pray it disappears. Until of course, he is placed in a room in order to interact
with a new artificial intelligence developed in America called Amadeus. An AI that looks
like, and has the same personality of, his dead friend: Kirusu.
Suddenly, the problems with this all fall into place. Much of the conflict from the
original Steins;gate came from a race to control the world’s first time machine, in that
case not a literal time machine but a machine capable of messaging the past. It did however lead
to the development of the Time Leap machine by none other than Kurisu herself. Her mind is what
was capable of developing the machine, and despite her death one year prior, her mind
still exists inside Amadeus. It's the fight over this technology is what drives a lot of the
solid narrative within the show, the only rocky bits are the new additions. The story
now has to continue the narrative outside the previously used time loop, with the challenge
of re-introducing all the characters from before, along with some new ones.
The enjoyment as well, has to come from somewhere else then it did previously, where before
the time travel story leading to a pinnacle ending where our characters reach their desired
outcome was thrilling, but here we know the ending. We’ve seen it. We know that the
final tale of this Okabe just has him sending a message to his past self, and the series
has to make the journey to that moment as gripping while not going too far outside what
you would expect from a Steins; Gate story. How well the series, succeed in this is largely
up to your interpretation. Here's my take.
In a very broad sense, the anime succeeded
where it needed to. The Zero Adaptation is as close to being faithful to the source material
as best we could have expected, and on its own the story is a worthy successor to the
original. As it is if nothing else, a fantastic re-visit to the characters and world we came
to enjoy. That said, the adaption is not without its
missteps, that while I can’t necessarily blame the series for, it doesn’t make me
any less disappointed. Some of the common complaints I’ve seen laid on the narrative,
this includes the visual Novel and not just anime specificly, usually come down too one
of three things, Amadeus, Maho, and Kagari, only one of which I actually agree with.
Amadeus is the easy way to re-introduce Kirusu as a dead character back into the narrative.
While it leans a bit on the contrived side as she conveniently had her brain scanned
and copied prior to the events in the original Steins;Gate, which was then utilized to create
an AI construct; not having Kirusu as a character at all would have been a massive blow to the
chemistry of the characters. Plus having this AI be a constant reminder to Okabe of his
dark choices only added to his own personal development, which I really liked.
Maho is very similar. Being introduced alongside Amadaus, seemingly to fit into a Kirusu shaped
hole, as such she might have been written off by some people as a replacement they they did not want.
But her charm and wit to me became indispensable, even if
I still wish her introduction actually happened in the original narrative
so that her appearance here makes a bit more sense.
Really though that is the boiled down version of all my disappointments with Zero’s narrative.
The additions feel tacked on because we are trying to follow up a story that existed entirely
within a closed loop. Characters like Yuki emphasize this, as she’s Suzuha’s mother
who was mentioned as someone that existed in the original, but never fully introduced until now.
OH YOU THOUGHT THAT GRIL FROM THE OVA WAS SUSUHA’S MOM? RETCON’S A BITCH.
The worst offender though, here in the adaption, was Kagari. Kagari is a young girl from the
future who physically looks near identical to Kurisu, except in some obvious ways. She’s
introduced into the plot as being brought along from the future by Suzuha, before accidently
getting dropped off in the 1990’s due to some events I won’t get into. BUT ISN’T
IT CONVIENT that Suzuha brought her from the future but didn’t mention her or call
attention to her existence until quite a ways into Zero’s story. HMMMMMMM.
Her character makes a lot more sense in the world of the original visual Novel. She has
several arcs dedicated to her story, arcs which didn’t fully get translated properly,
leaving her quite undeveloped here in the anime. I understand that they couldn’t just
cut her from the narrative, to make thing smooth out a bit more. Nor could they add enough time to fix the
problems with her story, but her existence in the story that the ANIME presents doesn’t
make all that much sense, leaving the narrative hand waving of her introduction that much
harder to ignore. Kagari isn’t the only thing missing from
the original plot to Zero however; there are plenty of major plot revels over the course
of Zero’s visual novel that don’t make an appearance here in the anime. While that on
its own I’m fine with given how the adaption went, I had more of a problem with the little
nods to the lost content that the anime did here.
For example, there’s a return of a skin-tight female character in a motorcycle
helmet made famous in the first story. Back then, underneath the helmet was the aloof
Moeka who was an assassin for SERN, but in Steins;Gate Zero, 4 separate female characters
interact with the cast in that outfit. But in the anime it’s only 3. Or rather, only
3 reveled. The 4th does interact with our cast during the story, but the helmet never
comes off like it did in the Novel, and there is only the wink of who it could be presented
to the audience, before the plotline is swiftly forgotten about.
Where Steins;Gate was a near perfect adaptation of its source, with the few things it left
out not really necessary to the plot and more of a fun surprise for any who would go and
play it after the fact, Zero leaves far more behind unexplained. Far more that can be waved
away by saying “Well it makes sense if you go play the visual novel” and I can’t
say I like that particular part about it. I would have preferred you either adapt it
fully, or cut out what you can’t explain. Hopefully with some of these complaints you
understand now why I generally avoid reading or in this case playing the original material
first, it does nothing but make my mind do constant comparisons and ultimately think
less of the animated version because of it. I don’t want to seem however like I’m
being hard on the series because it’s bad, it has its problems yes but I’m mostly being
harsh on it because of how passionate I am about this story.
Zero is a much darker tale than the original, which is odd to say considering some of the
more gruesome subject matter of the original story. Where previously we would just have
death either shown or alluded to us at various intervals, we now have an entirely new narrative
starring a guy’s suffering from some serious depression and anxiety issues who now has
his demons coming back to haunt him. Which is surprisingly relatable, as bad as that
sounds. The shadow overlords of the original Steins;Gate
haven’t gone anywhere, and the threat of a terminator like future still lingers as
in constantly emphasized by Suzuha, the future girl now stuck here because he doesn’t have
the fuel to go home and can’t do her job because Okabe is too far withdrawn into his shell.
It is a brilliant addition to the already existing story, but it's not something that can stand alone.
As such I can’t recommend this series to
everyone, Zero is a narrative that I think only people who extremely enjoyed the original
would bother to get through. It’s a show that’s really meant to be enjoyed for the
journey the characters take, and less for the result at the end. Mostly because the
end is already known to us; this is more of a expanded epilogue
to show you another part of how we got there. If you didn’t like Steins;Gate 1 there is
nothing here to change your mind. But if you do love Steins;Gate as much as I do then this
is something that you should defiantly watch and then later add to your shelf. I’ll recommend
it to any fan of the series as a worthy sequel. Because ultimately Zero does something I thought impossible.
It creates a sequel to a closed loop time travel story that not only builds upon the
original but also justifies its own existence in one fell swoop. Plus no other story will
have you grinning like a madman at the prospect of a guy putting on a lab coat
quite like Zero. Thank you for spending the time to watch this
video on Steins;Gate Zero. I hope you enjoyed it. There will be links down in the description
for you to watch the series in the locations for which it is available. Funimation for
Dub, and Crunchyroll for sub. For alternate recommendations I’ll start you off
with a time travel-esk anime that I don’t want to see forgotten into the rivers of time,
that being ERASED. It’s a particualry gripping drama that easily scratched my Steins;Gate
itch while I waited to get my hands on Zero so I can only assume that it’ll
work in reverse for you. Second recommendation for those you like seeing your main character
wallow in a pit of despair, Welcome to the NHK! It is a series I haven’t talked about in
awhile on this channel but that is not because I do not believe it is worth watching. If you want to
see another kind of broken protagonist try and solve the mess of their lives there
is no series I think better suited for that task. Between those, I hope
you find something to your liking. Lastly, a very special thank you to my patrons,
who not only support my work in general, but allow me to do what I do, you guys are amazing!
why are you so amazing? This doesn't make any sense. Actually, it really doesn't.
It shoulden't happen, IT SHOULDEN'T HAPPEN
Though specifically, as I like to do, I want to give particular shout-outs to
patrons Siri Yamiko, Victor Ekmark, Ryefan Boneapart, Rune Jachobson, Devon North, Joshua
Garcia, and Calhoonboy for being especially awesome. You guys are great! And until next
time – ladies, gentlemen, and others – watch more anime…and stay frosty.