Sep 27, 2018
The development team behind the original Steins;Gate aimed for a rate of 99% science and 1% fantasy.
I’m not sure what the anime staff for Steins;Gate 0 were going for, but if I were to guess, it would be 84% rule of cool, 15% fantasy and 2% science.
If you paid attention, you probably noticed that those numbers do not add up. That’s on purpose, because Steins;Gate 0 doesn’t really care about making sense or not, and whether you notice those things and let them bug you is entirely up to you.
The amateurish team behind the series had to adapt a non-linear Visual Novel
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that had many routes, each with its own plot points and own character development. As a result, the history was divided into arcs, while still having the main story going on, but not focusing entirely in any of them. If it sounds a bit messy, it’s because it is.
The show has many plot points that may or may not begin a story arc, and the viewer is never too sure to what he should be focusing on. For once, you might think Amadeus and AI is the main theme of the series, only for it to be forgotten for a while to focus on conspiracies and information warfare, which is then put aside so they can tell a story about amnesia. Then everything comes together near the end in a very messy way.
Along with the awkward pacing and dubious writing, it becomes just too confusing for the viewer to keep track of everything that is going on.
My biggest issue with it are the many dropped plot points, but there's so much going on that most people will just forget about them.
It doesn’t help that the soundtrack for this series is basically just the game tracks that play whenever the sound director felt like. By itself, the soundtrack is amazing, but its usage here is boring and uncreative. As a matter of comparison, the original series hardly had a game song come up, and most of the episode’s duration were dead silent, with only background noise going on. This created an amazing atmosphere for the series.
It is the complete opposite here though. In almost every scene there is a track playing in the background. It’s not trying to create an atmosphere or anything like that.
As for the directing, it is mediocre and very amateurish, as expected of the staff for this show. By itself, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but when it tries to do something “different” it comes out jerky and very distracting, along with the poor animation that really becomes an issue on action scenes. It’s hard to enjoy and take them serious when everything moves like a malfunctioning robot. They even try to do some clever tricks to hide the bad animation, like zooming in a shot to simulate movement, or do shaky camera, but the result is straight up laughable.
With all that said, the show does have some good moments. The first half is watchable, actually improving some stuff from the source material, and episode 8 was amazing for me. The character interactions are great and heart-warming, but can get a little too fan service-ish.
As the story progresses, more is introduced and it becomes hard to follow. Maybe even the staff was having a hard time following it, since the show straight up forget some plot points or never really go anywhere with them. It gets exceptionally hard to watch towards the end, as it has some of the wackiest and inconsistent directing I’ve seen in a anime, with visuals that make no sense and are only trying to be cool. It also have some plot holes, which is ambiguous given the nature of the series, but I still believe that there are some plot holes here and there even considering that.
As for how the plot progresses, its conveniences goes as far as changing a character personality or making them act in a way that they never would just so that the story can flow, almost as if the staff couldn’t think of a better way to do it. Sometimes I felt like there were no “rules” and anything could happen.
It also tries to do drama, and I think it did a good job the first time, with a good build up and an excellent setting, but maybe it got too confident because of it, and the other times are not as good. However, it gets to a point where it desperately attempts to make you cry. It’s so blatantly obvious and pathetic that you can’t get sad. In fact, you might even laugh. The poor animation and awkward directing just make it worst.
For most people, this show will be disappointing. That’s expected, as the original set the bar so high. Steins;Gate 0 tries to reach that bar, but the lack of a competent staff like the original and all its flaws makes it impossible to do so. This end up being just a 23-episode long fan service series.
At the end, if you’re able to ignore, excuse, or simply don’t notice those things, you might enjoy Steins;Gate 0.
(And with that said (and If you read until here), excuse my grammar errors and poor writing. This is my first (and possibly last) review.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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