Steins;Gate 0 has been the dream adaptation up to the release of its eighth episode. It brings one of the best stories I have ever read into the form of animation in such a shockingly good way that it's almost scary to think about. Everything from the pacing to the plot progression is perfect; Okabe's thoughts are accurately depicted through his facial expressions alone, and so much more is put into play that it is fast becoming one of the best visual novel adaptations of all time... But no adaptation is perfect, in fact the most recent episode missed the mark in quite a few areas, and has left me feeling quite disappointed. Honestly I want to forget about it, because I've no doubt that from episode 9 onwards, it's going to continue to be amazing, but this eighth episode is just going to be a small stain on an otherwise incredible series. I was planning on releasing another blog today, but seeing as this has taken up all of my thoughts, I can't focus on anything else until I've written this. Don't worry, I assure you that there will be no spoilers past where the anime is currently at, however this post will have spoilers up to and including episode 8 of Steins;Gate 0. So, with that out of the way, let's go!
In order to understand my point of view, you need to know how this episode is played out in the visual novel. So basically, when Okabe's Reading Steiner is activated he is taken back to the alpha worldline. When he arrives he meets Kurisu, same with the anime, but that's where the main similarities end. What we have in the visual novel is simply a 20 or so minute reunion with Kurisu. She quickly figures out that he is from another worldline, explains how he got here and so on, but OKABE DOES NOT MEET ANYONE ELSE. When I saw Okabe meet Daru in the anime I felt confused. I felt like I'd forgotten something significant from the VN. He sees Daru and they go the café in the anime, which doesn't happen in the visual novel. Nor does an entire day pass, nor does Okabe go to Mayuri's grave etc. etc. and in my opinion, it's all completely unnecessary. The point of Okabe and Kurisu's brief reunion is for him to be able to move on, but instead the anime throws in a bunch of clichés like a kiss and a 'I love you too', which would do the opposite to the poor guy.
Comparing Kurisu's final words in both mediums explains my thoughts well. I the VN, Kurisu simply states 'I hope you have a good morning when you wake up', whilst in the anime she confesses her love instead, which doesn't help Okabe at all! What would be going through his mind when she screams that at him as soon as he pressed that button? I feel it's an extremely unrealistic thing for Kurisu to say, especially considering that she knows how much Okabe is hurting with what happened in his own worldline. The kiss, also, is not how things should have turned out. Kurisu is smart enough to realise that that wouldn't help this Okabe in the situation that he's in. In the VN for example they have a touching scene where they pinky swear to each other not to lie; Kurisu wants Okabe to forget about her, which just isn't going to happen, making things so much more bittersweet.
Do you recall in the anime that Kurisu tells Okabe how this is all a dream? Well it also happens in the visual novel, but that's more believable due to one thing - isolation. For 20-30 minutes we are presented with a very emotional conversation between two people who can't be together. The way that it is only confined to one place (with the exception of about a minute when Okabe steps outside) and the only two people we see are him and Kurisu, the plausibility of it being a dream to Okabe is probable. I mean of course, it isn't a dream, and we know that, but what I'm saying is that it has a dream-like atmosphere to it. With the anime throwing in a bunch of filler in the form of extra characters, locations and plot points etc. it loses that feel to it, and that's really bad. Not to mention that Okabe literally sleeps and awakens the next day during this episode... It loses its meaning. There's no atmosphere in the anime because it's broken by the supporting cast. And the music too! It's not bittersweet when there's an epic track playing in the background right at the end of the episode - that scene is supposed to be heartbreaking, but instead the anime comes across as empowering. The dialogue in the VN features the two characters reminiscing their experiences, and the voice acting represented that well. In the anime I couldn't help but see it as hollow due to the sheer amount that is going on. The couple's actual conversation was skimmed over and instead we got drama from the other characters.
Here's how I expected the episode to pan out: the reunion would take up around 10 minutes. This scene would have no breaks, and it would just have a long and emotional conversation between Okabe and Kurisu. It only needed to be short and to the point to be effective, just like the scene from the VN. The second half of the episode would then take place after Okabe sends his D-Mail, further advancing the plot. Instead, we got a very abridged version of the conversation which lacked depth. Now if you're saying that just two people talking would be boring, then you clearly haven't watched Re:Zero. A later episode in that series consists entirely of two characters having an in-depth conversation, and the dialogue is so emotionally investable that it isn't boring. You could also look at the Monogatari Series too, as it similarly creates interesting scenes from simple dialogue. Anyway, I would rather have 10 minutes of dialogue as opposed to 15 minutes of filler.
Steins;Gate 0 consists of fourteen unnumbered chapters leading to six different endings. In an ingenious design by the game's creators, its routes can branch to form a zero when plotted out on a chart. The player navigates the game using their smartphone as a trigger. However, there are only six. The special episode of 0 has her blowing a gasket for adding an excess of 0.1 grams of flour into her cake mix. Shana Clone: A downplayed one. Maho is a tiny, flat-chested, long-haired 21-year-old woman with a short temper and Tsundere tendencies. However, she's quite nice.
Overall, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the anime added a bunch into what should have been a simple but emotional reunion. All of the extra details, characters and locations were unnecessary. I think that the director of this episode simply wanted to stretch this scene as long as they possibly could because there simply wasn't enough Kurisu to fill an entire episode... Though an entire episode didn't need to be spent on this section. It's kinda bad when an episode is longer than the source material takes to read, but oh well, I'm positive that after this episode, it will go back to being 10/10 best adaptation. I haven't lost faith at all in this series, this episode just tried to do something different to the VN and failed in my eyes. To anime only's, I'm sure that this was a fantastic episode, but to me, knowing what it could have been makes me feel disappointed.
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So don't get me wrong, I'm simply expressing my thoughts as a reader of the source material and still hold this anime to a high regard. Just because I was disappointed by this doesn't take away from Steins;Gate 0 as a whole, so I still look forward to its future episodes! And that concludes this blog. If you want to express your thoughts, either as a reader of the VN or an anime-only, then please do so in the comments! I am very interested to hear everyone else's takeaway from this episode. Until next time though, have a great day and I'll see you very soon with another blog!
:wave: SEE YA! :wave: