Steins;Gate 0 – 8 [Dual of Antinomy -Antinomic Dual-]

Hello everyone! Another week, another ridiculously pretentious episode name for Steins;Gate 0! This week we have suffering, lots and lots of suffering, spread around our characters liberally. Lets jump in!So before we get into specifics, lets talk general notes. Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It didn’t spend the whole time being a downer, sprinkling some amusing or hopeful moments in there. It showed us shots of Okabe’s life if he made another choice, making it clear he couldn’t keep on the way he has. Some would call it melodrama, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but for me it works here. Melodrama lives or dies based on how much the audience cares for its characters. And with how Steins;Gate 0 is formatted and its character focus, only the ones who care would make it this far, so I think it worked out. As a Steins;Gate fan, its character focused episodes like with all of the references to earlier episodes and events that I love the most.

Speaking of references, lets talk about the throwbacks to the original Steins;Gate. Seriously, this scene right here from the original series should give you all of the context you need. Its moments like the end of this episode that make me love time travel, when its done well. I really don’t want to gush on it to much, but seriously, I had no idea how they were going to tie it together. I thought they were going to text Okabe something, to make him try to save Mayurii again. Instead we see Kurisu sacrificing everything. It doesn’t stop her attempted confession but it does delay her just long enough for Okabe to push the button. I feel sorry for the rest of the cast, because Kurisu retook her place has “Best Girl” within a single episode.
Some might see that as an overstatement of Kurisu, but to them I say get over it. She knows Okabe so well that she noticed he had switch world lines, sought him out, and explicitly sacrificed her happiness for his. The best part is, I think this entire episode was setting up Okabe’s motivation to try and save her again and gave him the hints as to how. We saw that Kurisu’s first meeting of Okabe was different than his first meeting of her. Their “perception” of the first meeting was different, because of time travel. This right here is the seed of his “Trick the world” solution presented at the end of the originalSteins;Gate. So melodrama or not, this meeting actually had a narrative purpose as far more than just fanservice. And I loved it.

That is not to say everything was perfect however. I’ve gushed plenty and from a narrative standpoint, I enjoyed every second. However there were a few… odd parts. For example, the music in a number of scenes was just off. I understand the desire to avoid a complete downer of an episode, get some variety in there, but the music at the grave and their parting just felt to upbeat to me. To happy. Lyra is a nice song, I love most of Steins;Gate’s music, but its to upbeat I feel. To hopeful for should have been a more somber scene. Then there was the odd tone switch from somber, to jolly and loving, back to somber parting. I understand what they were going for, appreciate it, but it didn’t work for me. For that to be my biggest complaint however means it was still a damn good episode.
The last bit worth talking about is, what happens from here? I already mentioned that I think Okabe has an idea of how to save Kurisu now. However we know he doesn’t/can’t save her himself. Then we still have the issue with Amadeus being offline, calling him for help and him time traveling. There are allusions to earthquakes in Russia, meaning Russia has started researching time travel clearly so its possible they triggered it. But we are no closer to figuring out Amadeus and whats going on with her. Are we going to stick with them until 2036 and watch as the world plunges into World War 3? It would be an interesting change from the general slice of life style story Steins;Gate has used up until now. Im just concerned with how they are going to work more time travel into, well, a time travel story.

So basically to sum it all up, this was an emotional rollercoaster of an episode and with only super minor almost irrelevant issues, I loved it. Best Girl returned, everyone got a little bit of screen time from Daru to Feris and Ruka, and above it all it actually served a narrative purpose. The fact that this episode serves as Okabe’s motivation to change and gives him the hint to solve it all… It gives more weight to the episode. It makes more than just fanservice with Makise Kurisu, and I love it. Hope you all did to.
I also want to thank everyone who commented on the last post. I enjoy reading other peoples thoughts on the season. Takes me back to when watching anime was a smaller community who talked about every new episode. Thank you, and see you next week!