There was a time when Steins Gate was the pinnacle of anime. It had everything: an interesting hook, a ragtag but loveable cast, and absolutely stunning animation. So what happened? How did Steins Gate 0 end up so far off the mark? These failings were all too apparent in episode 13, a masterclass in how not to appeal to your audience.
Clichés and Tropes
Kagari has her memories back. This seems like a great time to move the plot forward. Instead, this episode is spent establishing the “ten-year old girl in a grown woman’s body” gimmick from every ecchi series ever. Were you starting to like Kagari? How about if she says “mommy” every few seconds? This adds absolutely nothing to the series, and strongly reminded me of Yui from Sword Art Online, a similarly useless and sentimental character who’s also detested by the show’s fans.
This newfound naivety leads Kagari to run off on her own (to get sweets, predictably. Kids like sweets, you see). This in turn leads to her remembering some kind of medical procedure. To be fair, there’s a highly visible line from on plot point to the next. The downside is that the story beats have become so predictable that you’re only really watching for the animation itself.
All Fluff, No Function
Honestly, you could have covered the entirety of this episode’s plot progression in a five-minute web OVA. There were some cool moments: Moeka’s driving is reminiscent of the type you’d see in Initial D, for example, but it seems like this season has been made up almost entirely of unnecessary filler episodes. Why not just make it a 13-episode season, cut out all the pandering, low-effort content, and focus on the story?
So much time has been wasted. Characters are introduced, relevant for a few episodes, and then discarded. In fact, the only real character development we’ve seen is for Ruuka, Okabe, and to some extent, Kurisu. With this in mind, it’s hard to feel invested in Kagari or indeed, any of the new cast members. Even Yuki, a pivotal character, is mainly just used to show how awkward Daru is.
Rushed Animation and Uninspired Scenes
This is something we’ve noticed for a while: there is a marked drop in the animation quality from Steins Gate to Steins Gate 0. Unless it’s a close up, there’s a good chance a character is minimally detailed, and even the backgrounds have suffered. Given how good the original series looked, this is a major problem.
The show does everything it can to prevent you from noticing, but the tell-tale signs leak through. Long conversations ping-pong between close ups of the characters’ faces. Much of the action takes place in the lab, an alleyway, or some other, easy-to-draw location. Then there’s the most obvious one: Kagari is almost identical to Kurisu, which allows the artists to reuse old animations as a reference.
We’d hoped for more from Steins Gate 0. Unless it pulls something unforgettable from the second half of the season, this may well be a sequel we tell our friends to skip.
