Consequently, while the first season started off slow before it’s whole “oh shit” moment about halfway through that led to a really excellent second half, Zero is peppered with moments that seem designed to be “oh Shit” but which are 50% “saw it coming” and 50% “this doesn’t make sense to me”. Amnesia, conspiracy, time-travel, AI, déjà vu and more interpersonal-romantic subplots all threaten to jostle eachother out of the show for episodes at a time, such that, whereas the first season initially seemed aimless but then revealed itself to have quite a satisfying structure (Okabe struggling to undo progress made in the first half in order to stave off Mayuri’s predetermined death), the second winds up feeling poorly-plotted.
The first season had quite a winding plot and would jump between sub-plots and character arcs fairly often, but there was generally rhyme and reason to the interpolations, whereas in S G0 there’s a clear excess of material that the writers clearly don’t have a real handle on. The narrative, such as it is, ends up being the big killer though.
Mayuri, my bestest favourite from the first season, is especially disappointing in that (without spoiling anything) her relationship with Okabe is Flanderised to Nedding point, and no-one else really shines either, perhaps maybe Moeka who is used just the right amount for the context of the show that she's in, only turning up when it makes sense for her to be there.ĭaru, meanwhile, continues to be routinely the worst thing about this entire franchise, a comic relief sidekick who I’ve never found especially funny and whose more serious moments are (but for one or two exceptions) the dictionary definition of the idiom “to fall flat”. Maho is an interesting character when first introduced, but the show quickly becomes repetitious as every scene with her and Okabe in it, or with her and Amadeus, seems to have much the same content and much the same presentation. The character work in general is pretty underwhelming, the already large cast swollen with a handful of newcomers who for the most part have little to do, and many of the old favourites such as Faris and Ruka also struggle to find their places, which leads to a couple of laughable attempts at initiating sub-plots involving them that basically go nowhere. To be honest, while the concept of a darker alternate timeline to the original ending was intriguing going in, swapping Hououin Kyouma for a more jaded, sad-sack Okabe has what I have to imagine was the opposite of the intended effect, namely that he (like much of the rest of the season) has become colourless and boring. Just as it seems like he might be able to move on from what happened in the past/future/alternate present (despite the warranted nagging of Suzuha, his best mate's daughter from a dystopian future), Okabe is introduced to Maho, a former colleague of Kurisu's, as well as Amadeus, an AI built upon Kurisu's own pre-Okarin memories. Instead, Okabe has had to go to therapy for a while and has seemingly hung up the mad scientist mantle for good, in favour of a dapper dark suit and a sterner countenance. Synopsis time: S G0 takes place sequentially after the penultimate episode of the original season but in a different continuity, one wherein Mayuri didn't step in and compel Okabe to go back in time once more and attempt to stave off the seemingly inevitable demise of super best girl friend, Makise Kurisu. So believe me when I say that I'm not angry with how S G0 turned out. It was followed up by a fantastic original movie, and I even went back and played the visual novel out of interest (it's a little flabbier and more excessive than the anime but still very good).
It's one of those shows that doesn't really kick in until about the halfway mark, but instead allows for a slow build of characterisation and mood-setting before a real gut-punch of a volta that genuinely shocked me the first time around, and continues to be effective on re-watch. * SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINAL STEINS GATE *įull disclosure I am a huge fan of the original Steins Gate.
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