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「並進対称のアルタイル」 (Heishin Taishou no Arutairu)
“Altair of Translational Symmetry: Translational Symmetry”
The sad truth is, there’s really no good way to go about this for me. When I take stock of where I am with Steins;Gate 0 right now, it’s not pretty. But nothing good will come from savaging it, especially since after last week’s episode much of what made this one so weak were repeat offenses. And we’re so close to the end that it only makes sense to see it through, especially given the enormous affection I have for the first series.
Still – this show really is a mess at the moment. The writing seems mostly trying to do damage control, to hold things together by whatever means possible even as the structure the first series (and of course the VN before that) built crumbles all around them. Admittedly, it will help tremendously if the combat scenes are over, because they’ve been legit some of the worst I’ve ever seen in anime. It would also help if Kagari were out of the picture, though apparently after having been shot like 15 times she’s going to be just fine. And please – can someone turn off the soundtrack?
As far as the Prof. Leskinen development goes, that’s been telegraphed almost since his first appearance. And honestly that’s fine – I don’t think it was supposed to be a surprise that he was the big bad (I sure hope it wasn’t). I could have done without him literally dissolving into evil laughter so often, but I knew he was going to be outed as a supervillain sooner or later. And the idea of him hatching this plot with his future self is one of the more interesting elements “0” has introduced to the equation.
As to what happened with Suzuha and Mayuri, we may be staring at one of those cases where “time paradox” is used as a pretext for “gaping plot hole”. If nothing else it’ll be interesting to see how the writing extricates itself from this. If Mayushi died, she never adopted Kagari in the future, and Kagari never went on a rampage. If they escaped the missile and got to the past, why didn’t Okarin’s Reading Steiner activate? Did they actually go to the future instead of the past, maybe because of the missile? Maybe now that there’s really no time for the extraneous ridiculousness that’s gummed up the works in the second cour, Steins;Gate 0 will be forced to focus on the bare essentials and salvage something from this narrative crater the last few episodes have left it buried in. I sure hope so – if “0” is the way Steins;Gate goes out as an anime, I want it to be on a higher note than this.
Bahahahaha~
You might want to avoid the Visual Novel then.
Aside from the decapitations (which are done with a machete originally)
the rest of the episode is on point with the source material. (Including the paradox trip)
Zero is a odd bug in the S;G universe. Non linear and convoluted. I didn’t think they could adapt it so decently. I expected WORSE, so props to the anime writers.
It was never going to be an easy adaptation, they have done a pretty decent job all things considered.
Mayuri’s dead! No, not really!
Kagari’s dead! Don’t worry, it’s only 225 flesh wounds!
I expected better, but I haven’t read the VNs. This looks like Chaos;Head, with its convoluted writing, but I suppose I shoudn’t be surprised.
Okabe’s Reading Steiner didn’t go off because it only goes off when the worldline changes in the past. It doesn’t go off when the worldline changes in the same moment he’s currently in. Ex: the video mail of the original changed the worldline, no Reading Steiner.
As someone who turns his brain off when watching things I was largely willing to disregard Enzo’s post last week. Then Kagari proceeded to karate chop two dudes’ heads off.
” If Mayushi died, she never adopted Kagari in the future, and Kagari never went on a rampage.”
Which wouldn’t have any effect whatsoever, as Kagari came from a different beta worldline, so even if the future of this worldline has now been changed, Kagari’s existence would still remain as it is.
As for the plot hole, there was a message from future Daru confirming that the world line had changed in last week’s episode (and that message itself may have altered it further!)
If there’s a plot hole, it would be regarding how future Daru detected that change. Although there’s an easy explanation: future Daru saw the events of the future unfold in a different way to what time traveling Suzuha (from the previous world line) had told him, and that’s how he detected the world line change.
Leskinen is the type of old fashioned gloating villain that really drags the show down.
Worst episode of the show so far.
I honestly thought I was the only one who thought that about him. I think he’s the reason S;G 0 is the mess it currently is.
I appreciate the idea of a villain who learned of the future and managed to use that knowledge for his advantage. It’s not dissimilar to Okabe and it’s usually a better story if there’s an intelligent opponent rather than simply trying to fight “time.”
But the Prof is easily the clunkiest “friend/not friend” type-villain I’ve seen in a long time. Seems clear the writers don’t think their audience is much brighter than the 2-D characters they’re writing.
– The man has appeared all along to have no purpose. He contributed little to the story other than some awkward “who is this guy?” humor and to bully Okabe and what’s-her-name into situations. Any other type of character could have filled the latter role.
– Western. Yeah, we get it, japanese unease with large, clunky westerners makes it almost a given that this guy looked even more obviously suspicious to the native audience.
– The uncomfortable unbalance of “were we supposed to be surprised, or not? LIke, we weren’t surprised. NOBODY should have been. But the writing seems to want some credit for that anyway?
I can accept Kagari a little easier; a story with time travel tends to take some liberties. The display of fighting could have been done better but the fake surprise of ‘dead/not dead” is eyeroll-inducing, particularly when it gets replayed everytime someone new shows up on the scene. But again, maybe they thought the big clunky guy’s laugh wasn’t too much.
I will be extremely annoyed if there turns out to be no relation between her and Krisu though. Just simple coincidence won’t work.
All of this reminds me of when I took a painting color class. The professor explained what she called “JC Penney” colors; colors and color combos which look okay at a glance or from a distance but, when really looked at, didn’t look quite right: not pigmented enough, a bit muddy, combos which are just off enough they aren’t sharp or pleasing. The idea is basic and obvious but the execution is sloppy and lazy, only just close enough to initially pass as acceptable.
“0” is totally JC Penney colors.
@Danny
Simply THANK YOU!
I’m already in this thing all the way to the end. Let’s just see how it all raps up and then I’ll put my thoughts into words, because I’m not about to judge the entire series by this one episode.
I am really liking the show. Seams like the show are very popular and a large number love it. I have seen two different watches along with the show people break down both in prase and in how emotionally hard the show is to watch right now and considering the last episode one of the best of both series. That is an indication along with a half dozen other watchers positive reactions the production is doing well in drams. I count crying, being emotionally upset as intended by the story as positives. If one does not emotionally connect one often goes looking for flaws to fit initial impression and the same with praise.
Sort of dumb to forget the machete or using a future weapon, sounded like a microwire blade, that exists in the overall universe but not in the Stiens Gate stories I have read. I agree with animation not that great.
Hard to tell if combat was blown or director took risky chance to do combat realistically where many soldiers never fire, many who fire don’t aim and a small number get all the kills and the type who win medals show that action movie stars are realistic a lot of time excepting the occasions luck runs out in reality.
Too soon to judge plot hole a story deserves a chance to fill them before that decision.
Original Steins Gate Convergance bothers me in that it is like a God is controling things. And Okabe’s being able to reach and use the time machine without being stoped after every death was unbelivalbe without assuming a Convergance like help. Okabe even got to use the time machine when itshould have been taken before he got there because he tried to escape town. But I turned my suspenstion of disbelief higher and loved Steins Gate like I am loving Zero.
Dont worry, the VN of Steins Gate 0 was just as bad and incoherent. I dont know why expected any more from the anime to be honest.