English Dub Review: Steins;Gate 0 “Mother Goose of Mutual Recursion -Recursive Mother Goose-“

Mayuri gets my vote for mom of the year.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

This week, things have returned to mostly normal in the lives of the Future Gadget Lab. With things settled down, the gang now turns their attention to finding out what happened to Kaguri’s memories, and the key to that is a particular song that she remembers hearing when she was very young.

The crew checks around, speaking with Suzuha and Mayuri to track down where this particular song came from in Kaguri’s memory. This takes them through multiple scenes of mild hi-jinx, including Taro going on a date with Yuki and Suzuha at an eating contest.

Eventually, Kagari hears the musical accompaniment to this song on the radio, and she remembers that its the song Mayuri would sing to her in her future past as her adopted mother, before Kagari traveled back in time with Suzuha. She breaks down into tears and cries into Mayuri’s arms, confessing that she loves her mommy dearly. Cue the waterworks.

Our Take:

Steins;Gate 0 puts on a fairly decent performance this week, though after the deeply involving episodes we got for the past few weeks, it feels a bit lukewarm. The mysteries are put on hold here, save for one, which feels a lot less important compared to the grandness of time travel. Everything is played a little too straightforward; too linear, too sequential. Too much of it just everyone talking together, peddling along the plot without any major turns or revelations. Okabe has lost some his energy this episode as well, which turns down the good times a bit.

Similar to the last two episodes having a focus on Maho, this episode brings Kagari onto the main stage. And I have to say its been about time. Though this character has such importance in her familial relation to Mayuri, she’s been largely unexplored thus far. But this episode takes the time to really dig into who she is and what she’s doing here. The introduction of seeing Kagari’s childhood through her childlike perception was a powerful way to start out the episode. It tugs at the heartstrings and sets the tone of sincere empathy for Kagari and her struggle. It breaks you down a little bit before the episode even really begins, setting you up to get your little heart broken before the episode’s end.

Though, I have to admit, it does hurt the mystery of the significance of that song when we already know that it comes from Mayuri in the future. It changes the dynamic a bit from a mystery to a dramatic irony, where we wait for the cast on screen to discover what we already know as an audience. Does it really work? Well, the episode gets interrupted about halfway through by Suzuha’s eating contest, diminishing from the tone a bit, so sometimes it feels like we’re getting jerked around as an audience. I understand that this may be how things were presented in the game, but as an anime, its kind of weird to keep having our attention divert from the main plot to these little slice-of-life tidbits.

Its an up-and-down kind of episode, to say the least. We get some real touching scenes with Mayuri and Kagari, but too much of the episode’s middle is devoted to filler. It’s got a strong opening and ending, but I can’t say I was too enthralled by the dragged out second act.