English Dub Review: Steins;Gate 0 “Altair of the Cyclic Coordinate -Time-leap Machine-“

Hold fast, its about to get real.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Mayuri and Suzuha are dead, having been killed by Professor Leskinen and the American paramilitary group trying to obtain the secret of time travel. With his world destroyed, Okabe decides that its time to embrace his fate and restore the time leap machine so that he can find Steins;Gate and fix this mess before it even begins.

Okabe, Daru and Maho, with the help of Rumiho, Moeka and Ruka, pull an all-nighter and do their best to get the time leap machine ready. Despite Maho’s trepidation at following in Kurisu’s footsteps, she proves her own genius by getting the machine up and running. Facing his fears, Okabe dons the time leap headset and takes the plunge back into the world of time travel.

Once he arrives, Okabe desperately tries to convince Daru and Maho to stay inside the future gadget lab and stay away from the radio tower, so they don’t get captured by Leskinen. They don’t believe him at first, but Okabe insists that he’s from the future and gets their cooperation.

Okabe rushes over to the radio tower to save Suzuha and Mayuri. Upon arriving, he convinces them of his intentions as well and learns that the reason Suzuha and Mayuri are going back in time is to convince Okabe’s past self to not give up on searching for Steins;Gate. Okabe respects their decision and wishes them well, but it’s too late. A second masked gunman, Leskinen’s assistant professor shows up to stop them, delaying them just long enough for the rest of Leskinen’s forces to arrive.

His first attempt thwarted, Okabe regroups with Daru and Maho to go back in time once again. He resolves to go back in time as many times as it takes to save the future, seemingly a new man; unafraid of facing down destiny once again.

Our Take:

Finally, at long last, it feels like this series has really begun. This is the first episode in a long time of watching this series that I would say really feels like Steins;Gate. Unlike prior episodes that have been bogged down in filler and lengthy arrays of somewhat meaningless dialogue, this episode plays fast and hard, getting right into the meat without wasting any time.

Okabe is more of a character here than he has been in a long time. Though he hasn’t donned his trademark lab coat yet, he feels more like “Houoin Kyouma” than ever before in Steins;Gate 0. No longer the mopey shadow of his former self, he is once again a character who, though troubled, has agency and takes action to fight his struggles and retake his bright future. Following the emotional gut punch of last week’s episode, this is a solid turn for the show, rebuilding Okabe, and the audience, after having their respective hearts broken.

In addition to Okabe’s redemptive struggle, Maho gets her time to shine as well. Her resolve to fix the time leap machine and support Okabe brings her “Sallieri/Amadeus” conflict full circle. She finally realizes what she’s capable of, and the episode does well in its imagery to indicate that to the audience. In particular, the scene where Okabe imagines her with red hair in the light of the morning was a nice little way of expressing her growth. I’ll also note that Okabe quoting the last letter between Sallieri to Mozart to convince Maho of her brilliance was a solid touch of poetic class for the show to bring in.

One gets the feeling that things are about to get a whole lot more interesting from here on, and also that things are about to get a whole lot worse for Okabe. His decision to dive back into time leaping will no doubt be the climax of the series, but this episode goes to great lengths to build us up to the coming conflict. This week, Steins;Gate 0 really brought the big guns, and delivered on an episode that I can’t find any major issues with. While, like the rest of the series, its had some pacing issues and a difficulty with story structure, the show drops us an episode that’s fulfilling from start to finish. I don’t know if Steins;Gate 0 will be able to reach the depth of theme and story that its big brother original series made, but I’m eager to see what they can pull off this time.