Steins;Gate 0 Episode 23: The End and The Beginning

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One final attempt at sending Mayuri and Suzuha into the past to change everything (or rather get Okabe back into trying to save Kurisu which the audience already knows happens so I’m not entirely sure if there was any point to this or not) and then we have a few loose ends to tie up but otherwise we’re done. Okay, there’s still an OVA to go so I guess there’s more to this story but I think for me, I’m done.

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If I’m brutally honest, the few points I got out of this spin-off probably could have been covered in about six episodes rather than 23, however it has been kind of fun rejoining these characters. I’ll save further thoughts on this for the whole series review and focus more on episode 23, an episode that brings things together and links us back to where we needed to be for Okabe to make the choice he needs to make.

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Seeing the roof-top scene, yet again, even with the slightly modified role for Kagari, wasn’t exactly thrilling but at least we finally get some closure on this scene. The phone call from Mayuri to Mayuri was probably the stand out moment of the episode and did exactly what it needed to and then watching Suzuha and Mayuri accept their fate was one of those moments that made me remember how good Steins;Gate could be.

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That said, this episode was much like this series has been. A series of good ideas and great moments surrounded by moments that we perhaps could have done without and ideas that aren’t fully realised. It works in the moment but on thinking back there just isn’t enough here.

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Karandi James

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4 thoughts on “Steins;Gate 0 Episode 23: The End and The Beginning

  1. I have started with my rewatch for Stein’s Gate last weekend (as usual I haven’t yet much progress as the week ended up going in a different direction than I thought lol). But that said, I have to say that I am already enjoying it more than on my first run. Maybe it’s because I now know kind of what to expect. I will probably watch this on right after, but it seems to be getting some very mixed opinions, so I’m wondering what mine will be like. We usually seem to like the same type of stuff (with of course a few exceptions), so it wouldn’t surprise if my opinion ends up the same as yours. But…I guess we will see 😊

    1. I didn’t dislike this, but at the same time it just hasn’t had quite the impact Steins;Gate did and I’m always pretty harsh on prequels and spin-offs so this one had a few things stacked against it from the beginning. Ultimately though, I think the biggest issue with Steins;Gate 0 is it just had too many episodes for the amount of actual content it provided (and I usually don’t say that about an anime usually lamenting they didn’t have long enough to develop ideas).

      1. Yeah, you know my stance on prequels is pretty similar. I hardly ever like them, simply because it lacks the tension, and you already know which characters will survive.
        But true enough, if it just contains too many episodes for the story it is trying to tell, that makes it only worse. Well, I guess I will see it eventually. As usual it will probably take me a while, but I will get to it 😊

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