Steins;Gate 0 Episodes 4 + 5: It's Never Over

Episodes 4 + 5 have certainly stepped up the tension in this new series and made me interested in how the conflict will develop. I’m still not fully sold on this but I will admit I was pretty into these two episodes.

Episodes 4 and 5 of Steins;Gate 0 bring a few interesting developments. One of them we probably could have done without, but the others are quite a welcome introduction to some conflict rather than just watching the characters interact.

I’m very curious as to the origin of Okabe’s dream and whether or not there is in fact a shift in the world line again. It isn’t impossible he’s just really traumatised and imagining things, but he did lose some time, at least if Kurisu as the AI is to be believed, and he certainly had a fairly vivid recollection of a future event that realistically he shouldn’t have lived through in the world line he is currently in.

And bringing back Moeka was definitely always going to be a tense moment. So many horrible memories attached to her and yet Okabe is the only one to remember it. What makes this introduction even tenser is you can pretty much figure out that Ruka is going to bring the missing person into the story, so they are essentially giving information to Moeka and bringing her into their lives unnecessarily. That just reeks of plot slamming these elements together to set up future events that are unlikely to go well for the main group. Despite the obvious nature of the plot device, I had to admit I was liking this as it at least means things are moving along.

However, the addition of a second time traveller that they’ve just never mentioned before is probably the bit that lost me. It seems so unnecessary and to have her look just like Kurisu (implying that maybe she’s a daughter) and then have her being raised by Mayuri in the future (because why not entangle everyone) all just seems so ham-fisted. While this might lead to something interesting, it was the plot development I was least impressed with in these two episodes.