(Written for R/Anime’s 750,000 subscriber writing contest, essay category)

This post will contain spoilers for the end of Steins;Gate, as well as the beginning of Steins;Gate 0. If you haven’t seen either Steins;Gate or episode 23β, the next paragraph is quick context; skip it if you don’t need it.

Context

Steins;Gate 0 is a 2018 animated series produced by studio White Fox, and adapts the 2015 5pb/ Mages visual novel of the same name. The Steins;Gate 0 anime is also a sequel to White Fox’s 2011 series Steins;Gate, which was also adapted from a visual novel. Both the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel and its anime adaptation were announced in early 2015, with White Fox releasing a teaser for the sequel in the form of episode 23β. 23β is an alternate version of the 2011 anime’s episode 23, with the plot diverging in the second half of the episode in order to lead in to the sequel anime. It also contained scenes from the visual novel, as preview of the game that would release later that year. In other words, the first two quarters of 23β are the same as episode 23 of the original Steins;Gate anime, with the third quarter setting up a new plot for the sequel, and the final quarter containing placeholder scenes from the game in order to generate interest in the upcoming visual novel. In 23β and 0’s episode 2, the protagonist, Okabe Rintarou, is introduced to Amadeus. Amadeus is an experimental AI that simulates an existing person by using a scanned copy of that person’s memories. In this case, he meets an AI version of the lover he had to sacrifice in the original series.

Introduction

Most of the final fourth of 23β would be reworked when the full anime adaptation for Steins;Gate 0 aired three years later. Something must have gone wrong though, because the new versions of the old scenes are not up to par with the previous ones. Episode 23β of Steins;Gate and episodes 1 and 2 of Steins;Gate 0 contain scenes that are the same in regards to plot, but the way these scenes have been reworked are so inferior to the original that they may as well have just left it alone and saved themselves the budget. Specifically, the scene where Okabe meets Amadeus is unrecognizable. The problem with this reworked scene when moving from 23β to episode 2 of 0 is systemic: the cinematography is worse, the lighting is worse, the dialogue is worse, the timing of music is worse, and the tone is way off.

Tone

One of the notable aspects of the original Steins;Gate anime is the tone that it sets up as early as the first episode. Skewed camera angles create unease through odd images, and the screen fading to white at the edge of the frame lends the series an air of unreality. The lack of music makes the story more realistic, and the bright whites and washed out colors sell the intense heat of the summer that the show takes place in. These choices all come together to create a show that feels simultaneously unreal with its unusual framing, but also grounded through its focus on diegetic sound design. Not all of these qualities will be present at any one time as the series continues, the series contains plenty of music and moments of more traditional directing, but most scenes will feature at least some of them. This is true even of episode 23β, which aired 4 years after the main series; the episode continues the trend of washed out colors, bright whites and sparse music. From the first episode of Steins;Gate 0, however, most of these trends are gone, coming to a head in episode 2. The fade to white at the border of the frame is gone, and the music plays far more frequently. Some might make the argument that the bright whites and fading edges wouldn’t make sense in 0, since it doesn’t take place in summer like the original did, but I would argue that something else should have been added to take the place of those elements if they weren’t going to reuse them. As it stands, the tone of the original is mostly gone, but there isn’t much in the way of a replacement, leaving the episode 2 version of the Amadeus meeting feeling much more bland than the original version.





Guess which side is which.

Dialogue

Amadeus is revealed in 23β at 9 minutes into the youtube upload from above, and at 14 minutes into the episode 2 link from above (crunchyroll has no timestamp links).The dialogue alone is a massive tell of 0’s intentions vs the original: in 23β; Amadeus introduces itself with a polite greeting that implies unfamiliarity with Okabe (some of this is lost in the subtitles). The contrast between the polite distance of the AI compared to how close Okabe was to the real Kurisu is interesting. This important and revealing dialogue from 23β is reworked in episode 2, having Amadeus instead react to its creator laughing at a joke. This could have been an equally good reveal, casually throwing a clone of the dead into the scene like it is not a big deal is an idea the show could do interesting things with, but that’s not the angle this episode takes. The dialogue instead cuts to Okabe, and he begins to monologue with his brilliant insight that an ai based off of Makise Kurisu… looks like Makise Kurisu. 23β instead has him be shocked into speechlessness momentarily, then he begins to consult with Hououin Kyouma, the mad scientist persona that he left behind after sacrificing Kurisu. This is a powerful moment because he had sworn off Kyouma, but in the face of the upcoming World War 3, he has no choice but to fall back on old habits in order to save the world. Personally, I found this a much more exciting track of dialogue than him simply explaining his emotions like in 0 episode 2. These emotions existed in 23β, but they were made clear through less heavy handed methods than a direct explanation.

Guess which side is which.

The Music

In 23β, the scene is presented with no music, which means that the soundtrack is not suggesting any emotions for the viewer to feel. Episode 2 on the other hand can’t restrain itself, starting the track Farewell as soon as Amadeus speaks. I loved that track at the points it played in the original series, but this was not the place for it: the track does not add anything new to the sequence by playing the sad music during the sad scene. I would have much preferred the track be removed and the viewer be allowed to appreciate the moment without the unnecessary fanfare.

The Directing

One of the things I enjoyed about Steins;Gate was that it was a series that respected the viewer’s intelligence most of the time. There were a few points where it awkwardly squeezed in scientific explanations, but most of the show was full of subtleties that you could uncover by paying attention. Episode 23β embodies this just as well as the main series; Steins;Gate 0 takes things in a different direction however. In 23β, the meeting between Okabe and Amadeus starts with a close up of the AI’s eyes, then cuts to a simple shot of the monitor as Amadeus introduces itself. It then fades to the timer that ran throughout the original series; the numbers flash red as a warning of the looming World War 3. It then cuts to Okabe, whose eyes go wide at meeting Amadeus. After the events of the first 22 episodes of Steins;Gate, as well as 23β, Okabe has begun to suffer from PTSD, and we can hear Okabe’s voice in the background repeating lines from the original series as he begins to talk to Kyouma. After almost falling to tears at seeing the AI Kurisu, he pulls himself together and puts on a determined expression as he decides to fight to save the future. The scene ends on the Steins;Gate title card as he repeats the classic phrase “El Psy Kongroo”, which was part of his mad scientist persona. No part of this scene ever directly mentions how Okabe is shocked to see Kurisu again, or how the AI seems just like the real thing. These things are obvious to the viewer, which is why they are reflected wordlessly instead of explained in dialogue. The simple shot of Okabe cycling through facial expressions is all the emotion we need to see.













Steins;Gate 0 does things differently though, because it opens with an immediate closeup on Okabe’s eyes, just to make sure that you don’t miss how wide they are. It then zooms out to his whole face, then circles around to the back of his head to make sure you understand that he is looking at the monitor. It then cuts to a close up of the screen, just to make sure that you know he is looking at it. It then pans upwards so you can see more of Kurisu model on the monitor, while also cross fading to an image of the real Kurisu, just to make sure that you understand that the AI based on Kurisu looks like Kurisu. It then flashes back to several scenes from the original series, just to make sure that you understand that Okabe is reminded of the real Kurisu by looking at the AI Kurisu. They then cut to the monitor again, where the Kurisu AI introduces itself as Kurisu. The directing in this scene is intensely heavy handed, a far cry from 23β’s version, which allowed the audience to piece together the emotions of scene, and it was more powerful due to that trust in the viewer.

































The scene is so elaborate with so many cuts, but it was all completely unnecessary; no one needed all these camera pans and flashbacks and crossfades to understand the scene. Furthermore, none of these elements serve to increase our understanding of the scene beyond a surface level, they exist only to restate the dialogue, rather than to enhance it with additional meaning.

Conclusion

23β and episode 2 of Steins;Gate 0 both portray the same scene: Okabe meets Amadeus, an AI that functions off of the memories of his dead girlfriend. The difference between these two versions is night and day though: one allows the audience to discern Okabe’s emotions from this meeting by animating relatable expressions onto his face, the other shows flashbacks. One of them features several elements to create an interesting atmosphere, one of them doesn’t bother. One of them features redundant music to make sure the viewer understands that the scene is sad, the other stays silent. One of them features dialogue that requires a small amount of thinking to understand, the other explains the emotions to the audience. One of these scenes respects the audience’s intelligence, while the other does nothing of the sort. I wish that the show that treats its audience like children would trust them more, especially after they already experienced the complexities of the version that treated them like intelligent adults.

Thanks for reading. I don’t check here often, so comment on reddit if you want me to see

it:

https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/9ht2tj/steinsgate_23%CE%B2_vs_steinsgate_0_episode_2/

If you think that I missed the point with the new direction of this episode, and that it isn’t just a watered down version of a much better scene, I would genuinely love to hear what you have to say.