Steins;Gate 0/YMMV
These things about Steins;Gate 0 are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.
WARNING! There are unmarked Spoilers ahead. Beware.
- Awesome Music: The series has plenty of kickass tunes throughout. Among them being "Amadeus", which closed out Episode 1 and 22 (it is also the main theme for the visual novel).
- Zwei performing "Last Game" during the credits in the first half of the series, reflecting the brooding tone in Okabe's emotional state.
- Then we have "Liar", also performed by Zwei, a beautiful power ballad that plays during the 8th and 18th episodes' end credits, the former being the biggest source of Tear Jerker moments in the series.
- "World Line", the credits theme for the second half of the series, which happens to be sung by Kurisu's Japanese voice actress, Asami Imai.
- As Okabe time leaps back through time in Episode 21, we are treated to the original game's main theme, "Skyclad Observer" just to amplify the sheer awesomeness of that scene.
- "Reawakening", a remix of the game's main menu theme plays as Okabe reverts back to his old self.
- Finally, "Gate of Steiner" which was a recurring theme in the original game/series, closes out the final episode, only this time, we are treated to a fantastic vocal version. There is no better way to end a series than that!
- Broken Base: Daru and Yuki's relationship. While there is genuine romance between the two, and their scenes do provide some of the show's more tender moments, a lot of fans feel that any chemistry they have is undermined by the fact that their Kid From the Future is present, leading many fans to believe they were fated to be together no matter what.
- Then there's Yuki herself. While she is an enjoyable character for the most part (partially because she has a lot of Alpha Suzuha's best personality traits), she is ultimately a Satellite Love Interest who is bound to Daru by fate.
- Contested Sequel: While the anime adaptation was still well received by fans, many will agree that it doesn't quite live up to the high standards set by the original series. The most complaints about 0 are the attempts to adapt a non-linear narrative into something cohesive, the treatment of the villains, and animation that isn't up to scratch. That said, the series holds an 8.6-8.7 on myanimelist, though a lower rating than the original's 9.1-9.2 rating.
- Franchise Original Sin: Even one of the most critically acclaimed visual novels around wasn't devoid of flaws, but the sequel accentuates some of them. This applies even more so to the anime adaptions of both games, with such examples as:
- The need to cram in as many named characters into scenes as possible, even if they contribute nothing to the overall narrative just to pay lip service to their fans. Admittedly, the original series has this problem to a degree with Ruka and Faris being the biggest offenders in that regard, but at the very least, their purpose was to explore Okabe's character, they received their own story arcs, of which they were the main focus, and received plenty of Character Development of their own. 0 on the other hand has characters who either contribute very little to the plot, or serve no purpose.
- Mayuri's cosplay buddies, Fukubi and Kaede, are the worst offenders. Their names were mentioned in the original game and adaptation, and even in spin-off games, but we never met them until 0. Their presence here seems to be just to put faces to the names, and nothing more. In fact, these two characters disappear from the series after the 13th episode, and are never mentioned again. One could replace them with someone else, and nothing would change.
- Trying to adapt the game into a series was also contentious, due to the game's non-linear structure. The original series had some non-linear elements to it, but otherwise the plot was still linear enough to form a cohesive conversion to television. Here though, certain plot details in the VN didn't make it into the show, such as Kagari impersonating Yuki, and Judy Reyes' role in the plot being severely cut down to a handful of appearances.
- The relationship between Daru and Yuki was also divisive for the reasons stated under Broken Base above. But we got a sense of what Daru would be like in the future through subtle hints in the original series, and the lack of concrete information (including the two not even meeting yet) allowed fans to fill in the gaps using their imaginations.
- The need to cram in as many named characters into scenes as possible, even if they contribute nothing to the overall narrative just to pay lip service to their fans. Admittedly, the original series has this problem to a degree with Ruka and Faris being the biggest offenders in that regard, but at the very least, their purpose was to explore Okabe's character, they received their own story arcs, of which they were the main focus, and received plenty of Character Development of their own. 0 on the other hand has characters who either contribute very little to the plot, or serve no purpose.
- He Really Can Act: Tomokazu Seki, Daru's Japanese actor, received wide spread acclaim for how he portrayed the character in Episode 16. He was able to get such genuine anger across that you can feel the emotion being radiated as he gives Okabe a punch in the face for crapping on Maho and his attempts to help him.
- Kana Hanazawa's performance in the same episode as Mayuri also deserves a mention; constantly being sidelined by Okabe becomes too much for her to bare, reducing her to an emotional wreck. Hanazawa then delivers one of the most emotional scenes in the series thanks to her heartrending performance as Mayuri is reduced to tears. She is able to give a similar performance in the next episode as she make her Love Confession towards Okabe. Her voice work in these two episodes could even rival the performance she gave in My Darling's Embrace towards the end of Mayuri's route.
- Megan Shipman does a fantastic job voicing Mayuri in English, with her performance matching Ashly Burch's portrayal of the character very nicely to where you wouldn't even notice the difference if not for the end credits saying so.
- Love to Hate: Alexis Leskinen may have proven to be a callous, cunning, psychotic mad scientist who seeks to unlock the secrets of time travel through causing pain and suffering for everyone else, but his upbeat personality, adorkable obsession with "Shaman" Girls, and buddy-buddy relationship with Okabe makes him almost impossible to hate.
- Non Sequitur Scene: When Professors Leskanin and Reyes show up at Yanabyashi shrine long after the New Year festivities ended, Ruka suddenly starts speaking to them in English. This comes out of nowhere and no one says anything about this after the fact.
- Off-Model: The anime in particular is of a noticeably lesser quality than the original in terms of visuals, with fewer frames of animation being used, fidelity is visibly lower, and character models being slightly off. The animation would've been better even if a few extra frames were added just to make it look a little smoother.
- As far as the game is concerned, Mayuri's arms are unnaturally long in certain sprites, Ruka's neck is a tad too long in his winter get-up, and Maho's body proportions are a little off in some CG's (as far as her height goes, that is).
- Special Effect Failure: Every living character was aged up accordingly when Okabe lands in 2036... with the exception of Faris, who for some reason looks near enough the same in 2036 as she did in 2011 despite having supposed to have aged 25 years (18 then, 43 now).
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As mentioned above, there are certain plot points in the visual novel that are omitted from the anime, including the first time Okabe, Maho, and Prof. Leskinen are attacked in a hotel parking garage. This would show how much of a target Maho is to certain forces if she was attacked on multiple occasions like in the game rather than the one time.
- The friendship between Maho and Moeka is never explored in the anime beyond a couple of vocal exchanges. The game provides a clearer context for how they meet and the reason behind it, and in "Twin Automata", and they share enough screen time together that their relationship can really flourish, even giving Moeka some additional character development. In the anime however, there isn't any context behind their encounter, and dialogue between the two is severely limited.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Judy Reyes in the game was a rather sinister military agent who isn't above double-crossing her allies to get want she wants, even resorting to dirty tricks to do so as demonstrated in the "Twin Automata" and "Promised Rinascemento" endings. In the anime however, Reyes has less than 10 minutes of screen time in the entire 24-episode series, almost as if she was a last-minute addition to the cast.
- Kagari was also a missed opportunity, as it was widely believed that her backstory and physical resemblance to Kurisu would play a major part in the series' overall mythos, but her arc is dropped completely after Episode 12, "Recursive Mother Goose".
- All of the above examples however could be attributed to the writers trying to adapt a game with 6 different story paths into one linear narrative but doing so probably meant that certain story beats had to be dropped.
- Tough Act to Follow: This series had some high standards set by the original to live up to. Sadly, it doesn't quite meet those standards, namely due to the story being incoherent at times, and inferior animation. That said, it still proved to be quite popular, and it does have some merit, such as a top notch English dub, a great sense of humour, and a handful of Tear Jerker moments that could rival the original, particularly Episode 8, 16, and 17. Even so, it doesn't quite hit the same strides as the original, as reflected in the rating on myanimelist mentioned above.
- Back to Steins;Gate 0