Review of Steins;Gate 0

Time travel is a very mysterious and confusing subject we can all wonder. It is definitely not an easy concept to write a story on, for usually, there would be more than a few flaws that would have cause for eyebrows raised. This is what we call, a bootstrap paradox, where something or someone seems to exist only because of something from the future.. An easier way of describing it would be pulling yourself out of a pit with your own bootstrap, hence the name. If that is the case, where is this something or someone's origins and how did it come to be? Severalblockbusters that comes to mind with the unintentional bootstrap paradox would be the Terminator film series or perhaps even Doctor Who in a sense. Now Steins;Gate presented the concept of multiple world-lines or "mirror universes" if you will, or a "Star Trek" analogy. Although this is not the first anime series to use the concept of multiple world-lines, it nevertheless, reduces its chances of encountering a paradox, which is great relief on my part, who questions the events occurrences chronologically.

The story of Steins;Gate 0 was very interesting, I find it quite entertaining to see another path Okabe could have taken if he had not save Kurisu in the original series, so that's a positive aspect of this series. I find it quite refreshing to try and remember the events of the original series so as to connect any small details of the alternate story and I have to say, it is definitely quite a thriller, as the story, like the first series, leaves the audience questioning the ultimate antagonist till the very end. However, unlike the first Steins;Gate series, which minimised the flaws by leaving a few aspects of the story ambiguous, the new series did place a few new revelations in the story that had my eyebrows raised and thinking: "Oh no.. It's a bootstrap paradox!" For one, while trying not to do too many spoilers, it's the time machine.. Suzuha loses her old one due to out of fuel and attempts to persuade Daru to create a new one by studying hers, which was designed by Daru in the future.. Ok.. So where did the time machine come originally? Without future Daru to design it, then the time machine couldn't have been introduced to the past Daru.. Thus my conclusion that time travel is such a mysterious and confusing subject to discuss about.

Despite the story's inevitable encounter with such a paradox, I very much enjoyed the characters' relationships with one another. The various archetypes they represent were intriguing and touching where the drama aspect of the story kicks in. I very much like Okabe's characteristics, where he once was a self-proclaimed mad-scientist, but due to unfortunate circumstances during his time travelling adventure, he gave up on that fantasy and spends his days grieving, knowing that he is alone with such experiences. It really drew me in and at times, I really could feel his frustrations!
However, as the story escalated to its height, I felt several aspects of it rather made it a little confusing. To refrain from spoiling, I can think of a character who appeared that I felt unnecessary or at least her involvement within Okabe and his friends' circle was not covered enough to make her worthy to have such a role as she did in the last several episodes.

To add to this, White Fox's art-style of this series and its close resemblance to the Visual Novel is great as usual, simple as that. That then concludes for now, with a rating overall of 8/10. The only factor that brings that down to 8 instead of 9 is perhaps the fact they allowed more flawed aspects into the story then they did in the original Steins;Gate, but otherwise, I still found it very enjoyable to watch.