Review of Steins;Gate 0

How the heck do you make a sequel to a story as complete as Steins;Gate? By having the entire show be a flash-sideways to the bad timeline where Makise Kurisu is still dead. Frankly it's not a story I thought needed telling until I actually watched it. I was really into the first Steins;Gate so I was willing to watch anything that promised to continue the story in any way, but I wasn't expecting much going into it. Seeing the mad scientist Hououin Kyouma reduced to a normal college student with almost no personality left was profoundly depressing. The whole show acts as a heroes journeyof him getting back to his former chuuni self. I never thought hearing that stupid laugh again after so many episodes would be so freaking cathartic. The show also does a great job filling in a lot of the lore details you might have missed in Steins;Gate and just fleshing out the world and all the evil organizations and the World War 3 stuff. Almost as satisfying as seeing Rinatro stop being the sad scientist is watching Daru's transformation from typical otaku guy-in-the-chair to father and science action hero in the future. I know that's now an alternate fate for him but I like to this he eventually grows into something like that anyway in the main timeline.

The villain is pretty funny if you watch it subbed. I just love the way he pronounces Rintaro like the typical Japanese person trying really hard to sound like a gaijin trying hard to speak Japanese. The voice work in the original Japanese in general is iconic with stellar performances from everyone. Every character gets at least a couple moments to shine and despite my reservations at the start I think they really knocked it out of the park with this one. 9/10