Steins;Gate 0 (TV series)

Summary

Steins;Gate 0 (Japanese: シュタインズ・ゲート ゼロ, Hepburn: Shutainzu Gēto Zero) is a Japanese anime television series created by White Fox that continues the story of 5pb.'s 2015 video game of the same name, and is part of the Science Adventure franchise. The series is the final iteration of the Steins;Gate 0 story, which explains certain events in the ending of Steins;Gate. It aired from April to September 2018. It is set in an alternative future where the university student Rintaro Okabe, traumatized after his experiences with time travel, meets the neuroscientists Maho Hiyajo and Alexis Leskinen and becomes a tester for their artificial intelligence system Amadeus.

Steins;Gate 0
An illustration of the main cast, with clockwork as the background.
Key visual, featuring (left to right) Kagari, Yuki, Suzuha, Maho, Kurisu, Rintaro, Mayuri, Daru, Faris, Luka, and Moeka
シュタインズ・ゲート ゼロ
(Shutainzu Gēto Zero)
Genre
Anime television series
Directed byKenichi Kawamura
Produced by
  • Makoto Chiba
  • Takayuki Matsunaga
  • Kozue Kaneniwa
  • Satoru Shimosato
  • Mitsuhiro Ogata
  • Seon-yi Kim
  • Shūichi Suzuki
Written by
  • Jukki Hanada
  • Supervised by:[a]
  • Naotaka Hayashi
  • Tatsuya Matsubara
  • Ryou Yasumoto
  • Takuya Nishimura
Music by
StudioWhite Fox
Licensed by
Original networkTokyo MX, TVA, KBS, SUN, TVQ, AT-X, BS11, GYT
English network
Original run April 12, 2018 September 27, 2018
Episodes23 + OVA (List of episodes)

The series was directed by Kenichi Kawamura, and written by Jukki Hanada, who also wrote the original Steins;Gate anime; the voice cast from previous Steins;Gate anime and games also reprised their roles. The series is licensed by Crunchyroll in North America, Madman Entertainment in Australia and Manga Entertainment in the United Kingdom.

Plot edit

The series is a final iteration of Rintaro Okabe's experiences in the beta world line after the iterations depicted in the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel. It takes place in an alternative world line from the original Steins;Gate where Rintaro Okabe fails to save Kurisu Makise and doesn't receive any guidance from his future self nor encouragement from Mayuri Shiina. After failing to save Kurisu Makise in order to prevent a future war over time machines, Rintaro Okabe, traumatized over his experiences of meddling with the past with his Reading Steiner ability, accepts his life in the beta world line where Kurisu stays dead. After several months have passed, Rintaro meets Maho Hiyajo and Alexis Leskinen, two of Kurisu's former colleagues who have been working on Amadeus, an artificial intelligence system using Kurisu's memories from before her death. Rintaro accepts a request to help out with Amadeus' development by becoming a tester, conversing with the Amadeus Kurisu through his phone.

Cast edit

 
 
 
The Japanese voice cast from other Steins;Gate media reprise their roles, including Mamoru Miyano (Rintaro Okabe), Asami Imai (Kurisu Makise), and Kana Hanazawa (Mayuri Shiina).
Character
Japanese[2][3] English[4][5]
Rintaro Okabe Mamoru Miyano J. Michael Tatum
Kurisu Makise / Amadeus Asami Imai Trina Nishimura
Mayuri Shiina Kana Hanazawa
Maho Hiyajo Sayuri Yahagi Monica Rial
Itaru "Daru" Hashida Tomokazu Seki Tyson Rinehart
Suzuha Amane Yukari Tamura Cherami Leigh
Luka Urushibara[b] Yū Kobayashi Lindsay Seidel
Moeka Kiryu Saori Gotō Jessica Cavanagh
Faris NyanNyan Haruko Momoi Jad Saxton
Kagari Shiina Megumi Han Alexis Tipton
Yugo "Mr. Braun" Tennouji Masaki Terasoma Christopher Sabat
Yuki Amane Yukari Tamura Cherami Leigh
Alexis Leskinen Yōji Ueda Chris Wehkamp
Judy Reyes Maya Nishimura Emily Neves
Nae Tennouji Ayano Yamamoto Brina Palencia
Katsumi "Fubuki" Nakase Mariko Honda Mikaela Krantz
Kaede Kurushima Hina Kino Bryn Apprill

Production and release edit

 
Kanako Itō created the opening theme, "Fátima", as a continuation of the first Steins;Gate anime's opening.

Steins;Gate 0 was produced by White Fox,[7] and partially adapts the 2015 video game of the same name. The game is a sequel to Steins;Gate, which was also adapted into an anime by White Fox in 2011.[2] While the game's story is composed of multiple routes, the anime reconstructs the story into one single route.[8] The series was directed by Kenichi Kawamura and written by Jukki Hanada, the writer for the Steins;Gate anime, while Tomoshige Inayoshi, an episode animation director for the Steins;Gate anime, adapted Huke's character designs from the game for animation,[2] and Takeshi Kodaka served as art director.[9] The music was composed by Takeshi Abo, Nobuaki Nobusawa, and Moe Hyūga.[10] The voice cast reprised their roles from previous Steins;Gate media.[2] The opening theme is "Fátima" (ファティマ) by Kanako Itō, and the ending themes are "Last Game" by Zwei for the first half of the series and "World-Line" by Imai for the second half;[3][11][12] the first episode used Itō's song "Amadeus" from the Steins;Gate 0 game as the ending theme, however.[13] Itō created "Fátima" as a lyrical continuation of "Hacking to the Gate", the opening theme to the first Steins;Gate anime, and said that the fast pace was an important aspect as she wanted the theme to be exhilarating.[14]

The anime was originally announced in March 2015, together with the Steins;Gate 0 game.[15] It was re-revealed with a trailer and key art in July 2017 as part of the "Steins;Gate World Line 2017–2018 Project", which also includes other media based on the Steins;Gate 0 game; at this point, the series had gone into production.[7] The 23-episode series aired in Japan between April 12 and September 27, 2018.[c][3][2][16] It was broadcast on Tokyo MX, TVA, KBS, SUN, TVQ, AT-X, BS11, and GYT,[3] and is streamed through Abema TV in Japan.[17] The series was simulcast by Crunchyroll outside of Asia and Australasia,[18] by AnimeLab in Australia and New Zealand,[19] and by Aniplus Asia in Southeast Asia,[20] and an English dub began streaming through Funimation in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland on April 30, 2018.[4][18][21] Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the dub was moved to Crunchyroll.[22]

The series was released across six Blu-ray and DVD volumes in Japan from June 27 to December 21, 2018, of which the last one includes an additional, unaired episode.[3][16] The English dub was directed by Cris George and written by Jeramey Kraatz.[4][23] When adapting the series, they encountered a problem they had not dealt with before: In the first episode, Leskinen gives a speech in English, which Maho live interprets in Japanese, and because all characters in the dub speak English they were initially not sure how to portray the situation. They eventually settled on setting the stage by having Maho's dialogue start in Japanese, before switching to English.[23] Ashly Burch, Mayuri's voice actor in the dub, was unable to play the character for the entirety of the simulcast dub due to personal reasons and time constraints; on August 1, 2018, Funimation announced that Megan Shipman would take over the role for the remaining episodes of the simulcast dub,[6][24] and that they would announce how the role would be handled in the home video release of the series at a later date.[25]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Scenario supervision (シナリオ監修)
  2. ^ "Ruka" in Funimation's English dub.
  3. ^ Tokyo MX listed the series premiere on April 11, 2018 at 25:35, which is effectively April 12 at 1:35 a.m.

References edit

  1. ^ a b Ashcraft, Brian (April 6, 2018). "Your Spring 2018 Anime Guide [Updated]". Kotaku. Gizmodo Media Group. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d e Sherman, Jennifer (December 14, 2017). "Steins;Gate 0 TV Anime's Promo Video Reveals April Premiere Date". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on December 15, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e "テレビアニメ『シュタインズ・ゲート ゼロ』4月11日25:35~TOKYO MXほかにて放送開始、キービジュアル第2弾やBD&DVD情報も公開". Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. March 16, 2018. Archived from the original on March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 16, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Hodgkins, Crystalyn (April 28, 2018). "Funimation Reveals English Dub Cast for Steins;Gate 0 Anime". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 28, 2018. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  5. ^ "Stream & Watch Steins;Gate Episodes - Sub & Dub". Funimation. Archived from the original on May 9, 2017. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  6. ^ a b "Steins;Gate 0 fans: Mayuri VA, @ashly_burch, will not be able to continue her role as Mayuri for the remainder of the broadcast run due to personal and time constraints. However we are excited to have @18moptop take over the role. We know that she will do a great job!". Funimation. August 1, 2018. Archived from the original on August 1, 2018. Retrieved August 2, 2018 – via Twitter.
  7. ^ a b Hodgkins, Crystalyn (July 28, 2017). "'Steins;Gate World Line 2017-2018 Project' Reveals Trailer, Steins;Gate 0 Anime as Part of Project". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
  8. ^ "志倉千代丸氏インタビュー 『シュタインズ・ゲート エリート』は"ゲーム以上でいて、アニメ以上"". Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. September 21, 2017. Archived from the original on September 21, 2017. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  9. ^ Loo, Egan (April 4, 2018). "Anime Spotlight - STEINS;GATE 0". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  10. ^ "Staff" (in Japanese). Kadokawa Corporation. Archived from the original on March 21, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
  11. ^ Loo, Egan (February 15, 2018). "Kanako Itou, Zwei Perform Steins;Gate 0 Anime's Theme Songs". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  12. ^ Ressler, Karen (July 13, 2018). "Steins;Gate 0 Anime Reveals Visual for 2nd Half". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on July 13, 2018. Retrieved July 13, 2018.
  13. ^ "Missing Link of the Annihilator: Absolute Zero". Steins;Gate 0. Episode 1 (in Japanese). Event occurs at 23:06. Archived from the original on April 22, 2018.
  14. ^ Morrissy, Kim (April 19, 2018). "Kanako Itou Previews Full Version of Steins;Gate 0 OP at AnimeJapan 2018". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 19, 2018. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  15. ^ Romano, Sal (March 28, 2015). "Steins;Gate 0 announced". Gematsu. Archived from the original on September 21, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  16. ^ a b Ressler, Karen (March 15, 2018). "Steins;Gate 0 Anime Listed With 23 Broadcast Episodes, 1 Unaired Episode". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018. Retrieved March 15, 2018.
  17. ^ Sherman, Jennifer (March 16, 2018). "Steins;Gate 0 Anime Reveals New Key, Character Visuals". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on March 16, 2018. Retrieved March 16, 2018.
  18. ^ a b Ressler, Karen (March 28, 2018). "Funimation Announces 9 Titles for Spring Season Dub Lineup, Including Same-Day Tokyo Ghoul:re Dub". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on March 28, 2018. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  19. ^ Bortignon, Tegan (April 17, 2018). "AnimeLab Spring Simulcast Lineup 2018!". AnimeLab. Archived from the original on July 21, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
  20. ^ "ANIPLUS Asia to Simulcast Steins;Gate 0". Aniplus Asia. April 6, 2018. Archived from the original on April 11, 2018. Retrieved April 11, 2018 – via Anime News Network.
  21. ^ Ressler, Karen (April 12, 2018). "Funimation Announces Spring SimulDub Premiere Dates". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 16, 2018. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
  22. ^ "UPDATE: Funimation Titles Now Available on Crunchyroll (4/26)". Crunchyroll. March 1, 2022. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  23. ^ a b "Steins;Gate 0 ADR Director @ChubsGeorge and Scriptwriter @jerameykraatz explain a creative choice in dubbing in episode 1". Funimation. May 1, 2018. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved May 1, 2018 – via Twitter.
  24. ^ Ressler, Karen (August 6, 2018). "Ashly Burch Leaves Role of Mayuri in Steins;Gate 0 Simuldub". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on August 6, 2018. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  25. ^ "No word at the moment but we will let you all know as we get closer to home video time". Funimation. August 1, 2018. Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. Retrieved August 1, 2018 – via Twitter.

External links edit

  • Official website (in Japanese)
  • Steins;Gate 0 at IMDb  
  • Steins;Gate 0 (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia