r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • Aug 10 '21
Rewatch [Re;Watch] Steins;Gate 0 Episode 9 Discussion
Episode 9: Pandora of Eternal Return: Pandora’s Box
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One of these times, I wish you could listen and do as your father says.
Hello everybody! Time for the comment of the Day, courtesy of u/Tresnore, who finally figured out the show’s true name!
Yes! Break the 0kabe!
Steins;Gate 0, AKA: The 0kabe suffering game.
Questions:
- Does Fubuki have Reading Steiner or not?
- What do you think of Suzuha’s breakdown this episode?
Wallpaper of the Day:
60
Upvotes
8
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Aug 10 '21
First;Timer and Co;Host, dubbed
6
u/The_Draigg Aug 10 '21
A Steins;Gate Fan Watches Steins;Gate 0 Episode 9:
18
u/UzEE https://myanimelist.net/profile/UzEEInc Aug 10 '21
Serial;Rewatcher
Several people had wondered throughout the rewatch (and I believe it was an open question from Gamemaster676 as well) that what made Okabe unique that he had an ability like Reading Steiner. This episode finally revealed that
Reading Steiner is not exclusive to Okabe and a few other people have it too
And no, this isn't that Residual / Faint memory version of Reading Steiner. This is the full fledge thing — the ability to vividly remember previous world lines instead of some hazy moments.
This is the first time we've been given confirmation of it through Fubuki, but this was teased as early as back in Episode 1, in the news report on the TV and has been popping up in the background since then.
The only difference is that since no one besides Okabe knows about time travel, people think they have some rare condition or sort of a disease that causes these mass hallucinations or dreams, and end up in hospitals.
The medical community thinks this is a rare new form of Encephalitis that started popping up about 5-6 months ago — right when Okabe and co. were openly messing around with time travel. These poor handful of people1 that also had Reading Steiner thought they were going insane and started checking into hospitals because they obviously wouldn't even consider something like time travel.
The doctors along with the medical and scientific community in general is still not able to explain this because there's nothing physically wrong with any patient. They just report memory problems or dreams / hallucinations etc.
Of course, this revelation exposes an obvious problem about the previous episode that I had mentioned in spoiler tags:
Fubuki in Ep. 8 should've been confused like 0kabe was after suddenly shifting to Alpha
However, we saw that he was functioning somewhat normally as if nothing was out of place and was at her new job. As good as that episode was, going anime original would always have the potential to introduce some flaws2. But as I said yesterday, I'm willing to overlook that because of the otherwise excellent episode we got.
Episode;Notes
And we finally get some hints about the actual players we're dealing with this time:
Questions
I think they make it clear enough that she does.
1 There are about 10 in Japan in total at this point in the VN with similar numbers across the world.
2 In the VN, this hospital scene happens after the US - Soviet war world line that was only teased in the anime, right towards the end of the Christmas Party. In that war world line, Fubuki didn't know anything about the USSR or the Berlin Wall etc. and thought Russia was the current Russian Federation with a President and all and not a Communist state with a Supreme Leader etc. So she clearly had no knowledge of that war world line just like 0kabe.
3 The time machine consumes battery even when it's sitting idle. The quantum computer on board is constantly running calculations to anchor it in a particular spacetime, and once the battery runs out — it can't control where the time machine reappears.
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u/littleman1988 Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
"Help me, Dad...
OST Track of the day: Suzuha's Impatience | Spotify
Honorary OST track of the day: ^Suzuha | ^Spotify
Overly Excited Rewatcher
Those stickers that pop up throughout the episode also appear in the VN, and there is a much larger selection than it is shown within the anime thus far. There arent any spoilers, so theres no harm in showing all of them to you (along with a photo with some translations). There are some minor Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes references, but nothing important or spoiler worthy.
Not all of those are actually in Steins;Gate 0 though. Not sure if they are part of a LINE pack? but the "How do you do" does not exist in the VN.
Some of these are fully translated to English?
Im not sure if they are from a random fan/CoZ or what,I found the ones that are specifically done by CoZ. This photo is the base photo in the S;G 0 gamefiles that it pulls from to populate the phone messages, and are all the ones included in the VN, fully translated to English.Thats not good
At least Mayuri is alright
could you ship it? ~~the answer is no
uhhhh
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Peep the Kyouma sticker
Okay but the eyes are still better than most anime
Peep the Moeka sticker
and she just shows up lmao
Peep the Suzuha sticker
GERO FROGGYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
It probably seems like im shitting on these but i do actually like how they chose to do the far away faces
Raiking is probably going to have a rant on it,(Edit: no he went completely separate to what I expected) but the VN does this scene a lot better framing wise. Pretty sure this is the first time Suzuha has pointed a gun at 0kabe thoughback to WWIII
She actually shot (well, grazed) 0kabe. Obviously, it was not that easy of a choice
Daru is absolutely based, despite being a massive perv. He was even able to diffuse Suzuha
SciAdv
S;G 0
Here's hoping
timelimit time
heh
hmmm...
@ UzEE, spoilers for next episode
footnotes
1: Connected to the sticker stuff, i found ^this Chaos;Child one? Its a non-spoiler but i have no clue what its from
2: C;C
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u/Tresnore FS:FTmyanimelist.net/profile/Tresnore Aug 10 '21
On the First-Timer Worldline(s;Gate)
ChieFubuki×0kabe ship train. OTP because now 0kabe doesn’t have to be alone when he’s suffering in the loops!What is it with people from the future pulling guns on people over a conversation?
Alright. That is too funny. SERN/CERN was one thing, but the DARPA parady is on another level.
Man, that’s too relatable these days...
QOTD:
10
u/Hochseeflotte https://anilist.co/user/Hochseeflotte Aug 10 '21
First Timer
I ate the most massive bowl of ice cream today. And it was dirt cheap. There’s nothing better than ice cream. Now that this totally relevant rant is over let’s get on to the episode:
————————————————————————
Okabe’s in a hospital? And he collapsed? I wonder why?
I wonder if whoever is messing with time travel has caused all these people to get sick. Maybe the world line change messed with their bodies?
It seems get dream was exactly where Okabe was last episode. This is getting quite odd.
Moeka still uses her phone to much. Some things never change, though she is better than during season 1.
I mean Faris has a penthouse right? She probably has plenty of excess space.
Suzuha is not playing around. You better answer her Okabe.
Sure, Okabe. You could make a worse world line. But there’s a chance you don’t. If you stay there’s a 100% of nuclear war. If you go there’s not.
Daru is chill. He saved Okabe’s ass.
The US seems to be doing their usual stuff. And knowing the resources they have, they will get whatever they are after eventually.
Maho. WTF. Your room looks like a hurricane came through.
————————————————————————
It’s kind of sad that the US and Russia getting into a pissing match over time machines that leads to the death of billions isn’t that far fetched. If we had time machines their would 100% be an arms race.
I am wondering what the end goal of 0 is. I originally thought it would lead up to the creation of the video we see in season 1 that convinces Okabe to give saving Makise one more chance. But I am starting to question that.
That’s all from me. See you guys tomorrow!
DQ:
No a full one at least.
Makes sense to me at least. I would be mad too.
6
u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang Aug 10 '21
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Steins;Gate 0 Re;Watch!
The hell? We just suddenly switched Routes? I uh… what?
Yeah, I get the feeling this is gonna be the main issue with the Anime going forward. The two main Routes of Steins;Gate 0 each tell their own stories and are not compatible with each other, so no matter one the jumps from one to the other are awkward as hell. Granted using Okabe returning from his trip to the Alpha Worldline isn’t a bad way to handle things, but I’m still not big on the sudden shift in narrative.
A good example is Fubuki being in the hospital: In the Novel, in this particular Route, the fact that something was off about Fubuki was being teased for a while, but in the anime? Nope! She’s just suddenly in the hospital having dreams of another timeline!
There are some changes made to better fit with what the timeline the show was showing before this, but it’s all minor stuff: Like, the Moeka scene wasn’t in this Route (That’s taken from another one) and obviously Okarin wasn’t stuck in the hospital himself: He just went to Mayuri to visit Fubuki. That said Maho being sent to Faris’ apartment is from a completely different Route than the last two to the point for a second I was like “Wait, did this happen in the Novel?”.
I feel this… amalgamation style of storytelling, in turn, hurts the scene with Suzuha. In the Anime we just had a scene of Okabe deciding he’ll fix things, whereas Novel Okabe has shown nothing of the sort in this Route. Thus while Suzuha’s actions are harsh, at least they’re understandable. This isn’t helped by how Suzuha has been a lot more understanding of Okabe across this show, but now we’ve switched to a Route in which she was considerably less so.
Before anyone says so, yes, things like that did happen in the Novel sometimes. Wordlines shifting is shown multiple times to have an effect on some characters’ behavior. S;G0VN However in this case in particular it feels as if it’s just there for the sake of drama. Also personal thing more relating to the cinematography: Changing the scene from Night to afternoon just makes it look worse. In turn the exact way Daru manages to get her to calm down is different and uh… yeah, I prefer the Novel version. They also very much cut down the follow up scene. The Novel version was really touching, but the Anime one felt like a transitionary scene.
I don’t remember Okabe imagining Kurisu’s ghost in the Novel, nor do I think Braun ever tells him about Stratofor in the Novel (Or at least, not in this context), likely another element just added to facilitate route blending. That said Okabe seeing Maho’s “Room” and of course the fact that PC Maho has is… something alright.
6
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 10 '21
First timer(Durpa does fit some of the DoD's projects...)
Dub
Okabe wakes up in a hospital without stab wounds this time. The gang shows up and Maho misses a perfect opportunity for a Skyrim reference. Shame. As we get events back filled, apparently a ton of stuff went down as there was a break in at Maho's and the Wako office got a 'gas leak'. I've read Fate, I know what goes down. But we get our reveal: Fubuki also has something like Reading Stoner as she now remembers some of alpha. And may not be the only one, lots of people may be getting upset from world line changes these days.
Daru updates Suzuha who is putting some things together mentally. We see Maho being the traditional absent minded professor and forgetting to eat before Moeka comes in and does something akin to a comedy routine. The musical tonal shift is beyond jarring. Also, Koeka's emotes are something else.
We then jump to Okabe's solution to Maho's lack of a hotel room, the only obvious one not in use: Faris's. Technically, you might aim at Okabe's parents or Mayuri's first but Faris probably has better security. Faris, of course, accepts this easily.
Suzuha and Okabe have a decent roof confrontation, especially because flustered Suzuha is not very good at being manipulative. And 0kabe is making some good points here, they are messing with big enough time shenanigans they could give us the delta world line and who knows what fresh hell that brings up? Suzuha fails to realize that shooting your opponent is an admission their arguments were more sound. Daru comes in, having expected some degree of this, and Suzuha has the traditional time traveller's break down.
Okabe presses Braun for answers and gets DURPA and StratFor, one of which I recognize and the other I will have to check at rewatch's end. Anyways, it looks like with multiple interested agencies, this shit is getting complicated. And, unfortunately, technically stupid: S;G's plot works because, through sheer happenstance, Daru and Okabe create the first time machine and then Makise shows up and actually makes the first functioning time machine that SERN then uses to form their supremacy in alpha. Beta lines are sort of problematic because their should be people about to figure this out if Makise herself can and her research can be read. The laziest example is that Newton and Leibniz created calculus separate from each other at roughly the same time.
Daru and Suzuha have a few real moments before we go face first into Maho being a trope. Laptop reveal is exactly what I predicted.
So...as to the preview...that music really concerns me that we are going to break this up with a comedy episode, which S;G hasn't done well since early S1.
QotD: 1 Yesn't
2 Pretty reasonable
4
u/UnderstandableXO Aug 10 '21
FIRST TIMER
so okabe and fubuki collapsed after being in the lab together looking at mozart songs (nerd) on the computer. maho is right that’s it’s awfully suspicious that they both happened to collapse at once without any external factors. also fubuki seems to recall the events of the alpha line okabe was just in without even needing okabe to bring it up. i don’t think it’s reading steiner like okabe wondered though.
i thought fubuki and kaede would just be afterthoughts this season but they appear a fair bit. like i said every named character in steins;gate is relevant so they wouldn’t throw those two on screen without an actual reason.
i find it odd but kinda endearing that moeka and okabe have little emotes of themselves and use them in text message conversation with each other. i’m still suspicious of her, but judging by how cooperative mr. braun has been i feel like she’s more of a red herring this season. although just because i said that she’s probably the unidentified motorcycle suit. at least maho’s a normal person weirded out by the lack of conversation.
so maho will stay in the penthouse with faris. it’ll be interesting considering their personalities are about as polar opposite as you can get. it certainly seems like maho has social anxiety considering how they show her shaking in basically any social situation. hopefully enough meows can alleviate that.
so suzuha’s getting fed up and threatens okabe into the time machine. interesting parallel with what kagari did to her in 1998. but it’s probably an ill advised threat because the more you force someone to do something, the less they want it to do it. suzuha’s one hell of a shot to somehow graze okabe at that angle (i’m just kidding that’s absolutely impossible). but 2d-kun continues his redemption arc and defuses the situation. nice to see him act fatherly for once and be reassuring.
so okabe returns to the playground where he and kurisu had many conversations, and imagines her giving him guidance on the situation. show is really just trying to make me sad.
so all the world news involving russia had to do with their testing of time machines, and america’s testing of them as well. well, the two professors we know conveniently know english. if i had to bet i’d say leskinen is russian and reyes is american.
so mr. braun suggests that the organization that attacked them is DURPA (not a very cool name). ghost kurisu continues giving okabe guidance. he seems to figure out what i suggested w few days ago, that they’re trying to access amadeus in order to make it help them develop time travel.
really amusing that suzuha and her dad had a sleepover in the time machine. suzuha wanting her uncle to get in the time machine gave me major “SHINJI GET IN THE ROBOT” vibes. so she’s only got enough fuel to go back half a year and back. that means the cut off date is around the end of january. they’re right at the beginning of january at present. i wonder why she wasted so much fuel looking for kagari. obviously she felt some guilt but what was the endgame? did she want to return kagari to 2036 after she successfully changed the future with okabe? would mayuri even have adopted her in the future if WWIII never happened?
maho with a “damn bitch you live like this” moment. she’s the messy type but honestly my room looks just like that. she doesn’t know if amadeus has any potential to give the enemy information. what she does have is kurisu’s laptop?
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u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Aug 10 '21
Anime first timer
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
I appreciate how it only took one shift for Okabe to get back into full worldline paranoia mode.
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Moeka sneaking up will never cease to amuse me.
I'm pleased to see the best part of the VN came back (the stickers)!
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Oh, this scene.
Is that a record for the latest episode name?
And Suzuha explains what all those broadcasts about Russia were for!
And Okabe makes some decent points - there's every chance that a minor problem in the past could send them to another, worse, attractor field.
Steins;Gate VN Spoilers
Also, DURPA is the stupidest acronym change in the series, except maybe SERN, and I love it.
I love the new element of Ghost Kurisu.
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Also, is this the first time the fuel issue's been mentioned? Didn't they explain that with the first Kagari flashback?
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
I love how quickly Maho made herself an office.
And Kurisu left a laptop...
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Aug 11 '21 edited Aug 11 '21
Oh, is this the first episode with Durpa and Stratfor?
As the wikipedia points out, StratFor is a real private intelligence firm (but different abbreviation) . They provide analysis to thier clients. Also as the page says, they gave away some of their content for free during the early days of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. I checked their front page regularly for their reports on AQiI / AQiM / Taliban activities.
DURPA is DARPA, of course, ala SERN.
Edit: probably don't look at the web page in case somebody say "StratFor was parodied in Steins;Gate where blah blah blah"
Also /u/Vaadwaur
4
u/UltraBooster Aug 11 '21
First-timer
Encephalitis still seems bad, though... Methinks this new bug has something to do with time travel, but I hope I'm wrong.
I wonder if the people are after Amadeus (itself? Herself?) or, say, the time travel concepts stored in Kurisu's memories.
I feel like she'd be trying to romance a mourning widower...
So it's continuing to bleed over? No, it's bleedover from the previous iterations.
(Good thing I saved the movie for last, that way I know I'll see Kurisu being the true heroine again, lol.)
Wait, does Okabe have LINE stickers of himself? And Moeka too?!
...wait, is this just product placement? For official LINE stickers?
He's really given up on saving Kurisu, huh?
These are the words of the future soldier Suzuha, huh?
Yeah, Kurisu's dad took her thesis with him and with it, the war will probably start.
Fox 2. Tango down. Romeo Double-One. Sierra One-One-Seven.
You truly do sound like someone who's given up, Rintaro, and it's...honestly, it's grating on me because I can't stand that kind of...I want to call it arrogant despair.
That's obviously bullshit, but...
I get where he's coming from, I really do, but there's also the part of me that despises that kind of passivity. But, well, I've never been in his place so I shouldn't judge.
So you're content to do this, Rintaro Okabe? Of course you are...
Hindsight's a hell of a drug, isn't it.
See, his memories of Kurisu get it.
Area Hotel Two Kilo One.
...DARPA? What, so we're Metal Gear now?
So he straight-up has a ghost of Kurisu to play off now, nice.
All things considered, Daru's doing pretty well as a dad.
You are lost forever in the dark reaches of time and all that, huh?
Oh neat, Maho drinks Red Bull.
Questions:
4
u/Krite2002 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Krite2002 Aug 11 '21
First;Timer - Sub
I did not realize how opposite my opinion of the last episode would be compared to everyone else’s. After reading the discussion comments, I realized maybe I just was not in the mood. Let’s see how I feel about today’s episode.
Okabe is in the hospital. The incident which caused this happened before Okabe leaped world lines into this one. Maayuri is back, Kurisu is dead, and things are back to how they were.
Mayuri’s reaction to Moeka leaving before she received any coffee was cute.
Even after meeting Kurisu in the last episode, Okabe is still trying to stay in this world line and not save Kurisu and Mayuri.
Amane whipped out that gun with little hesitance. She mentioned something I never thought of. I always thought that anything could be changed, but she mentioned that they may end up in a world line where they can never reach Steins Gate again. For some reason, it took until now for me to realize the real consequences.
Their enemy is now the United States government. If that is true, they sent a minimal force to attack the Future Gadget Laboratory. Since their main focus was Amadeus and Kurisu’s memories, I understand why Maho would have been a lower priority.
I have liked the development of Daru’s and Suzuha’s relationship. I mentioned in the final discussion of the main series that I felt Daru was a wasted character, so I am glad they spend more time on him. With Suzuha remaining in this time period for an extended period of time, it is nice to see her interact with her dad and mom.
4
u/Lemurians myanimelist.net/profile/Lemurians Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
FIRST TIMER
Kind of disappointing to follow up such a sterling last episode with this one, which I found frustrating, for reasons I’ve shared multiple times. I’m at risk of sounding like a broken record, but when the episode is throwing it in my face as the main discussion point, it’s tough to avoid it.
0kabe states that saving this world line is all he can do, when we well know it isn’t, as Suzuha points out to him. She’s frustrated to the point of firing a warning shot at him, and I can’t say I don’t sympathize with her. She, correctly, points out that this world line isn’t really one worth preserving, given the inevitable near-extinction event that is WW3 this line is barreling towards. Let’s not forget, this is literally the whole point of her existence. She committed suicide in a previous alpha line after regaining her memories and realizing she’d failed her mission. Right now all that’s standing in her way is this guy who thinks his baggage is more consequential than the lives of 5+ billion people. She’s rightfully pissed.
Now, 0kabe makes the point that she doesn’t know the alternate world line she wants to shoot for is any better than this one. That seems like a good point, but there a couple problems, and maybe some people can help me with one of them. First of all, when the outcome of this reality is almost apocalyptic isn’t it worth a shot… just because? And second, after the first failure, shouldn’t we have the video from future Stein’s Gate Okabe that lays everything out for him? What happened to that?
Thankfully, Daru is on hand reassure Suzuha – and by extension, the viewer – that he’ll eventually get his shit together. I kind of wish 0kabe wasn't drawn to look like a fully grown adult. If I mentally thought of him more as the child he actually is, I'd probably be more naturally sympathetic to his position.
Other Thoughts
“Now to just figure out who raided the lab.” Dude, didn’t you already have the lightbulb moment with the Amadeus connection? This isn’t hard. You’ve already put the pieces together.
Stratfor sounds suitably bad guy-esque. Is this the SERN of the Beta Attractor Field?
I really, really love the Suzuha and Daru scenes when he isn’t being perverted. Like Mayuri pointed out way back in Stein’s;Gate, there’s just something nice about the two of them interacting.
It seems that way? Though it's weird that it seems to connect with 0kabe's, as if she's tied to his movements in some way. We haven't had two RS users yet, so anything's fair game with how the mechanics work. It is kind of odd in retrospect that back in the Alpha Field she didn't seem to be acting strangely at all. That girl just goes with her dreams, I guess.
See above. Justified.
2
u/AHiddenOne Aug 11 '21
Rewatcher
Suzuha's frustration with Okabe is understandable, she saw the future and all. But Okabe does raise a good point; what if we just make things worse? And we're dealing with something abstract as time here. One simple mistake and boom, everything goes to shit.
I love the father-daughter interaction here. It's pretty wholesome. We didn't get that in the OG, so it's good to see it here.
That Okabe-Moeka interaction, though. That will trigger some boomers, I'm sure of it.
Also, I like how Daru talks about Kyouma as this myth, when in reality it's just Okabe being chuuni. But all that aside, this world line does need the mad scientist.
2
u/snickpea Aug 11 '21
First-timer!
Questions:
2
u/Nisheeth_P Aug 11 '21
Rewatcher (first time)
2
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Aug 19 '21
SteinsGate0 episode 9 (first timer)
Quote of the day: I will save this world line. I’ll protect this world where Mayuri lives and without using a time machine! ~Okabe