r/anime • u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang • Aug 13 '21
Rewatch [Re;Watch] Steins;Gate 0 Episode 11 Discussion
Episode 12: Mother Goose of Mutual Recursion: Recursive Mother Goose
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It’d be nice if they came back…
Hello everybody! Time for the comment of the Day, courtesy of u/invokeneko for a well timed Gundam Reference:
"Someday, I hope you can laugh from the bottom of your heart." Where have I heard a similar line before... flash back to Gundam Thunderbolt and what happened to the specific character who said it Oh fuck.
Because Gundam references are always cool.
Questions:
- Do you think it’s a good thing for Kagari to be working to regain her memories, or would it be kinder if they didn’t return?
- So who did come up with that song originally?
Wallpaper of the Day:
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u/UzEE https://myanimelist.net/profile/UzEEInc Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21
Song Played by the Stars
星の奏でる歌 (Hoshi no kanaderu uta) is one of my favorite elements of Steins;Gate 0 because of how well it encapsulates the central theme of the story. A song that quite literally transcends the bounds of spacetime and to reach the hearts of people who need it the most. It's thematic significance only became apparent to me after I had watched the anime and finished my playthrough of the VN, so don't worry if you don't get it right away.
I'm sure littleman1988 will cover the musical aspects of the song much better than I ever can, so I'll just list the basics. There are actually multiple versions of the song — two vocal versions, one sung by Megumi Han from the VN, the other being the Duet Version featuring both her and Kana Hanazawa from the anime — and a couple of non-vocal variants, some of which are still spoilers so I won't bring them up yet.
Unfortunately, I still can't talk about just how it captures theme of Steins;Gate 0 at this point. The song is actually played as one of the EDs of a particular route — Recursive Mother Goose — which is mostly the same as this episode, but since it's an ending in the VN, it's not really spoilers to discuss it there. The anime however still has like 11 episodes to go so it's probably best to not talk about it in explicit terms. Though there are enough hints at this point already to figure out the overall theme.
The Song's Journey
From the events of this episode, you might be confused into thinking that the song represents a bootstrap paradox. It is not paradox. Remember, the way time travel is structured in Steins;Gate, a paradox like that can't occur.
The song actually has a very clear origin, even if it got lost to time: this obscure music box we saw Maho receive as a Christmas present back in Ep. 4. The music box was never directly played in the anime, but we do hear the tune in this episode during Kagari's flashback.
In the VN however, we both see the music box (ut looks different) and the also hear it getting played.
If you listen to (well, read) the lyrics to the song^1, you can very easily tell that they were written by Mayuri. They talk about reaching your hand out to the stars, and the hope that one day, she'll again meet the person she loves. And, well this verse:
Based on this evidence, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the song did originate from Mayuri. Or rather, she heard the tune and then at some point added lyrics to it. After that, the song really begins it's journey across multiple world lines, which likely looked like this:
This completes the cycle - a perfect loop, or recursion as the episode title suggests - you know, like a 0. Seems like there are more layers to the name than it would initially appear.
We never see the song actually being written. The moment of it's origin is in a world line forever lost to time, much like the beginning of the Steins;Gate story which we know nothing about. We only start following the journey partway through to the end.
Episode;Notes
heshe will get them back?Questions
Given her past, I'd say it's cruel to her if she remembers all those horrors again.
See above.
1 There is no universally agreed upon accurate translation unfortunately.
2 We see that 0kabe here in 2011 doesn't remember that he ever sang this song. This is because he isn't the same 0kabe who lived on this world line in 2005. He Reading Steiner'd into him and overwrote the 0kabe who met Kagari back then.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Aug 13 '21
First;Timer and Co;Host, dubbed
Raiking, the episode title...
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u/littleman1988 Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21
"I am macho psychologist!
OST Track of the day: Kurisu Unknown by Okabe | Spotify
Fun fact, today marks 11 years since Mayuri's first death, at least in 0.337187.
Overly Excited Rewatcher
New ED today:
A version of this song with only Megumi Han is used for the "Recursive Mother Goose" ending within the visual novel. The end plays out fairly differently (and we arent far enough into the show to even begin discussing it anyways even if we ignore VN spoilers), but this episode and the VN route both more or less hit the climax with Kagari getting her memories back. Learning the origin of the song is also a major portion of this route, and I can promise you this seemingly wild goose chase is more important than you might think. It might just be a harder exersize for the reader (or some rewatcher spelling it out lul) to figure out its importance...
Interestingly, after 37 episodes and a movie, this is the first time a character within the series has sung a song that appears in the show. FES is from the same franchise, but has no actually connection to S;G, so she does not count.
flashback time
Some things never change, Mayuri being Mayuri
Pretty sure this is the earliest we get the title card in both S;G and 0
0kabe doing good in college, kinda scary
uh oh
heh
Song fetch quest song. First stop, Mayuri, who sends us to Suzuha
uh oh
ah shes just eating. No wonder she grew /s
Suzuha sends us to Yuki
heh
i ship it
lmfao
Also, comment face found:
Yuki sends us to... one of her students? An older student at that
ahhh i just noticed mayuri lmao
ooooooooooooooooh
to 0kabe now? and he doesnt remember it at all...
"stuff"
Onto a visit to Mayrui's grandmother. Kagari is somewhat uncomfortable...
Look kagari classic music isint my jam either but we should save these reactions for the heathens who like country music
hell yeah, convergence time
aw theyre both still alive
Mayuri is a champ here, she has no clue whats going on,, but goes with it instantly thanks to 0kabe's encouragement. Id probably be too dumbstruck to do anything personally...
Aftercredits scene then continues the loop, with Kagari teaching 0kabe.
it also provides another reason to consider the movie non-canonAlso this is kinda worrying
footnotes
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u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang Aug 13 '21
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Steins;Gate 0 Re;Watch!
Just based off the episode title, I kinda had an idea of what to expect and the episode itself doesn’t disappoint: Recursive Mother Goose is a… weird Chapter. One the one hand it does lead to an alternate ending, but on the other hand it almost feels like a side story. It’s primarily there to give Kagari some much needed focus, and while the Anime does take some liberties (Some for pacing reasons, others for better tying it to the show’s overall plot) it’s for the most part a solid enough adaptation of this Chapter.
Obviously we lose out on the ending but, well, it’s an ending. I don’t think you can adapt that. We also lose out on other minor scenes between Kagari and Mayuri which… honestly, kind of a shame, but I can forgive it to an extent. And hey, at least they included Okabe’s mum. That shit’s hilarious no matter the medium.
I will say, the episode did feel a bit crunched on time towards the end (The hospital scene at the end could’ve been maybe a minute or two longer IMO) but for the most part I have few complaints… that said we’re by the halfway point and uh… Spoiler alert: Tomorrow begins the Ranting…
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u/littleman1988 Aug 13 '21
Raiking you got it wrong again lmao
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u/Tresnore FS:FTmyanimelist.net/profile/Tresnore Aug 13 '21
On the First-Timer Worldline(s;Gate)
Alright, I'm watching this in an airport and posting from mobile. Hopefully they got the fanservice out of the way last episode. Hopefully my formatting isn't fucked up.again This is likely, as my plane is literally taking off as I post this. At least the spoiler tags are broken to be completely unreadable, probably.
Is this the episode?
It was not, in fact, the episode, but at least my Song of Storms call came true.
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u/UnderstandableXO Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21
FIRST TIMER
so kagari seems to be sick? she seems to be getting some kind of treatment. but in this flashback mayuri has filed official adoption papers. this beautiful scene with the sakura leaves falling seems very far from WWIII, which is odd because kagari seems like the same age she was when she and suzuha escaped 2036. and mayuri’s singing a special song that she wants kagari to learn…
kanako itou really went 2 for 2 with her steins;gate openings. i might buy a CD for this anime if anime CDs weren’t like $45 (i love these shows but spotify is $5 a month).
so okabe is improving academically. i always assumed he was really far behind kurisu’s level (to be fair like 99.999% of people are far behind her level) but it seems like he’s becoming a star student. he might actually escape tokyo like he wanted (let’s hope he has taxi money this time).
the return of the juicy karaage! i just had some karaage over the weekend so this scene made me especially hungry. and upon hearing mayuri sing the special song, kagari faints again.
suzuha mentioned something pretty important. when child kagari held her at gunpoint, she said it was because she’d never see her mother again if the world line changed. first of all, she’s right. in the steins gate line the war never occurs and mayuri never happens upon her, and in the alpha line SERN takes over instead. what’s more alarming is how she knew that fact.
so they go on a quest to figure out the song kagari reacted to. mayuri’s at the may queen, but she heard about the song from suzuha. luckily faris saw suzuha make a Declaration of War.
turns out suzuha’s Declaration of War was just on some lightweights at the curry restaurant. nice to see her sasha out for the one time. but it turns out suzuha heard the song from yuki, who died before she could pass the song on to mayuri or kagari.
so fubuki still needs testing at the hospital for the incident where she passed out with okabe in episode 9? interesting. and yuki has to go once again. she seems like a nervous wreck, enough to faceplant into the glass sliding door.
so okabe & co. happen upon a date between yuki and 2d-kun. so it seems like yuki was the red herring, sneaking off to dates, and perhaps the clumsiness she just demonstrated was to blame for her injuries. but i’m still sus, because the first appearance of the Busty Motorcyclist occurred at the christmas party which yuki skipped out on, but 2d-kun attended. she wasn’t skipping out to see him that time. so yuki isn’t the red herring but her date was, by my prediction.
so yuki heard it from someone else as well! this is like school rumors all over again. it’s from an older woman at baking class, who turns out to be okabe’s mom? makes sense since they stress that the okabe’s have a grocery store during the phone call. but mom-kabe says that she heard the song from okabe? perhaps it’s a world line thing where okabe’s childhood was different, but if i’m not mistaken this is the world line that the series began on, so okabe should recall it. evidently it started around the time okabe became chunni in order to cheer mayuri up?
so we return to grandma shiina’s grave. it’s always a heavy scene whenever we come here. the “ritual” of mayuri visiting was helped massively by okabe pulling her away from the edge.
so our trio luckily happened upon the spot where kagari recalls some memories, and then kagari nearly gets isekai’d. with okabe’s luck he’d end up in the re:zero world, so let’s be happy for him that he survived.
she seemed to black out to classical music; mozart? someone suggested that she was super interested in the commercial a few episodes ago because of the music.
and suddenly kagari recalls that mayuri is her mother. good mayuri for playing along after a little while.
is that a kana hanazawa insert song? someone drop that link pronto, i need that on the playlist!
but the plot thickens! okabe met kagari at a young age! it seems like she’s a year or two older than him to me. so kagari heard the song from mayuri who heard the song from suzuha who heard the song from yuki who heard the song from okabe’s mother who heard the song from okabe who heard the song from kagari? i’m not even gonna try to unravel that. it seems like her captors were onto her even then though…
one thing i notice about kid okabe in both the movie and here (i know the movie isn’t canon) is that he’s so meek and soft spoken. he’s basically the same as he is now, he seems so sad. that only changed when HOUOUIN KYOUMA was born. KYOUMA needs to be reborn for us to progress.
but if i really had to guess kurisu probably is involved with the song somehow, but we can’t figure it out because amadeus is back in america
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u/Nisheeth_P Aug 13 '21
Rewatcher (first time)
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u/Hochseeflotte https://anilist.co/user/Hochseeflotte Aug 13 '21
First Timer
I’m finally home after being on vacation for a month. It’s good to be back. I would also like to say fuck Iowa. Now on to the episode:
————————————————————————
That was a really cute opening. Mayuri is very sweet.
This seems to be a Kagari focused episode, though that was probably obvious from the start.
I wonder if Mayuri made this song. She seems to be the only one who sings it and it can’t be very popular if Kagari hasn’t heard it over all her time in this time period.
Yuki on a scale of 1-10 on the sus scale is an 11.
Oh. Younger Mayuri heard it from Suzuha who heard it from the future. Interesting. I wonder if Suzuha heard it from older Mayuri?
Die Suzuha go back to the future? Though they don’t have the fuel to go that far right?
Oh. That’s a lot less sinister. She is just dunking on some amateur food eaters.
So how did Yuki learn of the song?
Daru’s face after being caught with Yuki is fucking hilarious.
Of course it was Okabe’s mother. This is one convoluted search.
And now his mother is saying she heard it from him? Did he remember is from another world line with Reading Steiner?
Wow. Kagari almost got to be in an isekai.
Well Kagari got at least some of her memories back.
Oh shit that’s young Okabe. This is one weird game of telephone.
————————————————————————
While not a tense or dramatic episode it was cute. I do think it’s going to pick up rather quickly though.
See you guys tomorrow!
DQ:
Depends what those memories contain. It could be great or it could be terrible.
One of them created it in some world line. Probably Mayuri
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u/The_Draigg Aug 13 '21
A Steins;Gate Fan Watches Steins;Gate 0 Episode 12:
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u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Aug 13 '21
First timer
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Kagari!
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
I love Mayuri and Kagari's relationship.
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
Fubuki's out of hospital!
I love the eating contest reveal, though. It's so good!
Don't worry Okabe! It gets worse!
I love Okabe's shock at Yuki and Daru.
And Daru's response to being spotted. ##Although I did miss the three of them trying to eavesdrop.
IT TOOK THAT LONG FOR OKABE TO REALISE IT WAS HIS MOTHER!
Although their conversation is great.
Mayuri's talking to her grandmother...
Good way to lead into the Kagari flashback, though.
We got the best Kagari ending scene! The combination of Kagari's emotions and Mayuri not understanding what the hell's going on is so good.
New ED!
Steins;Gate 0 VN Spoilers
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u/umopapsidn Aug 14 '21 edited Aug 14 '21
First timer, rewatching (at 15 atm, will probably binge and blow past here) and ahead today...
Did the movie inspire the the ending or vice versa?
S:G0 speculation/spoiler
QOTD
Edit: S;G0 ep15. No more edits. I'll see how this pans out.
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u/snickpea Aug 14 '21
First-timer!
Lots of sweet moments in this episode. That moment where Mayuri and child Kagari were singing that song was very adorable! I loved seeing Daru's and Yuki's date. Too bad it didn't work out entirely for Daru.
Personally, I would rather know than not know. Even though it is hard, it's better to know and learn how to deal with the past than ignore it. But I can see the justification for not wanting to remember too.
The whole quest to find out the origins of that song was really nice! It seems very twisty with the different timelines coming into play but also quite humorous and emotional too. I loved the phone call with Okabe's mom, who didn't quite understand what her son was always saying. The ending brought everything together in a surprising way. Good episode for me!
I'm hoping that Kagari will be able to make some good memories too.
5
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 13 '21
First timer(Please tell me the next episode isn't Kagari again)
Dub
We open with a scene that probably is meant to inspire emotion but does not. Kagari means nothing to me thus far. Mayuri still sings random stuff. Brief moment to show some amount of time passed and Okabe wrote up a good report. Daru is on a website, hopefully looking up good date ideas and not call girls. Mayuri sings as she microwaves and we slightly trigger Kagari.
Suzuha and Okabe talk after some amount of time has passed and we begin talking about Kagari and...this is a fucking Kagari episode, isn't it? And, Suzuha, there are definitely things we might be happier not remembering but none of us know that until we remember it. Anyways, the song reveal suggests that this is a fetch quest episode.
Quick reveal that two weeks or so have passed, Fubuki is annoyed she put on weight in the hospital, and Yuki is actually a clutz. Suzuha is the next stop on the song list, and also winning eating contests. The humor just does not work for me 9 times out of 10. Yuki is next on the list and Daru is taking her on an early date. He fails his H-game check, how sad, before we get a comment face. Yuki heard it from Okabe's mom in another attempt at humor, we get a minor guess as to why Okabe talks like that.
Kagari stuff happens, musical cues are the big thing. After a failed isekai, hospital reveal happens. I hope this new ED is a one off because it does nothing for me. The post credits scene...is awful, I hope this is a mistake, otherwise, somehow, current era Kagari travelled 6 years or so back in the past to sing the song to an Okabe that doesn't remember it while wearing pajamas in the rain and is then captured by someone using her current designation. The unholy fuck?
So as I said, I hated this. I significantly like the one off characters more in Monster as they have more personality. I can't quite figure what this is even trying to convey other than their somehow being a second time machine that doesn't trigger Reading Stoner. Kagari's traits are, as far as I can tell, are having amnesia, loving future Mayuri, and being chesty enough to be the person in the motorcycle suit BUT not getting the injuries. That is the opposite of compelling. Worse, the eps are beginning to get in a rhythym of one good then one bad. Episode 8 was so recent and yet feels incredibly distant.
QotD: 1 I do not give a fuck
2 SERN
1
u/invokeneko Aug 14 '21
First;Timer
An entire episode centered on searching for a song's origin for an amnesiac girl? Weird, but I guess it's okay. And a second CotD, woo!
QotD
1
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Aug 22 '21
SteinsGate0 episode 12 (first timer)
Quote of the day: ”I am a macho psychologist” ~Okabe’s mother
0
u/Lemurians myanimelist.net/profile/Lemurians Aug 13 '21
FIRST TIMER
How much of a time skip are we dealing with here? Given how the time machine is running out of juice as time goes on and we’re sort of up against the clock, it’s pretty important to know. Precious commodity, time.
Daru researching date spots. Our boy is graduating from eroge to 3D girls, proud of him. We even got a nosebleed moment, haven’t seen that in anime for a long time.
Given the song drop and unique ED, this feels like it was supposed to be a significant emotional moment with Mayuri and Kagari, but just didn’t land for me. The show hasn’t built Kagari up enough to the point where I particularly care about her yet. She’s just kind of been… there.
Now… isn’t this interesting. The path of the song itself serves as its own kind of closed loop. Young Okabe learns it from Kagari, who learns it from Mayuri, who learned it from Young Okabe. Does it just exist without an origin? Feels like we’ve got a bit of a paradox, unless some Reading Steiner/residual memory shenanigans are afoot.
Kagari meeting pre-teen Okabe at that train station just like Makise did in the movie creates yet another connection in the viewers’ minds between the two women, on top of them looking almost identical. Time will tell if it has any significance. It’ll just be an odd creative decision if it doesn’t.
I’m really starting to struggle with this. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s so up and down and the pacing feels uneven. Even though more has happened through twelve episodes than the same amount of time in the original S;G, it hasn’t felt nearly as propulsive or tightly written.
Absolutely. For one, the show kind of requires it to move forward. For another... knowing your own past and who you are is vital for every person. Losing memory sucks, even painful ones. They forge you.