A Night To Remember – ‘Steins;Gate 0’ Episode 22 Review

What’s the show? Steins;Gate 0, Episode 22.

So what happens in th— Calling it now, this was my favourite episode of the season and no matter how good next week’s finale is nothing will be able to beat this one!

—Not even making people read a little bit of the review to find out your opinion on the episode, huh? Sorry, I got excited—but I’m not the only one who has problems containing their excitement when reviewing things!

Eh, whatever man, it’s your site. So what happens in this episode that’s got you so sold on this episode’s overall quality as legendary status? Well it starts off a bit uneven but by the time we get to Okabe showing Amadeus [Kurisu] around Akihabara I’d absolutely fallen in love with the episode.

I love this shot and I’m not even sure why exactly!

Ah… the tried and true ‘Akihabara Fan-Service’ technique, hmm? What ever do you mean?

Whenever any show even ~mentions~ the place—let alone shows it—you’re all over it, praising it like it’s the best thing since sliced bread! Fine, I’ll admit I’m a slut for Akiba but you know what, regardless of the reverent way this show presents Akihabara and the attention to detail, this was also a meditative, emotional and touching send-off to a character who’s kind of been overlooked for more than half the season. And letting us see Akiba through Amadeus [Kurisu’s] eyes was the perfect way—at least for me—to have us connect with a character who by all logic we shouldn’t have a connection with.

Night time has rarely looked better in this show than this episode.

Why shouldn’t we have a connection with her? Because she’s an AI, she may be based on someone we used to know, or rather someone Okabe used to love, but she’s not that person. And getting that stark reminder, while simultaneously reinforcing how real the illusion can feel and how genuine the emotions seem brought me back to the way this show was in the first 9 or so episodes when I was calling it “one of the best shows ever” and “better than the original”.

Oh yeah, I remember that, you sure did make a big deal about this show back then—feels like a lifetime ago… What’s more I think the way they decided to scale back the Hyouin Kyouma bits and allow Okabe to still be fragile and contemplative as well as occasionally manic made this episode a lot more believable. Had that other persona returned fully and without respite it would have made the show something it’s not.

Anything else you wanted to add? I don’t often talk about the production values of an episode and even more rarely do I speak of them when they’re good (after all we only usually comment when things are bad) but I was blown away at how gorgeous Akiba looked during the last half of the episode—they really committed to making those scenes look as good as they needed to look to sell Amadeus [Kurisu’s] sacrifice. Also that last scene where Amadeus [Kurisu] gives that pep talk to Maho and then she smiled that one last smile was gorgeously heartbreaking.

So you said you didn’t think next week’s finale could possibly beat this episode in terms of overall quality, are you predicting a lacklustre final episode then? I honestly have no idea where and how this show is going to end—and for once I love being completely at the mercy of this shows genius imagination. If they manage to pull it off and deliver a satisfying, emotional and intelligent ending then there’s very little in the way of me proclaiming this better than the original Steins;Gate and that’s not something I say lightly!