*Front row reminder, this article contains heavy spoilers for the Steins;Gate series~
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At the end of September last year, the semi-annual TV animation "Steins;Gate 0" finally came to an end. In addition to the 24th episode that was broadcast as an OVA in December, the main works of the Steins;Gate series (SG main part + SG0) have been animated one after another. As a loyal fan of the SG series, I also watched the SG0 animation week after week last year. I was very emotional when I rewatched the plot recently, so I decided to write something to commemorate it.
;Gate 0
First, let’s briefly introduce the stone door series.
The original name of Steins;Gate is Gate, or SG for short. Stein means "stone" in German, so the literal translation of the work is "Stone Gate", and the Chinese translation adopts the free translation "Steins Gate". This work is the second main work of the ADV game "Science Adventure Series" jointly planned by 5pb. and Nitro+. (ADV= Game, mostly refers to Japanese text adventure games, which enter various chapters and endings through text options) (The scientific ADV series also includes the first game "Chaos; Head", the third game "; Notes" and the fourth game "Chaos; Child", each game is built on the same world view, but the plot is not closely related)
SG This game was first released on October 15, 2009, and the first release platform was. The work was well received and was later released as a radio drama, various spin-offs, adapted into a TV animation, and a theatrical version was released. "Steins;Gate 0" is the orthodox sequel to this game, supplementing some key plot points that were not described in detail in the original work. In April 2018, SG0’s TV animation began to be broadcast, and it was completed at the end of September as a semi-annual series. This is the work I want to talk about this time.
Let’s put a timetable.
time
main events
October 15, 2009
SG this game is on sale ()
August 26, 2010
SG this game is released (PC)
April 2011
SG’s main TV animation begins broadcasting
April 20, 2013
SG theater version released
December 10, 2015
SG0 game released (PS3/PS4/)
August 26, 2016
SG0 game released (PC)
April 2018
SG0 TV animation starts broadcasting
SG series schedule
From 2009, when the game was first released, to now, SG has also gone through 10 years. Now when I play the original game, I can already feel a lot of "sense of the times". For example, the main plot of the series took place in Akihabara, Japan in 2010/2011. The "near future" at that time has now been 8 or 9 years ago; another example is that the SG used a flip phone in this article, so SG0 quickly changed it. It became a smartphone (haha, did you think of the Conan animation that keeps pace with the times?)
Let’s talk a little more about SG0’s animation production team. The animation production company of SG0 is White Fox. White Fox has a short history. It was founded in April 2007. It should be said that the SG animation in 2011 was its first work that really made it famous. Later, Baihu also produced popular works such as "Fight the Devil", "Point Rabbit" and "Re:0". Of course, there are also dark histories such as "Zhan Chi" and "Zero Book" (well, the quality is actually not that bad)…
White Fox Club
The series composition of the main SG animation and the SG0 animation is Hanada Toki. I think this is also one of the most difficult and stressful positions. The composition of the series controls the direction of the overall plot of the work, which is crucial for plot-oriented works like SG. Of course, Touki Hanada is also a veteran of the series. For example, he has collaborated with KyoAni (Kyoto Animation Company) many times, in "Light Sound", "Everyday Life", "Kyobuki", "Chuuniren" and "The Other Side of the Realm" He has served as script/organizer in many works. In addition, his other works include "Rose Girl", "No Game No Life", "Little Antarctica", etc. Each of the works here is quite weighty.
Musically, the SG0 animation follows and adapts many tracks from the game. In fact, over the years, the music style of the SG series has become quite obvious. When you listen to it, you will say, "This must be SG music!" From the main theme of SG to the most popular song Re-awake of SG0, the melody is the same.
You may be curious, after saying so much, what exactly is Gate? SG is the goal that all the characters in the play strive for unremittingly. It is a symbol of a better future, a happy world line, and the end point of all blood, tears and sacrifices. Why is it called;Gate? In the words of the protagonist Rintaro Okabe, of course——
"No special meaning."
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I feel like it’s hard to write something now if I don’t compile some data. Why have I developed this strange habit… But it’s not good to evaluate works too subjectively, so I’ll look for ratings and sales data.
Work rating——
To evaluate movies, you might go to Douban, IMDb, or Rotten Tomatoes. I think this rating system is quite mature. But for evaluating animations, although there are some rating websites, I don’t think I’ve heard of any that are particularly credible. Maybe it’s because the circle itself is small and the third-party services are not perfect enough.
Fan Group Plan – It should be regarded as a well-known ACGN (ACGN=Anime animation + Comic + Game + Novel light novel, generally refers to various two-dimensional works) website in China. The rating is based on a ten-point system.
work
score
Ranking
Number of raters
SG games
8.8 points
(Masterpiece)
Game Ranking 24
2,379
SG0 games
7.7 points
(Highly recommended)
Game ranking 880
550
SG animation
8.6 points
(Masterpiece)
Animation ranking 25
11,967
SG0 animation
7.9 points
(Highly recommended)
Animation ranking 303
2,416
score
——It should be regarded as the most mainstream ACG rating website in Europe and the United States, with the largest number of ratings. The top animations are "Fullmetal Alchemist FA", "Your Name", "The Lion of March" and other works with excellent plots and excellent production. They look really comfortable! However, MAL only provides ratings for animations and comics, so there is no rating for games. Rating is on a ten-point scale.
work
score
Ranking
Number of raters
SG animation
9.13 points
657,041
SG0 animation
8.59 points
77
117,129
score
Animation ranking
——It’s not easy to find a more credible Japanese rating website, and I think this one is pretty good. Here again there are only ratings for animations. Ratings are on a percentage scale.
work
score
Ranking
Number of raters
SG animation
92.6 points
15,553
SG0 animation
75.1 points
360
864
score
Although there will inevitably be subjective tendencies in evaluating works (especially SG0, which has a relatively small number of ratings – SG0 is a fan-oriented work, and the audience is almost all fans of the SG series, so theoretically the ratings will be higher), but the overall impression is consistent with my own The views are similar. Whether it is animation or games, there is a relatively obvious gap between SG0 and SG.
Work sales——
Evaluating works depends on word-of-mouth from passers-by on the one hand, and commercial performance on the other. Game sales aside, animation sales are generally compared using animation BD/DVD sales data compiled by Oricon. At that time, sales volume did not equal quality, and sales volume could not 100% reflect business performance. After all, BD/DVD sales were only a part of animation revenue. Other income from animation production include peripherals, copyrights, etc., and the proportion of income must be analyzed in detail. However, as a rare available data, sales volume can still reflect the market performance of the work to a certain extent.
The following data comes from Biba (Baidu's "Masterpiece Biba" bar). I would like to thank the big guys for their hard work over the years. One more thing, I feel that many people look down on Tieba, but at least in the ACGN field, I think Tieba is still the platform with the best atmosphere. Many friends have spent many years free of charge, transporting, translating, analyzing, and organizing resources… "Powering electricity with love" is no exaggeration.
Let’s talk about sales. The first is the SG anime. The average sales volume of the first volume was 16,151, ranking 9th in 2011 (this result is quite outstanding, ranking 9th is also because there are too many masterpieces in 2011. In addition to Stone Gate, there are also "Madoka" and "Fate/ "Zero", "Unknown Flower Name"…and "The Wall of Masterpieces" "IS", laugh); together with 14,403 later releases, the total is 30,554, ranking 64th in history. In recent years, the performance of animation adaptations has been unsatisfactory. In this field, SG's 3W cumulative sales data is second only to the "" and "Fate/stay night" series.
Title
First issue volume average
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
71,056
Fate/Zero Season 1
52,133
IS〈Infinite Stratos〉
33,813
We still don’t know the name of the flower we saw that day
31,524
Persona 4
31,019
TIGER & BUNNY
30,347
horizon line
21,814
Your Highness the Prince of Uta’s True Love 1000%
17,868
Steins;Gate
16,151
Confused Restaurant Season 2
12,611
2011 Japanese TV animation sales list (first release)
In comparison, SG0's results are much mediocre. The average volume sales volume is only 2540, less than one-tenth of the SG animation. Even in the current quarter (spring 2018), it only ranked 10th, almost breaking even.
2018 spring sales
From this point of view, whether it is word-of-mouth or sales, the gap between SG0 and SG is very obvious. Of course, SG0 was originally the completion of this article. In the extreme, it was a wave of operations by the production company to extract residual value and continue to defraud money. It is indeed difficult to surpass the original work.
The most important thing is that before writing this article, I never checked the rating of SG0 on MAL or tracked its sales data…but this does not affect my liking for this work.
So everything is Steins;Gate’s choice!
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I always feel like I just started writing from here, and it seems like I’ve spent more than two thousand words of nonsense in front of it, haha. In fact, what I want to write is just why I like this work.
Compared with the original SG, the biggest difference between SG0 is that it is a work with a preset ending, a story destined to tragedy and despair.
If you have read this SG article, you will know that at the end of the story, Okabe almost gave up on himself after failing to save his assistant for the first time. It was Okabe’s video from 2025 that encouraged him and told him to deceive the world and enter the Gate world. line method.
This video from the future recycles many foreshadowings laid early in the story, and is the ignition point and turning point of the entire SG story. After accompanying the protagonist through all kinds of pain, the audience finally found a glimmer of hope leading to the perfect ending. With the nostalgic second line and the explosive insert song, every time they think about it, they still feel excited.
For those highly rated works, they all have their "goss-making points" where plots and emotions explode. For "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", maybe it's Akatsuki Homura's confession about infinite reincarnation; for "Unknown Flower Name", maybe it's the tearful burst of hide-and-seek at the end of the film; and for "Steins;Gate", I think this is it – —At the end of Chapter 23, despair is reversed and the world is deceived. There is no more refreshing scene in the whole story than here.
SG Episode 23, please wear headphones to watch
However.
However, there is a huge foreshadowing here. Although the protagonist group of "This World Line" successfully found the path to "Gate", what about Okabe Rintaro who sent the video? 2025 is Okabe’s unavoidable death date. What happened to him later?
This is the story SG0 tells. To be precise, it is the story of how Okabe, who stayed in the Beta world line, overcame the pain of losing his assistant, overcome despair, and opened up new possibilities for his past self. The end point of this road is certain. All the efforts and sacrifices made by the protagonist group are to send that video and guide the past Okabe to a new future, even if they themselves have no bright future at all.
This creates a completely different atmosphere in the two works. Take the game as an example. The early pace of SG is slow, focusing on daily stories, which often makes people drowsy. In the middle stage, as the plot unfolds, each character branch line enters, and Okabe begins to fall in love one by one… (I prefer SG The reason for the animation is that the animation has deleted many romance parts of the side plots, so as not to make the atmosphere too off-line); at the end of the plot, the plot has continuous twists and climaxes, and it is completed in one go. Although the plot rhythm has been criticized by many people, the unknown is always in front of the players, and the protagonist always harbors hope. The final ending, even if it is not 100% happy, is at least an open ending full of hope. Okabe's chuuni remarks throughout the work are more like adding a layer of filter to the entire work, making it seem like a dream and illusion, both virtual and real.
But SG0 is completely different. The assistant (Kurisu) has died, and Okabe has been in a very depressed state since his appearance. He has almost never made a second hit in the entire game. The ending is already doomed. Since he has to send a dmail to the past in 2025, it means that Okabe will be stranded in the β world line, bearing the pain of not having an assistant, and facing the future world war. In addition, the plot arrangement of SG0 is really malicious. If Okabe killed his assistant in this article, which made him extremely painful, then meeting the AI- based on her in SG0 rekindled Okabe's hope. However, as the plot develops, Okabe discovers that in order to avoid bad, he must eliminate all traces of Kurisu – including her papers, her computer, and the system itself, which is equivalent to asking him to "kill Kurisu" again. "Death" once, which is also one of the biggest tears in the whole story.
SG0 Chapter 22, Farewell
This SG chapter can be said to be Okabe's RPG adventure. On the one hand, the plot perspective is always on Okabe, and on the other hand, the protagonist group takes the absolute initiative in plot changes. Specifically, every jump in the world line originates from the dmail sent by the protagonist. From the audience's perspective, the overall plot is very clear. Together with the protagonist group, we are confused about gelled bananas, together we are shocked by the huge conspiracy involved in SERN (from CERN), and together we are running around to jump around the world line. As an audience, Okabe's story is what we experience. story.
(One more thing, the most interesting thing is that in 2014 CERN scientists were doing an AMA (ask me) event, and this joke was mentioned in the middle)
CERN and SERN are stupidly unclear.
But there is a significant difference in SG0. There have been many changes in the first perspective of the game. Compared with the original Okabe Heroes of SG, SG0 is more like the creation of character groups and the completion of the plot. More importantly, Okabe has passively experienced world line jumps many times. This is because with the increasing number of hostile organizations (SG this article only has SERN, SG0 adds Russia, the US military and the United States – who knows) and the leakage of time machine technology, major powers have begun to conduct continuous experiments, so that it has become very It is difficult to accurately determine the reason for each world line jump. As a player, I often feel dizzy with Okabe after experiencing unexpected world line jumps, trying to figure out what happened again… It's really not a good gaming experience, haha.
Although the experience is not good, I can understand such a design in SG0. In this chapter of SG, players often appear as Phoenix Academy Ozuma (Okabe’s chuuni self-proclaimed), always fighting against the evil of the world. As long as they don’t give up, they have the opportunity to become a hero who changes the world; but in SG0, Okabe But he had to passively respond to various events, mixed in the torrent of big countries, organizations and time, and realized his own powerlessness, just like a small boat drifting with the tide… I think this adds a lot of emotional reality to the fictional science fiction story of SG0 feel.
In these great power games, I especially like the idea of the Soviet line. In this world line, Russia was the first to obtain a time machine and go back in time to change history, avoiding the end of the Soviet Union's disintegration. At the current moment, Japan has become a battlefield in the world war between the Soviet Union and the United States. When the protagonist jumped across the world line, he was immediately caught by the Japanese military. While the Japanese were protecting Okabe, they were constantly spying on the intelligence he had. When the protagonist naturally affirmed historical events such as "Gorbachev's reforms" and "the fall of the Berlin Wall", he suddenly discovered the fundamentals of the Soviet Union in this world. No disintegration! After being confirmed of strategic value, Okabe was competed by the United States and Japan… But unfortunately, Okabe's stay in this world line was very short, and the plot hurriedly returned to the original daily life without much development.
SG0 Soviet line, it’s scary to think about it
In fact, in SG0, the scope of world line jump is much wider than that in SG. In this article, the impact of jumpers is basically foreseeable, but unexpected jumpers often appear in SG0, and this is often the key to the development of the plot. For example, one time Okabe accidentally jumped to the α world line, met his assistant who was still alive, and was encouraged by the assistant to return to the β world line to continue his struggle. This was the only time in the whole story that a living assistant appeared, and it was no surprise that it was revealed again. Waves of tears; another Okabe jumper came to 2036, and witnessed the destroyed world and Rukako's sacrifice, so he decided to make 3,000 time jumps back to 2011 (the prototype of this plot should be from the SG chapter) The blackened Tennoji Kui assassinated Moeyu and Okabe through more than 2,000 time jumps).
The living assistant in the α world line
All of this – the death of his assistant, the world war, the defection of male and female professors one after another – have hit Okabe hard again and again, but after losing his beloved, it was Lab who went through life and death for him and supported his broken heart. Especially Tongzi (Haru Hashida), not only has he worked with Okabe all his life, but his wife Yuki Amanone also died prematurely because she joined the resistance organization to protect her daughter Suzuha, and her daughter Suzuha will also appear in every world line. Zhongdu returned to 2010 to help Okabe change the future (the most well-deserved ending of the Stone Gate series: Awanin Suzuha went back to the past in a time machine), and he is truly a loyal person. With the support of his friends, Okabe finally plucked up the courage again and again and found a way to deceive the world in despair.
So this is why I like SG0. Find hope in despair, never give up hope even when you know despair, and open the way for new possibilities even if you continue to sacrifice.
Choosing the Beta world line, Okabe sacrificed Kurisu; choosing to fight against the Great Power Organization, Okabe sacrificed; choosing the Vega Project, Okabe sacrificed Mayuri and Suzuha; choosing to deceive the world, Okabe sacrificed himself . If the ending of SG is like a beautiful fairy tale, then SG0 is a story of constant choice, abandonment, sacrifice and rebirth.
This is the way to Gate.
SG0 Mayuri Line’s final statement
Four
Let’s have a happy rant in the last paragraph.
I… don't feel bad about the low rating for SG0. Because I also want to give a low score haha.
Let’s talk about games first. When playing SG0, I often ask questions involuntarily:
"Who am I?" "Where am I?" "What am I doing?"
As mentioned before, SG0 has a lot of imagination in terms of world line jumping. Not only do you jump back and forth between the AB route and the αβ world line in the game, but many of the jumps are very passive and sudden. Often you have just sorted out the causes and consequences of one world line and suddenly come to another world line.
Unlike SG, which has a main line that runs throughout and connects all the branches, the plot structure of SG0 is tree-like (see the plot flow chart below). The plot bifurcation occurs very early, resulting in very different differences between the lines. Large, the connection is weak. Every time you read an archive, you have to take a moment to understand what's going on.
SG0 plot flow chart
There is also the most puzzling character of SG0, Shiina Bon… If you think of it as Kurisu, then the main added characters in SG0 are Hiaya Sada Maho, Awano Yuki and Shiina Bon (I won’t talk about the villains, haha) ). In fact, I think the character creation of SG0 is very good. It does not deviate too much from the story, and it also performs a reasonable interpretation on top of it. But only the plot and image of Shiina Bon are very confusing… On the one hand, the contrast between the images before and after is too great, and on the other hand, in different world lines, Bon plays completely different roles. In some world lines, Ben was brainwashed by the professor and became a black knight. He was also transformed into Aman Yinyuji and was close to the protagonist group (?), assuming a spy role similar to Kiryu Moeyu in the SG series; in other world lines , Bon was not brainwashed, but was in a state of amnesia first, and then Kurisu's dual memory appeared (Assistant: Unexpected? I'm back again). The black knight at this time is a female professor. As Okabe jumps back and forth, every time I encounter Bon, Yuki, or the Black Knight, I have to think about who is opposite me. To be honest, the handling of this character is really not good.
Let’s talk about animation. If you watch animation often, you will know that there are four main sources of animation scripts: original scripts, manga adaptations, light novel adaptations, and adaptations.
From my own perspective…manga-adapted animations have been the most stable in recent years; original animations have a large variance, with a high upper limit, but a low lower limit; slight modifications always have traces of streamlined work, and I often watch to the shadow of current popular works.
And overall, the one with the worst quality… is undoubtedly Gal's animation.
Due to the characteristics of the original work, it is always difficult for Gal to change animations to get rid of the following problems:
1. Plot rhythm problem. Generally speaking, a lot of daily foreshadowing will be laid in the early stage, and then recycled in the later stage. The difference between the early stage and the late stage is very obvious. This feeling will be diluted when reading the text, but when it is made into animation, this difference in rhythm is often unbearable. A large number of viewers will abandon the series because they feel bored before the plot unfolds;
2. Route problem. Generally, there are multiple routes. You can finish this route, read the archive, and then run the next route. But obviously animation can't do this, so it has to blend the stories of various routes together. It is easy to say that the routes are related to each other, but some routes are not related or even contradictory to each other, which is very difficult to deal with;
3. The issue of plot volume. Generally, there are at least hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of words of plot text. The settings, background, characters, and stories can be slowly unfolded and described in great detail. However, when the animation was restoring the work, there was not so much time and space, so the original plot had to be deleted and adapted. As for how the changes are going… generally the changes are not very good…;
4. Revenue issues. To be honest, I'm not sure about this question… Generally speaking, the animation of a work has the purpose of promoting the original work. For example, the popularity of the light adaptation of the animation can drive the sales of the original light novel, and the popularity of the comic adaptation of the animation will also affect the original manga. However, the original works that have been adapted into animations have been on the market for a certain period of time, have a stable reputation, and have a fixed audience. It is difficult to make the original game a big hit again. Reflected in animation production, investors are unwilling to invest too many resources and funds in a work with low returns. The entire animation often reveals an atmosphere of poverty…
Take another one of my favorite works "" as an example. The result of the animation of this work can be described as a tragedy. The five female main lines in the early stage were difficult to integrate with each other, so the director made an original route himself, and the plot became a mystery; in the later stage, the plot returned to a single main line, but a large amount of content had to be deleted due to time pressure, making it difficult to brew the original plot. Emotionally explosive; compared to it, painting collapse and fighting poverty are even minor problems. The final product made fans of the original work unsatisfied, new audiences were confused, and the sales of the two seasons of animation both crashed… Hey, I can only say thank you to the enthusiastic supervision of Tianchong, at least the characters in "" can move. .
The collapse scene in "" still makes me laugh when I watch it now 233
In fact, this SG animation does not completely avoid the above problems. The pace of the animation in the early stages is quite slow, and the emotional drama in the middle stage is unclear. It is mainly due to the continuous reversal of the plot in the final stage that it can become a god. Moreover, SG has a main line that leads to the end, and each branch line is just a branch at different plot points, so it is relatively easy to adapt it.
As for SG0… it's quite miserable. The differences between the several routes are really huge. In fact, I think the plot adaptation of SG0 is quite good. Not only does it cover the core plot elements, but the sense of dissonance of "repeated jumps" in the world line is also much better than the original game, and several key points have been adapted. The completion and completion are quite wonderful and are the biggest highlights in my mind.
However, I can’t hide my faults (?), the problem of slow pace in the early stage cannot be avoided; the adapted plot in the middle stage is really embarrassing, especially every time Shiina Bon appears, I want to fast forward; although in the final stage, all the conflicts are successfully concentrated At one point (delaying the helicopter to blow up the time machine), but the ending is really confusing. The helicopter always flies up inexplicably, losing the sense of logic that the SG series is proud of. The most important thing is that there are many more fighting scenes in SG0 than in the original SG, but the action scenes are really poorly produced. One moment, Suzuha inexplicably unleashes the Grass-cutting Warrior, and the next moment, it's a super embarrassing battle of blue blood, which really affects the audience's experience.
SG0 Chapter 17, I am really…
Having complained so much, let’s talk about the parts I like better.
The handling of the jump to the α world line in Chapter 8 – this section in the SG0 game is really too short, and the animation is a good supplement. Especially the handling of dmail at the end, I didn’t expect it to be connected to the 22nd episode of this SG article. This is my favorite part of the whole novel and I have read it many times.
The treatment of 3000 jumps – similar to the above, the description in the game is also a bit unclear, but the animation is much clearer. In fact, 3000 jumps is also a very important emotional explosion point in the plot. The animation here renders the emotions well.
Insert song – Just like the original SG animation, an appropriate insert song can always arouse the audience's emotions. "", the OP of the SG0 game, appears twice in the animation. One time is the introduction system of Maho in Chapter 1, the other time is the deletion system of Maho in Chapter 22, one time is the burning point and the other time is the tear point; "ライア", the SG0 game ED, also appeared twice in the animation. One time was when he said goodbye to his assistant on the α World Online in Chapter 8, and the other time was when he received the last message from Mayuri in Chapter 18, both of which expressed Okabe's feelings for his true love; "to the Gate", the SG animation OP , appears in episode 23 when Okabe records the video sent to 2010, symbolizing that the stories of SG and SG0 are finally intertwined.
Chapter 23 – Completed the part of Mayuri's "Vega Project" in the radio drama. This is the dividing point between the two world lines in Chapter 23 of this SG chapter. At the end, Okabe of the SG0 game flies to the past, which is the end of the game. The animation adds an easter egg in which he found Mayuri and Suzuha in 2016. No matter what their future holds, I am satisfied that these time travelers will meet again.
The end of the SG0 animation, goodbye
The last joke is that the naming method of the SG series is "kanji kanji no kana kana", which is full of middle-class style, so the "desperate antinomy" in the title is also a joke, haha.
(If you see antinomies and you think of antinomies instead of Kant = Antinomies = Bruno = Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, then please teach me how to play cards)
Of these titles, my favorite is:
"Altair at Infinity" (SG0 Mayuri Ending)
"Stars with Cross Coordinates" (SG0 True Ending)
"Steins Gate on the Realm" (the true ending of SG)
Sure enough, having all the middle two open is what Stone Gate feels like!
El Psy.
P.S.
If you like this article, you might as well take some more Amway! After all, nothing makes people happier than sharing.
Because the video is on station B and cannot be posted on the official account, so I posted it on the AV account~
The live version of the SG animation OP "to the gate" and the SG0 game OP ""
SG0 game opening animation
Comparison of the OP before and after the SG0 animation
The plot of SG0 episode 8 overlaps with the plot of SG episode 22
I hope you enjoy the Steins;Gate series!
