Steins;Gate 0 is an animetelevision series created by White Fox based on 5pb.'s 2015 video game of the same name, and is part of the Science Adventure franchise. The series is a sequel to the 2011 anime series Steins;Gate, and aired between April 12 and September 27, 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. The series is directed by Kenichi Kawamura, and written by Jukki Hanada, who also wrote the first Steins;Gate anime; the voice cast from previous Steins;Gate anime and games also reprise their roles. The series is being simulcast by Crunchyroll, AnimeLab and Aniplus Asia, and an English dub is streamed by Funimation in North America and the British Isles.
Plot
The story takes place after Rintaro Okabe fails to save Kurisu Makise in the original Steins;Gate series. 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, chose to live 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
Character
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Character
Japanese
English
Rintaro Okabe
Mamoru Miyano
J. Michael Tatum
Kurisu Makise / Amadeus
Asami Imai
Trina Nishimura
Mayuri Shiina
Kana Hanazawa
Itaru "Daru" Hashida
Tomokazu Seki
Tyson Rinehart
Suzuha Amane
Yukari Tamura
Cherami Leigh
Luka Urushibara
Yū Kobayashi
Lindsay Seidel
Faris NyanNyan
Haruko Momoi
Jad Saxton
Moeka Kiryu
Saori Gotō
Jessica Cavanagh
Maho Hiyajo
Sayuri Yahagi
Monica Rial
Kagari Shiina
Megumi Han
Alexis Tipton
Yuki Amane
Yukari Tamura
Cherami Leigh
Nae Tennouji
Ayano Yamamoto
Brina Palencia
Katsumi "Fubuki" Nakase
Mariko Honda
Mikaela Krantz
Kaede Kurushima
Hina Kino
Bryn Apprill
Alexis Leskinen
Yōji Ueda
Chris Wehkamp
Judy Reyes
Maya Nishimura
Emily Neves
Production and release
Steins;Gate 0 was produced by White Fox, and 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. While the game's story is composed of multiple routes, the anime reconstructs the story into one single route. 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, and Takeshi Kodaka served as art director. The music was composed by Takeshi Abo, Nobuaki Nobusawa, and Moe Hyūga. The voice cast reprised their roles from previous Steins;Gate media. The opening theme is "Fatima" 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; the first episode used Itō's song "Amadeus" from the Steins;Gate 0 game as the ending theme, however. Itō created "Fatima" 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. The anime was originally announced in March 2015, together with the Steins;Gate 0 game. 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. The 23 episode series aired in Japan between April 12 and September 27, 2018. It was broadcast on Tokyo MX, TVA, KBS Kyoto, Sun TV, TVQ, AT-X, BS11, and GYT, and is streamed through Abema TV in Japan. The series was simulcast by Crunchyroll outside of Asia and Australasia, by AnimeLab in Australia and New Zealand, and by Aniplus Asia in Southeast Asia, and an English dub began streaming through Funimation in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland on April 30, 2018. 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. The English dub was directed by Cris George and written by Jeramey Kraatz. 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. 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, and that they would announce how the role would be handled in the home video release of the series at a later date.
