Episode 22 serves as some long needed development for Amadeus, but once again I can’t help but feel that it’s too little too late.
I’m happy to see them doing things with her at last, but if she’d felt like more of a presence through the rest of the series it would make her sacrifice more emotional for the viewer. While I am sure it’s a very emotional and trying sacrifice for Okabe, who has been through more timelines then we can imagine.
Leaped through more and more interactions then we can conceive. So he has a emotional attachment that we the viewer can’t comprehend, but there is nothing we’ve seen that can convey and that’s annoying. Because the episode tries to make us feel super emotional for Amadeus, to almost equate the sacrifice of the A.I. to the one that the original Kurisu made.
The triumphant return of the mad scientist Kyouma is marred by the emotional struggle he goes through at the realization that the only thing they can do to save Mayuri and Suzuha is destroy Amadeus. Which is how Russian intelligence is finding out about the time machine. She has him walk her around the city, taking in the sites and sounds and trying to really appreciate the world and how the world is so different then her existence inside the computer.
At the end of the day though, she is just an A.I., she isn’t the real Kurisu and though Okabe’s reluctance to delete her speaks volumes to the level of A.I. that they created. That she is almost as good as a real person, she isn’t and he shouldn’t hesitate to delete her.
Daru works out a way to send the information to destroy the Amadeus Project back far enough to be able to make a difference. It’s not a point that can be time leaped too, so it would require a D-mail, yet D-mail would alert Sern of their actions and just lead them into a timeline where Mayuri would die again. So they end up using an alternative D-mail, one that won’t be caught on to by Sern but can only be sent to Daru. So they prepare to send it and everyone is emotional and upset.
Which once again, in universe is completely understandable but as a viewer I just don’t have that kind of connection with Amadeus. I can’t help but wonder if she factored more prominently in the game route that the anime is following. Did we get to properly connect with her as a character independant of Kurisu?
For me, my favorite part of the episode is where Okabe is moping on the roof and Maho comes up to the roof to cheer him up. When she repeats what she’s said before in other timelines, that as long as the chance isn’t 0. He shouldn’t give up. He laughs and says to himself that the one thing that doesn’t change, no matter how many worldlines he jumps too the lab members are always the same. Which is true, it’s funny to think about it but no matter how many different timelines he’s jumped too. His friends have remained pretty consistent and been his rock.
So much so that in this series and in the previous one, they started predicting how they would act in the next jump and giving Okabe tips on how to manipulate themselves in the past.
One episode left. Can Okabe make it to Steins;Gate? Can we get a happy ending?
have not played the VN so I’m not familiar with the whole story.
I think that this series has managed to create 2 time paradoxes which the original Steins Gate story did not making it the best time travel series.
If Mayuri is indeed dead together with Suzuha in the exploding time machine, then Kagari cant be adopted in the future by Mayuri. To add to this, if Mauyri dies in this timeline, the rest of the cast should not know about Kagari, because she wont get adopted and no reason to travel with Suzuha back in time. Plus Kagari is the name Mayuri gave her, so if Mayuri is dead then she cant be named Kagari.