RE: Steins;Gate 0 Episode 4: Adaptation Sloppiness And Strengths
The thing that kept on poking at me this episode was the weird logic being employed by some of the characters.
Okabe is convinced that there's no way that his reading steiner could activate since he didn't make a phone microwave. Even though he himself mentioned that someone else could have made a time machine. Even if he made a time leap machine the next day, wouldn't that trigger it? I'm not saying he would make it, but it's not impossible now is it?
Also, I haven't a clue why Daru would bring up a missing person's registry. Theoretically, we don't even know if Shiina Kagari is a registered citizen of the country. And even if she is "missing" as far as Suzuha is concerned, that doesn't mean the government is going to put her on a list like that.
Besides that, I haven't seen the VN, so I can't judge the execution of the adaptation. I'm getting some good intrigue vibes though. So that's nice. I found the thing about Kagari being the guest at Ruka's place really obvious, even without them giving it away at the end of the episode. So I don't know why they were being coy about it for so long.
Either way, I just can't see how they could mess this up. As far as I understand, we know how this ends, supposedly? It would be really hard for them to completely ruin everything considering the decent start. But like I said, haven't played the VN, so what do I know?
Steins;Gate seems to operate on a logic wherein Okabe building a phone wave tomorrow wouldn't result in time being changed until tomorrow actually happens, but someone like Suzuha can arrive from the future in any timeline where World War 3 happens before the time machine is actually built. Even so his confusion is understandable to me, it's incredibly worrying that he can't pin down a cause for his reading steiner activating.
I think Daru was just spitballing ideas, I think it's good that every possibility is being accounted for.
The adaptation is good whenever it is following the VN. However, for various reasons, some aspects of the VN are going to have to be changed either for time or coherency. As I argued in the post, the first of these changes isn't one I thought was handled too well... But I'm glad it's working for someone who hasn't read it like yourself.
so good