Hey there, Basariters! My name’s ChrisGLink, and today, I want to share some thoughts I had about the newly released first volume of the Steins;Gate 0 manga by Taka Himeno. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get started.
For some background, the Science Adventure series, as well as Steins;Gate in general, is a collection of visual novels that is incredibly close to my heart. As such, I’ve read each and every title in the series—from Chaos;Head NoAH to Robotics;Notes DaSH—multiple times, and I’ve also checked out adaptations and side material whenever they’ve been available. However, I’ve never really gone beyond anime when it comes to adaptations, so when I saw that an official localization was coming out for the Steins;Gate 0 manga, I was finally ready to expand my horizons. It’d been a while since I’d read the 0 visual novel or watched the anime, after all, so I was interested in seeing how the story would be tackled in a different format, and I also figured it’d be a nice refresher. As soon as the amazing folks over at UDON Entertainment sent us a copy of the first volume, I dove straight in.
Please note that although a copy of Volume 1 was provided to us by the publisher, this will not influence my opinions of the work in any way.
Now, just a really quick aside before we get started—as I waited for volume 1 of Steins;Gate 0 to arrive, I checked out the original Steins;Gate manga by Yomi Sarachi for context. Unfortunately, I came away pretty disappointed. There were a lot of issues I took with it, such as inconsistent art quality, strange word choice that took me out of a few intense, beloved scenes, and some story beats that were poorly presented, if not outright cut from the story. There were some decisions made for it that I felt hurt the continuity of SciADV as a whole, and Steins;Gate 0 especially. This left me even more curious to see how similar aspects would be handled in the 0 adaptation.
A proper review of the Steins;Gate manga collection will be coming from my buddy here at Kiri Kiri Basara, Fasty, pretty soon, so keep an eye out. I’m excited to see what he thinks of it. (It’s out now, actually!)
Anyway, needless to say, I was pretty nervous about how the 0 manga would fare. But when I finally picked up my copy from the post office, I was hit with a huge first impression. And I mean huge.
Look at the size of it! It’s even bigger than my hand! It’s thick, too—it boasts around 14 chapters that I was cautiously excited about getting into. In the end, despite my concerns, I quickly came to learn that the manga had tons of care put into it. The translation, artwork, paneling, framing, typesetting, and so much more stands leagues above what came before it. The quality of the physical release reflects this, too: the pages feel nice, and I often found my hand just gliding over each one as I pored through the story, the multiple multi-page spreads almost exploding out of their pages—particularly the full-color spreads.
Each and every character is brought to life through Himeno’s artwork. Every labmem and new character alike is brimming with personality, and the manga presents them both faithfully and wonderfully. I found that there were even some sections where my impressions of these characters that I already loved so much were actually enhanced by the artwork. Certain dramatic scenes are made even more intense through striking visuals, while sad scenes are made all the more brutal, and calm, quieter scenes are given the weight and tenderness they deserve.
The same can be said about the translation itself, which is all-around stellar. It is clear that the translator, Andrew Hodgson, is deeply familiar with the cast of Steins;Gate—every character is exactly like how I remember them from both the visual novel and the anime, if not even better than ever before. Part of this can be attributed to a few manga-exclusive scenes, all of which serve to further make these characters feel like true friends, even after having gone through such intense hardship together.
The pacing and overall presentation of the adaptation is excellent as well, outside of it being a little bit too fast in the chapters surrounding Kagari. It would’ve been nice to have a bit more time to breathe with this new, mysterious character before the plot kicked in. Even so, I never found myself getting bored while I read, and whenever I had the time to, I was actively combing through the volume until I had to get back to work.
And yes, “combing” is definitely the right term for what I was doing. I say this because even though I really, really enjoyed my time with Volume 1, I do have a few minor gripes about some issues that I came across while reading.
To start, there are a few issues that seem to have actually been brought over from the original Steins;Gate manga. One of these is the name of Yugo Tennouji’s workshop. In the manga adaptations, it’s called the “CRT Workshop,” instead of the “Braun Tube Workshop,” so a few jokes and other things related to that don’t quite land as well. Speaking of Mr. Tennouji, there are a few spots in the manga where the art quality dips a bit, especially when he shows up. This, however, is very rare.
There’s also some inconsistency with characterization between the two manga, such as the prominent “Mayushii” nickname-slash-pronoun being used here, but not in the original manga outside of one instance. Additionally, there are some sections where certain elements of the presentation just don’t make sense if you haven’t read the visual novel: one example that comes to mind is a D-Mail that’s shown in the story, and its text is extended well beyond the in-universe 36-character limit. Furthermore, the content of said D-Mail is also changed from how it’s written in the original manga. The explanation for this is that what is shown is the original, full text Okabe wrote out in the prologue of Steins;Gate, before it got cut down by the 36-character limit, which is something the original manga does not properly show.
The general typesetting in the manga can also be a bit odd at times as well. For example, text in a few of the volume’s bubbles is off-center to the point of being a little distracting. In some other cases, text is squished to fit inside a bubble or two. The original Japanese SFX used in the manga’s panels tend to not be edited out of the art, which leaves some pages looking and feeling, ironically, noisy. When they are sometimes edited out, it looks great, so it’s a shame that standard wasn’t implemented across the whole volume.
Regardless, none of these issues go beyond being minor nitpicks. The manga almost always looks amazing, and these issues only show up on a rare few pages, so don’t let this distract you from the fact that this is an excellent way to experience Steins;Gate 0.
Based on the impression I have so far, it’s a great experience, though I don’t think it can serve as a substitute for the Steins;Gate 0 visual novel and the anime. There is a whole lot of content throughout the 0 visual novel and anime, and there are a few very important details that the manga has either not adapted yet, or has chosen not to adapt at all. There are still, of course, two large volumes to go, but with the generally slow pace the manga is taking, I’m not sure they can cover all the 0 content there is to offer.
Despite this, I do believe that the manga is a really fun way to experience the story—I would even say that there are a couple things it does better than the other two versions of the story. Because of this, I would label this manga as a strong supplement to 0’s visual novel and anime, but definitely not an outright replacement.
In the end, volume 1 of the Steins;Gate 0 manga got me to remember all the things I loved about the original story, and for me, there’s nothing better that an adaptation can achieve. I’m super excited to continue my experience through the world of Steins;Gate 0, and knowing what’s to come in the plot, I can’t wait for Volume 2.
8.5/10
Despite a few rare hiccups in presentation, the first volume of the Steins;Gate 0 manga is a very entertaining adaptation that improves on its manga predecessor in every way, and is a promising start to the series.
Steins;Gate 0 Volume 1 is available now from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for $24.99 (USD).
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