Steins;Gate

One word: Hype.

Before watching this show, i was amazed by it's high scores, big fanbase and critics puting it to a pedestal. I had high expectations and was going into it thinking it would be the second time Jesus would step on earth. But as always, there's nothing worse, than diving into the hype.

What else should i say? Steins;Gate has everything a mass consumer needs:a concept about time travel, sci-fi theme coupled with unique characters and....a poorly written story. How did something like this went wrong? I can't imagine, since the production values were high enough to hire a good writer. Not only ... the first half of the show, specifically the first 12 episodes do absolutely nothing, and i mean NOTHING. They are painfully boring, painfully slow, painfully killing every good aspect the show initially put into it. After that it gets better, but i didn't have the desire to watch it, because if half of the show is shitty, there's just no helping it. But i still forced myself through the agony. And.... it still didn't pay off in the end.

Now about the characters, they all seem out of this world. I mean an 18 year old guy invents a time machine? Or an 18 year old girl writtes scientific articles, is a research member and somehow she surpasses her own father? and a few other characters also seem unrealistic. The only real character is maybe the owner of the office where the cast was spending most of their time.

Only the art is good, but even then, the setting is very strange, the sun is somehow to yellowish, i don't know, some colors where too bright.


Overall, i didn't enjoy Steins;Gate as i would have expected. It represents very well the hype that never justifies itself and that Steins;Gate is a second class, no, a third-class show. It is slow, dull and weak.

I Have no Idea why I am writing this review

I guess I just need to state why Steins;Gate isn`t the greatness thing of all time

OK

Lets start with some good points

Time Travel is one of the hardest things for Sifi shows to handle correct. Why because there is to many things that can go wrong and once something is changed you need to keep that paradox or the change could never have happened.
This show handles that correctly.
...
The plot is pretty good not completely original but done well.

The art and sound are fine.

I guess its time for the negatives

It has a slow start. I know you can't judge just on how things start but I should not have to watch 4 hours of something before I get into something. It just doesn't connect with the viewer, to make them feel like they should keep watching. The reason why I kept watching is that I was curious, to know why people love it so much. That is not a good reason, its my reason but not a good one.

That leads to my second point the show drags, and trust me it drags out everything or nearly everything. It does not like to get the point it wants to keep you thinking. Some people might call this creative writing, doing this sometimes is creative, doing this all the time is Dragon Ball Z Fight scenes.
There is a episode if I remember right where it is just the same thing over and over and over.

Characters this one is a little bit more personal obviously.
The Protestant is uninteresting, he is boring, he is ridiculous, and I don't understand him. In saying that the other characters are more interesting but still a little bland. A pervert, A kindhearted unintelligent girl, a genius, a mystery none talker, a what should be a girl, and an energetic girl.
Even though the characters themselves are not all to interesting the relationships with each other can be. There back stories are OK somewhat generic, so not all that great.

Steins Gate is one of the most famous Anime of all time, especially on this website, and during the last twenty years or so that have passed, many works that do not deserve any fame or recognition have unfortunately garnered a lot of fans, and we saw a lot of these works get sanctified and venerated by others, whereas in actuality, these Anime do not deserve five minutes of your time. So, is the original Steins Gate Anime one of those Anime, or is it something that is worth your time and investment?

The story revolves around a young guy of nineteen years of age ... who is called Okabe, and he dreams of inventing a machine which controls time, and for that he sets up a laboratory in a modest apartment, then he commences in his projects with two friends of his. The first of his friends is a girl that has no relation to his experiments, but she is only there on the count of her being a really close friend to him, and she is called Mayuri. The second friend is an Otaku guy who is of the same age as the main character, he is called Daru, and he is the one who does all of the technical work in the laboratory. This small team is then joined by other people, the most important of them being a genius girl who is called Makise Kurisu, so that she can help the main character in accomplishing his goals. This is the main body structure of the story which is unaffected by the time changes. There is also a body structure on top of it that is changing throughout the course of the Anime’s run. Each set of episodes is changed to serve the course of the story, and this means that the overall story structure is complex and not simple, but not to a negative degree. I find that the structure of the story is distinctive and adds an effective touch to support the element of time travel in the story. We will go through a period of research and preparation that will last about five episodes in the first timeline, then through the second period, the second timeline which is crowned by the Dmail technique, where the characters send messages to the past, in an alerting manner so that they could change some events which occurred in the present, and that changes the current present into a different version with different circumstances. These changes turned some of the events in the present into beautiful for some people, but in turn it caused a tragedy to other people. This drives us to our third period, the third timeline which centers around Kurisu’s device – leap machine – and it works on sending the present tape to the past in a limited manner, and here the hero tries to fix what he ruined during the second period. Then we move to the fourth and last period, and we return back to the first timeline by using a time machine from the future, which was constructed by Daru. Here the protagonist seeks, after learning his lesson from his previous failures, to fix things from their roots by not tampering with what happened during the past directly. The story ends after the hero succeeds in saving everyone. This is the body structure of the story in a more detailed manner, and it is divided in a lively, fun and convenient way to follow, because the story depends on the machines and the gadgets that are used, and that is a lively thing to have in a narrative, because the events can be shaped according to the capabilities of each gadget.

Add in to the fact that the writer added something very imaginative to support the story, and that is the fact that everybody forgets any new time change, so they live in the new present without knowing that it indeed has changed, with the exception of the titular protagonist, and this is what makes the time travel aspect of the story tight. An issue is that the writer did not explain why the main protagonist has this memory ability in the first place, but he made the story more exciting by making Kurisu remember what had happened through her dreams.

The characters in Steins Gate are standard, none of them have any noticeable flaws within them, nor do they have any qualities about them that would make them three dimensional, but some of them do have qualities which manage to bring them closer to excellence, and this is noticeable especially in the two characters Okabe and Daru. As for the rest of the cast, there really isn’t anything special about them. The general atmosphere between the cast gives off a theme of a harem, which occurs when one person of a certain gender is given love and care by many people from the opposite gender. The undertones of a harem in this story are not suitable at all for it, because who is this scientist who gathers random girls around him? And who are these girls who are interested in someone who is as weird as the titular character? This all weakens the believability in the relationship between the characters, and to add more insult to injury, there really isn’t any comedic paradox to help ease this issue. What weakens the seriousness of the story more is the fact that all of the characters are young people of age, which really borders on illogical in a story that is trying to make time travel seem as realistic as possible. The protagonist and his mates are otakus, and not real scientists, and this is a weakness again in the believability of the characters with accordance to what they do.

The dialogue between the characters is divided into two parts: Technical dialogue which revolves around everything having to do with time travel, and general social dialogue between the characters which improves their relationship with one another. The technical dialogue is fairly good throughout the show, but the latter dialogue is standard and tends to weaken during it’s emotional parts at times, and tends to be strong at some other parts, especially during the last quarter of the Anime.

All of the arcs in Steins Gate suffer from an issue relating to realism. There is no interaction between the characters of the story with people on the streets or shops in a way that supports realism or gives the story life. To make matters even worse, all of the characters who have a relation to the time travel aspect of the story surprisingly know each other, to the point where even the shop owner downstairs was revealed to be the FB. Moreover, all of the characters are naïve and kind in an unrealistic manner, to the point where one of the characters sacrifices her father so that her colleague would not die. This is very unrealistic, especially according to that certain character, who is supposed to be a bit selfish and arrogant, but the writer at the end of the day is stubborn to the point where they write all of them as kind and naive, in a stereotypical and unrealistic fashion.

Now let us take a look at the four timelines and periods which take place in terms of quality of the events and it’s developments. We have the period of research and investigations, and it contains the character introductions, and the general goal and atmosphere of the story. It is also the period of experimentations when it comes to innovating and understanding how the first time machine works. This period of time also contains the beginning of the Anime of course, which is one of the worst beginnings for any story, period. The beginning moves through the events in an unstructured manner, and without even finishing the contents of each event. The events themselves do not support the general goal of the story, and do not succeed in identifying the characteristics of the main character in a correct manner. An example of this is him seeing the death of Makise Kurisu - who has no relation to any of the characters at this point of the story - he doesn’t even begin to question the matter, and this means that the beginning of the story is an inverse start, and there has yet to be an inverse start this bad. What makes matter even worse is the fact that the comedy is implemented very early on in the story, and how would the writer expect the director to take a time travel story seriously if he was implementing jokes from the very start? With this, the beginning solidifies it’s status as both bad and rushed, and is one of the worst inverse starts of any time travel story. The events which take place during this part of the story move in a slow pace, and without any hooks or any cliffhangers at the end of the episodes, and this makes it hard for someone to sit through it and for some to drop it upon first viewing.

The second period in the story is better than the introduction when it comes to storytelling, and the events start to become better when the characters start using the Dmail technique, and this means that the story actually commences at this stage. The time related events are generally good, and it is fun to watch the changes that will be created because of them - even when some of them are unbelievably unrealistic - such as the boy Ruka transforming into a girl if his mother changes her eating habits. The social events are good as well during this stage of the story, and the comedic touch from the hero of the story is nice and fun, as well as that of his colleague Daru, which suits his slightly perverted personality. As for the rest of the cast, they really aren’t that developed, as most of them resemble most other Anime characters, but not to the same annoyingly quirky extent.

We then arrive to the third period, which contains many positives and many negatives. The events start to get even more interesting after the changes the team of Okabe make, where even one of the characters gets killed off, and finally we enter events that are sharp and substantial to the story, but unfortunately are transformed into repetitive and stretched out events. For example, the writer takes a lot of time in showing the idea that there is no use in travelling in the near future to change the events of the story, and that Mayuri will eventually die despite all of their efforts. This subject matter took up a bunch of episodes, either to stretch out the content and for financial gain reasons, or because the writer does not know how to show this idea without using up too many episodes. This turns the idea into less beautiful due to the stretching that takes place, and it could have been executed in a much better fashion. Okabe’s relationship with Kurisu becomes more crystal clear during this arc of the story, and the romance is fairly well done.

The Anime contains some action scenes, the first and foremost of them being the event where first death of Mayuri took place. Here the action turns very weak and very becomes hard to take seriously, as Suzuha beats up armed men in a matter of seconds, yet none of them think of pulling the trigger and shooting her and Kiryu waits for her to finish beating them off so that she could aim her gun at her. Again, very unrealistic for an Anime that is trying to achieve realism in a fictional story.

We finally arrive at the fourth and last arc of the story, where the Anime reaches it’s peak when it comes to the time travel aspect, and the mad scientist Okabe becomes more capable in controlling the time travel aspect of the story. Excitement is positively increased, and the characters manage to identify the main danger when returning to the first timeline. During it Kurisu dies, and we move on to a time machine that is more advanced, and the main character begins to try out ways to stop the catastrophe from taking place. The obstacles which he faces are fairly entertaining and believable, and it is fun to see how he reacts to those dire circumstances, and this means that Steins Gate truly starts to get better from the very weak beginning, until we arrive to the fourth and final arc which is actually good. This arc contains the ending, which is very good, and an amazing conclusion to Okabe and Kurisu’s relationship. There is a colossal difference in quality when comparing the frail beginning of Steins Gate to it’s strong ending.

The character designs are suitable for this kind of story, the hero being the least striking when it comes to his design. Generally speaking, the character designs of the characters resemble the characters’ actions and personalities, the best thing about them being the clothes that they wear, as all the clothes fairly support their traits. As for the movements, it is fairly good. The camera angles were chosen correctly, except for a couple of fanservice shots which weren’t really necessary to the story, especially something that is trying to differentiate itself from other Anime.

The English dub is very well made, and the voices are suitable for the characters, and the quality of the actors is good. As for the Japanese dub, it is excellent, especially the voice actors for Okabe and Mayuri, and the voice actor for Okabe managed to bring and add a comedic touch to his character, which wasn’t to be found in the main script. The soundtrack is fairly good, but nothing spectacular, as the tracks stand out the most during a couple of moments in the show, such as the end of episode nine when Okabe finds out about Okihabara street not having any Anime or games anymore.

Overall, Steins Gate was a fine Anime. What detracted from it becoming excellent was the weak first arc, which had a very frail and vacuous start, ignoring the fact that the show had many stretched out and repeated events, which could have been cut out from the Anime. If this Anime were cut down to a twelve episode run, then it would have made for a much better experience overall, and if the producers had changed the weak beginning of the story to a beginning as strong as it’s ending, then this show would have achieved excellence.

(Spoilers included)

Initiating Operation Ragnarok - putting Stein's Gate into perspective.

2011 AD: Stein's Gate (SG) had a huge fan base
2012 AD: The popularity of SG has not faded. We see the epilogue (that in itself does not contain much substance receiving extraordinary scores) getting very much undue popularity.
2014 AD: The hype dies down. The fanboys (and girls) from the FateZero campaign take over. Some die hard SG fans convert. SG is no longer #3 on MAL.

I had BIG expectations prior to viewing Stein's Gate. This was especially since it was able to top other strong contenders in 2011 such as Puella Magi and AnoHana. I was ... told that it was "well executed with a touching and deep plot that tackled upon darker themes". However, after completing the SG I couldn't help feeling disappointed.

Stein's Gate works with concepts of time travel and uses it as a foundation for its narrative. It's refreshing that they're including real life references such as the LHC and other theories to back themselves up but ultimately the explanations and techno jargon used to verify the plausibility of time travel did not prove convincing.

SG’s synopsis about a group of friends avoiding SERN is misleading. While this does occur, it is not the focus of the series. In fact, SERN remains a mysterious organization after SG concludes. Stein’s Gate is more about attempting to return to one’s initial world line. The series has a slow start but does pick up its pace later on. By slow start, I mean the first 10 episodes were mundane with a few comedic moments that were not that funny. The plot thickens at the end of episode 11. At this point I thought to myself “okay now it gets serious, way to pick up the pace”. It was entertaining for a while… but then came episode 14, and my expectations of SG were shattered. In general, the arcs following this subscribe to a similar format: The problem, problem solving and finally resolution and reflection. It doesn’t seem as if SG is ready to challenge itself and present its rather well thought out story in a different manners. While some argue that the use of arcs was ingenious, I think otherwise. Despite the direct relationship between individual arcs and story events, these arcs feel disjointed from one another and the series did not flow as well as it could have. Another problem was that each arc did not receive sufficient screen time. Often, the resolution/reflection part of things seemed rushed. In all honesty, these parts should have been given extra care especially when they dealt with the more delicate themes.

Throughout SG, there were also ‘unnecessary’ inserts. Special mention goes to the intro scene in episode 12. This serene scene is sometime referred to again in the show. But what does it mean? What is its significance? Is it a figment of Okabe’s imagination or an actual event that he remembers subconsciously like how other lab members recall events of different world lines? These questions like many others in the series remain very unexplained. The dialogue makes no sense in this scene. Original Okarin? Original Mayuri? If time could be traversed in both directions, the past, present and future should be undefined. As a result, how can one say that one, from a certain time period (presumably from the “original” time period which should not exist), is more authentic than any of the others? Moving on, what was the point of showing Okabe’s ‘timeshift-like fever’ when he was young? It didn’t tie any loose ends. It contributed to the poor time management of the series. But hey, it was nice to know anyways!

The twists in SG were not as great as people made them out to be. Admittedly, some twists were unexpected like the one involving Suzu and Daru or Moeka and FB, but like much of the show they were not given much significance. You shouldn’t give 5 minutes to explain the aftermath of a twist. It undermines any cleverness behind the twist. As a result, they seemed like afterthoughts. Other twists regarding the cause of Kurisu’s death were obvious a long time before the second last episode. This brings us to that fated scene that filled me with many questions; how does failing to rescue Kurisu allow Okabe to see the video from his future self? This is especially since he did not cause any changes to that past, how could the present have changed? Also why doesn’t Suzu help him at all? Why does Kurisu’s Dad flee from a half dead person pointing a knife at him? How does Okabe with 170+ IQ make such a mistake that forces him to improvise at the heat of the moment when he had all the time to prepare? How does Okabe, with that amount of blood loss, stay conscious? And finally, why does reaching Stein’s Gate cause everything to conveniently fall in place? That, my friend, is bullshit. If someone can fill me in as to why the SG’s story deserves anything more than a 7/10, I would appreciate it.

There are other issues with the story, but for length’s sake I will stop here.

The art in SG is clean and the animation fluid. Upon first glance, character art seems a bit awkward to look at. But after a while it does grow on you. Character designs were okay. The wardrobe was fine but the faces of some female characters were close to identical. If you swapped the hairstyle and hair colour between Ruka and Feyris, or between Mayuri and Kuruse they could pass off as one another. On the other hand, the backgrounds were very very very well drawn.

Despite the OP and ED songs not being catchy by themselves, they do fit the show very well. Voice actor/actresses also did a fine job in giving life to the characters. Track insert choices and sequencing throughout the show did not overpower or undermine key scenes; instead they improved the atmosphere. In terms of sound, SG excels.

As for the characters (note I didn’t include some supporting characters because their role in the show was minimal):
• Okabe: Great lead. Definitely fascinating and different from many others who fall into specific stereotypes. He undergoes good character development, which was one of the things that kept me from dropping the series altogether.
• Mayuri: Tuturu? She’s a burden. It’s not her fault. She seems to be an ‘airhead’ but she isn’t really… just a boring girl.
• Kurisu: Tsundere for the sake of being tsundere
• Daru: Perverted and otaku-like dude. He’s a decent guy when he’s serious but that doesn’t occur very much.
• Feyris: The try to be cute character nyan.
• Suzu: The active character who was unlike some others quite real in her reactions.
• Moeka: The quiet character. Everyone should hate her. Everyone will hate her.
• Ruka: lolwut? No comment here.
• Mr Brown: Caring father and the landlord for the lab. He has a nice backstory. Wish they elaborated. Might have made him a better character.

I think what we see here is a recipe for a harem. At times, the show does feel like a harem, especially since many characters seem to be attracted to Okabe for one reason or the other. Owing to the little bit of harem in it, the drama in character arcs felt wrong.

One of the biggest issues I had with the characters was their selflessness. It’s quite hard to believe that a normal person would surrender their dreams so readily (in a matter of days) to a claim that cannot be factually verified (Mayuri’s death). Is their trust in Okabe, who calls himself a mad scientist and is known for making up stuff, so strong? Any sane person would do away with such claims. But hang on, these parts show “true” friendship someone says, and man tears need be shed. No correction, if anything this illustrates that these characters are naïve selfless freaks. Another issue I had was how the characters strangely faded away after their respective arcs and seem to have been forgotten when they could be ‘selflessly’ helping.

Overall, SG really wasn’t bad but it most definitely wasn’t great either. “Deceive yourself, deceive the world”. You can make believe that SG is a masterpiece well deserving of a 10/10. With sufficient effort you might even succeeded in making it the rage of 2011. However, understand that even if you found the series magnificent it should be reviewed free from personal bias and according to its actual worth. That is a combination of its literature value, its ability to induce emotions, visuals, sounds etc. Stein’s Gate does decently when you assess it according to the criteria above, but it certainly receives no nobel prizes in any one department. Consequently, the series always felt like it was missing something.

El Psy Congroo.

I find it incredibly weird that among all the people that suggested me this anime and/or talked about it positively on the internet, there was no one who even mentioned that at its basis Steins Gate is... well, a Harem anime.

Now, I say it's an Harem anime yet you don't see a towering two as my overall rating for it. "How come?" You'll ask, "Isn't this an anime where all female characters exist only to be attracted to the protagonist? And don't all of those characters lack in any kind of agency?"

Well... yes... to both questions... but... hear me out...

Steins Gate is pretty much a ... mix of comedy and sci-fi thriller, in which a delusional "scientist" (or in his words: MADD SCIENTISTU) creates by accident a machine capable of sending texts backwards through time. Learning how to use the machine and the subsequent hi-jinx will lead him to meet a vast of array of trope-y girls (the sweet one, the tsundere, the quiet one, etc.)... and yes, all of them are attracted to him for no reason whatsoever.

The series though, despite following a lot of the harem tropes, seems to at least try to give these girl a wider scope in the thriller-y part of the plot, rather than just using them as waifu fodder. This is at least appreciable, despite the results being far from perfect (near the end the protagonist literally has to make each of the girls fall in love so hard that it puts time back together... lovely).

To be honest what annoys me most about the Harem-like characterization of the cast is that it actively hinders the emotional core of the story. The four "main" characters are in fact quite likable and interact with each other in a very enjoyable way... but then we have to be reminded that one of those characters MUST be a tsundere and everything falls down as the characterization steers towards the trope-y and nonsensical for a couple of minutes. Even worse, any other character they interact with ends up as seriously under-characterized and pretty much reduced to their one liner quirky concept (apart for maybe one of them, and even then it doesn't really turns around until the end).

This is obviously a huge problem as the whole first half of the series is pretty much dedicated to exploring the relationship between the characters. As the episodes go by though, the thriller elements will slowly come in, as the characters realize that changing the past can have enormous and unexpected consequences on the future.

By the 13th episode the series will have pretty much lost any comedic element, leaving us with a bunch of quite enjoyable pulpy-time-travel-schlock. This transition is handled quite well, as by then we will have enough connection with the main characters to actually care about their fate and be engaged in what happens to them as the world around tries to break them. Obviously this later half also has annoyances derived from the harem structure and a couple of stupid plot points, but overall it does its job competently enough.

Mind that I'm not talking about anything particularly mind-blowing or ground-breaking, but I personally am quite happy that it does not try to be so. The plot is laid up in a pretty linear way, it's easy to follow and it mixes well various approach to time-travel to create a story that manages to solve most of its mysteries in pretty straight forward and non-convoluted ways. To be honest, knowing how anime tends to be, I was expecting exactly the opposite, instead I've been pleasantly surprised by Stains Gate's down to earth approach to time travel.

So, yes, Steins Gates did at least manage to make me slightly engaged in the fate of its main characters, at the same time though it made me groan in disapproval and roll my eyes way more than it should be allowed by law. Not unwatchable by any means, in fact there is an ok pulpy sci-fi story hidden in there, but one does have to be able to endure quite a bit of shallow characters and visual novel tropes to actually enjoy it.

Throughout history of pop culture, there are many examples of classic time travel stories in various forms of media and narrative approach. Does Steins;Gate, a much-loved show by contemporary anime fans, have what it takes to join this hallowed ranks and become the medium's definitive representation of the particular sub-genre?

Short answer: no.

Long answer:

Following self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintaro Okabe and his quirky band of lab mates (i.e. a harem of girls and a perverted otaku), Steins;Gate initially revolves around the idea that the characters can send text messages to the past through microwave oven. Now, credit where it's due: "send text messages to the past ... through microwave oven" is a pretty awesome conceptual hook, and immediately engaged my interest once I've had the show described to me as such. However, eventually I found that the pacing is a bit of a mess (it's way too slow in the first half and way too hectic in the second half), it doesn't do anything remarkably interesting in terms of visual/audio presentation, and despite the instantly intriguing premise, the execution leaves much to be desired.

First thing to note is that S;G is the furthest thing from hard science fiction, despite what the awkwardly-placed techno-babble might want you to believe. Through its main character, the show repeatedly declare that science is an important process of it, and yet I hardly see an actual example of scientific process/mindset being shown (*no, building a time machine with surprising ease and spouting convoluted time travel theories don't really count). Okabe is much less an actual scientist and more of a poser who slums around in otaku-friendly lifestyle with complete disregard to real life responsibilities, while the show occasionally reverted into rather impressive leaps of logic and demonstration of absurd causality.

But really, at its heart S;G is a character-driven show with significant dashes of romance and comedy. It's also very much in spirit with its visual novel origin; a genre frequently characterized by individual bonding scenes between its main character and a gaggle of supporting characters, often through slice-of-life manner. That's definitely not problem in itself as I always valued a story that used high concept primarily to amplify its humane elements, but let's be honest, the setting and characters in this show is clearly catered to certain audience demographic in ways that I particularly don't care of. I actually found that the show worked best when it dabbles on mystery/thriller territory, as shown in a chilling early sequence where the group stumbled upon horrific imagery of future time travel experiment, but this tone is rarely used and SERN, the obligatory Evil Organization often found in this kind of story, doesn't amount much more than a vague antagonistic force and a plot device. The romantic/comedic parts, while not being severely aggravating or offensive, aren't really that well-executed, as it used tiresome and stereotypical character tics way too often (yes, I got that Daru likes to make dirty comments and Kurisu likes to blush furiously whenever Okabe says something that's even mildly appreciative of her, thank you very much for incessantly reminding me of that, show).

On a more positive note, the show does end in a rather satisfying resolution (you can argue that it cheated around its own rules in order to get the kind of ending it wanted, but consistency and holeproof plot aren't something I expect from even the best time travel story), as it contextualized and explained what is otherwise an incomprehensible beginning. And while most of the characters' design/interaction/behavior still felt off to me, one does grow on me throughout: Okabe's childhood friend Shiina Mayuri, a more complex and sympathetic character than initial impression, and whose inner conflict I found to be much more believable than practically the rest of the cast.

So yeah, many things in Steins;Gate didn't work out very well for me and I'll continue to be baffled by the immense love it received by certain subset of fans. It doesn't feel like a complete waste of time though, as it's an adequate and perfectly accessible time travel entertainment as long as you're not actively looking for plot holes in its faux-scientific plot and/or severely allergic to some bad tropes on display here.

Steins;Gate is an anime that might be recommended to you when you begin your anime journey. It's listed genres are Science Fiction, and Thriller. It sits with other heavyweights, like Full Metal Alchemist, Death Note, Bebop, Monster and Natsume. On MAL, this anime has a ridiculously high rating. Was I excited? For sure. Not just because of its rating but also because it's genre is sci-fi and it deals with time travel. Ever since watching Lost in 05, and catching a few docs on the Discovery Channel, I've become a bit of a sucker for all things sci-fi and time travel. Now, if Steins;Gate ... combined the clever writing and plot in Death Note with science fiction elements, then, we'd have a winner! However, there are a couple of gripes I had with characterisation and story that really lowered my overall enjoyment of the series.

Steins;Gate did not do a good job with the science-fiction aspect of the show. I felt that not enough respect was given to time travel; and I'm not being pedantic. It doesn't have to be factually accurate, it just has to be somewhat plausible (I mean, the Da Vinci Code is completely fiction, but it feels 'right' as in this could actually happen). The 'science-fiction' in Steins;Gate was a really disappointing aspect. The concept of time travel was watered down and did not feel 'plausible' enough, so much so that in the first occurrence of time travel, I really thought when the characters where explaining how the message had gone back in time, they were having an inside joke that was lost in translation.
Time travel. It has drawn the attention of the greatest minds of our times - Einstein, Novikov, Friedman, Hawking, Thorne, Nahin etc. It forms the bridge between time and present. In that everyone has shared a moment in which we think about time, and how we need more, or we wished that we could do it all again, is absolute. Time travel is so alluring because it makes one the master of time. And to master time is to master the poison that must take us all. To master time, to conquer the final, known, dimension. And we always need time. We need more time with our loved ones. Less at work. We need to correct mistakes. Go back in time. Wish we could. And all this is against the age old adage that time is the one thing that man cannot master. It is the one, intangible, thing, concept, that binds, everyone. And to whom everyone obeys. And that's why we always accept time's rules and yet we are infinitely interested in what if's, in time travel.
The simple truth is that to travel back in time is impossible. It is impossible in that it breaks the fundamental law of our constructed universe - that nothing, without exception, travels faster than light. We have already built man made chambers that accelerate charged particles to very near the speed of light, however the hopes of our greatest scientists in developing these gargantuan machines was never to travel faster than light, but, in the case of synchrotron, study the radiation given off by the particles as they accelerate, or recreate particles such as the Higgs boson particle, and answer the fundamental questions in physics. The only form of time travel that humans can conceptualise at the moment is time dilation, or travelling through time. To do this? The most reasonable ideas put forth are travelling through a worm hole or orbiting a black hole. To understand why these are the most reasonable ideas, is to understand that to travel in time is to approach the speed of light. Approaching the speed of light is a frightening concept - the physics formulas you encountered in high school: E=MC^2 and Ek=1/2mv^2 break down as mass itself, which we assume to be constant, actually changes at such velocities. Believe it or not, we have already time travelled on Earth. As the charged particles in particle accelerators near light speed, they are actually travelling in time. The equivalent for a human would need a lot of energy. Hence the 'reasonable theories.' If we could, like a satellite, fall into orbit around a black hole, and therefore harness the incredible energies of a black hole, by constantly falling towards the black hole at a rate that equals our rotation around it (this is how the moon, a satellite, works) than we could approach the speed of light. At this point, time dilation occurs. Time dilation is the idea that relative to another coordinate in space, time is moving at a greater rate. The humans orbiting the black hole in a space ship, are moving through time, at a relatively faster rate, than an observer away from the space ship. Time travel is a relative process. It requires energies that we cannot supply, in quantities that we cannot comprehend. 10 years on board the space ship, and, if they broke away from the black holes orbit and met with the observer, to the observer, 13 years might have passed. The people on board would have travelled in time.
All this is speculation off course, and this is what I recall from various sources [and being a science fiction doco geek]. I hope this explains why I found the time travel in Steins;Gate so disappointing - the concept is dealt with too easily. I found it a little cheap that they could call this a science fiction series, and then explain time travel as a random occurrence with a wannabe scientist and computer hacker who modded microwave, and the lights going out. The time travel in Steins;Gate is only there as a plot device, a crux. It is not treated as a science fiction element. This in itself is fine (I guess...), except for the pot-holed plot. Cue next section:

Not going to go into many details of the story/plot, as per the guidelines. The story is not paced well. There are about six episodes at the beginning where there is no story progression. However, after these episodes there is a definite increase in pace. One of my dislikes in using time travel as a plot device where the leaps of faith the show asked you to take. How many 'timelines' are there? How can you change the past (send a message) and then undo the messages. Would not the existence of the messages themselves have some type of ripple effect? If you go back in time, are you rewriting a timeline, or creating a new timeline from that point. How did that machine work across timelines - would it not have been reset when they went back in time.
*Spoilers*Also, a lot of the second half takes place within an extremely short time frame. Off course with the help of the time machine, this short time frame is stretched to, well, half the season. So, how can there be any character development when the only character with knowledge of his past experiences is Okabe. Other character's can't develop as they are constantly reset, again and again. If they do remember a different timeline, than this is not science fiction, this is just another crux/plot device that is being used to allow character development to happen when there is none. I guess that's why I found the love story between the leads really unnecessary and just not believable. If you look at the actual time frame, and not just how many times Okabe's travelled to the past, there's like, what, a couple days max for Kurisu and Okabe to form this 'you are the one' love. Yeah, no. Also the ending, it's another deus ex machina - and an extremely anti-climatic one. We already know what needs to happen. And therefore, we already know how Okabe will save Kurisu. Even before the actual thing. So when it actually plays out, you already have the knowledge, like someone gave you a spoiler, that Kurisu survives somehow. You may not know how exactly, but you know what ultimately happens. This leads to a very anticlimatic ending where we already know what happens.

Steins;Gate was an interesting watch. For me, this anime let me down with how it dealt its science fiction elements, and its plot which I found weak (the deus ex machina, and the sudden romance). While I don't necessarily think Steins;Gate is bad, I do think it's over rated. In my review, I didn't mention the positives. These where that the concept was interesting, and the story, albeit a few gripes, is good, and refreshing from the usual anime genres. The idea of what a 'Steins;Gate' was, was good, and left a good 'you can do anything!' feeling. While I definitely think it's worth a watch, I can only rate it a 6/10 due to my own unfounded expectations, and gripes which I feel really detract from the whole experience.

Steins;Gate was really quite an unremarkable series.

Story:6

We don't get anywhere in the story for at least the first 6 episodes. I get that a lot of setup was done in the beginning but it just ramped up way too slow for me. I truly believe that the story had quite a bit of potential, but I felt lost and confused throughout the series. However, I do enjoy the exposition- so feminine... and yet a dude!

Art:5

The colors are faded and the animation is a little janky, but perfectly mediocre. Overall, I'm unimpressed with this.

... Sound: 7

I do like the sound of this amine. It was good!

Character: 3

It seems like the characters are way too flat. In fact, while I was watching this series with my best friend, we both thought that the characters were unimpressive, especially the girl with the red hair. Her entire deal seemed somewhat forced, and I felt like she could have been so much more profound. She was the worst. Also, Mayuri serves no purpose other than to be a cute girl who doo du doooos a lot.

Enjoyment: 3

The first few episodes were truly a challenge to sit through. After I finished these episodes, I couldn't understand a thing that I had seen. It was just too far out there. It makes a little more sense towards the end, but the story could have been more powerful if the 12 episodes of filler were cut out.

Overall: 5

A pretty mediocre series. I don't get why this series draws such an enthusiastic fan base. Time travel in this anime is presented in a unique, although fairly unremarkable fashion. I understand that they might be trying to stay true to some theories, but it just isn't a good fit for a 24 episode series. I would have dropped this anime for sure if not for the almost universal acclaim it has so unjustly received.

I really don't understand why this is the third highest rated anime.
For me, this anime was a chore to get through. The majority of the plot twists in the series I figured out ahead of time and the few I didn't weren't resounding.

The way Okabe goes in this giant round about way to solve his problems when a much simpler solution is staring him in the face since he has control over the machine freaking infuriated me. He has so many simpler solutions to nearly every issue he comes across but he was too stupid to see them and that completely destroyed all ... enjoyment for me.
I'd like to go into greater detail, but that would spoil the so called twists and ruin it for some so I won't.

Had I not watched this all in one sitting, I would have dropped it by the third episode because while I've watched dialogue heavy anime in the past and really enjoyed it, they had awesome soundtracks to back up boring dialogue which makes a world of difference to me.

Steins;Gate, a generic visual novel adaptation that everyone loves to circle jerk. The characters are contrived and irritating, the pacing is inconsistent, the story is mediocre. I don't see how people can look past these flaws and still like this anime.

The first half was terrible and everyone knows it, yet various opinions on the internet tell you push through and it gets good, but it doesn't. How can a show with a crappy first half and OK second half be considered good? My guess would be because everyone wants to think they understand time travel and this show helps the stroke their own ego. ... Other reasons would probably be the chuunibyou trope main character that weeaboos love, Hanakana forcing out a catch phrase that would probably sound like rusty metal scraping together if it wasn't her saying it, and pervert jokes that only cherry-boys find clever.

I watched this show when it came out, and again recently- it's still meh. 2/5

Except for that trap. Saving grace of the show. 2.5/5

Steins;Gate review by yours truly.

Time machine, leaping through time, time traveler, changing the past, see the future, also Deus Ex Machina. One might call it Bull;Shit

Everyone always seems to amazed by someone who talk about science. Some people understand and some people don't understand. People who understand will start an arguement and people who don't understand simply don't care. In all seriousness I don't give a crap. Science is bullshit I don't like it period. Oh wait I can make an exception if it's regarding how to make a 12 year old girl stay 12 forever. hmmm... delicious~

Story: ~How to make a green banana~
1. Visit ... porn site.
2. A [insertyourdicksize] cm banana is ready.
3. Put a green condom on the banana.
MAMA MIA!

Seriously, I'm confused. I don't understand jackshit! Tutturu~What's the point of her existence? How the hell a tsundere become a scientist? Tsundere are stupid. 'slap' i-it's not like i want you to touch my boobs or anything b-baka! 'slap again' do you want me to touch yer boobs or don't you? jeez make up ur mind!

Art and Animation: The eye designs were ugly as hell.

Sound: Adding ''nyann'' in every fuckin' sentence... pandering(hip start movin' and she's screamin' and moan nyann all the time), fap a little if you know what I mean sir... and also tutturu~ 10/10 would fap again.

Character:
Houououin Kyouma: Wearing a lab coat so that he can look smart sonuvabitch.
Tsundere scientist: Hawt!
Tutturu~ bitch: Trust me she's not a virgin.
Fat-sweaty ass otaku: Represent all otakus in the universe.
Nyann cat: 10/10 would bang
Gender confuse: I met him/her in Thailand also not a virgin.

The directing superb because TEXHNOLYZE!

Enjoyment: Well, I did enjoy it. Re-watch? Nah.

I'm upset after watching this anime. I'm upset that such a subpar anime is receiving as much recognition as it is.

Most of the characters range from pointless to downright awful. Moeka and Shouichi are two of the worst characters I have seen in fiction and hold no place in any story that takes itself seriously. Ruka and Fenris are just pointless and bring nothing to the table. The story bends over backwards to make Kurisu as likeable as possible to the point were it comes off as contrived. The only truly good character (imo at least) was Okabe.

The ending is at best boring and ... unoriginal and at it's worst completely contrived and unrealistic. Guy gets the girl, all the good guys end up happy, badguy is just some heartless dick who gets what is coming to him and everything wraps itself up nicely. This is all fine and good if you only want to see the characters happy, but I went into this thinking it would actually try to make you think or try to think outside the box a little. Instead your given the most cliche cut and dry ending possible to the point where the story has to bend over backwards just to make it work. Characters start remembering timelines they have no reason to be able to remember because the story says so, and the final confrontation just has each character acting dumber then the last. It's lazy, unoriginal and frankly just poorly written.

The pacing is off too. I don't mind the slow start, and I thought the middle of the series is the one aspect that was genuinely fantastic and engaging, but then it cuts away from everyone so the main character can start going on dates with the useless side characters around the city followed by the completely garbage climax. It's as if the writers got to the ending of episode 16 and then just gave up trying to make an engaging story. whoever thought it was a good idea for the ending arc to be a compilation of Okabe going on dates is a moron.

And then theres the movie which adds NOTHING to the series and is just a cheap cash grab by showing more Okabe/Kurisu proving that it's ok to recycle the EXACT SAME STORY AND ADD NOTHING as long as you don't forget the artificial emotional payoff.

To all the people who said this is a masterpiece. Screw you for making me think this anime would be worthwhile. Try watching something that at least tries to bring something new to the table and is actually thought provoking. I'm sure my review will get down voted like crazy (I've written reviews on Bleach to similar effect) but the honest truth is there are so many better and thought provoking stories out there that deserve more attention then they ever get that should be experienced before this one.

Is this anime bad? No. It's a 6/10 in my books despite all of my ranting. I just can't help but be angry when I read comments like "this anime is a masterpiece that you must experience" It's not, by any stretch of the imagination. FMA:B and Clannad I can understand even though they're not my favorites.. I can at least see what they bring to the table, but I'm completely dumbfounded with this one.

I had mixed feelings for Steins;Gate until the very end, but was glad I listen to it. Here's my review.

Okabe is probably the most endearing megalomaniac you'll ever seen! This series follows his group of friends as they make a machine that can send text messages to the past, using a microwave and whatnots.
The story takes a deadly turn as they realize how much power their gadget holds.

CHARACTERS
I'm not gonna lie, I almost dropped this anime because of the characters. To make it simple, the only girl in this series who isn't in love with the main character is the landlord's 7-years-old daughter. I have ... a very short temper for stereotypical portrayal of women in anime, and this female cast is probably the worst kind of submissive/naive/insecure/kawaii/you-name-it.
That being said, I found out that Steins;Gate is an adaptation from a dating sim game. Which explained everything.

The girl characters are all filling a stereotype. You have the "cute" childhood friend who speaks of herself in the third person and isn't smart enough to understand what's going on, but will cheer for her buddy anyway.
You have the very shy temple girl, who is actually a guy. The opportunity to write a decent transexual character was lost to make him a comic relief of some sort.
Next is the shut-in who somehow spends her whole time outside. As a result, she uses her cellphone to text other characters instead of speaking with them.
The local maids cafe's star, who ends all of her sentences with 'nyan'.
There is also the clerk who works at the electronic store just below the gang's appartment. She is optimistic and easygoing, but has a dark past of some sort...
And the genious scientist who wrote a paper on time travel, but is a severe tsundere who cannot seem to deal with her emotions.

As for boys, Okabe, the main character, is of course handsome and insane. He is conviced a mysterious 'Organization' is out there to steal his inventions and make his plans fail. His accolyt, Daru, is an oversized hacker otaku with a perversed mind. Because of course, nobody can be given a shot at attracting girls except for the (player's) character!

But I watched the anime even though I had doubts, and I'm glad I did.


STORY
The first half of the story is very slice-of-lifey. It has a slow pace and hints just enough mystery here and there to let you know that something bigger is scheming. It can be long to watch, especially as the characters aren't the most interesting bunch to follow, but there is a genuine feeling of serenity and happiness throughout the show.

The second half revolves around time-travelling. It is well-paced and really makes up for the slow start of the series. The theories it presents are interesting, but the resolution to most of the problems Okabe encounter feel way to easy and lighthearted. It's as if the characters take decisions because it will resolve things faster, and not because they want to do it that way. It feels a little cheap at time. Not to mention cheesy.


Overall, Steins;Gate is still enjoyable. It has cute moments and an interesting concept, as well as a solid main character. But seeing the potential it has, handled better, this could have been a kick-ass show, instead of the okay anime it is.

Time travel is one of the most appealing concepts in Science Fiction. It is also one of the most demanding and hardest to implement when it come to making a logical and consistent story, and this is where i think Steins Gate comes short.

Story and Characters >
- What I liked : We follow the progression of some geeks trying to make a time machine for fun until they realize that jumping in time can have disastrous chain reactions. Okame's passionate and excessive character contrasts with all the others. The characters get to discover the adverse effects of time travel. They are tormented and thrown ... into difficult situations where they have to make important choices.
The plot offered some complex elements and twists that kept my attention level while watching the second half of the series.
The ending answers most of the interrogations satisfyingly.

- What i disliked : The first half of the series is very slow paced and the characters are presented as elements of stereotypical harem setting (the tsundere type, the childhood friend, the shy clumsy one, the cool quiet one with glasses etc..) witch made it difficult for me to connect or care about them.
Decisions about changing the course of History are motivated by emotions rather than the common sense that these difficult situations would require. This impacts the credibility and coherence of the plot.
The progression in the second half is mostly predictable.

Animation is good for a TV series and get fluid in the important part of the story. Storyboard and directing were interesting in distilling suspense.

Character Designs are unique to each protagonist and match their personalities. Detailed Background Art is limited to parts of Akihabara streets and the Club room.

The music is discrete and not too memorable. I loved the voice acting work for the main character. It was successful in depicting his insane energy and then his fears when everything goes wrong.

In Conclusion, watching the first half of the series was very hard for me, but after giving up my expectations of a true plot-driven SF, the experience was rewarding at the end and i enjoyed it as a good pop-corn show.

Quite honestly, I can into this anime expecting some masterpiece, seeing as it got so much praise and was considered a must watch for fans of the psychological thriller.

Story:

In terms of plot, it takes almost forever to get to anything remotely interesting. The first twelve episodes we are supposed to be focusing on the characters and their dynamics, but my main problem with this is that the characters aren't even good so it makes it a boring experience. Once you bypass that, we finally get into the main part of the plot everyone praises frequently, but honestly, I don't understand the hype at all. ... Yes, some events are shocking, but then it gets way too repetitive and lessens the seriousness of the situation. Steins:Gate had really good potential, but I feel it was wasted because they didn't take the plot and characters serious enough so they could add in cute waifus in turn (such as the pink haired cat girl which honestly I couldn't take seriously at all.) If I could describe it in two words, I would call it "fake deep", because the anime seriously tries it's best to seem deep and meaningful but falls short of that spectacularly.

Characters:

I have a bone to pick with like, almost all the characters.

Firstly, the protagonist Okabe is actually not that bad, I feel he was a pretty realisitic character for the most part and was entertaining enough. (at least in comparison to everyone else).

However, Makise on the other hand I felt was way too underdeveloped and plain. Like, at first I was interested because she was said to be such a renown scientist that was extremely intelligent, but her actual personality is just broken down to being "tsundere" and smart for lack of better words. The small amount of development she does get is when she relies on the main character, which tbh makes her seem like she's only a character there to be the protagonists love interest.

Ruka was a cute character, but I hate how their arc is handled. It's honestly kind of disrespectful to both transgender people and gay people. They imply that Ruka wants to become a girl solely because Ruka is gay and wants to be with the main character (which is just like... no bro who does that). This is super confusing to decipher, and it feels like Ruka is the side "gay" character that is just there in order to make the main character look like such a good person for accepting an lgbt person.

Itaru was just.... like comedy relief I guess? But I never once found him funny and his constant remarks towards the women that made them uncomfortable made me cringe. He didn't really add anything for me besides the fact that he was smart and a pervert which is basically what his character was boiled down to in the actual anime.

As for Mayuri, I think she had potential, but once again Steins;Gate focused all their attention onto the main character so they forgot to give all the other characters complex/realistic personalities. She kind of comes off as unrealistic, I guess that's normal for anime, but as for an anime that's trying to be a thriller, I don't think that was the best course of action.

Fairis definitely made me question my decision to watch this anime. I came here expecting some cool thriller sci-fi adventure through time and here I see the cat girl saying nya every sentence. Like ok, I get it, it's anime... But like seriously. This anime was trying to be serious with her backstory and stuff but I could not even feel sorry for her because she didn't even seem real to me, the whole time I was questioning why they decided to put a character like this in.

Art/Sound

I'm not going to come hate on the art, because many series can be good even with bad art, so the art here was decent, not really my cup of tea but that plot is what really is relevant. However the music and stuff I found that I actually did enjoy it and it was cool so no complaints there.

Overall

Overall, series is way too overhyped but it has a few good points. Once again, it just felt very cheap to me, like they were trying to achieve something that makes you question life but it just made me question why I wasted my time watching the anime. Feel free to watch, but I just don't see the appeal so I wouldn't recommend watching all 24 episodes if you don't want to risk wasting time.

I found this show to be very repetitive and sometimes boring, some might say that the repetitiveness is part of the show but I honestly couldn't care less if it is or not because I was genuinely waiting for something to change throughout the majority of the season.

As someone who is new to anime and came across this because of all the positivity surrounding it I am severely disappointed with this show. I have to note that I did watch the English version on Netflix as I don't find enjoyment from watching in Japanese with English subtitles.

The voice acting was very sub par in my ... opinion, some characters lacked life and emotion, however the main protagonist can be amusing and the voice actor conveys his emotions well.
Other characters can just be damn right annoying and are not voiced well at all.

The animation is also very sub par, visuals are very dull and the characters look a little strange and inhuman-like. The visuals don't effect the score at all, although they are lacklustre.

The main plot is interesting, time travel is a hard concept to pull off because of it being an unknown science and at first I was excited to see where they were going to go, but in the end I was left disappointed by just the lack of scope and ambition throughout the show, because at the end of the day you want to see new and exiting scenes in a animated show because you can just let your imagination run wild and do wonderful things that you couldn't necessarily do on a live action show. But this entire show could of been done without using animation and on a tight budget. The show is also just very strange, again I am not that familiar with anime but as a newcomer I was left asking myself...why? I don't think the vision the creators had truly reflected on the show because some things just seem off, pacing is very frantic and you would do well to keep track. This wasn't my first anime, my first anime was full metal alchemist brotherhood which I very much enjoyed throughout, I just feel that was a well put together show compared to this with no annoyances and it always kept you on your toes, I can't say the same for this show, I struggled to watch some of it because I didn't care much for what was happening, I felt dettacthed from the experience. They use the same boring plot device for various episodes and I was close to quitting the show it got that tedious. The show has a few moments where you go "wow they went there" which was a pleasant surprise but it eventually gets predictable and bland.

The show just wasn't for me, it was OK in the end. People new to anime me be in the same boat as me but those more experienced with anime may get more enjoyment out of it. Just very average in my opinion.

Ugh, what am I even doing. I must be insane to give such a low mark to Steins;Gate, "Steins;Gate: the holy grail of time travel anime". And no, I did understand the story. I am going to get so much hate for this, aren't I.

Story : 5/10

Now, before shitting on Steins;Gate, let me say that the plot up to episode 21 is amazing. No really, I had this anime set as 10/10 before episode 22. The story's hardly predictable, and in no way is it overdone. It takes heavy inspiration from the IRL John Titor "incident", and the time relativity theories in Steins;Gate actually make ... sense in real life.

Now here is where it goes all wrong. Up to episode 21 the plot flawlessly chains itself into a conclusion, and said conclusion, is one of the worst endings to such an amazing set-up I've ever seen. This ending tries so hard to be special, that it just ends up being predictable, forced, unnecessary and bland. From episode 1, I could predict that episode 24 would turn out the way it did. It is really hard to explain this more since that would mean spoiling the ending. So here's a full explanation, with spoilers, for those who want to know :

S;G Up to episode 22 is untangling the mess that fucking around with time caused. It sends a strong message regarding the whole time travel thing. Okabe loses a dear friend because of his selfish desires to change the world with time travel. Episode 13 proves that point with Mayuri's inevitable death, which fills Okabe with despair. The whole show, up to episode 22, after that is trying to fix this mess, trying to prevent this looming death. Every D-mail he has to undo is a choice, for example Feyris has to chose between her own desires of saving her father, or a whole city's life style. The Kiryuu Moeka arc was excellent as well. All this tension builds up to episode 20, in which Okabe, somewhat hope filled realises that he's going to need to make a choice, Mayuri or Kurisu. At this point, the show is actually brilliant. The ending should have focused on this choice. The ending should have been picking between self ignorance and the greater good, just like in Fate/Zero (the life of Kiritsugu's Family, or everybody else). The philosophical solution to this would be absolutely making a single choice, just like in classical ancient greek drama, which the show sticks very closely to. The time represents a divine entity, Okabe the fool that messed with said entity, and Mayuri the punishment that this divine entity bring upon Okabe for doing said things.
Now here's my complaint. Instead of that, instead of leaving things at episode 22 with the solution to the Cornelian dilemma Okabe had to face, Suzu comes out of nowhere, not even after a chain of events, just in the beginning of the episode, and says "we can still save Kurisu". Okabe actually starts with "No, I've made a choice, it's impossible", which was good, but then *deus ex machina* you can trick the world into thinking Kurisu dies when she doesn't. That means that Okabe is basically the deciding catalyst in what the world does. So it goes from being unable to escape certain death, the inability to do anything, to "I can fix everything because I can". That is my big problem. That is the deus ex machina that bothers me. And the way he accomplishes that is also poorly executed. As well as character dialogue past episode 21. Episode 18 had amazing voice acting, that Kiryuu Moeka theme is breath taking, but episode 23 just feels dull and sloppy.

Art : 8/10

Animation was a bit sloppy at times, but that's pretty much it. The art style is very nice.

Sound : 10/10

I need to give credit where credit is due. The voice actors are AMAZING in Steins;Gate. The legendary Kana Hanazawa voices Mayuri, which is a perfect choice of seiyuu. Other great performances were by Gotou Saori who voiced Kiryuu Moeka, especially in episode 18-19. Nothing negative to remark here.

The opening is also very catchy, I haven't skipped it a single time.

Character : 7/10

The characters are great. Every character has a distinct role, and fits that role well. My only problem is Mayuri, who was a bit rushed, and didn't serve a big purpose other than the whole episode 13 to 22 part.

Problem is, I went from liking the characters, to hating them in 2 episodes. Episode 23 feels as if the dialogue was written by a totally different person than the previous 22 episodes, same for the character lines. Again, hard to explain without spoiling.

Enjoyment : 5/10

The curse of the last 2-4 episodes. It's hard to hit a good landing story wise, I acknowledge that, but this feels as if a different author wrote the last 2 episodes. Sadly this is why I don't like Steins;Gate.

Overall : 5/10

Would I recommend the show? Of course I would. This 5/10 is only my opinion, I think that any other person who would watch the show would love it.

First of all.....i say this has to be the most overrated anime i've watched;i tryied to be as open minded all the way to the end of the series.... and yes, i must say that the characters are the best part of the entire Series; and the Story resulted to me the most lacking.

I recognize that it needed some time to really introduce the characters; but the slow pacing resulted to me in a disconnection from the series... ; certain twist (which i will not mention) i saw coming almost from the beginning of the series; so i was not really surprised at any point ... during 23 episodes, and when i say 23, it's because there is just 1 episode that i absolutely loved, and im not talking about the ending.

Overview:
Woah Nelly. I am at last compelled to submit a review, and for the exalted Steins;Gate no less. I want to do so not because I was blown away by an intricate plot or an exciting portrayal of abstract temporal science or an examination of time travel from ethical or emotional standpoints. I feel like doing so because Steins;Gate is the most overrated anime I’ve encountered in some time. Which is not to say it’s unwatchable. However, I am disappointed, and I have my reasons. Let’s discuss.

Characters:
My biggest issue with Steins;Gate is its cast of characters. The easiest route to see that a viewer ... is invested is through emotion. This is especially true with a sci-fi story about time travel. They want to make you care about the characters. In that case they’re supposed to rope you in, make your stay enjoyable, and be your vehicle for caring about what happens next. Then that’s the ticket! Let’s experience a glimpse into the intriguing realm of time travel with a zany and eccentric mad scientist, his beautiful assistant and consummate foil, and his incorrigible lewd techie! Sign me up!

But not really. Let me answer all that by informing you that this series took me several years to watch. There were times I thought I wouldn’t finish. You quickly find that, indeed, the characters are inextricable from the plot. This made it difficult for me to enjoy said plot when I didn’t like those characters.

The main cast of Steins;Gate is largely comprised of socially inept assholes. That’s a rocky start. I would like to review them to fully illustrate how damaging this is.

Okabe: Our mad scientist and main protagonist. What a piece of work. He’s loud, insensitive, and his dramatic eloquence and strange behavior make his interactions with other characters cringe-worthy. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good cringe. But these were not good cringes. This guy makes putting one’s foot in their mouth an Olympic sport. It’s like life is a point-and-click adventure and he wants to click the worst option every time just to see the NPCs’ reactions. Only they’re not NPCs. He just seems to treat people like his lackeys (much to Kurisu’s chagrin).

Okabe insists on assuming and expressing a fantastic persona. He’s awkward. He exhibits inappropriate behavior, such as loud speech, insensitive rhetoric, disruptiveness, and frequent failure to face people he’s speaking to. He has trouble expressing his emotions and is oblivious to social cues and all but the most blatant emotional expressions of others. He’s fixated on his identity as a genius and leader of his home laboratory in the upper level of an electronics store.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but these characteristics and observable behaviors all point to a mild form of autism.

Kurisu, a.k.a. Christina: Insufferable tsundere piece of trash. Utters such zingers as “It’s not like I care” while blushing and turning away, and “Were you worried about me?” Good lord.

Hashida, a.k.a. “Daru”: Fat computer whiz and resident otaku who can’t keep his sexual fantasies to himself. Pretty one-dimensional. Good job, guys.

Mayuri: Total sweetheart! The first character I really found myself caring about. Is always bright-eyed and encouraging and sensitive to others’ feelings and struggles. She is not beyond chastising Okabe for his bullshit. But wait…what sorcery is this? I usually hate the happy-go-lucky nice girl character. Let’s continue. I’m suspicious.

Suzuha: The only other character I found likable. Why? She’s not particularly interesting. It could be that I like her because she’s not a jerk. In that case I’m lowering my standards as I watch this show. Yikes.

Moeka: Oh god, let’s move onto something else.

Plot:
The plot itself begins modestly when Okabe and his lab crew discover that a microwave they’ve modified can send text messages to the past. That sounds strange for such an acclaimed series, and may even be boring to some people. I think it’s a pretty cool idea. It’s so small, yet so huge. Imagine if that were discovered in real life (ignoring the fact that it would likely be abused to the detriment of mankind).

That’s bonkers! Starting off with a tip-of-the-iceberg scientific concept like that is a good call. But they just bask in it. They let it sit out and get stale. The first ten episodes of the series are spent with the characters being introduced and playing with this “phone wave.” Not only does the concept get dull, but couple that with how I view the characters, and it’s easy to understand why watching this series felt like a chore at first.

When experimenting with this concept, the lab members garner attention from people they know. They allow them to participate in order to learn what effects emerge in the present. While that’s a sensible way for the plot to progress, by the same token, the way some of the scenarios played out are so conveniently self-contained that the changes are hard to believe. Or to care about for that matter.

I believe that the writers try to address the rather slight nature of these changes by explaining it with the “divergence ratio.” This concept isn’t necessarily introduced for this purpose, but it’s probably the component that would explain it. Even then it doesn’t quite fit. After all, the writers did a half-hearted job of devising and explaining the workings of time and time travel in the Steins;Gate universe.

The show’s concept of time travel operates on a model of linear time that can splinter off into divergent “world-lines” of varying degrees of deviation from their parent lines. If you were to try and explain the clean nature of the changes to the world line by attributing them to low divergence ratios ascribed to the changes, the highly contained results of the changes we see are dubious. There’s probability involved due to the sheer number of variables, and the entropy inherent in those variables. Therefore the chances of the observable changes being so well-contained in the story’s context are infinitesimal.

This is my opinion though. These abstract concepts I’m criticizing simply may be how the writers wished to portray diverging timelines. And that would be just fine I guess, if a bit lazy. However, later events in the show adhere to the eternalist value that future events “already exist” and are “bound to happen.” Yet this holds the universe of Steins;Gate to a model of time as a dimension that cannot be linear by nature. Still the characters insist on illustrating time with this model of linear world-lines, while believing that they can change the future by changing the past. So which is it?

None of this is to mention that the coverage of time travel in this show conveniently ignores key elements, such as ontological paradoxes, thermodynamics, the Grandfather paradox, and compossibility. The more I think about it, the more holes I find in the presentation.

Whether or not you read that digression/mini-essay/rant about the implausibility of the show’s self-justifications, it all starts with the slog through the first 10 episodes and lasts to the end. The irritating sins of the first story arc culminate in a moment in which some sort of disaster caused two characters to fall into a position that can only be described as an attempt at ‘cute fan-service’ or romantic tension. They blush, their faces inches from each other’s.

I looked up to the ceiling for a minute in despair. “Spare me” was all I could think. Why is this series regarded as such a masterpiece if this is what I get? I casually lost my will to keep watching. That ended up being a hiatus that lasted several years until I continued to the end a few days ago. I was told time and time again by fans that it “gets good around episode 12.”

Look. If an anime is this highly rated, it should not take 11 episodes to “get good.” It should already be good. It should offer a strong introduction that flows well into the rest of the series. Instead what I got from this is 10 episodes that suck outright. If this series is as amazing as everyone says, 40% of it shouldn’t suck.

The series truly kicks off at episode 11. The plot at last moves along; things feel like they’re happening. These new developments present some substance and consequences. Nothing for ten episodes, then all this. It’s jarring stuff.

The lab members work on the next step in their technological advancements. We finally see Okabe show emotions like a normal person would. We watch him work himself to the bone out of caring for another person. In the middle of the series, we see the sprouts of character development. Easy there, speed demon. Because the stakes are finally raising there’s a sense of puzzlement under pressure. Okabe has moments where he catches a glimpse of light - an idea he has to try because it might be the first step in solving a conundrum. These moments can be exciting. This could be where Steins;Gate shines.

The excitement quickly exhausts itself. For all the abrupt progress it made, the story devolves into an onslaught of weird dancing all around and back and forth with little to no real consequences. Now it feels like time travel is an excuse to do so, but what that accomplishes is the undoing of any sense of tragedy or danger. It undermines any previous or impending consequences. It even ads an element of, dare I say, predictability (gasp!). Last time I checked, predictability is not something you want in a thriller.

This plot could have turned out great and it didn’t. I say that because I can tell the writers tried really hard. But I don’t give A’s for effort.

Now for some technical aspects of the show before I share my final thoughts.

Sound: I am conflicted on the sound. On one hand, the voice talent is fantastic. It’s one of this show’s strong suits. There are no points where a flat delivery or overacting “took me out of it.” What does take me out of it, on the other hand, is the music. It’s poor for the most part. As I recall it’s sparse. When it is present it’s noticeable in a bad way.

There is one distinct moment I remember where two characters are having a serious discussion about what’s going on around them. They’re getting emotional. Someone’s voice is wavering. But in the background is this cheesy piano song that does nothing but damage the impact of the scene. Music is supposed to ad atmosphere, but in this case the composition is ill-fitting. It may not even be a real piano. Maybe it is a real piano and that’s the fault of the recording engineer? Who knows? Shortly afterwards, badly synthesized violins join the arrangement. The whole thing is just unfortunate.

The opening song is good from what I remember, but nothing that stuck with me because they only show it a few times. I like one original song. It’s a dark and ominous orchestral piece that played during a preview of the next episode. I only remember that brief clip, though.

Animation: The animation is strong. The opening sequence is impressive in its design and effects. It’s a shame we only see it a handful of times. The art style is sharp, although the character designs left much to be desired. There are times when you see awkward facial shapes (colloquially known as QUALITY), but these are few and far between.

The cinematography ads to the experience. There are plenty of times where scenes are made more dramatic or interesting by frame composition. The camera will focus on a broken pocket-watch, a cicada, a police siren, etc. There are sequences such as one in which two characters scramble inside to get out of the rain; you see it as if you are perched in a hole in the roof, watching through rubble and steel beams as they run past. Very cool.

Conclusion: Not a masterpiece. Far from it. What could be an interesting plot and a somewhat refreshing portrayal of time travel is bogged down by a weak cast of characters, wonky pacing, overblown storyboard, farcical logic, and gratuitous romantic subplots. The ‘shenanigans’ between these characters are not ‘funny’ or ‘entertaining’. I rolled my eyes every ten seconds. You can’t begin the show as a character-driven machine, then turn up the heat on the plot when I’m bored and surrounded by douchebags and expect me to like that. And you certainly can’t call that masterpiece material. Ya just can’t.

I don’t absolutely hate Steins;Gate. It has some redeeming qualities. Hell, for all the griping I’ve done, I gave the show a 6 out of 10. That’s mostly because of the plot in the two later arcs. The plot can be enjoyable at times, if still choppy and guilty of deus ex machina. That’s Steins;Gate at its best. At its worst, it feels like The Big Bang Theory meets The Notebook. That’s incredibly frustrating.

I will admit that Steins;Gate is objectively above average. By the same token, it’s objectively not the masterpiece that fans make it out to be.

Thank you very much for reading my review. I didn’t want it to be this crazy long. Sorry about that.

I fail to understand why this series is so acclaimed. I went into it with high expectations, but by the end of it I was so bored of the characters and the story. I kept thinking, "when is this supposed to get good" and before I knew it I'd finished the series.

I get it; time travel is a fascinating plot element by itself, and Steins;Gate seems to have pioneered some new ideas, but nevertheless I never once felt like it subverted my expectations. There was no "epiphany moment" for me; it was boring all the way through.

This is controversial, but the characters are ... so boring, and the main character Okarin is so painfully unlikable with his fake "mad scientist" antics, that I was rarely, if at all, emotionally invested. It just felt like it was hitting all these pre-established tropes to appeal to a certain demographic, not trying to tell a unique story.

Overall I give it a 5/10. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I watched it when I was 13, but watching this at age 26 was a chore.