Steins;Gate

I quite like the plot despite some cliche, plot holes and predictable parts. However, I think the characters let the plot down. Minor characters not really developed, generic, one-dimensional and unrealistic MCs for an anime like this.I was never really hooked even after the 12th episode that everyone was talking about since I was not emotionally attached to any characters. As a science person I was interested in how parallel universes were explained, but they just throw out false scientific terms and information and expect the viewer to just accept and go with the 'explanation' given. Not a masterpiece like other people would say - ... it's for people that try to be deep.

My cutie friend cade sent this to me so thanks cade!! I love when people share.

I had the exact opposite experience as other people mentioned - the series is interesting enough and makes a lot of sense to me (lol @ the pretentious ppl in the comment section saying that we don't like it cause we don't "get it") but for some reason I feel as if it sort of drags on a bit and really had a hard time staying focused through the second half of the series. It is both interesting to watch but also not engaging enough, I suppose. (also doesn't help ... that I was watching it side-by-side with AOT and Jujutsu Kaisen probably)

The art is great and the storyline is interesting and unique. The character development really isn't there at all in my opinion because the focus is on the "complicated" plot line. It is also really heavily centered on this sort of sci-fi dystopian theme, and is extremely dramatic without a lot of reason why. It has slapstick humor, quirky characters, and a huge focus on "nerdy". If Star Trek got together with The Big Bang Theory had a darker and more serious anime baby, this would be it. Like Rick & Morty's more polished second cousin or something. Perhaps this is why I am struggling to stay engaged.

Overall it is really well crafted and for someone who like this type of theme it is probably a 9-10 star experience. I personally did not find it to be my taste but appreciate it objectively so somewhere around 7-8.

My overall honest opinion of this is anime for me is a 6/10 since it isn't my type of anime to watch. It had one of the slowest first halves compared to any other anime I've seen; it was so bad that in the first 2-3 episodes I felt like gauging my eyes out because nothing was happening. Once it got to the halfway mark of the season it picked up a little bit better than the beginning which I can understand why most people don't like the first half since it's watching 12 episodes to get good when most series get it within the ... 1-5 episode range than 12. I powered through to the end and it had a pretty solid ending and don't know why they have other seasons of this show focusing on the other characters that lead to the same ending as season 1.

The characters weren't so great especially the main crew they were a little annoying except for Kurisu who wasn't so bad. The dialogue felt kinda cringy between characters and sometimes got repetitive.

The story is like any other science fiction dealing with time travel and won't get any deeper with the subject.

The art and sound are great considering this is a madhouse animation.

WARNING, review has spoilers spaced from the rest at the bottom, if you do not want spoilers, do not read past where I put my overall rating and the second spoiler warning (which is in all caps).
Time travel can be a very convenient plot device for lazy writing, see this as an example. The time travel tries to feel scientific but fails when aspects like characters guaranteed to die are added because it doesn't make much sense given logical reasoning. Half the how-time-works explanation feels well done and fleshed out, but the other half (specifically that pertaining to the 1% whatever and characters being bound ... to die for no reason other than plot) fail miserably. The writing in this feels like how a AAA first person shooter feels, addictive but not really entertaining. There are constant cliff hangers and parts that are meant to be "so sad" in order to desperately try and draw the viewer in, but in the end just feel empty because you know that the MC has time travel and nothing that happens really matters that much.
Speaking of the MC, he is definitely not one of my favorites. He claims to be a mad scientist but he is never really seen doing any science, engineering or the like, instead having the other characters do it for him as he acts as more of just a project manager. His 8th grade syndrome is also really annoying and feels unnecessary, just added to make him feel like some sort of self insert character dream for those with 8th grader syndrome. He is also amazingly dull sometimes, and not even just in the way of most anime protagonists who can't figure out that a girl likes them, but also in the way that he completely trusts pretty much everyone around him who shows any interest in him and rarely learns from his mistakes. He has amazingly thick plot armor as well, always able to get back to the time machine when he needs to and other things like that.
The plot is also amazingly predictable, to an honestly astounding level. I never thought I would be able to predict the twists and turns of a show as far in advance as I could with this one (sometimes multiple episodes in advance), but that is by no means a complement to the show. Instead it just feels frustrating as the viewer is given approximately the same amount of information as the MC, but the MC is so stupid that he can't figure out any of the things before they happen. A lot of the main moments throughout the show are set up in the most typical way possible, making the entire plot feel like a bunch of tropes packed together.
There are some things that the show does well, the way it portrays the main “bad guys” of the show as nothing more than desperate marionettes makes what they do feel at least somewhat realistic. The visual portrayal of the MCs stress, depression, apathy and hopelessness also feels pretty well done and helps the viewer get in the headspace of the MC.
The parts of the time travel that are done well do feel really good (pretty much all the early stuff that doesn’t have to do with the differences between alpha and beta timelines, etc.). This makes it feel like even more of a let down when the less sensible parts of time travel are added as the authors just get lazy trying to compensate for how little anything matters by forcing some things to be “inevitable” even though it doesn’t make logical sense. The universe isn’t some assassin that hunts down people to make sure they always die at a certain point and the addition of this just hurts the plot by making it so that all the established logic and reasoning mean nothing since the authors can just add whatever BS they want. There are some other issues as well, for example, WHY DOES EATING MEAT VS VEGETABLES WHILE PREGNANT CANONICALLY CHANGE A BABY'S GENDER WHEN THEY ARE BORN. Just screw genetics (XY vs XX sets of chromosomes) and how human reproduction works I guess.
Overall this series had a lot of promise and a moderately satisfying ending, but there are just so many issues that I can’t rate it too well.
OVERALL RATING: 5/10 Average anime, I have a neutral opinion towards it (other than maybe a bit of disappointment).

SPOILER WARNING: POINTS BELOW ARE CERTAIN SPOILERS FROM THE SHOW IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY MY ASSERTION THAT THE SHOW IS PREDICTABLE.









The whole scene with Nae pushing Mayuri in the subway is one of my least favorite scenes in all of anime. The second I saw Mayuri and Okabe standing right by the edge of the train tracks I thought to myself "Mayuri is going to get pushed into the oncoming train now, isn't she". Then I saw Nae being highlighted amongst the crowd "so Nae is probably going to be involved with her getting pushed". Then Nae bumps into Mayuri and Mayuri goes absolutely flying (IDK how, a little girl runs into her and she is thrown 5 meters fowards for some reason because screw physics) right as the train goes through and it hits her. Also for some reason Okabe was barely even holding onto Mayuri's hand so he couldn't stop her from flying in front of the train, even though just before he had seemed to have a tight grip on her hand. Now, logically speaking Okabe could certainly go back in time, do things roughly the same, but just either have Mayuri further back from the tracks or brace her so that Nae doesn't send her flying and there we go, Mayuri saved (which was his goal). Instead however, Okabe doesn't do this, instead trying more and more convoluted methods to fail at saving her. As I said earlier in the review, the universe is not some obsessive hitman and it is stupid that the show thinks it is.
The "twist" of Moeka being a bad guy and her sending a different D-mail than just the one about not buying a new phone were both painful obvious right after she sent that D-mail. Like after she sends that D-mail the IBN 5100 (which she has obsessively wanted to get for a reason that Okabe never even thinks to ask about) has disappeared from the shrine and Moeka is suddenly busy with "work", I WONDER WHY THAT IS.
Suzuha being the daughter of Hashida was also pretty easy to guess since she went to the convention where her father was supposed to be but he didn't end up being there. At the same time Okabe had called Hashida away from the convention where he was supposed to go. This one I wasn't super sure about (her father could have ended up being some random 3rd party character that becomes relevant later, that does also happen with decent frequency in anime) but was still something I was pretty confident to be the case and was proven right on.
The one major twist I didn't predict (excluding the Braun one because that was only relevant for like 5 minutes in the entire series and honestly did do well on having little indication of that being the case) was the final Kurisu being saved one but that was only because I ruled that out from being an option because IT WAS ALREADY ESTABLISHED SOMEONE MUST DIE UNLESS THERE IS A HUGE CHANGE IN THE TIMELINE. The confusing part about it is that the major change is not her death but the papers burning up. Since her death could happen and the papers could still burn up (since that is because of the metal upa) why would she stay alive given the rules of the timelines. If it is possible that there is one timeline where she still dies and the papers burn vs her not dying and the papers burning (which logically should be the case), shouldn't that mean that there is also a timeline where Mayori doesn't die but everything else remains roughly the same?! Both of them dieing vs living would have major consequences on the future given the butterfly effect so it doesn't make sense why one case works and the other doesn't. A major inconsistency in the mechanics of the world is just as bad as a predictable plot, which is why I am including it in here.

I’ll get this out of the way: this anime isn’t for me. From the get-go, I just didn’t like Rintarō because of his eccentricities. The same goes for his ditzy friend or something—I don’t even know anymore—Mayuri. I know that we know this beforehand, and I can usually handle eccentric characters, but Rintarō and Mayuri were just ones I couldn’t deal with. Meanwhile, Daru, the roommate, was just perverted, something I didn’t like either. I don’t even have anything to say about Makise.

The anime is a mindfuck but there was something about the way that it’s mindfuck-y that it’s confusing and difficult to grasp. I’ve ... consumed some confusing media before. Furthermore, it got a little boring to watch so I had to speed it up to get through the episode.

It’s nice that people like this. I see why people like this. They might like the characters unlike me and they may like the plot. Again, it’s just not for me.

I can see why Steins;Gate is one of the most beloved anime of our day, but I cannot deny that it was overall underwhelming. The visual side of things was great: I love seeing an original art style, and the animation was very good in quality too. The characters were well-written and well-acted too. The problem is the plot surrounding all of that, however. It did not feel coherent, it did not draw me in, it simply failed at doing what an anime should do.

I would say that Steins;Gate is a good anime, but in my eyes it simply doesn't deserve a 9+ rating. ... 6 may be a point too harsh, but it is where I stand.

Many people have already praised the plot and depth of this anime to high heavens, so I had expected the next Death Note when I finally decided to give in to the pressure and watch this anime. To be completely honest, it was....mediocre.

My biggest issue was with the time travel aspect that most people seem to regard as the greatest thing this show brought to the table. Yes, the consistency to which it was used and the overall lack of plot holes is refreshing for a time travel story, but somehow it just felt....predictable. Perhaps because I had already read too much sci fi ... and had seen the concept of time played around with over and over again, but when the great turning point of the anime came (I am often told around episode 9), I had already seen it coming from a long way off. Yes, I know changes in the past will cause changes in the future, and I guess the hype just caused me to want something....more shocking.

After the realization that the thrilling part had already past, my will to watch this began to crumble, and near the end I became so disappointed I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.

However, this anime does have great music, pretty good art, and absolutely awesome characters, which is one point I will agree on: I fell in love with all the lab members by episode 5.

However, my prediction of the direction the plot was headed and the lack of a revelation just turned out to be too much. It was like I spoiled the anime for myself, and the rest of the show lacked impact.

Ah, Steins;Gate. Hailed by many as the greatest sci-fi anime of all time, and narrowly missing out on the best anime of all time, period, only because of FMAB. Most reviewers will praise the "brilliancy" of the plot and plot twists, the great characters, and, most of all, the "absolutely perfect" way time travel is handled.

When I finally succumbed to the pressure and watched Steins;Gate, I found that my patience was being sorely tested. I wanted revelations that would change my entire worldview; an ingenious interpretation of the concept of time; but most of all, I just wanted to enjoy myself.

First, the plot ... (slight spoilers for the first half ahead). A team of eccentric scientists invent a time machine able to send messages to the past, and their careless use of time travel alters the present and forces them to try and find a timeline with a better future. I was told the first 10 episodes or so would be slow, so I hung on. But by episode 15, something was wrong. It seemed that the point where the pace and drama was supposed to kick in went completely over my head. In hindsight, I realized that I had predicted most of the plot twists, and some surprised me but left no impact. With the suspense factor gone, the show dragged on until I could bear it no longer and stopped at episode 20.

The greatest asset of the show is, no doubt, the characters. They are human, each of them quirky and unique, which make them interesting and likable. I won't go into too much detail here, but the characters are simply awesome.

Now, the time travel. Does any show that uses time travel logically automatically make it a masterpiece? No, of course not. Time travel is a tool; it should supplement the plot and change the characters. Yes, Steins;Gate does use time travel in a way that actually makes sense, which is more than can be said for many other similar shows. However, it doesn't introduce anything groundbreaking or even remotely thought-provoking. Multiverse theory already exists; and "the past affects the present" is a very fundamental part of time that doesn't say anything new. The discovery of time travel changes the characters by making them realize the true dangers of altering the past, but in the end, Steins;Gate didn't make me ask questions about reality or change much about my thinking at all.

With the "depth" of the show gone, combined with the lack of suspense due to predictability and the disappointment of such a highly rated show not nearly living up to its hype, I can only give Steins;Gate a 6/10.

Steins;Gate is a solidly produced anime that starts up a bit slow, but ramps up in its second half.
The story is predictable but the character relations make it work pretty well, with emotional payoffs at the right times.
Viewers who aren't accustomed to the usual time travel tropes can even get some extra enjoyment out of the show, since they might be surprised by most or all of the plot twists.

If you don't set your expectations too high before going in and find carthatic emotional payoffs more satisfying than a stringent plot development you will be in for quite a good time.

Listen up this anime has it's very good quirks including, the mind blowing plot twist, mind fucking time travel, and it's little bit of romance to the end. My only problem is that to me the show is very slow and boring. I also really have a problem with the characters they don't really explain it great, on top of that the way the show starts i did not know what the fuck was going on, but as i kept on watching everything started to make sense. This anime really leaves you on in the end to want to know whats going to happen next ... and how to find a way to save Mayuri Shiina from dying. Let me conclude this by saying the anime is good but it's not a masterpiece either, and for me what really made me almost drop the show was the begging was so all over the place, but hey thats just my opinion you might have another and that is perfectly fine but to me it just really overrated.

Other than that i hope you like my almost easy to understand review.
Follow me for more easy reviews and im just rying to do people a favor by not having to read long ass reviews!

I'd been recommended Steins;Gate by a friend, so trust me when I say I really wanted to like this series. And while it wasn't... bad, I just couldn't get into it. The premise itself is very interesting and I was looking forward to seeing it pan out, but I wasn't blown away by it. As a disclaimer, I'm an avid (non anime, think Asimov etc) sci-fi fan so exploring themes around time travel is nothing new to me.

However for some reason I just disliked... all of the characters. I guess the tropes they all seemed to be modeled after just aren't ... my favorite. But, the plot itself is interesting, the animation looks nice, and if I had enjoyed the characters I'm sure I would have found it more entertaining. Unfortunately it has ended up on my list as an average anime I probably won't rewatch anytime soon.

i watch this show after it's completed.
it got so much hype and plastered with tittle the best anime of the year.
so i started watch it with high anticipation, that's my fault actually.

contrary to popular opinion, i don't like series. it's like a harem version of butterfly effect (a film starred by ashton kutcher). the male/main character not interesting a bit, too generic. and the female characters too. only found 2 female characters that have interesting personality/chara design.
but it's not as bad as i want to drop the series.

my conclusion
it doesn't deserve the hype, more over the title
best anime of the year.

I am going to be honest, I don't fully understand why this show is loved to such an extent. (although to each there own). Personally, I thought that the Steins Gate anime (not to be confused with the VN's) was ok at best. The plotline for the first few hours worth of episodes consists of slow worldbuilding. This wouldn't have been such an issue if it weren't for many of the main characters being so unlikeable. I personally really don't like Rintarou as his random unintelligible outbursts makes him sound like he is constantly on shrooms or some other hallucinogenic substance. The anime specifically ... makes it really hard to distinguish between if he is a intelligent individual or a stupid idiot fumbling around making stuff up as he goes. This, in combination with the lack of any source of meaningful plot developments for the first few hours worth of content leads to a really boring first half of the show. The second half of the show however, actually has a really interesting and entertaining plotline sadly being stained by Rintarou's unpleasant character. Thus I had made the relatively tough decision(given the amount of positive reactions and love toward this show) to rate the anime as a 5/10. The time commitment required to get past the "setup" portion of the plot is extensive and I would have rather them shrink it down to 3-4 episodes of length.

I really enjoied the original Visual Novel, so I must be strict.

THIS IS A NO SPOILER REVIEW.

PROS:
-Very engaging story (like the Visual Novel);
-Excellent voice actors (the same from the Visual Novel);
-Music scores from the Visual Novel;

-The source material is almost excellent, very engaging and well made. The choice of using the True Ending of the VN is correct, but it brought several problem in the adaptation (I will discuss the bad aspects later in the review).
...
-Also the choice of using the original voice actors/actresses from the VN was genious. Always giving their best (even with all the mistakes in the writing phase).

-Last, using some of the original scores from the VN was a pleasant surprise, but I had to wait to much for them...

CONS:
-Uninspired anime OST;
-Overall bad directed;
-Overall bad animated, bad drawn, most of the time unexpressive characters;
-Abysmal photography and cromaric choices all of the times;
-Bad paced;
-Mediocre adaptation;
-Mediocre writing and story telling compared to the Visual Novel.

-The original OST for the anime is far than memorable, you will not be able to remember a single score.

-The direction is not what I had in mind before watching it: It's lazy, extremely lazy. Just the basics to not bore the viewers, with a lot of boring expositions scenes, that could have been made interesting if they were left in the laboratory (Like in the VN) and not in some clichè anime locations.

-The animations are far from good, whit a lot of low quality drawings, and the slightly altered character design from the original transformed the very human teenagers from the VN in a sort of robots with a limited gamma of expressions. Luckly the actors did their best and saved the day.

-The photography and color palette is the worst things in this adaptation. Whites, whites everywhere. Where are the sunsets from the VN? Where are the colors and shines of Akiba? It looked like this new Akiba has come straight out of Mirror's Edge. It was boring and repetitive. Oh, and don't forget the dark places... Looks like Akiba is a place with full lights or full shadows. Nothing more.

-Pacing, adaptation, writing and story telling goes together. Some important plot points that looked dumb in the VN where skipped, making hard for the viewers to relates with some secondary characters and develope a minimum of sympathy for them: Why should I feel sorry for all the secondary charachers, when Okabe does what he has to do, when they had the same screentime as some of the extras around the streets? These resulted in somehow rushed pace in key points during the narration.
I could understand they wanted to skip them because they didn't have to feed the viewers with all the alternatives endings of the VN, but they were important simply to create sympathy with the secondary characters and to feel the same as Okabe when he must do what he has to do.

FINAL SCORE: 5

MY THOUGH:
How could you f*ck up so bad with that excellent source material?

An enjoyable yet lacking . The story, though interesting, could've been executed in a way better method than messy bits of information randomly given. Visual wise, this was bit old. However, this isn't enough to mark it as a masterpiece. i sense of overated anime but i like just one that is HYOUMIN KYOUMA DELUSION IS MY KEY TO WATCH THIS BORED ANIME .probably it related to me somehow and i like it.other than that just to confuse for me even though i like science but yeah it like retarded .i kinda hate some character probably i don't feel some realistic enough probably just my ... style i want something make the mc feel distress and make him broken untill he start only believe himself and move forward by himself to onward to future and change to accept bullshit reality stuff oh yeah i guess it is not will an anime than i guess BLECGH.so yeah i give overall rating was about 6/10 the reason i like HYOUMIN KYOUMA EL PSY CONGROOO.if not it will be just like 4/10 .sorry if this make someone hate me or what but this my review it just that i kinda annoyed by my friend to watch this thing i mean he tell this shit like everyday probably that why i feel no fun i guess.

I'm not gonna write a long review about it but I simply can't understand how the people like it so much and how can be the score is so high. As a huge Doctor Who fan, I was always fond of time and space travel sort of things, in another words, I was always into timey-wimey stuff. But this show... this show almost felt like a disrespect to the things I love. The characters were odd, the fiction was prosaic (yes I really said that but that's my opinion) I started it with really high hopes because all of my scoring system seems to match ... up with the MAL sorting except this one. If I had a "top animes" list among I've watched, I would have put Steins Gate into the 9286376492875. order. Which I have only seen like 20 animes... That's how much I disliked it. I felt like they wasted a show with great potential. I would recommend this show's fans to watch Doctor Who, Interstellar and other good stuff. Then I believe you would feel the same way as me.

I never understood all the love for Steins;Gate. Time travel is a very difficult subject to write well. It only really works when you define your rules early, remind the viewer often, and never break said rules. Steins;Gate (SG) does a good job of getting to the time travel relatively quickly, but the rules are very fluid, and seem to change whenever the storyline calls for it. SG feels like your average dramatic thriller anime with an element of time travel, when really it should be the other way around. This leads to story arcs feeling unimportant, characters feeling shallow, and the whole experience being ... uninteresting. It's a very nice anime to look at, and the V/As do a great job with the characters, but those alone do not make it worth your time. Tuturu is the best part of the anime.

I m here after watching several time travling story's FE- Predistination,DARK....
After watching these shows many people told me to watch stiens gate some of them even said it's the time travle at its "Best".

Well IMO, its not.


Infact it's quite low on the ranking in the time travel genre.

Let's talk about it

... Story- it was quite slow intially, but i was hoping it will pick up the pace and when it did......


"you are a show about time travel, and so higly rated you must be pretty mind bending" that was my expectations before watching this show and it broke my expectations like anything.

Even when this show speed up,Story still feel really simple.
Not anything that will blow your mind.
And the wait wasn't worth it.

My 2nd problem - i'm not a native eng speaker,i watch dub. And the eng dub was so complex/ hard.
After every sentence i need to pause, google the translation and then get back so comedy was kinda lost in there.

A slow paced show, with this level of labour was much work for a not so good plot.


So it wasn't the best exprince i have got watching a show.


It's not all bad, some aspects of it are good like a characters and some moments here and there but overall experience wasn't that good.

TLDR: Interesting story idea, poorly written and bad execution. 6/10.

Style and Animation: Ok, nothing astounding. Character styling and world backgrounds were decent. For the animations, nothing too intricate, but there's probably a lot more moving still frames than one would noticed if they weren't distracted by the story.


Sounds and Voices: Decent soundtracks, they fit the series, but weren't overbearing that you would feel like it's out of place. Voices were fine, you could tell who was who and the voices felt appropriately chosen.


Character growth and Likeability: Could have been better. Male and female leads receive most of the series focus and end up being more ... fleshed out at the end. The rest of the cast felt lacking ending up as more tropey and simplified. It's not that you can't feel for them nor like them, but they can sometimes feel more like props to the story instead of being an actual person. Personally, i dislike the majority of the cast, they don't feel believable, fleshed out enough and/or have unappealing personalities.

Male lead is cringey and has chuunibyou syndrome or believes in conspiracy theories. Not really likable early on, but ends up growing as a person and being slightly more tolerable. Female lead's actions early on can be questionable and makes you wonder why they would act this way if not simply to drive the story forward. They do grow as character, but it feels tropey, like a typical tsundere personality, making it hard to believe they're a realistic character.


Uniqueness and Worldbuilding: Interesting take on time travel, but the show makes it hard to believe some of the story elements shown, often forcing the audience to hand-wave common sense or logic. No point asking how or why, just let the story and emotions of it pull you in. Story settings in fantasy or futuristic worlds often allows the audience to believe in it more, whereas modern fiction can be a hit or miss because you end up being more critical of the reality of it. This issue isn't solely unique to Steins Gate.


Story and Pacing: As a whole, it's a fine story, but depending on the viewer the pacing of the show can feel a bit slow. The first half of the show is about setting up the story elements and introducing the cast. While appreciative that the author(s) took the time to introduce and give backstories to cast, if you don't relate or find any of the characters likable, the first half of the show really feel like a slog to go through.


I've known of about the series when it was released back in 2011 and even had friends back then recommending the show, but i wasn't interested in it. Now in 2024, i've gone through many anime series, mangas and light novels. After watching the first episode, it didn't really made me want to keep watching it, but decided to give the show a few more episodes to see. At around episode 8, i was really considering on dropping the show because it wasn't that good. Only after digging around and finding someone pointing out that the show shifts half-way in did it incentivized me to keep going. I also watched related materials to Steins Gate(specials, 0, movie, ona,) and it doesn't get any better if not worse. Maybe you'll have a few good moments, but most of the time watching it was barely enjoyable.

Nostalgia or first time animes often blur viewers perception of the quality of the show. I like the story idea of Steins Gate, but it really wasn't that good of a show. It might have been a great series in 2011, but there has been great releases throughout the years as of 2024 with believable and grounded cast. Steins Gate is just an Ok anime.

A 5 page essay on why Steins: Gate is ridiculously overrated. An anime with a plot that has more holes in it than a cheese grater that was used to shred the protagonists brain at birth.

Across my substantial anime watching history of hundreds of shows and thousands of episodes, I have never met a protagonist as incompetent and straight up stupid, as Okabe. If you look up "failure" in a dictionary, his face would take up the entire page.

But what can you expect from a show where the premise is that a bunch of dudes made a time machine out of their microwave and ... started to randomly fuck with the timelines...

But let's break it down:


Animation / Art / General Visuals - 8/10
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It looks good. I'll give the show that. Scenery is nice, animations are solid, effects are cool. Pretty high production values across the board. Can't complain about anything there.


Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 8/10
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It's good. Decent OP and ED, some decent tracks in the show. But even though I just came off of binge watching the series, I already can't remember a single bit of music. Nothing memorable whatsoever.

Voice acting is pretty good though.


Story - 3/10
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God save me from this mess of show that manages to somehow squeeze in every single time travel cliche and trope in existence. With every single attempt of a "twist" and "revelation" being so utterly predictable, I felt straight up insulted by the show even trying to make that shit dramatic.

It's a show about how two dudes (realistically only one dude) made a time machine out of a fucking microwave. And before long, started giving it their best shot to fuck around with it, altering the timeline in ways that made a right mess of everything.

Sounds cool? As if. The first half of the show is meaningless Slice of Life that is so boring it took me 10 years. TEN FUCKING YEARS to get through. Steins: Gate has been one of the highest rated shows since its release, but it took me 10 years and dozens of attempts to even get past episode 2 because of how insanely boring it is. This time I grinded my teeth and pushed through, only to almost lose my god damn mind at the fact that it takes a good 12 episodes before anything noteworthy happens.

Calling the show a "slow burn" would be an insult to all slow burners out there. It felt more like watching the heat death of the universe. In fact I'm pretty sure the entire universe slowly died and blinked out of existence several times as I was watching the show, and I'm currently in a reset #5 or something.

Things finally pick up in the second half the show, but all of it can be described as: "Local clown fucks up everything at record pace a hundred times, while experiencing every time travel cliche in recorded history."

Good god.

When the credits of the final episodes rolled, I was only left with one thought: "that's it?" Because I couldn't believe I had spent 24 episodes watching something that I've seen a half a dozen times in TV-shows in the past, done in a single episode. Or at most in movies with a 1.5h run time.

There isn't a speck or originality in this anime. None. Zero. It's just a bunch of time travel cliches. All the standard "multiple timelines of infinite parallel universes", "paradoxes", and all that stuff which always inevitably ends with leaving people confused because that's what happens when you try to write a story around theoretical physics where you don't actually have to have it make sense.

Which also means that the show it absolutely crawling with plot holes. The show makes no attempts to keep track of the mess of timelines, obviously on purpose because if we actually had a good overview of all the fuckery the characters make of the timelines, we would actually be able to easily list the hundreds of plot holes present.

But don't worry, the show also has plenty of plot holes not even related to timeline nonsense. Like for example how in the very first episode we're introduced to an event where a satellite crashes into a building in the middle of Tokyo. Yet nobody gives a shit. On day 1 a few people are there to take pictures, the police eventually lock down the building and that's it. For weeks afterwards, not a single government body, organization, group - NOBODY - gives a single shit. There are no scientists studying it, no military securing the area. NOTHING. Not even a tarp over it to conceal it or shield it from weather (which itself leads to a plot hole), not a single safety measure to prevent it from crumbling down further. NOTHING. Nobody on the planet seems to give a shit about an unknown satellite crashing into the middle of Tokyo.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT?

The show is full of this stuff. It's painful.


Characters - 5/10
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I'm tempted to give the show a lower score, but there's at least one character who's real cool. Makise Kurisu, a bonafied genius scientist saves the entire show with her rationality and cute demenor. She's a bit tsundere, but it does makes sense for her character background. She actually employs healthy scepticism and doesn't just randomly do things.

The main character, however, as I already mentioned, has got to be the dumbest character in all of anime history. Because in my hundreds of watched anime, I have never seen anyone that incompetent and stupid. It physically hurt me to watch that idiot fumble through episodes.

A so called "mad scientist" who doesn't have a single scientific bone in his body, who's entire personality is based on a single event of someone else having a traumatic moment in their lives. Someone so dumb and devoid of any personality, that they decided to become someone elses crutch on being a useless vegetable moving through life. It's hard to believe the writers of this show came up with something that lame.

Let me just illustrate without major spoilers, as to how stupid the main character is:

At some point there's an event he must prevent no matter what. And he has the option to "groundhog day" it. And he does. In that event, he has one major ally who almost solved his issue in the original instance and revealed themselves to have a lot of answers. Yet in his grounhog day loops, he never, not even once, considers approaching that ally with future knowledge in order to better help solve the issue. Nor considers confronting that ally and asking questions. It's the most blatantly idiotic character plot hole in the history of all anime.

It is straight up unfathomably stupid. He spends a hundred loops trying to solve an issue from zero, that was 99% solved to begin with.

Hell, let's put aside that one ally who almost solved the issue to begin with, he also had a dozen other allies who could help, but he refuses to clue any of them in. Dude is living a groundshog day loop, with all his friends being aware that it's a possibility, and a single sentence worth of explanation would clue them in, and would lead to them being able to tackle the issue as a team. Yet he's trying to brute force Rambo it all by himself, despite having a fat zero skillsets to do literally anything. Takes him until he's literally about to die from depression until he decides to clue in one person to help him.

No human with a functional brain would be this retarded. It's just inconveivable.

Dude's a potato, and his behaviour proves it straight up. He's literally too stupid to even realize how stupid he is. A 10 year old would have solved the issue in 10 minutes...

Later on he spends an excruciating amount of time trying to undo his past mistakes trying to set one particular thing right, yet even though we know exactly which events caused the thing he wanted to remedy, he still acts like he has no idea.

He also constantly puts himself at risk, and takes no precautions about anything.

At one point he's supposed to stake out a location and his best clue is to literally sit on a bench in front of it and watch it, as if his face isn't known to everyone he's trying to avoid. No disguises, barely any care taken.

He is utterly incapable of thinking ahead even 5 minutes. He constantly opts into changing the past without a single thought about consequences. Takes him most of the show, and dozens of failures until he finally develops the brain power to understand the stupid shit his changes might bring about.

Every single time he fucks something up he REFUSES to tell anyone else about it. Knowing full well they would all believe him and would try to help fix it. But he's absolutely adamant in exhausting every single possibility his stupid mind can come up with, and eventually fail at, until he asks for help. It is ridiculously idiotic.

Even at the very end of the show, his stupidity is mind boggling. He seems to be utterly incapable of any sort or rational thought or common sense, any kind of composure at all.
He finally ends up in a timeline to fix everything, and his first reaction is to panic like a dumbass and fuck it all up again.

Dude went all 24 episodes of this anime failing at literally everything in a catastrophic fashion. I have never before seen someone be so bad at everything.

Based on the extent of the stupidity of the main character alone, this show should never be rated higher than 7/10. Such a comically stupid MC cannot be the outcome of good writing. No good writer would make a character that stupid.

Oh, we also have two wallflower characters who only exist to be overly infatuated with the dumbass MC for no good reason. I won't even talk more about them because they're just nice potatoes.

Then we have a dude, who just happens to be the greatest hacker on the planet, while also apparently being the greatest technical engineer in history. Seeing as he both hacks one of the most secure servers on the planet AND builds a fucking timemachine out of a microwave.

Oh, and he's just some random teenager who's into excessive hentai.

At least the genius scientist had a professor for a father and was raised in a way that nurtured her intellect to the max. But mr. time machine builder was probably just jacking off his entire youth, so I'm really questioning the writing of making him into a modern day Nikola Tesla.

There's a splash of romance in there somewhere as well. That part is tolerable. It's low key enough, and resolves decently satisfyingly. Which honestly makes me feel like this show would have been better off just being a Slice of Life romance, without any of this time travel nonsense.

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Total - 7/10

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I am giving the show a rating of "good" because it has good production values, and maybe someone who's never seen a time travel story in their lives, might find it fun. But I can't say that I had a good time.

The stupidity of the protagonist is painful. The story is painfully predictable and has too many cliches, and the first half is so boring I had to stab myself to stay awake. There's only one likeable character.

Watch it if you're really starving for Time Travel stories.