Destroying Steins;Gate with facts and logic.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
First of all, I am not a fluent English-speaker, therefore there may be mistakes and a lack of vocabulary. This is also my first review here. Secondly, if in order to explain plot holes, you need to come up with theories, then it’s not an explanation. You can’t solve a math problem by adding an extra variable. I am against it also, because it will definitely lead into fans being smarter than creators and fans wrongly thinking that creators are genius. And lastly, I don’t need to watch Steins;Gate 0 or play a VN in order to
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understand what is going on. Steins;Gate the anime is a self-contained project that is considered to be a masterpiece. It doesn’t need DLCs. So if SG0 explains something, I’m sure it also adds even more plot holes.
So, I think there are 2 ways of time travelling that make common sense: either it is impossible to change past at all (travelling is a part of Fate’s plan) or an alternative timeline is created where Grandfather Paradox doesn’t exist and where there may be two versions of one person (a time traveler and not). In other words, either Fate exists and you can’t defeat it or it doesn’t exist at all! Any other fictional rule of travelling will lead to questions.
This show tries to unite these two ways. You can’t change the past but if you change something drastically, then Fate is like: “Yo, I didn’t sign up for this! I’m out.”. If you already don’t smell some bullshit, then I don’t know how else to explain to you that there is one. Anyway, heroes didn’t win the lottery and they are still friends with Faris after her d-mail, so this system works pretty well until it suddenly does not.
Somehow, Faris’ dad’s life is less important than Mayuri’s life. And this guy changed the whole city’s infrastructure! I think that Okabe would still start a resistance against SERN even if Mayuri’s alive. And it doesn’t even have to be SERN who will kill Mayuri! So, why is her death so important!? And what’s with that nonsense car chase scene? Why was the driver doing this? Where did they go after killing the girl? Am I watching Final Destination?
Also, why Mayuri’s death’s date is always postponed 24 hours later? If an explanation is that it’s a timeline who tells protagonist that he is doing everything right, then **** this explanation. This means that Fate is too kind. And why did SERN tried to capture heroes one day later also? From their perspective nothing changed (heroes know too much and they built time machine). Why wait one day?
Another main question is what do SERN, Mr. Braun and Moeka know? And since when they start knowing? Well, they know that heroes were thinking of promulgation, so it must be Braun who heard about it through the window and he told about it to superiors. So SERN already knows about heroes, either because of Braun, or because of a secret database where a first d-mail is located or because they hacked Daru’s PC. Damn, they even launched an operation in order to capture them. So how, please tell me how deleting information from their database days later will change the timeline since SERN already knows that heroes have built a time machine!?!? And why later in a show they aren’t doing anything! They are just letting Okabe doing his timey-whimey stuff!
It seems that Moeka knows that SERN wants to build a time machine? Why does a pawn know that? Her only goal was to find IBN, she does not need to know about SERN’s secrets! Why did Okabe tell her everything after she mentioned FB? Why did Moeka visit the lab after Luka’s d-mail? Is this because of despair, because she hadn’t found IBN in a shrine (this is what I call “adding an extra variable”)?
Now, in second episode Makise proved that time-travel is impossible. We don’t actually see the discussion in class, just a board with pseudo-science stuff on it, but her statement proved to be right, because in the beginning heroes don’t travel through time. They send their memories through it. But then Amane shows up and boom: physical time travel! I thought that it was one of important world-building rules. Makise proved that it is even theoretically impossible, but no, she was just wrong. And why did Amane forgot everything after travelling to 1975 and remembered everything only and only 11 years before 2010? Is this because of year 2000 problem (adding variables again)?
And why, why exactly does Okabe remember everything? I find it interesting that after building Time Leap Machine our special protagonist is not that special anymore. Why was SERN sending threats? Why was time stopping during Mayuri’s deaths? There was no foreshadowing that Braun is FB, while there were a lot in Amane and Moeka’s cases. In twenty third episode there was a talking about a time paradox. Time paradox!? Damn, I hate when time travel stories tell that people are able to mess with time how they want, but meeting yourself is a huge “no”, somehow.
Now the most ridiculous thing: superstitions actually work in this anime! Right, Luka could change their gender with a help of superstitions! That’s it. I’m done! Steins;Gate lost all my respect as a serious, complex sci-fi project.
Well, no, when a series does something good, it does it good. For example, in first version of alpha timeline Amane didn’t exist. She couldn’t save heroes from SERN, they got captured and now we got a dark future. Amane was born, she travelled to past, saved heroes in thirteenth episode and we got a second version of alpha timeline where SERN is doing nothing to stop Okabe (they could steal the machine while he was not home or idk) and he successfully destroys this timeline. Now look, without future-Okabe’s scream, past-Okabe wouldn’t have noticed Makise’s corpse and wouldn’t have sent his first d-mail. He would just go home and wait for WW3. Then Amane is born, she goes to past and forces protagonist to save Makise, because he is her uncle. But there is no Operation Skuld, therefore he fails, screams and that’s when past-Okabe finds out the corpse, goes to alpha timeline, wins because of everything I described earlier and creates Operation Skuld. How do you like it? Well, actually it’s just one huge variable and we just see a Bootstrap Paradox without a beginning. Now let’s find out why in RadioKaikan there are only two Okabes, and not three.
What do I think of Steins;Gate as a whole? It’s OK. I always liked psychological thrillers and time travel stories. And a psychological thriller part is well-done. The atmosphere and color correction is great, the dynamic between heroes and jokes are good. If only plot and its holes weren’t bugging me that much. I watched SG first time 6 years earlier, because I was trying to find a great time travel project. Dark didn’t exist that time, so I watched SG and I remember not liking it much. When I created my anime list, I gave it 6 based on my feelings. And now, after rewatching, it’s still 6. Seriously, guys, if you want to see a good piece of media about time travel, go watch Dark or play Quantum Break. It just saddens me that many people praise SG and say that it’s perfect, while actually it’s the most overrated anime ever. I believe you can prove me wrong in one thing or two, but I think there are too many wrongs with this show. If you will somehow manage to explain everything to me, I will only be glad and will apologize.
P.S. Sadly, this review is invalid, because I like SAO2 more. Am I right, guys?
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Jun 2, 2022
Steins;Gate
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Destroying Steins;Gate with facts and logic.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS First of all, I am not a fluent English-speaker, therefore there may be mistakes and a lack of vocabulary. This is also my first review here. Secondly, if in order to explain plot holes, you need to come up with theories, then it’s not an explanation. You can’t solve a math problem by adding an extra variable. I am against it also, because it will definitely lead into fans being smarter than creators and fans wrongly thinking that creators are genius. And lastly, I don’t need to watch Steins;Gate 0 or play a VN in order to ... |
