<The Review itself should be spoiler-free. Mild spoilers are included in footnotes at the bottom.>
It's difficult to give Steins;Gate a single score. On the one hand, some of the humor is top-notch and the construction of the overall story leads to occasional moments of clarity which beat anything else I've ever seen before. On the other hand, the character interactions are usually wooden, the pacing is usually bad, and the majority of the show is a painful slog of poorly written exposition to fill in between the good stuff.
My biggest problem has to do with the way the plot is driven forward. It seems like
...
in most of the time travel animes I've watched so far (of which there are at this point admittedly few), things only happen because characters able to time travel suddenly become idiots with no ability to communicate when they realize their power. This is what ruined the ending of Charlotte for me. This made some of Erased difficult to watch. Steins;Gate manages to outdo both of those, and not in a good way. (At this point it should be noted that I have a hard time suspending disbelief, especially when it comes to inconsistent characterizations. Immersion-breaking flaws of this sort made Deathnote near-unwatchable for me. If you don't mind unrealistic characters or lazy writing, this may not be an issue.) [1]
Plenty more things I would have liked improved as well, mostly explanations for seemingly random events like memory across world lines and Reading Steiner as well as the real rules for parallel universes (never explained entirely), but it's fine for these things to be overlooked in an anime with limited runtime.
Shame these missing plot elements couldn't be turned into a strength like in Angel Beats!, but Steins;Gate is a story that falls apart under closer scrutiny where Angel Beats! becomes better with careful dissection of its uncannily self-consistent omissions. Shame, because the concept really is excellent. At times the anime has moments when that concept breaks through the filler, producing some incredible moments [2]. The problem is that these moments are too rare and fleeting, not worth the chore of watching the buildup for.
<Sigh>
The art is decent. No high level of detail, but easily good enough for the story. If anything the flat colors and gradients are an Apple-esque design choice: not something I like personally, but when done well it can unify everything nicely. Steins;Gate succeeds here. The reliance on easy-to-animate panning shots over stationary objects and stationary scenes with only moving mouths feels lazy, but the argument can be made that it was an attempt to convey the VN aesthetic. The concentric circle approach to eyes is an interesting one. I don't think it worked too well with the rest of the aesthetic (it made some characters' faces look cluttered because the rest of the art consists only of clean lines and gradients), but it would be an interesting approach in another anime.
The soundtrack (what little of it there is outside of near-inaudible background tracks) is okay. The lack of it through most of the anime is an artistic choice I'm fine with. When the soundtrack is present, though, it's usually forgettable. One bit that stuck out was "Christina II", which opens with bells and light piano then transitions smoothly into a simple syncopated waltz with strings and a bass guitar. As a complement to Kurisu's character progression it's a masterpiece (contrast it with "Christina I", which is a similar but more complex piano piece without the syncopation and played very deliberately). If there were more examples of melodies like this being altered to convey something words and images can't, this could have been a great soundtrack (see John Powell's score for HTTYD2 as a reference for repeated motifs defining character development – "Christina" is reminiscent of this). As is, it's yet another example of where Steins;Gate brushes near-perfection, making the rest of its mediocrity that much harder to bear.
I don't know how to tackle the next bit, so I'm simply going to lump all the humor, references, and other fluff into one big pile and label it fan service. Fan service doesn't have to be bad (see Haruhi Suzumiya or Konosuba). In Steins;Gate it's more of a mixed bag. Sure, it panders to otaku culture quite a bit, but it usually does so in ways that make sense given the story. The problem is that it often supersedes the story and becomes an end of its own. Had it been a facet of Daru's personality, it would have been excellent, but instead he becomes defined by his sex jokes. Had it been a facet of Faris, it would have been excellent, but instead the show focuses too much on her being or not being moe rather than exploring more important things.[3] Rukako's struggles with identity could have been emotionally powerful but were put aside in favor of making him/her a vehicle for fanservice (groping, cosplaying, awkward boyfriend/girlfriend... we seriously see none of Rukako's personality, only the projections of others). Honestly, most of the relationships in the anime eventually break down into traditional harem tropes instead of developing naturally like real people becoming increasingly concerned for one anothers' wellbeing.
That's not to say it's all bad. The humor definitely works, even though some jokes get repeated a bit too much (I get it, banana is a euphemism. Please stop.) It's best when they're allowed to sink into the background and appear as the plot allows – the later scenes involving bananas and Dr. Pepper are great. Daru dispenses some memorable one-liners on occasion. The username joke with Suzuha is perfectly timed and delivered.
Every aspect of Steins;Gate suffers from this bimodality which accordingly makes all of it difficult to assign a score to. The overall concept is great. At its best, the writing is a 10; at its worst (mostly around the middle) I've struggled to not drop the show. The art is lacking in many ways, but the argument that they were valid design choices which merely happened to correspond with what would normally be called lazy animation can't be entirely discounted. The voice acting is good, but the soundtrack and mastering for the most part are unremarkable. Characters at times approach greatness but are for the most part held back by poor writing and fanservice. Some parts are supremely enjoyable while others are painfully tedious to watch. The overall result is mediocrity – a shame because the potential for excellence is so palpable.
Footnotes, contains mild and intentionally vague spoilers
[1] There are plenty of other things that make no sense. Kurisu is a neuroscience major but just happens to design a working time machine on her own (her paper sparks the time machine arms race) and is some sort of physics god? Her banter with Okabe on exotic matter and Kerr black holes is accurate, but the remainder of the show is complete technobabble – Kurisu's scientific genius persona stops being believable when she stops using real science (the data compression using a particle accelerator is particularly dumb). Also, how are both Okabe and Kurisu familiar with an obscure Old Icelandic poem (Fjölsvinnsmál) while Okabe can't speak English? Why doesn't Kurisu do the time leaps instead of Okabe since Okabe has Reading Steiner? Why is Rukako willing to believe Okabe's story about worldlines when s/he has the least evidence of its truth? Why does Kurisu die almost instantly when stabbed while Okabe can endure so much worse but be completely okay?
The only reason most of the episodes exist is because Okabe is incapable of telling anyone anything important. Endless Eight was more entertaining than some of the time loops in Steins;Gate; Unlike Kyon, Okabe retains his memory yet still manages to repeat the exact same mistakes without fail. The argument could be made that similar worldlines are predestined to have similar events, but if the goal was to convey helplessness the way Doki Doki Literature Club so masterfully does, Okabe's actions should be logical. DDLC's power comes from its making the main character try so hard and do so many things that feel like they should solve the problem – by contrast, nothing Okabe does helps convey his anguish because nothing he does should have been expected to fix his problems, even in a world where he did have that power and the world lines didn't converge.
After the first message gets sent it's clear that he needs to start collecting proof of the events in other world lines every time he makes a change. Despite using time travel some hundreds of times, he only uses this once, with the comment on Kurisu's cutlery. The ending didn't have to be the way it was if he had asked Kurisu what to tell her next time they met. Sure, the recall thing worked out with Faris, but he never did anything to make sure she would retain her memories when switching world lines in the other direction – and he sure as hell didn't plan it that way initially. He tries to convince Moeka without any proof of the outcome in the other world lines. Ditto with Ruka, Mayuri, Suzuha... he has so many opportunities to get help but is either too stupid to realize it or too obstinate in floundering alone, neither of which sit well with his character development in the first half.
[2] Especially reversing Faris's message and trying to save Kurisu the last time.
[3] Like Faris's actual relationship with her father, which would have made the catharsis of revising the timeline that much more powerful. The moment when Okabe runs to the apartment to make sure Kurisu is okay could have also been incredibly heartwarming but was instead turned into an opportunity for more fanservice.
Some final comments that didn't fit in with the rest of the review:
I see some people bashing Mayushii. To the contrary, Mayushii is almost a great character. Where Okabe's time loops fail to convey heart-wrenching helplessness the way they should have, Steins;Gate gets close to expressing this through Mayushii's internal struggle towards the end. Mayushii knows Okabe's emotional vulnerability better than anyone else and is the character best able to see through his tough "mad scientist" facade – this should be apparent through the half-real hostage story they live out. She sees his anguish and wants to reciprocate his kindness – after all, that's why she's been staying in the lab up to this point – but has no way of doing so. This makes the dramatic irony of Mayushii trying to save Okabe so poignant: she thinks she's had the opportunity to finally repay the debt. A bit more exploration of her past and reasons for staying with the lab would have made these scenes more than the sidenotes they ended up being.
Braun's dilemma is another example of this. With a bit more introspection his arc could have been powerful; instead, the anime opts to gloss over his fears for Nae's future and instead finds a way to sideline him for the rest of the story. Why does he do what he does? We know that Braun isn't heartless; to the contrary, he's sensitive and conflicted. That choice contradicts everything his character has stood for up to this point.
The first episode was a slog. Expecting it to be one of those things that can only be appreciated after finishing the anime, I tried rewatching it. Nope. It's still a bad episode, even if I get the references. "The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina" pulled it off much better; the difference is that that episode stood strong on its own even without any of the characters having been introduced or any of the references making sense while "Prologue"'s only attraction would seem to be its references. Come to think of it, Steins;Gate borrows a lot of elements from Haruhi Suzumiya. For the most part, Haruhi did it better.
Feb 23, 2018
Steins;Gate
(Anime)
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<The Review itself should be spoiler-free. Mild spoilers are included in footnotes at the bottom.>
It's difficult to give Steins;Gate a single score. On the one hand, some of the humor is top-notch and the construction of the overall story leads to occasional moments of clarity which beat anything else I've ever seen before. On the other hand, the character interactions are usually wooden, the pacing is usually bad, and the majority of the show is a painful slog of poorly written exposition to fill in between the good stuff. My biggest problem has to do with the way the plot is driven forward. It seems like ... |
