Story: 31/37:
There's nothing to it- the story of Steins; Gate is amazing. They use time travel as not just a gimmick, but one of the the most important aspects to the plot. Countless games and shows have found this to be incredibly difficult to do without either having strange occurrences or significant plot holes, however, after sorting things out in my head for a bit when the show had finished, I could find nothing of the sort.
One thing many people complain about is the pacing. The beginning is slow... VERY slow. If you don't like the slice of life genre, you almost certainly won't like the first 7 or so episodes. To make it worse, there's a lot of info shoved into those early episodes and while you shouldn't try too hard to understand everything, if you don't pay attention, it makes it tough to really appreciate how incredibly well put together the latter half of the series is. As a disclaimer, though, I only put this as a negative for some amount of objectivity. If you're like me, and like Slice of Life, these early episodes are still really fun to watch.
Once past the early section of Steins; Gate, though, you won't be able to put it down. There are a few good fast-paced episodes, and then after the climax, the adrenaline never stops pumping. It just gets absolutely intense. By the end of it (especially since there's still a good amount of information stacked into the episodes), my mind was just numbed. It was one of the single best after-effects and anime has ever had on me, and I hope everyone who ever watches anime can experience the same thing.
Characters: 33/37
If the story of Steins; Gate was amazing, the characters are even better. There are two significant factors that went into scoring this a 36. The first factor was my dislike for one of the, in my opinion, extremely bland characters: Moeka. She just has no personality, and while once her story is revealed, she gets a little better, it's still not enough to justify how boring of a character she is, especially when surrounded by all of the other amazing mains.
Now, you may wonder why the Character Score is still a 33/37, and that's because, in my opinion (of course), Steins; Gate has the single, undisputed best main character development in anime. Rintarou Okabe is just pure genius. He starts out as a super weird self-proclaimed genius, who talks to himself over the phone to try and look cool to others. Despite this, it's shown early on that he has a decent heart to him, as even when he's teasing his friend Mayuri, he still gives her the toy he paid for. Throughout the series, though, he grows into a freaking man. After a certain episode where everything goes crazy, he matures tremendously over a short, but reasonable amount of time and turns into a true hero. I can't possibly explain the development in any way to justify how amazing it was, but I fully recommend the show just to see it.
The other characters are also great, and even though Okabe is such an amazing main protagonist, he in no way steals the spotlight from the majority of them. I won't go into detail on any of the others, but they are all done extremely well, and are enjoyable to watch.
Art/Sound: 18/25
There isn't a whole lot to say about the art. It's pretty average, although it does have a unique style in that it doesn't use many bright colours. It goes for a more washed out, realistic (if that's the right word) approach. Also, keep in mind that for some unknown reason the art quality increases significantly after the first episode, but it's still not great compared to a lot of newer anime.
The sound is great overall, but not particularly amazing. There are a few things that decide sound for me: the opening/ending (more emphasis on the OP), series soundtracks, and voices/sound effects.
The OP for Steins; Gate is one of the best I've ever heard. It's just an awesome song, with an awesome visual background. The ending song is also great for an ED, and while I was hoping for even better, I have yet to find more than one or two ED's that I really enjoyed. The soundtracks throughout the series are fine. For the most part, there is nothing that stands out except for the Reading Steiner track, which is really good. The sound effects are fine, but don't really matter or factor in, and the voice acting is top-notch. (Note: This is for the Japanese voices).
Romance: 1/1
This section is basically whether or not there was a romance that I enjoyed. Sorry if this is a spoiler, but I particularly enjoy watching a romance develop, and I wished that other reviews would tell me if I was going to get to see one.
Overall: 83/100
While an 83 might not seem like an incredible score, I can safely say that this is the best anime that I have ever watched. I deducted points from several things that were less important to me specifically in an attempt to be at least relatively objective. These deductions will be listed so that anyone else who may have similar taste can see if they should rate this even higher.
-The slow pacing at the beginning. If you like Slice of Life, add the full 6 points back on.
-Art Quality: If you don't weight the visual quality as highly (don't get me wrong, it is NOT enough to detract from the experience in any way), then add some points or something.
Anyone that is even considering watching this anime should watch it. I give it my fullest recommendation to ALL audiences.
If you have any questions about my review (or want to talk about anything at all, really), feel free to email me at: nickwillis64@gmail.com
