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.
