I didn’t want to get them too that high though, because I was bound to get disappointed, right? Right?!
Well, guess what. I didn’t.
Steins;Gate is an absolute masterpiece. The first episode is incredibly confusing, and the rest is some light-hearted story about a group of friends developing a microwave that is able to send text messages to the past. The story does get more dark and thrilling along the way, and when you're half way into the show, shit gets real. As in seriously, it gets effing real.
Steins;Gate then turns into a science-fiction thriller with twists and turns that almost every viewer did not see coming. It will keep you on the edge of your seat and almost every episode ends with a certain cliffhanger, which made watching this show while it aired extremely painful, but also an amazing experience. The story is very good, and the plot development has great pacing; it is neither rushed, nor slow.
The show’s characters are great. They’re all loveable, and almost all the supporting characters get 1 or 2 episodes dedicated to them, which develop them more than most of the supporting characters of other shows. And what’s even funnier, almost all of the female characters are kind of stereotypical. We have the tsundere, the cutesy maid, the childhood friend, the silent and shy one and we even have a trap! And I can tell you, that all of these characters are absolutely great. We all hate the stereotypes that IS: Infinite Stratos and almost all of JC Staff’s latest crappy anime give us, but guess what. These girls are amazing. I started watching the series with not really liking everyone, but I ended this series with loving almost every character. They’re beautifully written, have great personalities, and they all end up way less stereotypical than you’d think they were at first. There just isn’t a single thing that you can hate about them. It’s like the complete opposite of School Days’ characters.
But the absolute star has to be our “MAD SCIENTIST” Okabe Rintarou. His personality is great, and he isn’t like every single other anime’s male main character: he isn’t dense, he isn’t afraid of girls and he doesn’t take shit from anyone. I mean, hell, how long has it been since we’ve had a guy like this?
Along with Steins;Gate’s awesome characters, we have beautiful performances of very talented seiyuu. We all know Miyano Mamoru is a great seiyuu, but his performance for Okabe has to be one of his most amazing ones to date. Miyano and his superb voice for Okabe will leave you laughing for several minutes multiple times. Imai Isami plays the tsundere for Steins;Gate, and she’s fairly good at it. She has a nice voice, even when she’s mad, but it’s better when she’s being kind. Hanazawa Kana does a great job at portraying the seemingly brainless Shiina Mayuri, but I have to admit, I’m kind of getting sick of this voice of her. I prefer she’d do some different roles now and then, like she did in Kannagi.
Kobayashi Yuu gives an outstanding performance as the show’s trap, but we’re used to that. Her ambiguous voice does its job once again. And Tamura Yukari definitely deserves an honorable mention, since she has delivered an absolutely amazing performance as Amane Suzuha. During one of the episodes, she expressed so much emotion, that I got all teary-eyed. I mean, I shed some manly tears.
Steins;Gate’s soundtrack is nice, it fits the situations perfectly. It excels at giving amazing background music at the show’s most suspenseful scenes, and I’m sure it’d be a lot less enjoyable without it.
The bad thing about Steins;Gate is its sound effects. They sound INCREDIBLY dated, it’s like White Fox cut them straight out of a 90’s anime and just pasted them at the last moment using Windows Movie Maker. The most simple sound effects were horrible, like hitting someone or smashing a door. This annoyed me at times, but it didn’t take away any of the enjoyment this show has given me.
And now, the show’s opening. I’m an avid Itou Kanako fan, so you probably could’ve imagined that I went rabid when I heard the show’s opening theme song. It’s amazing. I can’t stop listening to it. And the opening animation fits the song perfectly. Props to the person that directed the opening, it’s a great start to an amazing episode of a superb anime.
The ending theme song, sung by Sakakibara Yui, who also voiced FES in ChäoS;HEAd which is also a singer in that anime/VN, fits the anime perfectly, whether it ended happily, with a cliffhanger or with something incredibly sad.
The animation was, sadly, disappointing. Especially after 5pb’s producer told us through twitter that Steins;Gate would feature movie-like animation. Some of the scenes are beautifully animated, but when a scene has zoomed out characters, they’re drawn very ugly and you just can’t refrain from pointing out the errors and laughing at them. It also features awkward zooms on the characters’ faces at times, which do work out most of the time, but sometimes it just looks plain bad. The anime also has dark and grey backgrounds, which feature no life at all and are mostly boring to look at. But well, that was expectable, since most of the anime takes place in a small room.
I know that I’m only naming the bad things right now, but Steins;Gate’s animation is pretty good. Let’s just say it works most of the time, and some of the scenes feature a peculiar style of art, animation and camera angles which look great.
Steins;Gate’s original character designs were handled by Huke, and he did a great job with it. It’s a pity that the anime production staff decided to not keep the VN’s original art choice, but it’s would’ve been difficult to adapt that in a moving animation, so I do understand their choice. I do wish that they had kept the VN’s eye designs, since they were beautiful. And I thought they kept it too, after looking at several promotional images of the anime and seeing that they featured the VN’s awesome eye designs. Sadly, they weren’t there in the anime adaptation. But now I’m just nitpicking again.
SUMMARY:
Steins;Gate is a suspenseful ride that you will not forget any time soon after you’ve finished watching it. It is so incredibly thrilling and it has so many plot twists and mind blowing events, that you’ll hold your breath or scream at the screen multiple times. It features amazing voice acting performances by talented seiyuu and a great soundtrack, including the opening and the ending. You will end up loving all of this show’s characters, since they all of their own charm and they’re all incredibly likeable.
The animation is fairly good, and the sound effects are incredibly dated, but don’t let that scare you off. Steins;Gate is a masterpiece. It will twist your emotions in multiple ways loads of times. It’s an absolute must-watch, and it’s definitely one of THE best thrillers in the history of anime.
STORY = 10
ART/ANIMATION = 7
MUSIC/VOICE ACTING/SFX = 9
CHARACTERS = 10
ENJOYMENT = 10
OVERALL SCORE = (STORYx2 + ART + SOUND + CHARx2 + ENJOYx3)/9 = 9,55556 = 10
Final score for Steins;Gate = 10/10 (ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE)
