First, I'd like to warn all of you that is planing or is start to watch this anime. Do not listen to anyone who keep pestering you to watch it or claimed that "Stein; gate" is the best anime of all time. This anime is pretty much a hit or a miss anime for majority. If you're the type of person who doesnt get hook on the first 6 episode of this anime then give up now.
Honestly, I've had my doubt with this anime for a long time now since I tried out episode one of the anime but it was so confusing and frustrating so I stopped and recently picked it up again because of all the hype. And honestly, episode two to 7 was amazing. It hooked me right in and I found myself watching it through the night til 8AM. However, after episode 7, the anime became kind of tasteless and boring and dont expect anything good to happen until episode 12.
But let me tell you this, a lot of expectations and hypes wont get you no where and will only disappoint. People on forums and blogged I've read that the anime picked up at episode 12 but I beg to differ. From the whole series, the anime was really amazing from beginning and to end but the middle was just utter irritation to me. Not that I'm saying it was bad (B/c I enjoyed it too due to intro to the whole picture and plot and alot of twist and turns as well as the unexpected) but it was also had some vaguely unexplained things and small mistakes. From episode 12 to 17 was tedious for me because it was was the epitome of character development.
Let me tell you about the characters which I had given a score of 7. Aside from Kurisu, Okabe, Suzu, every other characters was utterly useless and under developed. I would have to agree that all of them contribute greatly in developing the story and such as well as pushing the character development of Okabe. Firstly, they had focused Okabe attention way too much on Mayuri. She was pretty much the most useless character in the whole series as she was shown to be completely ignorant of everything around her in the whole 22 episodes. TOO-TOO-DOOO. Man that was so annoying. Also, character such as Ruka, Rumiho, Itaku, although helped moved the story along, was pretty much irrelevant to the whole story beside the fact that Okabe had to reversed everything in the end.
Most likely most people agree on that the character Okabe, Suzu and Kurisu actions and appearance in the series completely overshadowed every other character. Although following the manga I did not understand why they had spend it on developing the side character instead of the relationship between Kurisu and Okabe as in the end, proved to be the most important to each other. Although I admitted I did not like the twist at the end that they say they loved each other before returning to the first world line, I'd have to give credit to the artist and producer for that kissing scene and how unexpected and developed it was like riding a roller coaster. It would have been much better in my opinion that they had spend a few episode between 15 and 20 or in the beginning to help developed the relationship between the two.
Over all, this was a very unique series, unique concepts, unique characters and definitely worth checking out even if its not your type of anime. The ending was, again, amazing and thrilling as the only answer to the problem the protagonist struggle with through the whole show and even almost to breaking point was where it started. This was very well made and it will keep you wanting to know more. Although most of us had expected a tragic ending, the ending was very unexpectedly a very heart warming and a cute ending. May we all follow the choice of Steins Gate to a whole new future.
