Steins;Gate

The subject of time travel is no stranger to the world of anime, so it takes a lot of work to make a time travel story stand out. For Steins;Gate, that hard work paid off. This is by far the best-executed time travel story that I've ever seen in my experience with anime, and if you haven't seen it yet, you're definitely missing out! Story: 10 The story revolves around the antics of Rintarou Okabe, a self-proclaimed mad scientist that goes by the alias "Hououin Kyouma," as he essentially dicks around with time and subsequently deals with the consequences of his selfish actions. I'll be completely honestand say that the incredibly slow and random start to the anime threw me off so much that I re-watched the first episode 4 times over the course of 6 months before I could resolve to just pushing onward and finishing the anime. However, this slow start is balanced out by the fast-paced second half. By the end, it was answering questions that I never thought to ask, pointing out the significance of things that had long been discarded by my mind, and that sense of tying up loose ends is just the most refreshing feeling to have after dealing with so many time travel stories that are too lazy to clean up after themselves. Unlike many time travel stories, especially in the world of anime, Steins;Gate has no noticeable inconsistencies objectively. I say objectively because this is a science fiction story, and that makes it really hard for everyone to agree on it. The thing is, none of us have experienced time travel in the way the characters in these science fiction stories have (and if you have experienced it, I'm very sorry for making assumptions), so there isn't a clear right or wrong way to write a time travel story. Obviously, if a story contradicts itself, something went wrong. But Steins;Gate seems to obey its own rules, and while a lot of people have made very compelling arguments that point out flaws in Steins;Gate's concept of time travel, they all make assumptions about how time travel works, and no one can really say for sure how things would change if we altered the past. In the end, this isn't a science textbook, it's a science fiction anime. It's not supposed to be 100% believable, otherwise we wouldn't be able to watch it and say "wow, that was unbelievable!" I give the story a 10/10 because it was interesting, well-researched (many ideas are borrowed from other works of science fiction and played with), and overall just plain entertaining. Art: 8 I really prefer talking about the art of a particularly spectacular-looking anime or else a particularly underwhelming-looking anime. Since the art in Steins;Gate is neither extremely good or extremely bad, I'll rate it an 8/10 for not influencing my opinion of the anime in either direction. Consider it a passing grade, basically where we should expect the art quality of anime to be in this day and age. Anything better would be remarkable. Sound: 9 I can't say much for the soundtrack, but the voice acting is awesome! Okabe's seiyuu is all kinds of talented, but everything good about the sound in this anime, and really, everything good about life in general, can be summed up in the maniacal laugh of Hououin Kyouma. I can't really speak for the English dub, and while I love Michael J. Tatum's work in Baccano, what I've heard of the dub sounds to be sorely lacking compared to the Japanese voices. Miyano Mamoru is just so cool! Sonuvabitch! One thing of note about the soundtrack is the lack of one for a large portion of the anime. During quiet moments, rather than listening to quiet music, you're usually just listening to nothing. This is something that I've seen a few times, and I think it's pretty cool. It accentuates the importance of those scenes that do have music, and at the very least creates a nice contrast of mood, not between happy and sad music, but between silence and... not silence. Character: 10 You should know that while not each and every character is the pinnacle of how great anime characters can be, they're all very interesting, entertaining, and Hououin Kyouma can handle being the pinnacle of just about everything. But really, my rule for judging a character to be good is that I either like them or appreciate how much I don't like them. There are characters that I like and characters that I don't like in Steins;Gate, but all of them fit, and none of them are pointless and annoying. And yeah, Okabe is startlingly charismatic, and that can take an anime pretty far in the character department. Enjoyment: 10 This anime made me laugh maniacally and cry silently. It also made me think, and it rewarded my thoughts by having closure and clarity, which left me more than satisfied. Easily a 10/10 anime, and now one of my favorites that I've seen!

Just a horrible anime. This is the anime equivalent of Inception. It tries to disguise itself as being complex and cool when it's really simple and stupid. How it managed to fool so many people into believing it is the former is beyond me. The story is just a complete mess. Even the very premise of the anime would not have ever happened had the so called time travel expert followed the very basic concepts you learn from any time travel story. Not to tell everyone about your time machine let alone let people screw around with it. The show basically makes you watch asthe main character repeatedly make this same out of character mistake you've seen 100 times before over and over again until he finds out that doing so screwed up everything up. GASP! What a shocker! He then spends the rest of the series struggling to try and undo everything. All the characters are walking over the top anime stereotypes. They can all but summed up in their entirety in about a half dozen words if even. The silent girl that always texts. The he that looks like a she. The moe girl. The computer nerd otaku. The tsundere. That's not oversimplification, there's really not much else to get into about these characters. They are really that shallow. I'd give it a pass if it was some harem joke anime, but for a story driven anime, this is just unacceptable. The only one that seems to get significant character development is the main character. A mad scientist, which the writer seems to think is a valid excuse to have him do the most out of character ridiculous nonsense all the time. This makes him completely unrelatable which leads you to remotely stop caring about any of what he goes through. While you're struggling to try to piece together all the plot holes, to understand why the time travel expert keeps blabbing about his time machine to every person he meets on the street and to make sense of dumb concepts like how a banana that is somehow reduced to jello but still retains it's shape so you can identify it after traveling through time, don't be fooled. It's not because it's a really deep well thought out story that you're having trouble understanding everything. It's because it's TUTURU~ Shallow and poorly written. 3/10

As you may have noticed, Steins;Gate is revered as a masterpiece by most. For those of you who haven't had the privilege of watching this show yet, i'm writing this (belated) review to emphasize just how much you're missing out on. First of all, you have to understand that Steins;Gate is completely unique compared to other anime, in terms of story line. Now, with such a complex plot, it would be incredibly easy to mess the series up. Except that they didn't. If they did, it wouldn't a masterpiece. Steins;Gate explores the world of time travelling and time lines, putting in acknowledgements to theoriessuch as the butterfly effect and how, once you change a minor thing of the past, the future transitions into one large scrambled egg. Once you pass the first slow starting episodes, the intrigue and mystery begins, and the pace of the series accelerates. The plot throws in numerous surprises and sudden, unexpected turns that, in turn, creates a powerful ending that is almost flawless. Also, you're hit bluntly in the face with quite a lot of feels early on in the series. One of the great things about Steins;Gate is that the characters are developed incredibly well. Astonishingly well. To the point that you feel connected with them in terms of their feelings and aims. They each have their quirky side too - not everything is all serious. I'm talking about the mad scientist personality, the Dr.Pepper jokes and Daru's perverted jokes which lightens up the series so that it isn't all serious drama. But the trouble is, the more like able the characters are, the harder you find it to leave them behind when the series ends, meaning that even a week after Steins;Gate ends, you'll probably still be thinking about Okabe whenever you spot a bottle of Dr.Pepper. I didn't really pay attention much to the soundtrack of the series, i admit, due to the fact that i didn't find it all that enthralling or unique. However, i did enjoy the opening and the ending particularly. Aside from that, the soundtrack did it's job of emphasizing the mood/atmosphere of scenes pretty well. The animation in itself was done really well though - i found that the consistency was great, meaning that (to my eye) there was no sudden drops in quality. Something that i loved the most was that the ending was fantastic. There were barely any loose threads, and as a poor ending can sometimes ruin a good series, i'm grateful that they executed such a content finale. I stress that you must watch this series. It's not enough for you to read however many reviews you can lay your eyes on, but to actually experience this masterpiece for yourself. El Psy Congroo.

One word: Hype. Before watching this show, i was amazed by it's high scores, big fanbase and critics puting it to a pedestal. I had high expectations and was going into it thinking it would be the second time Jesus would step on earth. But as always, there's nothing worse, than diving into the hype. What else should i say? Steins;Gate has everything a mass consumer needs:a concept about time travel, sci-fi theme coupled with unique characters and....a poorly written story. How did something like this went wrong? I can't imagine, since the production values were high enough to hire a good writer. Not onlythe first half of the show, specifically the first 12 episodes do absolutely nothing, and i mean NOTHING. They are painfully boring, painfully slow, painfully killing every good aspect the show initially put into it. After that it gets better, but i didn't have the desire to watch it, because if half of the show is shitty, there's just no helping it. But i still forced myself through the agony. And.... it still didn't pay off in the end. Now about the characters, they all seem out of this world. I mean an 18 year old guy invents a time machine? Or an 18 year old girl writtes scientific articles, is a research member and somehow she surpasses her own father? and a few other characters also seem unrealistic. The only real character is maybe the owner of the office where the cast was spending most of their time. Only the art is good, but even then, the setting is very strange, the sun is somehow to yellowish, i don't know, some colors where too bright. Overall, i didn't enjoy Steins;Gate as i would have expected. It represents very well the hype that never justifies itself and that Steins;Gate is a second class, no, a third-class show. It is slow, dull and weak.

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