***NO SPOILERS***
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Steins;Gate is a story about the mad scientist HOUOUIN KYOUMA, the man who will upset the ruling structure of the world. With the Organization hot on his coattails and them sending their four generals after him he must use every ounce of his superior cunning and wit to outsmart them and eventually take them to their demise. Surely this is nothing but child's play for the legendary mad scientist HOUOUIN KYOUMA, as it is all the choice of Steins;Gate.
And when he isn't being delusional, Okabe Rintarou is the leader of the Future Gadgets Lab, which is basically nothing more than a bachelors flat that Okabe, his SUPAH HACKAH Daru, and his hostage Mayuri come to in order to tinker around with various new inventions. These inventions are usually nothing more than toys that Okabe and Daru create based on whatever anime or movie they're currently watching at the time such as a light saber. One day however whilst attending a conference with Mayuri about time travel his life changes forever. He meets a famed actual scientist, a young female named Makise Kurisu. Shortly after this encounter he hears a scream and runs to find Kurisu stabbed to death and lying in a pool of her own blood. In his shock and fear he sends a text to Daru telling him what happened. But at the same time he sends this Daru currently has his phone connected to a microwave in an experiment eloquently dubbed the Phone Microwave. Suddenly Okabe experiences a strange sensation and when he looks around him things have changed. A satellite had crashed into the building he was just in, the people who were around him had disappeared, and most surprising of all shortly after this event takes place he runs into the very last person he'd expect... Kurisu, alive and well. As he probes into this discovery he realizes that the Phone Microwave can send text messages through to the past. Due to the butterfly effect (the theory that states that even something as simple as a butterfly fluttering its wings can have a profound impact on the future) Okabe has jumped to a world line in which Kurisu never died. What follows is the quintessential time travel story told in the anime medium, one which is to anime what Chrono Trigger is to games. As he makes his choices and changes the past more and more are the differences really for the better or are they heralding the start of something much more sinister? Maybe a dystopia... All is the choice of Steins;Gate.
The writing on this series is the absolute pinnacle of a well-conveyed tale of traveling through time and the suffering and happiness you can bring as you get farther and farther away from your original reality. Want to know the flaws of the story? Well sorry, you're absolutely one hundred percent sh*t out of luck if you're hoping that I find something wrong with it. Steins;Gate very clearly sets up its rules for time travel and sticks to them without fail throughout the entire series. There's no headscratching moments where you wonder what happened, or why the characters didn't just go ahead and do something a different way. It is a beautifully crafted and tightly woven tale unmatched in its clarity by anything else animated. It starts off fairly slowly for character development and as it ramps up it starts to quicken its pace until it crescendos with a mighty roar that cascades down for the entire second half of the series. Every single piece of the puzzle from SERN to IBN, and John Titor to the D-Mails, all just falls in to place in moments of utter serendipity that will leave absolutely satisfied until the very end. And unlike many series that flub up the finale you will find nothing of the sort here. Everything is beautifully wrapped up and tied with a ribbon just to make sure not one damn thing is left unexplored or unexplained.
Okay, on to the characters themselves. Okabe Rintarou, or Okarin, or HOUOUIN KYOUMA is the leader of the Future Gadgets Lab. Fresh out of college he spends his time alternating between his delusional fantasies of an organization out to get him, messing around with his various "inventions", and just general playing around with his friends. Whilst he puts on a nutty mad scientist persona much of the time he also has a surprisingly great mind beyond the surface and can remain serious when need calls for it. Oh, and he's not even in the lab for science so much as the friendship and camaraderie he builds up around himself as he doesn't want to be alone. He's happiest when he gets to sit there watching movies with Daru or boasting to Mayuri instead of living in a little bubble all his own. He is also an incredibly kind person at heart. The whole reason that Mayushii calls herself Okarin's hostage is that back when the both of them were kids Mayuri sinks in the depths of despair at losing a loved one, to the point where she loses all will to live and wishes to just go ahead and depart to the heavens above. When Okabe witnesses this at the graveyard she's mourning at he does the only thing that pops into his mind; he tells her that she's his hostage and he needs to perform experiments on her as the mad scientist HOUOUIN KYOUMA, so she can't leave this world just yet. This is the moment that sparks his eccentric alter ego as well as Okarin and Mayushii's lifelong friendship. He's an incredibly complex character and as we progress through the story all the changes to the timeline start to take their toll on him. As the solitary observer and the owner of the Reading Steiner only he and he alone can remember the various timelines. All the conversations he has with his friends across all those different world lines, all the pain and suffering and happiness and sorrow it brings are erased each time leaving nothing but the imprints in Okabe's mind. It's enough to drive a lesser man insane, and it might even end up doing the same to Okarin himself.
Makise Kurisu herself is a brilliant girl of college age who is Okabe's love interest throughout the series. Whilst Okabe himself might only be playing around at being a scientist, Kurisu is made of much more serious stuff and solves equations and conundrums as if they're nothing more than child's play. She also has a tsundere streak which Daru and Mayuri like to joke about how both Kurisu AND Okabe act tsundere around each other so the two can't properly express their slowly blossoming feelings. The romance in this series however doesn't take center stage. It's there, but as an enhancer to the main story instead of drowning it out. Okabe likes calling her by many other names that aren't her given such as Christina, The Zombie, and Celeb 17, none of which make a lick of sense to anything other than HOUOUIN KYOUMA's potentially deranged mind. When not considering Okarin to be a massive idiot she spends time hitting it off with Mayuri, with whom she quickly develops a friendship. And much as she would hate to admit it whilst she puts on the tough act beneath the surface she's someone who's unsure about things and wants to make friends just as much as Okabe does. She tries to hide it but she's very similar to Okabe in the way I mentioned above as well as her inexperience with relationships, her likes and dislikes, and even her favorite website to visit; @Channel. They have an unmistakable chemistry around them that makes the relationship feel extremely natural and not at all forced. It's one of my favorite things about the series.
Mayuri Shiina, or Mayushii as she likes to call herself due to a portmanteau of her first and last names, is a fairly air-headed and simple girl. She openly admits to not knowing most of what Okarin talks about when him and Daru start tinkering around with their gadgets. Despite this she still does her best to bring up the spirits of the lab and is just overall an extremely friendly and wonderful person. She works part time at a maid cafe in Akihabara and much of her money goes to the food budgets of the Future Gadgets Lab. She wants to be of help to Okarin, and whether she knows it or not her friendship has been something extremely precious to him. Okabe would go to the ends of earth and beyond to protect that smile of hers. There's nothing romantic there, it's all platonic. Due to the difficulty most shows seem to have pulling off a male and a female merely being friends without any wishes to go beyond that Okarin and Mayushii's relationship is something that's truly amazing and a prime example of the stellar writing prevalent throughout.
Itaru "Daru" Hashida himself is a fat guy who is a pretty hardcore otaku and a pervert on top of that. He's pretty much every stereotype of an internet forum-goer all rolled into one. He's basically me. Anyhow, he's the SUPAH HACKAH of the group and is the one who's the most tech-savvy amongst the members of the Future Gadgets Lab. He can hack into websites with relative ease and knows a ton about computers. He frequently gets fed up with Okarin's delusions and wants him to start thinking more about real-world problems. Hes an awkward dude who prefers 2D girls to real ones and acts like a stuttering moron when in the presence of a girl he doesn't know yet. After he gets to know them he often asks them to repeat innocuous statements they make that can be used as double-ententres. Much as he appears the average Redditor he is the one most grounded in the real world and is a very realistic and blunt person. He also has a crush on Faris, a character I'll talk about a bit later on.
Ruka Urushibara is an absolutely gorgeous goddess with the most wonderfully feminine features. But... he's a guy. Beautiful eyes and slender grace. But... he's a guy. Looks great in a shrine maiden outfit. But... he's a guy. Rukako works at his family's shrine during the day and trains with a wooden sword Okabe gave him as a gift during his freetime. He's a very shy and timid person who usually lets other people push him into doing things whether he wants to or not with little protest. When Okabe starts sending out more D-Mails Ruka's wish is for a text to be sent to his mother's pager years ago that attempts to influence the outcome of his sex at birth as he wants to be a girl. I feel as if the series handles this issue of gender identity very tastefully. Ruka is a great character, and one that is a wonderful addition to the Future Gadgets Lab.
Rumiho Akiha, or Faris Nyannyan as she frequently goes by, is a girl who frequently acts as if she's an anime character in an anime that doesn't feature these types of tropes. She loves to cosplay and add "nyan" to the ends of her sentences. She's a nice person and the only one who wil regularly play along with Okabe's delusions. Her family unbeknownst to the Future Gadgets lab is actually filthy rich and owns Akihabara. She's the one who requested to bring the culture of moe to the area, and as such is the one responsible to turning it into a haven for otaku and the like with a huge focus on anime, manga, and merchandise shops.
Kiryuu Moeka AKA SHINING FINGER is a deeply antisocial girl who seldom speaks, opting instead to text someone even if they're literally standing right in front of her. She has an unnerving habit of seeming to appear in places out of nowhere unannounced and just overall has an almost stalker-ish quality about her. FBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFBFB. She really likes Facebook for some unexplained reason judging by the amount of time she talks about "FB". She also takes a deep interest in the stories of a working IBN 5100 somewhere around the Akihabara area, an antique computer that has the unique ability to process IBN's proprietary programming language that they created back when they were being made.
Finally we come to Suzuha Amane. A self-professed part time warrior, she also works part time in the shop under the Future Gadgets Lab (this shop is operated by a man named Mr. Braun who is a very good character in his own right albeit minor). She's a very headstrong and capable girl who can fend for herself whenever things start to look bad. She arrives in Akihabara to look for her father, a man she knows little about aside from a badge given to her as a memento. As the story progresses she starts to come into her own as one of the most interesting characters in an entire story full of intriguing members. These eight are the major players in the game and I'll be damned if they aren't all really well-written.
As far as the art of the series goes, Steins;Gate has an aesthetic all its own I've never seen replicated. Unlike most series today it doesn't go for moe designs with large eyes and copious amounts of cuteness. Instead it's very unassuming and yet it still looks fantastic. The city sprawls out before them with a ton of life having been breathed into it. The characters themselves are far and away some of the best creations ever, from Okabe's disshelved appearance and beard scruff to Ruka's untold beauty (but he's a guy). Hell, they even manage to fit in a fat guy in a medium where everyone seems to come in three sizes: average, muscular, and Gamagoori. As far as the music goes I can't really say much but by Haruhi look at that opening and ending. Either of them would make a design student's eyes pop out of his head. Hacking To The Gate is the opening, and it immediately won me over to the show without any further hesitation. The song is amazing and paired with all the geometric shapes, all the winding clocks and flashing images it's my favorite OP to an anime ever. And as far as Tokitsukasadoru Jūni no Meiyaku goes (the ending) it's a beautiful tune that is accompanied by a shattered hourglass slowly being put back together as time is rewound. In its simplicity it convinced me to stick around and pay attention every single time (WHICH IS IMPORTANT FOR EPISODE 22). Oh, and I can actually weigh in on dub and sub too! Honestly, they're both great. Other than losing the humor in Okabe's random English he peppers sentences with you won't be missing much by going across the ocean with the voices.
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Final verdict: 10/10. Steins;Gate is the type of series that is heralded by pretty much universal acclaim and with fantastic reason. It's the second highest ranked of all time on MyAnimeList.net. This anime is exactly what you get when you combine flawless writing, amazing characters, tons of references, and the superior animation of studio White Fox with the allure of a time travel story done absolutely perfectly. Every single facet of this show was produced with the utmost attention to detail and quality. The series is a masterpiece plain and simple, and one I'd universally recommend to everyone regardless of their personal preferences on what they look for in an anime. It is something that could subjectively be called perfect, or as close as we'll ever see. It is the choice of Steins;Gate.
El. Psy. Congroo.
~Stranger 2014