Since its popularization with The Time Machine by H.G. Wells back in the late 1800s, the concept of time travel and time machines has had a prominent place in the sci-fi genre up there with starships and ray guns. Indeed, everything from the Back to the Future trilogy with its Delorean and flux capacitor taking Marty back to the 50s to Doctor Who with its little blue police box taking the doctor all over space and time to The Terminator sending Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to kill Sarah Connor has had time travel as a major aspect of their story.
However, the actual concept of time travel itself is often not the core focus in these stories. Many times time travel is just a plot device to take the main characters from point A to point B and basically nothing more, as is the case with Doctor Who, or the time travel is just some random phenomena that happens for mysterious reasons as is the case with basically anything that has some sort of time loop. Additionally, a lot of time travel stories tend to focus on the same routine concepts and troupes of the genre despite there being many different theories around the concept of time travel and that the genre leaves plenty of room for new and interesting ideas...
But one series takes multiple different concepts of time travel, delivers them in a very unique way, puts heavy focus on the actual aspect of traveling through time and then puts out some of the best story and character writing I've ever seen.
Steins;Gate
Studio: White Fox
Directors: Hiroshi Hamasaki and Takuya Sato
Original work by: 5pb. and Nitroplus
Licensed by: FUNimation
Number of episodes: 25 (24 + 1 OVA)
Genre: Sci-fi, Time Travel, Mystery, Drama
Story:
The story in Steins;Gate is difficult to discuss as there are a lot of twists and spoilers that have to be danced around. The main plot starts as Okabe attends a conference on time travel. After doing some heckling, buying a cute little gift for his friend and generally being a mad scientist, Okabe discovers the dead body of a girl. In a state of shock and not knowing what else to do, he sends a text message to his friend Daru. Little does he know that Daru had plugged his phone into their latest invention, the Phonewave Real Name TBA (basically a microwave that can be activated with texting). As he sends the message a strange feeling shoots through him and the cross walk, full of people not a second earlier, was now deserted, the building he was just in, had a strange object crashed into it and the girl who was dead earlier was very much alive. The lab members of the Future Gadget Lab have just stumbled on to their very own time machine...
...Well, a time machine that only sends text messages back in to the past and doubles as a microwave, but a time machine none the less.
As mentioned above, Steins;Gate's approach to time travel is rather unique (see: microwave that sends text messages back in time), but it approaches the concept with such a grounded and science-heavy take that THE STORY ends up being incredibly interesting rather than goofy.Steins;Gate's uses many different theories on time travel, but the ones it uses the most are The Butterfly Effect and world lines. Mainly the idea is that changing one event can have a cascading effect on later events and that if a change is big enough, you'll be shifted on to a new world line than you were on before.
Time travel in Steins;Gate is much less unstable than in most series. For instance, the Grandfather Paradox (You go back in time and kill your own grandfather, you no longer exist) is quickly dismissed in the series with the explanation that the world line would simply shift to a world line where you never existed. More or less the universe has set rules that negate time paradoxes. The outcome is basically what one might call "fate" or "destiny", but it is explained with much more science-heavy ideas.
One thing I really liked about the series is how it not only uses real science concepts and ideas but also uses real world companies and events in its conspiracies. The most notable of these being SERN (CERN), IBN (IBM) and John Titor. This just grounds the series more in reality and adds more intrigue into the mystery of the series.
We can't forget the most important brand mentioned in the series, of course!
The story itself starts out a bit slow, and the first episode can be somewhat confusing (for reasons that are eventually explained quite well), but the plot quickly picks up by the second episode. Primarily, the story follows Okabe and the lab members of the Future Gadget Lab as they experiment with their new-found time machine by sending text after text to their past selves.
For the most part, the first half is pretty light-hearted with plenty of humor, mad scientist insanity, snappy comebacks and plenty of science fiction references all around. The series adds plenty of very well done mystery and conspiracies that constantly keep the viewers entranced and on the edge of their seats. Honestly, if it had just stayed the course with the tone of the first half, it would have still been great, but then you reach episode twelve and experience one of the most well done tone shifts I have ever seen.
The series just takes this amazing jump from a light-hearted more comedic type of series to a nonstop emotional rollercoaster. The writing for the series and characters just shoots up in quality from its already high level. Watching Okabe 's mad scientist persona of Hououin Kyouma basically shatter before him as he experiences hardship after hardship, in and of itself is fantastically well written. Then you add in how gut wrenchingly emotional all the sub-plots are, and it just adds so much to all the characters you've already grown to like from the first half.
If that wasn't enough, the story also culminates in one of the best series endings I've ever seen. The final takes all the hardships the characters experienced and gives meaning to it while also not feeling fake or artificial in the least. The only other ending that I would put in the same level of quality would be the ending to Code Geass. It's honestly that level of good.
To be quite frank, Steins;Gate might well have some of the best story writing I've ever seen in an anime or really anything to do with time travel.
Characters:
Naturally even the most well written story can be brought low by poor character development. Steins;Gate does not just stop with a great story as pretty much all of its characters are fun, varied and extremely well written.
18-year-old Okabe Rintaro, aka Okarin aka THE MAD SCIENTIST, HOUOUIN KYOUMA, is a college student, a bit of a chuunibyou(understatement!) and altogether a science nerd. If you haven't guessed by now, he's not really a character you take what he says seriously as most of it is usually nonsense, completely insane or just utterly delusional (usually a mix of all three). As characters go, Okabe (Sorry, Hououin Kyouma) is a rather fun protagonist as he usually overplays his own insanity to comedic effect. His personality bounces off all the other characters well. Whether it's trading snappy remarks/pissing off his assistant/fellow scientist/resident zombie, Makise, being a caring friend to his child friend/hostage, Mayuri, being somewhat more modest but still insaner than his best friend/hack, Daru or buddying up with the part-timer/badass Suzuha to just name a few. His interactions with each character come off as fun while at the same time making it pretty clear that he cares deeply for each character in his chuuni kind of way.
Where his characterization really shines, however, is in the second half. While I won't go into too much detail for spoiler reasons, just watching him go through hardship after hardship, having his mad scientist persona shatter before him as he begins to feel actual psychological strain is some of the best protagonist characterization I've seen.
Makise Kurisu is what one might call gifted. By the age of 18, she has already had a paper published in an academic journal and is a neuroscience researcher at an American college. She is the main heroine of the series, a bit narcissistic and well... A tsundere. Out of all the characters, she is the only who can match Okabe in intelligence and wit. Crazy is another matter, however, as she's infinitely more rational than the mad scientist, Hououin Kyouma, could ever possibly be. Often times this puts her at odds with Okabe as she tends to want to take things in a more serious tone and Okabe will just max out his crazy by talking to no one in particular on his cell and then start calling her nicknames like "Assistant", "Christina" or "Zombie". Ultimately she acts as a counterbalance to Okabe's insanity by compensating with a much more inquisitive mentality than Okabe has.
Mayuri Shiina aka Mayushii is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. She can be pretty dense and air-headed at times and usually thinks with her stomach before anything else (her favorite foods being bananas and chicken tenders). While she can't actually follow with a lot of what Okabe, Makise and Daru talk about, she acts as more or less the heart of The Future Gadget (admittedly her actual title has to do with cosplay, but I digress). The most notable aspect about her, however, is her effect on Okabe. Whereas Makise acts as a counterbalance to Okabe, Mayuri brings out a more caring side to him. Both Okabe and she are childhood friends and have always been close. What Steins;Gate really does well is how it depicts their relationship. A lot of series tend to have trouble depicting male and female characters as just being friends. Often times a series will go on to add some dumb romantic relationship instead of just keeping them as friends. However, Mayuri and Okabe's relationship is purely platonic. They're very close and caring friends, but it doesn't go beyond that.
Itaru "Daru" Hashida is an overweight otaku who is also somewhat perverted. He's basically every forum goer stereotype wrapped into one. He's the most tech savvy of the group and a skilled hacker (Earning him the nickname of SUPAH HACKAH or Hack from Kyouma). He's awkward, usually makes inappropriate comments whenever possible, prefers "2D girls" (with the exception of Farris) and can be a bit of a stammering fool around real ones. He's a reliable friend to Okabe, even if he does tire of Okabe's craziness at times. The important thing about his character, however, is that while his stereotypes are not exactly underplayed, neither are they overplayed. Often when a series uses Daru's character archetype they'll either make the character the butt of a joke or put the character on some weird pedestal (sometimes outright forgetting the 'overweight' part). The thing about Daru is that he's not the butt of the joke. He has plenty of funny moments but nothing that makes you laugh at him.
Ruka Urushibara: as delicate as a flower, as graceful as a swan... A dude. The pinnacle of feminine grace and beauty... A dude. Ruka Urushibara... is a dude. He works at his family's shrine most of the time and trains with a wooden sword given to him by Okabe in his free time. His shyness and timidness often Leads to him getting pushed around by other people with almost no protest on his part. As characters go, Ruka may well be one of the most interesting LGBT characters I've seen in an anime. Particularly in how tastefully the series handles his questioning of his gender identity and all of the other character reactions and supportive natures towards him. Additionally, he brings up one of the most interesting uses of time travel I've seen.
Faris Nyannyan/Rumiho Akiha is the only character who can out-crazy Okabe. She owns and operates her own cat-maid café called May Queen Nyan-nyan. She's eccentric, loves cosplay and will usually bring up about as many random crazy things as Okabe. Despite all this, she has some equally amazing serious moments. The series' manner of dealing with the effect on Akihabara of her message being sent into the past is exceptionally well done.
Moeka Kiryuu (dubbed "Shinning Finger" by Okabe for her fast typing skills) is a quiet, introverted girl who prefers texting to people instead of talking to them directly. In her hunt for a mysterious and rare old PC she bumps into Okabe and his craziness. Moeka is a character who doesn't seem like she has much development at the beginning, and at one point you'll out right hate her, but I'd say she's the best example of how much the writing shines. There are just so many ways they could have gone wrong with her character, but the series does a fantastic job of changing up the audience's feelings towards her both positively and negatively.
Finally we have Suzuha Amane. She's a, as she calls herself, a part-time warrior, working part-time in the shop underneath The Future Gadget Lab. She's, well, a bada**. She's headstrong, can fend for herself, is a very capable (albeit, strange) person and loves riding bikes. She originally only came to Akihabara to look for her father, but she quickly becomes very close friends to the other characters. Out of all the characters in this series, I would put her right up there with Okabe in fantastically done and interesting characterization. Keep in mind, this is being said about a series whose entire cast is made up of extremely well written and interesting characters.
I'm hard pressed to find a series that has had an equally well written main cast as Steins;Gate, and I am turning up a blank. All of the characters work extremely well together; all of them are exceptionally interesting and have their own quirks. There really isn't a weak character in the bunch.
Animation:
As I mentioned in my previous review for The Devil is a Part-Timer, Studio White Fox tends to have some beautiful animation. Not only isSteins;Gate not an exception to this, it also has some of the most fantastic visuals I've seen from Studio White Fox.
Visuals-wise, Steins;Gate's art-style has a much more urban feel to it. A lot of the environments in the series tend to have a much more broken down, degraded or lived in feel to them. The color pallet tends to match the lived in feel of the environment with a lot more browns, greys and other earthy and grainy tones. The brighter tones being saved for the characters' designs.
The character designs themselves tend to vary from something you might see worn in real life, like Daru or Moeka's design, to more eccentric designs, like Okabe or Makise's (Labs coats everywhere he goes and why does she keep her coat up with belts... and why is she wearing a coat in the middle of summer?). The important thing about the character designs, though, is that they fit each character's personality perfectly.
While I'll admit there are occasional drops in quality, the series makes up for them and more by having moments of just pure visual ecstasy and bump the quality of the series by a metric ton.
Ultimately the art does an extremely solid job of supporting the writing in almost every way. While I'll admit I personally prefer the more stylized art style that was in the original visual novel, Studio White Fox brought their A-game for this series.
Sound:
The mark of a great soundtrack is, by my definition, one that can stand out from the series while also supporting the scenes it's in while not overpowering the other elements of a series. Steins;Gate's soundtrack fits perfectly in this definition.
The soundtrack has a nice mix of simpler sounding tones with more complex synthetic tones to create some seriously amazing music. The tracks fantastically capture the science heavy feel of the series while also hitting the more fun and serious tones extremely well. The quality that stood out the most to me is how eerie a lot of the tracks can get. Just listening to some of the songs off the soundtrack can give you pretty creepy vibes. The eeriness of the music does a lot to make a lot of the more serious and mystery heavy scenes stronger than they already were. Considering how impressively strong a lot of the scenes already are from a writing point of view, that's an impressive feat all on its own.
Most amazing of all, however, is how both visually and musically impressive the opening and closing are. The opening song, "Hacking into the Gate" by Kanako Itou, by itself just gets the viewer's blood pumping while matching the science-heavy tone of the series. It's just generally an absolutely awesome song. And when I say the opening has some impressive visuals, I mean it may well be one of the most visually impressive openings I've seen. It perfectly mixes in grainy textures with simple graphics like gears, watches, trigonometry, and character copies with fantastic editing and special effects of jaw-dropping levels of quality. The closing is, by no means, a joke either. The closing, "Tokitsukasadoru Juuni no Meiyaku" by Yui Sakakibara does just as good of a job of getting the audience excited for the next episode as the opening does to get the viewers ready for said episode. The song itself is more toned down and feels a bit more biting than "Hacking into the Gate" but captures a lot of the series' more serious elements. While not quite on the same level as the opening, the visuals in the closing have some surprisingly subtle eeriness.
Opening:
Closing:
Language-wise, both dubs are neck and neck, in terms of quality. While I cannot speak too much on the Japanese dub, the English dubbing is pulled off phenomenally. J. Michael Tatum nails the hell out of Okabe's character, perfectly switching between the character's more eccentric tones to his more serious ones without losing a beat. Trina Nishimura excellently captures Makise's narcissistic/tsundere tones. Tyson Rinehart (Daru), Jessica Cavanagh (Moeka), Lindsay Seidel (Ruka), Jad Saxton (Faris) and Cherami Leigh (Suzuha) all nail their individual characters equally as good. I will say that Mayuri's original seiyuu fits the character a little bit better, but Ashly Burch is fantastic regardless. The only real difference between the dubs is the occasional comedic engrish-y lines from Okabe's seiyuu. I would put the English dub down as probably my third favorite anime dubbing.
Personal Enjoyment:
Needless to say: I liked Steins;Gate... I liked it a lot. The series has one of the best written stories I've seen from an anime or anything to do with time-travel in general. It perfectly nails a unique take on the subject matter while also incorporating real world science, corporations and ideas. The cast is easily composed of some of the most well developed and written anime characters out there. While it does have the occasional kink, the animation is some of White Fox's best. The soundtrack perfectly captures the tones of the series and both the opening and closing are just plain up amazing. It can go without saying that FUNimation did an absolutely fantastic job on the dubbing.
To be frank: Steins;Gate is the closest I've ever seen a series get to perfection.
Final Verdict:
After assigning scores to:
Story: 4.75
Characters: 5
Animation: 5
Sound: 5
And my own personal enjoyment: 5
I have given Steins;Gate an assigned score of:
4.95/5.00
Recommendation:
If you haven't figured it out by now, I (enthusiastically) giveSteins;Gate a full on buy recommendation. It is the one anime series I would recommend to anyone, even if they don't watch anime. Steins;Gatecan be streamed through FUNimation's site and Hulu, though at present only the first 4 dub episodes are free on both and a FUNimation subscription is required to watch the rest dubbed on FUNi's site (though FUNimation does periodically put their full dubs for free on Hulu, so I would not be surprised if they put the rest of it up there again sometime down the road). While there is a separate two release version of the series (which I used for this review and personally love the hell out of), an Anime Classics re-release version of the series is scheduled to come out on September 30 and can be bought at an incredibly affordable price off of Amazon andRightstuf, so I highly recommend picking up that version instead.
Alternative anime to check out:
Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes
Naturally I couldn't go without mentioning Steins;Gate's spiritual predecessor and successor, Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes respectively.
Chaos;Head's main concept deals more with psychological horror and fringe-y science such as affecting reality through one's imagination. Admittedly, it is nowhere the same quality and infinitely more flawed than its successors. I will say it had a lot of interesting aspects to it (I in particularly loved how much you could feel the main character's paranoia) and is worth checking out, but much of its execution really keeps it from being anything more than an alright series.
Robotics;Notes, on the other hand, comes significantly closer to the level of quality found in Steins;Gate. Robotics;Notes's concept deals more with robotics, augmented reality and the mecha genre. It is undoubtedly the most grounded mecha series ever made. It uses near future technology that can be looked at as somewhat more advanced versions of what we use right now to make one of the most believable mecha stories I've seen.
Why don't we have a cat girl-iffier AR app yet?!
Additionally, while Steins;Gate does make some references toChaos;Head, Robotics;Notes has much more direct connectivity withSteins;Gate and really adds so much to the shared universe. Also,Robotics;Notes shares a character with Steins;Gate and references two other from it.
Terror in Resonance
At the time of this review, Terror in Resonance is still currently being simulcasted, the show has already proven itself to be one of the best written shows since Steins;Gate itself and probably one of the best directed series from Shinichiro Watanabe and has one of the best soundtracks from Yoko Kanno to date.
The show's main concept mainly deals with the question of "What if Japan became a target of terrorism?" The thing about it, however, is that the main characters themselves are the terrorists. Admittedly, they try to avoid causalities as much as possible, but a lot of what they do is still very much considered terrorism. The closest series I think it really compares to is Death Note in that it deals with much of the same character dynamic of two incredibly smart characters on the opposite ends of the law battling wits in an extremely intelligent game of cat in mouse. Alternatively, I've also heard it compared to Breaking Bad and The Wire which is equally as truthful as the series is extremely well written. Pretty much everything about the series' writing respects the viewer's intelligence while also incorporating some straight up brilliant twists that constantly keep the audience guessing as to what will happen next.
