Steins;Gate – a few episodes later

Posted by: Redhead on: July 17, 2011

• In: anime | Steins;Gate | Time Travel
• 9 Comments

There’s not been a ton of good, accessible anime out these last few years.  seriously, how much Bleach and Naruto do I really need (well, none, actually)?

then I discovered Steins;Gate. Available to stream through Crunchyroll, and viewable through Roku boxes everywhere, you can buy a subscription and stream it live, or be a cheap ass like me and watch one or two episodes behind.

I got hooked on Steins;Gate a few months ago, and I can easily say it is the best anime I have seen in years.

to put it another way: Steins;Gate is the best thing that happened to me since the original Fullmetal Alchemist.  

if you’re at all into anime, you owe it to yourself to track this show down.

I’m going to jump right into what’s going on at this point in the season, so you might want to read this article on the first 8 or so episodes.  Consider yourself warned, there be spoilers ahead.

I’m now 14 episodes in, and feeling a bit like a time traveler myself.

D-mails have been flying, and Karisu believes it’s time to take the time machine to the next step. They can’t send a person (remember the gel-bananas?), but surely they can send memories back. So you feel like you’re going back in time, but it’s only your mind that goes into your body that’s already there (which neatly takes care of the aging paradox). The name the upgraded machine the Time Leap Machine.

Part-time warrior Suzuha accuses Karisu of being a spy for SERN, but Karisu denies it.  While Okarin is trying to figure out where Suzuha fits into all of this, she tells him she is in Tokyo looking for her father, and if she doesn’t find him tonight, she’s heading back home. Okarin offers to allow her to send a D-mail, to coincide with a little party that’s happening at the lab.  Okarin can come off a jerk, but deep down, he’s a really nice guy who wants to help people.   If only he could figure out whose been sending him these awful text messages, that they are watching him, and that they know who he is. . . .

With the party at the lab in full swing, Suzuha suddenly leaves. Within moments, Shining Finger rushes in with a team of goons, guns a blazing. She’s been the one working for SERN all this time, and they want the time machine. Now. Shining Finger tells her team that Okarin, Daru and Karisu are needed, but Mayushi isn’t. and then she shoots Mayushi in the head.

Karisu and Suzuha create a distraction so Okarin can get to the time leap machine. Who needs to avenge a friend’s death when you have a time machine???

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But time has different plans.

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Okarin goes back in time to that afternoon, and cancels the party. Mayushi gets hit by a car. He goes back in time again to get her on a train out of town. Someone trips and stumbles into her and she falls into the path of the train. He goes back again, and she dies a different way. He goes back again and again and again, and no matter what he does, Mayushi, the one person in this world that he cares about, dies. What’s the point of having a time machine, if you can’t save someone you care about? These scenes are so wrenching, so emotional, so raw, I can’t even describe it.

I’d thought this thing with Mayushi was one of the biggest OMG moments in anime history. but it wasn’t.  there is bigger yet to come.

my favorite part of the show has got to be Okarin himself.  At first blush, he was this weirdo LARPer who introduced himself as his alter ego, talked to himself, and inserted his mad scientist laugh into conversations at the worst possible moment.  His true personality has really come through in these last few episodes. Sure, he’s got a bit of a crush on Karisu, but when Mayushi’s life is threatened, Okarin completely breaks down, pleading, begging through tears and snot, for her life, for anything that will save her.  He already saved her once, he refuses to believe he can’t rescue her again.  It’s intense, and it’s incredible.

Every time a D-mail was sent, Okarin jumped to a parallel world line. His friends were still his friends, but the world was a little bit different.  How far will he have to jump to save Mayushi?

Still not sure Steins;Gate is for you? watch it just for the voice acting. The guy who voices Okarin, Mamoru Miyano, is just brilliant (I think he’s my new Patrick Seitz!).   You might know him from Deathnote or Ouran Host Club, which i will be watching, in their entirety, while I’m waiting for next episode of Steins;Gate.

Tags: anime, science fiction, time travel