Steins; Gate

-

Year: 2011
Genre: Comedy; Psychological thriller; Science Fiction
Studio: White Fox
Episode: 24

Synopsis
The story is about main protagonist Okabe Rintarou, who is passionate about doing time-space related experiment in his lab, working on a phone-microwave device and discovers that the device could send message to the past. The story involving time travelling unravels as he meets new people and assign them to be his lab members.
Picture taken from IMDb

My Review
The first few episodes are quite boring as it sets the background for the story and building the main characters. However, vital clues are given out in those episodes. I did not catch up well with the presentation of the story at first with the Chunibyo personality of Okabe Rintarou intertwining with the main theme of the anime—time traveling, which is a serious topic. Some glitch happened and I was plain confused. Therefore, I gave up for a while after watching the first episode. Because of the constant talking and the lack of background music, the viewing experience is quite dry, since I enjoy watching action most of the time. What surprised me most was that despite being boring, I did not feel that 24 minute was extremely long and hard to endure, if anything, it was the opposite. There were some anime I gave up because every minute felt like hours. With Steins; Gate, even though I did not laugh at most jokes at first, I can still focus and minutes felt like seconds. Another main reason keeping me watching was that my friends recommended this anime to me like ten years ago and I have just got the time to watch it.

Tu turu~~ Each of the character has individual identity, personality with a specific label. It is almost impossible to mix any of them up. Plus, there are only a handful of characters. Those distinct identities are keys to the story development as well. The graphic style is average. No big wows, but perfectly match the vibe of the anime, and the details are well done. They made the main character, Okabe Rintarou, a little bit old though. 

There is not much background music; most of them are ambience sound. I did not like the op and ed at first; then, I found them to be quite enjoyable. The fact that they change the verse of the opening song after one big twist to match the story development is very exciting and surprising. I screamed a little at that part.

The pacing of the story is quite slow at first. After setting a full picture and introducing all the characters, the twists will come one after another; sometimes, it would a little hard to binge watch, since some of the twists are too big for me to mentally process them in a short time.

The logic of time traveling and world line theory is quite interesting. I am no expert in this area, but they explained in a way normal people are able to understand. There are some word choice with foreign language reference such as its title Steins, and El psy congroo, which I do not get at all.

Conclusion
I would recommend this anime to anyone who likes science or time traveling theme, and anyone who enjoy psychological thriller. Although it was a little bit dull and sort of like slice of life at first, the excitement of anticipating the next plot twists as the new information reveal one by one and the result of the experiment is worth it. The story-telling style is also captivating. I find myself screaming at the end of some episodes.

Rating: 7/10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Claymore (2007)

-
Image
Claymore Year: 2007 Genre: Dark Fantasy, Action Rate: 9/10 Synopsis This is a story of a group of half-human and half-yoma (yoma=monster) fighters. They belong to an organization that accept request to eradicate yoma from the attacked town. The story is led by a female protagonist, Clare. She had recused a boy name Raki. I don't want any spoiler here, so that's it. This is an absolute serious anime. There was no comedy, but a bit of romance and friendship I may say. I love the plot and think that it is better than most of the new anime released nowadays. Story telling I like how they tell the story here. The story started from the current journey of the heroine, Clare and her encounter with Raki. In this part, the necessary details of the organization Clare was working for were told. After that was a flash back to the back story of Clare, which connected to what she would do next. After the flash back, every episode built up the tension so well. I like how they kept...
Read more

11eyes

-
Image
11eyes: Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shōjo 11eyes: Sin, Damnation, and the Atonement Girl Rate: 6 out of 10 11eyes: Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shōjo is a story about a group of high school students who are summoned into “Red Night” and for some reasons they are target of “Black Knights” who claim they should be dead. Its genres are: action, echhi, super power, and supernatural. First off, there are quite many panty shots in the first few episodes and it tries to include some adult content at the nearly end, which do not fit in the serious story line very well. After finishing this anime, I found that it is an adaptation of an adult visual novel. So that explains the things I saw. The story telling pattern is very similar in each episode. Happy school life followed by entering “Red Night”. But in that boring pattern, the story is moving forward bit by bit. It wasn’t until nearly the end that you understand the whole big picture, which is a strategy that other a...
Read more

Jujutsu Kaisen

-
Image
Year: 2020-2021 Genre: Action, Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Shounen, Supernatural Studio: MAPPA Episode: 24 Synopsis This is a story of how curse users or Jujutsu sorcerers using their curse power and curse techniques to exorcise the “curses” which are supernatural demon formed by negative emotions. Itadori Yuuji, the main character gained the curse power by accidentally swallow a S-grade cursed object, Sukuna’s Finger. Normally, such action would make the person obtains curse power and is evaded by the cursed spirit of the cursed object. According to sorcerer community rules, such being must be executed. However, unsurprisingly though, Yuuji is a rare suitable vessel to contain Sukuna, and he could take control of his body while hosting Sukuna’s soul. Therefore, he was given a chance to join the Jujutsu High School to consume the remaining fingers before being executed. This is the story of how he grows into a competent Jujutsu and help as many people as he can which is an advice given by...
Read more