It’s time to wrap up our discussion of the Steins;Gate anime. (Mostly – see below.) In this column, I will give my final thoughts about the time travel, the characters, and more… but first we should see how they handled the bonus OVA episode #25. Incidentally, Steins;Gate can teach you things, like how Poriomania is “a passion for journeying away from home”.
EGOISTIC PORIOMANIA
Okabe is walking on a road in a desert. He narrates into his phone how this began two weeks ago, and we cut to two weeks ago. (Honestly, I’m rarely a fan of this kind of opening. Either you spoil something – eliminating tension – or it’s completely irrelevant. Or both. As far as its use here goes, I shrug.)
We see Daru wearing a Hawaiian shirt, in preparation for a trip to LA (Los Angeles). Mayuri has to remind Okabe that Faris is participating in a Rai-Net tournament there, and she’s invited the rest of them along. Makise will be there too, though she has told Mayuri that bringing Okabe is optional.
We’re shown the date is October 14th, 2010 (at 10:24am). Meaning 6-7 weeks after the series ended.
“Mr Braun” (not going) jokes about them not coming back, and Moeka (also not going) messages Okabe about a gift. Many, many macadamia nuts… anything but that. We see Luka is with the group too, before cutting to a reflection of an airplane in Makise’s sunglasses.
At American customs, Okabe uses a phrase book to speak English, saying “I am mad scientist”, “chaos and invade”, which gets him briefly locked up. (It loses a little something when all done in English.) They regroup outside the airport, where Okabe says he’d prefer a taxi to Makise driving them, meaning she leaves him behind.
Eventually they’re all at the hotel, including Faris, who wonders why Okabe cancelled her reservations. Okabe cites the Organization and banters with Faris… until they catch the attention of a police officer, and Okabe is again briefly arrested.
That running gag is dropped after Makise lets them crash at her hotel room. Okabe brings up time travel papers, to which Makise says she’s leaving the “world line” stuff alone. Also, she only remembers him saving her at the Radio Building, and then getting the lab pin when they met later, nothing more.
She brings them to a run-down motel as soon as she hears it has rooms.
Luka admits to being freaked out, and Makise belatedly remembers that Luka’s also a guy, so Mayuri has no one to room with. She agrees to stay too. However, in the end, Mayuri and Luka share, as do Daru and Okabe, leaving Makise in a room by herself. Okabe and Makise then get to talking, when Daru asks Okabe to go sleep in the car.
Makise admits she’s very skeptical about the “alternate world line” theory, but then, she also has dreams about things she never experienced. She mentions some, like the stitching up of his lab coat (from episode 22). Okabe admits that these things did happen, but since it wasn’t on this world line, saying they’re dreams isn’t inaccurate.
Makise also gets flustered trying to articulate the “dream” where she and Okabe kissed, and hits him with a Diet Dk Pepper can.
The next day at 11:15am (presumably American time, not Japanese time?), Faris does well at the tournament, Luka is very popular, and Mayuri’s wearing her cat maid outfit. Makise is also serving in a cat maid costume, because the “Future Gadget Lab” is volunteering at the tournament to help pay for the plane tickets. And despite not flying, Makise is also a lab member.
As Makise and Okabe talk, she reiterates about how none of the other world line events were real (or in the original Japanese, that she’ll forget them).
Shortly thereafter, Okabe is distracted by a woman who sounds like Suzuha – and looks a bit like her too. She gets into a car, Okabe jumps into a taxi to pursue. He’s concerned because Steins Gate is supposed to be a world line without time machines.
When the others learn he’s missing, only Makise runs off.
Okabe catches up with the Suzuha-Double at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. But the woman was simply in the tournament, and will now be heading to Las Vegas. As they chat though, Suzuha-Double mentions a psychic told her she’d be married and having a kid in seven years. So I think we all see what that’s about.
Once he’s left alone, Okabe realizes he has only 67 American cents left, and his phone is out of power. So he starts walking, and after two hours, we reach the start of this episode.
Okabe laments not sharing his feelings with Makise, only to look up and see that she drove out to find him. But the rescue goes awry when she runs out of gas, leaving them both in the desert as the sun sets. Which lets them talk again.
Makise says she was concerned that he ran off because she’d said the other world line events weren’t real (or in the Japanese, something she’d forget). Which is when Okabe admits that in the alternate world line, he’d said he was in love with her. And he still is. Which Makise says isn’t something she can address, as she barely knows him.
Okabe brings up his Reading Steiner, and how he remembers them having even more than three weeks together, what with reliving the last few days several times. So him loving her is just “something she should know”. And after some thought, for an answer, Makise asks him to close his eyes.
Cut to black. Then we get the opening theme music, extended version, over credits (which may simply be on my DVD, but notice we never had an opening sequence). Did they kiss? Like many things in this anime, the camera cut away, so picture it however you like.
WORLD LINE THOUGHTS
Let’s wrap up with an overall analysis, with reference to some of the earlier videos. First, the time travel. In a lot of ways, it’s similar to Back to the Future (which may be part of why I like it), so let’s start there.
Both Steins;Gate and Back to the Future involve overwriting a single world line, with only one character remembering the changes (Okabe versus Marty). Both involve the main temporal protagonist dying, and being unexpectedly resurrected at the end (Makise versus Doc). And both involve limitations on their ability to time travel (the TV being on/Suzuha’s fuel problems versus the plutonium/speed). In many ways it’s only fitting that Steins;Gate uses “DeLorean Mail”.
Steins;Gate takes the theory a step further though. By interweaving the world lines, it can cunningly involve parallel realities playing out at the same time. And thus things in one world line can affect the “main line”, producing an EFFECT with no CAUSE. The series very clearly establishes this early on, and reinforces it with the lottery experiment: Messages are never sent, and yet they did arrive.
This way, when Okabe starts mind leaping back across the same days, we don’t question why things play out the way that they do.
It’s the sort of thing that works less well when you have actual physical time travel (in that a person must then return from the past, and as such, return to where). I believe the series did well to keep that physical aspect to a minimum
On the other hand, recall the cause-effect reasoning from episode fourteen… the cause of Mayuri’s death seems to be the world line itself, rather than a specific event. Despite Okabe rejecting such fatalism, we’re left with the idea of “fixed lifespans”. Not merely regarding Mayuri, as Suzuha and Moeka each die twice on the same day, Okabe fails to kill himself prematurely, and Faris’ father cannot escape his fate either (short of jumping to the omega attractor field).
Are Steins;Gate characters actually in control of their own lives?
The fact that (in the visual novel) Okabe can end with different characters may be an answer to that. The anime ending also attempts to subvert the fatalism, since Makise, who died in the beta world line, is alive as they create a new Steins Gate world line. Perhaps there is a case to be made for human entanglement? (Her survival is thanks to the actions of other people.) The John Titor explanation from episode two also seems relevant, if you recall that video. What do you think?
Before we move on, two more things the series does right with temporal theory. First, it borrows from real-life, using references such as John Titor and “lifters”, to add a measure of realism. Second, well…
Consider, as soon as time travel exists as a commodity, the past is going to change, and we won’t remember that it did. So either we live right now in a time stream where time travel must exist some day (and always has), or we live in one where it will never exist. (Or we live in one where time travel is only possible from the moment it exists, and we cannot go back beyond that threshold, but anyway…)
Steins;Gate takes that concept and runs with it all the way to the bank, constructing the alpha world line dystopia, with roots in the past, thanks to the invention of time travel in 2010. It’s well thought-out. One could even argue that the whole point of this series is to ensure that time travel never DOES exist. Which makes it tough to produce a sequel, but we’ll get to that shortly.
Let’s now take a moment for the characters. In lab order.
Okabe’s roleplay about “The Organization” is likely a call back to Chaos;Head, where the protagonist experienced delusions. (Recall that this is the second game within the same universe.) It works for him here, as reality crashes into his imagination, and vice versa. Mayuri, lab member 002, is largely at the mercy of the plot. But it dovetails nicely with her personality, making her sympathetic.
Daru is integral not only for his hacking but also Suzuha, and the “perverted anime fan” stereotype is not played to extremes. Makise is equally integral, being the one to actually handle most of the temporal theory, along with being a typical anime tsundere for the fans. (Does the show lampshading that fact make it better? Probably, particularly in 2011.)
Here things get sketchier. Moeka is necessary, but only while the Rounders are a threat. Still, she’s got depth to her past, and we learn more about “Mr Braun” through her. Luka is (I find) the weakest link, as his interest in Okabe is effectively all we’ve got. Faris comes off slightly better, as she has her Organization banter with Okabe, and a life she’s living away from the lab.
Finally, Suzuha is absolutely necessary. As the only one from the future, she can explain temporal theory, first as John Titor, and then as herself. The only glitch (in my mind) is how she overheard about the time machine pretty early on, yet was the last member to be invited in by Okabe. Because otherwise the numbering is less poetic.
There’s also the fact that Suzuha delivers the first real punch to the gut of many great character moments. I find the series is very good at those.
One last thing, which is more about the animation. It’s something I didn’t pick up on until I was writing these reviews, but the anime is very good at NOT showing you the action. Allowing your imagination to fill in the gaps instead.
For instance, the scene when Okabe is quizzing Moeka rarely shows the gun he holds, Mayuri at her grandmother’s grave goes ages without a long shot, and some of the physical attacks are done using an arm flying through the air, a sound effect, then a reaction.
That’s actually really smart, not merely for visualizing, but it means there’s fewer issues in synching up mouth movements. There’s also LOTS of imagery in some of the framing, most evident in terms of the hourglass, but there’s a number of other things that one can see when rewatching the show too. Give it a try!
But if you want more than a re-viewing… Steins;Gate 0 was also a visual novel video game, first released in December 2015. Its anime adaptation ran for 24 episodes in 2018, technically beginning with a prequel: Episode 23 of Steins;Gate itself. Modified. Because this sequel takes place in the “beta” world line, where there is no video file from the future, merely a defeated Okabe. Who soon learns that Makise lives on, as an artificial intelligence.
The series was released on DVD in July of 2019, so you can seek it out.
And then there’s the Steins;Gate movie, “Load Region of Deja Vu”, released to Japanese theatres in 2013. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it turns out Makise has to reinvent her mind leap machine, for Okabe’s sake. Here’s the trailer. I hope you stay with me for my look at that next time… and there’s one more thing.
Because Steins;Gate was NOT the first Japanese visual novel about time travel to be adapted into animation. That honour lies with Sandglass of Summer Colours (Natsuiro no Sunadokei), a two episode OVA which I will also look at shortly. Does it hold up as well as this show?
With that, Steins;Gate itself is done. Did you have any further thoughts? Perhaps some commentary about the other “Future Gadgets” that didn’t make it into the anime, but which can be found on Okabe’s “Future Gadget Lab Website“? Or was there something you liked which was in the show, and that I failed to expand on? The comments are open. Thanks for reading, and as always, please do let me know your opinion, if you have the time.
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