Review for Steins;Gate Part 1

Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

How cool is Steins; Gate? Well, duh. VERY. It just about doesn’t get any better than this in the anime world. In fact, if you typed ‘cult’ into a TV programme making machine (that’s how it’s done, right?) it would start shooting out all the ingredients that make it such an irresistible show.


Conspiracy theories? Check. Cool hacker geeks? Check. Mad scientists? Check. Gadgets? Check. Time travel? Check. Cool science-loving chicks? Check. It’s got the freakin’ lot. 

But what’s truly great about SG (can I call it that yet?) is that it ends up being much better than merely the sum of these essential parts. How could anyone not love an anime ballsy enough to reference a seemingly sinister organisation called ‘Sern’ that just happens to be goofing around with Hadron colliders? Or IBN, a great big computer hardware and software corporation? This is seriously risky stuff and the show is cool enough to take it.


As usual this review features all the usual caveats. I’m not REALLY an anime reviewer, I’m just ‘helping out’ the Animeister (Jitendar Canth) with a second opinion review of a DVD set, despite the fact there is a far better review of the series on Blu-Ray by the man himself here: http://www.myreviewer.com/Blu-ray/157087/SteinsGate-Part-1/157129/Review-by-Jitendar-Canth
You definitely want to read that one because it’s a humdinger and the man clearly loves this series.






[Awkward pause]





Go on. Shoo.











[Very awkward pause]








Oh for Chrissake! You still here? So what happens if you don’t take my advice and carry on reading this review instead? Well, you’ll get a viewpoint certainly, if not a particularly well-informed one. You might even get some vague idea of what the series is all about though, to be honest, until I see Part two I’m not 100% sure myself.


If it’s just an idea about whether the DVD quality is good to see whether it’s worth paying the extra for the Blu-Ray, well all I can say is that the DVD looks great despite housing six episodes per disc. I suspect the Blu-Ray looks even greater though I have no real way of knowing. But you can find all that out in Jitendar’s review. He also notices stuff like the subs being different on the Blu-Rays to the DVD’s. Which I would have no way in hell of knowing so you see – you really have decided to fly this review second class. 


But if there’s no getting rid of you I’ll do my very half-baked best to make some sense of SG beyond just saying it’s great. Which it is. Or did I already say that?


SG is great fun from the off. We get dropped straight into what at first seems to be a geek’s fantasy world where conspiracy theories abound and wild delusion is the theme for the day.

The gang hangs out at an apartment loosely described as ‘The Future Gadget Laboratory’ despite the fact that its specialist equipment comprises a microwave, a cell phone and a computer.



Their self-proclaimed leader (Rintaro “Okarin” Okabe) is introduced to us in an academic setting, rejecting the outmoded ideas of his lecturer. He takes on the persona of a mad genius, talking in a strangely formal, poetic way. At first it doesn't quite ring true but as the series moves on he becomes as surprised as we do that some of his seemingly mad theories are actually right. There is plenty of humour to be had too as he keeps reporting in, like some secret agent, to a switched off phone. It’s a bit like Twin Peaks meets the X-Files as if such a prefect concoction was possible. 


Whilst at the seminar about time travel something seems to crash into the high rise roof, like some nightmarish 9-11 re-enactment. And then he meets a girl who pulls him away from the lecture room and who starts to quiz him about his ideas. And then she gets murdered. But when he text his hacker friend the news, something about the world alters. And then the really weird stuff starts.


For starters, the murdered girl turns up again. It turns out the lecture never happened because a satellite crashed into the building. Which is when you start to question whether events have changed or just the deluded fantasy world of Okarins’ making. 


Reluctantly making friends with the girl (Makise), despite clear friction between them, and she shows an interest in his experiments. He notices that all his books by John Titor, a self-proclaimed time traveler  have gone yet he starts to deliver messages on the web. Okarin learns that an organisation called Sern are also conducting experiments (sinister ones as it turns out) on time travel. Naturally, Sern become as interested in Karin as he is in them. His rudimentary time shifting experiments are leading him towards the discovery of a time machine. 



So whilst Okarin and his pals start to hack Sern, there’s a feeling that Sern may be infiltrating his communications too. It’s a sinister race against time.

What follows is a whole series of equally compelling episodes where the team have to acquire a specific IBN computer to help decipher some old code to crack into Sern’s systems, or attempt to take bananas though time in the microwave, or use texts to travel between timelines in order to re-write history . It’s an anorak’s dream.


The ‘re-writing history’ theme is a great dramatic device to allow characters to re-trace some of their own regrets and attempt to put them right, sometimes with odd consequences. 

The end is a complete cliff-hanger and something of a shock. It’s also a bit of a downer and I console myself that the terrible events must surely be reversed in part two with some judicious time shifting. The fact that I really want that to be so help illustrate just how compelling the series is.

I watched the version with the English dub (sorry Jits!) which I thought was first class. The episodes played through so quickly that at one time I thought they were shorter than the usual 25 minutes and set out to check. Time shifting indeed!


I guess I would have given this 10 out of 10 had I not already given that accolade to the wonderful ‘Kids on the Slope’ which, given the choice, would remain my preference by a whisker. 

In short – this is REALLY REALLY good and thoroughly recommended. Now go ahead and read that proper review of the set I mentioned earlier.

The first twelve episodes of Steins;Gate are presented across two DVDs.

Disc 1
1. Turning Point
2. Time Travel Paranoia
3. Parallel World Paranoia
4. Interpreter Rendezvous
5. Starmine Rendezvous
6. Butterfly Effect’s Divergence

Disc 2
7. Divergence Singularity
8. Chaos Theory Homeostasis – 1
9. Chaos Theory Homeostasis – 2
10. Chaos Theory Homeostasis – 3
11. Dogma in Event Horizon
12. Dogma in Ergosphere