This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
So I recently finished Steins;Gate, and while I can say it was far more entertaining than its pathetic precursor Chaos;Head, it was clearly made by the same band of retards responsible for that mess.
There are spoilers ahead. Too fucking bad if you haven’t watched the show yet.
Let’s address the biggest problem – the plotholes.
Let me just set the scene – Kyouma (main character-kun) and his team of Daru/women who love him have succeeded in creating two inventions — D-Mail and Time Transfer.
D-Mail allows people to send a text message to the past, the results of which change certain events, leading to a new future.
Time Transfer allows people to transfer their current memories up to 48 hours into the past.
We fucking set? All righty, onto the DERP.
For the greater part of two episodes, Kyouma attempts to save Mayuri’s life (Mayuri is his autistic cumslut) by transferring his memories three hours into the past. What a fucking retard. He could just use the D-Mail to send a message into the far past which would affect the present. You know, something like “Hey, make sure Mayuri doesn’t put ‘run into a train’ on her calendar.”
So basically all this goddamn guy does is send memories to his self in the past 48 hours. Now, he fails preventing Mayuri’s death the first time. And the second time. And the… yes, they pull the Japanese bullshit “he basically repeated this 1500 fucking times” but without the Haruhi “let’s drag this out for 8 episodes” crap. Yet he doesn’t fucking think “Hey, this isn’t working. Maybe I should stop being such a fucktard and try something different.”
But let’s talk about what happened when Okabe finally decides to use the D-Mail. Instead of sending a message that could significantly alter the past in a positive way (e.g. “Sup, past me? You know that Shining Finger bitch? Cap her like you’re black.”) he decides to go the route of most retardedness — undoing every D-Mail already sent.
This brings us to Feyris. Feyris used a D-Mail to prevent her father’s death.
Feyris sent a D-Mail telling her father that she was kidnapped to help avoid his death. So he sold his IBN 5100 for lots of money to pay the kidnappers. But… Feyris was never kidnapped. She just wanted her father to avoid a traveling accident that happened after he left town. Which begs the question, who the fuck did he pay the money for Feyris to? Yes, I am fucking serious. Watch the episode for yourself.
Even before asking that, why couldn’t there be a D-Mail sent that would tell her father a winning lottery ticket or something so he wouldn’t have to sell the IBN 5100. Or better yet, why couldn’t Feyris come up with a better scenario than “HEY DAD Im kidnapSED howsabout givng 10000000 milllions of dollars to kidnappers-kun?” I mean, that would make sense.
BUT WE CAN’T HAVE THAT NOW CAN WE?! GOTTA MAKE THAT DRAMA MORE ARTIFICIAL THAN IT ALREADY IS!
So Okabe is a douche and kills her father in order to save Mayuri. But oh shi- surprise, surprise. That doesn’t fucking work. So he goes to ruin Rukako’s life.
Rukako accidentally broke the IBN 5100 while it was being stored at her temple. So instead of sending a D-Mail that’s like “Hey, be careful around that old PC”, Okabe decides to ruin her life too by changing her into a guy CUZ THAT’LL FIX IT. Yes, this is his course of logic. What a fucking great character.
Then there’s the whole harem thing going on. I know Japan likes its harems, but Jesus Christ has this shit gotten old.
Makise Kurisu – “I-I’m not tsundere, you baka!” She is super tsundere for Okabe, which the writers try to play off as “Oh, haha, she knows what tsundere is, which makes her character unique!” No, it doesn’t. It just brings attention to her trite characterization.
Feyris – “Hey guys, I’m an otaku! I add ‘nyan’ to everything I say and I hardly appear in the series!” This dumb cunt sees Okabe as her personal prince for reasons unexplained. Also, Okabe killed her dad, so it’s like ~bitch, why you so stupid~
Mayuri – “Tuturu!” She is literally mentally handicapped. And not in a high-functioning way. It’s more like a “When is she start going to play tag with her friend Mr. Train?” which makes the arc where she constantly dies unintentionally hilarious.
And some of the other characters?
Big Bro Guy Who Owns the Place Where Okabe & Co. Rent Their Apartment – Apparently he’s like a major player in the evil organization that controls everything in the world. So, like, apparently his only goal was to retrieve the IBN 5100/destroy all evidence that time travel exists, which begs the question, what was he doing in the 20 episodes prior to this reveal? It’s like his thought process was “Okay, I know Okabe is developing a time machine. My goal is to stop this. So I’m just going to wait until he develops the time machine and gathers up a team of cool people.” Also, due to the fucking time travel bullshit, this girl who works with him was like a mother figure to him in the past. But he didn’t recognize that the girl who’s working for him looks anything like the woman who took him in when he was down? I mean, holy fucking what the fuck?
Okabe is the worst character of all. He just spazzes out whenever he wants to get anything done. For an unknown number of times, he tries to save Mayuri without explaining the situation to anyone. He literally just freaks out and starts running to where Mayushi was, not even bothering to remember where she was going to intercept her or anything. And heaven forbid he take five minutes to explain what’s going on to his friends and rally their help. No, that would be too convenient. He is fucking terrible.
People complained about Endless Eight being the same dull shit over and over again. Well, it was. The same could be said for Steins;Gate. After an interesting first few episodes, it all just falls apart once we get to the inevitable Groundhog Day bullshit that every time-traveling anime JUST HAS TO HAVE.
You Steins;Gate fans can’t explain away this bullshit. I’m sorry, but an anime can only rely on its interesting character designs and visuals so much.
For being such a shitty anime, I give Steins;Gate a 9/10. It is unfortunately, one of the best shows I’ve watched this year. Fuck you, Japan. Fuck you.
I personally liked the Majora’s Mask-esque plot.
> he decides to go the route of most retardedness — undoing every D-Mail already sent.
The only route he knew to get back to the alpha world line was to undo every D-Mail he sent. Sounds like a pretty _safe_ plan to me.
>“Okay, I know Okabe is developing a time machine. My goal is to stop this. So I’m just going to wait until he develops the time machine and gathers up a team of cool people.”
I forget which episode it was told in, but SERN used the breakthroughs that the Future Gadget Lab found to finalize their own time machine.
But I agree with you – yes, there are plot holes.
So, um… you liked Steins;Gate after all. Tsundere-ish behaviour?
Yes. The plot is sketchy, but the characters were interesting enough to bring it together despite being super generic. I did have significant issues with the show, but with the way it was directed – the suspense was done really fucking well for a greater part of the show – and the amazing visuals, I had a great time watching it.
I can easily understand why it has such a large fanbase and I am really looking forward to the upcoming Robotics;Notes from the makers of Steins;Gate.
LOL Welcome to the Dark side.
Have fun waiting till 2069. The VN isn’t even out yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Jdda5vH6Y
I like the character and the plot. It was pretty good.
As someone who watched Chaos;Head and was thrown into complete disappointment I went into this expecting a let down, so my bias is actually positive here. More importantly let me readdress some specific points.
Puddizzle covered the first two, but I’ll throw in my 2 zeny.
>> he decides to go the route of most retardedness — undoing every D-Mail already sent.
>The only route he knew to get back to the alpha world line was to undo every D-Mail he sent. Sounds like a pretty _safe_ plan to me.
-Exactly. It was the only thing he knew would work. HOWEVER, looking at the time line, the ONLY times in which Okabe approached “Z Hour”, in which Mayuri dies, is on the BETA world line. Having done so 9001 times, he can pretty much guess it’s always going to be the same result. But how can he be certain that the ALPHA line is any better? I guess he can’t, and it’s all a big gamble based on his own personal theory. Considering his personality, it’s not surprising that he’d just roll with it.
>>“Okay, I know Okabe is developing a time machine. My goal is to stop this. So I’m just going to wait until he develops the time machine and gathers up a team of cool people.”
>I forget which episode it was told in, but SERN used the breakthroughs that the Future Gadget Lab found to finalize their own time machine.
-Can’t really add anything to this, except to just expound on the point; Old Man FB just sat on his thumbs and waited and that was a bad move? Think again. Like Puddizzle said, SERN was pretty smart. Why not just steal the technology, and forcibly put the scientists to work? Shit, they even had their rounders put 2 rounds into Mayuri’s fucking body cause they could. I can’t believe that didn’t buy them some stock with you, Sage. I know I couldn’t help but approve their decision.
>Rukako accidentally broke the IBN 5100 while it was being stored at her temple. So instead of sending a D-Mail that’s like “Hey, be careful around that old PC”, Okabe decides to ruin her life too by changing her into a guy CUZ THAT’LL FIX IT. Yes, this is his course of logic. What a fucking great character.
-Here’s the thing, Ruka was originally a guy. Okabe didn’t change her into a guy, he changed her back. He was just undoing D-Mails. Unless I completely misunderstood the story, that’s how it was. Did he ruin things for this poor gender confused kid? Yeah, sure. But since he already had Feyris’s dad return to death, I think there’s no real competition here. It had to be done in order to continue with his plan to return to the ALPHA line.
I’d add more but shit I got to go.
While most characters are generic, they’re at the “well-done” end of that spectrum. You’ve also got to take into account that it’s an adaption of a Visual Novel. In that sense, I think they did really well.
Insult show for 10 paragraphs.
Give it 9/10.
You’re the best, bro.
^^ This lol.
That’s because some people make it out to be a 30/10.
Yeah, I was thinking a similar thing during those episodes where he dooms one friend to a life of pain and makes the other an orphan (whose last words to her father were “I hate you”) again to save one other friend wasn’t that logical. Until I remembered that doing so wasn’t just going to save Mayuri, it was going to prevent the dystopia that SERN was going to impose on the world in the next couple of decades because it was the only way to prevent SERN from finding out about their success with time travel and stealing it. Mr Braun wasn’t supposed to stop them from inventing time travel…I think. It’s been a while. I’m pretty sure he was supposed to stop Okabe from spying on SERN and steal his time travel technology.
Still, his character seems like a big unresolved plot hole to me. Why was a renowned physicist stationed there by SERN in the first place? Why didn’t he get on that glasses girl’s ass for stopping her investigation all of a sudden? The twist was unexpected but I don’t think it made sense, in the end.
Using a dmail wouldn’t have worked at all because of the attractor field convergence. Basically Mayuri was fated to die in the alpha worldline and sending just one dmail wouldn’t let him shift 1% to a wordline where she might not die.
Also, he has little to no control over what a d-mail might do. He might only have one shot when using it. He screws up the phrasing and sending another dmail could screw things over more. If he sends the second dmail after the first one then he’d also have to think of a way to negate any effects of the first dmail. But going back in time he can follow events, know what is changing. Sending a dmail to the shrine girl’s phone, it may have just been ignored.
“Which begs the question, who the fuck did he pay the money for Feyris to?” ~ This doesn’t really seem that important. Say he keeps the money and spends it on hookers and coke. Or expands his financial empire. Whatever. Won’t really have an effect on the story.
“Or better yet, why couldn’t Feyris come up with a better scenario than “HEY DAD Im kidnapSED howsabout givng 10000000 milllions of dollars to kidnappers-kun?” I mean, that would make sense.” – agreed.
Like everyone else, agree that there are definitely plot holes in Steins;Gate. But for some reason they pulled it off in a way that you either don’t care all that much or can’t exactly figure out what the plot hole was :P
…I can’t believe I typed up so much.
ah, that last paragraph didn’t come out so well. I haven’t slept much :P
“Like everyone else, I agree that there are definitely plot holes in Steins;Gate. Yet somehow they pulled it off in such a way that the viewer either doesn’t care all that much or can’t exactly figure out what the plot hole was :P” But knowing that there ARE plot holes I’m sure that every attentive viewer would agree with your article’s title to some extent. Real plot holes in a time travel series are twice as bad as normal.
> Which begs the question, who the fuck did he pay the money for Feyris to? Yes, I am fucking serious. Watch the episode for yourself.
Standard procedure is to drop the money off in some designated place. Probably some trashcan somewhere. It was never collected, but the dad can’t know that – he got Feyris back so he thinks it was real.
This is stupid. Whether he dropped the money somewhere or not, whether he became aware the the message was a hoax or not, the fact of the matter is he sold the IBM to get the funds together. It doesn’t matter what happened after that, the IBM was gone.
While I have absolutely no idea what Braun was doing stationed in Akihabara in the first place, or what he was doing while Okabe et al. were developing a time machine, I’m pretty sure him not recognizing Suzuha isn’t a plothole. She didn’t take him in and care for him in every world line. That didn’t happen in any of the world lines prior to Suzuha going back to find the IBN 5100, if I remember correctly.
P.S. I probably don’t remember correctly
Dark_Sage I have many words to speak to you about why most of this is wrong and how you’re over-simplifying everything, but I have to work double shifts today and maybe tomorrow. However, when I have extra time (read: After I finish Danta), I will have words with you about this.
>He could just use the D-Mail to send a message into the far past which would affect the present. You know, something like “Hey, make sure Mayuri doesn’t put ‘run into a train’ on her calendar.”
Would not work. If the world line they’re in has it predetermined that you will die, you WILL die. You can stave it off for as long as you can, but you will inevitably be killed.
>“Hey, this isn’t working. Maybe I should stop being such a fucktard and try something different.”
If your friend was being killed, and you didn’t know shit about what was CAUSING them to be killed, then you would constantly try to save them.
That’s as much as I read. You know, for explaining the plot holes of the anime, your review has just as many holes in it.
Well Derp you may have saved me some trouble writing shit out. I’ll wait for D_S’s response to this.
Fuck it. I decided to write more because I’m bored as fuck.
>He could just use the D-Mail to send a message into the far past which would affect the present. You know, something like “Hey, make sure Mayuri doesn’t put ‘run into a train’ on her calendar.”
Would not work. If the world line they’re in has it predetermined that you will die, you WILL die. You can stave it off for as long as you can, but you will inevitably be killed.
>“Hey, this isn’t working. Maybe I should stop being such a fucktard and try something different.”
If your friend was being killed, and you didn’t know shit about what was CAUSING them to be killed, then you would constantly try to save them.
>But let’s talk about what happened when Okabe finally decides to use the D-Mail. Instead of sending a message that could significantly alter the past in a positive way (e.g. “Sup, past me? You know that Shining Finger bitch? Cap her like you’re black.”) he decides to go the route of most retardedness — undoing every D-Mail already sent.
And how do you know exactly that it would alter the past in a positive way? They tried altering it to be positive and there was always something negative that happened as a result, such as the IBN going missing. He undid every D-Mail because he was trying to change World Lines to return to one where Mayuri DIDN’T die.
>So Okabe is a douche and kills her father in order to save Mayuri. But oh shi- surprise, surprise. That doesn’t fucking work. So he goes to ruin Rukako’s life.
He didn’t “kill” anyone. He died in the original timeline, Okabe has to travel to the original timeline, therefore her father dies as a result. “Ruining” Rukako’s life is an opinion and how you choose to view things, so I won’t even bother with that shit.
>Rukako accidentally broke the IBN 5100 while it was being stored at her temple. So instead of sending a D-Mail that’s like “Hey, be careful around that old PC”, Okabe decides to ruin her life too by changing her into a guy CUZ THAT’LL FIX IT. Yes, this is his course of logic. What a fucking great character.
And how exactly would he know that sending that message wouldn’t cause even MORE problems? To make matters worse, by sending ANOTHER D-mail, he’s moving farther away from his goal, which is the “original” timeline. So, yeah, you’re definitely wrong here.
>Then there’s the whole harem thing going on. I know Japan likes its harems, but Jesus Christ has this shit gotten old.
But it was never a harem, you faggot-face. A male main character surrounded by breasts does not a harem anime make. That’s like saying “Oh, well this main character is male, and he’s surrounded by other male characters, so I guess this is a yaoi anime”.
>Feyris – “Hey guys, I’m an otaku! I add ‘nyan’ to everything I say and I hardly appear in the series!” This dumb cunt sees Okabe as her personal prince for reasons unexplained. Also, Okabe killed her dad, so it’s like ~bitch, why you so stupid~
Not an otaku. Okabe didn’t kill her father. She wouldn’t know even if he did.
>Big Bro Guy Who Owns the Place Where Okabe & Co. Rent Their Apartment – Apparently he’s like a major player in the evil organization that controls everything in the world. So, like, apparently his only goal was to retrieve the IBN 5100/destroy all evidence that time travel exists, which begs the question, what was he doing in the 20 episodes prior to this reveal? It’s like his thought process was “Okay, I know Okabe is developing a time machine. My goal is to stop this. So I’m just going to wait until he develops the time machine and gathers up a team of cool people.” Also, due to the fucking time travel bullshit, this girl who works with him was like a mother figure to him in the past. But he didn’t recognize that the girl who’s working for him looks anything like the woman who took him in when he was down? I mean, holy fucking what the fuck?
His goal wasn’t to capture Okabe’s time machine. Therefore, he has to actually WAIT for it to be built. You see how these things work? He was employed by SERN, who’s entire goal is time-travel. Hence, they’ll be wanting Okabe’s time machine. He doesn’t recognize Suzuha as his employee because she never WAS his employee in the timeline. She went back in time, so how would she exist in the past and present as two separate people?
>Okabe is the worst character of all. He just spazzes out whenever he wants to get anything done. For an unknown number of times, he tries to save Mayuri without explaining the situation to anyone. He literally just freaks out and starts running to where Mayushi was, not even bothering to remember where she was going to intercept her or anything. And heaven forbid he take five minutes to explain what’s going on to his friends and rally their help. No, that would be too convenient. He is fucking terrible.
Who the fuck is going to believe him? You said it yourself, he spazzes out all the time. Okabe is highly eccentric, so who the fuck is going to believe that he’s from the future? The only one that did was Kurisu, and that’s because Okabe was able to explain shit that only she would have knowledge of. Also, time line changes, obviously. If in one time line she dies by a train, and the other she’s hit by a car, then how the fuck is he going to magically predict what will kill her next?
All in all, you must have been fucking drunk either before, during, or after this review of yours, possibly when watching the show too.
Calm down, lad. :D But, yah…Derp is pretty much right. Apart from the explain to friends part because kurisu figured it out herself, iirc.
Dark_Sage you’re too fucking stupid to comprehend the genious of this anime. You’re not one of the chosen intellectuals. It’s so funny to see how you act like you know everything. You can definitely whine, but not criticize Steins;Gate. Oh, have some tissue for your bleeding butthole.
Also, props to Derp for simplifying the matter for your retarded brain.
Oh, have some tissue for your bleeding butthole.
lold hard.
http://genious.urbanup.com/192336
After getting halfway through the reading, I felt like my sense of good Anime was shit. Like, worse than I thought.
Then I felt better at the last line.
I lol’d a bunch during this ‘review’. Loved it! Haha.
I loved Steins;Gate to death (and avidly await the completion of the unofficial translation patch for the visual novel), but a few points raised by Sage do hold ground here. Sure, undoing each D-mail may have been the “safe” path, but what I’m wondering is why and how Okabe failed to connect the IBN’s disappearance to Moeka’s test D-mail; I mean, it disappeared -immediately- after she sent it, and she only sent it back something like a week or so into the past.
tl;dr
Man, This reminds me one of those tropes: “stupidity is the only option”.
i just played around with seek bar after ep 7-9, so i don’t care about plot holes after them. but why the fuck do these morons work in an attic or smth? who is funding their research? why don’t they join a university research team, get a grant, whatever???
if they’re hiding from sern…well that’s a shitload of questions this begs…
Overall I agree with your review. Except I think Derp explains away most of your plot holes. It was more the technical type issues that got me. The whole sending d-mail back to the 90s from present day would have been impossible with the method they were doing even assuming the whole time travel black hole thing actually worked.
Sending a message back a week or a year, assuming your same account with the provider was active back then would presumably work assuming they fixed any issues with time stamping/sequencing if there is any used in the protocol. But to send back into the 90s…? The black hole is only going to be able to send the phone’s signal into the past, how the hell is a digital mobile phone going to communicate with the cell phone tech of the 90s? It can’t. Also, they sent the pager messages like an SMS text message which didn’t make sense either. You’d have to call the pager number and enter something in.
Also I just didn’t buy the cause/effect thing for somehow something becoming set in stone and they die in some random way… just seemed like some sort of magic shit which would never come up if time travel was real.
Also a lot of the computer hacking stuff didn’t make sense, but it never does in these types of movies/shows. I just don’t understand why it is so hard to do a little bit of research so your story doesn’t seem totally dumb to someone with technical knowledge.
I could go into very long detail why a lot of the hacking stuff and the back hacking stuff not making any sense but not much point.
>I just don’t understand why it is so hard to do a little bit of research so your story doesn’t seem totally dumb to someone with technical knowledge.
Probably because (1) the reality isn’t nearly as dramatic, and (2) there are few enough people out there who actually have the technical knowledge to notice such things that it’s just not worth it.
Oh and another thing… I had the same exact questions as idiffer. Basically it seemed like a club of NEETs. Where the fuck did they get any money at all?
I wanted to make a point on this. People have been asking “Where do they get the money for X” and I can’t help but question why anyone would even ask this. I mean, you have a group of goofballs who basically stitch together home appliances into “inventions”. Christ, even their “time-machine” is just a phone merged with a microwave. I could go out and buy both of those right now and have change left over. Why would I need funding for this kind of thing? Daru does all his hacking BS with a regular PC, mind you it’s probably pimped out because guys like Daru would at the very least maintain competitive specs if not attempt to beat their peers.
So why are we even thinking about costs here, when they’re just salvaging garbage? That doesn’t even make sense to me. Grants? For a broken ass microwave, some extra circuitry and a cellphone? That’s one trip to Radioshack and $80 to $100 at worst.
Thank you derp for explaining to OP that he basically didn’t understand the show at all. He had to undo all the changes to switch world lines not that bull shit about “undoing the breaking of the IBN” etc
It did deserve a 9/10, any time travel show will have plot holes but it had way fewer plotholes than any other time travel show (in any medium) that I have seen.
But mahou shoujo meduka meguca had no plotholes!
One thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXx1rsRQ26Q
This review was fucking terrible and deserves to burn in a plane crash.
9/10 would read again.
I fucking hate you Dark_Sage.
9/10 you’re a p. cool guy.
@Dark_Sage: the whole series is premised around parallel time lines. As you probably know, that theory comes from the original ‘Schrodinger cat’ thought experiment: ‘assume a cat is placed in a sealed chamber in which there is a poison gas canister with a trigger which is activated by the detection a quantum event which has a 50 / 50 change of occurring. Without opening the chamber, what is the current status of the cat?’ The early quantum physists based on their suppositions concerning the sub-atomic world postulated that the cat was BOTH alive and dead until the chamber was opened. This suggested that parallel worlds COULD exist. But why? What if the probability of the quantum event was 1 in a million. Then per force you would have to postulate 999,999 redundant universes. A physicist named David Bohm back in the 1950s developed an alternative theory to obviate the paradox by postulating that this objective space (here) supervenes (runs like a program) on a virtual stochastic (probability) space in which only one outcome is objectified. From an ‘Occam’s razor’ standpoint that is a considerably simpler supposition. Seen any parallel universes (let alone sub-atomic particles) lately?
BTW ‘El Psy Congroo’ is also an anagram for Necrology Ops which could suggest old Okabe may have had a secret death wish ^^
>Rant about grammatical errors in fansubs
>use “begging the question” incorrectly
“Hey Mister,
I am Mad Scientist, It’s so cooooool, Sonuvabitch!”
Anyway, Derp pretty much explained the way everyone sees it except for you, had a great laugh reading your review though :D
well the they did say that world linesall have the same result, but different types of deaths, so how the fuck would he know to tell himself to save mayuri by telling his past self to tell her to watch out for a train? your logic there is completely flawed.
Stein’s Gate is extremely in-depth and as a result very complicated. However, where other TV shows and/or movies failed in this area (Like Inception) Stein’s Gate succeeds in creating and intricately-layered story filled with lots of subtle details (Which the viewer NEEDS to pay attention to in order to a better idea of what’s happening), great scritping, awesome characters and dialogue, etc. Each character has a role that is crucial to the story, whether it was small or large or hidden. One of my friends and I had an in-depth, analytical dicussion regarding the story and we concluded that 99.9% of any loopholes, contradiictions, etc will answered because everything you need to know is explained in the story. Although you NEED to watch it more than three times to fully comprehend the story fully or close to. Like I said, there are a lot of details you need to keep an eye out for, some are visual in scenes and others are in the dialogue and characters reactions. Whomever wrote the starting review is a retard because they either failed to observe any of the details layered throughout the story or they only watched it once and started crying because their five-year-old mind in an adolecent body is incapable of understanding anything beyond the point of picking up a rock and drawing stick figures on a cave wall.
I tend to hate tl;dr rants, so, I apologize, I didn’t read the whole effing rant.
And I also would rather not make more tl;dr, so lemme just say it.
Steins;Gate is worlds better than its predecessor ChäoS;HEAd, though I did enjoy that series anyway. Steins;Gate is a solid, well-planned, unpredictable story, and had likable, multifaceted characters.
Yeah, I know, plenty will disagree.
Thing is, I don’t care.
Over and out.
I’m pretty sure once you send a D-mail, you get sent to another world line. You can’t go to the past, because that’s the past of the completely disconnected previous world line. So you can only backtrack till you get onto the previous world line, and repeat. Go watch source code. much like the concept there.
Best thing I read all week.
You people are probably gonna be hating on me, but I thought I’d react to some of Derp’s comments.
>>He could just use the D-Mail to send a message into the far past which would affect the present. You know, something like “Hey, make sure Mayuri doesn’t put ‘run into a train’ on her calendar.”
>Would not work. If the world line they’re in has it predetermined that you will die, you WILL die. You can stave it off for as long as you can, but you will inevitably be killed.
This…is true, but an extremely weird plot element, to be honest. Steins;Gate, being a time travel anime, frequently regards logic and causality and such as the bases for its story, and thus this kind of ‘fate’ feels out of place.
>>“Hey, this isn’t working. Maybe I should stop being such a fucktard and try something different.”
>If your friend was being killed, and you didn’t know shit about what was CAUSING them to be killed, then you would constantly try to save them.
No, I wouldn’t. I’d constantly think of various ways I could save them, because apparently just running, screaming and crying isn’t going to do shit. I can retry an infinite number of times, so I might as well just sit down as she dies a couple of times, while I think of a way to save her and change that so-called ‘fate’ of hers. I’d be depressed, sure, and it’d be hard for me to focus on doing something other than just wildly screaming like an imbecile, but I think I could pull it off – and Okabe could, too.
>>But let’s talk about what happened when Okabe finally decides to use the D-Mail. Instead of sending a message that could significantly alter the past in a positive way (e.g. “Sup, past me? You know that Shining Finger bitch? Cap her like you’re black.”) he decides to go the route of most retardedness — undoing every D-Mail already sent.
>And how do you know exactly that it would alter the past in a positive way? They tried altering it to be positive and there was always something negative that happened as a result, such as the IBN going missing. He undid every D-Mail because he was trying to change World Lines to return to one where Mayuri DIDN’T die.
He doesn’t know exactly that it would work, which is why he should /experiment/ to see what the results would be if he did send such a D-Mail. He’s supposed to be a MAD SCIENTIST, after all. (And don’t go pulling that “no he isnt, thats hououin kyouma someone entirely else” shit on me.)
>>So Okabe is a douche and kills her father in order to save Mayuri. But oh shi- surprise, surprise. That doesn’t fucking work. So he goes to ruin Rukako’s life.
>He didn’t “kill” anyone. He died in the original timeline, Okabe has to travel to the original timeline, therefore her father dies as a result. “Ruining” Rukako’s life is an opinion and how you choose to view things, so I won’t even bother with that shit.
I don’t remember him killing anyone, so I won’t comment on that. However, it had been established before that Rukako truly desired to be a girl, so making him/her a boy again is, in fact, ruining his/her life.
>>Rukako accidentally broke the IBN 5100 while it was being stored at her temple. So instead of sending a D-Mail that’s like “Hey, be careful around that old PC”, Okabe decides to ruin her life too by changing her into a guy CUZ THAT’LL FIX IT. Yes, this is his course of logic. What a fucking great character.
>And how exactly would he know that sending that message wouldn’t cause even MORE problems? To make matters worse, by sending ANOTHER D-mail, he’s moving farther away from his goal, which is the “original” timeline. So, yeah, you’re definitely wrong here.
Again, why would that be the only way out? If I remember correctly, he heard that theory from characters who heard of it from him in the future (which is totally logical of course – so I’m thinking this might not be true. But where else did he hear of this?), not from some omnipotent being, so there could be another way. But since the Okabe in the future had only tried this way and he knew it could work, he only tells Okabe about that particular way to change the world. But changing the world lines is negative, too, because Kurisu /should/ have died or something. Oh wow, who would have thought? Maybe there’s very little difference between the two world lines, but the whole concept of those Alpha and Beta universes already makes very little sense whatsoever.
>>Then there’s the whole harem thing going on. I know Japan likes its harems, but Jesus Christ has this shit gotten old.
>But it was never a harem, you faggot-face. A male main character surrounded by breasts does not a harem anime make. That’s like saying “Oh, well this main character is male, and he’s surrounded by other male characters, so I guess this is a yaoi anime”.
That’s true, but why exactly were Feyris and Mayuri and Kurisu so goddamned fond of Okabe? He was one of the most ridiculous and childish characters in the anime. When there’s one male and many females, and they all like him for no reason at all, it’s called a harem.
>>Big Bro Guy Who Owns the Place Where Okabe & Co. Rent Their Apartment – Apparently he’s like a major player in the evil organization that controls everything in the world. So, like, apparently his only goal was to retrieve the IBN 5100/destroy all evidence that time travel exists, which begs the question, what was he doing in the 20 episodes prior to this reveal? It’s like his thought process was “Okay, I know Okabe is developing a time machine. My goal is to stop this. So I’m just going to wait until he develops the time machine and gathers up a team of cool people.” Also, due to the fucking time travel bullshit, this girl who works with him was like a mother figure to him in the past. But he didn’t recognize that the girl who’s working for him looks anything like the woman who took him in when he was down? I mean, holy fucking what the fuck?
>His goal wasn’t to capture Okabe’s time machine. Therefore, he has to actually WAIT for it to be built. You see how these things work? He was employed by SERN, who’s entire goal is time-travel. Hence, they’ll be wanting Okabe’s time machine. He doesn’t recognize Suzuha as his employee because she never WAS his employee in the timeline. She went back in time, so how would she exist in the past and present as two separate people?
Suzuha might not have been his employee, but she did take care of him for a pretty long time, if I recall correctly. However, this wasn’t true for the first couple of episodes, and when it became true, Suzuha had already committed suicide. So there was no Suzuha for mister Braun to remember. I think this was explained pretty well, but I might be misunderstanding.
>>Okabe is the worst character of all. He just spazzes out whenever he wants to get anything done. For an unknown number of times, he tries to save Mayuri without explaining the situation to anyone. He literally just freaks out and starts running to where Mayushi was, not even bothering to remember where she was going to intercept her or anything. And heaven forbid he take five minutes to explain what’s going on to his friends and rally their help. No, that would be too convenient. He is fucking terrible.
>Who the fuck is going to believe him? You said it yourself, he spazzes out all the time. Okabe is highly eccentric, so who the fuck is going to believe that he’s from the future? The only one that did was Kurisu, and that’s because Okabe was able to explain shit that only she would have knowledge of. Also, time line changes, obviously. If in one time line she dies by a train, and the other she’s hit by a car, then how the fuck is he going to magically predict what will kill her next?
While Okabe was indeed a moron, I think his friends would take him seriously if he’d say Mayuri is in great danger. He could have at least tried, which I don’t think he did (but I might be forgetting something).
I’m probably forgetting a shitload of things, but whatever.
I wouldn’t think this anime was worth a 9/10 at all, but apparently you (Dark_Sage) do, so suit yourself.
hey… you should play the Visual Novel first if you want to say something like this y’know… and if you are not satisfied that he only tried to save mayuri in two episode, the visual novel would lengthen it repeat back everything they said from the start just like in haruhi, for me its good that they shorten it a bit than watching 8 episode with almost all the same in haruhi…*I do love haruhi anime though*
and the fact he doesn’t use D-mail is because it could only worsen the timeline just what happen to Akihabara y’know… and~~ if you really wanted if this anime really have a plothole… just play the Visual Novel ’cause the anime only take the most important point and left some other point unaswered in the anime
oh yeah, feyris father is NOT THAT RICH BEFORE y’know
for such a poorly writing essay, if one can actually call it such, I forgive you for giving it a 9/10.
Yeah, uh, you’ll probably never read this.
This is really fucking stupid, for a number of reasons.
Re: Feyris’s dad… the point isn’t what he did with the IBN whatever… the point is he sold it. He had all this cash to give to some dbags that didn’t exist, and when he found out said dbags don’t exist, he was left with some extra cash. Yeah.
Re: Okabe trying to undo each DMail, I feel you didn’t pay close enough attention to the rope analogy/Mayurii dying 5 billion times. I think it was even explained in the show, that no matter what Okabe tries to do, each time line converges to another point. For the same reason everyone becomes friends with Feyris even after her dmail, for the same reason Mayurii dies a trillion times no matter what Okabe tries. This is really just suspension of disbelief… this is just how it works in the show. He could cover Mayurii in bubble wrap, toss her inside an unbreakable safe and she would still die somehow. Is this trite? A cheap trick? Annoyingly convenient? I don’t know, I guess so. But at least the writers are consistent with this pattern.
Re: killing off Feyris’s dad and fucking up Rukako’s life, well that’s part of the alpha world line, and Okabe’s actually a lot smarter than you (well actually Kurisu figures this out but whatever) that the only way to get to the original world line where Mayushii dies is to get closer to the Beta world line. Truthfully, no matter what Ruko did, the IBN would have broken, as part of this inevitability. If she didn’t break it, maybe it’d short-circuit. Maybe a flood would wash it away. This is the implication of Mayurii dying 5 billion times, and this is precisely why they dedicated an entire episode or so to pointing this out. It’s entirely consistent with the established rules of the show, even if the rules may seem arbitrary.
Re: The woman who raised Mr. Braun (Suzu) only raised him in a different world line, where she goes to the past and fucks up (well not really). His part-time assistant Suzu did not save him in that time line. Who knows what the fuck happened to Mr. Braun or who saved him when his house burnt down in the timeline before Suzu goes to the past. Maybe some other random old lady?
I gotta agree that the Harem part was bullshit. What the fuck was that? I forgive them because it was kind of irrelevant since we knew it was Okabe-Kurisu.
Incidentally, I loved the tsundereness of Kurisu so fuck you too. I thought they played it well enough, where her character acted like a tsundere but never really got around to the lovey dovey part of it. They lampshaded it brilliantly.
Anyways I forgive you for agreeing that this show is fucking awesome 9.1/10
I read every comment on the site, and you’d be surprised how many people use the “Most Recent Comments” feature. So yeah, it was read and I accept your conclusion. (>_O)b
nice read.
No you don’t understand. You should’ve understood when Suzuha went back to the past to try to get the IBN 5100 but failed, and keep in mind that when they first got it from the shrine Suzuha already have traveled back and got it for them.I thought you would’ve when he traveled in the past 3 weeks to try to save Kurisu but failed. Basically, it’s the attractor field that is the main issue with this. No matter what he does, in the alpha world line, Mayuri dies. Doesn’t matter whether or not he killed shining finger, or if he trapped her in a safe clean room. She would definitely die. In the Beta world line, Kurisu dies, same situation as Mayuri’s. The only way to prevent that and save both of them is to change the world line into something completely different than the alpha or the beta ones, the Steins world line.
Actually, if he sent a Dmail saying that he needed to kill shining finger mayuri would still die, he needed to undo all Dmails so he could go back to the beta world line, i’m suprised you didn’t get something that simple.
might be a little late to say this and someone else might have said this already but steins gate is based off of a visual novel and usually when a manga, v/n, or light novel is adapted into an anime they usually cut things out to make it fit into the 12 or 24 episode series or change a couple of minor details like switching roles in some situations a prime example of this is sword art online (but i digress) so this could explain a couple of the things that you found wrong with it.
Indeed. that Nae story line that didn’t make it into the anime still haunts me.
You posted a meme that made fun of, “thinking too hard”, and then you proceeded to “think” too hard. Was this intentional?
I mean, I get that it has plotholes, however, your explanation of said plotholes is a plothole in itself. Meaning you did a very poor job of explaining which parts of the show were plotholes.
The point of undoing the D-mails in order was to jump onto or “revert” back to the original alpha world line. They already mulled over how sending a d-mail would be too easy, and why it wouldn’t work.
Think of it like this, changing the past = possibilities of drastic changes in the future.
AKA butterfly effect.
But trying to alter the past so that you obtain a specific future (or rather, a specific turn of events) is MUCH more difficult in theory, or in the given boundaries/rules of steins gate.
Dismissing anyone who defends the show as a “fanboy/fangirl” is rather ironically ignorant to say the least. Especially when it comes from someone who doesn’t have the ability to explain the “plotholes” in a clear or coherent manner.
You must be new here, to take anything D_S says in his posts seriously.
First of all, Im too late for this..
Second, you’re are too dumb to rate or even write this article.
Third, I wasted my time reading your article bcause at first I thought maybe there’s something write about the plotholes.. but I was wrong…
I beg your question… What sort of rating system you use ? is 9/10 is the worst ? which makes 1/10 the best ? or this question is to hard for you to answer..
Fourth, get a life.. you think making 24 episodes of anime is easy ? how bout you make your own SPOCK ?
Fifth, Im not a fan of Steins;Gate… Im going to change the world without stupid people like YOU ! I ll never forgive you if people read your article before watching the greatest anime of all time !
You must be new here.
What’s more interesting is that the last two comments and the last two replies are almost identical in tone and content lol
Must be because it’s a Steins;Gate post.
Salt level:
lol, just lol.
>Im going to change the world without stupid people like YOU !
EL PSY KONGROO