Why Steins;Gate is one of my favorite anime series

~~~ This review will contain spoilers but I will mark all of them so you can read it even if you haven't watched the show yet.

"The universe has a beginning, but no end. — Infinity. Stars, too, have their own beginnings, but their own power results in their destruction. — Finite. It is those who possess wisdom who are the greatest fools. History has shown us this. You could say that this is the final warning from God to those who resist."

With those words the story of Steins;Gate begins and it immediately sets the mysterious tone for the rest of the show. Steins;Gate is one of the most popular and highest rated anime of all time and for a damn good reason. It has a really well thought out story with pretty much 0 plot-holes, characters with a lot of depth, good music etc. A show about time travel that manages to actually explain how time travel works without any of it being magic of some kind is definitely not common, but this anime manages to do exactly that extremely well. I have watched this anime 3 times now and also played the original visual novel so I thought it's time to write a review. I'll split this review up in 2 halves, the first 11 episodes of the series and then the rest.

Ep 1-11

The first half is considered slow by a lot of people but I personally think the pacing is on point. After having played the VN I'd go as far as to say it's a little too fast at times and skips some parts that I would've liked to be included, for example Kurisu explaining the exact function of the Phone Microwave (name subject to change), but I can see why they decided to cut it short. They only had 24 episodes to work with after all and I think overall they did an amazing job at adapting all the important parts of the story. There are some very minor plotholes in some parts though, but again, they're so minimal that if I hadn't read the VN I don't think I would've even noticed.

Story:
Episodes 1-11 mostly focus on introducing all the characters and setting up the events for the second half. Okabe and the other lab members find out that their microwave happens to be able to send messages to the past if you connect it with someone's phone and quickly start experimenting with the so called D-mails (short for DeLorean Mail). At first they try fairly harmless things like sending the winning Lotto numbers to their past selves but eventually things start getting more and more serious... They start sending messages over a decade into the past to change one of the lab member's gender, unknowingly saving the father of one of their friends which results into Akihabara looking completely different from before and more, not realizing that they've made some huge mistakes. He also finds out that in the future, the world will be a dystopia ruled by Sern and is now faced with the task to stop that from happening.

Characters:
Some of the characters might seem a little one dimensional in the first couple of episodes but that's done intentionally. Okabe Rintarou, aka Hououin Kyouma, just appears to act like some delusional middle schooler who tries to sound cool by using complex words he doesn't understand. Daru might seem like some guy who never leaves his house and is overly obsessed with anime girls. Well, none of these statements are untrue per se, but these traits only lay the groundwork for the incredible character development of the second half.

Atmosphere / Sound design:
The overall atmosphere in the first half is fairly calm and light-hearted. Seeing all the lab members fooling around, getting to know each other better and enjoying their time is definitely enjoyable. I think the reason some people call the first half slow is exactly because of this reason. You're under the impression that not much is happening but as soon as you get to the second half you immediately see how all the seemingly harmless experiments they did for fun now carry a lot of importance for the story. I believe that while it might feel slow at first, you'll definitely appreciate the first half a lot more once you've finished watching the anime. That aside though, the episodes 1-11 have a lot of good OST's which definitely fit the tone of the first half. The opening and ending song is amazing aswell and I never once skipped it.

Ep 12-24

The second half is where the story really picks up and I can't talk about a lot of things without spoiling, so most of it will be tagged. The last 12 episodes are a lot more serious than the first and it's where Steins;Gate truly shines with its masterfully crafted storytelling.

Story:
Every episode in the second half shows the consequences of their experiments and how Okabe further and further descends into despair, trying his best to save Mayuri who got killed by Moeka who works for Sern, who want to take their time machine from them. This leads to Okabe having to make some difficult choices, like having to decide between the lives of two people, erasing people's memories and so on. Eventually he finds out that to save Mayuri and save the world from a dystopia lead by Sern, he has to undo all of his previously sent D-mails. For Okabe, this means having to change Luka's gender again, effectively "killing" Faris' father and finding a way to undo Moeka's D-mail which isn't an easy task knowing that she works for Sern. Eventually though, he manages to undo all but one D-mail, which he realizes would mean sacrificing Kurisu for Mayuri. He ends up going through with it but not without regrets. Eventually Suzuha from the future visits Okabe with a time machine and warns him of WWIII which will happen in the future if they don't save Kurisu. The final conclusion is by far the best part of the show in my opinion and it's so satisfying to see Okabe's reaction to the message sent to him by himself 15 years in the future. After everything he's been through and having to sacrifice the person he loved, he gets an offer to be able to not only save her, but also the world and end things once and for all. Everything that led up to this point happened for this very moment and seeing everything perfectly falling into place is just amazing. In the visual novel there are multiple endings that you can reach in the second half of the game but the anime decided to go for the "true" ending, which was definitely the right call in my opinion. These optional endings did add more depth to characters like Luka, Suzuha and especially Faris but there was no way for them to adapt them into the show without making multiple OVA's.

Characters:
The characters overall definitely get a lot better in the second half. That's not to say I didn't already love them in the first half, because it was used to, as I said before, set up the story, but also make us care about the characters -so that when something happens to them we are actually concerned about them. Okabe's character also completely changes in the second half of the show. He goes from being someone who calls himself a mad scientist, jokes about everything and doesn't even take himself seriously, to risking his life to save his dear friends and blaming himself for being so careless with his experiments. His character development is certainly on point. The thing is, because most other character lose their memories every time Okabe time-leaps, they don't really get the chance to develop all that much. However, it is very interesting to see how Okabe's relationship and the way he interacts with them changes after he time-leaps over and over again.

Atmosphere / Sound design:
Because of the second half's generally darker tone the overall atmosphere and music changes accordingly and it really fits. The second half also has a lot of amazing OST's that always compliment the scene so I really have nothing to complain about here.

Ep 25 / OVA

Episode 25 is actually not canon which I wasn't even aware of the first time I watched the anime, but I think it wraps up the series really well and provides some more closure which I enjoyed. One thing that I noticed, is that the woman that Okabe chases, because he thinks she is Suzuha, is supposed to be her mom, but because Steins;Gate 0 didn't exist at the point of the creation of this OVA, that woman looks nothing like Suzuha's actual mother which later was revealed to be Yuki Amane. It's just a small thing I noticed but it doesn't really bother me that much I still think it's worth watching.

In conclusion:
Steins;Gate is absolutely amazing in every aspect, the music, the characters, the story, there really isn't anything I can talk negatively about, aside from some very minor things that were in the VN but didn't appear in the anime. I would really just recommend this anime to everyone no matter what type of show you usually watch, it's just that good. If you've stuck with me and actually read the entire review, thanks a lot, it took me a while to write but it was fun.

El. Psy. Congroo.~~~