Several series this season were given poor plot descriptions in early promotion, and Steins; Gate was one of the worst offenders. Inaccurate though the pitch appears to be I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.
Steins;Gate is an animated retelling of the story from the Japanese visual novel of the same name. The game was the second collaboration between 5pb and Nitroplus, a spritual seuccessor to their first game Chaos;Head, which was also adapted to animation. Steins;Gate takes place in the same world as Chaos;Head but besides the obvious similarity in odd naming structure they bear no other real connection.
Steins;Gate follows a delusional self-proclaimed mad scientist who goes by the alias Hououin Kyouma (real name Okabe Rintaro, called Okarin by his friends) who believes he is at odds with a mysterious Organization who controls the world. In this effort he established the Future Gadget Lab for the creation of experimental devices to use against the Organization. He often suspects people he meets of being Organization members sent to interfere with him in some way, and makes emergency phone calls to no one on his cell-phone. Though his devices are generally useless and perform no abnormal function, he has managed to tinker with a microwave (which operates by receiving cellphone signals) to the point that instead of cooking food it transforms it into a gel-like substance.
Gel bananas from the Future Gadget Lab's phone-microwave
When mysterious events begin to occur around Okarin we start questioning just how mad he truly is. Clearly speaking to no one through a cellphone is not normal behaviour, but when he learns that a conference on time travel theory that he attends in the first episode was actually cancelled, and that a researcher he found dead the same day is still alive and has no recollection of their earlier meeting, we know there is more happening under the surface and it ties into real-world legends phenomenally.
In late 2000 a man calling himself John Titor began to appear on the internet claiming to be a time traveller. He shared photos and schematics of his time machine as well as information concerning the state of the world in his future. He disappeared in early 2001. Early in the series Okarin makes contact with a man claiming to be John Titor in the present (2010) and discovers that his own recollections of Titor's exploits in 2000 did not occur and are only now coming to pass. After making contact with Titor, Okarin begins an investigation into Titor's claims of research activities by SERN (the fictional equivalent of CERN) and for an IBN 5100 (the story's analog for the IBM 5100 which Titor claimed he was sent to the past to obtain). The pacing may be slow for some viewers as there is no action to speak of. Those averse to talking-heads may quickly become bored, but for fans who enjoy modern-day science fiction intrigue should find the series compelling. My main concern is that this is a two-cour series, and I'm not sure the story has the legs to keep up the drama for 24 episodes. For now I am enjoying the ride and the tie-in to the real life story of John Titor. Steins;Gate is available for free streaming from Crunchyroll.
No comments:
Post a Comment