Steins; Gate and the Art of Telling Good Time Travel Stories
Someone once said sarcastically that all good stories start at the end. Steins; Gate is a great anime with a great storyline, romance and weird fan service. LB3PTMAN reveals what lies behind this time travel story. Steins; Gate was not my first anime. I grew up with Naruto, Inuyasha and Yu Yu Hakusho. However, with age, he gave up anime and moved on to other shows. Eventually, I started to miss quality anime and found a site that had all of Naruto and watched it in one breath. But in the end I was much older and decided to look for more anime with older themes. The top title on the site's list was a little anime fiction about time travel called Steins; Gate. As a fan of all things science fiction and time travel, I thought I'd appreciate it. I'm not going to lie - I didn't like it at first. It has a very strange intro which made me feel confused. The main characters' habit of using strange vocabulary and telling equally strange stories did not improve.
This feeling will go away if you revisit the title, which is what I hinted at in the introduction. Steins; Gate is a time travel anime that starts at the end or ends at the beginning, whichever way you want to see it. Thus, in any subsequent viewings [I highly recommend re-watching at least the first episode], an attentive viewer with a good memory will have a complete understanding of what is happening and how everything is connected. Anime follows the classic paths of a harem, where a bunch of women appear in the life of the protagonist, changing his life. What really sets this anime apart from other romance stories is that love is not the main motive here. Anime heroines are not written under Okabe [the main character], they are independent, at least they have their own needs and desires. Ninety percent of the time I chat about media, movies, TV shows, or games, I end up limiting it to characters. For me, the basis of a good story is the characters who interact with each other in it. For a truly great story, characters need to be more than just cartoons. This is what the anime follows. While there are all the classic character archetypes that could fit your expectations, each of them still has enough personality to believe in them as people and understand the choices they make. Time Travel in Steins; Gate is not perfect because it is almost impossible to create a perfect logical story in such a context. The latest Avengers have done a pretty good job with this format, slightly changing its essence and making fun of the cliches. But this was only a small part of the film, and even then, the end left us confused. Steins; Gate, with its simplicity of time travel logic, makes things simple and easy to follow. That doesn't mean there's no techno jargon out there, whether real or meaningless, but it pretty much keeps everything simple and accessible to a wide audience.
The downside is that despite the fact that in theory this is a great title, people who are not familiar with anime as such may misunderstand it. Excessive fanservice may seem inappropriate for many. Right now, I still recommend this title to introduce people to anime, at least those who are sci-fi fans, as it's still a great time travel story at its core with good romance. But I would like there to be more such moments. For a show with well-developed female characters, it would be nice to see more great male characters. Characters such as Mr. Brown and Itaru at least get a little deeper development. Men in anime are as often as women appear to be caricatured or sometimes simply impossible to exist. There is this too. So I would love to see these two gain real depth of character. Now that the cons are listed, back to the good one, namely two points. It's time to talk about Okabe's relationship with Mayuri and Makize. This relationship is fundamentally different, but is a big part of what makes Steins; Gate so good. Therefore, first of all, we look at Mayuri.
Throughout the first half of the anime, Okabe was largely a comedic character, speaking nonsense and rarely being completely serious. There were times when he got more serious. But it's only when his heart breaks that we really see growth. Mayuri is taken away from Okabe over and over again, and there is nothing he can do about it. He is ready to give up his life, but he will not give it up. This is the most humane thing we've seen in Okaba, and if it doesn't break your heart, do you have any at all? For a long time, Mayuri was the only one who put up with his behavior and stayed close. Yet he cannot save her when she needs him most. This also leads to Okabe and Makiza growing up as he continues to recognize her in endless time loops and she is also always ready to come to his aid. It always seemed a little obvious that Makiza and Okabe would fall in love, but it takes time, even if he has more time than hers.
It is she who pulls him out of the abyss into which he fell. She ended up helping him in his attempts to save Mayuri. Okabe is no longer alone. This is especially cool, since all his life he pushed people away with the way he behaved. However, despite his antics, she cares about him. I don't want you to take this as an overview. Stains; Gate was talked about a hundred times better than me. I try to speak subjectively than objectively. As I said at the beginning, this is a great anime with great development, romance, and weird fan service. Now that we end at the beginning, I can add that this is much more than it seems. Above all, this show will make you want to return to your familiar lab for an enjoyable time travel. The Topic of Article: Steins; Gate and the Art of Telling Good Time Travel Stories. |
