Thursday, September 19, 2013

Steins;Gate: Complete Series, Part Two (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)



A scientific review of Steins;Gate...
As I write this, there have been 5 reviews posted on Amazon. They have refrained from spoiling much of the plot, and I won't either. So far no one has really commented on the scientific knowledge base referenced in the series, so I thought I'd share that.

Steins;Gate falls into a relatively small genre of anime where many of the plot points are adaptations of some field of science, in this case "chaos theory." Other examples are Noein which is based on quantum mechanic philosophies, and Serial Experiments Lain which is based on artificial intelligence. About half of the titles of Steins;Gate episodes are direct references to concepts in chaos theory, most importantly the "butterfly effect." The butterfly effect quips that a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas can cause a typhoon 2 weeks later in Tokyo. That is the premise of the show, that by sending 18 character text messages into the past one can dramatically shift the future.

It's hard to go into...

Let's play with time....
Rintaro Okabe considers himself a mad scientist. He spends most of his time inventing useless gadgets and conceiving wild conspiracy theories. Through sheer luck, he and his friend Itaru Hashida actually create a machine that can send text messages to the past. Through their experimentation and tinkering with time, they keep changing their world, though only Okabe is able to remember the previous timeline. But playing around with something like time is bound to have consequences, as Okabe finds out all too well.....

I generally don't have much interest in time travel stories. But if the premise sounds interesting, I'll give it a try. The premise of Steins;Gate sounded vaguely entertaining, but I might not have tried it if it hadn't been streaming on Crunchyroll and had high ratings on AnimeNewsNetwork. The first few episodes were fun, but I wasn't really hooked until around 8 episodes in. That is where the story really starts. And boy, it doesn't let up until the end! The...

El Psy Congroooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So you say you've been...back to the future? Traveled thousands of years across time and space via steam power? Or maybe you've just cheated and did a slingshot around the sun at warp speed?

Whatever the means, you haven't seen a time traveling anime or really...a show like this. Tute tuu doooooooooo!

Stein's Gate, from the characters to the ideas, to just the execution of each episode is a masterpiece. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will shake your fist in anger at the events that will transpire within the episodes of this series. If you know the old time traveler saying about "not stepping on anything." Then consider the danger of sending a mere text message back in time.

This takes a simple concept and completely fleshes it out revealing the good and the bad. How much can you change? What will change when the world line shifts? Each factor is brilliantly revealed and by the time the end credits roll, you will be crying out for your own...

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