Steins;Gate – 06

Episode 06 –

I didn’t even realize that Steins;Gate was set to be a 24 episode series, but with that in mind, the wickedly slow pacing of this series suddenly makes a lot much more sense. The slow buildup and fleshing out of certain aspects and characters to this series is working out quite well. Not to mention, the slow pacing works as an advantage in trying to add intrigue to the situation at hand, while at the same time fully exploring the premise of the whole “time traveling text messages” idea. On a little side note, I am noticing quite a few little details that might seem miniscule now, but I feel will probably come back and play a larger role later on in the series. Hopefully I’m not imagining things…

The character that sticks out the most, as of now, would be Suzuha and her very anti-Makise attitude. Suzuha obviously has some sort of connection to the future, which is made even more blatantly obvious with the whole “Makise Kurisu has done nothing to me IN THE PAST”, implying that it happened in the future instead. What this does make me wonder, though, is if SERN has actually completed a perfected time traveling machine, and Suzuha’s presence is a result of the success. Of course, the bigger question to ask here is why Suzuha is here in the first place; it’s not like she was just leisurely wandering around in the past for no reason. There has to be some sort of important reason why she is involving herself with Okarin, but as to what that reason is in the first place, is still a mystery.

The other odd character here would be the now Lab Member 005, Kiryu Moeka. The one interesting little detail to note here is that Moeka was sending a text message to Okarin during the time Makise was experimenting with it. Assuming Makise kept the 5 day limit of the time traveling, those messages should have been sent back to the day that the satellite fell on the building. Does her search for the IBN 5100 and “FB” have some sort of correlation with this? I don’t really know, but there seems to be more to the situation that the simple “she’s weird” argument some people might throw out there.

What I do appreciate about this series is the story’s gradual, yet rather logical progression of events. I might not be a quantum physics person or anything, but the way in which the story explains things and lets events unfold adds an air of believability to much of what is happening, which in itself makes this series more intriguing. For example, the way in which Okarin, Makise, Daru, and Mayushii went about experimenting and figuring out the limits of the microwave machine is one way in which the story tries to maintain it’s premise as “based on reality”. Quite frankly, I think they’ve done a rather good job with it so far.

In the end, this episode is still just as slow as all of the previous ones, with a ton of slow but carefully planned out buildup. There are probably hints and key details I am looking over here, but that’s exactly what makes seeing how the plot unfolds so intriguing. The only big issue here is that, once again, we don’t really have too much signs of a dangerous major conflict of any sort. There is a lot of foreshadowing (SERN theories, etc), but foreshadowing is foreshadowing; no conflict of significant note has actually happened yet. When it does happen though, oh man, am I anticipating something great.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.8/5

Screenshots are later in the post.