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Thankfully the human side of the tale is handled in a surprisingly decent manner, but this is tempered by the fact that a number of basic questions are never actually addressed. This has the unfortunate effect of removing much of the chaos that is inherent in a story about time travel, and replacing it with predictability and melodrama. One of the problems within the narrative is the inevitable conflict between human drama and science fiction, and in true anime fashion the emotional side wins out. Unfortunately it's not all fun and games. Ideas like the Butterfly Effect (which, given the visual cues, should be obvious to anyone), the Observer Effect and Schrödinger's Cat have been used to support the problems caused by time travel (and their resolution), and in that respect Steins Gate deserves a good deal of praise for trying to use science to support the science fiction (and it does it far better than the likes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica). The show throws around a number of concepts and theories to explain or justify certain aspects of the science fiction, and on quite a few occasions these have been woven into the main body of the plot very well. The plot follows a logical, if somewhat timeworn progression, and while there are numerous recycles, repeats, reboots, and "do overs" that form an integral part of any time travel tale, these are handled in a way that would have turned Endless Eight from tedium incarnate into an arc that was at least watchable.
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Everything seems placid and normal until the day that Okabe and Mayuri decide to attend a lecture given by the eminent Professor Nakabachi on the subject of time machines and time travel.įor the most part Steins Gate is a surprisingly well thought out series that applies the notion of cause and effect in a reasonably intelligent manner. At first it seems as though this device does nothing more than turn bananas into a green, jelly-like substance, but it has a hidden side effect that no one knows about. Okabe spends his days making strange inventions with Daru, and the oddest one so far is the Phone Microwave. Originally a visual novel by 5pb and Nitroplus, Steins Gate tells the story of Okabe Rintaro (the self styled mad scientist known as Hououin Kyouma), and his "colleagues" at the Future Gadget Laboratory, Hashida "Daru" Itaru and Shiina Mayuri. When it comes to anime though, the concept of travelling through time has generally lacked in substance, delivery, and even narrative relevance. These add a veneer of believability so that the average person can achieve the suspension of disbelief required to buy into the storyline. More often than not the implausibility of any sort of time travel is camouflaged with pseudo-science, techno-babble, and a good smattering of conversational quantum-hokum.
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Inherent paradoxes that will occur whenever a narrative decides to hop, skip or jump. Part of the reason for this is because our scientific understanding of "reality" is still in its infancy, and this means that the writers for shows like Doctor Who, Quantum Leap, even Star Trek, must apply their imagination and creativity in order to resolve some of the When it comes to entertainment, one of the easiest things to get wrong is the concept of time travel.
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"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbley. Forced across the diverging threads of past and present, Okabe must shoulder the burdens that come with holding the key to the realm of time. and Nitroplus, Steins Gate takes Okabe through the depths of scientific theory and practicality. Though miraculous in itself, the phenomenon doesn't provide anything concrete in Okabe's search for a scientific breakthrough that is, until the lab members are spurred into action by a string of mysterious happenings before stumbling upon an unexpected success-the Phone Microwave can send emails to the past, altering the flow of history.Īdapted from the critically acclaimed visual novel by 5pb.
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The self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintarou Okabe rents out a room in a rickety old building in Akihabara, where he indulges himself in his hobby of inventing prospective "future gadgets" with fellow lab members: Mayuri Shiina, his air-headed childhood friend, and Hashida Itaru, a perverted hacker nicknamed "Daru." The three pass the time by tinkering with their most promising contraption yet, a machine dubbed the "Phone Microwave," which performs the strange function of morphing bananas into piles of green gel.
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