“Steins;Gate” the overall series… not only is it highly recommended, it is also on my list for “Best Anime Series on Blu-ray for 2012”!
Images courtesy of ©2011 5pb nitroplus steins. 2012 FUNimation. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Steins;Gate: Part 2
DURATION: Episodes 13-25 (300 Minutes)
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition (1:78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen), Dolby Digital, Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0, Subtitles: English
RATED: 14+
COMPANY: FUNimation
RELEASE DATE: December 18, 2012
Directed by Hiroshi Hamasaki, Takuya Sato, Tomoki Kobayashi
Series Composition by Jukki Hanada
Music by Jun Murakami, Takeshi Abo
Original Character Design by huke
Character Design by Kyuuta Sakai
Art Director: Koji Eto
Chief Animation Director: Kyuuta Sakai
Anime Production: WHITE FOX
Featuring the voices of:
Asami Imai/Trina Nishimura as Kurisu Makise
Mamoru Miyano/J. Michael Tatum as RintarÅ Okabe
Ayano Yamamoto/Brina Palencia as Nae TennÅji
Halko Momoi/Jad Saxton as Faris Nyannyan
Kana Hanazawa/Jackie Ross as Mayuri Shiina
Masaki Terasoma/Christopher R. Sabat as YÅ«go TennÅji
Saori Goto/Jessica Cavanagh as Moeka Kiryū
Tomokazu Seki/Tyson Rinehart as Itaru Hashida (Daru)
Yu Kobayashi/Lindsay Seidel as Ruka Urushibara
Yukari Tamura/Cherami Leigh as Suzuha Amane
Hiroshi Tsuchida/Patrick Seitz as John Titor
The microwave is a time machine and the girl gets shot. Okarin sends another text. Nukes another banana. The mad scientist meddled with forces he never should have known about. The girl gets run over by a car. Okarin goes back to stop the bleeding. Dashes madly through the dark streets. Races against time. The girl gets hit by a train. Failures and flatlines multiply in a ghastly pattern of repetition.
Over and over and over again until sanity is stripped away and you start to notice shapes slipping in and out of the shadows. SERN. The girl gets stabbed before and after the kissing. Okarin grows frantic. Bodies pile up around him. SERN is getting closer. The girl is bleeding. A Top Secret Future Gadget Lab member from the future is their only hope. The blood sprays and the girl dies. SERN destroys the world. Kills all the girls. There is time for one last try. Now Okarin bleeds but he won’t stop. Ever. The microwave is a time machine and the girl always gets shot.
In a shocking twist, Shiina Mayuri reveals herself to be a Rounder spy is killed by Moeka Kiryu. Now Rintaro must go through time travel to rescue Moeka but also tries to find out Moeka’s true mission. Rintaro learns from one time leap that SERN has targeted the lab because Rintaro created a time machine and was publicly about to announce it.
Now knowing the truth that his creation has led to a friend’s death, will Rintaro be able to prevent Mayuri from getting killed? Find out in the last half of “Steins;Gate Part 2”!
What is “Steins;Gate”?
With the success of their video game “Chaos;Head”, 5pb. and Nitroplus went to work on a new Japanese visual novel titled “Steins;Gate” which was released for the XBOX 360 in 2009 and followed by a release for Windows, PSP, and PlayStation 3. And a storyline that relates to events presented in “Chaos;Head”.
As with other 5pb. works, “Steins;Gate” would receive a manga adaptation for Media Factory’s “Monthly Comic Alive” before its first video game release, a secondary adaptation later that year for Mag Garden’s “Monthly Comic Blade” and an anime adaptation courtesy of White Fox for 2011.
“Steins;Gate” is directed by Hiroshi Hamasaki (“BioHunter”, “Ai Monogatari”, “Texhnolyze”), Takuya Sato (“Armitage III”, “CODE-E”, “Fate/Stay night”) and Tomoki Kobayashi (“Galaxy Angel”, “Amagami SS+”, “Rozen Maiden”) and series composition by Jukki Hanada (“Campione!”, “Chobits”, “CODE-E”, “Accel World”). Character designs are by Kyuuta Sakai (“Pita Ten”, “Strawberry Marshmallow”, “Ichigo Mashimaro) and music by Jun Murakami (“Grappler Baki”) and Takeshi Abo (“Memories Off 2nd”, “Monochrome Factor” and “Robotics;Notes”).
With a film in production and curiosity by video gamers of the series, “Steins;Gate”, the anime series will be released in two parts, with the first part released back in September 2012 and now part two with the second half of the series on Blu-ray & DVD combo-pack courtesy of FUNimation released in Dec. 2012.
“Steins;Gate” revolves around a scientist named Rintaro Okabe. Seen as a mad scientist, life for the scientist is getting out of hand as people he had conversations with are acting as it never happened, people he saw dead are alive hours later and situations that he feels are real, never happened. His friend and colleagues worry that perhaps the scientist is going crazy but perhaps Okabe’s latest invention, a microwave that can send text messages into the past and also allowing him to travel between alternate worlds is working…or perhaps, is this all in his mind?
And if the invention does indeed work, how will it benefit mankind when the man who invented it thinks he will be a messiah that can change the future?
Meanwhile, Okabe brings in a few people to join his team. Kurisu Makise is a neuroscience researcher who is often at odds with Okabe, but despite her being repulsed by him, she enjoys spending time with him and his friends, because despite being intelligent, she has been having personal problems with her father.
Working alongside Rintaro is the otaku Mayuri Shiina, a cosplay fanatic and airhead. Itaru “Daru” Hashida, the hacker and otaku who is always wanting to get close to women.
Also, featured is Moeka Kiryu, a shy girl that Rintaro has given the nickname “Shining Finger” (because she prefers to communicate only via texting, even if she is right next to the person she is communicating with); Ryka Urashibara, a male bishonen who looks very much like a girl; Feris Nyannyan, who works with Mayuri at a maid cafe; Suzuha Amane, a motorcycle riding girl who works for Rintaro’s landlord.
What happens when these characters start finding out about Rintaro’s possible time machine?
In part 2 of “Steins;gate”, Rintaro and friends must try to find out what to do with the time machine, now that SERN has revealed themselves of wanting to stop it and going so far to kill Mayuri. But each time Rintaro time leaps, the result is the same, Mayuri dies. But why does she die and what is SERN’s true intention? Meanwhile, Suzuha, the part-time employee for Rintaro’s landlord seems to know a lot about time travel and how Rintaro may be able to save Mayuri? Is there more to Suzuha than Rintaro and Kurisu know about her?
VIDEO:
“Steins;Gate: Part 2” is presented in 1080p High Definition. Although there are major animation studios who do a great job with some TV series, the fact is that they are busy doing several series at a time. But when you have a company who doesn’t have so many things going on all at once, sometimes these anime studios put all they have into an anime TV series, making it so well-detailed, that you can’t help but be impressed. My belief is that White Fox, the animation studio behind “Steins;Gate” put a lot into this series because it looks fantastic.
I love the amount of detail that goes into the character design but also the backgrounds. If anything, the cool look of what video gamers have seen through the “Steins;Gate” video games will notice the the high quality production with the TV series. There are scenes that are intentionally created to look soft, but colors are vibrant at times and if anything, the series looks amazingly robust and well-saturated on Blu-ray!
As for any problematic issues, I did see some banding mainly scenes that focused on Okabe but nothing terrible.
AUDIO:
“Steins;Gate: Part 2” is presented in English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0. As one would expect, the dynamic range for the English dub is much better and also noticed a good use of the surround channels for ambiance. A lot of bird chirping can be heard in this anime series but overall, lossless audio is very good.
“I actually enjoyed the English dub a lot more because of the 5.1 lossless soundtrack but the more in-depth sci-fi writing. But both are well-acted, it’s just a slight difference of what was added to the English dub.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Steins;Gate: Part 2” comes with the following special features:
- Episode 19 Audio Commentary – Featuring an entertaining audio commentary by Patrick Seitz (voice of John Titor) and Jessica Cavanaugh (voice of Moeka Kiryu).
- Episode 24 Audio Commentary – Featuring Colleen Clinkenbeard (ADR Director) and Nathanael Harrison (Mix Engineer) and Stephen Hoff (ADR Engineer).
- Textless Opening Song “Hacking to the Gate” (Version 1)
- Textless Opening Song “Hacking to the Gate” (Version 2)
- Textless Closing Song “Toki Tsukasadoru Juuni no Meiyaki”
- Textless Closing Song “Sky Clad Observer”
- U.S. Trailer – (1:06) The Funimation trailer for “Steins;Gate”.
- FUNimation Entertainment Trailers
EXTRAS:
“Steins;Gate: Part 2” comes with the entire series on both Blu-ray and DVD.
More often, you see an anime’s brilliance typically when you start off with an anime series. From the first half of a 24-26 episode series, you know what you are getting.
“Steins;Gate” is not one of those anime series. From its first half, you are introduced to characters and their crazy hijinks. But its when you get to episode 13 all the way to the end, you realize that “Steins;Gate” is not only fantastic, but perhaps one of the best anime series that you have seen in a long time.
In fact, I’ll even go further and say that “Steins;Gate” is the one of the best anime series on Blu-ray for 2012! That’s how much I enjoyed it!
As a big fan of science fiction, storylines of time travel have always been an interest to me. I love shows such as “Dr. Who”, films such as “Back to the Future” and even the alternate time episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
So, prior to watching “Steins;Gate”, what I did know is that it was a popular video game series and the fact that 5pb. and Nitroplus were behind it and that the series had a connection with “Chaos;Head”, peaked my interest. But when I heard that the anime series was coming out on Blu-ray/DVD, I was excited because I know the series and the games have done well in Japan.
Watching “Steins;Gate”, at first, I admit I was a bit confused. The protagonist, Rintaro Okabe, was a mad scientist with a maniacal laugh who was working on a time travel experiment. And I guess at first, I wasn’t getting into his character all that much. But then when the series started to showcase character development and introduce characters such as Kurisu, Moeka, Ruka, Feris and Suzuha, I started to warm up to the series because a series solely about a mad scientist who is arrogant, was not going to catch my interest.
But then I realized how clever the writing was for the series. How each of these individuals that were introduced, begin to ask for Rintaro to use his invention to help them out. For example, Ruka is a boy who looks so much like a girl and believes that because his mother ate a certain food, he was born a boy instead of a girl. So, he asks for Rintaro to send a message to his mother, to eat a certain food and see if it changes time and Ruka is born as a girl.
But then we are introduced to the problematic situation of changing time. Once you start meddling with time, it can lead to disaster or situations that Rintaro never expected. And the interesting situation is that because he is the only person that can remember a change in timeline and no one else, his ability can also be used improperly if the invention is in the wrong hands. But also, because he is a person that doesn’t have much in terms of social skills, no one knows what to expect when he does meddle with time.
In “Steins;Gate: Part 2”, Rintaro, who has made great friends and brought people as lab assistance for his time machine is taken for an amazing emotional ride. When Mayuri is killed by Suzuha, who reveals herself to be a Rounder, he escapes being killed and tries and tries to save Mayuri’s life, but the end result is the same. She dies.
But as he tries to figure things out himself, he knows he needs to bring in his friends, especially Kurisu, who is just as intelligent and the only person who knows about the hypothesis of time travel, that can help him save Mayuri.
Unfortunately, having used the time machines to change the life of Kurisu (who died in the first episode but manages to thwart her death), for Ruka (making her a girl instead of a boy) and for Feris (saving her father who died in a plane accident as he tried to apologize to his daughter), he learns that by changing time, he unfortunately changes time enough to where Mayuri is dead because of his time machine and people want access to the technology.
But as he changed the lives of the people he cares about, in order to bring Mayuri back-to-life, all things must revert back to the way it was. But will he make that call?
And just when you think everything is over, a new twist happens at the end of episode 21 (right after the credits), which sets up the final three episodes.
As for the Blu-ray release, we are treated with two audio commentary tracks and as for the series itself, “Steins;Gate” looks amazing on Blu-ray, while the lossless soundtrack is clear and features good ambiance. Especially the voice acting on both the Japanese and the English end, with the English dub getting a thumbs up for writing but the acting is really fantastic for this series.
Overall, “Steins;Gate” has turned out to be one of the most fascinating, smart yet fun, science fiction anime series that I have seen in a long while. But after watching “Steins;Gate: Part Two” and seeing these final 13 episodes, it left me feeling that I have watched on of the best anime series yet, and possibly as a nod to FUNimation, one of the best written and best acted anime series that they have done so far.
“Steins;Gate” the overall series… not only is it highly recommended, it is on my list for “Best Anime Series on Blu-ray for 2012”!
