Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Steins;Gate: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Is that a banana in your microwave, or are you just happy to be time traveling?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 16, 2012

Two relatively recent quick casualties in the ever unpredictable world of series television were the American reboot of Life on Mars and Awake. Both series featured a hero who had suffered an unfortunate car accident and whose subsequent life was torn asunder as a result. In the case of Life on Mars, the hero suddenly found himself transported back in time several decades, while in the case of Awake, the hero found himself shuttling between two distinct realities. There’s no car accident in Steins;Gate; instead, there’s a horrifying collision of a satellite which has fallen into a skyscraper and whose descent from the heavens may have precipitated a bizarre set of phenomena that the series’ hero, Rintarō Okabe, begins experiencing. Then again, Okabe’s strange affliction (which will be detailed below) may be due to his jiggered microwave, which this self-proclaimed “mad scientist” had altered to help prove his theories on time travel. One way or the other, Okabe finds himself more and more confused as one set of memories he clearly recalls doesn’t seemed to be shared by any of his friends, and several weird things occur that lead Okabe to believe he may either be time traveling or at the very least shuttling between two alternate realities.

Steins;Gate is another anime culled from a visual novel game and follows in the footsteps of Chaos;Head , both having been produced in their game forms by 5pb and Nitroplus. Though there are some fairly tangential threads tying both properties together, there’s no real requirement to experience Chaos;Head in order to wend the thorny path that Steins;Gate offers. Steins;Gate is a smartly written, if just occasionally slightly annoying, trip through several hoary science fiction tropes, but it manages to invest what might have been a cliché ridden enterprise into something quite ingenious at times. Okabe is certainly one of the most unusual anime heroes in recent memory, an obsessive soul who is prone to cackle manically at inopportune moments and whose theories aren’t exactly supported by anything approaching a traditional scientific method. When one of the timelines Okabe finds himself shuttling through involves the apparent murder of a beautiful and intelligent female time travel enthusiast, Kurisu Makise, a murder which Okabe himself may have committed, the earnest young man sets out to figure out what exactly is going on.

Does anyone even use a semicolon anymore? One of my proudest moments in college was in my Film Theory class when my teacher (who now heads one of the biggest film schools in the country) asked us to write an off the cuff essay about our favorite film. For reasons I can’t quite recall, I didn’t choose any likely suspect like Citizen Kane or 8 ½, but instead concentrated on Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (ah, the vagaries of youth), and I utilized a semicolon somewhere in my writing. When I got the paper back, there was a huge “A+” emblazoned across the top of the paper, along with the somewhat funny note, “Correct use of a semicolon! Impressive! Bonus points!” While the patently weird inclusion of the semicolon in both Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate may not be much more than a typographic conceit, it actually helps to point out the slightly “fractured” structure of both shows. And in that regard, Steins;Gate probably takes the cake, as the series is told resolutely from Okabe’s point of view, meaning that the viewer is often just as confused and off kilter as the series’ hero is.

Anyone who has ever dreamed of time travel has no doubt fantasized about going into the past and altering history, either for altruistic reasons (think of that great old Twilight Zone episode where Russell Johnson, the actor who go on to “greater” fame and glory as the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, attempted to prevent the assassination of President Lincoln), or perhaps for more venal, personal reasons. Both of these approaches rear their heads throughout Steins;Gate in often fascinating ways. Okabe of course is trying to figure out why he has seen Kurisu lying dead in a pool of blood, apparently murdered, even while at the “same time” Kurisu seems to be alive and kicking and in fact ultimately joins Okabe’s kind of geek-fest lab. On another level, though, a whole convoluted corollary time traveling arc injects itself when Okabe’s investigations lead him to the mysterious John Titor, a man whose own time traveling expeditions may in fact be interconnected with what Okabe has been experiencing.

Steins;Gate is easily one of the most densely plotted anime to come down the pike over the past several years. It’s a different kind of opaqueness than, say, the Ghost in the Shell franchise, one less concerned with philosophizing than with the intricacies that arise when one really begins to ruminate about the ins and outs of time travel. This first volume gets us about halfway through the series, and by the end of this volume’s episodes, the series has begun a rather radical shift from a kind of goofy ethos to something that seems a good deal more dark and sinister. I for one can’t wait to see where Okabe travels next and what rippling repercussions ring out into various timelines as a result.

Steins;Gate: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Steins;Gate is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a stellar looking release that offers razor sharp line detail when it's called for, but which also doesn't hesitate to craft whole sequences in a much softer look, with gauzy textures and fuzzy imagery brilliantly evoking Okabe's quasi-dream (or is that nightmare?) state. Colors are often bold and extremely well saturated, but at the same time the anime also exploits a lot of monochromatic elements which verge on a desaturated palette. Kurisu's auburn red hair pops nicely and makes her character instantly recognizable. As Okabe begins to visit alternate timelines, there are a glut of really interesting design elements brought to bear on this anime, all of which look great.

Steins;Gate: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Steins;Gate features an English dub offered in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, as well as the original Japanese language version in Dolby TrueHD 2.0. The original Japanese version sports excellent fidelity and some extremely appealing voice work. Most will probably opt for the English language track due to the increased surround activity, especially in some of the segues between various timelines. That said, there's a weird boxy quality to some of the voice work here, as if the recording sessions have been done in different studios with varying quality microphones. That's a relatively minor annoyance, however, in a track that does offer great fidelity and really wide dynamic range.

Steins;Gate: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Episode 1 Commentary features Trina Nishimura (Kurisu) and Tyson Rinehart (Itaru). Nishimura kind of leads Rinehart along since it's not only Rinehart's first commentary, it's one of his first major voice acting roles for FUNimation. Rinehart keeps Nishimura in stitches a lot of the time, but they do manage to talk a bit about the science fiction aspects of the show as well as Rinehart's history with FUNimation and the mechanics of being a voice actor vis a vis the recording process.


• Episode 12 Commentary features J. Michael Tatum (Okabe and lead writer) and John Burgmeier (head writer). Tatum talks about this episode being the fulcrum where the show tips from its wackier elements into a decidedly darker ambience. Burgmeier talks about what his job consists of, and why he enlisted Tatum's aid in crafting the English version of this particular show. They also discuss how they decided to twist some of the original Japanese cultural references in the show to those that Western audiences would more easily understand, including Doctor Who and Star Trek.


• Akihabara Map (HD; 1:32) is a quick virtual tour through several locations that play important parts in Steins;Gate.


• Textless Opening Song – "Hacking to the Gate" (Version 1) (HD; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song – "Toki Tsukasadoru Juuni No Meiyaki" (HD; 1:32)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Steins;Gate: Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Steins;Gate is one of the most intriguing anime of the year, a wonderfully convoluted trip through the pretzel logic of time travel and alternate realities. Okabe makes for one of the most unusual (and unruly) heroes in recent memory, and the interlocking stories featuring him (in any of various timelines) and his friends and collaborators make this a novelistic enterprise of really impressive depth and storytelling panache. This Blu-ray is a little light on supplemental content, and the audio has some very minor issues, but the video is fantastic. Highly recommended.