Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Time and again.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 15, 2012

Imagine Groundhog Day filtered through a prism or seen through a honeycomb where several simultaneous timelines play out repetitively and you’ll have some idea of the complexities at work in one of the most fascinating and involving anime of recent years, Steins;Gate. For those not up to speed on the extremely convoluted plot of this anime, a very brief summation of sorts can be found in the Steins;Gate Blu-ray review of Part 1. The hero of Steins;Gate is self proclaimed “mad scientist” Rintarō Okabe, who slowly discovers that he has the ability to leap between various timelines (called “world lines” in the series) while also being able to time travel. The first arc of episodes set up Rintarō’s dilemma as he lapsed in and out of various alternate realities, using the framing device of Rintarō’s anguish over having seen what seemed to be the murder of Kurisu, a beautiful young woman with gorgeous auburn hair. As if that weren’t disturbing enough, Okabe also is trying to save a sweet little girl named Mayuri whom he more or less takes care of. This second arc of episodes in fact spends a bit more time on Okabe’s repeated (failed) attempts to somehow keep Mayuri safe, a series of escapades that may indeed remind some viewers as a kind of tragic version of Groundhog Day. The series does ultimately boil down to a horrible kind of Sophie’s Choice that Rintarō has to make, juggling several competing timelines (and/or “world lines”) as he attempts to all of his loved ones to safety (not to mention himself). Steins;Gate isn’t always easy to follow, and in fact it becomes kind of laborious in its endgame as Rintarō has to watch Mayuri get killed over and over and over again, no matter what he tries to do, but the series is really one of the most intelligently handled time travel cum alternate reality anime ever to come down the twisty sci-fi pike.

Because so many of the opening episodes in this particular volume tend to rehash the same material over and over again, some elements of this “second half” of the series can be a little more annoying than the first half was. How many times can we see Okabe fail to save his friend? Several, evidently, to the point where it almost becomes funny how desperate Okabe becomes to save Mayuri, only to see her get pummeled by some new, unexpected threat at the last moment. But the flip side of this is we get to experience the increasingly panicked state of Okabe as he tries to wend his way through an increasingly impossible to navigate series of obstacles (quite like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, as a matter of fact).

Watching the slow devolution of Okabe from a manically cackling “mad scientist” into the drawn, almost defeated character he becomes in this second half of the series provides a lot of the compelling drama. Steins;Gate may in fact be a little too complex for its own good, because once the various “world lines” begin intersecting and Okabe has to choose “which from column A, which from column B” he’s going to pursue, the series loses just a little of its narrative drive, and whatever halting clarity it may have had up to that point. Steins;Gate is not an easy series to follow at various turns, and there are a lot of turns as the series moves toward its denouement.

The series still maintains a really high degree of excellent writing and really well done character development, though (without revealing too much about how everything shakes out) things do rather quickly get back to the sort of lunatic ambience of the opening couple of episodes with a sort of nonchalance that seems to undercut the amazingly intricate path that Okabe has had to take to get to where he ultimately ends up. The fascinating thing about Steins;Gate is that with all its sci-fi meanderings and its dependence on all sorts of simultaneously unfolding alternate realities, in a very way the show boils down to being a rather simple, heartfelt love story between two kind of inarticulate characters. Getting there may not be half the “fun” exactly, but it’s certainly one of the most compelling journeys any recent anime has offered.

Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Steins;Gate Part 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. With all of the recent brouhaha over the new Blu-ray of Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series and its quite evident banding issues, I'm almost loathe to get into this series' evidently intentional use of quasi-banding, something that crops up with pretty predictable regularity when Okabe is in alternate world lines. There's also increased use of the desaturated, monochromatic look that was used a little more fleetingly in the first half of the series. Other techniques include intentional "distressing" of the image, added grain, and a host of other "gimmicks" that give Steins;Gate an incredibly unique and innovative visual flair. There's not a whole whale of a lot of bright palettes in this particular group of episodes, since so much of the series now takes place in alternate timelines, timelines which are indicated by a kind of often sickly green, desaturated appearance. But line detail remains strong and when things do pop with some vivid primaries, they look fantastic.

Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with Steins;Gate Part 1, this set also offers an English dub delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, as well as the original Japanese language track delivered via Dolby TrueHD 2.0. This second half of the series doesn't seem to suffer from quite as much of the same boxy quality in the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix that I mentioned with regard to the first set. Fidelity continues to be excellent, and the 5.1 mix does offer some very well done, if at times kind of sparse, surround activity. The Japanese track is noticeably less loud and also less full in the midrange and low end, as should be expected. Dynamic range is fairly wide.

Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Episode 19 Commentary features Patrick Seitz and Jacqueline Cavanaugh. This is a generally better than average FUNimation commentary that has the benefit of offering only two participants, both of whom are obviously deeply enamored of Steins;Gate. Cavanaugh confesses to being relatively new to the anime voice over game and talks about how unaware she is of other anime that feature time travel and sci-fi elements. Boy, have I got a list for her.


• Episode 24 Commentary features Colleen Clinkenbeard (ADR Director) along with Nathanael Harrison and Stephen Hoff, both of whom worked on the ADR for the series. This is a really interesting commentary that gets into some of the technical nuts and bolts of how a new language dub and mix is achieved.


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


• Textless Opening Song – "Hacking to the Gate" (Version 2) (HD; 1:32)


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


• Textless Closing Song – "Sky Clad Observer" (HD; 00:55)


• U.S. Trailer (HD; 1:06)


• Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases

Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Steins;Gate lost just a tad of its incredible forcefulness as this second half of episodes started up, simply because Okabe's repeated attempts to save Mayuri were so obviously doomed to failure that some viewers (like this one) might ultimately be rolling their eyes and muttering to themselves, "Okay, we get it—move on, please". But things get decidedly more interesting as the series moves toward its endgame, and watching Okabe's evolution (or devolution, as the case may be) through this arc of episodes is a fascinating journey. This is an anime that certainly warrants repeated viewing, as it is one of the most densely plotted, intricately interwoven pieces I've personally experienced in my journeys with this often adventurous idiom. This second Blu-ray set offers the same sterling video and excellent audio that graced the first set, and it comes with an adequate assortment of supplements. Highly recommended.