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Old 10-06-2011, 09:17 PM   #51
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Okay, while I was researching, I just tried looking up "Mayu" and got "eyebrows". ...Is it just me, or does Mayushii have rather prominent brows? XD *waggle*
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Old 10-06-2011, 09:47 PM   #52
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Talon, you sound like a conspiracy theorist. Luckily, this is a conspiracy theory anime, so who knows, who knows.

(I know)

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Okay, while I was researching, I just tried looking up "Mayu" and got "eyebrows". ...Is it just me, or does Mayushii have rather prominent brows? XD *waggle*
Curious. They're Daru sized in my view.

What are you looking up specifically? The real names, broken down real names, or the nick-names?
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Old 10-06-2011, 10:09 PM   #53
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Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Curious. They're Daru sized in my view.

What are you looking up specifically? The real names, broken down real names, or the nick-names?
No hotlinking allowed.

*shrug* Was just trying a few permutations. Was focusing on the nicknames/bolded bits I guess.
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Old 10-06-2011, 10:28 PM   #54
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Really? It still works for me. Oh well.

http://i51.tinypic.com/a4pm5c.jpg

I personally find the novel's art atrocious, with surreal glowing eyes.
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Old 10-06-2011, 11:35 PM   #55
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Watched 12 ... and wow. Had to press on to 13.

Watched 13 and ...WOW. This is going to be very interesting.
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Old 10-07-2011, 01:23 AM   #56
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I had to look-up Steins 13 because I forgot the details, and remembered that episode bored me because I've already seen that idea done better in other titles, and it's just more of the author trying to convince us that Kyouma is somehow an innocent victim of his mass stupidity.

Officially, he traveled back in time several thousand times, trying new things but with the same outcome. The obvious question is why didn't he ask Daru or Makise Kurisu for advice/help? He went back thousands of times, you'd think that after the first two he'd try to consult with others about what exactly is going on. That's usually a scientist's first impulse when not understanding something, to seek a second opinion!

Not only that, he pities himself later in later episodes, which only enraged me because of how obviously irresponsible he was being earlier in the story. You two are going through this awfully fast, so I don't know if you're actively noticing this, but starting with the premise of there being a SERN conspiracy, you know something bad is going to happen sometime down the line, and Steins just draws attention to it by having Kyouma make questionable snap decisions, like allowing Moeka and Feyris the option to change history almost for kicks. Everything that subsequently happens is his fault and he never learns from his mistakes or thinks about things, it's always a knee-jerk emotional reaction. Where's his sense of self-control? He's supposed to be a rational scientist, not a wimp in perpetual panic mode.

Keep in mind the chronology. Steins takes place over a two week period, with Day 1 being Nakabachi's lecture and Day 14 being the night of broken glass. The time machine was finished around Day 13 I think. Also remember that in each time-travel event, Kyouma somehow escapes a city-wide lockdown by SERN to get back to the time-machine.
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Old 10-07-2011, 07:24 AM   #57
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Still only through Episode 13. Will watch more (much more ) this weekend.

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I had to look-up Steins 13 because I forgot the details, and remembered that episode bored me because I've already seen that idea done better in other titles, and it's just more of the author trying to convince us that Kyouma is somehow an innocent victim of his mass stupidity.
I don't see why you hate this so much. I guess you don't like this particular plot device? No matter how many times I see it, I think that "you can't escape fate" angles in time travel stories are fascinating. Thus far, Okabe has been able to change the past with impunity. Now he finds himself stuck in a reality the outcome of which he very much dislikes and wishes to change but can't. It's dramatic and it's intriguing. I mean, we've all seen Groundhog Day. Hell, the Bill Murray film is so popular that this phenomenon we see Okabe caught up in has even been referred to by some as the "Groundhog Day Effect." That doesn't mean I still can't enjoy it. It's terrifying to see that no matter what Okabe tries to do, the outcome is always the same. Even if the specifics are different each time, the general outcome is the same. As if the Universe is telling him, "This will happen." And so it's pretty epic to see him being all, "No, it won't. "

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Officially, he traveled back in time several thousand times, trying new things but with the same outcome. The obvious question is why didn't he ask Daru or Makise Kurisu for advice/help? He went back thousands of times, you'd think that after the first two he'd try to consult with others about what exactly is going on. That's usually a scientist's first impulse when not understanding something, to seek a second opinion!
I've only seen him do it three times. If you saw the show without playing the game or talking to Malcolm XP , then that'd be true for you too. In which case, you absolutely ought not to criticize Okabe for what he's done. He tried it on his own three times without asking the others for help. That's perfectly fine. It's not like he wasn't thinking about them. Quite the opposite: he was. He canceled the party, told them to GTFO, and concerned himself with {spoiler}. I don't see the problem. He doesn't know who he can trust anymore and that could be factoring into his decision-making too. In any event, perhaps he'll try asking Kurisu for help on Turn 4. Or Daru on Turn 5. Etc. The fact that you say "he's actually done it thousands of times by the end of Episode 13" is completely informed by outside information. And that's fine -- you can leverage the complaint against the original Steins game if this is true. But I'd say this argument just isn't fair to levy against the anime since the anime gives no such impression.

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Not only that, he pities himself later in later episodes, which only enraged me because of how obviously irresponsible he was being earlier in the story. You two are going through this awfully fast, so I don't know if you're actively noticing this, but starting with the premise of there being a SERN conspiracy, you know something bad is going to happen sometime down the line, and Steins just draws attention to it by having Kyouma make questionable snap decisions, like allowing Moeka and Feyris the option to change history almost for kicks. Everything that subsequently happens is his fault and he never learns from his mistakes or thinks about things, it's always a knee-jerk emotional reaction. Where's his sense of self-control? He's supposed to be a rational scientist, not a wimp in perpetual panic mode.
Perhaps Steins;Gate is meant as the tragic tale of an idiot caught up in affairs much too large for him. What's wrong with that? You shouldn't hold that against the writers or against the plot premise. What a story starring an idiot lacks in fulfilling "that's how I would have done it" logic, it makes up for in "oh my lord the shit is hitting the fan" suspense sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes. And this is one of those times. Yeah, Okabe was dumb to allow Moeka into the group. Yeah, Okabe was dumb to allow Moeka and Feyris to change the past. Yeah, Okabe was really dumb to allow them to change the past without even telling him how they were intending to change it. But I guess that's just his character. I dunno. I feel very hypocritical right now, because you know that ordinarily I rage when characters do stupid shit, so this is very odd that I'm not raging at Okabe. Maybe it's because I've watched everything I've seen so far in the short span of 48 hours versus your equivalent 13 week investment? Maybe it's because your frustrations not only surfaced but festered? while mine never even had the chance to surface, pushed back beneath the water by the deluge of information from the next episode? I dunno, but in any event, I'm not really raging at Okabe yet. Is is a "You fool! " story to me, not a "YOU FUCKING MORON. " story. He's a pretty tragic character: he's gotten way too deep into something he was never adequately prepared for.

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Keep in mind the chronology. Steins takes place over a two week period, with Day 1 being Nakabachi's lecture and Day 14 being the night of broken glass. The time machine was finished around Day 13 I think. Also remember that in each time-travel event, Kyouma somehow escapes a city-wide lockdown by SERN to get back to the time-machine.
Well thanks for the spoiler! Seriously? You're telling me I've gone as far into the future as I'm ever going to go? That from here on out we're never going to go past the so-called "night of glass"? Or is this "night of glass" a night I haven't reached yet? I'm assuming it's what I've seen, seeing as it was at night and there was lots of broken glass. Would have preferred not to know this. Oh well.
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Old 10-07-2011, 09:01 AM   #58
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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I don't see why you hate this so much. I guess you don't like this particular plot device? No matter how many times I see it, I think that "you can't escape fate" angles in time travel stories are fascinating. Thus far, Okabe has been able to change the past with impunity. Now he finds himself stuck in a reality the outcome of which he very much dislikes and wishes to change but can't. It's dramatic and it's intriguing. I mean, we've all seen Groundhog Day. Hell, the Bill Murray film is so popular that this phenomenon we see Okabe caught up in has even been referred to by some as the "Groundhog Day Effect." That doesn't mean I still can't enjoy it. It's terrifying to see that no matter what Okabe tries to do, the outcome is always the same. Even if the specifics are different each time, the general outcome is the same. As if the Universe is telling him, "This will happen." And so it's pretty epic to see him being all, "No, it won't. "
I've not seen Groundhog Day, but I know of the trope effect through a SPN episode (the one that got me hooked on the show in the first place!). TGWLTT also played with it a little bit. And of course there's you-know-who. I too still enjoy the phenomenon no matter how many times I witness it. This is the first time I've seen it played straight for drama, actually. All other instances instilled lighthearted or macabre humor to some degree. Although I suppose it's your call whether you find Okabe's increasing desperation and repeated failures funny.

By the by, I haven't seen Back to the Future yet either. ^^; Should probably get on that. =x

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I've only seen him do it three times. If you saw the show without playing the game or talking to Malcolm XP , then that'd be true for you too.
I got the impression that Okabe went through several loops, though I also got that impression from you-know-who and canon says it was only what? Seven?

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In which case, you absolutely ought not to criticize Okabe for what he's done. He tried it on his own three times without asking the others for help. That's perfectly fine. It's not like he wasn't thinking about them. Quite the opposite: he was. He canceled the party, told them to GTFO, and concerned himself with {spoiler}. I don't see the problem. He doesn't know who he can trust anymore and that could be factoring into his decision-making too.
In addition, I think Okabe has two major reasons not to ask for help:

1) He feels it's his responsibility and needs to clean up his own mess by himself.

2) He doesn't want to involve the others and put their lives in danger as well.

Spoiler through ep13:

Spoiler: show
Okabe has already witnessed Makise's death twice in different world lines(?): Once by stabbing, second by gunshot in the same manner as Mayuri. Consciously or subconsciously, I'm sure he doesn't want to expose her to that kind of danger again if he can help it. Indirectly, Okabe has confirmed that he can change Makise's (and others') fate(s), just not Mayuri's.


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Perhaps Steins;Gate is meant as the tragic tale of an idiot caught up in affairs much too large for him. What's wrong with that? You shouldn't hold that against the writers or against the plot premise. What a story starring an idiot lacks in fulfilling "that's how I would have done it" logic, it makes up for in "oh my lord the shit is hitting the fan" suspense sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes. And this is one of those times. Yeah, Okabe was dumb to allow Moeka into the group. Yeah, Okabe was dumb to allow Moeka and Feyris to change the past. Yeah, Okabe was really dumb to allow them to change the past without even telling him how they were intending to change it. But I guess that's just his character. I dunno. I feel very hypocritical right now, because you know that ordinarily I rage when characters do stupid shit, so this is very odd that I'm not raging at Okabe. Maybe it's because I've watched everything I've seen so far in the short span of 48 hours versus your equivalent 13 week investment? Maybe it's because your frustrations not only surfaced but festered? while mine never even had the chance to surface, pushed back beneath the water by the deluge of information from the next episode? I dunno, but in any event, I'm not really raging at Okabe yet. Is is a "You fool! " story to me, not a "YOU FUCKING MORON. " story. He's a pretty tragic character: he's gotten way too deep into something he was never adequately prepared for.
I'm with Talon. I don't blame Okabe for his actions. I recognized that allowing Feyris to send a message to the past without checking it first was a monumentally dumb thing to do, but remember the others also pressured him. Makoto in TGWLTT did similarily stupid and childish things with her power without heed for the consequences. Granted, she was a child compared to Okabe, but to me Okabe seems just like a child in an adult's body. He may be a scientist, but a self-proclaimed "mad" one. Besides, I would take his boasts of genius with a grain of salt anyway, considering episode 12 confirmed:

Spoiler: show
His "mad scientist" persona is a facade.


Seems to me Okabe's just living a kid's fantasy. He may be good with technology, but that's it. He didn't even know the scope of what he'd invented until Makise came to the lab and helped him organize the experiments. Generally, common sense is lost on him until it smacks him in the face, and by then it's too late.
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Old 10-07-2011, 10:18 AM   #59
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Just started episode 16. Now I see where the nicknames are headed. Major spoiler, click if you know the meaning of "Barrel":

Spoiler: show
So Daru is Suzuha's father? o.o; Why would he have commisioned the pin to be made a week ago? Didn't he recognize it?


Edit- Past the OP.

Spoiler: show
Nm, I thought he might've just set it up to give Suzuha false hope. That still doesn't explain how he knew about it a week beforehand though.


Edit2- Finished episode. Still confused, but previous statement withdrawn.

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Old 10-07-2011, 11:24 AM   #60
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Same CV as Light from Death Note though.
I forgot to mention this the other day, but when I watched Episode 08 or 09 or whenever it was (I think it was probably Episode 09, my first one yesterday), Okabe had a conversation with Kurisu where he says keikaku doori, "Just as planned. >)" I haven't seen the Death Note anime nor read the manga, but I got the reference. Nice.

Steins;Gate seems to have an all-star voice acting cast. Suzuha Amane's voice sounds very familiar, so I decided to look up on ANN what else she's done. It turns out she's also voiced ...
- Mei (Sunohara's sister) in Clannad
- Ranpha Franboise in Galaxy Angel
- Rika in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
- Seppuku Kuro Usagi in Kampfer
- Kawasumi Mai in Kanon
- Nanoha in Nanona
- Ten-ten in Naruto
- Misha in Pita-Ten
... and a ton of other roles, as you can see from her ANN page.

Makise Kurisu's voice also sounds incredibly familiar, so I looked up her page, too, and discovered that she's provided the voice for ...
- Chihaya in The iDOLM@STER
That's kind of it for her list. ^^; It's not nearly as long as Suzuha's VA's. But still! That's where I've heard her voice before! She's Chihaya! Who only happens to be Doppel's waifu! ^_- You know what that means! You can't hate Steins;Gate anymore! XD [/retardedly wrong 4th grader logic] Jests aside, that's pretty funny.

I thought Moeka's might have been familiar, but despite reading through her profile, too, I'm not seeing the vocal connection, not even when it's with characters I know and love, like ...
- Keiko from Minami-ke
- Barasuishou from Rozen Maiden: Träumend
Barasuishou is quiet like Moeka but they have different voices. Keiko's voice might be the same as Moeka's, it's hard to tell, but she talks audibly and at a faster tempo than the deflated Moeka does.

Oh lord. Doppel, you'd best not look at Steins' ANN page if you don't want to blow a blood vessel. It seems that, well, uh, ... Steins is held in incredibly high regard amongst those who bothered to vote on it.

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Old 10-07-2011, 11:47 AM   #61
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
No matter how many times I see it, I think that "you can't escape fate" angles in time travel stories are fascinating.
You're going to love the ending.

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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
The fact that you say "he's actually done it thousands of times by the end of Episode 13" is completely informed by outside information. And that's fine -- you can leverage the complaint against the original Steins game if this is true. But I'd say this argument just isn't fair to levy against the anime since the anime gives no such impression.
It's mentioned later in the show. He never asks Makise Kurisu for help. Ever. He's so impotent a main character the other characters have to approach him to set in motion a solution. He simply repeats Day 14 endlessly.

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I feel very hypocritical right now, because you know that ordinarily I rage when characters do stupid shit, so this is very odd that I'm not raging at Okabe. Maybe it's because I've watched everything I've seen so far in the short span of 48 hours versus your equivalent 13 week investment?
Maybe, this tends to happen pretty often.

When you saw Geass, you missed tons of stupid stuff and logical breaches because the plot moved too quickly. But while Geass had a lot of plot, it was fundamentally character driven and didn't alienate the viewer from sympathies with the two main characters. Even when most of the cast became detestable, the viewers could still empathize with Lelouch and Suzaku. I personally found Lelouch's development to be too sinusoidal, but what Taniguchi did right was having Lelouch at the end a very different person from who he was in the beginning. Point A wasn't a straight shot to Point B, but it got there. Such allowed viewers to better forget the turbulent mid-series decisions for him, although I can't really dismiss it (that's like saying a show with a good start and a good ending = a good show).

Steins is a plot centric story, but it will also attempt appeal to this same sympathy, and for the most part fails on this emotional connection to the characters. Part of the problem is the characters are cardboard stereotypes with the same depth as the paper they're drawn on. But Kyouma doesn't have some tragic flaw that leads him down a path a normal person would. He's consistently doing things so dumb and in disagreement with his established character it breaks disbelief and comes across as extremely contrived.

The one exception is Suzuha, who I genuinely felt sorry for. I felt her development was very well done and set an example for the rest novel that wasn't followed.

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He's a pretty tragic character: he's gotten way too deep into something he was never adequately prepared for.
How is he anymore tragic than a 18 year old who murders another person in cold blood? Sure, there is a sobering element in how that person is so young and they've effectively ruined their whole life, but it's an age government considers most people to reach a state of maturity and mental acuity where they can distinguish for themselves between right and wrong. It's pretty easy to dismiss a 40 year old murderer and to forgive a 7 year old murderer, but people seem to have difficulty rationalizing someone on the border between child and adult. In Kyouma's case, I leaned toward the adult side because he's on the wrong side of 18 (19/20) and is shown to be functional in other areas society defines adults (lives by himself, engineers machines, is involved in the local science community).

So I find I have little sympathy for Kyouma. Yes, the situation he's fallen into is quite grim, but he was tempting fate the whole time with his carelessness. It's not a case of a poor dumb guy getting a bad break, it's a case of the writer trying to setup a scenario by having the character act irrationally. Kyouma had little motivation, he was messing with history with little provocation or concern (didn't it strike you odd that when Daru concludes SERN has been monitoring their room, Kyouma exclaims "let's reveal the time machine to the public!" ). It's like Natsu no Arashi!'s Sayaka wanting to travel back in time to drink her milk before the expiration date, only taken dead seriously.

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Well thanks for the spoiler! Seriously? You're telling me I've gone as far into the future as I'm ever going to go? That from here on out we're never going to go past the so-called "night of glass"? Or is this "night of glass" a night I haven't reached yet? I'm assuming it's what I've seen, seeing as it was at night and there was lots of broken glass. Would have preferred not to know this. Oh well.
Nope. Here I should point out what you've already concluded - Steins is a "closed room" story. Ever17 was sort of this - there's a central cast who try very hard to convince you there's a large world outside of LeMU, populated by a lot of people, but you don't really see or hear them because the location is mostly fixed. There's also a fixed amount of time for the story (one week in May). So for a reader, you have to buy into their explanations for how the world is outside, since you've only visually seen seven days from the inside of LeMU.

SERN plays much a role like Leiblich did in Ever17 - it's influence is felt, but it's a very distant, transient, almost non-threatening compared with the more shocking and visual phenomenon of conserved causality. Which is really the underlying explanation for Mayuri's repeated deaths, not it being fate (Kyouma carried the "Mayuri death" event from his first loop through the Alpha Line, so in every subsequent repeat it wouldn't go away).

"the future" is also similar to SERN's influence. You don't see it, and attempts are made to persuade you it's real. This keeps the story closed room, with a small cast in a fixed frame of time.

Unfortunately, knowing this, you can almost predict the entire story's plot by looking at the first episode, and realizing that (BIG SPOILER?)

Spoiler: show
All the characters have to conform to established roles.


In this sense, I really liked Remember11's Enomoto. He "broke" the perception of there being a closed cast and introduced un-predictability to the story.

For example, for Corsola, and later for you Talon (Suzuha stuff):

Spoiler: show
Suzuha says she's looking for her father in 2010 and has connections to Kyouma's lab. If one runs with the "closed room" idea of the story, her dad must be among the cast, and there are only two males in the story - Kyouma and Daru. One can conclude then that either Daru or Kyouma is Suzuha's father. It's just a matter of more evidence being pointed at one or the other.

I suspected Daru based on looks, but I also interpreted Suzuha's animosity to Makise Kurisu was sort of like a rebellious daughter, and since Kyouma is being poorly shipped with Makise Kurisu. That Makise Kurisu wasn't her mother also lead me to think that it was Suzuha who murdered Makise Kurisu in the first episode.
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Old 10-07-2011, 12:09 PM   #62
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The one exception is Suzuha, who I genuinely felt sorry for. I felt her development was very well done and set an example for the rest novel that wasn't followed.
Suzuha was my least favorite character at first because of her voice, but episode 16 really changed my views around. Poor girl.

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For example, for Corsola, and later for you Talon (Suzuha stuff):

Spoiler: show
I suspected Daru based on looks, but I also interpreted Suzuha's animosity to Makise Kurisu was sort of like a rebellious daughter, and since Kyouma is being poorly shipped with Makise Kurisu. That Makise Kurisu wasn't her mother also lead me to think that it was Suzuha who murdered Makise Kurisu in the first episode.
Name speculation (Ep16 spoiler lite unless you read Dopple's comment above):

Spoiler: show
Been pondering what Kurisu could refer to aside from Christianity, and your comment on the "night of glass" got me thinking about crystals. The hourglass in the ED looks like it could be made of crystal, and the final shot of Makise in a crucifixion pose seems highly significant. Then I noticed:

Crystal (glass) = Kurisutaru(gurasu)

Kurisu Taru

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Old 10-07-2011, 12:48 PM   #63
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@Corsola - you're on the right track to consider names. Humans often make assumptions looking at names that might not necessarily be true. In my posts I've been saying someone's name in a peculiar way to draw attention to it.

However, Night of Broken Glass was only a historical metaphor for the SERN-induced pandemonium on Day 14. I didn't mean anything deeper than that, so I'm sorry I'm leading you astray. D:

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I got the impression that Okabe went through several loops, though I also got that impression from you-know-who and canon says it was only what? Seven?
No, he repeated several thousand times. These loops are implied to have occurred between Episode 13 and Episode 14. Visually, though, only four-five loops were animated.

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In addition, I think Okabe has two major reasons not to ask for help:

1) He feels it's his responsibility and needs to clean up his own mess by himself.

2) He doesn't want to involve the others and put their lives in danger as well.
See, I would buy that as motivation but it's not been established he feels that way. You have to assume it based on how a normal person would act, which isn't good writing given we've watching an abnormal person stumble around. During his repeats he has a single-minded fixation with saving Mayuri, responsibility or danger to others isn't even a concern. There was one case where he put Makise Kurisu and Mayuri together and Makise Kurisu confirmed her death over the phone. You'd think that putting Makise Kurisu in close proximity to Mayuri would make her an easier target for SERN agents that were swarming around the city.

Quote:
Originally Posted by YUKI.N View Post

Spoiler: show
Okabe has already witnessed Makise's death twice in different world lines(?): Once by stabbing, second by gunshot in the same manner as Mayuri. Consciously or subconsciously, I'm sure he doesn't want to expose her to that kind of danger again if he can help it. Indirectly, Okabe has confirmed that he can change Makise's (and others') fate(s), just not Mayuri's.
That was Mayuri. Makise Kurisu doesn't die in the Alpha Line.

Quote:
Originally Posted by YUKI.N View Post

I'm with Talon. I don't blame Okabe for his actions. I recognized that allowing Feyris to send a message to the past without checking it first was a monumentally dumb thing to do, but remember the others also pressured him. Makoto in TGWLTT did similarily stupid and childish things with her power without heed for the consequences. Granted, she was a child compared to Okabe, but to me Okabe seems just like a child in an adult's body. He may be a scientist, but a self-proclaimed "mad" one. Besides, I would take his boasts of genius with a grain of salt anyway, considering episode 12 confirmed:

Spoiler: show
His "mad scientist" persona is a facade.
I never bought into the personality, but given his activities at the start (like attending Nakabachi's lecture) I was given the impression he's more capable and mature than he is. In truth, you're right in suggesting that even though he's implied to be clever, the overwhelming amount of observational evidence suggests he's utterly dysfunctional and incapable of logical reasoning.

What bugs me, though, isn't that he's stupid. It's that his unusual actions draw attention to how they're going to cause a surprise.

Kaiji season two sppoiler:

Spoiler: show

It's like us calling Endoh screwing Kaiji in the bathroom (wrong??) - it was obvious from how Kaiji looked over the contract the first time, and didn't look over it at all the second, that Endoh was going to assume a good portion of Kaiji's winnings.


G-Senjou also did something like this. This one guy kept calling the other guy by his last name, and did so with such regularity around evidence that suggested his identity it was glaringly obvious even considering naming conventions (referring to other people by their last name) that the writer was trying to be indescript about it and imply a red herring. Later in the story, when confronted, the man says "that was the only name the man told me!".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Oh lord. Doppel, you'd best not look at Steins' ANN page if you don't want to blow a blood vessel. It seems that, well, uh, ... Steins is held in incredibly high regard amongst those who bothered to vote on it.
Makise Kurisu voiced by Chihaya hurts, but even Asami Imai couldn't endear the character to me. And while it's true Steins has a lot of big-time CVs in the cast, they don't actually bring memorable performances to their voice work. Tamura in particular gives a pretty generic performance for Suzuha, as does Momo-chan (Krynn better not hear me say that!).

I don't really care about Steins' popularity with English anime fans, since a school of thought is out that criticizes it. What concerns me is it's popularity in Japan where it has a market influence on subsequent visual novels.

Remember, 5pb. wants to be Apple Japan and have visual novels go "mainstream" there, hence the very heavy otaku/popular tech bent for its ";" series.

1. Chaos;Head's protagonist Nishijou Takumi was a hikki who masturbates on his plastic figurines and frequently showcases social anxiety, paranoia, xenophobia and falls victim to basal urges. Prominently features cellphones.
2. Steins;Gate takes place in Akiba. Prominently features cellphones.
3. Robotics;Notes follows a fighting game enthusiast Yashiro Kaito who builds a giant robot. No, it isn't a parody, it's taken very seriously.

Chaos;Head was very mediocre, and I feel Steins;Gate is around the same level, but because of its setting it's more tolerable than C;H was. It's like how Muv-Luv Extra and Unlimited are, fundamentally, similar stories, but a change of environment in Unlimited makes it a MILLION times more interesting, because of how exotic it is.

In comparison, time travel is inherently more interesting than a mentally unstable kid having hallucinations in public, as Takumi did. But the level of thrill in Steins and Chaos are comparable. I guess it's like decorating the same flavour of cake.
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Old 10-07-2011, 02:05 PM   #64
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Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
@Corsola - you're on the right track to consider names. Humans often make assumptions looking at names that might not necessarily be true. In my posts I've been saying someone's name in a peculiar way to draw attention to it.
I've noticed you've always referred to Okabe by his alias "Kyouma" thus far. I'm guessing there's more to it than just his @chan screenname?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
However, Night of Broken Glass was only a historical metaphor for the SERN-induced pandemonium on Day 14. I didn't mean anything deeper than that, so I'm sorry I'm leading you astray. D:
No problem. Figured it was probably off, but it sounded like a cute coincidence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
That was Mayuri. Makise Kurisu doesn't die in the Alpha Line.
I mean he probably still subconsciously recalled Makise's death from the first episode due to his Reading Steiner ability. If by Alpha Line you mean... (ep13)

Spoiler: show
...The timeline where SERN attacked and shot Mayuri, Okabe also witnessed Makise get shot right before he made the first leap back.
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Old 10-07-2011, 02:50 PM   #65
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I've noticed you've always referred to Okabe by his alias "Kyouma" thus far. I'm guessing there's more to it than just his @chan screenname?
I call him Kyouma because that's the name he introduced himself by in the earlier episodes. It's probably a ridiculous Japanese name (I notice Hououin has a fire-bird connection) but it's what I'm accustom to addressing him by.

Quote:
Originally Posted by YUKI.N View Post

Spoiler: show
...The timeline where SERN attacked and shot Mayuri, Okabe also witnessed Makise get shot right before he made the first leap back.
Oh. She didn't die I don't think, although it's possible.
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Old 10-07-2011, 03:26 PM   #66
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Was going to post, but I had to tell Doppel something quickly and it was either AIM or else PM. I saw that he was modifying a post (aren't you always? ) so I decided it'd be faster to go on AIM. So ... apologies in advance for the conversational nature of the stuff in these next three spoiler boxes. Btw, I'm through Episode 15 right now.

Thoughts on Okabe's Character Development
Spoiler: show
me: I just finished Episode 15. In episode ... 14, I wanna say?, I noticed something. And then separately noticed it was night and day different from your Steins experience. That something was ...
me: I found myself remarking at Okabe's character development. How Mayuri's death(s) had changed him, and he was no longer this happy-go-lucky "lol teh time travelz" doofus but was now taking it real seriously, etc.
me: Then I remembered: one of your central complaints against Steins is its utter lack of character depth and character growth.
me: So I mean ... unless things change down the road, from where I'm standing right now, Kyouma feels a little bit, I dunno, "developed."
me: Don't get me wrong: while I can't put my finger on it, he still overall feels like a "cardboard cut-out," as you put it. Like a shell of a man, rather than a man.
me: But ... the shell has evolved a bit. ^^; It has developed. Or so I feel.
me: When you say "Zero development," to me, that means ... not learning from your mistakes. Being the exact same person in Episode 1 as in Episode N. Etc.
me: I don't think I can say that about Kyouma right now.
me: He's ... not terribly different, but he's still significantly (as in statistically significantly) different from Ep1 Kyouma.
Doppel: All I can say is there's more episodes to come. I agree with you in that sense he does have development, but from my perspecitve it's like realizing guns kill people after shooting someone in the face. Sure, now he knows after he's already done something, but it doesn't really transform his character.
Doppel: The underlying issue - him making snap emotional decisions - is never resolved.
Doppel: Like, at the end of this conflict, he does something sort of crazy, but I won't say it for a while.
me: Sure.
me: But like ... I do feel that people learning from their sins is recognizable (as in, ought to be recognized by you and by anybody else) growth.
me: A man who murders and then learns, "Oh my god. D: I just did something terribly wrong."
me: Such a character in a novel is one who displays character growth. By definition, almost.
me: So yeah. Okabe fucked up. But ... he realizes he fucked up and he (seems to have) learned from it.
Doppel: All he's realized is time travel is dangerous, he doesn't really acknowledge his guilt in abusing it.

About Suzuha's parents
Spoiler: show
Doppel: Do you know about Suzuha yet?
me: I'm through ... 15. I don't know who her father is, but my "It's Kyouma!" theory seems to be getting weaker and weaker as the anime seems to be hinting that it's actually Daru.
me: Which, if it is, is going to put one of my favorite C80 doujins in a whole new light. XD
Doppel: Daru hits on Suzuha though.
me: He does. But Oedipus hits on his mom. Things happen.
me: Still, I was kind of hoping it'd be Kyouma. It would have been a John Connor (Terminator) thing, sort of.
Doppel: When I first saw Suzuha's attitude toward Makise Kurisu I thought it was very daughter/motherish.
me: I didn't? But I did call Kyouma dad, Kurisu mom, didn't I?
me: So if that turns out to be correct ...
me: MAJOR brownie points. XD
Doppel: You said Kurisu mom, Okabe uncle.
me: Did I? I doubt that.
Doppel: Pretty sure, uncle or cousin.
me: Now you're going to make me have to go back and find the post. XP
Doppel: oh, I got it mixed up. You were right.
me: "Perhaps Kurisu is Suzuha's mother. Perhaps Okabe is Suzuha's father."
me: Found it.
DarkChromDra: yeah my bad

About one of my other earlier theories - this one's a heck of a lot more easy to guess though
Spoiler: show
me: "The part where Suzuha freaked out at Kurisu was ... interesting, to say the least. Not sure if she's a red herring, but for now I'm going to go off of my initial hunch from the very beginning that she's not all she seems, and therefore she's very probably either (a) a CERN employee sent to spy on Okabe or else (b) a time-traveler sent to do something else in the past. Could even be (c) both."
me: ^-^

Doppel then said something which I considered to be a HUGE spoiler. He protested and said "This is from after-the-anime material, so it's not a spoiler." Decide for yourself what the rules on that sort of thing are. But anyway, since he said this, I went ahead and explained to him how it was a spoiler to me. And he said, "Now you're thinking with portals. I won't confirm anything, but that is excellent insight." So having said that, click at your own discretion! Skip ahead to the line with the six *'s to find the relevant bit, but start from the beginning to see the full train of thought at work.
Spoiler: show
DarkChromDra: Supposedly, SERN's LHC is just a scaled up version of the microwave-phone.
me: D:
me: DOPPEL! :P
Doppel: Not a spoiler.
me: HOW NOT!?
Doppel: How not what?
me: How is it not a spoiler!
me: I haven't heard anything about that yet! XD
Doppel: It's extra show material.
me: No one's even been back in time past 2010 in order to make it happen.
me: Well maybe you should save those details for after I finish the show then!
me: xd
me: That'd be like saying Fate/Zero is "after show" material for FSN!
Doppel: Don't think too much about it, it's just the science jusification for why the microwave-phone is time travel capable.
me: Telling me that immediately tells me so much about ...
me: No! XD
me: You can't tell me "Don't think about it too much."
me: That's not who I am!
me: That's not how I operate!
Doppel: "It's just a scaled down model of the LHC, which has the ability to travel back in time".
me: You tell me that and BAM, it's analyzed at a thousand thoughts a second.
me: Scrutinized, dissected, tossed and turned over, rolled on the tongue and viewed under the eye of the strongest microscope!
Doppel: OK then, without going into details
me: So now I can basically discern that SERN is the by-product of Kyouma's and/or Kurisu's invention.
me: Which I would not necessarily have assumed (at this early stage) at all.
me: Theorized, sure.
me: Known, hell no.
Doppel: I feel the anime does a better job than the visual novel of telling this story because it cuts out a lot of the other retarded twists.
Doppel: There's a super big one that was thankfully cut out I'll spoil later.
****** Doppel: Kyouma and Makise Kurisu don't have any involvement with SERN until the dystopian future.
me: Yes, but things extend backwards. We've already seen that happening.
me: An alpha world's 2036 can influence a beta world's 2010 and mold an entirely different history.
me: So it's not a stretch to imagine that an alpha world in which there had not been a 20th-century SERN gave rise to a parent beta-world (and the mother to all the other worlds which we've been looking at with this feature) in which SERN was created in the 1950s.
me: Like, if you had a retardedly optimistic Kyouma (like we do now :p) who said, "Man, if I went back to the '50s, imagine how much farther ahead we'd be as a society in the 2010s! Maybe they could even help me save Mayuri!"
me: Or something.
me: So he basically sends the information (or personally travels, whichever) back in time and thereby helps to create SERN in the 1950s.
Doppel: Now you're thinking with portals.
Doppel: I won't confirm anything, but that is excellent insight.
Doppel: You've only made the first step, though.
me: Then I guess this goes inside a spoiler quote for later. XD
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Old 10-08-2011, 12:24 PM   #67
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Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
@Corsola - you're on the right track to consider names. Humans often make assumptions looking at names that might not necessarily be true. In my posts I've been saying someone's name in a peculiar way to draw attention to it.
I haven't continued with the series yet because I want to see if I can try to figure out the name riddle first. I realized you've always been using Makise Kurisu's full name. The ED seems to imply that she is the key to solving the mystery, but I can't think of what the signficance could be. None of my searches are turning up anything useful-sounding. (I don't want to believe religion plays a role in the story, even though Titor wanted Okabe to be the messiah.) You say that we make assumptions based on a name. I don't think of anything particular when I see the name, unless...

Spoiler: show
Kurisu is meant to be "Chris" and therefore she's a guy? XD That's why she always complains about adding "-tina"? She did spend a lot of time in America...


Hey, they've already used the same ploy twice. ^^;
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Old 10-08-2011, 12:51 PM   #68
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Almost finished with 16. Just paused it because I was confused about something and thought that it may have been the first evidence I've noticed about the program's inconsistent time travel logic that Doppel was talking about. However, as I discovered mid-way through writing the spoiler box contents below, it turns out it was a false alarm.

(spoilers thru 16)
Spoiler: show
In the episodes before the first SERN raid, it was pretty much established that Okabe couldn't travel back in time. Whenever he sent D-mails into the past in order to change the future, he always stayed put right where he was but saw the world around him change.

Then, the night of the SERN raid and following Mayuri's first death, Okabe decided to use the time leap or memory aspect of the device to go back in time and do things differently. So it was at this point that the show established that Okabe could go back in time -- by way of transferring his consciousness, or at least a part of it, into the consciousness of the Okabe Rintarou from n hours prior -- and that he was no longer locked in place. In other words, starting around this point in the show, Okabe began to appear to travel back in time (obviously he never did; rather, the Okabe in a previous time received his memories and the timeline veered off into a new direction).

With the Suzuha arc (episodes 14-16), we were introduced to the idea that someone in the future had successfully invented a working time machine which could physically transport an entire person, and not just their memories, back in time. In other words, genuine time travel and not merely the splitting of the timeline by way of transferring partial consciousness back to the past as in the paragraph above. Anyway, the arc winds up, things end poorly for Suzuha, Okabe feels terrible about it, and he resolves to change the past by making sure he never interfered with Suzuha.

Here's where I got confused. I assumed that he was going to do another one of those "time leaps," i.e. a memory transfer, and that he was going to stop Suzuha in that manner. Part of the reason I suspected this was because time was almost up for Mayuri, so he needed to go back in time anyway in order to buy her more time and to avoid capture by SERN. But instead of doing that, Okabe reverts to the older of his two tactics, the one described in the topmost paragraph of this spoiler, and decides to send a simple D-mail back to the past telling his past self not to stop Suzuha on the rainy night.

When I first saw this just now, I was confused, hit the pause button, and came here to post about it. But now that I've written out the post, I've helped myself to see that Steins wasn't contradicting itself after all. Instead, it was just being a bit unclear. As viewers, we've gotten accustomed to Okabe doing time leaps now; so naturally, we assume he's going to perform another time leap. The fact that he doesn't is surprising. But now that I realize that there's nothing in the rulebook which says that he can't, I guess this isn't as big of a breach of logic as I at first thought it was.

I will say that it still shows that Okabe's pretty short-sighted. (Because, as explained above, he may as well have gate-jumped anyway since SERN is almost here.) But that's neither here nor there. As has been previously mentioned, that Steins;Gate chooses to be the story of an idiot in way over his head should not be held against the narrative itself. So long as the idiot is portrayed reasonably (and not unrealistically stupid), there's not necessarily a problem. And, unfortunately for some viewers and for Okabe Rintarou himself, he is a rather dim-witted person.

May as well discuss 16 then while we're at it and I'm almost done. It's sad, but it's not quite as sad as I'd been expecting it would be given what you all were saying. The saddest part is obviously the s_____e, not so much the f__l__e, but even that isn't kept as being too too sad since Okabe intends to undo it pretty quickly. It'd be sad if it stayed permanently. Maybe it does. I mean, I haven't finished the episode, after all. But Mr. Brown is already describing a scenario which sounds like the past was changed, so, yeah.

(erodoujinshi parallel; do not click if under 18, though everything written here is work-safe)
Spoiler: show
It's always interesting watching a show after you've first become acquainted with it via eromanga doujinshi. Steins;Gate is no exception. One of my favorite doujins from Comiket 80 now has an entirely new light shed on it given the relationship between the two characters starring in it. (Hint: one is Suzu, the other is guess who. ) But another doujin I read this summer and enjoyed involved Suzuha's capture by SERN and subsequent auction in the underground sex trade. In the story, she was trying to do something (having never seen Steins before reading it, I didn't quite get it; without re-reading the story right this minute, I could now probably surmise that it had something to do with her mission). In any event, her capture and consequent enslavement results in mission failure. Which brings up this interesting tongue-in-cheek nod by the comic artist to the original source material:


Anime Version


Erodoujinshi Version

Basically, I now realize that the doujin is parodying the events of Episode 16. (Although not exactly, since presumably he has Suzuha's mission failure taking place in 2010, not 1975, given the presence of Mayuri, Feyris, and Ruka.) But yeah. Little things you don't realize are nods the first time you see them in an eromanga, you go back later after having seen the source material and you're like, "Ohhhhhhh, I see what he did there! "

What episode are you on, Yuki? I'm about to finish 16. Are we caught up? I've lost track. I get the feeling you're further ahead than 16.
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Old 10-08-2011, 01:06 PM   #69
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What episode are you on, Yuki? I'm about to finish 16. Are we caught up? I've lost track. I get the feeling you're further ahead than 16.
We should be on the same page now. Want to hear back from Dopple first in case he gives any more hints before continuing.
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Old 10-08-2011, 01:18 PM   #70
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As far as I can tell, the name thing was already revealed in Episode 16:
Spoiler: show
barrel = taru (I didn't know that), taru = Itaru (or Daru) --> Barrel Titor was Hashida Itaru all along

So like, I don't see the point in playing the name game any more. I guess we could, because Doppel seems so focused on Hououin Kyouma / Okabe Rintarou, but I really don't have anything other than retardedly juvenile and incorrect guesses like:
Spoiler: show
the "kyou" in Kyouma is homophonous with 今日 "today," so perhaps the story will end on the very same day it began, and that day is "today" ...

...

...

...

._.;

Or if it's Makise Kurisu we should be focusing on ...
Spoiler: show
Ma ki se ku ri su, if we try to rearrange the six letters in her name to form a new word or phrase ...

--> se ma ri ku ki su --> 迫り来る semari kuru means "to be imminent; to loom; to be approaching; to be impending" (thanks, WWWJDIC!)

But even if this is an intentional wordplay, it doesn't really help you predict anything other than (lol) "Makise Kurisu is important to the plot." (OH, GEE! THANKS, EINSTEIN, FOR THAT BIT OF INSIGHT! )

See what I mean? Nothing really jumps out. It isn't as obvious as it was in Ever17. The "Barrel Titor" one is, but nothing else beyond that, which makes me think that's the end of the road as far as name-based prophecies go. Could be wrong, but ... I'mma press on to 17 after this unless Fate/Zero Ep02 comes out here in a second.
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Old 10-08-2011, 02:50 PM   #71
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Through Episode 18. This was originally written as a PM to Yuki to get her to watch thru 18 without waiting on Doppel, but it ended up containing speculation of mine which I wanted shared with everybody , so here it is.

(Part which was originally going to be PMed)
Spoiler: show
As you could probably have figured out from the end of Steins;Gate episode 16, Okabe is now trying to undo the effects of the four D-mails he believes ultimately led to him being on a timeline where Mayuri prematurely dies:

(1) Kiryuu Moeka sends a message --> ???, the IBN 5100 disappears
(2) Urashibara Ruka sends a message --> becomes a girl
(3) Feyris Nyan-Nyan sends a message --> ??? (revealed in Episode 17)
(4) Okabe sends himself a message to stall Suzuha --> Suzuha doesn't go back to 1975 promptly and, as a result, her time machine is busted

Episode 17 (and then 18 ) begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together with regards to how Okabe managed to get his hands on the IBN 5100 originally and why he doesn't have it now. Anyway, small spoiler, I guess, but to just go ahead and let you know ...

(what the basic ideas are behind the next few episodes)
Spoiler: show
In 16, the D-mail to Suzuha was undone, right? So that was that. By doing that, she no longer committed suicide and she was actually successful in her mission.

In 17, Feyris's D-mail is undone. Details explored in the episode.

In 18, Ruka's D-mail is undone.

In 19 (I have yet to see it), Okabe will be trying to undo Moeka's D-mail.

Now comes the bit which prompted me to post this as a post here.

Speculation which isn't really a spoiler per se but could be, particularly if you didn't click on the parent spoiler box above.
Spoiler: show
It should be pointed out (this is just me speculating, but ...) Okabe is forgetting one possibility, and that's that the original message he sent to Daru -- the one which resulted in Makise Kurisu's survival -- may have been what pushed him out of the alpha world line and into the beta world line where Mayuri dies. In other words, we need to add an event to the original list:

(0) Okabe sends Daru a message about Kurisu being stabbed --> Kurisu isn't stabbed
(1) Kiryuu Moeka sends a message --> ???, the IBN 5100 disappears
(2) Urashibara Ruka sends a message --> becomes a girl
(3) Feyris Nyan-Nyan sends a message --> ??? (revealed in Episode 17)
(4) Okabe sends himself a message to stall Suzuha --> Suzuha doesn't go back to 1975 promptly and, as a result, her time machine is busted

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that Mayuri's premature death may be impossible to deter. I.e. it really may just be Fate at work. So that could always manifest, too. We could see that Okabe goes all the way back, undoing all his previous D-mails' effects, resulting in an unhappy Feyris, an unhappy Ruka, a ??? Moeka, and a dead Kurisu, only to discover that after all that suffering he's put back into place, Mayuri still dies early. So we'll see. Wouldn't be surprised, considering this is a Nitro+ title, to see something like that happen. I've never played any of their games but my understanding is that they're all fairly dark in one way or another.

On to Episode 19. Kinda getting bored by virtue of marathoning (I'm not a marathoner at heart, not with most things anyway ^^; ) but when I'm so close to the goal, I can't help but feel like, "C'mon, Talon! Just five more episodes and you can put this one away!"

Current thoughts? "6/10 - Fine" at worst, and perhaps a "7/10 - Good." In the end, the hollow characters will probably net it the 6. But this is in no way, shape, or form the train wreck that Doppel said it was. It's not even bad. On the black-or-white scale of "Did you like it or did you dislike it?", I'd say I enjoyed this. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have watched as much as I did as quickly as I did, now would I? But there're still five episodes to go, so anything could happen. After all: No.6 completely self-destructed in those last few episodes! So it ain't over 'til it's over.
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Old 10-08-2011, 03:12 PM   #72
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Quote:
Originally Posted by YUKI.N View Post


I haven't continued with the series yet because I want to see if I can try to figure out the name riddle first. I realized you've always been using Makise Kurisu's full name. The ED seems to imply that she is the key to solving the mystery, but I can't think of what the signficance could be. None of my searches are turning up anything useful-sounding. (I don't want to believe religion plays a role in the story, even though Titor wanted Okabe to be the messiah.) You say that we make assumptions based on a name. I don't think of anything particular when I see the name, unless...

Spoiler: show
Kurisu is meant to be "Chris" and therefore she's a guy? XD That's why she always complains about adding "-tina"? She did spend a lot of time in America...


Hey, they've already used the same ploy twice. ^^;
I don't mean the name meanings in this case. There's an example in Ever17, if that helps.

To guide you along, compare the differences between what I am calling her and what I should be calling her for convenience sake/conservation of typing and think about what I'm trying to draw attention to.
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Old 10-08-2011, 03:22 PM   #73
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
I don't mean the name meanings in this case. There's an example in Ever17, if that helps.

To guide you along, compare the differences between what I am calling her and what I should be calling her for convenience sake/conservation of typing and think about what I'm trying to draw attention to.
Which one? There are two examples I can think of (which Talon brought up) in his analysis on the relationships of the cast. Either way...

Spoiler: show
Is the Makise Kurisu we see on-screen not who we think she is? Could she be a different person from the one got stabbed in the Beta Timeline(?), or more likely, someone else is impersonating her in the future by working for SERN?


The latter reminds me of Layton again. XP
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Old 10-08-2011, 03:57 PM   #74
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Through Episode 20. I feel really bad for people like Kiryuu Moeka, but they're also really detestable. I ...
Spoiler: show
really, really hate weak-minded people like that. But it's sad because she's basically a nutcase who FB preyed upon.

FB's identity was revealed and wow. Did not see that one coming until it was right on our doorstep and I kept thinking to myself, "The only character we know with a last name ending in B is 'Mr. Brown', but that isn't even his real name afaik and besides, what on Earth would he have to do with SERN? " The fact that it was him all along is LOL WOW for the previous episodes of the series. Gives a whole new understanding/meaning to why Mr. Braun has been pissed with Okabe's experiments. It's not just about the noise and the dust ... it's about what he's actually trying to accomplish, too! Crazy.

I don't really get how Mr. Brown became a dog/cow of SERN's, though. I thought that Hashida Suzu (a.k.a. Amane Suzuha) took him in and raised him? But the way Mr. Brown makes it sound, he makes it sound like he's been SERN's slave ever since childhood. Either:
(a) Hashida Suzu worked for SERN , or else
(b) Mr. Brown became homeless as an adult (really? ) and it was as an adult, not as a child, that SERN picked him up

Good to see Okabe finally put 2 and 2 together regarding the fact that the D-mail about Kurisu's stabbing may have been what started it all and that he may have to end one life (Kurisu's) in order to save another (Mayuri's). LOL TRAGEDY if he does this and Mayuri still dies young. ^^;

Okay, time for some Fate/Zero, methinks. But after that, just four more episodes remain until I'll have finished off Steins;Gate!
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Old 10-08-2011, 04:19 PM   #75
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@Corsola - "Makise".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
(spoilers thru 16)
Spoiler: show
In the episodes before the first SERN raid, it was pretty much established that Okabe couldn't travel back in time. Whenever he sent D-mails into the past in order to change the future, he always stayed put right where he was but saw the world around him change.

Then, the night of the SERN raid and following Mayuri's first death, Okabe decided to use the time leap or memory aspect of the device to go back in time and do things differently. So it was at this point that the show established that Okabe could go back in time -- by way of transferring his consciousness, or at least a part of it, into the consciousness of the Okabe Rintarou from n hours prior -- and that he was no longer locked in place. In other words, starting around this point in the show, Okabe began to appear to travel back in time (obviously he never did; rather, the Okabe in a previous time received his memories and the timeline veered off into a new direction).

With the Suzuha arc (episodes 14-16), we were introduced to the idea that someone in the future had successfully invented a working time machine which could physically transport an entire person, and not just their memories, back in time. In other words, genuine time travel and not merely the splitting of the timeline by way of transferring partial consciousness back to the past as in the paragraph above. Anyway, the arc winds up, things end poorly for Suzuha, Okabe feels terrible about it, and he resolves to change the past by making sure he never interfered with Suzuha.

Here's where I got confused. I assumed that he was going to do another one of those "time leaps," i.e. a memory transfer, and that he was going to stop Suzuha in that manner. Part of the reason I suspected this was because time was almost up for Mayuri, so he needed to go back in time anyway in order to buy her more time and to avoid capture by SERN. But instead of doing that, Okabe reverts to the older of his two tactics, the one described in the topmost paragraph of this spoiler, and decides to send a simple D-mail back to the past telling his past self not to stop Suzuha on the rainy night.

When I first saw this just now, I was confused, hit the pause button, and came here to post about it. But now that I've written out the post, I've helped myself to see that Steins wasn't contradicting itself after all. Instead, it was just being a bit unclear. As viewers, we've gotten accustomed to Okabe doing time leaps now; so naturally, we assume he's going to perform another time leap. The fact that he doesn't is surprising. But now that I realize that there's nothing in the rulebook which says that he can't, I guess this isn't as big of a breach of logic as I at first thought it was.
This is where the logic starts to fall apart.

Makise Kurisu's time machine is fundamentally similar to the cell-phone microwave in that it sends information back to the past to a receiver. In this case, it's comparable to Kyouma sending the lotto ticket information to his old phone, only it's to his brain in this case.

The problem with this (and Corsola will be familiar with what I'm talking about) is that this system of time travel precludes physical time travel in most circumstances. An individual who sends any information in the past, including physical data, will be sent/combined with that person's existence in the past. Let's say Kyouma joined the military and became a buff mass of destruction. If he physically goes into the past, where he exists, his memory information along with his body information gets combined with his past self, since it's a "receiver". The result is his past self gets ripped. Or he might not. It's difficult to determine how reality would rectify contradictory data - it's simple with Kyouma because he's just adding new memories to his old memories and not new memories that contradict the old memories.

Suzuha episode info:
Spoiler: show

Given this, what happened to Suzuha isn't surprising. In fact it happened already with the very first D-Mail sent to Daru - it got split into three pieces and arrived at different times, no? Suzuha didn't exist in the 1970's, so there was no proper "receiver" to compile her time travel information...and it got scattered, arriving at different times.


It's not stated what kind of time machines SERN has, but it's heavily implied they are using Makise Kurisu's model and not Daru's model that allows perfect time-travel. This might explain why Japanese thugs (those masks are very Japanese-style) instead of futuristic foreign soldiers went to detain Kyouma's lab, the best they could do is try to organize themselves in the past when they lack the resources they have in the future.

The story bites itself by first giving a working model of a time-machine, then presenting an upgraded model following the same principles that actually does something comparable to time-travel while explaining why it has to be like that...then runs over that model with a DeLorean.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Spoiler: show

FB's identity was revealed and wow. Did not see that one coming until it was right on our doorstep and I kept thinking to myself, "The only character we know with a last name ending in B is 'Mr. Brown', but that isn't even his real name afaik and besides, what on Earth would he have to do with SERN? " The fact that it was him all along is LOL WOW for the previous episodes of the series. Gives a whole new understanding/meaning to why Mr. Braun has been pissed with Okabe's experiments. It's not just about the noise and the dust ... it's about what he's actually trying to accomplish, too! Crazy.
Spoiler: show
It's dumb. He's Kyouma's land-lord. If he wanted the IBN 5100 so bad, why didn't he just use his keys and just take it?

There is also a retarded Nae sub-plot that was thankfully removed from the anime, but payed a big role in the VN:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luph
You are all of a sudden going to Turn NAE into the femme fatale who wants revenge against Okabe, by going back 2700 times in the past and not getting revenge the 2699 times and/or just stopping "daddy FB " from offing him-self yes that was another stupid thing he did too...

THEN putting it into the story that she was the one that kills Okabe for the revenge or whatever bullshit reason, when she could have killed him like 4536536763458 times. . .or at least TELL HER FATHER "FB" about him and about her being from the future!

HE WOULD HAVE BELIEVED HER!!!!!! hes a SPECIAL AGENT for CERN FFS!!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
LOL TRAGEDY if he does this and Mayuri still dies young. ^^;
I was calling that the whole time, but it didn't happen apparently.

Episode 21 is a big part of why I hate the "character development" in Steins

Makise Kurisu:

Spoiler: show
In this episode, we find Makise Kurisu has fallen in love with Kyouma over their experiences together. WHAT? Keep in mind that Kyouma has been going back in time one day at a time and has been explaining everything to Makise Kurisu and Daru after each travel back. It's also implied he's re-building the time machine since IIRC it was finished around Day 13, but he's almost a week in the past now, before the time-machine was first made. So while he and Makise Kurisu had two weeks together on Day 14, Kyouma is actually back-tracking to something like Day 7. So she's fallen in love with him after 7 days while having their relationship/experience explained to her.

I think it's reasonable to have Kyouma fall for Makise Kurisu, he's an idiot and has been taking her support for granted. But all those heart-to-heart discussions were always undone when he traveled back.


Talon, you didn't make mention of Feyris, but you must have passed that episode by now. What did you think of it?
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