
a review by Juko

a review by Juko
Before i start pointing out the negative aspects of the series and getting heavily criticised, i have to clarify that the show was not bad overall, very unique by concept, very good animation and very good atmosphere. I especially liked how the series used real life phenomenons on it's story such as John Tutor or CERN and how the series used CRT effects for viewer perspective etc. the atmosphere was good.
It's just it's definetely not the best series out there. Plot twists were predictable. Concept was strong but flow was weak. And keeping in mind the fact that it stayed on top of myanimelist's "highest rated series" for years, makes it the most overrated anime of all time.
I will not explain what i enjoyed and found good in this series in detail as it will be no different from what you will be reading on other reviews. I'll just jump straight to why i'm not really big fan of the show. I watched the show in 2018 first, and watched it again before writing this review.
The show is too much confident that viewers will never predict what will come. But if you already see where this is going, the show is over for you. You will just get annoyed more and more in each episode by the fact that you were right. Then the "plot twist" you expected happens, not surprised, yet the scene served as "total shock!". And you are annoyed again.
So in the first episodes of the show, we see that MC is super paranoid. He is running a "super secret project", "secret agents might be after him", "SERN is lying everyone". Anyone might be an organization's agent so he's not easily trusting people that he just met (some sort of).
eg: Rintaro tells Kurisu she might be a secret agent
eg: Rintaro refuses to tell anything to Amane because it's top secretThen in episode 2 we have this weird girl named Moeka appearing out of no where, taking picture of MC, asking if he knows IBM5100. Later on, in the very same episode Rintaro learns about IBM5100, and it's capability on decoding some values necessary for time travel etc.
eg: Rintaro says IBM 5100 is connected to SERN's secrets.At this point, Mokea is super sussy for searching for IBM5100, not to mention her finding Rintaro out of no where. Rintaro should've realize she is weird, but since he's not a clever character by design i'll assume this is normal for the plot. Viewers already realized Moeka could be an agent of a shady organization.
Then in episode 6, Moeka forcefully comes to Rintaro's house, Moeka is super interested in IBM5100 for some reason, even asks to borrow it, take pictures of it. Rintaro is chill. Rintaro says "We can't let the Organization find out...", Moeka replies "Is it the FB ?"
Viewers are almost certain that Moeka is a secret agent at this point.
Then we painfully watch the team revealing every secret to this super weird girl with no hesitation. And Rintaro invites her to the team with no hesitation, I know that Rintaro is not clever by character design. It's just I don't care, watching Rintaro sharing all the secrets to a secret agent was just annoying for me.
from now on you are our lab member!So in episode 8, Moeka asks to use the time machine from Rintaro. She says she will experiment replacing her phone, Rintaro allows it with no hesitation. Urishira also uses the machine. Then IBM5100 disappears the very same day, ~peh
Then in next episode 9, when Rintaro finds Moeka on street, we see that she says "But FB told me IBM would be there".
At this point Moeka is confirmed to be an FB agent.

She disappears for few episodes, appears to be FB agent, then kills the characters. What a plot twist! She was an FB agent all along. Wow! None of us saw this coming!
So the reason I'm more annoyed rather than enjoyed the series is, a VERY sussy girl appears at 2nd episode, and you painfully watch our ""paranoid"" character spilling all of the secret details to this random sussy girl. Then as the episodes continue you already see where this is going, girl comes out as FB agent, kills the teammates, this incident served as a total shock for the viewer which makes you even more annoyed.
Another thing i didn't like is; So there is a time machine, there is a dark group of people, world is at danger etc okay,
But instead of saving the world, we're watching Rintaro turning a femboy into female, helping a maid cafe employee with her wishes, helping sussy fb agent create butterfly effect etc. I was actually invested in Rintaro to save the world or something at the beginning of the show, found my self watching Rintaro fixing problems of side characters.
It's basically in first 12 eps, nothing worth mentioning happens except repeating joke dialouges in a tiny room. And Rintaro was basically fixing the problems he created all along.
I'm actually the one that made the mistake, I had really different expectations from the show. I expected Rintaro to save the future from the evil organization, i expected Rintaro to make clever moves, I expected to see the dystopian future a bit more. I wanted to see more interaction of MC with outside world, the past and the future. I was really invested, because we had a time machine, because we were talking about time traveling!! Afterall it was one of the highest rated animes! (even in 2018).
But instead, i got a story that entirely took place in a tiny office, and a protagonist only dealing with side-characters. Naturally, i was disappointed.
This is over for my ranting, again i'm not saying Steins;Gate is a bad show, it's a unique show that offers something completely original. It's just it has it's flaws it's definetely not the best anime, definetely not the 10/10 anime, and more importantly
The most overrated anime of all time.
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