Steins;Gate is my favorite anime. When it comes to "what I want from anime", it's shows like this.
Now I'm writing this review mainly to replace the ones currently online. I've seen Steins;Gate three times now. Once in late 2016, another in early 2018 to prep for Steins;Gate 0, and this third watch was to show two of my friends as the last two times it was my turn to choose something, they were Michiko & Hatchin (which we all thought was boring) and Terror in Resonance (which I still really like but they were not as enthusiastic). My credibility was declining and I needed a trump card and my favorite anime is that. Did it succeed? Well, both have told me it was better than those two so sure.

It was interesting seeing them watch it for the first time, because my preconceived notion was that if there's something you DON'T like about the show, it's that the first half is slow-ish paced. Then again, these are the people who had just seen Texhnolyze and loved it, so clearly they didn't care about that. I think their problems were more in the show's origins as a visual novel, in that this sci-fi thriller also wants you to "pick a waifu". They also HATED the treatment of the character of Ruka, which I will admit is the part that has aged the most. While it didn't affect my enjoyment of the show, it certainly affected their's.

Is Steins;Gate really a "perfect show"? Not really, there are sideplots that didn't really need to be here, specifically that of Ruka's and Faris's. But I still love this show. I love the characters, I love the writing, I love the direction (this would be such a different show without the directing), I love where the story goes. Sure the show can be cringe here and there but I still love it.

At first you think Steins;Gate is a show about college kids that discover time travel and their wacky adventures, but in reality the show is about death. Characters here must either confront death or die themselves. Okabe specifically is the only one who is able to time travel with all of his memories intact. So he must carry the burden of watching death happen countless times. It becomes a question of "which deaths should and should not happen", a question that becomes the basis of the sequel series Steins;Gate 0 (which isn't a direct sequel, instead it continues the story of a bad ending). I really get engrossed in Steins;Gate's plot each time I watch it.

Now I watched a show prior to Steins;Gate called ChäoS;HEAd (yes, it’s as stupid as the title). I was engrossed in the show’s first half. I kept wondering whether or not the character was schizophrenic, debating if what he’s seeing is real or not. In the second half the show completely flops and the answers to the questions are not the ones you want, likely because of the rushed nature of the adaptation. I've heard the visual novel is like the first half for the whole thing, so I'll look into that whenever the English patch of NoAH is finished.

That never happens with Steins;Gate. I'd say the plot becomes less captivating with each rewatch, and some twists were always insanely predictable, but the quality doesn't plummet like ChäoS;HEAd did, if anything it improves as the show goes along. Steins;Gate takes a dark turn right when it needs to.

There's a bunch of highly rated anime that I think are overrated (even Code Geass R2, I like it but it was not better than the first season), but Steins;Gate is one of the rare few that I honestly think has earned its reputation. This is what I want from anime, actually no, animation in general. This is my favorite anime and I will stand by that.

El Psy Kongroo.