Okay, so I do think that Okabe was overacting a tad too much in the first half of this episode. This stands out more than usual because the acting in this series was always so great, but that’s where the melodrama got a bit too much, especially because it caused him to not think of the obvious solution of using the time machine to travel further back in time. I also think it was a bit cheap for this episode to just “announce” that Okabe tried every possible way to save Mayuri: I understand that it was for time issues, but I would have liked to have seen Okabe to try some more and exploit other possibilities.
On the other hand though, this episode got right back on track when Christina returned to the main picture. Her level-headedness was exactly what Rintarou needed, and the plot turned really interesting with the actual introduction of leaping beyond the 2,5 hours of the previous episode. The big twist at the end that Suzuha turned out to be John Titor makes perfect sense. The prospect of severely altering time in the next episode also makes yet again for one hell of a cliff-hanger.
I do have to wonder what Suzuha meant with that the Y2K problem was one of the moments where world lines greatly converged based upon the choices made. Of course I was only 12 when it happened, but was it really as important as the Gulf War? I rather would have guessed that 9/11, the invention of the internet or the birth of social media would have counted as that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Overacting? I have to disagree. I mean, he was desperous, try to put yourself in his position… If it was me, i couldn’t think properly. That’s why Kurisu is so important. Just as you said, she put Okabe back in the track.
What a show… I can’t wait for the next one! Keep it up Psgels! 😉
I thought Suzuha had a time leap but she turns out to be a time traveler :O It’s not suprising but it makes the story way more interesting!
Haha, now I know how years old is psgel! XD
Now I think about it, maybe Kurisu didn’t die because suzuha came and splited the world line :O
So why did Suhuza wait for something like this to happen before spilling the beans? Let me guess… She thought no one would believe her if she said it earlier
Anyway I love this.. 11/10 right now
Y2K if it was real, could have destroyed the infrastructure of WHOLE WORLD.
yes it was more serious probability than 9/11.
“because it caused him to not think of the obvious solution of using the time machine to travel further back in time”
#1: He can only travel back 48 hours
#2: Even if he travels back said 2 days and cancels the experiment, SERN will still know that he hacked into them. He will still be hunted by them
#3: No matter what he tries (currently), in that time frame, Mayuri will still die at that particular time so travelling back further will be pointless.
For one, Okabe acted like any normal human would in such a situation. You can’t tell me witnessing your friend die several times and not being able to prevent it, you’d be calm cool and collected. You’d be going freaking nuts.
As for Y2K problem I’m guessing there are world lines in which the bug destroyed the whole world. Wasn’t that obvious guys? Like how there would be world lines for the Gulf War were like it became WW3 or something.
The thing I love about this series is that it doesn’t treat the viewer like an idiot. It presumes that the viewer is of somewhat intelligence to have watched up until now and it keeps throwing some intelligent and creative curve balls. It’s brilliant.
Let’s not forget the art direction was brilliant in this episode. The scene where Mayuri is shot in the car and the screen becomes white and cracks with lines of red. Was very artistic.
Alright that’s it for me. Thoughts?
I’m old enough to remember Y2K clearly. It was a HUGE issue… Well, it was until January 1, 2000, when everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The fears about Y2K were astronomical. Airplanes were expected to fall from the sky, the global banks were expected to crash, nuclear power plants were expected to exlode. Even the less-than-paranoid made a point of purchasing extra water and canned foods, just in case. The most paranoid purchased artillery and those paranoid AND wealthy purchased and/or built underground bunkers to survive nuclear fallout.
Ah, Y2K, its been a long time since i heard that. I actually smiled when they mentioned it in this episode, brings back memories.
I remember you could even buy a hardware device that you plugged into a free ram slot in your computer, that would protect your pc from the bug. lol!
But like others said, Suzuha mentioned big events in recent times where the fate of the entire world COULD have been changed. And if Y2K had happened, your blog wouldnt exist psgels.
Either way, i didnt think he was overreacting, you have to remember that first of all, okabe is supposed to be 17! Yes freaking 17 (or was it 18?). lol japan. Anyway, so first of all, he isnt very old, secondly he cant handle a crisis very well, not to mention the fact he cant save his childhood friend. Knowing she will die whatever he does is quite a hard fact to swallow.
Also another thing: When okabe says he cant change mayuri’s fate, we see a quick glimpse of mayuri turned to green jelly with her hands stuck in the wall behind her. Now THATS pretty damn interesting to note, seeing as one would only turn to jelly if you PHYSICALLY travel back in time, with a 2010 timemachine (i mention it as a “2010 timemachine”, as suzuha’s from 2036 is obviously good enough to travel with people back in time without turning into jello).
I wonder how that happened?
I have to agree with everyone. Even though I was only 15 back then Y2K was a huge deal…I’m normally not that easily scared or paranoid, but that one even got to me. Had it actually happened it would have had a huge impact on world history…it basically would have destroyed all leading nations.
Looking back on it, I’m still kinda surprised how it went by without anything happening at all…the date just switched and it was a simple day like any other…just in a new century.
It’s not that hard to imagine that maybe many more things happened in the background that we never actually witnessed, which might even have lead to a grave difference in how the world ended up.
Well that’s what Steins;Gate stresses, isn’t it?! It’s just a matter of 1% to turn the world upside down and even smaller things can be a huge deal to an individual…
The difference in worldstructure is just a bit over 0,33% from what I suppose is Okabe’s original world line…that’s just a third of 1%, something we perceive as almost nonexistent. Yet this difference is big enough to make Akiba into a whole different town, keep all the Otaku in Nakano, prevent one woman from dying, wake a sleeper assassin, turn a guy into a girl, make a store have Dr. Pepper…and probably many other different things as well.
Can anyone explain to me why, for just a brief instant, Mayuri is shown as a jelly man? If you can’t do it without spoiling something, I’d prefer not to know. But, it definitely caught my eye.
One of the time leaps. In it, Mayuri was attempted to be sent back, but she was jellyfied. There were a lot of time leaps, and it would have been hard to show them all in the timeframe of this show
SERN kidnaps mayuri, use her for their experiment and sent the pic to okarin
I had a Fringe feeling in this episode.
I have a faint feeling suzuha is actually okabe’s daughter or something..
Remember Suzuha said she came here to meet her dad.. and there was a point whereby it will decide whether she stays or leaves..
And.. Okabe turned up to stop her from leaving..
with Y2K we had TWO PROBLEMS.
One is the computer bug, the other being the day before was the end of the world! lol
The dates Suzuha mentioned as being major issues that determined significant world lines were actually the events the original John Titor predicted as being catastrophic. I think it’s pretty cool how the show implies that our current world is the result of someone diverting the world lines so that the things John Titor predicted were avoided.
Overly dramatic? He’s seen his closest friend die multiple times and couldn’t do anything about it. Okabe’s reaction is natural and not overacting at all.
To MooN – I think Suzuha would know if Okabe was her dad. It was implied in this episode that he contributed greatly to time travel in the future because he made the divergence meter. Suzuha does not know the entire identity of Barrel Titor but she knows Okabe Rintarou quite well. The facts don’t add up.
@Suzushina Yuriko
You’re assuming that everything the girl said has been said in truth. If we were to take everything she’s said as truth, then little would make sense. For example, she believes Kris to be bad news, yet she showed the opposite of hostility to her in this episode; she has said that her father is Barrel Titor (I bet it’s because he’s fat lol), but that she is unaware of any John Titor. Furthermore, there was that strange point where the time line changed such that John Titor did not travel back to 2000.
And, would someone please extrapolate on Jel-Mayuri???
Y2K was a big problem, the reason nothing happened was it got solved in time. This then gave many the false impression there was no problem to begin with.
The problem started back in the 70’s, when RAM was extremely expensive. To save RAM programmers would often only use the last two digits of a year, so 1975 would be programmed as 75, and 2000 would become 00, see the problem?
in some episode she wanted to meet her dad at the same time and place as daru had a apointment, just the dmail stoped that, so i guess daru is her dad
The ‘real’ John Titor was also a Y2K crank, and there was also the whole ‘end of the world’ bit from superstitious people. It makes for a convenient anchor for the audience too.
Suzuha is not okabes daughter.
Y2K certainly did cause real problems. For instance in New Zealand a bug in the PLC’s in an Aluminium smelter caused all the pot lines to shut down which caused a massive amount of damage to the plant. It just didn’t cause the end of the world 🙂 I remember a paranoid friend of mine left London and came back to NZ because he thought it was safer here. ALSO, it managed to find gainful employment for those COBOL programmers!
Yes, @MooN I got the same, distinct feeling. Somewhat similar to Phoenix (Rachel Summers) from the X-Men when she traveled back in time before she was born to meet her parents Scott Summers & Jean Grey, but in a different timeline where the original Phoenix didn’t die.
Suzuha is Daru’s daughter. No its not a spoiler, its actually VERY obvious in the episode where she says she will look for her dad.
I just want to know, beside from my post above, where the original john titor is.
@ Wolf – I heard that the game actually had Suzuha and Kurisu fight and then make up, which would explain the lack of hostility. She said that her father is Barrel Titor, but I don’t remember a point in time where she said she didn’t know of John Titor – in fact, she actively encouraged Okabe to contact him instead. It’s very possible that Okabe’s shifting from world line alpha to world line beta caused the identity and destination of John Titor to change.
I don’t think Suzuha is lying. There’s no reason for her to lie in the first place if Okabe actually contributed to her cause in 2036, meaning that he’s trustworthy.
For Jel-Mayuri, I heard that SERN kidnapped her, used her for an experiment, and Moeka sent the picture to Okabe later.
Steins;Gate is way too good! I’m wishing I could watch Episode 15 right now. >.
You’re younger than I thought! Opinions diverge greatly on whether the Y2K problem was anywhere as big a threat as all the hype back then would have you believe. Whether because of the tremendous resources spent on “fixing” it or simply because the problem was minor to begin with, once 2000 rolled over there were only a few actual problems and all of them quite minor.
What we can say for sure is that there was a lot of hype propagated on purpose, with the intent of making people pay for fixing problems that in many but not all cases were nonexistent. You can be sure that some people made a good profit on this 🙂
With 2012 coming close, doomsday propagandists should be ramping up their campaigns in the coming months once again.
One of the most unique anime series in history, im playing the game.
The anime is such a good adaptation.
I want games to be adapted like Stein; Gate