I wonder how the nature of time travel works in this series, especially with Okabe’s mysterious ability. Is this series like Noein, where all kinds of parallel dimensions exist right next to each other between those lines every time he (note: he, he’s not aware of anything Cern has been doing) interferes with the past, or is there just one true time-line that can be manipulated, and where Okabe is the only one aware of these changes? Is Okabe desperately searching for a time-line in which Mayuri doesn’t die, or is he desperately trying to bend that time-line into a direction where she doesn’t die?
In any case, mostly whenever fiction uses real world examples for bad guys, they’re always these terrorists, evil armies, villains, those kinds of things. Here though, the world is going to be taken over by an organization that is at the edge of modern science. It both makes sense and is very creative for Cern of all things to be involved (after all, the person who is the first to get his hands on the technology to time travel can pretty much doom the entire world, no matter what kind of position he/she’s in.
This episode was really dedicated to Suzuha and building her into the team. We’re now at the point where she doesn’t have any secrets from the main characters anymore. After the last episode I wondered why she was wary of Makise Kurisu, and not of the obvious villain of Shining Finger, but of course it makes sense: in her time, Makise Kurisu is famous, while shining Finger was just some goon who works in the background. With the past episodes though, a lot of history has already been changed, in the way that Makise Kurisu really isn’t likely to end up working at Cern right now, which means that Cern would need to find a different way or person to create their time machine. It’s probably not impossible for them at this point, though.
It’s also interesting that Suzuha’s plan was pretty much bogged down by her own flaws: the fact that she knew hardly anything about what really went on in 2010 and her shyness. It’s a shame that she didn’t know about the Cern hacking, otherwise she just could have screamed to Okabe to just stop hacking Cern. If she was less shy, she would have found a way to explain that she’s from the future, like what Okabe did in this episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Im am Mad Scientist…
Its so cool!!!…Sunovabith XD…
It was already explained that this uses many worlds theory.
In a sense EVERY and ANY action shifts a timeline.
As Suzuha has said, however, timelines are sort of grouped together by common events that exist in most of those(see: probability theory) So you have a certain amount of timelines where Mayuri will die and to get into one where she does not, one has to change the things enough to shift the worline away from the “mayuri dies” group to “other outcome” groups.
You can’t alter the same timeline you are in 🙂
Welcome back psgels.
It was already explained in the past episodes that no matter what Okabe does, Mayuri will still die. This is because the timeline she’s in will lead to her death. Suzuha explained that this can be avoided by going to timeline beta, a world in which Mayuri doesn’t die. In this case, not letting CERN know that they’ve successfully sent the D-Mail. Okabe sending the D-mail in the first episode triggered the timeline in which Mayuri dies. So all they have to do is delete the evidence that they’ve sent a DMail from CERN’s database and they will live happily ever after.
This show is really amazing. I’m wondering if Chaos;Head was given a 24-episode treatment, it’ll be this good.
Here’s a theory to blow your minds. I’m not sure if you guys noticed but in one earlier episode when Moeka “Shining Finger” first learns about Okabe’s time machine work, she said “FB?”. Every time she kills Mayuri, it’s like she kind of has to steel herself by telling herself it’s for FB’s sake. Could FB be a/the future Okabe? Did he ask Moeka to go back in time to kill Mayuri? Did he do it to manipulate his past self’s actions? So is future Okabe the antagonist in this situation? Is Moeka even with SERN? Cos if she’s working for Future Okabe, Okabe could have told her everything they were doing in the past. Her explanation to Okabe about why they were attacked…was it truth or something Okabe’s future self told her to tell him?
@Meow
Didn’t Suzuha mention in this episode that both Okabe and Makise were already dead in 2036? It makes no sense if we are to follow the show’s dialogue. But if that were the case, it would be very intriguing.
Mindfu*ked.
It’s kinda funny that so many shows base their science on variations of Hugh Everett’s crackpot Many Worlds Interpretation. I’m sure there are other crackpot theories just waiting to be similarly popularized. XD
Absolutely adored Okabe’s attempt to communicate with that guy. Made my day.
I noticed that Moeka one time said that Okarin had been captured AFTER he ran away.
Mayby Moeka wants him to win and that is the only way her brainwashing will allow…