Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray Review
Time and again.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, December 15, 2012
Imagine
Groundhog Day filtered through a prism or seen through a honeycomb where several simultaneous
timelines play out repetitively and you'll have some idea of the complexities at work in one of the most fascinating and
involving anime of recent years,
Steins;Gate. For those not up to speed on the extremely convoluted plot of this
anime, a
very brief summation of sorts can be found in the
Steins;Gate Blu-ray review of Part 1. The hero of
Steins;Gate is self proclaimed "mad scientist" Rintarō Okabe, who slowly discovers that he has the ability to
leap between various timelines (called "world lines" in the series) while also being able to time travel. The first arc of
episodes set up Rintarō's dilemma as he lapsed in and out of various alternate realities, using the framing device of
Rintarō's anguish over having seen what seemed to be the murder of Kurisu, a beautiful young woman with gorgeous
auburn hair. As if that weren't disturbing enough, Okabe
also is trying to save a sweet little girl named Mayuri
whom he more or less takes care of. This second arc of episodes in fact spends a bit more time on Okabe's repeated
(failed) attempts to somehow keep Mayuri safe, a series of escapades that may indeed remind some viewers as a kind
of tragic version of
Groundhog Day. The series does ultimately boil down to a horrible kind of
Sophie's
Choice that Rintarō has to make, juggling several competing timelines (and/or "world lines") as he attempts to all of
his loved ones to safety (not to mention himself).
Steins;Gate isn't always easy to follow, and in fact it becomes
kind of laborious in its endgame as Rintarō has to watch Mayuri get killed over and over and over again, no matter what
he tries to do, but the series is really one of the most intelligently handled time travel
cum alternate reality
anime ever to come down the twisty sci-fi pike.
Because so many of the opening episodes in this particular volume tend to rehash the same material over and over
again,
some elements of this "second half" of the series can be a little more annoying than the first half was. How many times
can we see Okabe fail to save his friend?
Several, evidently, to the point where it almost becomes funny how
desperate Okabe becomes to save Mayuri, only to see her get pummeled by some new, unexpected threat at the last
moment. But the flip side of this is we get to experience the increasingly panicked state of Okabe as he tries to wend
his
way through an increasingly impossible to navigate series of obstacles (quite like Bill Murray in
Groundhog Day,
as
a matter of fact).
Watching the slow devolution of Okabe from a manically cackling "mad scientist" into the drawn,
almost
defeated
character he becomes in this second half of the series provides a lot of the compelling drama.
Steins;Gate may
in
fact be a little too complex for its own good, because once the various "world lines" begin intersecting and Okabe has
to
choose "which from column A, which from column B" he's going to pursue, the series loses just a little of its narrative
drive,
and whatever halting clarity it may have had up to that point.
Steins;Gate is
not an easy series to
follow
at various turns, and there are a
lot of turns as the series moves toward its denouement.
The series still maintains a really high degree of excellent writing and really well done character development, though
(without revealing
too much about how everything shakes out) things do rather quickly get back to the sort of
lunatic ambience of the opening couple of episodes with a sort of nonchalance that seems to undercut the amazingly
intricate path that Okabe has had to take to get to where he ultimately ends up. The fascinating thing about
Steins;Gate is that with all its sci-fi meanderings and its dependence on all sorts of simultaneously unfolding
alternate realities, in a very way the show boils down to being a rather simple, heartfelt love story between two kind of
inarticulate characters. Getting there may not be half the "fun" exactly, but it's certainly one of the most compelling
journeys any recent anime has offered.
Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray, Video Quality
Steins;Gate Part 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p
transfer in 1.78:1. With all of the recent brouhaha over the new Blu-ray of
Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series and its quite
evident banding issues, I'm almost loathe to get into this series' evidently intentional use of quasi-banding, something that
crops up with pretty predictable regularity when Okabe is in alternate world lines. There's also increased use of the
desaturated, monochromatic look that was used a little more fleetingly in the first half of the series. Other techniques
include intentional "distressing" of the image, added grain, and a host of other "gimmicks" that give
Steins;Gate an
incredibly unique and innovative visual flair. There's not a whole whale of a lot of bright palettes in this particular group of
episodes, since so much of the series now takes place in alternate timelines, timelines which are indicated by a kind of often
sickly green, desaturated appearance. But line detail remains strong and when things
do pop with some vivid
primaries, they look fantastic.
Steins;Gate: Part 2 Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Steins;Gate lost just a
tad of its incredible forcefulness as this second half of episodes started up, simply
because Okabe's repeated attempts to save Mayuri were so obviously doomed to failure that some viewers (like this one)
might ultimately be rolling their eyes and muttering to themselves, "Okay, we get it—move on, please". But things get
decidedly more interesting as the series moves toward its endgame, and watching Okabe's evolution (or
devolution,
as the case may be) through this arc of episodes is a fascinating journey. This is an anime that certainly warrants repeated
viewing, as it is one of the most densely plotted, intricately interwoven pieces I've personally experienced in
my
journeys with this often adventurous idiom. This second Blu-ray set offers the same sterling video and excellent audio that
graced the first set, and it comes with an adequate assortment of supplements.
Highly recommended.
