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Review: Steins;Gate (2011)
I'd heard about this anime years ago, when I was still in university. While the general time leaping and time travel story line was interesting, the anime tropes did get annoying at times. Overall, I thought this show was okay, but I probably wouldn't recommend it unless it was to a person who didn't mind anime tropes.
I watched Steins;Gate here on Youtube.
Spoilers.
Story
I got a bit confused near the end when older Okabe said he needed to "change the past, without changing the future," but I think he was just using that as a figure of speech. So here is my understanding of the events.
- Okabe saw Kurisu dead, and sent a D-mail to Daru. This pushed us from the beta timeline to the alpha timeline.
- In the alpha timeline, Okabe and his lab sent more D-mails. This timeline would always end in Mayuri dying.
- To reverse this timeline and move back to the beta timeline, Okabe + lab would have to reverse the effects of ever D-mail they sent, in reverse order.
- When back in the beta timeline, Suzuha and Okabe went physically into the past. Okabe was unable to stop Kurisu from dying.
- Suzuha and Okabe went to the past to try again. If they achieved the target of saving both Mayuri and Kurisu, they'd move frome the beta timeline to the Steins;Gate timeline.
- This time, Okabe stopped Kurisu from dying, but posed the body so that the Okabe of that timeline would think that Kurisu was dead but wasn't actually. Seeing Kurisu dead would motivate Okabe to go through all the events that led to the lab to build their time machine and time leap machine, which would save the world from a dystopia in the future.
After having written it out, I think I still don't understand the ending that well, but I don't think I need to think to hard about it because time travel stories tend not to be logically airtight anyway.
Writing
Time leap
Technically, Okabe was doing time leaps and not time travels for most of the story. Anyway, I thought the concept of transferring information rather than physical things was pretty interesting because even something as small as a text could change the future in a significant way. I'll talk more about time leaps and such in the themes section below.
Visual novel influences
I'd heard that Steins;Gate was originally a visual novel. It didn't become apparent to me until I noticed that Okabe had slightly romantic storylines with several female characters. But I guess the canonical romantic interest is supposed to be Kurisu.
Anime tropes
I'm going to sound like such a grouch, but the anime tropes made this show "nearly unwatchable" near the beginning. It was probably also because I'm older than the target demographic. Most of the characters are around 18 years old.
The anime tropes did get toned down in the second half of the show, when plot took precedence. But then they re-emerged when we had to get emotional with Mayuri and Kurisu.
Some of the blatant anime archetypes were acknowledged (such as Kurisu being called a tsundere, and Daru having a dirty mind), but acknowledging them didn't make them any less cringy.
Some of the examples of anime tropes that bothered me were how the female characters fit very neatly into anime archetypes. Another thing that bothered me was the sheer range of emotional maturity among the characters of similar age. It really got on my nerves, to put it frankly.
There were a lot of sexually suggestive scenes. Some of them were set up with the intention to have Daru drool all over them and then have the other characters chastise Daru for doing so (which wasn't really that funny imo). But that was still only like half of those scenes.
Another anime trope that I thought was tiring and overused was having characters call others by nicknames they didn't like. Okabe liked to be called Hououin Kyouma, Kurisu didn't like to be called Christina, Tennojin didn't like to be called Mr. Braun, etc. It got extremely old because characters like Kurisu and Tennojin were having to correct Okabe nearly every single time they met.
Other tropes
In terms of regular tropes, I thought that miscommunication was used too often. Luckily, they were never used as major plot devices, but it did often lead to cringy situations where things would've been fine if Okabe just sat everyone down and explained things. I do understand that it would've gotten extremely tiring for Okabe to do it over and over again though. Plus, for people other than Kurisu, it probably would've been unbelievable, especially with that part about Ruka formerly being a boy.
Production
The animation was okay. There were still scenes that seemed a bit "lazy," but overall, I think it was okay.
I don't know what it is with anime girls having unnaturally high-pitched voices, but it was something I really didn't like. It exaggerated the emotional maturity difference even further. It was perfectly possible to make Mayuri a cute and kind girl without making her sound like a ten year old.
Due to the fact that this show is about time travel and time leaping, there were some scenes that were repeated quite often. Sometimes those scenes would be repeated completely, and I thought that that probably wasn't necessary. For repeating scenes, I think the producers would've been fine just showing the important parts.
Characters
Some of the characters were far more tropey than others, to the point that that actually made me not like them.
The vast difference in emotional maturity also made me take the show less seriously as a whole. In particular, some characters just weren't written to adjust their attitudes depending on the situation and that made me not able to take this show seriously enough. For example, the more fleshed out characters like Okabe and Kurisu can read the atmosphere, and are serious when they are problem solving, and more light-hearted when they're having fun. This is not the case for characters such as Mayuri or Ruka, who are the same regardless of how dire the situation is. Their inability to be written to suit the situation made them feel less human and less relatable.
Now I'm going to move on to the actual characters.
Okabe Rintaro/Hououin Kyouma
Okabe was obsessed with the idea of being a mad scientist and the conspiracy theory that there was an organization out there to get him because of his time travel genius.
Towards the end of the show, his experience made him mature a lot more. He didn't exactly lose his zany side, be he realized there was a time and place for it.
My guess is that Okabe was the main character of the visual novel and so he was supposed to be a milder character that the players could project themselves onto. He wasn't totally flat white bread in this show, seeing as how he had his zany moments, but I think he had the emotional maturity that was closer to the average real life person than an anime trope.
Shiina Mayuri
You may have been able to guess, based on my disdain for anime tropes, that Mayuri is not a character that I liked. Her high pitched voice set me off the first time we met her. She also had an extremely childish attitude. Like, that of a 10 year old and not an 18 year old.
Due to her history of Okabe, she could kind of tell when things were off with him. Actually, Okabe went through a lot trying to save her from dying, and while she didn't exactly know that, she could feel that Okabe was hiding something from her. Actually, she'd died so many times that she was starting to have faint memories of those too.
When Okabe lost hope after seeing Dr. Nakabachi kill Kurisu, Mayuri slapped him. I thought this was kind of out of character, and done only to incite shock in the audience. Based on Mayuri's character I could imagine her shaking Okabe by the shoulder or yelling at him, but not slapping him.
Overall, Mayuri was supposed to be a childish but very kind and sympathetic character. But ultimately the tropes made me really not like her.
Makise Kurisu
Kurisu was technically supposed to be "main girl." Her smarts rivalled Okabe's, so they were able to talk shop together. As I mentioned, Kurisu was also able to sympathize with her friends when the time called for it.
Every time that Okabe time leapt, Kurisu was always the first to notice. Okabe was also often able to tell Kurisu his troubles and she'd help him with them. Over the course of the story, Okabe built a relationship with Kurisu, though Kurisu technically had no memory of them. But we're supposed to be hopeful that they'd still get to the same point as they did in the alpha timeline. Through working together, they'd come to appreciate and love each other.
Kurisu had a tough relationship with her dad who hated the fact that she was such a genius. In the beta timeline he actually killed his own daughter and defected to Russia with Kurisu's research paper. In the Steins;Gate timeline, he ran off and Kurisu's research paper was burned in an airplane fire.
Kurisu was not without her tropes though. She was very easily flustered, and was called out for being a tsundere. I thought that just made the situation more awkward. It's not necessarily bad to be embarrassed, but it's been such an overdone trope now that it's annoying to see.
Another thing that kind of annoyed me was how Kurisu was so willing to be a martyr for Okabe to save Mayuri. Maybe it was because she was strapped for time, but as a scientific mind, I would've expected her to think ahead a few steps to find a way not to die, even if it meant that Okabe had to take a few more steps after arriving back at the beta timeline. But Okabe didn't really have a solid timeline until he got back to the beta timeline, and he thought of it on his own, with Daru, Mayuri, and Suzuha. So the fact that Kurisu didn't seem to want to try to change her own fate didn't sit well with me.
Kurisu was more developed than most of the other characters in this show, but I still didn't love her character.
Hashida Itaru/Daru
He was a member of the lab, and good with both computer hardware and programming. He was shown to be an otaku and kind of a pervert. He was the source of a lot of the "acknowledgement of anime tropes," but like I said, acknowledging them didn't make me hate them any less.
Daru was also the future dad of Suzuha, which was random, but I didn't mind it.
Daru felt a bit like a plot device character. He was so skilled that he could even repair a time machine in a couple of days, though I can accept the answer that the time machine technology could be similar to the phone microwave technology.
Tennoji-san/Mr. Braun
He was the landlord of the lab. His secret identity was FB, a Rounder working for SERN who was manipulating Moeka to do his bidding and find the IBN 5100. He showed little remorse for manipulating Moeka, and said that he followed SERN's commands because he wanted to provide for his daughter Nae.
In reversing his original D-mail, Okabe stopped SERN from taking notice of his time leap technology, which stopped SERN from reaching out to Tennoji-san, which stopped him from manipulating Moeka.
In another timeline, Tennoji-san had also come into contact with an older Suzuha, who had failed to get an IBN 5100 and wrote an apology letter to be delivered to Okabe and the lab.
Urashibara Ruka
I was incredibly annoyed with this character at the beginning of the show because he was such a gimmick. Whether in boy or girl form, Ruka was extremely demure, to the point that it got pretty uncomfortable to watch at times.
The concept of Ruka wanting to have been a girl is an interesting one, and actually would've been a good opportunity to discuss LGBT issues.
When Ruka turned back into a boy, Okabe asked him if he liked him. Boy Ruka didn't respond, but then Okabe cheered him up by being a mentor to him. I think that regardless of Ruka's gender, s/he liked Okabe, as a friend, an older, mentor, etc. When she was a girl though, maybe she associated the admiration for romantic love. Which might be why boy Ruka didn't necessarily need romantic attention from Okabe to be happy, but just regular friendly attention.
Amane Suzuha
I felt that Suzuha's story was most touching. Maybe because she reminded me a bit of Lucina from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Suzuha travelled from a dystopian future to change things in the past.
She was cold to Kurisu because in the future, she'd been a lead scientist at SERN, which enabled them to take over the world with their time travel technology.
Suzuha was a lonely character, travelling one way to a time she never knew. She was a little indulgent and decided to stop in 2010 to try to find her father, who ended up being Daru.
Anyway, it was tough finding out that Suzuha had returned to 1975 but lost her memory. She said that it was because she'd made the stop in 2010, and instead should've went straight from 2036 to 1975. In the letter that she gave to Mr. Braun to pass on to Okabe, she repeatedly wrote "I failed." That was pretty jarring to read, because I could feel how remorseful she was for wasting the one opportunity she had to save her future. She ended up committing suicide too, which was pretty shocking.
In the beta timeline, Okabe and the lab met up with Suzuha again. In this timeline, her time machine had a two-direction capability that facilitated saving the world a lot easier.
I think Suzuha is probably my favourite character in this show. She was smart, resourceful, and not perfect but not a trope.
Akiha Rumiho/Faris
She was a coworker of Mayuri's at May Queen. She was from a rich family and apparently Akihabara's moe influences were due to her suggestion. Her D-mail had intended to bring her father back to life, but removed the moe culture of Akihabara.
Faris' D-mail was the first to be reversed by Okabe. It was interesting seeing Okabe try to explain the concept of Akihabara to Faris, and through these suggestions, Faris did seem to have some recollection.
Like Kurisu's martyrdom, I also thought it was a bit bullshit that Faris gave up her dad for Mayuri's life. I get that she understood that she'd brought back the dead, which is technically not a right thing to do. But Okabe was doing the same thing. He was wanting to bring back the dead, just on a shorter timespan. It was chalked up to Faris' "love" for Okabe, but yeah, I didn't buy this and I thought this was poor writing.
Kiryu Moeka
Moeka's gimmick was that she didn't like speaking in person, but was actually quite animated when texting. She was working on the orders of someone called FB, later revealed to be a manipulative Mr. Braun.
After she'd found the IBN 5100 at Ruka's family's shrine, FB had no use for her and stopped contacting her. In one timeline, this lack of contact pushed Moeka to commit suicide.
Realizing how important FB was to Moeka, Okabe realized he had to reverse her D-mail by sending a message from FB's phone, so that was why he had to find out who FB was in the first place. He somehow talked Moeka into this plan of meeting FB and such.
In the end, like all of the other characters, Moeka also got a lab member pin, and I think we can be certain that having friends at the lab would prevent her from the isolation that she'd suffered in the alpha timeline.
Dr. Nakabachi
He was Kurisu's father who was jealous of his own daughter. In the beta timeline, Kurisu had written a paper and suggested putting her father's name on it in addition to her own, as a way to get her father to like her. Her father wanted to steal the paper all for himself, and ended up killing his own daugher too. He then defected to Russia with Kurisu's research.
In the Steins;Gate timeline, Dr. Nakabachi stabbed Okabe instead, and then ran off. However, his envelope did not have a metal Oopa in it, so the metal detectors did not catch it, and the report was burned in the fire.
Themes
Time Leap vs. Time Travel
I initially thought this was a time travel story but actually it was about time leap. The difference is that time leap involved sending information back in time rather than physical objects.
With the microwave, texts were being sent back in time, which would cause people to change their actions. With the time leap machine, memories were actually being sent back.
Regardless of whether information or matter was sent back in time, both have the potential to create huge waves. As we see in the show, even sending a single text sent the world timeline from beta to alpha.
True timeline
Is there one true timeline, or are all timelines moving together? While all the strands of possible timelines exist, only one is actually happening.
While only one timeline is actually happening, the other versions of you from other timelines are equally valid and equally original. All of those versions of you are still you. This is probably because we are born with some innate traits, but the things that happen around us also influence us to be different.
Time and Memory
Like Westworld, time and memory are also closely related. To humans who are not able to archive evidence like a museum, our only evidence of something happening is our memory. If everybody collectively does not remember something happening, does it exist? In the case of Steins;Gate, however, physical things also changed along with people's memories, so there's a little more to that discussion.
Okabe had the special ability of being the only one to keep his memories after time leaping. However, we saw that other characters began to remember after some prompting. Faris started remembering May Queen and ultimately remembered that her father was died, all by Okabe's suggestions and her own dormant memories. Ruka recalled the first time she had met Okabe, but then Okabe brought up the fact that that was a situation when Ruka's gender was brought up, which gave Ruka some pause. Mayuri also had many memories of her terrible deaths. I think that Okabe just had a heightened sense of memory comapred to his peers.
Consciousness
Without Okabe, no one would've known that they were in another timeline. Near the beginning of the show, Daru questioned how we'd ever know that we were actually characters in someone else's video game. This applies to time lines because we could technically say that sending D-mails is messing with the way that things are supposed to be.
Overall
I think the story was interesting enough, especially to those who like time travel. I'm actually the kind of person who doesn't particularly like time travel, but I'm willing to give them a shot as long as they're executed in a meaningful way.
I do still think that this show was geared towards anime fans specifically, and I don't think it's the kind of show that transcends genres.
So as I mentioned above, I would probably only recommend this to people who are used to anime tropes.
I watched Steins;Gate here on Youtube.
Spoilers.
Story
I got a bit confused near the end when older Okabe said he needed to "change the past, without changing the future," but I think he was just using that as a figure of speech. So here is my understanding of the events.
- Okabe saw Kurisu dead, and sent a D-mail to Daru. This pushed us from the beta timeline to the alpha timeline.
- In the alpha timeline, Okabe and his lab sent more D-mails. This timeline would always end in Mayuri dying.
- To reverse this timeline and move back to the beta timeline, Okabe + lab would have to reverse the effects of ever D-mail they sent, in reverse order.
- When back in the beta timeline, Suzuha and Okabe went physically into the past. Okabe was unable to stop Kurisu from dying.
- Suzuha and Okabe went to the past to try again. If they achieved the target of saving both Mayuri and Kurisu, they'd move frome the beta timeline to the Steins;Gate timeline.
- This time, Okabe stopped Kurisu from dying, but posed the body so that the Okabe of that timeline would think that Kurisu was dead but wasn't actually. Seeing Kurisu dead would motivate Okabe to go through all the events that led to the lab to build their time machine and time leap machine, which would save the world from a dystopia in the future.
After having written it out, I think I still don't understand the ending that well, but I don't think I need to think to hard about it because time travel stories tend not to be logically airtight anyway.
Writing
Time leap
Technically, Okabe was doing time leaps and not time travels for most of the story. Anyway, I thought the concept of transferring information rather than physical things was pretty interesting because even something as small as a text could change the future in a significant way. I'll talk more about time leaps and such in the themes section below.
Visual novel influences
I'd heard that Steins;Gate was originally a visual novel. It didn't become apparent to me until I noticed that Okabe had slightly romantic storylines with several female characters. But I guess the canonical romantic interest is supposed to be Kurisu.
Anime tropes
I'm going to sound like such a grouch, but the anime tropes made this show "nearly unwatchable" near the beginning. It was probably also because I'm older than the target demographic. Most of the characters are around 18 years old.
The anime tropes did get toned down in the second half of the show, when plot took precedence. But then they re-emerged when we had to get emotional with Mayuri and Kurisu.
Some of the blatant anime archetypes were acknowledged (such as Kurisu being called a tsundere, and Daru having a dirty mind), but acknowledging them didn't make them any less cringy.
Some of the examples of anime tropes that bothered me were how the female characters fit very neatly into anime archetypes. Another thing that bothered me was the sheer range of emotional maturity among the characters of similar age. It really got on my nerves, to put it frankly.
There were a lot of sexually suggestive scenes. Some of them were set up with the intention to have Daru drool all over them and then have the other characters chastise Daru for doing so (which wasn't really that funny imo). But that was still only like half of those scenes.
Another anime trope that I thought was tiring and overused was having characters call others by nicknames they didn't like. Okabe liked to be called Hououin Kyouma, Kurisu didn't like to be called Christina, Tennojin didn't like to be called Mr. Braun, etc. It got extremely old because characters like Kurisu and Tennojin were having to correct Okabe nearly every single time they met.
Other tropes
In terms of regular tropes, I thought that miscommunication was used too often. Luckily, they were never used as major plot devices, but it did often lead to cringy situations where things would've been fine if Okabe just sat everyone down and explained things. I do understand that it would've gotten extremely tiring for Okabe to do it over and over again though. Plus, for people other than Kurisu, it probably would've been unbelievable, especially with that part about Ruka formerly being a boy.
Production
The animation was okay. There were still scenes that seemed a bit "lazy," but overall, I think it was okay.
I don't know what it is with anime girls having unnaturally high-pitched voices, but it was something I really didn't like. It exaggerated the emotional maturity difference even further. It was perfectly possible to make Mayuri a cute and kind girl without making her sound like a ten year old.
Due to the fact that this show is about time travel and time leaping, there were some scenes that were repeated quite often. Sometimes those scenes would be repeated completely, and I thought that that probably wasn't necessary. For repeating scenes, I think the producers would've been fine just showing the important parts.
Characters
Some of the characters were far more tropey than others, to the point that that actually made me not like them.
The vast difference in emotional maturity also made me take the show less seriously as a whole. In particular, some characters just weren't written to adjust their attitudes depending on the situation and that made me not able to take this show seriously enough. For example, the more fleshed out characters like Okabe and Kurisu can read the atmosphere, and are serious when they are problem solving, and more light-hearted when they're having fun. This is not the case for characters such as Mayuri or Ruka, who are the same regardless of how dire the situation is. Their inability to be written to suit the situation made them feel less human and less relatable.
Now I'm going to move on to the actual characters.
Okabe Rintaro/Hououin Kyouma
Okabe was obsessed with the idea of being a mad scientist and the conspiracy theory that there was an organization out there to get him because of his time travel genius.
Towards the end of the show, his experience made him mature a lot more. He didn't exactly lose his zany side, be he realized there was a time and place for it.
My guess is that Okabe was the main character of the visual novel and so he was supposed to be a milder character that the players could project themselves onto. He wasn't totally flat white bread in this show, seeing as how he had his zany moments, but I think he had the emotional maturity that was closer to the average real life person than an anime trope.
Shiina Mayuri
You may have been able to guess, based on my disdain for anime tropes, that Mayuri is not a character that I liked. Her high pitched voice set me off the first time we met her. She also had an extremely childish attitude. Like, that of a 10 year old and not an 18 year old.
Due to her history of Okabe, she could kind of tell when things were off with him. Actually, Okabe went through a lot trying to save her from dying, and while she didn't exactly know that, she could feel that Okabe was hiding something from her. Actually, she'd died so many times that she was starting to have faint memories of those too.
When Okabe lost hope after seeing Dr. Nakabachi kill Kurisu, Mayuri slapped him. I thought this was kind of out of character, and done only to incite shock in the audience. Based on Mayuri's character I could imagine her shaking Okabe by the shoulder or yelling at him, but not slapping him.
Overall, Mayuri was supposed to be a childish but very kind and sympathetic character. But ultimately the tropes made me really not like her.
Makise Kurisu
Kurisu was technically supposed to be "main girl." Her smarts rivalled Okabe's, so they were able to talk shop together. As I mentioned, Kurisu was also able to sympathize with her friends when the time called for it.
Every time that Okabe time leapt, Kurisu was always the first to notice. Okabe was also often able to tell Kurisu his troubles and she'd help him with them. Over the course of the story, Okabe built a relationship with Kurisu, though Kurisu technically had no memory of them. But we're supposed to be hopeful that they'd still get to the same point as they did in the alpha timeline. Through working together, they'd come to appreciate and love each other.
Kurisu had a tough relationship with her dad who hated the fact that she was such a genius. In the beta timeline he actually killed his own daughter and defected to Russia with Kurisu's research paper. In the Steins;Gate timeline, he ran off and Kurisu's research paper was burned in an airplane fire.
Kurisu was not without her tropes though. She was very easily flustered, and was called out for being a tsundere. I thought that just made the situation more awkward. It's not necessarily bad to be embarrassed, but it's been such an overdone trope now that it's annoying to see.
Another thing that kind of annoyed me was how Kurisu was so willing to be a martyr for Okabe to save Mayuri. Maybe it was because she was strapped for time, but as a scientific mind, I would've expected her to think ahead a few steps to find a way not to die, even if it meant that Okabe had to take a few more steps after arriving back at the beta timeline. But Okabe didn't really have a solid timeline until he got back to the beta timeline, and he thought of it on his own, with Daru, Mayuri, and Suzuha. So the fact that Kurisu didn't seem to want to try to change her own fate didn't sit well with me.
Kurisu was more developed than most of the other characters in this show, but I still didn't love her character.
Hashida Itaru/Daru
He was a member of the lab, and good with both computer hardware and programming. He was shown to be an otaku and kind of a pervert. He was the source of a lot of the "acknowledgement of anime tropes," but like I said, acknowledging them didn't make me hate them any less.
Daru was also the future dad of Suzuha, which was random, but I didn't mind it.
Daru felt a bit like a plot device character. He was so skilled that he could even repair a time machine in a couple of days, though I can accept the answer that the time machine technology could be similar to the phone microwave technology.
Tennoji-san/Mr. Braun
He was the landlord of the lab. His secret identity was FB, a Rounder working for SERN who was manipulating Moeka to do his bidding and find the IBN 5100. He showed little remorse for manipulating Moeka, and said that he followed SERN's commands because he wanted to provide for his daughter Nae.
In reversing his original D-mail, Okabe stopped SERN from taking notice of his time leap technology, which stopped SERN from reaching out to Tennoji-san, which stopped him from manipulating Moeka.
In another timeline, Tennoji-san had also come into contact with an older Suzuha, who had failed to get an IBN 5100 and wrote an apology letter to be delivered to Okabe and the lab.
Urashibara Ruka
I was incredibly annoyed with this character at the beginning of the show because he was such a gimmick. Whether in boy or girl form, Ruka was extremely demure, to the point that it got pretty uncomfortable to watch at times.
The concept of Ruka wanting to have been a girl is an interesting one, and actually would've been a good opportunity to discuss LGBT issues.
When Ruka turned back into a boy, Okabe asked him if he liked him. Boy Ruka didn't respond, but then Okabe cheered him up by being a mentor to him. I think that regardless of Ruka's gender, s/he liked Okabe, as a friend, an older, mentor, etc. When she was a girl though, maybe she associated the admiration for romantic love. Which might be why boy Ruka didn't necessarily need romantic attention from Okabe to be happy, but just regular friendly attention.
Amane Suzuha
I felt that Suzuha's story was most touching. Maybe because she reminded me a bit of Lucina from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Suzuha travelled from a dystopian future to change things in the past.
She was cold to Kurisu because in the future, she'd been a lead scientist at SERN, which enabled them to take over the world with their time travel technology.
Suzuha was a lonely character, travelling one way to a time she never knew. She was a little indulgent and decided to stop in 2010 to try to find her father, who ended up being Daru.
Anyway, it was tough finding out that Suzuha had returned to 1975 but lost her memory. She said that it was because she'd made the stop in 2010, and instead should've went straight from 2036 to 1975. In the letter that she gave to Mr. Braun to pass on to Okabe, she repeatedly wrote "I failed." That was pretty jarring to read, because I could feel how remorseful she was for wasting the one opportunity she had to save her future. She ended up committing suicide too, which was pretty shocking.
In the beta timeline, Okabe and the lab met up with Suzuha again. In this timeline, her time machine had a two-direction capability that facilitated saving the world a lot easier.
I think Suzuha is probably my favourite character in this show. She was smart, resourceful, and not perfect but not a trope.
Akiha Rumiho/Faris
She was a coworker of Mayuri's at May Queen. She was from a rich family and apparently Akihabara's moe influences were due to her suggestion. Her D-mail had intended to bring her father back to life, but removed the moe culture of Akihabara.
Faris' D-mail was the first to be reversed by Okabe. It was interesting seeing Okabe try to explain the concept of Akihabara to Faris, and through these suggestions, Faris did seem to have some recollection.
Like Kurisu's martyrdom, I also thought it was a bit bullshit that Faris gave up her dad for Mayuri's life. I get that she understood that she'd brought back the dead, which is technically not a right thing to do. But Okabe was doing the same thing. He was wanting to bring back the dead, just on a shorter timespan. It was chalked up to Faris' "love" for Okabe, but yeah, I didn't buy this and I thought this was poor writing.
Kiryu Moeka
Moeka's gimmick was that she didn't like speaking in person, but was actually quite animated when texting. She was working on the orders of someone called FB, later revealed to be a manipulative Mr. Braun.
After she'd found the IBN 5100 at Ruka's family's shrine, FB had no use for her and stopped contacting her. In one timeline, this lack of contact pushed Moeka to commit suicide.
Realizing how important FB was to Moeka, Okabe realized he had to reverse her D-mail by sending a message from FB's phone, so that was why he had to find out who FB was in the first place. He somehow talked Moeka into this plan of meeting FB and such.
In the end, like all of the other characters, Moeka also got a lab member pin, and I think we can be certain that having friends at the lab would prevent her from the isolation that she'd suffered in the alpha timeline.
Dr. Nakabachi
He was Kurisu's father who was jealous of his own daughter. In the beta timeline, Kurisu had written a paper and suggested putting her father's name on it in addition to her own, as a way to get her father to like her. Her father wanted to steal the paper all for himself, and ended up killing his own daugher too. He then defected to Russia with Kurisu's research.
In the Steins;Gate timeline, Dr. Nakabachi stabbed Okabe instead, and then ran off. However, his envelope did not have a metal Oopa in it, so the metal detectors did not catch it, and the report was burned in the fire.
Themes
Time Leap vs. Time Travel
I initially thought this was a time travel story but actually it was about time leap. The difference is that time leap involved sending information back in time rather than physical objects.
With the microwave, texts were being sent back in time, which would cause people to change their actions. With the time leap machine, memories were actually being sent back.
Regardless of whether information or matter was sent back in time, both have the potential to create huge waves. As we see in the show, even sending a single text sent the world timeline from beta to alpha.
True timeline
Is there one true timeline, or are all timelines moving together? While all the strands of possible timelines exist, only one is actually happening.
While only one timeline is actually happening, the other versions of you from other timelines are equally valid and equally original. All of those versions of you are still you. This is probably because we are born with some innate traits, but the things that happen around us also influence us to be different.
Time and Memory
Like Westworld, time and memory are also closely related. To humans who are not able to archive evidence like a museum, our only evidence of something happening is our memory. If everybody collectively does not remember something happening, does it exist? In the case of Steins;Gate, however, physical things also changed along with people's memories, so there's a little more to that discussion.
Okabe had the special ability of being the only one to keep his memories after time leaping. However, we saw that other characters began to remember after some prompting. Faris started remembering May Queen and ultimately remembered that her father was died, all by Okabe's suggestions and her own dormant memories. Ruka recalled the first time she had met Okabe, but then Okabe brought up the fact that that was a situation when Ruka's gender was brought up, which gave Ruka some pause. Mayuri also had many memories of her terrible deaths. I think that Okabe just had a heightened sense of memory comapred to his peers.
Consciousness
Without Okabe, no one would've known that they were in another timeline. Near the beginning of the show, Daru questioned how we'd ever know that we were actually characters in someone else's video game. This applies to time lines because we could technically say that sending D-mails is messing with the way that things are supposed to be.
Overall
I think the story was interesting enough, especially to those who like time travel. I'm actually the kind of person who doesn't particularly like time travel, but I'm willing to give them a shot as long as they're executed in a meaningful way.
I do still think that this show was geared towards anime fans specifically, and I don't think it's the kind of show that transcends genres.
So as I mentioned above, I would probably only recommend this to people who are used to anime tropes.