In the fourth episode of Steins;Gate, the lab team seeks a special computer to decode something Daru found, and Kurisu has a change of heart. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Steins;Gate.Â
So, I’m curious how people read Okabe and how they feel about his behavior. He is easily the thorniest, most stubborn, and most irrational character out of the bunch. He lashes out at other people the second anyone contradicts him; he calls Kurisu names and ignores her every time she corrects him; he assumes that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is working for the “Organization.†I feel like most of this is intended as humor, but as I said on video, the dialogue is odd at times. I am never sure if there’s a subtext I’m missing or some cultural cues I don’t understand because I’m not Japanese. For example, there’s that whole conversation that Suzuha and Okabe have about being a warrior, and I fully do not get it. Same with the exorcism moment in the second episode. What are those moments? What are they supposed to mean? I feel like I got some of the context from the scene at the maid cafe, but that’s another example where I know I don’t know enough to fully understand what was happening. (Is maid cafe even the right word?)
These elements are probably the only things I’m struggling with while watching Steins;Gate. Like, I’m not sure if we’re supposed to think that Okabe is a jerk or if he’s just misunderstood. What I do have a better grasp on is the story as a whole, and I love the slow build that we’re getting. The mystery of SERN and the IBN 5100 is not being revealed rapidly, but instead, an unnerving sense of the world turning into something else fills the screen. It’s one reason why I like Kurisu’s journey as much as I do. She has a moment of existential crisis as she tries to accept that she did witness a message traveling into the pass. That turns into vehement denial, which then quietly turns into her being unable to resist her own curiosity. What if she’s wrong? What if she didn’t imagine what she saw?Â
Steins;Gate feels like it is playing with the notion of reality and unreality. Even as Okabe reaches out to John Titor, he’s not sure whether he can trust what is being sent to him. He’s openly hostile towards Moeka, despite that she is clearly connected to all of this, too. What does he choose to believe is real? How can he believe anything if he has memory of another world line? Like, now I can’t stop thinking about how the world is probably gonna change around him AGAIN. We saw it happen in the first episode. How long until some event causes this to happen? I also can’t deny that when Okabe finally tracks down the IBN 5100, he learns that it was donated to Luka’s family’s shrine… ten years prior. Which is when John Titor was SUPPOSED to have existed. And the person who donated it said that a young man would one day stop by and ask to use it. AHHHHH, DON’T DO THIS TO ME. Who is Titor? Oh god, what if it is Okabe??? I could believe that in some weird loop of time, he ends up inspiring himself to believe in SERN’s dystopia and figures out how to stop them using the IBN 5100. I know Titor said that grandfather paradoxes aren’t actually real, so what if they were telling the truth about that, too?
I’m real excited to see what the code says or does now that they have the IBN. I’M NOT READY.
The video for “Interpreter Rendezvous†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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