Mark Watches ‘Steins;Gate’: Episode 5 – Starmine Rendezvous

In the fifth episode of Steins;Gate, the team uses the IBN 5100 to access the SERN documents and discovers a terrible, terrible secret. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Steins;Gate. 

What the fuck, y’all?

Suzuha

Oh, no, this is a thing, SHE KNOWS SOMETHING. It is not enough to say that Suzuha recognizes Kurisu because LOOK AT HER REACTION??? She immediately gets into a defensive stance like she’s going to attack Kurisu and tear her apart. That’s not just a case of déja vu, you know? Something triggered an intense sensation like fight or flight in Suzuha. So, my next question would be: is she consciously aware of why that is? Or did something happen between her and Kurisu in another world line and, subconsciously, Suzuha remembers it? I honestly don’t have a concrete theory, and Okabe’s later conversation with Suzuha doesn’t help. She just warns Okabe to be careful around Kurisu, and then runs off to go watch fireworks??? So she’s either avoiding a memory or is just so uncomfortable with the conversation that she needs to leave? Actually, I think there was something else to that scene. She crouched in that same defensive stance when she heard the helicopter, then made reference to “bombs.” Maybe that’s another clue that this is some sort of residual memory of another world line. Yes? Possibly? Is it fun watching me squirm to figure this out?

Okabe

I have to admit that I am finding it increasingly hard to ignore the way Okabe treats the people around him, particularly Kurisu. Y’all, at one point, he erupts in anger at Kurisu, berating her so much that she starts crying once he stops. This is all over the fact that she calls him Okabe, which makes his outburst all the more hypocritical. He CONSTANTLY calls her the wrong name and refers to her as his assistant despite that she has asked him not to do so multiple times per episode. Am I missing subtext here about how we’re supposed to interpret him? At times, I get the sense that this is comedy, and it might be poking fun at a genre/trope I’m not familiar with, but I suppose that also means we should be viewing the protagonist through a critical or ironic lens. But I can’t tell! There’s certainly humor in his misguided belief that he’s a mad scientist, but I’m curious if I’m missing the mark (heh heh) here. 

Mayuri

Ugh, she is so perpetually sweet? Which… if I’ve learned anything from watching anime (and I’m thinking of both Madoka Magica and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood), it’s that I need to actually not be excited for this character because something terrible is bound to happen to them. THIS IS ALWAYS THE CASE. But one thing I loved about her is how she welcomed Kurisu to the lab with open arms and was always excited to see her. It’s not even her lab and she is way more welcoming than anyone else??? Though, confession time: I don’t know if it’s a translation issue, but why the hell did she call herself a willing hostage of Okabe??? I DON’T GET IT. 

The SERN Files

Well, here we are. This show has had some slow pacing at the start, but I haven’t really minded it. I’m getting a sense of what the lives of theses characters are like; the animation is gorgeous, and I love how the sunny outdoor scenes are rendered, just as much as the lab room looks. Because of how much the show has settled into a slower groove, I assumed we’d only get the next little crumb of a clue as to what was actually happen.

Thus, I did not expect to get the full notes on all the time travel experiments that utilized miniature black holes. It’s here that the gel bananas are finally explained by the compression that takes place during time travel, wherein organic matter turns to a greenish, gelatinous form in order to be compressed through a black hole. How do we find this out? Because every SERN experiment on a human involved them being sent into the past and appearing as a green, gelatinous corpse. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. 

What’s remarkable to me is how quickly Kurisu just accepts that SERN was able to send matter to the past. She’s the one confronting Okabe about what to do next, and given her previous existential crisis, this was a bit of a shock. But the evidence is there, and the science at least makes sense to her. However, it’s Okabe’s reaction that’s truly disturbing. After everything he’s seen, he wants to continue working on the PhoneWave (name subject to be changed, of course) and beat SERN to creating a perfect time machine. And I had the same interpretation there: yeah, OF COURSE that’s what he wanted to do. He still sees himself as the mad scientist, he still thinks he can disrupt the world order, and he’s still short-sighted about… most things.

Wow, this got FUCKED UP.

The video for “Starmine Rendezvous” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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