STEINS;GATE PART 1

 
Steins;Gate Part 1
Released By: Manga Entertainment
Rating: 12
Running Time:  Mins
Audio: English & Japanese DD 5.1
Release Date: 22/7/2013
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes

Rintaro 'Okarin' has just invented a time machine from a microwave and constantly sends text messages to the past, and keeps on recieving them back. Due to the mishaps with time lines, he is now in trouble as a sinister scientific organisation are tracking him down for what he has done.

The story starts at the Future Gadgets Laboratory, and though it isn't really a lab, it's just a room above an Akihabara electronics store it is home to three people, and once he creates the time machine he and his friend Shina have been bouncing around time for a long while, and his advances in technology have caused problems he has to go back and repair.

For Okarin it's just the three of them in their world, though Daru, his hacker doesn't like how he treats him when he needs his help. Okarin doesn't only treat him bad, he sees Shina as nothing more than a child he can manipulate. We first see her wondering around with Okarin on  his travels as she finds a vending machine of cute toys, one in particular catches her eye and she says it is worth 10,000 yen - only then does he take notice. Okarin is a self-proclaimed mad scientist who has always wanted a breakthrough with his scientific experiments, and mad or not, he manages to go back in time causing havok wherever he goes.

During the firs episode he sees a woman get killed and the very sight of her laid in a wide pool of her own blood shocks him, but it's the sight of her alive later that scares him. This is the start of the time paradox he faces and it is then that he realises that he must right what has gone wrong. Okarin acts like more of a Sherlock Holmes figure rather than a scientific genius in the English version, yet the character is completely different in the Japanese version. It is a case of watch them both and decide which Okarin you prefer.

Bonus Material: Episode 12 Commentary and Akihabara Map.

Verdict: It's a fun, if over the top series with Okarin as a Sherlock style mad scientist.