Stupid title;Great show
Back in high school, my brother would look down on me for watching anime instead of joining him for a riveting episode of T.R.L. or whatever other crap was on MTV at the time. He soon realized he was an idiot and shadowed my taste in anime thereafter. I began to trust his judgment as he trusted mine. Thus, when my brother dropped a show about time travel that the rest of the world was raving about, I initially gave him the benefit of the doubt.
If you’re reading this post, I have a message for you: you shouldn’t drop an anime just because nothing happens from episodes 2–11. You shouldn’t drop a show just because it’s loaded with aimless banter, lame otaku fanservice, cheesy visual novel/harem dating trappings, and Moeka not wearing a catsuit. Sure, most of the time you’re making the right call. The rest of the time the show is called Steins;Gate.
Everything suddenly kicks ass from episode 12 through the end, beginning with a random, unexplained scene from the Late Cretaceous, an unmistakeable sign that shit’s about to get real. Then somebody dies. I won’t spoil who. Let’s just say pedophiles will be disappointed. The rest of the show is spent erasing the debacle built up from episodes 2–11, both literally and critically. This is a refreshing twist in the time travel genre, as most time travel plots are spent pushing forwards rather than backtracking. During this phase, the show does a great job developing a rich theory of time travel without info dumping. I’m even willing to give the plot hole(s) a free pass, since nobody really knows how microwaves work.
My only other complaint with the second half of the show is that it gets weighed down trying to represent all its visual novel dating routes. The main character basically needs to bang every chick in the show to save the world, or bang every chick in the world to save the show, I forget which one.
Kurisu: A tsundere who’s actually likeable for once. Has the attitude but doesn’t overdo it.
Mayuri: Tutturu my ass. She’s not interesting, but interesting stuff happens to her.
Moeka: Excellent character design, negated only by the minor detail that she’s clinically insane.
Suzuha: No punchline, just a great all-around character.
Faris NyanNyan: A catgirl. Fortunately, there’s a character behind the gimmick.
Ruka: A trap. Unfortunately, s/he’s just a gimmick.
It’s also believable that all the girls want to bang that main character because he has imposing sideburns and talks all gangsta yo.
Final Grade: ++
Steins;Gate is by far the best show in the semicolon franchise. Chaos;Head (+) started strong but became a trainwreck toward the end. Robotics;Notes (~) sucks through 15 episodes.
In five years of using WordPress, somehow I’ve never been dojikko enough to prematurely hit the “Publish” button. What if I did? What if my drafts went public? What if you could see my posts during each stage of their development? Here’s your chance to find out. Pick an anime for me to review according to the following rules:
– I can’t have already given it a full review
– I can’t have concrete plans to review it
– I must have watched it to completion
– I must remember it well enough to write a decent review
– Preference will be given to TV series, as opposed to movies or OVAs
I’ll go with the first suggestion I’m satisfied with. I’ll then write my post with the latest update viewable right on this page. It should take about a week to complete.
Here, have a suggestion for you.
Now let’s go to the checklist:
Didn’t already given it a full review
Must or must not have concrete plans to review it, probably not
Watched it to completion and gave it a $$ rating
It’s recent, so you probably remember it well enough to write a decent review
It’s a TV series, so it’s prefered.
Correct me if I’m wrong in any aspect.
Perfect. First draft goes up tomorrow.
This is a trial run right? After you this are going to make everything a “draft” so people can’t complain. Like how Google has their products as “beta” for 10 years.
Thanks for preempting next year’s April Fools post. Now everyone knows whom to tar and feather when next April 1st I end up writing some lazy, uninspired post about pretending to quit.
Well I’m awesome like that.
Day 0
R;N is that semicolon anime that didn’t start off well and didn’t end well either, which pretty much leaves you with absolutely nothing.
Robotics;Notes: The anime equivalent of an IRS audit?
what was the plot hole at the end ?
This cliffhanger shall be resolved tomorrow.
Or the day after
Or never
Day 1
I’m glad you felt the same way about Chaos;Head as I did. When I first got into that series it was still airing and I had high hopes for it, got excited waiting for the weekly episode to update, but the end was a huge waste of time (if i recall correctly it was around episode 7 where i lost interest.) Almost didn’t watch Steins;Gate because of it. Glad I was patient enough to finish SG though, since it’s now among my favorites.
And I Haven’t watched Robotics;Notes yet due to laziness but if you’re giving it ~ then i’m not even going to bother.
Chaos;Head felt like it could’ve been great if executed better. Don’t get that feeling at all from Robotics;Notes. Way too much character development (for boring, pedophilic characters) and not enough plot. The lone bright spot is this nerd girl who sexually harasses everyone. Apparently the internet agrees with me. MAL favorites are as follows:
Nerd Girl: 452
Main Dude: 34
Secondary Dude: 3
Genki Girl: 83
Pedophilic Girl #1: 13
Pedophilic Girl #2: 2
Day 2
I should adapt this innovative new blogging model. I would publish a lot more posts.
Laziness is the mother of innovation. Those with the ambition to get shit done would never think of milking a draft post for a full week.
Day 3
It’s nice to see the evolution of your creative process baka, but what about publishing each “day 0”, “day 1”, “day 2”, etc as new posts ? Wouldn’t it increase the filler/post ratio so that people couldn’t complain you don’t post quite often ? lol.
Short answer? Yes. Long answer? I’ll fill this in later.
eps 2–11 are by far my favorite of the show. Hardly surprising.
I did say “pedophiles will be disappointed”.
Day 4
Day 5: Too lazy to edit. Legit part of the creative process.
You can milk the cow even when it’s not around.
Man, I just downloaded Robotics;notes a few days ago. Haven’t started it yet, watching Ergo Proxy atm, but are you saying I shouldn’t give it a whirl, that boring?
I dropped it some 3-4 episodes before the end, but the entire show is basically boring, slow buildup that leads to a conclusion that couldn’t possibly be satisfying enough to be worth it.
It’s boring through the 3/5 mark, so even if the ending kicks ass you’re still getting a show that’s 3/5 boring. I’ll finish it up over the next two weeks and post a final grade here.
Robotics;Notes: ~ (Final Grade)
Sorry about the double post, noticed a mistake, just delete the first one. I noticed your MAL didn’t have Kaze no Stigma. I’d recommend it, badass main character with super powers. Also, I’m not sure where you stand on dub vs. sub, but I’d recommend the dub on this one.
It’s actually a pretty mediocre show though?
I mean, I actually like it and brought the show but that’s because I liked the interaction between laid-back MC / tsundere love interest. Also the hot spring episode with him and his father.
My to-watch list is fairly long at the moment, but if I do watch it, I’ll watch it dubbed.
Kaze No Stigma is one of the blandest anime in existence along with having one of the worst mains of all time.
No. Just Fucking No.
Kazuma is one of the best male leads in anime.
Took a look at that youtube video and somehow watched an hour of Christopher Walken instead of reading this post. But yeah, steins;gate was good.
I was going to update this post, but then I spent a few hours watching Arrested Development Season 4 (++). And yeah, Steins;Gate was good.
Day 6
Bravo baka. It makes a perfect filler review!
Day 6 didn’t have all the tags. That’s what Day 7 is for!
Day 7: Post Complete
What a post, it really made me laugh! I just finished Steins;Gate yesterday, and I have to admit I absolutely love Rintarou as a charachter, as well as Kurisu. I am also planning on writing about it over at my own blog, you could check it out in a few days (; I hope to read more of your reviews in the future (:
You must complete it in exactly 7 days as I did. Any earlier and it’s incomplete. Any later and you’re lazier than me (which is physically impossible).
Where is that graph from?
And the S;G experience is even better if you rewatch the first episode around episode 18.
Anime News Network
Never in a million years would I have considered rewatching episode 1 around episode 18. Not that I doubt it’d be interesting, but why would you ever think of that? You are a depraved human being.
Granted, it’s a little bit counter-intuitive. I was watching it while it aired, so I have no idea who came up with the idea. People just started going ‘the first episode, rewatch it! Now! OMG!’ (we still used omg, didn’t we? Didn’t we? …ok, maybe without omg), then the mind-screw came, oh god the mind-screw of that first episode when you only have about half the information.
And ANN using Bayesian estimates? Suddenly they’re a lot more sexy.
[…] Both anime are crap. But Kanon is less crap. Also, Chaos;Head >>> Robotics;Notes. Baka-Raptor explains why here. […]