This show is now officially Steins;Gate 2.
What They Say:
Akiho is elated when a grown-up Nae Tennoji offers to help the Robot Research Club build a giant robot. Meanwhile, Kaito is caught in a typhoon while searching for the elusive Kimijima Report No. 2.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Just having seen a (previously announced) shot of Steins;Gate’s 11-year-old Nae Tennoji at age 20 at the end of the previous episode had me thinking all kinds of things about the future of this series and how the inclusion of characters from other titles would affect the quality, since it has been so much lower than Steins;Gate the entire time. This episode certainly made no attempt to have Nae’s presence as simply a cameo, as you can see from the episode title and description focusing on Mr. Braun’s grown-up daughter. As a result, a lot of my thoughts about this episode focus on this factor even more than they had when we were simply shown a brief shot of her at the end of the previous episode.
I must say that I absolutely love seeing characters from one of my favorite anime of all time after I thought the story was all done. In this case, Nae actually has the potential to play a much more important role, as she was just a little kid who cutely called the older females in the story her older sisters and got freaked out by Okabe, but now has an important position at JAXA as an adult, attempting to directly influence the group of main characters in this story. I’m actually a little surprised that she holds such a position considering the fact that she’s barely out of high school herself, let alone college. On the other hand, her established characteristics do remain intact, and she ends up acting somewhat childish despite her age and position. There’s definitely a contrast from the little girl we saw in Steins;Gate, but they’re definitely keeping her familiar enough, which is probably for the best. Her still relatively unknown seiyuu delivers an appropriately aged performance, but she does have an extremely youthful voice that can’t really be helped. This does fit well enough with her continued childlike qualities, though.
But despite all that, I went into this series expecting a brand-new story that I could fall in love with as well, along with all its characters collectively charged with the role of keeping our attention and sympathy as they face impossible consequences, and that means that the highlight of it should not be simply seeing a character from another show, just because that show happens to be infinitely better.
This also begs the question of whether or not this series can still stand on its own, or if it now requires the knowledge of Steins;Gate and its characters to get the most out of it. Of course, if you’re watching this series or are even looking into it, that means that you’re at least open to the idea of a “science adventure” anime series based on a visual novel by these two companies, and if that’s the case, I can’t express any opinion more strongly than that you should absolutely watch Steins;Gate if you haven’t already. It’s one such series described, it’s far better than this one has ever been from its very beginning, I consider it to be absolutely one of the greatest anime of all time, it will be available in its entirety in 18 days, and this series has apparently become a sequel to it in a way, meaning it may be necessary viewing before this one should be dived into at all. However, this return appearance, although announced beforehand via Japanese media that’s not the most accessible to the casual American anime fan, is written as something of a surprise treat for Steins;Gate fans, and thus it’s safe to assume that many could end up watching this without any idea that perhaps they should have watched Steins;Gate prior. Although I don’t think that this series has a whole lot going for it overall, I’d hate to think that people would be getting less out of one of the most enjoyable times spent with a character up to this point because the series wasn’t marketed to them correctly.
So what do I think about this development’s affect on the quality of the series overall? Honestly, I think the good points balance out with the bad to keep things pretty much the same.
In Summary:
The thrill of seeing Steins;Gate characters balances with the disappointment of the story falling back on past successes rather than making its own characters reach the level that would make viewers want to see them appear in something else themselves. There’s also the fact that this may alienate some potential viewers who don’t know that they should only try out this series after already having familiarized themselves with a seemingly separate title. There’s plenty more story to tell, and I’m happily in for the long run, but I don’t see any great progress in storytelling at this point in the game.
Grade: C
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Toshiba Satellite L655-S5191 PSK2CU-1C301U Notebook PC.
