Steins;Gate anime, OVA, and movie
The movie (henceforth known as Deja Vu) and OVA's flaws all reflect back on how excellently the original series was composed, which meant that many elements that were integral to the nature of the show stop making sense after episode 24, especially the "Current time" shots. How, then, is the OVA meant to continue the story, while being recognizably Steins;Gate in aesthetics?
The S;G OVA does an admirable job by depending on the characters and their interactions, but even then, some of the thematic value is lost by being a continuation. One of the elements that the original ending was meant to circumvent was the bittersweet knowledge that much of the character development that the non-Okabe characters had undergone would be lost, especially in Kurisu, Daru, and Suzuha. While the OVA and movie make Kurisu's loss the point of the episode, watching Daru revert to his original self is a little heartbreaking, and the ways they contrive to get Suzuha/Yuki into the mix are, well, contrived. Even if the meeting with Yuki furthers our understanding of the post-series Okabe, knowing that the undeveloped Daru of this timeline is supposed to win this girl over at some point in the future, rings false.
Nonetheless, the OVA is still well-written, for some of the inevitable problems it would encounter. They turn the meeting with Yuki from a contrivance to get "Suzuha" in the episode ("all of your favorite characters, back together again!") into an important plot mechanism, providing impetus for Kurisu to chase after Okabe. In the end, the only real problems with the OVA are the aesthetic elements that were only relevant in the context of a time travel time crunch.
The movie has much stronger issues. No matter how strong the characters and interactions were in the original series, they were augmented by always being pressured by an external force: first SERN, then the threat of WWIII. Character-based motivations, like Mayuri and Kurisu's deaths, were all about how the external force caused these casualties, and would continue to cause these casualties (Suzuha, Moeka, Mr. Braun) if Okabe only focused on preventing the death, not eliminating the root cause.
In that sense, the movie stumbles in the way Sword Art Online's 2nd half does: while the Aincrad arc was the development of Asuna and Kirito's relationship in the backdrop of a death game, ALO is just a "rescue the damsel in distress" quest. Steins;Gate the series has SERN and WWIII as concrete enemies, but Deja Vu is simply about Kurisu remembering her love, and the restoration of Okabe to the SG world line. The scope of the stakes has taken a major downgrade, and makes the attempt to capture the same sense of tension in the time-leaping shenanigans ring very, very false. Really, Deja Vu is basically the same as The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi: the in-denial cynical narrator realizes their need for their Manic Pixie Dream Partner's shenanigans in their life (and more importantly, the human connections that come with said MPDP and their friends) with the the help of some supernatural It's A Wonderful Life-esque elements. However, Disappearance's parent series was in a slice-of-life high school setting whose world-destroying stakes were resolved near the beginning of the timeline, and is never a serious threat for the rest of the show timeline's shenanigans, so the subsequent movie isn't a step down in stakes. Episodes "Live a Live" and "Day of Sagittarius" show that Haruhi was developing into someone who wouldn't want to destroy this world, thanks to Kyon's belief that she wouldn't do so, so that "threat" becomes effectively neutralized. (Albeit transformed into a different one for season 2, and alteration of the world simply doesn't carry the same weight as destruction of it) Deja Vu's parent series has much higher stakes to begin with, so it can't get away with having the same level of stakes as Disappearance.
Both movies do have the same problems of basically retreading the emotional highlights of their parent series, but failing to include a little of the development of the opposite party, effectively turning them into MPDPs for the duration of the movie. Disappearance puts Kyon through similar revelations as the S1 finale, minus the subtle development on Haruhi's part. In Deja Vu, we see most of the romantic moments from SG recreated in the new world-line, and from Kurisu's POV, as well as her same emotional arc from the OVA, while Okabe doesn't change at all, his development journey done a year ago. Both movies also suffer from too much tell-not-show, relying on internal monologues that are wasted on the medium. They would be acting tour de forces in live action settings as theatrical spoken oratory, but just make animation cinematography short of Monogatari levels seem cheap, especially when cast as internal thoughts that shortcut use of the visual through meaningful body language and subtle interaction moments. (Which, generally, the parent series did use, although the amount of Kyon monologue in the S1 finale irks, even if not as much as the redundant-to-the-visuals boring monologue-fest that was Disappearance.) In the end, though, Disappearance does do better than Deja Vu, as it breaks out the arthouse visuals for Kyon's big climactic speech, as well as giving development to Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi that wasn't in the original series. Mayuri and Daru, much less the rest of the cast, don't get anything in Deja Vu. It's all about Kurisu in the S;G movie.
The change in stakes outright turns Suzuha's inclusion in the movie into a disservice to her character. She went from daring rebel on the run to soldier on a mission in the series, but now she's just a teenager on a joyride? Bleh. Furthermore, she isn't a person in her own right in this movie. She doesn't have her own arc and her own issues, which is what made her (and all of the cast) so good in the original series. The reason she makes such an impact on Okabe is the knowledge that she was such a cheerful and optimistic person despite her terrible childhood under SERN's oppression, as well as the contrast to her tragic end in the timeline where she loses her memories jumping back. Post-WWIII Suzuha is allowed to be a little less defined because the difference is meant to evoke bittersweet feelings over how they essentially erased the Suzuha they had befriended in order to give her a non-rebel life, as well as saving Mayuri. In the movie, not only does she still have this non-descript personality without the stakes of WWIII to back her up, or Okabe's presence to muse on the version of her we had actually fallen in love with, Suzuha exists solely to push Kurisu in the right direction. She could have been replaced with any mook with a time machine. In contrast to Mayuri, Suzuha's motivational speeches to Kurisu weren't unique to her at all, so she's just a plot device, not a character.
Beating on it a little more, Deja Vu also highlights just how good the S;G dub was, better than the original track, imho. J. Michael Tatum and Patrick Seitz really loved the original script, (confirmed especially by JMT himself at Fanime) and really strove to bring out the best of it in the dub adaptation, with flow and tone prioritized above original text. In some ways, they thus distilled the essence of what made the original so good. Take the "Ruka's a dude" moment, for example. In the original track, Mamoru Miyano just repeats "daga otoko da," slightly building a little more each time, before settling at the end. In the dub, JMT treats it as running gags should be treated, escalating the same build-up, before varying the punchline each time to reflect the flow of Okabe's feelings, a flow of increasing resignation and nonchalance. Patrick and Michael are also huge nerds, packing all sorts of geeky reference goodness in the dialogue, which is to be expected when all four of your main cast are scientists and otaku. (Plus "driving force behind moe culture" Faris.) Kurisu actually sounds more intelligent in the dub, as exemplified by the addition of more science jargon (and a Doctor Who reference!) in her rebuttals of Okabe in episode 2.
My favorite aspect of the dub script is how it takes into account the cultural differences, and how non-otaku western viewers like their genre characters. The writers knew that the english voice actors couldn't play some of the tropes exactly straight, so all of the characters are just a little bit snarky under their otherwise exteriors. They rib on each other all of the time, just like real life friends do, and come off more human for it. Okabe shows intelligence and wit, instead of just being bombastic. Kurisu is naturally prickly for the boys' inappropriate behavior, and only denies her feelings as much as most people do, playing friendship feelings as nonchalant to keep the atmosphere comfortable. Daru isn't so "durrrrrrr," using perversion as more of a troll tactic than being genuinely perverted, self-assured in his otaku habits, but also defensive of them not as "I have the right to a harem, real girls suck," but "Let me have this self-aware entertainment." The latter is a lot less skeevy and pathetic. (I also can't not see him as anime-Jonah-Hill-character :D) Mayuri, in particular, benefits from the script adding layers to her character, as it's nearly impossible for english VAs to play pure kawaii straight. Instead, she's a real teenage girl, an optimistic one, but her cutesy sayings are their own form of subtle sarcasm and wit, as sweet girls in real life do.
Take the moment when Okabe talks to the pin-seller. We go from a slightly racist language barrier joke in the original track to an Airplane! reference and Suzuha being a snarky teen to punchline the REAL humor intent of the script of highlighting how ridiculous Okabe is.
I went through the entire series and OVA dub only, and then watched the movie, so I can't speak for the differences in Faris, Moeka, Ruka, and Mr. Braun's characters, since they got so little material in the movie, but having Kurisu suddenly be a textbook tsundere, Mayuri being an inhuman moeblob, and Daru being "durrrrrrr" was not only disappointing, but boring. The emotional impacts were much lessened for that, as well. Okabe was pretty much a non-character in the movie, just a bundle of motivations for Kurisu, but I hold reservations on his portrayal, especially since I can't remove my associations of his VA with "ridiculous teenager" portrayals, especially that of Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki. (And Gatchaman Crowd's "deity of internet troll scum" Berg-Katz)
Funimation rarely disappoints with their adaptation ethic, both in writing and voicing, and their work on Steins;Gate may be my new favorite example of dub over sub. When you've got excellent source material and practiced writers that love the source material, like any passionate fanfiction writer, they'll want to tweak little bits to improve their adaptation. What's not to love about that? Definitely, the dub is responsible as to why I love the friendships and characters in the show as much as I do.
As for comments on the series itself, I love that in any other show, episode 22 would have been the finale. ANY OTHER SHOW. Steins;Gate cares not for your conventional bittersweet "life is loss" endings, this is a time travel show! We still got shit to solve! (And I love the second coming of Suzuha. The "John Titor in 2000" thread was left tangling for so long, and then they finally paid it off!)
I can't think of any major plot holes in the original series that bothered me. Every major concern was addressed, both for practical and thematic elements. I love a show that truly knows how to use conservation of detail.
However, I do have a lingering bad taste over the treatment of the Ruka character. I understand culture differences and all that, and Ruka was handled in a way that was both thematically relevant and thematically important, as well as being genuinely funny, and thus contributed to the quality of the writing. But the external point of view still exists, and I can't just ignore the homophobic subtext, even while it's kind of pro-trans and pro-challenging gender roles, kind of? But also reinforcing traditional gender roles and transphobic by casting Okabe's statements as only belonging to the minority with abnormal mindsets, no matter how kind/heroic they are? Like a patronizing sort of acceptance. The whole situation is weird to consider, besides its contributions to the themes of sacrifice and undoing.
Obligatory shipping note: Okabe/Kurisu really is one of the best romances in anime. But keep in mind my perception of them are from the dub alone. Not sure if original Kurisu has as compelling of interactions when textbook tsundere is tainting the proceedings.
The S;G OVA does an admirable job by depending on the characters and their interactions, but even then, some of the thematic value is lost by being a continuation. One of the elements that the original ending was meant to circumvent was the bittersweet knowledge that much of the character development that the non-Okabe characters had undergone would be lost, especially in Kurisu, Daru, and Suzuha. While the OVA and movie make Kurisu's loss the point of the episode, watching Daru revert to his original self is a little heartbreaking, and the ways they contrive to get Suzuha/Yuki into the mix are, well, contrived. Even if the meeting with Yuki furthers our understanding of the post-series Okabe, knowing that the undeveloped Daru of this timeline is supposed to win this girl over at some point in the future, rings false.
Nonetheless, the OVA is still well-written, for some of the inevitable problems it would encounter. They turn the meeting with Yuki from a contrivance to get "Suzuha" in the episode ("all of your favorite characters, back together again!") into an important plot mechanism, providing impetus for Kurisu to chase after Okabe. In the end, the only real problems with the OVA are the aesthetic elements that were only relevant in the context of a time travel time crunch.
The movie has much stronger issues. No matter how strong the characters and interactions were in the original series, they were augmented by always being pressured by an external force: first SERN, then the threat of WWIII. Character-based motivations, like Mayuri and Kurisu's deaths, were all about how the external force caused these casualties, and would continue to cause these casualties (Suzuha, Moeka, Mr. Braun) if Okabe only focused on preventing the death, not eliminating the root cause.
In that sense, the movie stumbles in the way Sword Art Online's 2nd half does: while the Aincrad arc was the development of Asuna and Kirito's relationship in the backdrop of a death game, ALO is just a "rescue the damsel in distress" quest. Steins;Gate the series has SERN and WWIII as concrete enemies, but Deja Vu is simply about Kurisu remembering her love, and the restoration of Okabe to the SG world line. The scope of the stakes has taken a major downgrade, and makes the attempt to capture the same sense of tension in the time-leaping shenanigans ring very, very false. Really, Deja Vu is basically the same as The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi: the in-denial cynical narrator realizes their need for their Manic Pixie Dream Partner's shenanigans in their life (and more importantly, the human connections that come with said MPDP and their friends) with the the help of some supernatural It's A Wonderful Life-esque elements. However, Disappearance's parent series was in a slice-of-life high school setting whose world-destroying stakes were resolved near the beginning of the timeline, and is never a serious threat for the rest of the show timeline's shenanigans, so the subsequent movie isn't a step down in stakes. Episodes "Live a Live" and "Day of Sagittarius" show that Haruhi was developing into someone who wouldn't want to destroy this world, thanks to Kyon's belief that she wouldn't do so, so that "threat" becomes effectively neutralized. (Albeit transformed into a different one for season 2, and alteration of the world simply doesn't carry the same weight as destruction of it) Deja Vu's parent series has much higher stakes to begin with, so it can't get away with having the same level of stakes as Disappearance.
Both movies do have the same problems of basically retreading the emotional highlights of their parent series, but failing to include a little of the development of the opposite party, effectively turning them into MPDPs for the duration of the movie. Disappearance puts Kyon through similar revelations as the S1 finale, minus the subtle development on Haruhi's part. In Deja Vu, we see most of the romantic moments from SG recreated in the new world-line, and from Kurisu's POV, as well as her same emotional arc from the OVA, while Okabe doesn't change at all, his development journey done a year ago. Both movies also suffer from too much tell-not-show, relying on internal monologues that are wasted on the medium. They would be acting tour de forces in live action settings as theatrical spoken oratory, but just make animation cinematography short of Monogatari levels seem cheap, especially when cast as internal thoughts that shortcut use of the visual through meaningful body language and subtle interaction moments. (Which, generally, the parent series did use, although the amount of Kyon monologue in the S1 finale irks, even if not as much as the redundant-to-the-visuals boring monologue-fest that was Disappearance.) In the end, though, Disappearance does do better than Deja Vu, as it breaks out the arthouse visuals for Kyon's big climactic speech, as well as giving development to Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi that wasn't in the original series. Mayuri and Daru, much less the rest of the cast, don't get anything in Deja Vu. It's all about Kurisu in the S;G movie.
The change in stakes outright turns Suzuha's inclusion in the movie into a disservice to her character. She went from daring rebel on the run to soldier on a mission in the series, but now she's just a teenager on a joyride? Bleh. Furthermore, she isn't a person in her own right in this movie. She doesn't have her own arc and her own issues, which is what made her (and all of the cast) so good in the original series. The reason she makes such an impact on Okabe is the knowledge that she was such a cheerful and optimistic person despite her terrible childhood under SERN's oppression, as well as the contrast to her tragic end in the timeline where she loses her memories jumping back. Post-WWIII Suzuha is allowed to be a little less defined because the difference is meant to evoke bittersweet feelings over how they essentially erased the Suzuha they had befriended in order to give her a non-rebel life, as well as saving Mayuri. In the movie, not only does she still have this non-descript personality without the stakes of WWIII to back her up, or Okabe's presence to muse on the version of her we had actually fallen in love with, Suzuha exists solely to push Kurisu in the right direction. She could have been replaced with any mook with a time machine. In contrast to Mayuri, Suzuha's motivational speeches to Kurisu weren't unique to her at all, so she's just a plot device, not a character.
Beating on it a little more, Deja Vu also highlights just how good the S;G dub was, better than the original track, imho. J. Michael Tatum and Patrick Seitz really loved the original script, (confirmed especially by JMT himself at Fanime) and really strove to bring out the best of it in the dub adaptation, with flow and tone prioritized above original text. In some ways, they thus distilled the essence of what made the original so good. Take the "Ruka's a dude" moment, for example. In the original track, Mamoru Miyano just repeats "daga otoko da," slightly building a little more each time, before settling at the end. In the dub, JMT treats it as running gags should be treated, escalating the same build-up, before varying the punchline each time to reflect the flow of Okabe's feelings, a flow of increasing resignation and nonchalance. Patrick and Michael are also huge nerds, packing all sorts of geeky reference goodness in the dialogue, which is to be expected when all four of your main cast are scientists and otaku. (Plus "driving force behind moe culture" Faris.) Kurisu actually sounds more intelligent in the dub, as exemplified by the addition of more science jargon (and a Doctor Who reference!) in her rebuttals of Okabe in episode 2.
My favorite aspect of the dub script is how it takes into account the cultural differences, and how non-otaku western viewers like their genre characters. The writers knew that the english voice actors couldn't play some of the tropes exactly straight, so all of the characters are just a little bit snarky under their otherwise exteriors. They rib on each other all of the time, just like real life friends do, and come off more human for it. Okabe shows intelligence and wit, instead of just being bombastic. Kurisu is naturally prickly for the boys' inappropriate behavior, and only denies her feelings as much as most people do, playing friendship feelings as nonchalant to keep the atmosphere comfortable. Daru isn't so "durrrrrrr," using perversion as more of a troll tactic than being genuinely perverted, self-assured in his otaku habits, but also defensive of them not as "I have the right to a harem, real girls suck," but "Let me have this self-aware entertainment." The latter is a lot less skeevy and pathetic. (I also can't not see him as anime-Jonah-Hill-character :D) Mayuri, in particular, benefits from the script adding layers to her character, as it's nearly impossible for english VAs to play pure kawaii straight. Instead, she's a real teenage girl, an optimistic one, but her cutesy sayings are their own form of subtle sarcasm and wit, as sweet girls in real life do.
Take the moment when Okabe talks to the pin-seller. We go from a slightly racist language barrier joke in the original track to an Airplane! reference and Suzuha being a snarky teen to punchline the REAL humor intent of the script of highlighting how ridiculous Okabe is.
I went through the entire series and OVA dub only, and then watched the movie, so I can't speak for the differences in Faris, Moeka, Ruka, and Mr. Braun's characters, since they got so little material in the movie, but having Kurisu suddenly be a textbook tsundere, Mayuri being an inhuman moeblob, and Daru being "durrrrrrr" was not only disappointing, but boring. The emotional impacts were much lessened for that, as well. Okabe was pretty much a non-character in the movie, just a bundle of motivations for Kurisu, but I hold reservations on his portrayal, especially since I can't remove my associations of his VA with "ridiculous teenager" portrayals, especially that of Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki. (And Gatchaman Crowd's "deity of internet troll scum" Berg-Katz)
Funimation rarely disappoints with their adaptation ethic, both in writing and voicing, and their work on Steins;Gate may be my new favorite example of dub over sub. When you've got excellent source material and practiced writers that love the source material, like any passionate fanfiction writer, they'll want to tweak little bits to improve their adaptation. What's not to love about that? Definitely, the dub is responsible as to why I love the friendships and characters in the show as much as I do.
As for comments on the series itself, I love that in any other show, episode 22 would have been the finale. ANY OTHER SHOW. Steins;Gate cares not for your conventional bittersweet "life is loss" endings, this is a time travel show! We still got shit to solve! (And I love the second coming of Suzuha. The "John Titor in 2000" thread was left tangling for so long, and then they finally paid it off!)
I can't think of any major plot holes in the original series that bothered me. Every major concern was addressed, both for practical and thematic elements. I love a show that truly knows how to use conservation of detail.
However, I do have a lingering bad taste over the treatment of the Ruka character. I understand culture differences and all that, and Ruka was handled in a way that was both thematically relevant and thematically important, as well as being genuinely funny, and thus contributed to the quality of the writing. But the external point of view still exists, and I can't just ignore the homophobic subtext, even while it's kind of pro-trans and pro-challenging gender roles, kind of? But also reinforcing traditional gender roles and transphobic by casting Okabe's statements as only belonging to the minority with abnormal mindsets, no matter how kind/heroic they are? Like a patronizing sort of acceptance. The whole situation is weird to consider, besides its contributions to the themes of sacrifice and undoing.
Obligatory shipping note: Okabe/Kurisu really is one of the best romances in anime. But keep in mind my perception of them are from the dub alone. Not sure if original Kurisu has as compelling of interactions when textbook tsundere is tainting the proceedings.