Steins;Gate: Complete Series, Part One (Limited Edition Blu-ray/DVD Combo) by Funimation

Actors

• J. Michael Tatum
• Asami Imai
• Trina Nishimura
• Mamoru Miyano

Format

• Animated
• Color
• NTSC
• Widescreen

Editorial Review

The offbeat sci-fi adventure Steins;Gate (2011) has a rambunctious energy that recalls The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. When college student and self-proclaimed “mad scientist” Rintaro Okabe declares, “Working hypothesis: Reality and my brain are at odds,” he's making a rare understatement. Or is he? Like Suzumiya, Okabe looks for things outside the boundaries of normal life; and like Suzumiya, he unwittingly stumbles onto them. He's convinced that a sinister organization linked to the cutting-edge physics research center SERN is pursuing him, and decries their menace into his cell phone–when it's not turned on. Okabe may sound nuttier than a squirrel's IRA, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a lunatic. He's smart enough to investigate the possibilities of time travel and charming enough to attract an eccentric group of friends to aid in his research: gentle Cosplay expert Mayuri, genius Makise, über-hacker/nerd “Daru” Hashida, techno-warrior Suzuha, and Moeka, who never speaks when she can text. A jerry-rigged contraption involving an old microwave, a cell phone, and a large-screen TV enables the members of Okabe's secret lab to send messages back in time. Some of the messages change the past in ways that alter the present. No one remembers how things were previously except Okabe: Even when the anime and manga stores vanish from their Akihabara neighborhood, only he notices the difference. Mysterious time-traveler John Titor texts that Okabe may be the savior who can prevent a future dystopia, but messages from SERN warn that he knows too much already. An intriguing blend of adventure, mystery, and slapstick, Steins;Gate will delight otaku who have wearied of formulaic sci-fi. Like Okabe's friends, the viewer never knows what's going to happen next (or what happened before). A Steins;Gate theatrical feature is slated for release in Japan in fall 2012. (Rated TV 14: violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, risqué humor, brief nudity) –Charles Solomon

(1. Prologue of the Beginning and End, 2. Paranoia of Time Leaps, 3. Paranoia of Parallel Process, 4. Rendezvous of Abstract Fluctuation, 5. Rendezvous of Electrical Charge Conflict, 6. Divergence of Butterfly Effect, 7. Divergence of Fault, 8. Homeostasis of Dreams, 9. Homeostasis of Illusions, 10. Homeostasis of Complements, 11. Dogma of Space-Time Boundary, 12. Dogma of Static Limit)