エピソードの振り返り
Konnichiwa! I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK! In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga,
movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives. As a born and raised Japanese non
otaku, that's me and an American anime fan. That's me! I want to start with this.
We are going to talk about Steins Gate again about episodes 13 to 24. If you haven't listened
to our podcast on episode 6, which we already talked about anime series Steins Gate from episode
1 to 12, listen to the episode right now and come back to this episode.
So, the last time we talked basic information and the character about Steins Gate,
uh, today I want to go from the theme song first. Because on the episode 23 and 24,
opening animation changed a little bit and the lyrics of the song changed completely.
Yeah, I'm not sure I noticed the animation changing that much, but I definitely noticed
the lyrics changing. Like the lyrics are completely different. This is the same song,
but it's probably the second verse of the song. It is. Animation changed just a little bit.
When there's like a part that towards the end of the song, um, you know, when Christina like looking
up a sky or something, it's like all Christina images, but it changed like different characters
appear. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. Okay. And, and then the song is changed to
change from first verse to second verse. And I saw the lyrics and it's definitely like a spoilers
for the show. So they couldn't probably bring it to the first, you know, most of them,
like 80% of the, uh, anime. Yeah, that makes sense too. Um, but one of it was surprised was
there's like English lyrics at the very beginning. Did you notice this? Uh, I may have been attempting
to sing the regular opening when I watched, uh, 23 and then was surprised that it wasn't the same
words. And so I also was watching a version that didn't show what the lyrics were during the song.
And so I, I think I just missed them and didn't know. Yeah. It says welcome timeline travel on
the game. Welcome here, heroes hacking to the gate. But I think when I listened to it carefully,
it didn't really sound like words. It's like it sounded like a robot or something
almost like, almost like music. Interesting. So that's, it's not actually like the singer
singing that there's just some like kind of garbled noise at the beginning of the opening.
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that. And, uh, yeah. And then at the very last,
I think it's, it's called chorus part and it says,
can you translate this? Uh, many shining days and promises with my comrades or promise with my
comrades. I must not make them not happen. Yeah. So like you, you can tell like it's exactly
that there's yeah. Towards the end. Sure. That, that sort of implies like not changing the past
by erasing like the past that already happened. Yeah. Which is a major plot point in the last,
制作の裏話
in the last episode. Right. Right. So hacking to the gate was written and made by
Chiyomaru Shikura. Uh, he is one of the, uh, I don't know. He runs the 5pb. Yeah. He's a producer
probably. Right. Produce. It didn't really say producer, but he, he was one of the, the people
who decided to make the video game. Oh, got it. Yeah. So he did he or she, I don't know,
but this person wrote the song. You know, when I started listening and watching Steins Gate,
I didn't really, I don't know. I didn't, it was not my favorite kind of music at the beginning,
but I had to listen every single episode because, because of you. Because I'm like very,
very strict about us listening to opening theme songs. Yeah. I don't know how many people do
this. I think all true otaku do this, honey. If you're not listening to the opening theme song,
if you're skipping it using like the Netflix skip intro button, you're not a real otaku in my book.
So I would normally escape openings, but you are so persistent about this thing.
And you are right. Cause I had to listen to it so many times. It grew, the song grew in me.
That's right. And I'm like, I'm now I want to be able to sing it. Yes. Mission accomplished.
And then the lyrics is like, means so much. Like this song was written for this anime. Yeah.
That's pretty unusual. I think actually. Yeah. So like now, like it's like, I don't know,
kind of feels special to me. Wow. Okay. I love it. Yeah. It's, it's weird. Yeah. I didn't like
it that much at the beginning, but like now I love it. Cool. It's a, it's a pretty stereotypical
anime opening theme song in terms of like the style of the music. I think like it definitely
pulls hard from like the, actually, I think it really pulls hard from like the nineties
tradition of anime music. Like it, it doesn't strike me so much as a 2000s anime opener,
but like definitely like a little bit farther. Maybe that's why I like it is that it, it, to me
sounds more like the, the 1990s style anime opening music. But yeah, I mean, I don't know
that I like love it, love it as a song, but the series definitely made me like it a lot. And
it's, you know, it's kind of an earworm. And I think like for myself as an English speaker,
you know, for a while, the only lyric that I knew in the entire song was hacking to the gate
because that's the part that's in English. And so it'd kind of be like,
for the rest of the song, it'd be like hacking to the gate. So, so I definitely started from,
from that part, but then learning the rest of lyrics are pretty interesting. And, and it
definitely ties in more tightly with what the anime is actually about than most other anime
アニメクラブの人気
theme songs. Yeah. Yeah. So you watched this whole, almost entire series with your students.
Yep. And then yeah. How, how, how was your students reaction?
Well, one of the downsides of the amount of time we have to watch in the anime club means that
there's not really a lot of time for discussion of what's going on, but this series was unquestionably
like the most popular thing that the anime club at my school has ever watched. And the club is
not very big. The club is really like two or three kind of diehards. And then like other people who
show up occasionally, but this show pulled in people who had never come to the anime club before
who then came and then came back to like, watch more of the episodes. So I, it definitely struck
me as a show that has like popularity and potential beyond just actual otaku for like
people who are like, well, this is kind of an interesting story. And because we kind of,
we didn't, I think people were definitely blown away around episode 12, which is really like the
turning point in the show where Mayuri gets killed. Nobody saw that twist coming. We were all just
like, whoa, what this show has not been like this up until this point. And that like, you know,
that really got a lot of people excited to continue watching it. I think probably around
that episode is where the club decided to start watching more than one episode per meeting in order
to be able to finish the whole show before summer vacation. And you know, we weren't, we weren't
going to make it. But the club assigned homework to watch like three episodes at home so that we
could all watch the last two together. And that's, I think all of those things just speak to like
how into it everybody was that they actually did that. And so, yeah, it was a, it was a very
enjoyable experience. And I think, I mean, you know, I am someone who really likes to explain
what's going on in TV and movies, as you may have noticed via this podcast. But I had a lot of fun,
you know, making some suggestions about what I thought was coming next during the series and
hearing their ideas about, you know, what was going to happen and what was really going on.
And so it was a lot of fun. Wait, did you share your guess with your students?
Oh, not to the extent that I did with you, because I feel okay, sharing my guesses with
you and spoiling everything, but not with them. Your guess was so right.
Well, so like I said, I had the advantage of watching up to about episode 14, or 15,
and then going back and watching the show again from the beginning. And so by that point,
I kind of knew, like, that he was trying to undo the past by getting rid of the D-mails.
And so I was like, huh, like, you know, I was already thinking at that point about,
like, which D-mails he would have to undo and what the consequences of undoing them would be.
And so when I then rewatched the first episode, you know, the first time I saw the first episode,
I was like, I don't understand what's going on here. This series doesn't explain anything,
but after getting more than halfway through, and then going back to the beginning,
it's a lot easier to be like, oh, like, that's why he hears this weird noise. Like,
that's what the thing on the roof that he sees is. Like, this is why, like,
Makise Kurusia being stabbed is, like, important, and then all of a sudden isn't true later. Like,
you understand that it's the D-mail that he sent that changed the past. Like,
you know, you understand that in the original timeline, she's probably supposed, like,
all of those things sort of make sense. And so understanding the plot of the 23rd episode,
where many of those things play out exactly the way I sort of anticipated, like, you know,
I don't know, I had enough information when I rewatched the first episode to make a pretty
good educated guess about where the series was going to go. And yeah, I turned out to be right.
Yeah, I shouldn't have listened to your guess.
Did it spoil it for you?
I mean, I was, I still enjoyed the rest of the show. But I feel like if I didn't listen to your
guess, I would have enjoyed it even more.
Like, it would have been more surprising as like more of a twist. Yeah, I think so. Maybe
I spoiled it for myself by going back to the beginning, like, too soon, you know, and like,
物語の進展とキャラクターの変化
enabling myself to kind of figure it out. I think I kind of,
I think I kind of knew it was going there anyway, even without rewatching it.
But rewatching it allowed me to, like, be really specific about what was going to happen and in
what order and how and why, in a way that, like, I wouldn't have been able to do it. There's still
stuff that surprised me in the last episode, like the whole the trajectory of the Metal Oopa and the
reasons why it was important. Like, that was a loose end that I had no idea how they were going
to tie up because it seemed so random in the first one. And they still don't, I don't, I still
think they didn't really explain how the Metal Oopa got on to like the dude's files, right? Like,
well, Christina picked it up, right? From the stair.
Oh, she found it. Okay.
She found it and she probably put in the like,
envelope or like,
in her fold.
Okay, got it.
Um, yeah, so that was, so I missed some things even in watching the ending myself.
Like, that was a piece that I sort of didn't get, like,
how it had gotten into the ending. And that was something that I remembered
paying attention to when I rewatched it, because I was like, oh, that's gonna be important somehow,
but had no way of, like, figuring out how it was going to play in because there's some of the stuff
that, you know, you don't find out until the second to last episode about, you know, who the
professor is and how he's connected to the rest of it and all that stuff.
So last time when we talked about Steins Gate, I mentioned about, you know, characters,
face expression, and then like, I can't really tell how serious they are or like,
joking or something. And then you can tell at the, towards the very end to the story,
you can tell they worked on their face expression, like a lot more than before.
Especially the last part, like when Chris gets stabbed, not Chris,
Okabe Rintaro. There's a close up of faces and like, you've never seen his face that close.
And it's so much face, like eye, like power and stuff. And then, yeah, they put a little
bit more budget in it, I think. Well, or I mean, so I think it's
interesting that you say they put more budget in it. I wonder if you're coming around to my theory
that they intentionally made everybody kind of bland in the beginning to confuse the viewers
and to like, set up like the story pivots later that, you know, that make it change.
And so they like, you know, had it been super dramatic from the beginning, you would have been
like, why is everybody so overacted? And, you know, and it might've been easier to tell what
was happening. And then at the end, yeah, they're really like giving a lot of attention to detail and
executing it very well. Yeah, I was happy to see that.
Good. Yeah. And then do you have any like, favorite scene or moment from this show?
Um, I really liked the kind of one off scene in the middle, where he and
Mayushi are in a desert or something sort of outside time in like a, you know, like a barren
wasteland planet or whatever, talking about like the other Rintaro Okabe's and Mayushi's like,
you know, other timelines who are existing and stuff. It actually really reminded me of a moment
タイムラインと人間関係の探索
from everything, everywhere, all at once, where she and her daughter are two rocks in the middle
of like a wasteland having a conversation in subtitles. But I think that notion of like,
you know, if there are all of these infinite realities and timelines and worlds, et cetera,
like, can you ever have people who are sort of conscious of what's happening in the other
timelines? This series addresses that a little bit where it seems to say, yes, like you might
be remembering connections with people from other timelines that have, you know, come and gone or
other world lines or whatever. And I thought that idea was pretty interesting. So that one scene,
I feel like captures it best because the Mayushi and Rintaro in that, like, you know, desert world
or outside time or whatever you want to call it, seem to know that there are other versions of
themselves elsewhere, you know, living a similar type of connection. So I liked that scene a lot.
I liked the scene very towards the end, I think that last episode that when, you know,
Okabe Rintaro still has all the memories and saved Christina. And then, you know,
they were walking on the street and they, you know, go across each other. And then I noticed,
like, I was looking for you for a long time. You saved my life. I thought when I saw the scene,
it reminded me of, like, a little bit of Your Name. Sure. Yeah, a lot of similarities there.
Right. I mean, it could be like a typical thing for anime or movies, but I still kind of love
those moments. Finding your soulmate randomly on the street. Yeah. Loved in another timeline,
that kind of thing. Yeah, because it's like destiny. Yeah. Oh, it's very romantic.
Yeah. Actually, I mean, I like that part too. The other scene that I remembered thinking,
oh, this is like pretty moving, is when he's about to undo the D-mail that made Rukako change
from a boy into a girl. And Rukako is saying, you know, how hard it's going to be for her to go back
to being a guy in the other timeline, because she'll have to, like, suppress all of her feelings
for him. And I mean, I know that we're 13 years on, right, from that moment when this was created.
But just the sort of ongoing difficulty of being gay in Japan just was very poignant to me. And
especially the idea that that character is sort of like a trans character who is in some timelines
male and in some timelines female. And that kind of, you know, their sex is not as important as
their gender, but that having to transition back is just so painful and upsetting for them.
I feel like that, you know, that experience and the way that Rintaro seems to finally get it,
that what Rukako's lived experience actually is, I think that's a powerful moment to include
in the anime, because trans people are still so not understood or accepted by so many parts of
society. And the idea, like, it's weird in some ways, in the show, it feels like Rukako's identity
as someone who is trans is honestly in some ways more acceptable than their identity as someone
who might be a, like, you know, biologically male and have feelings for another man. And certainly,
like, you know, Okabe's, like, discourse around, but he's actually a guy, like, over and over,
岡部倫太郎と同性愛の理解
has this, like, really intense, like, biological essentialism and kind of, like, I don't know,
it doesn't even feel like homophobia because it's not necessarily motivated by fear, but this just,
like, rejection of the possibility of, like, you know, homosexual love that's, like, really sad.
And so I wouldn't say that this anime is, like, particularly enlightened about any of that stuff,
but I do think that, like, farewell scene was just, you know, spoke powerfully to the experience
of people in Japan not being recognized when they love people of the same gender.
And so I liked that that scene was included and that it treated Rukako in such a sympathetic way
and that it showed sort of a, you know, normative culture person like Rintaro, like,
kind of finally having a breakthrough moment and, like, getting it for once,
even though the outcome is, like, you know, also horrific. Like, Rukako gets transformed back and
just has to deal with it. Like, that's so unfair. But yeah, I liked the way that the series at least
tried to grapple with those questions a little bit, especially given that, you know, it was a
while ago. And so in that sense, it feels, like, timely or maybe ahead of its time.
Mm-hmm. That's a good point. I liked the scene. Future Okabe Rintaro was, like,
talking to past Okabe Rintaro.
Or present Okabe Rintaro, kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the recording.
And then, like, explaining, you can basically, like, you can do this. You can say,
Christina. And, you know, like, I named it Steins Gate. And you know what that means.
He was, like, it doesn't mean anything.
Which is just, like, I don't know, it was very funny. And also, like, oh my god, seriously,
like, we've been thinking about this question since the show started. Like, what's Steins Gate?
Like, are you going to explain that eventually? And it's like, no, just some, like, dumb BS that
I made up. And you're like, oh, I should have seen that coming.
That's so him, though.
Sure, it meant something. And now, like, no, it's just, like, ridiculous.
Ah, that was frustrating, but funny at the same time.
Yeah, I liked Okabe Rintaro's personality a lot. I mean, I don't know if I like it,
if he was around me in real life.
Yeah, he seems like a bit much.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know how to deal with it. But yeah, sure. Like, watching the anime, and then
him, it was like, you know, he has a good heart. You know, he's trying to save, you know,
Mayushii and Christina, and he's serious about it. And he tried so hard.
Right.
Yeah. But he still has, like, some other part.
Of being like a chunibyo.
Which I feel comfortable now using, since it was Word of the Day last time.
Yeah, I did like the moment where he starts laughing, and you can't tell what emotion he's
experiencing. And he's like, I can't believe I'm still doing this when I'm 33. And as someone who
is now old, like, I'm not surprised even a little bit. But I get that, like, teenagers might be
like, come on, man, I grow up to be cooler than that, right? No, that's who you are.
Okay, let's do Word of the Day.
Today's Word of the Day is...
Sekaisen.
Sekaisen. World line. So when you, do you know what world line mean?
世界線の概念の理解
Well, I was able to kind of infer it, actually, thanks to the opening theme song,
which visually represents world lines really, really well.
But this is also like another thing where, I guess I didn't have like the concept of world
lines exactly. But I remember vividly having a conversation in college with my roommate at the
time about fate, and whether or not fate existed and was real. And I was like, I think I was
arguing that it was. He was like, no, it's obviously nonsense. Like, what are you talking
about? And I was like, well, what if there's these like moments in your life that sort of inexorably
pull you, inexorably pull you towards them, like, certain decisive moments that like,
are going to happen no matter what. And maybe like, in between these moments, you can kind of,
you know, you have a little bit of free will, you can go back and forth, like,
you know, what comment you make on this podcast doesn't really matter. But like,
five years from now, like you are going to die in a car accident, or like you are going to like,
you know, get fired from your job, like whatever it is, and like move across the... Like, you know,
the sort of bigger moments in your life are maybe like to some extent predetermined.
And then the smaller stuff in between them is like, not really relevant and might go in a lot
of directions. And I remember trying to explain this by drawing a diagram with like some dots
on it and some lines, like connecting the dots, like many lines going back and forth between the
dots, like, you know, four or five different things. And so I don't, I didn't, I didn't be
like, these are the world bonds. But just to me, the immediate idea of there being like, kind of
like, and maybe this is because I played too many video games as a kid. And that's obviously where
this idea comes from, or something. But that notion of like, there being sort of like decisive
moments, or like things that are happening, and then like changes, or like different possible
ways to get there. Like, which is a very much a video game thing, right? Like, you know,
there'll be like story, story cut sequences that like happen no matter what, but then like, you
know, what route you take between the story cut sequence is kind of up to you. So it's just not
clearly a product of my video game playing. But like that, that idea made intuitive sense to me.
So even before they had explained in the show what a worldline was, I feel like I got it from
the opening theme songs, imagery, plus just the way the word is phrased.
言葉の普及と影響
Congratulations, you're a true otaku.
Yes, earning my nerd badge once again.
Yeah, this is like a worldline word as a like, like scientific word. But other than that,
you know, thanks to Steins Gate, actually, people started using the word in Japan,
as like a parallel, I can't pronounce parallel world. Yeah, yeah, the thing and then the word
is mentioned in the eighth edition of San Seido Japanese Dictionary, saying, you know,
explain the word and then it's it's the word was spreaded in 2010 through computer video game
Steins Gate. Interesting. I didn't realize that the game had been such a hit, actually.
Yeah. Would you play the video game?
Well, maybe I'm not really like a big fan of light novel games, like they're just they're
not the type of thing I play most of the time. And I think it would also feel complicated about
already knowing what happens to some degree in this particular one. But I read about some of
the other games made by the same developer, and particularly the one that's about like people
having delusions that can change the world like that one sounded pretty interesting. So I don't
know that I wouldn't. But it would be like an out of character choice for me.
I really enjoyed watching the whole series. And I would, I wouldn't mind going back
from the very beginning and rewatch and try to solve the puzzle pieces.
But also I'm excited to watch the sequel series too.
Yeah, I'm, I accidentally saw this is the other thing that is the reason it was easier for me to
like solve the puzzle of the film. I saw like the first line describing what the second series is
about. And I think it opens with the line after failing to save like, you know, Makise Kurisu dot
dot dot or something. And I was like, oh, okay, so he doesn't save her. So I did get a little bit
of a twist in the last episode, because I fully expected her to be dead at the end of the season
or the end of the series. And so the fact that he did succeed in saving her, I was like,
oh, recap of Steins Gate Zero, you lied to me. But that also makes me think that
Steins Gate Zero might be set in the world line that continues after he fails to save her the
first time. And then sort of tells us what happened after he failed to save her the first
time and went like super far into the future and perfected the new time machine and like came up
with a plan to help and recorded that message and then sent it back to himself in the past.
Like, and it's sort of ironic, if I'm like, right about all this that he urges, I mean,
I guess like, his life sucked after she died in the world line where he's making the video. So
he's okay with erasing like the next 15 years of his life. But he's like, don't erase these three
weeks, but it's totally fine to erase the next 15 years. And so I think that that feels like a
little bit of like a little bit hypocritical or like a little bit of like a paradox or something
that he's all right with getting rid of 15 years, but he's not okay with getting rid of three weeks.
Maybe that's just how important those three weeks are to him. But yeah, I'm interested to see the
sequel too and see if it like goes along a different world line or explores the world line that was
created at the end of the show or is kind of like an in between series where it takes place between
like, you know, the 30 minute or the 15 minute mark in the last episode and like, you know,
the 16 minute mark in the last episode or something like that. I want to see what they do with it.
Yeah, there's also a movie. So there are a lot more to watch.
エピソードの締め
Oh my god, we were just talking about how there's always a movie now.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe
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It means so much to us and we will keep making fun episodes. See you next time for more 2amattack.
