Steins:Gate Ep 18
Added 2024-09-25 19:08:42 +0000 UTCyeahhhhhhh a bit funky on some of the investment on this ep ngl
Comments
I think the main kind of point of this episode (while it does touch on themes of sexuality) is that ultimately she doesn't like/want Okabe Rintarou, guy who will take her out to a fancy restaurant, she is drawn to Hyouin Kyouma, mad scientist and rambling fool. Ultimately just like the last episode, while the reversal doesn't directly effect Okabe, the character who is undoing their D-mail is making a personal sacrifice all in the name of saving Mayuri, and that's what matters.
Nick K
2024-09-27 04:31:07 +0000 UTCIf Tony ever delves into live action, Dark is going to get brought up over and over until he watches it, for those who know it will be obvious why, but those will also be the people recommending it. For you Tony, I'll just say it's a three season german live action suspense/mystery/thriller on Netflix and it's very much a high rewatch value show. As in from the first episode they know exactly how the show will end and all the details are important. Definitely your kind of show I'd say. Does have mild nudity though a few times, just fyi.
Nick K
2024-09-27 04:24:16 +0000 UTCI love the boys. Great series...but... id have to make the patreon adult rated and i cab no longer host the vids here
DrumRollTony
2024-09-26 23:28:00 +0000 UTCHave you seen The Boys? Would be a fun one but might be too much LOL
andoryuguen
2024-09-26 23:15:24 +0000 UTCI actually don’t mind this episode or the previous one, though the payoff at the end of both episodes where emotions reach their peak are definitely the main appeal. That said, next few episodes are absolute bangers
who is this guy
2024-09-26 18:09:05 +0000 UTCThe theme's and approach are a bit dated by today's standards, especially from a western viewpoint. For the time and the context I think it was still fairly progressive. The conclusion of arc with Rukako that she must bury her feeling's for Okabe in order to fit into society is an unfortunate reflection of the time in which this was made. Which I don't think the show agrees with, but it is another sacrifice made to save Mayuri
Firestorm
2024-09-26 11:06:13 +0000 UTCNot the strongest episode, but It's here to add more character to Ruka. As others have said, the story goes back to high octane after this.
Kyle Kinney II
2024-09-26 09:05:54 +0000 UTCMr. Robot is in my top 5 of live action shows ever. Long episodes though at an hour long.
Jet Man
2024-09-26 08:46:36 +0000 UTCYea I'm down for anything
DrumRollTony
2024-09-26 01:46:38 +0000 UTCBtw, out of curiosity, would you ever be interested in like... doing non-anime shows? Or is that just out of the question for some reason? I feel like people that are here for Steins;Gate would also be here for things like Mr. Robot or Severance.
Lixien
2024-09-26 01:42:20 +0000 UTCDang it didn’t used to be a hot take to love this episode haha. Just a matter of preference I suppose. I actually wrote a college paper on it like 3 years ago, (referencing mainly the English dub cause it tackles it leagues better imo) giving it high praise for its subversion of common character tropes in anime, while also giving a nuanced take on gender identity disorder through the lens of a sci-fi narrative.
Flippnote
2024-09-26 00:31:40 +0000 UTCChronological order and release order already comes to play with this 1st season. Some people recommend watching: - 1st season 1-22eps - 23b (Missing Link) - Steins;Gate 0 (All episodes) - 1st season 23-25 (25 is optional OVA). While other group recommends watching in release order. All this because some say that the last few eps of 1st season are the true endings for both seasons.
Smokyy__
2024-09-25 23:46:23 +0000 UTCEspecially because the entire plot line is fairly forced, since it expects the viewer to go along with the whole eating vegetables = give birth to a girl thing. I think that it's better lgbt representation than the usual hyper-fetishized characters of that era in anime, but as usual the writers can't help themselves with the cheap shots played for laughs
JoeyGuy7
2024-09-25 23:19:34 +0000 UTCYea so many people that make excuses for problematic scenes in anime forget that like, someone chose to write it that way lmao
JoeyGuy7
2024-09-25 23:14:50 +0000 UTCTrue, but gay marriage in the US wasn't legalized until 2015 and Japan was even worse with accepting it.
Belac
2024-09-25 23:13:02 +0000 UTC2009 is not very long ago
DrumRollTony
2024-09-25 22:52:23 +0000 UTCNot to mention, lgbt was still majorly taboo and still unacceptable in society back then. So I guess they did it in the most tactful/ touchy way possible. Although the plot still cringe IMO
Belac
2024-09-25 22:49:21 +0000 UTCI'll definitely ask you all for that info when we finish this
DrumRollTony
2024-09-25 22:00:56 +0000 UTCThey tried I guess? 😅
Chelly
2024-09-25 21:42:24 +0000 UTCWell id say this was an important detail. It's another step in reverting the details while sacrificing something in the process (like someone pointed out in these comments). While the whole guy that looks like a girl trope in anime I've never been crazy about (I don't mind it its just not a selling point for me), the overarching goal and plot of this episode of having to sacrifice something huge in order to try and save mayuri made me love it as much as the rest of the series. I think it's a necessary detail. You could argue that they could've gone about it in a different way (fair enough) but I can't bring myself to like this episode any less than the rest. Only thing I really disliked about this show was how Okabe "checked" to see that Luka was actually a girl earlier in the series. I hate that casual SA trope its weird af. There won't be another type of "this" episode from here on out if ur worried about that tho the following episodes are objective bangers. I'm looking forward to seeing ur reaction to them, ESPECIALLY to the amazing OSTs that play later.
Chaisen
2024-09-25 21:25:29 +0000 UTCThis is a little early and random, but I'm sure you've heard that there is a "release order" and a "chronological order" when it comes to watching the Steins;Gate seasons, OVAs, and movie. I'm assuming you're going with the release order? The release order is widely recommended by the Steins;Gate community.
James
2024-09-25 21:01:20 +0000 UTCYea, I'm on the same page here. S;G is pretty good in fitting characters into the story. From the early episodes they started this "Daga otoka da" theme and till ep 18 it plays the role. We can't just throw away Ruka and forget about him, otherwise that would be one of the most horrible thing in any story - "unnecessary" character cliche. If we want to get rid of this episode - we need to rewrite whole Ruka's story, maybe even replacing him with another char. He's pretty tightly coupled into S;G. Yea, the motivation behind including exactly THIS story of him seems a bi-i-i-t weird, but anyway it plays out well. Clear character motivation, important for the D-mail story. Things are fine, we quickly skip all cringy moments and move on.
d_swordfish
2024-09-25 20:53:17 +0000 UTCdaga otoko da (but he is a guy) used to be a popular meme
kinetic98
2024-09-25 20:43:08 +0000 UTCYeah.. The main point of these episodes is to undo the D-mails while sacrificing something in the process. Rukako's D-mail could've been anything else but I guess we needed to do the whole "but he's a guy and looks like a girl" which is an "anime trope" I despise.
Lixien
2024-09-25 20:34:18 +0000 UTCYeah I definitely have mixed feelings about this episode and Ruka’s whole plot line. First off Okabe is like 18/19 and Ruka is 17 so there isn’t actually some significant age gap like the subtitles implied so this isn’t an issue for me. I found the ideas presented interesting, like the fact Ruka feels so uncomfortable with his feelings for Okabe because of societal stigmatisation that he wants to be a girl to feel validated. You could probably go further with the allegory but that’s at least what the text implies. But I found the execution incredibly shoddy. Like the whole date while I get the reasoning behind it (they’re all massively nerdy with no dating experience), it’s just kinda cringe to watch, and we don’t even wanna talk about the earlier scene which was just wholly unneeded and gross. I do respect the show for earnestly giving a little light to LGBTQ+ issues in the context of time travel, but it definitely misses the mark with me. Anyway the rest of the show is only up from here.
AussieBoy
2024-09-25 20:25:02 +0000 UTCFew things, this is a sad puppy-love story between a 16/17 year old and an 18 year old, and since gays aren't recognized with much respect in Japan at the time, Ruka felt it would be impossible to even have a chance with Okabe. He was fearing that Okabe might also have that social stigma towards gay folks that's soceitally ingrained into people. That's where the idea with the changing of sexes comes in, because he figured, naively, that if he was simply a girl then he wouldn't have to worry about whether his pinning for Okabe was moral, or that he'd be ostracticed for it. So, during this time period this a pretty progressive stand-point to have, what with one of their characters be legitmately and unironically homosexual. From a moe stand-point, we have an otokonoko (男の娘), a character that looks and sounds like a girl, but identifies as a male, and is, biologically, a male. They're pretty common during the era of this visual novel's release, as it was considered counter culture to fall in love with a guy, so a number of people thought "What if the guy didn't *look* like a guy?" and everyone clapped, including me lol In this episode, we're placing an otoko noko in a serious drama, and we're running the scenario of "What if a character (that most players and readers at the time would know is a common trope) like this actually fell in love with the main character? It's played for laughs often, but what if we took it seriously? How would that look?" It's understandable that this episode doesn't really hit, especially for today's American audiences, but Ruka here is still pretty iconic over in Japan. A place where you can still be denied entry to certain establishments for being gay.
Skeletan
2024-09-25 20:05:50 +0000 UTCYeah the treatment of Ruka on the show is what puts this series down massively for me. At the time the "But he's a guy!" became a meme too, around the same time as the "It's a trap!" meme... Yeah, not fun times for some of us. The author might have intended for Ruka to be an otokonoko, but he also included several scenes of her enjoying life as a woman, no gender dysphoria, not performative either.
LegionaresCZ
2024-09-25 19:54:25 +0000 UTCGetting smack by a book put some sense into him
James
2024-09-25 19:47:38 +0000 UTCMy headcanon is that Okabe doing that was out of character in the first place. Even if he was dealing with the trauma of losing Mayuri over and over again, I don't think it fits his character to do something so extreme, but that's just my opinion.
SinuHan
2024-09-25 19:42:25 +0000 UTCAnd that was extremely weird ... like sa brotha
DrumRollTony
2024-09-25 19:39:51 +0000 UTCWell, now he did it with one question only. I would say it's a decent charachter development, considering last time he was trying to grab a dick in justification that the guy is a guy. PS next 2 episodes will be a cold shower after Ruka's sidestory
d_swordfish
2024-09-25 19:36:00 +0000 UTCThere's a few weird weird moments in the show, the weirdest imo being when Okabe "checks" Ruka's gender. All you can do is try to ignore it, tho it takes away some of the brilliance of the show.
SinuHan
2024-09-25 19:34:57 +0000 UTCI think the point here is not about the characters... they are not real as this is a piece of fiction. The point I am making is about the author or whatever dev team was like "Yeah, this is a detail that we want in to tell the story" Just a head-scratcher for me because like... y tho.
DrumRollTony
2024-09-25 19:31:45 +0000 UTC🥴
DrumRollTony
2024-09-25 19:30:10 +0000 UTCIn my opinion it's a necessary portion of the story bc it contributes to the idea of Okabe having to prioritize Mayuri over the wishes of his lab mates (like he just did with Feyris and her father); that said I can agree that this could've been done better and it was definitely not the strongest episode.
Halo S
2024-09-25 19:22:19 +0000 UTCI think okabe and the crew are just out of high school. Still weird of course
JoeyGuy7
2024-09-25 19:19:56 +0000 UTC
