Steins;Gate - Episode 8

According to Juiz... sorry, John Titor, Okarin's unique talents allow him the possibility of becoming a "messiah" - certainly, his ability to remember changes to world-lines in the face of his Future Gadget Lab's time machine is impressive, but what on earth are they going to do next with it?

The answer is, quite simply, further experimentation.  After their lottery success (well, of sorts - they didn't actually win anything), their next experiment is arguably a far tamer one, as they try to send a D-mail into Daru's past to see if they can influence him to win the Feyris Cup.... and nothing happens.  It seems that something rather more grandiose is required to actually branch off a new world-line, and eventually it falls to Kiryuu to attempt this, as she sends a D-mail to the past telling her not to change her mobile phone.  Sure enough, Okarin feels that decidedly odd feeling that comes with shifting to a new world-line, and rather than simply changing her phone Moeka appears to have disappeared from the collective memories of the rest of the group entirely, leaving Okabe as the only one to remember her at all.

After that affirmation of what Okarin already knew, their next experiment comes from a rather strange place - cross-dressing Ruka, who having overheard a previous conversation about the microwave time machine decides that she wants to have a go at sending a D-mail herself.  However, this is a request with a difference - Ruka wants to send a D-mail to her mother at the time she was pregnant with her in the hope that he will be born a girl rather than a boy.  Can this experiment possibly hope to succeed, especially considering the message has to be sent to a pager rather than via mobile phone.  While the immediate result of the experiment doesn't seem positive, something has clearly changed from Okarin's point of view... but what?

Although I was really expecting Steins;Gate to kick on in a big way after the events of the previous episode, I can't say I'm incredibly disappointed that it has pretty much decided to stay where it is for now, mixing some big moments of importance (what happens with Kiryuu now?  When are we going to get to the bottom of Amane's hostility towards Makise?) with more frivolous and fun goings-on that again make the most of the show's characters and the dynamic between them that never seems to get tiring.  In fact, who needs time travel at all when you have Okarin's daft delusions and Daru's perverted one-liners?  Okay okay, so it would be nice to get a little deeper into this show's mysteries, but once again I can't get too angry with Steins;Gate as it stands while it continues to be as entertaining as ever.