Steins;Gate - Episode 15

From reaching the depths of despair, it seems as though there's light at the end of the tunnel for Okabe as first Makise lends a hand, and then Amane pulls quite a surprise out of the bag regarding her circumstances.

As episode fifteen begins, so Amane's full story is revealed, explaining not only why she ended up in Akihabara in 2010 but also the future destinies as they currently stand of both Okabe and Makise.  Of course, now that we know that Amane is the "John Titor" of this series, the question still stands as to how and where she can get her hands on that much-prized IBM 5100 - a journey which looks set to take her to 1975, only for her to find that her time machine is currently not operational.

However, just as Okabe can see light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the help of others, it's now Amane's turn to find likewise as the other members of the Future Gadget Lab are pressed into action by Okabe with a little help from the Time Leap machine to give them longer to work with.  While Daru is tasked with fixing Amane's time machine itself, the rest of the gang set about looking for Amane's father in their various ways with what seems to be little success, until Okabe seems to find a lead from a slightly surprising place...

After the almost agonising circumstances of recent episodes, we perhaps needed something to lighten the burden of Steins;Gate somewhat, and although there is still plenty of serious stuff to attend to throughout this episode there's also time for some fun and light-heartedness too - it's this side of things that the episode arguably excels at, from Mayuri's plan to find Amane's father through to Okabe's use of the English language.  As has been the case with much of the series throughout, the balance of entertainment and "the heavy stuff" is pretty much spot on, keeping Steins;Gate at the forefront as the most compelling show to watch that's currently airing.