Wednesday 3 August 2011

Steins;Gate - Episode 18

As Okabe continues his journey to reverse the effects of the most important D-mails sent by his fellow lab members in the hunt for the elusive IBM 5100, surely nothing could possibly be more difficult than last week's efforts to get Feyris to effectively let her father die again in the name of saying Mayuri?

Well, how about telling Rukako that she's actually a guy and needs to return to being as such in the name of Okabe's crazy talk of time travel?  Needless to say, his assertions bring about a few tears and nothing but disbelief on her part, but Okabe is adamant that he wants to reverse the effects of her D-mail "properly" without doing it behind her back.


Eventually, Rukako comes around to the fact that Okabe is telling the truth, and agrees to have her D-mail reversed under one condition - that she gets to be his girlfriend for the day.  Cue an absolutely typical but nonetheless amusing first date scenario, as Okabe tries to figure out what this whole dating business is all about with really very little in the way of help from an equally clueless Daru and Kurisu.  To continue the clichéd episode synopsis, these two characters follow Okabe around in the name of "helping" him with his not entirely successful date, but come the end of the day Okabe does (to his credit) realise what Rukako really wanted from her day and gives it to her, complete with his gleaming sword.  Well, that all sounds rather Freudian doesn't it?

So, another D-mail is reversed and we get a little more information about the fate of the IBM 5100 in that worldline into the bargain, in an episode that was fun despite its core concept being very much a "seen it all before" affair - the whole date scenario was really carried by its lead characters as they bungled their way through things in a decidedly entertaining fashion which just about made it all worthwhile.  Besides that, we are of course a step closer to Okabe's current plan being realised - given the impact the climax to the first half of Steins;Gate had, you can't really blame me for looking forward to what the remainder of the series has up its sleeve.

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