Steins;Gate – 11

Suspense, suspense, suspense, bath scene, suspense, suspense…

Welcome back to the lab! Just dying of curiosity about what we’ve done with the Phone Microwave this week, aren’t you? I don’t blame you. Wherever the great Cool-sama treads, followers gather! GWAAHAHAHAHAHA! …But seriously, nice of you to drop by for an episode 11 post. All the time you spent watching bananas turning to moosh has started to pay off.

As far as starting an episode off, I’d say having Suzu take off her shirt and cover Mr. Braun’s face with it to distract him is pretty eye-catching. The plan fails at keeping Mr. Braun’s attention from their store-shaking experiments and only results in him beating up Okarin, but it sure was amusing. Of course, it’s not without a purpose. As a result of the whole ordeal, we learn that the TV downstairs is the lifter for the Phone Microwave.

We have even further progress with the Neuroscientist Kurisu on the job (I had a mini spasm of joy when I realized she’s a neurosci major like myself). She manages to overcome the problem of the Phone Microwave not being able to send big files let alone people by proposing that they send their MEMORIES to the past. Brain signals are sent electrically, so why not? Okarin is convinced it will be a lot less chaotic than D-mails, so he goes to get the parts Kurisu needs to extract those memories!

Insert high and mighty OHOHOHOHOHO~ here

Okarin goes shopping with Mayuri, who hasn’t the foggiest idea what on earth is going on, except she’s going to be sad if she’s the only one who remembers certain things. They bump into Moeka, who is pained to hear they’re still using the time machine and even more repulsed by the fact they’re trying to use it to send memories back in time without her. After hearing the news she just walks away.

Next up in the list of girls Okarin’s bitch magnet is attracting is Suzu and Mr. Braun’s daughter, Nae. The little kid wanted to apologize for her dad nearly hospitalizing Okarin. Awww, how sweet. The tenderness is kind of ruined by Suzu ominously whispering that Kurisu is a spy from SERN though.

Okarin is pretty spooked initially, but when he comes home and sees Kurisu lurking on 4chan, his worries are dispelled. He even tells her what Suzu accused her of, and she naturally shrugs it off. All joking aside, Okarin offers Kurisu the parts to start working on the time machine but…something isn’t right. She’s hesitating. Curious about his ever-important lab member chrrrrissstina, he indulges her by listening to her sob story. Her dad was absolutely threatened by Kurisu’s knowledge and ability to complete refute all of his scientific papers. So much so that he started to despise her. She’s just worried that if she actually makes a time machine, her dad will go crazy from humiliation. As a secretly nice guy, Okarin suggests going with her to talk to her father to solve the whole ordeal somehow. Awww~

After their moonlit, park chat, the two of them return to that lab only to start bickering again. They only stop when Mayuri arrives with stuff to sleep over so she can work extra hard on a cosplay costume. The only way Okarin is allowed to stay with the two ladies is if he goes shopping for food. It sounds like the episode is winding down at this point, until he gets a text saying “you know too much” and an attached picture of a bloody doll’s head.

Forget time travel, man. It’s all about the PUDDING!

Okarin freaks out, drops his groceries, and runs home so fast that COLOURS DISAPPEAR. He checks to see if Mayuri is okay, but ends up with an eyeful of Kurisu and Mayuri in the bath. Ooh la la. Okarin looks visibly troubled after the ordeal, but the girls don’t know quite why. That’s when Daru arrives to drop yet another bomb.

The super hacker never thought twice about how easy it was to connect to SERN. They practically invited him onto their server. Daru is worried that they know what they’ve been up to, which is precisely when Okarin goes to the sink and has a mini breakdown without anyone else noticing. SERN is after them and they’re not afraid to do something to stop them.

Bonus Replacement Pudding:

Yeah. YOU’RE WELCOME.

You know you’ve made it big when you’re on the cover of SCIENCY

That’s right, Nae, go for the goods!

Pepsi NEXT? Morning Rescue? Bitches ain’t got nothing on Dr. Pepper.

End Thoughts: After a dry spell of episodes that had me tapping my foot impatiently, we’re finally back up to speed. This episode was great! It had the perfect amount of progress with figuring out the Phone Microwave, learning about all the characters and heart-thumping suspense. I’m seeing a lot of “the real thing is only starting now!” comments, so I can’t wait for episode 12. I’ll be carrying this into the next season and from what I can tell, it’s going to be worth it. Perhaps they’ll actually put that memory-sending idea into motion by then. I can’t even imagine the effect that will have on the timeline. If a quick text changes an entire city, you could accomplish almost anything you wanted to with a head full of new memories. NEAR INFINITE KNOWLEDGE!

Another thing I quite liked about this episode was Okarin’s sudden bought of paranoia. I would be scared senseless too if I got a picture of a headless doll, but the whole running home scene was extremely tense. I thought Mayuri would be dead, not scrubbing it up with Kurisu. Gah, I was tricked. But I knew a shower fanservice scene was inevitable as soon as I heard running water. Oh Steins;Gate, you’re so sneaky sticking your fanservice into a science-y anime! Even Suzu showed off a little skin!

I suppose it’s that time where I try to make sense of everything again. Hurrr. Let’s start with Kurisu potentially being a SERN spy. I don’t necessarily trust Suzu’s word, but I don’t think she’s that far from the truth either. Perhaps Kurisu isn’t a member of SERN right NOW, but she will be in the future. Since Suzu is, presumably, from the future, I can go on to assume she knows Kurisu will become a member of SERN. That is a lot of “assuming” but it seems to fit. Kurisu is too bad of a liar, she’d probably start blushing if she were accused of working for SERN or something.

Another big OMG moment was when Daru nonchalantly strolled in and confirmed that SERN basically just let them connect to their servers and see their files. This is…kind of a big issue. They either noticed Daru’s hacking at the moment, or were informed by someone who knew what they were going to do. Perhaps someone who timetravelled or someone who was a lab member at the time. Scary. At first I thought Moeka might be an insider agent from SERN or something, but she seems to want to stop time travel alltogether. She desperately takes pictures to remember what she does every day and I’m starting to think she wanted the IBN 5100 so she could destroy it or something. So many possibilities! As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts, my fellow lab members. El Psy Congroo.